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The Private Sector in Soviet Agriculture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

John W. De Pauw
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Extract

Western specialists have long recognized the importance of the private sector1 of Soviet agriculture to the economy in general and to family subsistence and income in particular. It provides a large proportion of the country's crop and vegetable output (primarily potatoes, vegetables, and fruits) and an even larger share of the products obtained from animal husbandry. In 1966, for example, the private sector produced 55,800,000 tons of potatoes or 64 percent of the USSR's total gross production of potatoes; 7,400,000 tons of vegetables or 43 percent of total production; 40 percent of its meat; 39 percent of its milk; and 66 percent of its egg production (see table). Of paramount significance is the fact that the private sector produces these quantities on only slightly more than 3 percent of the USSR's total sown land.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1969 , pp. 63 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1969

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References

1. This is a rendering of the Russian lichnoe podsobnoe khoziaistvo, literally“the private subsidiary economy.” It is not, however, comparable to private farming in the United States.

2. Venzher, V. G., Kolkhoznyi stroi na sovremennom etape (Moscow, 1966), p. 51 Google Scholar. Research on private sector production by J. A. Newth published in 1961 notes a similar breakdown for 1959. See his article,“Soviet Agriculture: The Private Sector, 1950- 1959,” Soviet Studies, October 1961, p. 171.

3. Makeenko, M,“Ekonomicheskaia rol1 lichnogo podsobnogo khoziaistva,” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1966, no. 10, p. 61 Google Scholar.

4. Ibid., p. 57.

5. Iumashev, M. I. and Zhaleiko, B. A., comps., Sbomik sakonov SSSR i ukasov Presidinma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 1938 g.-noiabria 1958 g. (Moscow, 1959), pp. 498–99 Google Scholar. The law excluded collective farmers and residents of urban centers in the Far North.

6. Pravda, Dec. 16, 1958.

7. Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta RSFSR, Aug. 12, 1959, p. 493.

8. Ibid., May 9, 1963, pp. 444-47.

9. Kraeva, A,“Lichnoe i obshchestvennoe v kollektivnom khoziaistve,” Partiinaia zhizn', 1965, no. 10, p. 23 Google Scholar.

10. See Khrushchev, N. S., Stroitel'stvo kommunizma v SSSR i rasvitie sel'skogo khosiaistvo, 4 (Moscow, 1963): 24–25 Google Scholar.“Goats,” Khrushchev said,“are really the enemies of urban parks” (p. 25).

11. Kraeva,“Lichnoe i obshchestvennoe,” p. 23.

12. See Ekonomicheskaia gazeta, Aug. 22, 1964, p. 32. Earlier issues, beginning with that of Feb. 15, 1964, carry articles clarifying the limits on the private plot. See especially the issue of Apr. 11, 1964, p. 32.

13. Sonin, M,“Kakova rol’ lichnogo podsobnoe khoziaistva trudiashchikhsia,” Poli ticheskoe samoobrasovanie, 1965, no. 2, p. 67 Google Scholar. The official Soviet handbook Narodnoe khosiaistvo SSSR v 1960 godu (Moscow, 1961), p. 389, gives 7, 230, 000 hectares as the acreage sown in private plots only. The residual of 1, 100, 000 hectares (8, 300, 000 hectares total, less 7, 200, 000 in private plots) probably reflects the acreage of the“service strips“ in 1959.

14. Sonin, p. 67. Sonin's total and the official handbook figure agree for 1962. The decline in the handbook data between 1959 and 1962 is only 14 percent, so the greater percentage decline given by Sonin probably reflects the decline in the acreage of service strips.

15. Ibid.

16. Nazarov, R,“Podsobnoe khoziaistvo: Ego rol1 i mesto v sel'skokhoziaistvennom proizvodstve,” Kommnnist, no. 16, November 1965, pp. 68–69 Google Scholar.

17. The text of the decrees is given in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Nov. 25, 1964, p. 1. The text of the decree affecting the private sector in the Kazakh SSR is reproduced in Kazakhstanskaia pravda, Dec. 4, 1964.

18. Current Digest, Nov. 25, 1964, p. 1.

19. Sovetskaia Rdssiia, Nov. 14, 1964.

20. Arutiunian, Iu. V.,“Sotsial'naia struktura sel'skogo naseleniia,” Voprosy filosofii, 1966, no. 5, p. 57 Google Scholar.

21. Sovetskaia Rossiia, Nov. 14, 1964.

22. Pravda, Nov. 15, 1964.

23. Sovetskaia Rossiia, Nov. 14, 1964.

24. Zhaleiko, Iumashev and, Sbomik, pp. 465–67Google Scholar. A law passed in 1956 also contained a similar incentive provision empowering the reduction in the private plot for those collective farmers failing to work the required number of labor-days in the socialized sector. Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, Istoriia kolkhosnogo prava, vol. 2, 1937-1958 gg. (Moscow, 1958), p. 451.

25. Sel'skaia shizn', Nov. 12, 1964.

26. Ibid., Nov. 18, 1964.

27. Sonin, p. 66. The author notes,“Just a short time ago collective farmers were individual peasants. Indeed, one cannot immediately eliminate all the traditions which have been stored up for centuries.“