-----Mensagem original----- De: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]Em nome de Jon Johanning Enviada em: segunda-feira, 9 de fevereiro de 2004 12:27 Para: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Assunto: Re: [lbo-talk] Consumer goods (Back to the USSR)
One aspect of consumer goods that hasn't been discussed in this thread yet (or if it has, I've missed it) is food. One big part of anti-USSR propaganda I recall vividly is the constant pictures of grocery stores with one moldy cabbage on the shelves, and the claim that Soviet agriculture was always in trouble, partly because of the Lysenko business (also, I guess, because so much emphasis in the 5-year plans went to industrial development). Any truth to this?
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
-I have some data on this. The Soviet agricultural output remained
essentially stagnated from 1913-45, due to war and collectivization.
>From 1945-85, the Soviet agricultural output increased a lot, more
than in the USA, but this groth was only reached by massive investment
and subsidies. Still, USSR was a net grain importer, unlike Czarist
Russia. This happened because the internal food comsumptiom improved
a lot. According to a FAO report from 1983, the Soviet citizen had
basically the same caloric ingestion of a USA citizen (but with much
less meat). Another serious trouble with Soviet agriculture is that
there were massive losses in the process of storage/transportation,
which is more related to poor infrastructure than to collectivization.
Maybe Chris could add some comments on the Soviet agriculture.
Alexandre
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