[lbo-talk] Mr Pugliese learns to Bowl a Googlie. Pt 2.

Hari Kumar hari.kumar at sympatico.ca
Sun Feb 15 07:33:08 PST 2004


"It has been claimed that Soviet agriculture was destroyed by Stalin, using Lysenko's incorrect theories. Leaving aside the issue of how widely Lysenkoist practices were actually implemented on farms, the figures for agriculture do not support the contention. Table 2 below shows the yields of wheat, relative to the base years 1926-1928, for the USA and the USSR.

It is drawn from Levins and Lewontin, Ibid, p. 190, and was compiled from the U.S.Bureau of the Census, 1975. Obviously the figures for the war years show the expected devastation in the Soviet Union due to the ravages of the War. Thereafter, in the only reasonable years that could be in any way attributable to Stalin's "terrible influence" : There does not appear to be the relative impoverishment of supply the anti-Stalin propagandists complain of. Subsequent to Stalin's death even, the supply from the farm was not a problem. Of course then the socials effects of the resurrection of private property makes an enormous impact upon the distribution of the available supply.

TABLE 2.Comparison USA & USSR Wheat Yields By Year YEARS USA SOVIET UNION 1926-28 BASE 100(14.83BU/ACRE) 100 (6.69 bu/acre) 1929-31 98 104 1932-34 82 93 1935-37 87 97 1938-1940 96 113 1941-44 118 - 1945-47 118 72 1948-1950 116 106 1951-53 116 135 1954-1956 128 130 1957-59 159 172 1960-62 169 184

Thus the allegation that USSR agriculture was severely damaged under Stalin is incorrect. According to Lewins and Lewontin, who are certainly not proponents for Stalin, the figures for the 1930's may be overestimated; but the figures for the post war years and the base years are not affected. They conclude: "There is no evidence that Soviet agriculture was damaged." Lewins and Lewontin, p.19-1.

Khrushchev charged in his "secret speech" that Stalin had neglected agriculture and could not see the importance of updating it. This is quite false, as Stalin attacked backwardness in agriculture saying :

"It would hamper the continued growth of the productive forces of our country more and more as time goes on." Cited by Durgin, p.138.

In fact amounts spent under Stalin on agriculture were rising until his death:

"The trend toward an increasing share of investment clearly began a decade prior to Stalin's death.. The rate of increase in agriculture's share slowed abruptly and came to a halt in the years following his death." Durgin. p.125.

Khrushchev reverted to an older debate, and was pushing the extended use of fertilizers, even though the chemical industry at that time was not able to provide enough. He campaigned heavily against Travopole. Unhappy consequences flowed from Khrushchev's bias against both Travopole and his stopping of the irrigation programme:

"The widespread damage caused by the dust storms of 1960 and 1962 brought the problem of wind erosion to the attention of a wide public.. water erosion is a widespread scourge affecting almost 50 million ha of the European part of the RSSR.. The Ukraine suffers considerable annual damage. Of a total of 42 million ha inspected.. 13 million were affected.. it was calculated that throughout the USSR 500 million tonnes of topsoil were washed away annually." McCauley p.159-60.

As McCauley sadly says:

"Such official neglect is even more surprising when one recalls that many of the pioneers of the study of soil were Russian. Soil science is replete with Russian words now accepted in other languages." p.160. _______________________________________END_______________________________________________END_________________________________________

To come when i am next allowed to post - the Good Marhsall Tukhachevsky & The Standard of Living in the Good Old USSR...............................................Hari pulling up his stumps & going home.



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