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1976 | Buch

Khrushchev and the Development of Soviet Agriculture

The Virgin Land Program, 1953–1964

verfasst von: Martin McCauley

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Buchreihe : Studies in Russian and East European History and Society

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
1. The Trek to the East before 1917
Abstract
‘Russia’s history is that of a country undergoing colonisation.… Migration, colonisation constituted the basic feature of our history to which all other features were more or less related.’ 1 V. O. Klyuchevsky, probably the greatest of Russian historians, was the first to substantiate this assertion. Other interpreters of the Russian scene have also seen colonisation as a powerful influence in Russian historical development. B. H. Sumner, at the beginning of his Survey of Russian History, states that ‘throughout Russian history one dominating theme has been the frontier’.2 Down through the centuries the Russians have spread over vast expanses of Europe and Asia. Sometimes the primary reason for the occupation of new tracts of land was political, to escape enserfment, later to alleviate the burdens of a serf’s existence, to escape military service; sometimes economic, the infertility of the land, the stultifying effect of the mir, overpopulation. Given that most peasants farmed on a subsistence basis, their only answer to the demands of officials and landlords for a share of their harvest was to flee. They always hoped to find an area where they would be permitted to retain all their output. Many migrated to the southern parts of Russia and gradually migration spread to the shores of the Black Sea.
Martin McCauley
2. The Eastward Movement, 1917–53
Abstract
The February revolution of 1917 swept away the incompetent, indecisive Tsarist government and brought to the fore men with some belief in the advisability of social change. Stolypin was dead but his agrarian policy had lingered on during wartime. The years of peace, necessary for the implementation of his reforms, had been denied him. The forces which had fought him now gained the ascendancy and set about the task of solving Russia’s perennial agrarian problems in quite a different manner.
Martin McCauley
3. From the Death of Stalin to the Fall of Malenkov, March 1953–February 1955
Abstract
The death of Stalin brought no radical change in its wake in the approach to agriculture. The energy of the heirs was consumed in a tense and unrelenting struggle for primacy in party and state. The announcement of 7 March 1953 naming G. M. Malenkov Chairman and L. P. Beria First Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the retention by Malenkov of his position as a secretary of the Central Committee, the merging of the USSR Ministry of State Security into the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs under Beria, placed these two men at the very centre of power in the Soviet state. Between them they controlled, at least on paper, the three organs of power, the government, the party and the security police.
Martin McCauley
4. The Virgin Lands: Promise and Performance
Abstract
The decree of the Central Committee of 2 March 1954, on the further increase of grain production in the country and the assimilation of virgin and idle land, marked a radical turning-point in post-war Soviet agricultural policy. Khrushchev persuaded the party that the only means of rapidly increasing the supply of grain, on which food supply is based, was by greatly increasing the sown area. To do this, large areas of hitherto uncultivated land were to be put to the plough. Extensive agriculture was judged to be the only solution to the food problem.
Martin McCauley
5. From the Fall of Malenkov to the Fall of Khrushchev, 1955–64
Abstract
The role of the agricultural administration from the mid-1980s until the death of Stalin was often difficult to fulfil but was relatively easy to grasp. Its main task was to exercise close control over the countryside in order to guarantee supplies of food and raw materials vital to the success of the industrialisation drive. Production sometimes suffered, but control was the order of the day. The MTS, the large agricultural bureaucracy, the complicated procurement system, the extreme centralisation of agricultural planning and procurement and the often arbitrary nature of administrative intervention were all geared towards one goal — control.
Martin McCauley
6. The Virgin Lands: The Balance Sheet
Abstract
To attempt a cost analysis of the new lands is to undertake a task of incredible complexity. Considering the paucity of information available on the subject and the difficulties of interpreting the available Soviet data, no claims are made that the following remarks touch more than the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Martin McCauley
7. The Alternatives to the Virgin Lands
Abstract
The rapid expansion of the sown area after 1953 showed that Khrushchev had little faith in the agricultural policy of the XIX Party Congress. Malenkov placed raising of yields on the existing cultivated area among the main tasks confronting Soviet agriculture. Khrushchev overturned this and it was only towards the end of his period in office that he officially acknowledged that the longterm solution to the problems confronting those in farming lay in intensifying agriculture. Extending the sown area was only a shortterm solution.
Martin McCauley
8. Agriculture in the Central Zone and the North-West Zone of the Russian Federation, the Baltic States and Belorussia
Abstract
Besides his favoured crops, Khrushchev also had his favoured areas. The virgin lands were always clamouring for priority and such was the prestige connected with their progress that it was difficult for Khrushchev to resist the temptation to favour their claims on the resources available. If some areas received more, others had to receive less. The areas which suffered most were the central zone and the North-West of the Russian Federation, the Baltic states and Belorussia.
Martin McCauley
9. The Virgin Lands since Khrushchev
Abstract
The passing of primacy in party and state from Khrushchev to Brezhnev and Kosygin in October 1964 was bound to have repercussions on the rural sector of the economy. The ebullient V. V. Matskevich, banished to northern Kazakhstan in I960, was recalled to Moscow to resume his duties as USSR Minister of Agriculture. Under his forceful guidance the Ministry was to regain much of the influence it had lost during Matskevich’s spell in Kazakhstan. The First Secretary of the GG of the CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev, had had first-hand experience of the virgin lands in Kazakhstan and was no stranger to the controversies which had raged on the agrarian front during the Khrushchev years. Brezhnev and Matskevich were, at long last, able to put the new land project in perspective and at liberty to adopt a policy influenced more by economic and agricultural criteria than by political.
Martin McCauley
Conclusion
Abstract
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev has left an indelible imprint on Soviet agriculture. He will be remembered for his many campaigns and démarches. To misquote a well-known book: was Khrushchev really necessary? Those who voted to remove Khrushchev from his position as First Secretary of the party in October 1964 certainly had no qualms about answering this question in the negative. One of the factors which contributed to his downfall was his failure, during the last five years of his reign, to match promise and performance. On the agricultural front will he be remembered only as a defeated general?
Martin McCauley
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Khrushchev and the Development of Soviet Agriculture
verfasst von
Martin McCauley
Copyright-Jahr
1976
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-1-349-03059-0
Print ISBN
978-1-349-03061-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03059-0