Priorities of the Soviet agrarian policy in 1953-1964 and attempts to overcome Stalin's disbalance in agriculture

A. Rakov
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A. Rakov: National Research University "Higher School of Economics", Russia

Journal of the New Economic Association, 2020, vol. 48, issue 4, 162-183

Abstract: We discuss the following questions: what the party and state agricultural policy was like, what problems it caused and the priorities of development. Step by step the conditions for reconstruction of the Soviet agriculture in a historical context are considered. Besides, concrete Khrushchev's strides - so called three "super-programs", namely - virgin lands campaign, corn epopee and "to catch up with America and outstrip it". Moreover, attempts to get rid of agrarian problems in 1953-1964 and final statistics of gross output of agricultural products are analyzed. As the analysis of documents shows, abolishing of MTS became ineffective and led to the conditions of buyout of all equipment by kolkhozs that resulted in increase of their debts and their gradual devastation. Real per capita measures dethrone the common positive trend. As an exception from such positive tendency we have a year of 1963 which is clearly out, because in fact there was exhaustion of the extensive potential of grain production and tragic summer drought which brought to the failure of grain procurements and became crucial for livestock sector because of that. Subsequent failures in attempts to "feeding people" and provide stable development of agriculture were the reasons for an outflow of teenagers from a village to a city.

Keywords: N. Khrushchev; G. Malenkov; reforms; MTS; gross output; grain problem; personal household (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N44 P21 P26 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nea:journl:y:2020:i:48:p:162-183

DOI: 10.31737/2221-2264-2020-48-4-7

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