The seignorial and crown lands have been turned over to the peasantry. Our whole policy is directed against the peasants who possess a large area of land and a large number of horses (the kulaks). On the other hand, our food policy is based upon the requisitioning of the surpluses of agricultural production (above consumer norms). This prompts the peasant not to cultivate his land except for his family needs. In particular, the decree on the requisitioning of every third cow (regarded as superfluous) leads in reality to the clandestine slaughter of cows, the secret sale of the meat at high prices and the disorganization of the dairy products industry. At the same time, the semiproletarian and even proletarian elements of the towns are settling in the villages, where they are starting their own farms. Industry is losing its workers, and in agriculture the number of self-sufficient farms tends to increase constantly. By that very fact, the basis of our food policy, established on the requisitioning of surpluses, is undermined. If in the current year the requisitioning yields a greater quantity of products, it must be attributed to the extension of Soviet territory and to a certain improvement in the provisioning apparatus. But in general the food resources of the country are threatened with exhaustion, and no improvement in the requisitioning apparatus will be able to remedy this fact. The tendency toward economic decay can be combated by the following methods:

1. Replace the requisitioning of surpluses with a levy proportional to the quantity of production (a sort of progressive tax on agricultural income), set up in such a way that it is nevertheless more profitable to increase the acreage sown or to cultivate it better.

2. Institute a more rigorous correlation between the delivery to the peasants of industrial products and the quantity of grain furnished by them, not only by cantons and towns, but also by rural farms.

Have the local industrial enterprises participate in this task. Pay the peasants for the raw materials, fuel, and food products supplied by them, partly in products of industrial enterprises.

In any case, it is clear that the present policy—requisitioning food products according to norms of consumption, joint responsibility for delivery of these products, and equal distribution of industrial products—is lowering agricultural production and bringing about the atomization of the industrial proletariat, and threatens to completely disorganize the economic life of the country.