Going Nowhere

Leonid Brezhnev calls Moscow “the showplace of Communism.” In the immediate vicinity of the Soviet capital there are many other showplaces —state and collective farms which are often included on tours for foreign visitors. Here, an array of farm machinery, new barns, and pleasant, clean village houses, even paved streets, demonstrate to the uninitiated outsider the high quality of Soviet agricultural life.

But go as little as two hundred miles from Moscow—in almost any direction —and it is like going back two hundred years in the quality and character of farm life. Away from the main roads, of which there are few, access to the farm villages is by narrow dirt roads, mired in mud in the spring and fall, frozen in winter, and dust-choked in summer. Because the collective and state farms are so large—ranging from eight square miles to well over twenty square miles—each farm contains several (often as many as ten or 15) small farm villages and hamlets.

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Victor Herman

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Fred E. Dohrs

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Leonid Brezhnev calls Moscow “the showplace of Communism.” In the immediate vicinity of the Soviet capital there are many other showplaces —state and collective farms which are often included on tours for foreign visitors. Here, an array of farm machinery, new barns, and pleasant, clean village houses, even paved streets, demonstrate to the uninitiated outsider the high quality of Soviet agricultural life.

But go as little as two hundred miles from Moscow—in almost any direction —and it is like going back two hundred years in the quality and character of farm life. Away from the main roads, of which there are few, access to the farm villages is by narrow dirt roads, mired in mud in the spring and fall, frozen in winter, and dust-choked in summer. Because the collective and state farms are so large—ranging from eight square miles to well over twenty square miles—each farm contains several (often as many as ten or 15) small farm villages and hamlets.