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SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY AFTER A SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
Abstract
After a socialist revolution, scientific development of agricultural productivity is one of the new state's most important yet difficult tasks. Obstacles include poverty and the opposition between city and countryside inherited from capitalism. The land reform so essential for the revolution's victory creates millions of small landholdings which are ultimately incompatible with environmentally and socially sustainable development. Scientific development of agriculture requires social planning based on ecological principles and primarily non-exploitative organizational forms and relations. Ecological principles require that land use be a mosaic that includes forest, pasture as well as field crops. A poor peasant household cannot afford to devote half its holdings to forest or to grow less profitable crops for the benefit of neighbors. Ecological principles will also be violated if land can be bought, sold and diverted to non-agricultural uses without planning. Where individual holdings prevail, state-supported cooperatives can open the path to scientific development. Starting with cooperative purchasing, followed by cooperative credit and then selling, these sequential steps, each voluntary, can facilitate the transition from individual farming to cooperative production. As in all spheres, the contending social, economic, and environmental forces shaping agriculture are all ultimately global. The fundamental interests of the two global classes are profoundly opposed. Workers' parties and unions in capitalist countries have the same interests as the states formed by socialist revolutions in scientific development.
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References
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