The legacy that Stalin left was an agriculture in crisis – not in the sense of facing complete breakdown, as during the collectivisation drive of the early 30’s when famine stalked the land, but bogged down in a slough of stagnation lasting already a quarter of a century.
Stagnation of the grain harvest
The greatest achievements of Stalin’s agricultural policies were claimed in the field of grain production. But it is precisely in this field that information on economic achievements under Stalin was more misleading than in any other.
At the very beginning of the collectivisation drive in 1929, Stalin promised that in some three years the USSR would be the greatest grain producing country in the world. [1] A couple of years later came the great famine. This did not prevent Stalin from repeating the declaration, and promising (on December 1, 1935) that within three or four years USSR grain output would be raised to 120-130 million tons. [2] This is virtually the same figure – 130 million tons – the 18th Party Congress planned for the end of the Third Five-Year Plan in 1942. And, oddly, the target for Plan after Plan remained in the region of the same amount. The Fourth Five-Year Plan aimed at 125 million tons of grain for 1950. At the 19th Party Congress (1952) Malenkov proudly announced that at last a harvest of 130 million tons of grain had been collected. He concluded triumphantly: “The grain problem, which in the past was regarded as our most acute and gravest problem, has thus been solved, solved definitely and finally.” [3] On the basis of this victory. the Congress set the target for the Fifth Five-Year Plan at a rise in grain output of 40-50 per cent [4], or an overall output of some 175 million tons in 1955. The assurance given by Malenkov in 1952 that there was enough grain was repeated in September 1953 by Khrushchev. [5] And one Soviet economist, following Malenkov and Khrushchev, went so far as to write in 1953 that in 1952 grain output was 95.1 per cent above the 1910-14 level. [6]
However, this was a paper victory, the result of a statistical trick. Up to
1933, the grain crop was calculated as the quantity harvested and stored.
>From 1933 it was computed on the basis of what was grown in the field, the
so-called “biological yield”. From this figure 10 per cent was deducted, on
the assumption that this is the average amount lost between field and barn.
[A] The 1937 deductions for losses were discontinued altogether.
The two years 1933 and 1937 in which changes in statistical methods were introduced showed the greatest and most sudden jumps in gross output.
At last, on December 15th, 1958, Khruschev completely debunked the success story of Soviet grain, saying: “In actual fact, as regards grain production, the country remained for a long time at the level of pre- revolutionary Russia.” He went on to give the following figures to support this statement:
Sown Areas, Actual (Barn) Crop per hectare, and Total Crop
Grain Area (million hectares)
Crop per Hectare (centners)
Total Grain Return (million poods)
1910-44 (average per year
over present territory)
102.5
7.0
4,380
1949-53 (average per year)
105.2
7.7
4,942
As you see, in sown areas, crop yield and grain returns, the country remained, in practice, at the same level as before the Revolution, though in numerical strength the population, and especially that of the industrial centres and cities, had considerably increased ... [8]
Thus the harvest in 1949-53 was only 91.7 million tons, hardly larger than in 1910-14. During the same period the population increased by some 30 per cent! Stalin’s inheritance: Crisis in agriculture
Stagnation in livestock farming
http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s2
Low productivity of labour in Soviet agriculture
http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s3
Why stagnating agriculture became a major worry to the Kremlin
http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s4
> ...Low productivity of labour in Soviet agriculture
Official sanction was at last given to an airing of this problem by Khrushchev. In a statement to the Central Committee in December, 1958, when he cited comparative Soviet and US statistics for labour expenditure per unit of product in USSR (average for 1956-7) and USA (1956) [10]:
Labour expenditure per centner in hours
No. of times USA higher than USSR
US Farms
Sovkhozes
Kolkhozes
Sovkhozes
Kolkhozes
Grain
1.0
1.8
7.3
1.8
7.3
Potatoes
1.0
4.2
5.1
4.2
5.1
Beetroot
0.5
2.1
3.1
4.2
6.2
Raw Cotton
18.8
29.8
42.8
1.6
2.3
Milk
4.7
9.9
14.2
2.1
3.1
Weight cattle
7.9
52
112
6.6
14.2
Weight pigs
6.3
43
103
6.8
16.3
Khrushchev suggested that the American figures “coloured up” the picture by underestimating labour expenditure, while Soviet figures perhaps overestimated them. Nevertheless he stressed that the gap was extremely wide.
An important result of the low productivity of labour in Soviet agriculture is the high proportion of the population engaged in farming. It was estimated that in April 1956 not less than 56.6 per cent Of the population of USSR lived in the countryside [11] and 43 per cent of the population was engaged in agriculture. [12] As against this, in the United States, only 9 per cent of the population was engaged in agriculture in 1960...
Larger carrots: Higher prices paid by the state for agricultural output. http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s6 The Virgin Land Campaign http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s7 The Maize Campaign http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s8 Increased capital investment http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s9 Dismantling some of Stalin’s organisation structures: A short step back from overcentralised planning http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s10 Dismantling of the MTS http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s1.htm#s11 But the main emphasis on further regimentation of the agriculturists: More labour days demanded of kolkhoz members http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s2.htm#s12 Narrowing down the activities of the kolkhozniks’ private plot http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s2.htm#s13 Trend towards the sovkhoz http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s2.htm#s14 The crisis in agriculture continues ... http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s2.htm#s15 In conclusion http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1964/russia/ch11-s2.htm#s16
http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/soviet-union/soviet- union365.html An invaluable source of statistical data on the agro-industrial complex is the 1987 publication Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, compiled by the Soviet Union's State Committee for Statistics. USSR Situation and Outlook Report, published annually by the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, presents a concise overview of recent Soviet agricultural performance. D. Gale Johnson and Karen McConnell Brooks's Prospects for Soviet Agriculture in the 1980s examines Soviet agricultural efficiency in light of policy and natural and climatic factors. The Soviet Rural Economy, edited by Robert C. Stuart, presents several highly pertinent essays on Soviet agriculture, including Michael L. Wyzan's "The Kolkhoz and the Sovkhoz," Valentin Litvin's "Agro-Industrial Complexes," and Everett M. Jacobs's "Soviet Agricultural Management and Planning and the 1982 Administrative Reforms." Two other important anthologies are Agricultural Policies in the USSR and Eastern Europe, edited by Ronald A. Francisco, Betty A. Laird, and Roy D. Laird, and Soviet Agricultural and Peasant Affairs, edited by Roy D. Laird. Paul E. Lydolph's classic Geography of the USSR provides a comprehensive description of Soviet agricultural resources, including forestry and fishing. The evolution of current policy is traced by Karl-Eugen Waedekin in numerous Radio Liberty Research Bulletin reports, including "The Private Agricultural Sector in the 1980s," "What Is New about Brigades in Soviet Agriculture?" and "`Contract' and `Normless' Labor on Soviet Farms." Zhores A. Medvedev's Soviet Agriculture and Valentin Litvin's The Soviet Agro-Industrial Complex provide highly detailed descriptions of the organization and functioning of Soviet agriculture. (For further information and complete citations, see Soviet Union USSR - Bibliography.)