This persistent lag in farm output has been extensively and publicly discussed by the leadership, which is intent on raising the general level of performance in agriculture and ensuring an adequate domestic supply of food products. Although some blame has been attached to unfavorable weather conditions, the lag has been ascribed primarily to the reluctance of peasants to adopt modern production techniques, poor farm management, insufficient effort to use available resources to best advantage, widespread indifference and negligence, and an excessive preoccupation with personal interests leading to an irresponsible attitude toward work in the collective sector. These shortcomings were said to exist not only among the peasantry at large but also among Communists, who should be serving as models of responsible behavior. The basic reason that clearly emerges from public discussion is a widespread opposition of peasants to the collectivization of farms and an associated tendency to devote their best efforts to the cultivation of their own private plots. Impressive evidence on this point is provided by official production statistics for 1964, the latest available on this subject. These data show that output per acre on the small private plots of collective farmers and state farm workers was four times larger than output on state farms and six times larger than that on collective farms. Constituting only 6 percent of the cultivated land, the private plots produced 23 percent of the total farm output. Nevertheless, the leadership has publicly credited the advance in agricultural production to the collectivization of farms. In 1967 the government proceeded to reduce the size of the private plots, with a view to their eventual elimination, both for ideological reasons and as a means of forcing peasants to devote greater efforts to work on collectivized land. Subsequent steps were taken to transfer to collective ownership some of the livestock allotted to the farm families by the collective farm statute. This action did not measurably improve agricultural performance. Shortfalls in the production of several important crops, including cotton, tobacco, and rice, were admitted to have occurred both in 1968 and 1969, and the situation in the livestock sector continued to be unsatisfactory. A scaling down of the original production goal for 1970 could therefore not be avoided. The farm output target set by the annual plan for 1970 was 12.5 percent below the minimum and 15 percent below the maximum five-year plan figures for the same year. INDUSTRY