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This large-scale mechanization, although its application(to agriculture, as opposed to forestry) in many ofthe northern provinces may be of limited value andalthough it may lead to more rapid soil exhaustion, hadthree overwhelming advantages: it made for quickerworking, especially for instance in quicker completionof sowing in the very difficult conditions of the arid orsemi-arid steppes; it enabled a much larger area to becultivated and was essential for the Soviet colonizationof new steppe land in the east; thirdly, it set labour freefrom agriculture for the insatiable maw of the constructionand industrial works of the five-year plans.The collective farm was to a certain extent modelled onthe native Russian co-operative association known as theartel, which abounded in various local industries, fishingand building, though not in actual farming. Artel isindeed the official name for the association of membersworking a collective farm. It also has links with thevillage commune, or mir, again a native Russian institution,and one with as long or an even longer past (seepp. 155-157). Consolidation of holdings or of farmsin place of scattered strips in the open fields had beengoing on pretty rapidly since 1907, as will be seen shortly,but the pace was revolutionized by collectivization andthe size of farms gigantically increased.The other distinctive features of a collective farm,including the use of machines on a large scale, are quitenew. It is a "collective, i.e. socialist farm," whichcannot be either sold or let or diminished in size, thoughit may be increased. It is national state property, butleased permanently to the artel by precious title deeds.Cottages, a very limited number of animals (exceptdraught animals), small implements, gardens and allotmentsare owned individually. Everything else formspart of the capital of the artel. Substantially no hiredlabour can be employed.What is to be produced is decided in accordance withthe state plan and state-fixed prices as worked out fordifferent regions and applied in detail through localcommittees and in the last resort by the collective farmitself, under the management of its chairman, whose115