Agricultural Stagnation under Khrushchev

Leonid Brezhnev, The Basic Results of the Development of Agriculture in Recent Years. March 24, 1965

 

Original Source: Plenum TsK KPSS, 24-26 marta 1965, stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1965), p. 5.

Comrades! Our agriculture is based on the most advanced social system, which has withstood the test of time and through the entire course of historical development has proved itself an irresistible, vital force. Relying on the socialist system, the Communist Party has done substantial work to develop agriculture. The September 1953 plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee had great importance. It worked out the correct course in the sphere of agriculture. And it must be said bluntly that as long as its decisions were implemented we had definite results. A great deal was done to strengthen the collective and state farms organizationally and economically, to improve their material and technical base and to increase the material incentives of rural workers. At the Party’s appeal tens of thousands of specialists and organizers of agricultural production went into the countryside at that time. The plowing up of virgin and idle lands had great importance in increasing grain production. In the first five years after the September plenary session the sown areas were substantially expanded, yields were raised and the gross and marketable output of agriculture increased. Unfortunately, however, these positive results were not further consolidated and developed. We were faced with the fact that in the past few years agriculture had slowed in its development, and our plans for an upsurge in agricultural production remained unfulfilled. According to the control figures, the gross output of agriculture during the seven-year plan (1959-1965) should have risen by 70 per cent; in fact, during the first six years the increase came to only 10 per cent. Whereas the gross output of agriculture grew by an average 7.6 per cent a year during the period 1955-1959, in the past five years its average annual rise has been only 1.9 per cent. The growth in the yields of basic crops has slowed down. Thus the average yield of grain crops increased by 1.7 centners in 1955-1959 as compared with the preceding five-year period, while in the period 1960-1964 it rose by only 0.8 centner. A similar phenomenon is to be observed in animal husbandry. The increase in the number of cattle over the past five years was only half as great as in the preceding five years. As for the number of pigs, sheep and poultry, it has actually declined substantially during this time. The average milk yield per cow on the collective and state farms has decreased by more than 370 kg. The data that have been cited make it possible to draw a conclusion: Whereas there was a notable upsurge in agriculture up to 1959, in the period since then it has to all intents and purposes begun to mark time. What are the basic reasons for this situation? First, a weak spot in the guidance of agriculture is the fact that the demands of the economic laws of development of a socialist economy were not fully taken into account and were frequently even ignored. I have in mind first of all such laws as those of planned and proportional development and of expanded socialist reproduction, as well as the principles of the combination of public and personal interests, material incentives and others. But, as we know, life sternly punishes those who do not take these laws into account, who scorn them and are guilty of subjectivism. Actions of a purely willful nature, especially in the fields of planning, price formation, financing and the extension of credits, increasingly came to the fore in the practice of agricultural guidance in the past few years. It cannot be considered normal, for example, that the purchase prices of a number of agricultural products do not even cover the cost of their production. As a result the collective and state farms suffer large losses. The numerous and sometimes ill-conceived reorganizations gave rise to an atmosphere of nervousness and confusion, deprived managers of a long-range view and undermined their faith in their abilities. Instead of painstaking, thoughtful work and profound analysis of the state of affairs, the practice of administration by fiat, of issuing commands to the collective and state farms, was often permitted. Second, agriculture was faced with very great tasks, but they were inadequately backed up by the necessary economic measures, particularly the correct determination of the level of prices for agricultural products and goods needed for production, the allocation of the appropriate capital investments and the improvement of material and technical supply. Thus in the five years 1954-1958 state investments in agriculture amounted to 11.3 per cent of all investments in the national economy, while in the control figures of the seven-year plan (1959-1965) they were set at only 7.5 per cent. In contrast to other branches of the national economy, construction on the state farms and particularly on the collective farms was not fully provided with materials and integrated equipment. Large amounts were frequently channeled into projects whose construction was not demanded by the urgent interests of production. As a result these expenditures did not yield an economic effect, and the national economy thereby suffered losses. Third, practically nothing was done to raise farming standards or increase fertility. Many collective and state farms violated the crop rotation and failed to observe the elementary rules of agro-technology. The central agencies issued various kinds of stereotyped instruction on tilling the soil, on determining the structure of sown areas and replacing one farming system by another, and on caring for and feeding livestock, without taking into account natural, economic and production conditions or local experience. All this prevented the planned management of the farms, reduced the role of the land agencies and did not contribute to the productive utilization of the land. Finally, in speaking about the reasons for the lag in agriculture, we must also acknowledge that there have been serious shortcomings in the work of party, soviet and land agencies. Of course, the work of our cadres was made more complicated by the atmosphere of frequent reorganizations and changes. Nevertheless, we have not utilized all the possibilities at our disposal. We have done insufficient work with people, we have been lax in basing ourselves on specialists and on agricultural science, we have been unable to organize properly the generalization and dissemination of advanced experience. Comrades! We encounter the consequences of mistakes in the guidance of agriculture in all zones of the country, but they have had a special effect in the regions of the non-black-earth belt. Take Smolensk Province, for example. In the past five years the gross output of agriculture there has risen by only 1 per cent. The province has not even reached its pre-war level of production of the most important types of crops. The yields of crops in the province remain low. The milk yield per cow on the collective and state farms has declined by almost 400 kg. All the branches of agriculture except for flax are unprofitable. The situation that has evolved cannot but arouse our serious concern about the state of affairs in agriculture. In this connection the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee has drawn up and will submit for the consideration of the Central Committee’s plenary session important economic measures aimed at the organizational and economic strengthening of the collective and state farms. We understand that an upsurge in agriculture is something that is vitally necessary to us for the successful construction of communism. In order to resolve this nationwide task, we must put a firm economic foundation under agriculture. V. I. Lenin regarded this question as one of the most important questions of the Party’s economic policy, since it touches upon the very foundation of the Soviet state-the relationship of the working class and the peasantry. We must correct the mistakes that have been made in agriculture more quickly and put an end to subjectivism. We must utilize on a broad economic basis material and moral incentives for the development of production. Great efforts and a decisive change in methods of work is demanded of party, soviet and economic agencies, of all of us …

Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XVII, No. 12 (1965), p. 3 (extracts).

 

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