From Peking to Prague, Communism's chronic farm problem regularly produces a bumper crop of discontent. The outstanding exception is Poland, which last year enjoyed the best harvest in its history, doubled a projected 4% increase in gross agricultural production. Compared with 1960, the yield per acre of corn jumped from 204 bushels to 449.
But the reason for Poland's success provided scant comfort to Communist theoreticians: 87% of the land is owned by individual peasants. State farms occupy only about 12% of the countryside, while collective farmers cultivate about 1%.*
Polish Premier Wladyslaw Gomulka, who abruptly halted a forced march toward...
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