(From the De Kalb Daily Chronicle, De Kalb, Illinois)
Of the 140 workers on this particular farm only eight are
Communists two of whom are on the seven man board which, for all
practical purposes, runs the farm.
The biggest and most important change for this farm during the
last year was the revised system of planning production. Until last
October the seven- man governing board had practically no authority
to do anything but administer the orders of higher government
officials.
This year the central government gave the farms in the district
a general pattern of what it wanted produced. Then the
administrative board on this farm and on the others each decided
what they were going to produce.
This farm was told that it must be an independent economic unit
which would have to meet all of its own costs from its own
production and it could not look to the government for
subsidies.
With this latitude the manager and his assistants worked out a
plan for what they considered to be the best utilization of the
farm’s 2,000 acres under cultivation and its herd of 250 cattle
which includes 100 dairy cows.
The decision was to raise hybrid grain seed (rye, oats and
barley).
Another one of the farm’s important crops are potatoes which
are made into vodka in the farm’s distillery.
It takes about a hundred pounds of potatoes to produce a gallon
of vodka and the farm’s annual output is 25,000 gallons.
To handle these operations the farm employs 100 workers the
year-round who live there and an additional 40 during the summer
harvest seasons. Its machinery consists of nine tractors, one
combine, four harvesters, and one binder. None of this equipment is
modern and the farm’s 40 horses still play a significant role
in its operation.
The overall impression is one of a large mid-western farm about
the turn of the last century.
According to the manager’s figures the men and women working
on the farm have a nice life. He put the average monthly wage at
1,100 zloty which is slightly higher than the national average of
950-1,000zl. (The official and entirely unrealistic exchange rate
is 24zl. to the dollar).
However, various workers privately indicated that life was not
the glowing picture painted by the manager. They indicated that
they received only 900zl. a month with a chance to purchase the
farm’s produce at a reduced rate.
These people, who were Germans rather than Poles, said they
wanted to leave the farm because they were merely laborers and felt
no attachment to the land. Now that it was again possible to
emigrate to Germany they were planning to go as soon as
possible.
For another workers the story was much different. Until last May
he had been a private farmer but had given up his land because his
30 acre farm, which he owned with his brother, was too small for
both families.
As a tractor driver, one of the elite among skilled farm
workers, during the harvest season he received 2,500zl. a month in
one of the best paid jobs on the farm. In addition, he owns three
cows of his own.
He and his family of five have a small three room apartment on
the farm for which he pays a token annual rent of 24zl. per year.
His house was bare and quite plain but rather good by general
Eastern European standards.
Considering everything, he felt he had made a wise decision.
