Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

do not affect the private ownership of land; what is more, theirmain function is to foster the development of the rich-peasanteconomy.Problems of Agriculture in Yugoslavia, a work published inBelgrade, states that “judging by how they are organized todayand how they function”, the co-operatives “do not in the leastsignify socialist reconstruction of agriculture and of thecountryside. They are working not so much for the creationof socialist strongholds as for the development and promotionof capitalist elements. There are cases in which these cooperativesare kulak associations”.The Tito clique has given the “general agricultural cooperatives”the monopoly right to purchase agricultural productsfrom the peasants. Taking advantage of this specialprivilege and of uncontrolled fluctuations in prices of farmproduce, the so-called co-operatives speculate and throughsuch commercial activities exploit the peasants in a big way.In 1958 Yugoslavia had a poor harvest. The co-operativesand other commercial organs took the opportunity to raisethe selling prices of farm produce. The year 1959 brought abetter harvest and the co-operatives broke their contracts withthe peasants and reduced their purchases, not even hesitatingto let the crops rot in the fields.The “general agricultural co-operatives” and the “agriculturalfarms” hire and exploit a large number of long-term andtemporary workers. According to data in The Statistical Year-Book of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia of 1962,long-term workers hired by the “cooperatives” alone totalledmore than 100,000 in 1961. A large number of temporaryworkers were also employed. As disclosed by Rad on December1, 1962, hired labourers “are very often subject to the crudestexploitation (the working day may be as long as 15 hours),and usually their personal income is extremely low”.It is thus clear that these agricultural organizations of theso-called socialist sector are nothing but capitalist agriculturalorganizations.152