MIA  >  Archive  >  Cliff  >  Russia  >  Chapter Index

Tony Cliff

Russia: A Marxist analysis

Chapter XI:
The crisis in Soviet agriculture goes on ...
(Part 2)

But the main emphasis on further regimentation of the agriculturists: More labour days demanded of kolkhoz members

We have seen that before the war the number of obligatory trudodni was 60-100 according to region, and in April 1942 these minima were raised to 100-150 per able-bodied kolkhoznik. Under Khrushchev, although no new minima were established, the pressure to increase the number of obligatory trudodni was increased.

Every able-bodied Kolkhoznik worked on an average 295 trudodni in 1953, and 317 in 1954, which, if translated into actual calendar days at the rate of 1.4 trudodni per day, were 209 and 225 respectively. [60] In 1958 the average number of trudodni per able-bodied person was 342. [61]

On March 7 1956, the Central Committee and Council of Ministers, to spur the kolkhoznik on to harder work, issued a decree entitled On the Charter of the Agricultural Artel and the Further Development of Kolkhoznik Initiative in the Organisation of Kolkhoz Production and in Managing the Affairs of the Artel. [62] This among other things, revised previous rules about the number of obligatory trudodni for kholhozniks: it now “allowed” each kolkhoz to decide its own quota: this done, any able-bodied kolkhozniks who fulfilled the compulsory minimum but refused further work when told to do it, was answerable for infringement of the Rules of the Agricultural Artel.

The result was that kolkhozes all over the country raised their obligatory minimum. The Khrushchev Kolkhoz, Leningrad oblast, fixed a minimum of 300 trudodni for men and 250 for women. [63] The Bolshevik Kolkhoz, Shostka oblast fixed a minimum of 370 trudodni for men, 300 for women without household duties, 200 for women with small children, and 60 for youth. [64] The Moskva Kolkhoz, Oktober oblast, decided that only those who worked. at least 300 calendar days annually, and earned at least 300 trudodni, would be entitled to full pay; others would suffer deductions. [65] The Komintern Kolkhoz in Moldavia, fixed a minimum of 350 trudodni for men, 220 for single women, 80-180 for mothers with young children (according to circumstances). [66]

It is true, however, that here too the carrot is used besides the stick, the payment per trudoden having been considerably increased over the last few years.

Under Stalin the payment per trudoden was very niggardly. In 1953. for instance, 13 per cent. of the kolkhozes in Tadzhikistan paid no cash whatsoever, and 28 per cent paid only 1 rouble per trudoden [67] – and this in a Republic which was well favoured by the prevailing price structure.

Between 1952 and 1958 the average payment per trudoden more or less tripled, and the total kolkhoz payment for labour almost quadrupled. [68]

It would be erroneous, even after this big rise, to get an exaggerated idea of the size of the trudoden payments. The avenge income of kolkhozniks from their work in the kolkhozes – combined payment in money and kind – is still below ten roubles per day. This falls into perspective if compared, say, with the cost of a winter overcoat, which is around 454 roubles. [69]

Many kolkhozniks accordingly continue to break the law which administratively is not easy to implement, and get out of fulfilling their quota of trudoden. Thus the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Armenian Communist Party, Tovmasian, informed its Congress that in 1958, 47,281 kolkhozniks in Armenia failed to fulfil the stipulated minimum of trudodni, while 14,250 did not perform a single workday. [70]

Chapter 11 Index

Narrowing down the activities on the kokhozniks’ private plot

In the face of the failure of the Stalinist collective agriculture, the attachment of the agriculturist to his private plot is quite natural however pathetic.

Although the private garden plot of the kolkhoznik makes up only a tiny fraction of all the land (4.5 per cent, of the kolkhoz cultivated area) it has been of great importance to the kolkhoznik and his family.

Without machines, or even ploughs, relying on spade, watering can, and such primitive implements, the kolkhoznik succeeds in getting a relatively much bigger yield from his small plot than is achieved by the kolkhoz itself. According to official Soviet figures. these tiny plots in 1937 yielded a gross product of 4,318 million roubles in (1926-27 prices), as against 12,669 million produced by the kolkhozes. [71] Thus the kolkhozniks produced 25.4 per cent of the gross yield. According to the same official figures, the gross output per hectare of cultivated land, which was, in 1937 (in terms of 1926-27 roubles) 109.2 roubles in the kolkhozes, was 860.0 roubles on the private garden plot. [72] The kolkhoznik thus shows, in no uncertain terms, that he is much more devoted to his own plot than to the kolkhoz he joined “voluntarily”.

In addition, when one bears in mind the large proportion of the kolkhoz output taken by the state, it will not be surprising to find that the net income of the kolkhoznik from his own plot was more or less equal to what he got for his work on the kolkhoz. Thus, according to Jasny’s calculation, the total income of the kolkhoz members in 1937 and 1938 (in million roubles at 1926-27 prices) was made up as follows [73]:

At the same time, the kolkhoznik is compelled to devote much more time to the kolkhoz than to his own plot. Thus, for instance, in 1939 the average household gave 325.6 days of work to the kolkhoz, while devoting only 104.2 days to his garden plot. [74] It is therefore clear that the income of the kolkhoznik for a day’s work on his own plot was about three times higher than for a day’s work in the kolkhoz.

It is in this fact, more than in nostalgia for the past and a craving for independence that one should look for the cause of the great attachment of the kolkhoznik to his small garden plot. The severe state exploitation of the agricultural population working in the kolkhozes is a permanent cause of their neglect of kolkhoz work, their preference for their own plot and the permanent resurrection of individualist tendencies in the rural population.

Although the kolkhoznik’s small plot was to have been of a supplementary character to the main economy of the kolkhoz, it actually played a central role in his livelihood. And this economic duality between the large kolkhoz farm and the lilliputian private plot has continued up to the present.

The attitude of Stalin’s successors to private farming has been ambivalent, now relaxing now tightening. Initially, after Stalin’s death, incentives were offered for farming the private plot.

On August 8, 1953, Malenkov declared a new agricultural tax which reversed the trend to increase the burden on private farming. The rate was cut 2½ times, the average tax per household thus being cut from an estimated 430 roubles in 1952 to 170 roubles in 1954. [75] In face of the low monetary income of the kolkhozniks this was clearly a major concession. To encourage livestock rearing on the private plots, assistance was given to kolkhozniks who did not possess cows of their own in the form of a tax reduction of 50 per cent in 1953 and 30 per cent in 1954. [76]

An even more important concession was a reduction in obligatory deliveries from the private plot. This applied to animal products and potatoes, and all arrears which had accumulated prior to January 1, 1953. were cancelled. Those kolkhozniks who personally owned no livestock as of June 15 1953, were exempted from meat deliveries during the second half of 1953 and for the whole of 1954. The average delivery quota of 40-60 kgs of meat for each holding was cut to 30 kgs. “In the past milk deliveries per cow amounted to from 100-280 litres with an average of 110 litres. The delivery quotas for eggs, wool and potatoes have been nearly halved.” [77] At the same time prices paid by the state for the compulsory deliveries still collected were raised.

Finally, on January 1, 1958, compulsory deliveries from the private plots were completely abolished. [78]

At the same time as this relaxation was allowed, the Kremljn held firmly to its scheme that private farming should be subsidiary to the kolkhoz. It was fully alive to the conflict and competition between the two elements of the economy-the individualistic and the “collectivist “-an awareness which was reflected in the tax law of August 8 1953, according to which any able-bodied member of a kolkhoznik household who failed to contribute the specified minimum of labour to the kolkhoz without valid reason would thereby increase the tax on his private plot by 50 per cent. Furthermore, if an able-bodied member of a household were not a member of the kolkhoz. nor working for some state or cooperative organisation, the household tax was to be increased by 75 per cent. [79]

Further measures of March 10, 1956, sought to restrict private farming by recommending kolkhozes to relate the size of the private holding to the household’s labour contribution to the kolkhoz. It was made clear that any adjustments should involve a reduction and not an increase in the total area devoted to private plots. The decree stated: “... no expansion of private holdings can be permitted at the expense of collectively held land; rather on the contrary, the trend should be towards reducing their area ...” [80]

Following this decree, kolkhozes cut down the size of private plots. Thus, for instance, the Lokich Kolkhoz, Riazan oblast fixed the size of a privately owned plot at 0.15 hectares (instead of 0.25 to 0.59, as fixed by the Statutes). [81] The Konchatski Kolkhoz in Georgia differentiated the size of the plot, establishing a minimum of 0.25 hectares for households with one member capable of work and actually working, increasing to 0.5 hectares for households with three working members. [82] “On the New Life, Red Ploughman and Red Worker Kolkhozes, private plots have been differentiated in size. Households where all the able-bodied members are engaged in kolkhoz work have been assigned 0.4 hectares each: those where one able-bodied member of the family works elsewhere get 0.3 hectares; those with two such members get 0.2 hectares, and those with three or more get 0.15 hectares. The necessary prerequisite in all cases is fulfilment of the fixed minimum number of trudodni.” [83]

The 1956 decree also aimed to cut the number of privately owned livestock allowed the kolkhozniks: “The number of live. stock specified for kolkhozniks’ personal use should be determined after taking into consideration local conditions and bearing in mind that because of the great changes that have, recently occurred in the. character of the farm economy there is hardly any necessity for retaining the number of livestock that a kolkhoznik household is permitted to own in many districts classified by the Statutes as farm districts with well-developed animal husbandry and in districts where the animal husbandry used to be of a semi-nomadic or nomadic nature.” [84]

In spite of zigzags, the general trend is for individually owned livestock to decrease relatively to the general herd, as the following table shows. [85]

The duality of Soviet agriculture resulting from the failure of the kolkhoz economy to raise production continues. Hence the large kolkhozes equipped with the most modern machinery have to be supplemented by the tiny plot operated with the most primitive methods, typically with spade and watering can as the only implements of production.

The larger yield of pork per hog in the private sector than in the kolkhoz – reflecting better care and feeding – is concomitant with the very much higher number of piglets per sow on private plots as compared with the kolkhozes: on January 1, 1958, there were 11 piglets per 10 productive sows in the kolkhozes, 17 in the sovkhozes, but 53 in the private plots. [87]

In 1959 private plots which made up 1 per cent of the agricultural land produced 46.6 per cent of all the meat produced in the country, 49.2 per cent of all the milk, and 82.1 per cent of the eggs. [88]

To sum up, Stalin’s successors, who started by removing some of the measures of state discrimination against the kolkhoznik’s private farming, have turned about and adopted an opposite policy. However, whether relaxing or tightening, the policy remains ambivalent and contradictory.

Chapter 11 Index

Trend towards the sovkhoz

Above all, the emphasis in Khrushchev’s policy on the further regimentation of agriculture took the form of giving clear preference to the state farm (the sovkhoz) including the effort to transform collective farms into state farms.

The reclamation of the virgin lands enabled the government to take a major step in the direction of the state farms as opposed to collective farms. In 1953 there were 4,857 sovkhozes with a sown area of 15.165,000 hectares. [89] In 1956 the sown area of the sovkhozes had reached 35,290,000 hectares, constituting 17 per cent of the country’s sown area and supplying 27 per cent of the state grain deliveries. [90] In 1958 there were 6,002 sovkhozes with a sown area of 52.1 million hectares. [91] By January 1, 1961, there were 7,375 sovkhozes and they supplied 73 per cent of the grain delivered to the state, 27 per cent of the livestock and poultry. 32 per cent of the milk, 31 per cent of the wool, and 29 per cent of the eggs. [92]

Sovkhozes were established not only in the newly reclaimed virgin lands. In a number of areas they were built or expanded at the kolkhozes’ expense. It was reported, for instance, that 85 new sovkhozes had been formed on land belonging to economically weak kolkhozes. [93]

The Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia stated of his own Republic: “It has been decided to create from kolkhoz land not being used, from the land of backward kolkhozes, and also from the MTS serving these kolkhozes, 43 sovkhozes under the auspices of the Ministry of Sovkhozes of USSR, and 14 livestock sovkhozes under the auspices of the ministry of the Meat and Dairy Products Industry, and also to enlarge 30 sovkhozes of the Ministry of Sovkhozes of the Belorussian SSR with the uncultivated land of economically weak kolkhozes. [94] As a result 75 new sovkhozes were formed and the size of 78 existing ones increased by the swallowing up of 489 kolkhozes. [95]

Similarly in Armenia, between 1953 and 1958. 120 kolkhozes were transformed into 37 sovkhozes. [96]

In 1953 Tselinny krai had 1,179 kolkhozes encompassing 110,000 families; in 1961 only 103 kolkhozes with 26,000 households were left. [97]

In the first half of 1960 collective farms were transformed into sovkhozes on a scale sufficient to raise the labour force in the latter from 4.9 million to 6.6 million, and in 1961 to 7.4 million. [98] At the end of the 1960 spring sowing campaign the sown area of sovkhozes was 13 million hectares, or 24 per cent greater than a year earlier, whereas that of kolkhozes had fallen by an estimated 6 million hectares, or 5 per cent. The sown area of sovkhozes (excluding subsidiary farms of state enterprises) thus reached 67 million hectares, or – for the first time – more than half that of the kolkhozes.

In 1961 the agricultural land of sovkhozes was 98.8 per cent of that of kolkhozes; the sown area 79 per cent, the cattle herd 79 per cent; the number of cows 57 per cent; the number of pigs 64 per cent; the number of sheep 61 per cent; the number of tractors 104 per cent; the number of combine-harvesters 115.5 per cent, and the number of trucks 75 per cent. [99]

The replacement of the kolkhozes by sovkhozes is reflected clearly in the decline in the number of peasant households in the kokhozes in recent years: in 1955 there were 19.8 million, falling to 18.8 million in 1958, and to 17.1 million in 1960, a decrease of some 2.7 million over five years. [100]

In justification of the decision to extend the sovkhozes beyond the virgin lands alone, the former Minister of Sovkhozes of the USSR, Benediktov, stated that, first, the sovkhozes delivered a greater portion of their product to the state than the kolkhozes: “In 1956, the sovkhozes of the Kazakh SSR delivered to the state an average of 52 poods of grain per hectare, while the kolkhozes gave an average of 36 poods ... In Chkalov oblast, the delivery of grain amounted respectively to 43 and 32 poods per hectare, in Saratov oblast to 40 and 25 poods. [101]

Secondly, the costs of production on the sovkhozes were considerably lower than on the kolkhozes. Speaking at an agricultural conference in Minsk, Khrushchev gave the following figures [102]:

Thirdly, productivity of labour in the kolkhozes was lower than that in the sovkhozes. Academician S. Strumilin, an authoritative Soviet economist, stated that the sovkhozes needed 64 workers per 1000 hectares of sown land, while the kolkhozes required at least 184 (besides the MTS personnel). He argued that the kolkhoz system as such made it impossible to solve the problem of excessive manpower: “What is to be done with superfluous manpower on the kolkhoz fields? The point is that the kolkhozniks are not workers or salaried employees, who when redundant can relatively easily be transferred from one farm to another or from one establishment to another ...” [103]

However, a few years after the campaign was initiated, it became obvious that the superiority of the sovkhozes was not as considerable as assumed, and that they suffered, indeed, from serious defects.

First of all the greater profitability of the sovkhoz compared to the kolkhoz, made so much of by Khrushchev, is largely the result of a statistical gimmick. Up to 1958 farm machinery, fuel and fertilisers were supplied to the sovkhozes for much lower prices than to the kolkhozes (the latter through the MTS). Since then the prices have been equalised, and the effect on production costs on the state farms has been marked, pushing them, up to, and sometimes even above those in the kolkhozes.

Then again Strumilin’s argument that the productivity of labour in sovkhozes is higher than in kolkhozes is counter balanced by the fact that labour turnover in the sovkhoz is incomparably higher than in the kolkhoz. Thus, for instance, in 1960-1, 103,700 machine-operators were hired in the virgin lands of Kazakhstan and 54,000 were hired from other parts of the Soviet Union and brought into this area in Kazakhstan to fill permanent posts. But during the same period, 180,000 left the virgin lands because of difficult living conditions – poor food supplies, bad housing and low wages. [105]

That the conversion of kolkhozes to sovkhozes has not been a success becomes clearest from an article by I. Vinnichenko entitled Everything Leads to This! Ideas on the Future of Rural Areas.

He says a Party secretary expressed the mood of the agriculturists after conversion as follows:

On the kolkhozes it was usual not merely for the combine-harvester driver but also for every woman binding the sheaves to make sure that no crops were lost ... But on the sovkhozes ... the grain was left to stand in stacks: after all, people get paid money for raking it over too! ... The people changed before your very eyes! And how could they help changing when we clipped their wings for them! They have no prospects, no confidence that their future will depend on their own efforts. And so, whether they are stirred up or not, nothing comes out of it – it is just like ramming your head against a brick wall. [106]

A good harvest brings no particular pleasure to the sovkhoz workers because the grain belongs not to them but to the state “On the sovkhozes ... the grain lies in forlorn heaps. Who cares; you get paid for shoving it abut!”

The Party Secretary summed up his experience by saying:

By switching to a “higher form of economy” we thought we would be taking a step forward, but in fact have slipped a step back. We have moved away from the kolkhozes. but have not yet arrived at a real, genuinely higher form of socialist agriculture.

Sovkhoz workers engaged on winnowing grain expressed their dissatisfaction in strong terms:

You turn and turn a thing until you are dizzy, and when they work it out, what do you get? the guaranteed minimum!. You cannot even scrape together 300 roubles a month ... And who on earth set those work quotas? They have reaped such a pile of grain, and now it is all there lying on the threshing floor! And we end up begging from some kolkhoz!

The chairman of this sovkhoz suggested that the whole thing was “a fatal mistake”. His conclusions, Vinnichenko argues, are confirmation of the correctness of the “Party line”:

The Party has made it clear that the very formulation of the question as to which of the two forms of socialist agriculture is “higher” or more progressive is essentially incorrect, or mistaken. The tendency towards the accelerated conversion of the kolkhozes into sovkhozes has also been admitted to be a serious mistake.

The Party Central Committee made no such public acknowledgement of a “mistake” in its agricultural policy. But the publication of Vinnichenko’s article was of course not fortuitous. It warned that a brake would be put on the policy of transforming kolkhozes into sovkhozes. The new line was expressed by Khrushchev to the 21st Congress of the Party:

One may well ask why at the present stage we are not pushing ahead with the amalgamation of kolkhozes, why we are taking the view that the artel-kolkhoz ownership must be fully developed alongside state ownership. The forms of ownership can not be changed arbitrarily; they develop on the basis of the laws of economics, they depend upon the character and the level of development of the productive forces. The kolkhoz system fully corresponds to the requirements and the level of development of today’s productive forces in the rural areas. [107]

In accordance with this view, the resolution adopted by the Congress stated: “The artel-kolkhoz form of production serves and is capable of serving for a long time to come the development of the productive forces in agriculture.” [108]

Chapter 11 Index

The crisis in agriculture continues ...

In spite of carrot and stick, agricultural production has continued to be poor. Let us look first at the grain situation.

The January 1955 session of the Central Committee had sought to “ensure by 1960 a gross grain harvest in the country of at least 10,000,000,000 poods annually”, i.e., some 163 million tons. [109] A couple of months later Khrushchev stated to an agricultural conference that the above target could “be fulfilled not by 1960 but much earlier, within the next two or three years” [110] with the result that the 20th Congress (February 1956) optimistically raised its target for 1960 to 180 million tons. [111]

But these high hopes were dashed by the sober reality. The following table shows the actual grain output between 1956 and 1960 (million tons) [112]:

Thus between 1956 and 1960 grain output rose by a mere 2.7 per cent instead of the pianned 41 per cent.

For the last five years – 1958-1963 – grain output has been stagnating. On September 26, 1963, in Krasnodar, Khrushchev admitted that the year’s harvest had been badly hit by the weather. He revealed to the Soviet people that Russia had bought 6.8 million tons of wheat from Canada, 1.8 million tons from Australia, and smaller quantities from elsewhere. At the time of writing.. (November 1963). negotiations are being held between USSR and USA regarding the sale to Russia of 5 million tons.

The picture of livestock, products is not much better.

In speeches in Leningrad and Moscow on May 21, and June 2, 1957, Khrushchev came out with a plan to overtake the USA in per capita meat output by 1960 or at the latest 1961 (speech in Leningrad) or 1962 (speech in Moscow) and in milk output by 1958. [113]

The average per capita consumption of four principal meats – beef, veal, pork and lamb – in the USA (in terms of carcase weight), was 166.8 lbs. in 1956 (excluding the carcase pork fat rendered to lard). [114] Add to this the consumption of poultry – 29.4 lbs. [115] – and the meat consumption in the USA was 199.2 lbs. per head of population. To reach the same meat consumption level in USSR (assuming the population to be 216.5 million in mid-1961) Russia would have to produce 20 million tons of carcase meat.

She is very far from this. In 1956 she produced 6.5 million tons of meat. [116] Even this figure includes items excluded from the US statistics, so that for a real comparison the Soviet figure would have to be scaled down some 15 per cent. [117] If this correction were made the Soviet figure for 1956 would have been some 5.5 million tons.

In 1961 meat output was announced to have been 8.8 million tons [118] Or, with the correction necessary for comparison with US statistics – some 7.3 million tons. This is far from the 20 million tons aimed at for 1960 in Khrushchev’s speech of a few years earlier. [C]

He has therefore been forced to lower his sights somewhat: the seven-year Plan aims at 16 million tons of meat in 1965. Even this is practically certain to be unattainable.

The partial stagnation of grain output over the last few years – 1960 grain output being only 3.4 million tons greater than 1956 – must affect the hopes of considerably increasing meat production. Every eight tons of grain represents roughly one ton of meat, since that amount of feedstuffs is required to produce that amount of. meat. So in order to raise meat output from the 1959 figure of 7.3 million tons to 20 million tons – the target for 1960 or 1961 – some 100 million tons of feedstuffs must be found. This figure can be considerably cut down by a cut in the direct consumption of grain by human beings, and the growing of more nutritious grains, like maize. But a practically stagnating grain production makes Khrushchev’s aim of overtaking the US in meat production a dream.

Since 1958 and up to 1963 agricultural output has not risen at all. As a result Soviet national income as a whole has risen only about 4 per cent annually over this period, or more slowly than the national income of Germany, Italy, and Japan, and indeed, during 1961-63, the USA! [119]

The failure of Soviet agriculture is highlighted not only by comparison with its industry, but also by comparison with the successes achieved by Western countries much less naturally endowed, which, as against practically stagnating Russian agriculture, have progressed with great strides. In twelve countries of North West Europe, during the decade of the 1950’s, gross agricultural output rose by 52 per cent, and labour productivity by 51 per cent. [120]

The annual rate of growth of gross production in agriculture (1950-1960) was as follows: Belgium. 2.4 per cent; France, 2.8 per cent; United Kingdom, 2.7 per cent; USA, 1.8 per cent. The annual. rate of growth of productivity in agriculture in the same decade was: Belgium, 6.3 per cent; France, 6.0 per cent; United Kingdom, 4.5 per cent; USA, 4.6 per cent. [121]

In the United States, a firm straight-jacket of controls and output disincentives has not prevented productivity in agriculture in the 1950s from rising much faster than productivity in the rest of the economy. [122] During the decade 1948-58 the average rate of growth of productivity in US agriculture was 2-3 times more than the average for all other branches of activity. [123]

Chapter 11 Index

In conclusion

The combination of inherited poverty, Stalin’s ruthless insistence on the priority of heavy industry and the bleeding dry of the peasants, to which was added the havoc of the war, left the countryside in a sorry state. Part of the reason for the glaring difference between the state of Soviet industry and agriculture can be traced to differences in governmental treatment: the beloved child of industry had capital resources poured into it; the stepchild of agriculture was bled white; the one was coated on with incentives, the other was strangled with cut-throat prices. The step-child’s response grew colder and colder. But this is only part of the story. Since Stalin’s death Khrushchev has done his best to tilt the balance the other way, but his success has been very meagre. The impediment to agricultural progress is rooted in bureaucratic state capitalism itself.

In industry, despite the gross bureaucratic mismanagement, production achievements could soar, because of the vast potentialities of the large-scale mechanised plants, and the practically unlimited possibilities of increasing the means of production. The superiority of large-scale farming over small, however, is not nearly as great as that of large-scale industry over small, and in certain cases it is doubtful whether the large farm is superior at all to the small. In addition enlarged production meets natural barriers which are not easily affected by mechanisation.

Many factors affect an evaluation of the advantages of large or small farms, intertwine and contradict one another. In a number of ways the small farm has advantages. Care and devotion is more important in agriculture, and especially intensive agriculture, where delicate livestock and plants are handled, than in industry, and the farmer working on his own farm is much more prone to give the meticulous attention required, than anyone working on a large farm which is not his own. The difficulty of checking the quality of labour and the fact that a failure in one kind of work (e.g. ploughing) can ruin all the work that follows (such as sowing, threshing, etc.) also argues for the small farm against the large. The factory is built artificially and so is suited to the machine, whereas agriculture has to be accommodated to nature which can be a wayward mistress. In industry machines work all the year round, in agriculture they are used only seasonally, thus reducing the advantage of mechanisation. Some costs of production items (internal transport, supervision, etc.) grow more than proportionately with the growth of the farm. The fact that in agriculture (unlike industry) the household is closely connected with production, favours the small farm.

Most of the factors favouring the small farm would be neutralised, or even overcompensated for if the large farm were a real cooperative owned by those who worked on it. The kolkhoz is a far cry from this. Imposed by government decree on unwilling peasants, its output taken largely by the state, it is a ready prey to all the above-mentioned disadvantages.

Again, agriculture, depending as it does on local natural conditions, is even more in need of autonomous local decisions than industry. The rule of the bureaucracy is centralist and rigid.

It is far more difficult to apply centralised techniques to agriculture than to industry: factors of production in agriculture can be combined in various ways, are capable of producing many different things, and are subject to the vagaries of the weather. Elasticity and bureaucracy exclude one another.

Agriculture depends much more on human labour, hence interest and effort, than industrial production. If a fault is found in a machine, it can be discovered and responsibility fixed. But if the harvest is found faulty, this cannot be done; the easiest thing is to “pass the buck”. The effect in agriculture is to prove, at high cost, that nature, including human nature, is not plastic beyond a point, nor ready to be moulded by an omnipotent state.

To sum up, the natural peculiarities of agriculture make the locomotive of modern technique and large-scale production relatively much weaker than in industry, and the dead hand of the bureaucracy much heavier. It is no wonder that Soviet agriculture hardly moved forward, despite the technical revolution it went through.

Khrushchev tried one expedient after another to raise agricultural output. Some were directed to winning the peasant over by encouraging him to use his initiative on his private plot. Thus prices paid for produce by the state were considerably raised, the system of obligatory deliveries abolished and so on. He also tried opposite expedients – cutting the private plot, imposing on the kolkhoz members a greater number of working days on the collective farm, and so on.

But all to no avail. The extent to which agriculture weighs on Khrushchev’s mind was shown in his interruption of the celebration for Yuri Gagarin with a new call for a special effort by farms “to satisfy more fully the growing requirements of the people”.

The contradictions in agriculture have in the past played, and will play, a prominent and growing role in the internal and foreign policies of the Soviet regime.

The necessity to liberate the productive forces of agriculture were at the core of the reforms of the Tsar-liberator, Alexander II. And they play as compelling a role in the destalinisation carried out by “The Reformer” Khrushchev. Solving the agricultural crisis is the main plank in his programme; failure to deliver the goods may prove to be his undoing, the sword of Damocles held over him by the Stalinist diehards. All possible means to solve the crisis are tempting, whether concessions to the peasants or transforming the countryside into a factory and the peasants into landless workers.

Thus the agricultural crisis serves as the spur for reforms in Russia as well as their Achilles heel. As in agriculture the human element is so intimately connected with efficiency, an oppressive, exploitative state capitalist bureaucracy, unable to free the human genius, is clearly an impediment to the productive forces, clearly a cause of inefficiency, much more so than in industry. Hence very possibly the agricultural crisis is insoluble in the institutional framework of state capitalism.

In a way, and up to a point – depending on the amount of resources deployed into the countryside – the efficiency of agriculture is a significant barometer of human relations in the Soviet economy. And if socialism and communism have to do with the breakthrough to the realm of freedom – as Marx claimed – with a new attitude of people to work, with an end to coercion in work (whether by stick or carrot), and its replacement with enthusiasm, with consciousness, then the crisis of Soviet agriculture most clearly and sharply exposes the contradictions and tensions in the regime, its oppressive, exploitative nature.

The effects of the crisis in agriculture on Soviet foreign policy must be far-reaching. First, with her own larder not full, Russia cannot supply China with very much, and the latter is forced to seek supplies elsewhere, even if they have to be paid for in scarce currencies. This is bound to exacerbate relations between the two Communist powers.

Secondly, with the need to enlarge capital investments in agriculture, the urge to cut spending on armaments must be strong. But between the urge and an actual cut in armaments (and a lessening of international tension) there is a great distance. The urge to prefer butter to suns is only one factor among many dictating the Kremlin’s policies.

Thirdly, there is a strong inducement for Russia to enter the world market. Up to now Eastern bloc exports to the rest of the world have been very small (2.5 per cent in 1958). But they have been rising at a rate which exceeds almost all other countries – 75 per cent between 1953 and 1958, compared with a world increase of 45 per cent – and they are based on one of the most swiftly expanding industrial economies. With industry progressing rapidly while agriculture stagnates, it is clearly in Russia’s interests to export industrial goods to pay for food imports. [D]

There are political factors too that underlie a Russian desire for increased foreign trade. It thus seems possible that in the future Russia may present an economic challenge to Western capitalism potentially far more threatening than the military and political challenge of the last few years.

How the challenge will be translated into political terms is very difficult to foresee, as the number of unknown elements involved is very large and many contradict one another.

In any case, the permanent crisis of Russian agriculture is sure to continue. This crisis results from both international and national factors-priority for armaments and heavy industry, hence the relative neglect of agriculture, the institutional set-up of the conflict between extensive state farming and the intensive lilliputian private plot, etc. etc. The permanent crisis of Soviet agriculture is, and will continee to be, of decisive importance to the internal and foreign policies of the Soviet government. It will add to the tensions in the Soviet bloc (above all between Moscow and Peking). It will strengthen the wish of Khrushchev for “peaceful coexistence”, including a cut in the arms burden. But beyond a certain point, it can undermine Khrushchev’s grasp on the levers of power.

Next Chapter:
The crisis in industry

Chapter 11 Index

Footnotes

C. Some Soviet economists were more sanguine than Khrushchev, and they, according to Khrushchev’s revelation to the Leningrad meeting, argued that Russia could catch up in meat out put with the USA not earlier than 1975. At that time Khrushchev laughed this out of court: (Khrushchev’s Leningrad speech, Pravda, May 24 1957.)

D. Of course there are a number of impediments in the path of Russia carrying out a “Repeal of the Corn Law”. At present it is doubtful whether Russia (or her satellites, Czechoslovakia. Hungary, etc., who also suffer from agricultural crises) would be able to sell manufactured goods to the countries with grain surpluses. Russian manufactures on the whole are not yet equal in quality – let alone superior – to those available in the West.

Notes

60. Voprosy Sotsialisticheskoi Ekonomiki. Moscow 1956, p.217.

61. National Economy of USSR in 1958, Russian, Moscow 1959, pp.494-5.

62. Handbook on Questions of Kolkhoz Law, Russian, Moscow 1955, p.343.

63. Literaturnaya Gazeta, Moscow, May 29 1956.

64. Izvestia, March 2 1956.

65. Kommunist Tadzhikistana, 15 April 1956.

66. Sotsialistichcskoe Selskoekhozyaistvo, 1956, No.6, 1955.

67. These figures were cited at CC Plenum, Pravda, 24 December 1959.

68. Kommunist, No.12, 1958; p.25.

69. Biulleten Roznichnykh Tsen, Moscow, January 1958, No.2, p.7.

70. Kommunist, Erivan, 11 January 1959.

71. Jasny, op. cit., p.47.

72. Prokopovicz, op. cit., p.162.

73. Jasny, op. cit., p.699.

74. I. Merinov, Labour Resources of The Kolkhozes and their Utilisation, Sotsialistkheskoe Selskoe Khozvaistvo; 1941, No.3.

75. A. Nove, Rural Taxation in the USSR, Soviet Studies, 1953, No.2.

76. Pravda, 13 September 1953.

77. Pravda, 24 May 1957.

78. Soviet News, 8 July 1957.

79. Pravda, 10 August 1953.

80. Pravda, 10 March 1956.

81. Literaturnaya Gazeta, 29 May 1956.

82. Zarya Vestoka, 8 October 1956.

83. Izvestia, 10 July 1956.

84. Pravda, 10 March 1956.

85. For 1938: Jasny, op. cit., p.350; for 1941-55: National Economy of USSR 1956, op. cit., pp.121-3; for 1959: Soviet News, 27 January 1960 and 2 February 1961.

86. Agriculture of USSR. Statistical Compilation, Russian, op. cit., Moscow 1960, p.334.

87. Livestock in USSR, Russian, Moscow 1959, p.64.

88. Ibid.

89. National Economy of USSR 1956, op. cit., p.135.

90. Kommunist, 1956, No.18, p.69.

91. National Economy of USSR 1958, Russian, Moscow 1959, pp.518-9.

92. Soviet News, 2 February 1961.

93. According to an unpublished decree of the Central Committee passed after the plenary session of September 1954. Voprosy Ekonomiki, Moscow 1957, No.7, p.59.

94. Sovetskaya Belorussia, 11 April 1957.

95. Kommunist Belorussii, Minsk 1958, No.9, p.17.

96. Kommunist Erivan, 1 January 1959.

97. The USSR in Figures in 1961. A Statistical Compilation, Russian, Moscow 1962, p.235.

98. The National Economy of USSR 1961, Moscow 1962, p.452.

99. Ibid., pp.300, 305, 316, 452.

100. Ibid., p.492.

101. Kommunist, 1956, No.7, p.80.

102. Izvestia, 25 January 1958.

103. Voprosy Ekonomiki, 1958, No.5. pp.35-6.

104. Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, 9 February 1962, Supplement, p.28.

105. Selskaya Zhizn, 15 July 1962.

106. Nash Sovremennik, 1959, No.4.

107. Pravda, 28 January 1959.

108. Pravda, 7 February 1959.

109. Pravda, 2 February 1955.

110. Tass, 8 April 1955.

111. Twentieth Congress of CPSU, Russian, Moscow 1956, Vol.1, p.60.

112. USSR in Figures in 1959, Russian, Moscow 1960, pp.123-4, 131; Pravda, 26 January 1961; Pravda, 6 March 1962; Selskaya Zhizn, 26 January 1963.

113. Pravda, 24 May and 3 June 1957.

114. Jasny, op. cit., p.101.

115. Ibid.

116. Pravda, 24 May 1957.

117. Jasny, op. cit., pp.100-1.

118. Pravda, 6 March 1962.

119. P. Wiles, Western Research into the Soviet Economy, Survey, London, January 1964.

120. Report prepared jointly by the Economic Commission for Europe and the Food and Agricultural Organisation. The Times, 29 September 1961.

121. G.H. Peters, Agriculture’s Contribution to Economic Growth, Westminster Bank Review, November 1963.

122. Economic Report of the US President, January 1960.

123. A. Shonfield, The Attack on World Poverty, London 1960, pp.170, 176.

Top of the page

Last updated on 22.10.2002