Fraternal greetings to the working men and working women, to the technicians and specialists and the entire executive staff of the machine and tractor stations on the occasion of the pre-schedule fulfilment of the plan for sowing 18,000,000 hectares.

Congratulations on your victory, comrades!

Last year about 2,000,000 hectares of collectivefarm fields were sown by machine and tractor stations. This year—more than 18,000,000 hectares. Last year the machine and tractor stations served 2,347 collective farms. This year—46,514 collective farms. From the wooden plough to the tractor—such is the path travelled by the peasant farms of our country. Let everyone know that the working class of the Soviet Union is firmly and confidently promoting the technical re-equipment of its ally, the labouring peasantry!

Let us hope that the machine and tractor stations will not rest content with the results achieved, but will, by way of a counter-plan, increase the 18,000,000 hectares of sown area assigned in the plan (and already fulfilled) to 20,000,000 hectares.

Let us hope that the machine and tractor stations will not stop at this, but will confidently tackle their next tasks: to prepare about 5,000,000 hectares of fallow land, successfully carry out the harvesting campaign, do about 15,000,000 hectares of autumn ploughing, raise the winter-crop area to 8,000,000 hectares, organise a further thousand machine and tractor stations and thus establish the basis for serving the overwhelming majority of collective farms next year. Let everybody know that the Soviet Union is being transformed from a country of small-peasant economy and backward agricultural technique into a country of large-scale, collective economy with the most modern agricultural technique! Forward, comrades, to new victories!

J. Stalin

Pravda, No. 145,

May 28, 1931