Table 75 Livestock numbers in the USSR and USA
Parameter
Soviet Union
United States
Number of cattle (millions) Cows (millions) Sheep and goats (millions) Pigs (millions) Convenient units (millions) Meat production (millions of tons) Meat production (kg per capita)
* Data on the livestock inventory relate to January 1962. Data on meat production are given for 1960. The number of convenient units (or heads) is calculated on the basis that one pig equals 0.6 head of cattle and one sheep or goat equals 0.4 head of cattle.
Source: Popluiko, 1962.
total. Managers had long tended to keep more cows than sound husbandry would recommend, and also to keep old cows beyond their most productive age—all for the sake of statistics rather than solid economic achievement. The proportion of low-quality cows reached 30 percent (Chugunov, 1964).
Despite all efforts, the rate of growth in livestock herds steadily dropped from the beginning of the campaign in 1957. For example, cattle herds were growing at a rate of 9 percent per annum in 1958, but the rate was down to 5 percent in 1960 and 2 percent in 1961. Cows were down from 8 percent to 2 percent, and sheep from 11 percent to 5 percent (Vestnik statistiki, 1960). Meat and milk production in 1960 and 1961 were lower than in 1959. Thus the official statistics reveal that livestock breeding had actually gone into a recession in the period 1959 to 1961. The situation was so serious that it began to be spoken about openly in the Soviet press, and at least two regional Communist Party first secretaries were fired because of failure to fulfill livestock plans (Krasnodarsky krai and Semipalatinsk oblast) (Gamburtsev, 1961).
苏联领导人伊斯兰教纪元以来,已经过去了五年unced the target of "catching up with America" in relation to meat production, but results were disappointing, especially when compared with Western countries. Table 7.5. gives a comparison of livestock productivity in the USSR and the United States for 1 January 1962. The statistics show a striking difference in the productivity of the livestock sectors in the two countries.
The principal reason for this failure was that Stalin's model of the kolkhoz system still existed during the Khrushchev era. Although in 1958 the system of economic and political control over the kolkhozes by the MTS s had been dismantled, there was no significant change in the relationship between the collective farms and the state. The distorted price relationship established by the state was a major obstacle to the development ofSoviet agriculture. The output of most crops and animal products in the public sector was achieved either at a loss or at very low rates of profitability. Thus the more a farm sold to the state, the more losses it incurred. This was especially true for meat production. It was more profitable (or less unprofitable) for farms to sell grain and potatoes than feed it to their livestock. To produce 1 kilogram live weight of pork (worth 7 rubles) required 16 kilograms of potatoes, valued at 8.48 rubles. As feed costs are generally 60 percent of the cost of production, the net loss for such operations was prohibitive (Voprosy ekonomiki, 1958). Thus 1958 prices did not cover the costs of production: collective farmers were effectively "subsidizing" urban consumers in their meat and dairy food purchases (Voprosy ekonomiki, 1958).
To stimulate meat production in kolkhozes and sovkhozes, the Soviet authorities had to raise the purchase prices for meat and dairy products in 1958. However, this increase in price did not solve the problem. Simultaneously, in order to reach the high planned targets, peasants increased the number of cattle while the feeding base remained poor. This led to increases in the cost of meat production. In 1962 the magazine Ekonomika Sel'skogo Khozyastva (Economy of agriculture) reported that during the period 1957 to 1960 the cost of meat and dairy production had risen dramatically in many sovkhozes of the Soviet republics. For example, the cost of meat production had increased by 30 percent. According to the magazine, this was caused by a worsening situation regarding feed supplies, causing a slowdown in the growth in the number of cattle. In most regions the growth of forage production was behind that of the numbers of cattle and poultry. Cattle received minimal feed, only enough to keep them more or less alive during the long winter. The productivity of the cattle decreased and the cost of meat and dairy production increased as a result. The magazine noted that if the harvest in a particular year did not produce enough feed, and if mechanization was still at a low level, then sovkhozes and kolkhozes could only produce meat and milk by incurring great losses to themselves. The level of mechanization was still very low because of weak investment by the state. At the beginning of the 1960s, only 44 percent of pigs and 33 percent of cattle were supplied with water via an automated system, and only 10 percent of cows were milked by electric machines (Ekonomika Sel'skogo Khozyastva, 1962).
At the beginning of the 1960s, the gap between production costs and retail price for meat had widened. In 1960, the cost of producing one centner of beef was 91.6 rubles while its retail price was 59.1 rubles. These figures underline the absurdity of Khrushchev's great meat and milk campaign, conducted at a time when all livestock products incurred heavy losses for farms. However, in 1961 Khrushchev still warned kolkhozes that the state was not going to further subsidize meat production. He demanded that kolkhozes should find ways to raise their productivity by themselves and that they use cheaper feed in order to double meat production by 1965.
However, in 1962, after some hesitation, the Soviet government started to reform purchase and retail prices. The new prices, set in a decree dated 1 June 1962, brought average production costs and selling prices more into line. According to the decree, the purchase prices for meat and dairy products were raised by 35 and 20 percent respectively. While before the reform kolkhozes had faced 32 to 33 percent losses because of the low purchase prices, after the reform they were to have 2 to 3 percent profit. It was too little to stimulate the activity of the farms. Ekonomika Sel'skogo Khozyastva (1962) had disclosed that a 35 percent increase in the price of meat was still not sufficient to cover the costs of production. One centner of meat (live weight) in the RSFSR, according to the journal, cost 87.1 rubles to produce, whereas the average purchase price was still only 81 rubles. The deficit had to be covered by cutting production costs. The journal claimed that if the harvest of 1962 did not bring sufficient amounts of forage, and if the mechanization of the livestock sector did not move forward, then production costs would not decrease and meat production would still be an unprofitable sector.
The primary reason for the low productivity of the livestock sector was still insufficient animal feed for the planned growth in livestock numbers in the required, short, period. Neither grain nor other fodder harvests reached the levels planned to support Khrushchev's livestock program. It is evident that fodder production, including feed grain, should have grown faster than the size of the herd. When, in 1957, Khrushchev set the target of tripling meat production, targets for a rapid increase in fodder production (by 2.6 to 3 times) was announced as well.
Fodder |
1955 |
1965 |
Recommended |
Pasture grass |
23.4 |
29 |
60.8 |
Coarse: |
51.4 |
35.7 |
67.2 |
Inc. Perennial grass |
7.5 |
6.4 |
- |
Annual grass |
5.3 |
8.0 |
- |
Straw |
15.6 |
19.0 |
- |
Hay |
22.8 |
2.3 |
- |
Succulent |
8.4 |
34 |
54.8 |
Inc. silage |
3.4 |
14.9 |
- |
Grain |
12.5 |
33.4 |
66.2 |
Total |
95.7 |
132.1 |
249 |
Source: the recommended figures are calculated on the basis of the report by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Pelt, 1959); statistical data are found in the Soviet statistical yearbook Narodnoe khozyastvo RSFSR v 1971, 1972.
Source: the recommended figures are calculated on the basis of the report by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Pelt, 1959); statistical data are found in the Soviet statistical yearbook Narodnoe khozyastvo RSFSR v 1971, 1972.
In 1959, the USSR Academy of Sciences published a report investigating the state of fodder resources in the country in the context of the new party targets for the livestock sector (Pelt, 1959). The report repeated Khrushchev's expectations for the development of fodder resources. According to the report, the productivity of fodder crops should increase by 2.6 times per 100 hectares, the share of succulent fodder should increase by 2.5 times (from 8.8 percent to 22 percent) as compared with 1955, while the proportion of coarse food should decrease by half (from 53.5 percent to 27 percent), although their amount should increase in absolute terms. The report concluded that about 50 percent of the gross grain production should be allocated for the feeding of livestock but it gave no indication of whether actual or planned harvests were used in its calculation. No word was said about the unrealistic character of these estimates (Table 7.6.).
What happened in 1965 was that production in all categories of fodder crops exceeded the 1955 figure by only 1.4 times instead of 2.6 (this planned level of total fodder production had never been achieved in the USSR). Moreover, the amount of feed available per head of livestock in 1965, due to the growth of the livestock inventory, was at the level of 1950 and reached only 70 percent of the norm (Table 7.7.). Compared with 1955, the feed consumption per unit of livestock
Fodder |
1950 |
1955 |
1965 |
Norm |
Pasture grass |
5.6 |
5.9 |
4.8 |
7-8.5 |
Coarse |
10.8 |
12.9 |
5.9 |
12 |
Inc. perennial grass |
- |
1.9 |
1.1 |
- |
Hay |
- |
5. |
0.4 |
- |
Succulent |
1.8 |
2.1 |
5.6 |
7-9 |
Grain |
.8 |
3.2 |
5.5 |
2.8-4.5 |
Total |
21 |
24.1 |
21.8 |
28-34 |
来源:规范饲料消费Selskoe khozyastvo Komi ASSR, 1951; statistical data are found in the Soviet statistical yearbook Narodnoe khozyastvo RSFSR v 1971, 1972.
来源:规范饲料消费Selskoe khozyastvo Komi ASSR, 1951; statistical data are found in the Soviet statistical yearbook Narodnoe khozyastvo RSFSR v 1971, 1972.
decreased in the 1960s. In 1961, in a speech in Tselinograd (Kazakhstan), Khrushchev acknowledged this fact, saying that the size of Soviet livestock inventories had increased faster than fodder production (Pravda, 1961).
The problem was that the productivity of fodder crops remained very low in the USSR. The report of the Academy of Sciences made its calculations for 1965 assuming much higher productivity of all fodder crops than in 1955. It was assumed that the average productivity for feed cereals would be as high as 14 to 16 centners per hectare; that of hay or annual grass 25 centners per hectare; perennial grass 30 centners per hectare; silage 400 centners per hectare; and root crops 350 centners per hectare. Unfortunately, no progress in terms of crop yields could be observed by 1965.Yields of feed cereals (oats and barley) were still 8 to 10 centners per hectare, annual and perennial grasses yielded only 12 to 14 centners per hectare, roots 100 centners per hectare, and silage 116 to 118 centners per hectare.
The most severe challenge came from the very poor state of natural meadows in the USSR. The report assumed that about 30 million hectares of hayfield and pasture would be radically improved and their productivity (hay) would reach 25 to 30 centners per hectare, but official statistics (for the RSFSR) show that the average productivity of hay-fields remained very low, at 6 to 8 centners per hectare (Narodnoe khozyastvo RSFSR v 1971, 1972). Moreover, the absolute amount of hay obtained from natural grasslands declined on a scale unprecedented in the history of Russia. Between 1955 and 1965, the total production of hay dropped by 90 percent—from 23.4 to 2.3 million tons of standard feed units.
这是一个直接result of the virgin land campaign, when millions of hectares of natural grassland were lost. The term "virgin lands" was certainly misleading. All of the lands that were to be ploughed were not virgin steppe: some were pastures or hayfields. The expansion of the wheat crop area in Kazakhstan and Western Siberia was achieved exclusively at the expense of pasturelands. The report of the Academy of Sciences on feed resources mentioned this problem of the hay shortage and its connection with the ploughing of "virgin lands". It claimed that in the Altai region (Western Siberia), the growth in arable land had been achieved at the expense of the best hayfields and pastures of the region. During the virgin land campaign, the area of pastureland and hayfields in Siberia decreased by 2 to 3 times. The report also reveals that in Kazakhstan, pastureland and hayfields occupied 80 percent ofagricultural landin 1954, but only 46 and 4.8 percent (respectively) by the end of 1955.
A similar problem of the reduction in grassland emerged in the traditional agricultural regions of European Russia. Since there were no "virgin lands" in the latter, the order was to plough land that had long lain fallow. The claim "Fallow land is lost land; erosion is a fiction" became a slogan on the front pages of Soviet papers at that time. Soviet economists calculated how much grain a region was losing if it did not sow its long-term fallow lands. In 1950, the total area of fallow land in the USSR reached 32 million hectares, while in 1961 the figure was half of this, at 16 million hectares (Mistakes in Exploitation, 1967). The fallow lands played an important role not only in restoring nutrients to the soil but also for providing grazing in early spring and producing hay for cattle.
Khrushchev placed a great deal of hope in the radical expansion of the corn crop area. This idea was announced for the first time by the Soviet leader at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee in January 1955 (this plenum was exclusively devoted to livestock production). In his speech Khrushchev announced the target of increasing the acreage of corn from 3.5 million hectares to as much as 28 million hectares by 1960. He said that "the extension of areas sown under corn in our country is one of the largest reserves for the production of grain. If by 1960 we increase the areas sown under corn from the 3.5 million hectares of
1953 to not less than 28 million hectares, this will enable us to increase considerably the production of grain." The increased area planted with corn was to come from several sources: (a) about 8.5 million hectares of low-yielding grain crops; (b) about 4 million hectares of various fodder crops, grasses, and root crops; and (c) some 3.0 million hectares of low-production meadows, pastures, and abandoned land. All of these were to be ploughed and sown with corn. These three sources were to supply about 15.5 million hectares of land for corn. Additional land for corn was to be obtained by planting corn in clear or clean fallow land (Johnson, 1955).
Khrushchev presented figures to prove that corn cultivation would be more profitable than any of the above-mentioned crops, as well as meadows and pasture. To prove the low potential of perennial hay he indicated that the grain crops on the Ministry of State farms had a biological yield of 10.2 centners or 1,420 feed units per hectare, while the average yield from perennial hay was only 550 feed units (Pravda, 1954). Only sugar beet yielded more feed units per hectare than corn.
The personal dedication of Khrushchev to corn cultivation became a subject for numerous anecdotes in the USSR. It is frequently recalled that the Soviet leader ordered virtually every farm to grow some corn, regardless of climatic conditions that were sometimes unsuitable. However, some experts believe that there were some good reasons for the corn cultivation program. One American expert, D. G. Johnson (1955), provided perhaps the first comprehensive analysis of the program, which is worth describing here.
Johnson first of all stressed that Khrushchev's program emphasized the production of silage from corn rather than the production of mature ear corn. If Khrushchev had talked about the program in terms of harvesting mature ear corn, the program would certainly have been a failure. However, corn can be grown for silage with reasonable success in areas with too short a growing season for corn to fully ripen. Besides, corn can be harvested for silage under weather conditions that are a serious deterrent to the harvesting of hay. Even if the harvest of corn for silage was delayed beyond the optimum date, there would still be a large yield in terms of fodder even if the grain had not entirely ripened. Also, corn is quite efficient in the utilization of moisture. The corn plant transpires only about two-thirds as much water per pound of dry matter as do wheat, barley, or oats. Only millet and sorghum equal or surpass corn in their ability to produce biomass from a given amount of water (ibid.).
Khrushchev was certainly mistaken in his expectations as the figures he used for the corn harvest were too high. The Soviet leader quoted a high yield of corn—27.5 to 30.0 metric tons per hectare. However, in the United States as a whole, yields seldom averaged more than 22 tons. In Iowa, the state with the highest yield of ear corn (between 30 and 40 centners per hectare), the silage yield did not exceed 25 metric tons even in relatively favorable growing seasons. However, in Dakota, an area quite similar to the contemporary grain area in the Ukraine, silage yields were not 27 to 30 metric tons per hectare but only about 10 tons (ibid.). The other expectations of the Soviet leader, of increasing corn productivity due to fertilizer application, more labor, or the introduction of hybrid corn, also looked doubtful.
这一分析,由约翰逊1955年,秀n proved to be correct as the productivity of corn never reached the level planned by Khrushchev's program. The planned planting area had not been reached and corn productivity had not increased. According to official Soviet statistics, the silage yield was only about 10 to 12 tons per hectare rather than 27.5 to 30 tons per hectare. In total, the production of silage increased 4.4 times, but this increase did not even compensate for the losses in hay production between 1955 and 1965.
There were two stages in the expansion of the corn crop in the country. The first took place between 1955 and 1957 in the course of the virgin land campaign. During 1955-1957 some 18 million hectares were sown with corn. Subsequently, no increase took place in the crop area and in many regions the area of corn even decreased in the following years. From 1958 to 1960 there was only a slight growth in corn crop area, but in 1961-1962 a new wave of the corn program started and, as a result, an additional 8 million hectares were planted in the Russian Federation alone. This expansion of the corn area was again conducted at the expense of grass fodder land and meadows.
The second wave of expansion of the corn crop started in 1962 (probably in reaction to the recession in the livestock sector in 19601961). In March 1962 a resolution on the ploughing of grasslands was adopted by the CPSU Central Committee. At that time perennial and annual grass occupied 36 million hectares, about 11 million hectares were planted with oats, and 16 million hectares were fallow. In total these lands occupied 63 million hectares, or 29 percent of the total area of arable land of the USSR. Khrushchev insisted on reducing the area of grass by 8 million hectares, and that of fallow land by 7 million hectares.
Instead, the area under maize, peas, beet, and other cultivated crops was significantly increased. He strongly rejected the grass rotation system. Local authorities tried too vigorously to implement the resolution. As a result, meadows were ploughed, and clover and oat crops were replaced by maize and peas regardless of the local natural features. By 1963, the area of fallow land had decreased from 16 to 6.3 million hectares. In the RSFSR, the area under perennial grass decreased by 25 percent between 1960 and 1965 (Narodnoe khozyastvo RSFSR v 1965, 1966).
By the beginning of the 1960s, many Soviet experts were already opposed to the corn campaign, which, for the first time, led to criticism of the virgin land project itself. Even some local authorities (Novgorod, Vologda, Omsk, Perm, Kemerevo) opposed the resolution on the ploughing of grasslands. Many Soviet writers strongly criticized the Soviet leader's idea. They wrote of the uselessness of cultivating maize in the northern forest zone. They also wrote that the ploughing of alluvial plains led to the erosion of the top layer of the soil during spring flooding. In some places farmers had to leave these areas completely. It was stated that the real issue was the poor state of pastures and hayfields, which needed to be improved. In forest and forest steppe zones, 40 million hectares of hayfield and pastureland were overgrown with bushes and trees (Mondich, 1963).
Between 1961 and 1963 there was an explosion of critical articles in the Soviet media concerning the poor state of pastures and hayfields in the country. Literaturnaya Gazeta of 8 April published the article "Dispute on (the river) Vyatka" (1961), which spoke out against the ploughing of flood meadowsalong the riverVyatka, as in pre-revolu-tionary time livestock breeding had flourished there. Pravda (1963) carried an article which severely criticized the state of agriculture in Vologda oblast (Central Russia). For the past three years livestock indices had been at a standstill (for meat), or in some cases had fallen (for dairy products). The big issue was fodder in an area that had always specialized in milk, butter, and meat. The author noted that the rich pasture-land was being increasingly overgrown with shrubs, and he placed the blame at the door of the local party leadership. However, it can be seen from his article that the main reason lay in Khrushchev's agricultural reorganization and his struggle against the grassland system. His recipe for growing more corn and beet had not been vindicated in the northern areas. In 1962, Vologda oblast had to purchase from the state about 50,000 tons of concentrated feed. The problem was that beet and corn were not suitable for the conditions prevailing in such northern regions (State of agriculture in Vologda oblast, 1963).
The chairman of Tambov (Central Black Earth region) agricultural obispolkom (local executive committee), V. Cherny, in the article "Meadows and pastures are not stepchildren", published in the central paper Izvestia (1964), wrote: "The situation of the meadows and pastures is very alarming. Because of thewastefulattitude towards meadows, especially towards alluvial lands, suitable areas for hay cultivation are decreasing because of swamp formation and overgrowth. These areas are no longer suitable for mechanized harvesting. Only recently the amount of meadow hay gathered has been cut by half. In one kolkhoz only 1.2 centners of hay per hectare are gathered." The chairman recalled that a geo-botanical investigation of the meadows of Tambov province, conducted in 1915 and 1916, showed that in those years the alluvial meadows usually yielded between 30 and 40 centners of hay per hectare.
The shortage of hay resources in central regions resulted in large straw imports from remote southern regions. Agricultural "trou-bleshooters" from the Moscow oblast spent months in Kuban (North Caucasus) and Volgograd oblasts (Low Volga), where they purchased straw to send to the Moscow oblast farms in order to cover the deficit in their fodder balance. In 1963 alone, the Yegoryevsk administration (a district in Moscow oblast) purchased 190,000 rubles worth of fodder from distant regions. In 1964, the expenditure was expected to be the same. These purchases placed a heavy burden on the farms because the cost of a ton of delivered straw from these southern provinces was 35 to 40 rubles (including transportation), while the cost of a ton of hay in the Moscow region, even in a poor harvest year, was only 15 to 16 rubles. Despite the fact that for every head of horned cattle there was on average up to two hectares of meadowland in the Moscow oblast, very little hay was prepared. According to local farmers: "One needs only to enquire about the condition of the fodder lands and then everything becomes clear. The planted grasses and the 'improved meadows' which supply the main bulk of hay are in a state of neglect. More than 30 percent of these 'improved meadows' give very little: up to five or six centners per hectare" (United Press International, 1963). Almost all of the farms were planning to plant perennial grasses, but even this project was less than 30 percent completed. Even the improved meadows were not providing much hay because they were not given nitrogen-phosphorus and potashfertilizers(NPK), as a result of which the yields, a mere three years after the basic improvements began, had again fallen to seven to eight centners per hectare of hay. In addition, expenditures for improving one hectare of meadowland ranged from 90 to 120 rubles. There was not enough seed, so perennial grasses were not sown (United Press International, 1963).
Some papers were concerned about erosion problems caused by the ploughing of meadows. In the south of the Soviet Union, in the first year of the "promising perspective of opening up the virgin lands', more than 50,000 hectares of meadows were ploughed up on sandy and sandy loam soils. All of this area was immediately turned ontowindblown sanddrifts. This phenomenon, termed a "disaster" by one paper, later spread over the entire Caspian coastal area and the virgin lands.
The paper Komsomol'skaya Pravda (in 1964, just a few months before Khrushchev's resignation), published an article about erosion in the Black Earth regions. In Voronezh oblast more than 500,000 hectares, including 200,000 hectares of fallow land, had been lost because of the disastrous effects of soil erosion. As the reason for the annual loss of thousands of hectares of land to erosion in the Central Black Earth region, the author gave the following explanation: "They have been carried away with the mastery of so-called virgin lands in the Black Earth region. They rashly exposed many meadows and pastures on the sides of hills, on river banks, and around ponds." These exposed areas ought to have been planted with grass. But, notes the author, at that time "ill-fated grassland agriculture had come under extremely heavy fire", so specialists decided to do nothing. "The time was bad. We would be heavily criticized."
牧场的不良状况的结果virgin land campaign was also widely discussed. A chief specialist for sheep breeding in the USSR Ministry of Agriculture stated that because natural pastures in the USSR had been ploughed up, the period during which sheep were kept in stalls had been prolonged. Moreover, the production of hay had decreased sharply owing to the poor management of the meadows. Pastures had been subject to waterlogging and had become overgrown with bushes. This had compelled many kolkhozes and sovkhozes to reduce their sheep breeding. In the Ukraine, in 1963 alone, the number of sheep on kolkhozes and sovkhozes decreased by 14 percent; in Belo-rus by 28 percent; and in the Baltic republics by 22 to 26 percent. In the Ivanovo, Kostroma,Yaroslav, Orel, and Smolensk oblasts, the number of sheep decreased by one-third (Pravda, 1964a).
The shortage of hay reserves put greater pressure on pastureland. The most remarkable example is the Kalmyk pasture, which had also been partly ploughed during the virgin land campaign. Between 1961 and 1963, pressure on the remaining pasture in the Kalmyk provinces had increased, since many farmers from the neighboring Stavropol, Dagestan, Astrakhan, and Rostov provinces brought in their flocks of sheep. Thousands of shepherds were reported to be passing the winter in the black earth region of Kalmykia. Almost 2.5 million sheep were grazing in these open-range pastures. The mild, relatively snow-free winter and the bountiful pastures allowed livestock to be provided with grass almost all the time, but the pastures became overgrazed and poorer. Some kolkhozes and sovkhozes were keeping their sheep in the area all the year round, thus exhausting and destroying the pastures. The amount ofwind-blown sandhad sharply increased in the last decade. However, no radical measures for improving the pastures had been undertaken, according to Pravda (1964b).
All these publications clearly indicate that in the early 1960s, serious opposition to the agricultural policy of Khrushchev appeared in all strata of Soviet society (writers, local administrators, top-level agricultural experts). Thevirgin lands campaignhad brought neither the expected increases in grain harvests nor an abundance of fodder for the country. A rapid turnover of agricultural officials, ousted from their posts for failing to meet plan targets, had been a symptom of the deep crisis in Soviet agriculture. From 1960, three ministers of agriculture had lost their posts along with countless lesser officials. A large number of collective and state farms saw their chairmen replaced two or three times in a single year (Stalin's collective farm system, 1964).
In February 1964, Premier Khrushchev openly acknowledged the fallibility of his virgin land program. Khrushchev was reported by foreign media to have said that the wheat-growing virgin lands were plagued by repeateddroughtsand soil erosion and would be turned back to grazing. The Soviet leader suggested that the 100 million acres planted with wheat over the last ten years, despite the hazardous climate, had performed a "useful role in a particular period" of Soviet economic development. But he added (in a talk with an Italian publisher) that this territory would no longer be planted with crops after the progress via the present fertilizer and irrigation programs had begun to pay off with higher yields per acre in the more favorable farming areas of the Soviet Union (New York Times, 1964a).
Western journalists noticed that a party-government statement published on the front page of Pravda made no mention of such a long-term plan (it was a joint statement of the Communist Party and the government, marking the tenth anniversary of the program) (New York Times, 1964b). Several months later (in October 1964) Khrushchev was conspiratorially replaced by Leonid Brezhnev in the post of secretary general of the CPSU. His "voluntary and non-scientific" approach was severely criticized by the October Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1964. No protest in Soviet society against the departure of Nikita Khrushchev is known.
Continue reading here:Figure 72 Grain production and scale of drought in the RSFSR 19541965
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