Soviet agriculture

[Unicorn]

What was the cause of the problems in Soviet agriculture since 1960s? Tsarist Russia was a net exporter of grain but the Soviet Union had to import huge amounts of grain in the 1970s and 1980s. The cost of grain imports was a large factor in the collapse of the USSR.

What could the Soviets have done better?

[BobKKKindle$]

Ultimately, the problem was a lack of material incentive, as agricultural workers did not face the threat of unemployment, and did not receive any reward for increasing their output, and so basically did the bare minimum of work so that they could spend more time tending for the private plots they were allowed to own - they cared more about these plots than the land which was use to produce food for the state, because they were able to keep the produce for their own personal consumption, or to sell, to generate extra income.

As a result, there was a shortage of grain, and private plots accounted for a large share of output, even though, in terms of actual land use, they were much smaller than the main agricultural land.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ You guys are focusing only on the kolkhozy, though.

The Virgin Islands scheme was a turning point in Soviet agricultural history, since from there onwards there was a LATE drive towards the more productive sovkhozization. Oh, and there were no "private plots" around state farms. ;)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/kautsky-bolshevik-mistake-t59382/index.html

[Unicorn]

Ultimately, the problem was a lack of material incentive, as agricultural workers did not face the threat of unemployment, and did not receive any reward for increasing their output, and so basically did the bare minimum of work so that they could spend more time tending for the private plots they were allowed to own - they cared more about these plots than the land which was use to produce food for the state, because they were able to keep the produce for their own personal consumption, or to sell, to generate extra income.

As a result, there was a shortage of grain, and private plots accounted for a large share of output, even though, in terms of actual land use, they were much smaller than the main agricultural land.
Do you imply that the Soviet Union should have privatized the agricultural sector? :glare:
That is not a solution. Your analysis is shallow and it sounds like you are parroting Cold War anti-communist propaganda.

Joseph Medley writes:



The private plots may produce 25% of agricultural output on only 3% of the land, but they require about 40% of agricultural labor to achieve this level of output. Western critics argue that because capitalist farming in the Soviet Union is more efficient than socialist, it should replace it. To support their argument they point to the high output to land ratio in private farming. Their view obscures the special characteristics of the crops upon which private farming concentrates, it overlooks the socialist sector's comparable productivity in those particular crops, it omits mention of the significant indirect contribution that the socialized sector makes in support of the private and it ignores the disproportionately large labor requirements of the private sector.

http://www.usm.maine.edu/eco/joe/works/Soviet.html

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ The problem here is one of scale. More agricultural labour was required in the private plots because the more productive mass farming techniques couldn't be applied to the smaller private plots.

Remember also that the kolkhozy were owned by the petit-bourgeois farmers themselves. There was a lack of material incentive to work the main land because of the effective taxation of the produce.

But then again, why haven't my sovkhozy (a more proper transition to socialist agriculture) remarks been considered yet? The farm workers there were proper rural proletarians, earning wages and being subordinate to "red directors" like Lukashenko. :cool: