AGRICULTURE: A CONSPICUOUS WEAKNESS OF COMMUNISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400030031-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 24
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: July 1, 1968
• Content Type: REPORT

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25X1 July 1968
Agr:i.cul_turc: A Conspicuous Weakness of Communism
1:n our t:inirr> only a den u; :i gnor~ 7~1u..3 rqou1d darn say that
yar.Y, 2ngel, and. Lenin were enti.rol_y unfamiliar with agricultural
economics." (Literaturnaya Gazeta -- Literary Gazette, Soviet
weekly -- 8 May 1968 commenting on Agence France Presse inter-
vi_e:w on P5 April. 1968 of Jan Prochazka, Czech Communist writer.)
"... L i.ter.daltgjqt mLlj* s ojc,n ono( Ze.
cty.
a Slovensllj osud I:lastlikovan /oko
burioarnl naclonafsmus. Ant to nont
Oplnd novlnka. Vysu0tlull site /enom
tim, . to vzddlenost pdtL lisle verst
'pravdapodobna neobyde/nd. zkresluje
pohted no uddlostl, vOcl 1 ltd!...
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 Excerpts cpiEpvecdJo$rlftelE~~RAOc5/~P/ 70I,R~JReQP7tg~0g #000400030031-2
Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, May 1968
UNITED STATES AND SOVIET UNION:
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES
USSR as per-
Item
Year
Unit U.S.
USSR
centage of US
Population, July 1
1966
Millions 196.9
233.2
118
Civilian labor force (work
experience)
1966
---do--- 86.3
118.4
137
Annual average employment
1966
---do--- 72.9
110.0
151
Annual average employment in
agriculture
1966
---do--- 5.2
39.8
765
Farm share of total employment
(annual average)
1966
Percent
36.2
Sown cropland
1966
Millions of acres 298
511
171
Sown cropland per capita
1966
Acres 1.5
.2.2
147
Tractors on farms, Jan. 1
1967
Thousands 4,815
1,660
34
Motor trucks on farms, Jan. 1
1967
---do--- 3yl00
1,017
33
Grain combines on farms, Jan. 1
1967
---do--- 880
531
60
Agricultural consumption of
1966
Billions of kilo 29.1
23.2
80
electricity
Use of commercial fertilizer in
watt-hours
terms of principal plant nutrients:
Total
1966
1,000 short .12,445
tons
7,707
62
Per acre of sown area
1966
Pounds
84
30
36
UNITED STATES AND SOVIET UNION: PRODUCTION OF LIVESTOCK COMMODITIES, 1966
Commodity
Unit
U.S.
USSR
USSR as % of US
Beef and veal
Million pounds
20,604
8,245
40
Pork
---do---
11,328
7,440
66
Mutton, lamb, and goat
---do---
650
1,587
244
Poultry meat
---do---
7,596
1,764
23
Lard
---do---
1,932
1,880
93
Tallow and grease
---do---
5,026
530
11
Margarine and shortening
---do---
5,291
1,321
25
Milk (cows)
---do---
120,230
147,990
123
Butter
---do---
1,128
2,297
204
Eggs
Billion
66.4
31.7
48
Wool
Million pounds
250
818
327
UNITED STATES AND SOVIET UNION: YIELDS PER ACRE OF MAJOR GRAINS,
1961-1965 AVERAGE, 1966
1961-1965 average
1966
U.S.
USSR=
USSR as %
U.S.
USSR
USSR as
Item
(bushels) bushels
of U.S.
(bushels) (bushels) of U.S.
Corn, grain
bb.3
25.2
38
72.3
33.9
47
Oats
45.2
20.3
45
44.9
29.0
65
Barley
36.2
17.9
49
38.5
23.0
6o
Sorghum grain
and pulses
45.0
12.6
28
55.8
15.9
28
4 feed grains
2,881
882
31
3,222
1,111
34
Wheat
25.3
11.2
44
26.3 18.1 69
Rye
19.7
13.3
68
21.8 14.1 65
Buckwheat
19.5
7.1
36
(not available) 8.1 --
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Rice
86.5
43.3
50
94.5
51.8
55
1+ food grains
1,582
681
1+3
11670
1,029
62
'Total, 8 :
2,1+38
71+1+
31
2:;`662
1,107
1+2
grains
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SURVEY
October 1967
FIFTY YEARS OF SOVIET
AGRICULTURE
W. Klatt
TB H Soviet Union enters the fiftieth year of its axlstoncc with the
biggest grain harvest ever gathered in Russian history. Brezhnev
and Kosygin have been most fortunate in having been able to
announce, at the end of last year, a bumper crop. The official state-
ment speaks of more than 170 million tons, but this figure has to be
deflated a good deal so as to bring it down to the after-harvest weight
at which crops are measured in the western world. However, even at
135 million tons the Soviet Union ought to be able, after having met
all normal requirements at home and in eastern Europe, to put some
15 million tons into reserve. This surplus should go a long way towards
meeting, in the next few years, such unforeseen crop failures as those
which occurred in 1963 and 1965 and which, during the last three years,
forced the Soviet authorities to spend altogether close on $2,000 million
of foreign exchange on grain imports. This year a similar amount is
being paid out in domestic currency as a bonus to home producers.
The burden on the exchequer is far from negligible, but the saving of
foreign currency will be most welcome.
Throughout Russia the benefits of this fortunate crop result will be
felt. Not only will the farming community have a substantial rise in
earnings, but the consumer will enjoy the increased supplies of livestock
produce that will result from feeding more grain to farm animals. Most
important of all, foreign exchange, not needed for importing cereals, will
be available for the purchase abroad of industrial equipment, spare,
parts and know-how. Thus the Russian grain harvest of 1966 will
indirectly contribute to bringing work and income to industries not
only in Russia, but also in the western world. What better way could
there be to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the revolution! At long
last the Soviet grain problem seems to have been solved. Or has it?
Ever since the fateful autumn of 1917 the Soviet leaders have been
preoccupied with grain. Starting with the Central Committee plenum of
November 1929, on the eve of mass collectivisation, time and time again
the grain problem has been said to have been solved. Yet in the 25
years that followed this statement more than one leading personality
has lost his post, if not his head, over the question of the country's
grain supplies. Considering that nowadays more than half the value of
the annual farm output of Russia is derived from animal products, one
might think that more attention should be devoted to this aspect of the
farming industry, especially since the industrial consumer wants to
reduce his intake of carbohydrates from cereals and to improve his diet
by getting an increased supply of meat and dairy produce. But the
situation has rarely been comfortable enough to allow the Soviet leaders'
to forget that all too often the fate of the nation has been determined by
bread alone.
Approximately three-fifths of the country's arable acreage is still
under grains, and half the- food intake is consumed in the form of
bread, flour, and cereals. Almost half the population lives in villages, :
and at least a third of the labour force is employed in agriculture.
Out of the season there is still much idleness in the countryside, whilst
at the peak of the season students have to be rushed to the land, no,
longer virgin, to harvest its often meagre grain crop. The rhythm of
life in the country still dominates the capital. The patterns of food
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rather than those of the highly industrialised nations among which .
 Russian now ranks-at some distance--behind the United States.
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Russia that merits some moments of reflection at the end of the first
five decades of post-revolutionary development, during which Russia
has failed to become the truly equalitarian society of which its revolu-
tionary leaders had dreamed. There is no way of telling how things
might have. developed had the mood of change spread to central and
western Europe in the manner anticipated by the Bolshevik leadership.
s To conclude from the absence of this development that ' socialism in one
country ' and the 'socialist transformation of the villages', that is, the
permanent revolution from above, had become historical necessities,
with Stalin 'operating within the logical consequences of Leninism',3
would be to fall victim to the concept of historical determinism.
Had Lenin survive4 the Kronstadt mutiny long enough, his prag-
matic mind might have prevailed over his party's revolutionism, and
his new economic policy, instead of serving as a temporary expedient,
might have become the opening phase in a process of industrialisation---
' at the pace of a tortoise'-as Bukharin had suggested. Moreover, had
the revolution led to a genuine alliance of workers and peasants and
thus to democratic rule instead of democratic centralism, there might
have been western cooperation instead of hostility. In that case, Russia
might for some time have been obliged to exchange the surplus product
of its grain economy for western farm requisites and industrial equip-
ment. In fact, she exported in desperation, at the hight of the agrarian
crisis in 1931, 'the five 'megatons of grain that were followed by five,
or so, megadeaths in the next two years'.2
Leaving aside for the moment the sacrifices in human lives and
happiness, the end-effect might not have been very different from what
we now see: a mighty world power that has moved, within fifty years,
from -fifth to second place among the industrial nations of the world.
Almost certainly its farming industry would be more closely integrated
with the urban sectors of society than is in fact the case today. One
final 'speculation: a steadily industrialising country, governed by
majority rule rather than in the name of permanent revolution, might.
have deprived Hitler of the allies that he succeeded in gathering at
home and abroad as the crusader against what he was able to present
as a world-wide revolutionary menace. -
It would be legitimate to interject here that speculation about the
past seems idle, were it not for the possibility that a different course
might be taken in similar circumstances at some time in the future.
For the man of the future can have the benefit of hindsight and might
thus be blessed with a choice of alternatives that seemed absent in the
distant historical past. It is for this reason, and not for the sake of
showing up the errors of the Bolshevik revolution, that its fiftieth
anniversary calls fora critique of its agrarian policy.
I-HROUGHOUT Soviet history, the approach to the farming industry
has been marked by a lack of rationality which has not affected
other sectors of the Soviet economy to anything like the same degree.
This lack of rationality may be explained to some extent by the very
nature of agriculture, which the Marxist school and its followers have
never handled very happily. It would be wrong to suggest that agri-
culture follows patterns of behaviour that are different from those
observed in other spheres of human endeavour, but it has certain
characteristics that are absent from the environment of other industries.
Farming, unlike industry, has to take into account space and weather
as limiting factors. In normal conditions the cost of haulage is more
decisive in determining farm sizes than certain economies of scale. In
Soviet Russia the amalgamation of farms has been carried out without
regard to the cost of transportation. As to the effect of weather and
i A. Novo-L. Labedz, 'Was Stalin Really Necessary?' in X. 0. Shaffer, ad., The.
Soviet System in Theory and Practice (New York, 1965).
a 0. Hoeffding, Qinpe ' Soviet Collectivization and China's Great " Leap "', Conference onsoviet and Comlpylq~gptbI ffTahne,. Califggiig,-Ib61A000400030031-2
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over his head and without a superior at close quarters, operates with a
measure of freedom of decision that is most unusual in the case of the
industrial worker of corresponding grade. The larger the farm, the
greater the need to delegate decisions to the individual. In communist
conditions the tendency is generally to do the opposite. Also, in agri-
culture-unlike industry-the producer, besides being a consumer of his
own product, is mostly also a processor of finished products. He is
therefore able to alter the pattern of production, utilisation, and rparket-
ing in many ways and thus to evade public controls far more effectively
than the industrial producer, who is rarely a consumer of his product.
Thus In agriculture, far more than in industry, a relationship of rputual
trust is needed between the producer and the state. None of; these
characteristics of the farming industry has been taken properly into
account during the fifty years of Soviet agricultural history. It seems
doubtful whether they are fully understood in Russia even today. If
they were, the conclusion would be inescapable that the existing system
has to be dismantled rather than amended. The political consequences
of such a recognition would be momentous indeed.
In the final analysis, the misunderstandings about the role of
agriculture in modern industrial society and the resulting failures of
agricultural policy throughout the five.decades of Soviet history can be
traced to a doctrinal concept that was based on a methodological error.
The Marxist school and its followers .have always insisted that small-
scale farming, as they defined it, was economically backward, and that
the peasant cultivator was therefore bound to be tied to politically
reactionary forces hostile to the industrial working class. Had they
measured farm performance in the same way as production in industry,
they might have discovered that farms that are small in terms of
acreage can be large, modem, and progressive enterprises when con-
sidered in terms of capital input and in output per man. In other words,
it is the degree of intensity that matters and not the acreage-and any
economies of scale have to be seen within this context.
The interrelationship between the size of the farms, according to
acreage, and the intensity of farming, in terms of input and output, has
never really been understood by any of the Soviet leaders. As a result
of this methodological error, throughout. their history they have found
themselves in the position of making enemies of the owners of large
farms whilst at the same time antagonising the small men in the villages.
The Marxist school have never differentiated between the various forms
of farm performance and have therefore never gained an understanding
of the role of the intensively farming owner-occupier or tenant in a
modern industrial setting. Whereas in industry the Marxist school has
supported developments which are not altogether different from those
in capitalist society, their agrarian concept flies in the face of all
historical precedent. It is not surprising that this has created very
special problems. The lack of understanding of the agrarian question
emerges from one of those frequently quoted statements by Lenin
on the subject: `The peasant as a toiler gravitates towards socialism
and prefers the dictatorship of the workers to the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie. The peasant as a seller of grain gravitates towards the
bourgeoisie, to free trade, i.e. back to the " habitual " old or
" primordial " capitalism of former days." In fact, the peasant cultiva-
tor does nothing of the sort. Lenin's concept of the peasant's role in
Russian society was little more accurate than the romantic picture of
the ` naively socialist ' villager that the narodniki had.
The Russian intellectuals, whether social-revolutionaries or bol-
sheviks, were strangely ignorant of the lives and views of four-fifths
of their fellow-countrymen. But whilst the social-revolutionaries had
basis of rural
the. utopian vision of a socialist society created on the
,c
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 AAv$>eF45 c~!0QQ9ea. C-phQP7a?e0P~hgL300 1-2
democratic revolution he saw the peasantry, tied to the industrial
proletariat. Thereafter he expected the peasants to renounce the revolu-
tion and desert the industrial proletariat. At that stage Lenin saw the
.bolsheviks dividing the farming community against itself, using the
poor villagers against the rich peasants. This dual task of the proletariat
was regarded by Lenin as the essence of the bolshevik programme.
He never considered the possibility of a gradual continuation of the
process that had set in with the Stolypin reforms. Consequently, he never
believed in a genuine, lasting alliance of interests between the producers
and the consumers of the daily necessities of the nation.' Thus the
conflict of interests between the minority of industrial workers and the
majority of villagers stood godmother to the bolshevik revolution of
1917. This was very nearly strangled by its own contradictions.
L ENIN had never thought of the immense tasks which a success-
ful ful revolutionary party would have to face in the years following
the revolution. But as the strategist of the revolution he adjusted his
party's programme to changing circumstances. After a lifelong con-
troversy with the social-revolutionaries, he adopted their programme
in the decree of 26 October [8 November] 1917, which authorised
the seizure of the land by those on whose support the success of the
October revolution depended. This decision sealed the fate of the
Provisional Government and of the social-revolutionaries who had gained
21 million votes--against the bolsheviks' 9 million-in the elections to
the constituent assembly, but who had been unwilling to give their
consent to the transfer of land without compensation.
. Lenin alone understood the mood of the revolting soldiers and
peasants. The creation of large farm units, as anticipated in his party's
programme, could await the completion of the revolution and the
consolidation of the bolshevik regime throughout the land. Once more
his political pragmatism was to prevail over party dogma. After the
years of war communism, during which the towns had declared war
on the countryside and had seized the stocks of grain instead of
encouraging its production, the sailors of Krondstadt mutinied in March
1921. Being mostly country lads, they demanded, inter alia, the right
of the peasants-their fathers, brothers and cousins-to keep their own
livestock and to farm their own private plots. In the face of the rebel-
lion Lenin saw the force of the sailors' claim and he gave way. Once
again he postponed the amalgamation of individual farms and, as a
temporary expedient, allowed the uncontrolled exchange of goods in
the name of the new economic policy. Nobody can say with any degree
of certainty how Lenin might have handled the emergence of a new
agricultural bourgeoisie, the lack of a regular exchange of foodstuffs
against industrial consumer goods, and the ensuing `scissor crisis ' had
he retained his mental and physical capacities beyond the end of 1922
when he suffered a severe stroke. Thirteen months later, following his
death on 21 January 1924, the internecine war between the leaders
who took over from Lenin broke into the open.
The controversy over the agrarian question provided one of the
central issues of the conflict. In the debate between those in favour of
rapid industrialisation, such as Trotsky and Preobrazhensky, and
Bukharin, who spoke of the peasants as an active force in the revolu-
tion, Stalin-for a time--remained uncommitted, keeping to a middle
course between the extreme factions. But it was Stalin who destroyed
the peasantry as a coherent social force. Lenin's support for voluntary
association was thrown to the winds. In the process of primitive socialist
accumulation Stalin sacrificed the peasants in the interest of the most
determined effort of industrialisation the world had yet seen.
The year 1967 is not only the fiftieth anniversary of the bolshevik
revolution. It is also the fortieth anniversary of the adoption by the
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fifteenth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the
resolution that set in motion the collectivisation of Russia's peasant
farms and the liquidation of the kulaks. This. is described in the official
party history as equivalent in its consequences to the revolution of,
October. In its course the villagers were classified in a manner as crude:
as the statistics on which it was based. The confusion and demoralisa-
tion caused reached stupendous dimensions. By 1932 the procurement
of grain was more than twice as large as in 1927, though the harvest
was a good deal smaller. By 1933, half the country's livestock had
disappoared, The most moving, yet most Atithetltlo, r word of this
operation and the hunger and purges and deportations it brought In Its
wake has been preserved in the files of the headquarters of the Com-
munist Party at Smolensk, which were captured by the invading German
army and later taken to the United States.' It is not to be wondered
at that Stalin, when questioned by Churchill about this phase of Soviet
history, described it as a struggle more difficult and dangeroi}s than
that against nazi Germany.
The consequences of this operation have been recounted before.'
On the eve of the second world was hardly any land remained in private
hands. The opposition of the peasants had been broken, large-scale
deportations had taken place, and irreparable damage had been done
to the farming industry. Even within the framework of the collectives
the peasants continued to be treated as enemies of the state rather than
as vital members of a new industrial society. They had every reason
to feel outcasts. Twenty-five years later, at the time of Stalin's death,
farming was where it had been in the days of the Tsars. Admittedly,
horses had been replaced by tractor power, thus freeing a large acreage
formerly under fodder crops for the production of food. Even these
modest results had been achieved only at great cost in men and animals.
The results were particularly disappointing in livestock farming. The
number of productive livestock was one-tenth smaller than before
collectivisation was introduced. In the meantime the human population
had grown by almost one-fifth. Milk yields and carcass weights, like
grain yields, had remained unchanged. As a result, the nation's diet was
smaller in volume and poorer in composition at the time of Stalin's
death than it had been a quarter of a century earlier. The farming
community was much worse off than it had been before collectivisation
began. Whereas industrial production had recovered from the devasta-
tion caused by the German invasion, the supply of farm products
continued to lag behind. The cleavage created when forced industriali-
sation and collectivisation had driven the two sections of Soviet society
apart in the early thirties had widened rather than narrowed.
'THE ten years of Khrushchev's rule were largely taken up by attempts
1 to remedy this situation. During his time of office he made close
on two hundred speeches exclusively concerned with agriculture. Every
year the leader of the second largest industrial nation in the world
spent a month touring the countryside, criticising shortcomings and
suggesting remedies. Nearly every plenary session of the Central Com-
mittee had farming on its open or secret agenda. Yet when Khrushchev
was removed from power, his successors had nothing good to say about
his agricultural policy. Posterity is likely to be more impartial and to
balance his failures against his achievements. There were many of both.
In the technical sphere, Khrushchev started three major campaigns: the
reclamation of the virgin lands in Central Asia; the introduction of maize
as a feed grain and a green fodder; and the abolition of ley farming,
that is, putting grassland under the plough. At the same time, major
changes were.. made in the administrative sphere. These included the
abolition of the machine tractor stations-in Stalin's days considered
an essential ingredient of collectivised agriculture-and the transfer of
Appro$ F+d ~e ~~ y/g j~~7 u ItA~R[ 78-03061 A000400030031-2
Klatt, How Soviet Farming Fails', New Society, 25 August 1966.
 their equipment to the collectives. He further eliminated the agricul-
t w4idtrftra oki i> oOrigab18f:tiMOaM "fioe$4A0 030031-2
their responsibilities to research and advisory' services. Finally, he
divided the party along `lines of production', agriculture being assigned
to a special department with the object of involving the party directly
in,the affairs of the countryside, whilst giving its first secretary direct
access to regional and local cadres. Much of this was done in a highly
unorthodox manner, and some of it was undone when it proved
impracticable.
In the economic sphere there were also major innovations. The
fas leg Industry, which for a quarter of a century had been the chief,
if not the only, source of capital accumulation for investment iniindustry,
was granted a growing portion of the exchequer's funds. Moreover,
increases in farm prices and agricultural wages and reductions in taxes
and delivery obligations resulted in an increase of 50 per cent in the
disposable income of the farming community. As one quarter of the
collective farmer's cash income had to be reinvested, rural living
standards at the end of Khrushchev's reign, though improved by com-
parison with the dismal level attained in 1953, were still substantially
below those of the industrial workers, who in turn had a considerably
more modest standard of living than their counterparts in western
industrialised societies.
The technological changes also yielded limited results only. The
extension of the acreage in Central Asia resulted in a substantial, though
precarious, addition to the supply of grain. When the reserves of the
soil in Kazakhstan were exhausted, the effects were most damaging.
The maize campaign provided supplementary fodder for the dairy
herd, but the maize silage failed to provide the plant protein badly
needed in the production of animal protein. The ploughing-up of grass-
land was designed to remedy this shortcoming, but it was denied its
full success because of the lack of fertilisers. Khrushchev's farm policy
falls into two clearly distinct periods. During the first five years, up to
1958, he was remarkably successful, mobilising the untapped, but readily
available, resources of the country. During the second half of his reign
his short-term remedies failed. The crop disaster of 1963 which made
necessary a cut in pig numbers by 30 million, or over 40 per cent,
and an import of over 10 million tons of grain-an all-time record-was
nature's revenge for the mistakes committed in the past. It showed how
vulnerable Soviet agriculture remained in spite of all the improvements
made during a decade in which the farming industry received more
public recognition than at any other time since the October revolution.
Whenever technical or economic measures proved to be insufficient,
Khrushchev turned to organisational remedies and relied on the lead
which the party cadres were supposed to provide throughout the
countryside. He never recognised the fundamental errors underlying
the party doctrine; or if he did recognise them, he was unable or
unwilling to draw the necessary conclusions. He probably committed
his most serious error when-from a doctrinal posture-he began to
interfere with the private plot, the only sector of the farm economy that
could legitimately claim satisfactory results. Whilst it may never be
possible to establish, with any degree of certainty, the reasons for the
removal of Khrushchev in October 1964 from his position of leadership
in both the party and government, there can hardly be any doubt that
the failure of his. farm policy played a role in the party's decision to
depose him.
In the event, the ten years of agricultural policy under Khrushchev
yielded an increased, though precarious, supply of food and fodder,
without getting anywhere near the ambitious targets set for 1965. The
diet. still overburdened with carbohydrates and short of animal proteins,
continued to lag behind that of the United States which for ten years
provided the yardstick of things supposedly within reach in the Soviet
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Union. The distance between the two countries was as great in the
level of output as in that of consumption. At the end of Khrushchev's
reign the farming industry of the United States produced, with one-fifth
of the Soviet farm labour force on an area equal to two-thirds of the
Soviet sown acreage, a volume of farm products approximately three-
fifths larger than that of the Soviet Union. Yields of all major crops,
as well as milk yields and carcass weights, were at best half as much
in the Soviet Union as those attained in the United States. Productive
livestock per head of the Soviet population was only four-fifths of the
corresponding figure in the United States. The gap was particularly
striking as regards the labour requirements in agriculture. In Khrush-
chev's' own assessment, five to seven times as much labour as in the
United States was needed id arable farming in the Soviet Union, and
up to sixteen times as much in livestock farming. At the time of his
fall the pattern both of farm productivity and of food production was
that of a backward country. Yet in the industrial and military sphere
Russia could legitimately claim to be the second most powerful nation
in the world. There is no reason to think that this discrepancy will
disappear as a result of the policy of consolidation, following a
temporary retrenchment, on which Khrushchev's successors have
embarked since 1964.
THE first measure of any consequence taken by the new leaders was
.. the restoration to its previous size of the private plot belonging to
members of the collectives and rural and urban workers, which had been
reduced-on Khrushchev's insistence--in 1956. Other concessions fol-
lowed. Many of the new measures amounted to a continuation of
Khrushchev's policies-by different means. Others were of an altogether
different nature. The ' urgent measures for the further development
of Soviet agriculture', introduced by Brezhnev at the plenary meeting
of -the Central Committee held in March 1965, have not been without
effect. The announcement of fixed grain delivery quotas for a period
of six years, the payment of a bonus of 50 per cent for above-quota
deliveries, the increase in purchase prices for livestock and animal
products, the increase in farm investment, and the introduction of a
modest pension for retired members of collectives are likely to have
created an atmosphere in the countryside more favourable than has
existed since collectivisation was introduced forty years ago.
The gradual introduction of a guaranteed monthly pay for members
of collectives, at rates corresponding to those in force on stale farms,
which was announced at the twenty-third party congress in the spring
of 1966, was the most important innovation of the new leadership. If
this promise is in faot kept, it should remove one of the-chief grievances
of-the collective farmers. For forty years they have not been granted
financial rewards for taking the kind of risks for which farmers in the
western world feel entitled to claim a return; nor have they been eligible
for a minimum.wage, as it applies in the case of workers on state farms
and in industry. They have thus had the worst of both worlds. At long
last this is to be put right-fifty years after the revolution.
One major promise has yet to be fulfilled. The third kolkhoz con.
gress, which is to adopt a new farm charter in place of the outdated
one of 1935, has still not taken place. It was first scheduled to take
place early in 1959, but it was repeatedly-and even recently-post-
poned for reasons not stated. As the commission charged with drafting
the new agricultural model charter has not yet released its findings, the
results of this conference cannot be anticipated with any degree of
certainty. If the liberal critics of present farm policies were to gain
ground, substantial improvements in the structure and performance of
agriculture could result. If the traditionalists hold their ground-and
this seems more probable .in: present conditions-no startling changes
pprovPAcffleiir~ffe'a aa~llfibdi8aa
'ft(ti bl4i`hfts-2
 Apot691&tl1F i- q4e4@d t 5PO6?ftc: t9IA- QP 8 bW6iM6G0*0 608b031-
economy and the place of the farmer in modern society. Brezhnev and
Kosygin remain captives of their own and their party's political past.
Basically the erroneous views adhered to during the first five decades.
of Soviet rule persist, and the peasants continue to be regarded as
politically expendable, even if-as a matter of expediency-they are
temporarily treated with more concern than in the past.
In the meantime the air is full of proposals from various sources as
to the ways and means of improving the performance of the farm
industry, of increasing the standard of living of the rural community,
and of integrating it with the rest of Soviet society. So far agriculture
has been largely excluded from the structural changes that have been'
introduced, experimentally and on a limited scale, in tle industrial
sphere. Brezhnev and Kosygin, like their predecessors, have so far,
shown no sign of wishing to interfere with the structure bf the farm
industry or the pattern of farm operations. This unwillingness to intro-
duce basic changes has not prevented various authors from putting i
forward more or less drastic proposals, but nobody has yet succeeded
in challenging effectively the basic concepts that underlie Soviet farm
policy.
S is not to say that no attempts are being made to iir.prove the'
performance of the farm industry. On the contrary, the latest efforts
are directed at turning the state farms at long last into profitable enter
prises. But .things move slowly. Two years ago Brezhnev urged that
state farms should move to full economic accounting (khozraschet), but
many of them still continue to receive public assistance for their capital
investment programme and yet end up with substantial losses on current
account. Any improvements in technical, economic, and administrative
matters are bound to help in reaching the targets set for 1970, the end
of the current plan. Although these goals are more modest than those
originally sot by Khrushchev, they will be far from easy to reach.
Certain setbacks cannot be ruled out, since the input of farm requisites
is not yet large and varied enough to counterbalance the fluctuations
in yield which are still a mark of Soviet farming. In fact, an increase in
five years of, 25 per cent over and above the current level of farm
production would be no mean feat. On the consumption side strict
limits are set by the fact that even the cost of the present, somewhat
monotonous, diet, absorbs half the working-class family's income. Unless
industrial wages are raised more than in recent years or retail prices are
lowered substantially-and there is little likelihood of either-the intake
of food will not increase or improve dramatically.'
With regard to the fundamental issue of the structure of farming,
changes on both state farms and collectives remain subjects of unofficial
debate rather than official action. The most controversial issue is that
of the role of the individual and his family in agriculture as against
that of the state and its agencies. Here the discussion on the signific-
ance of the 'link' (zveno), which has flared up in the past whenever
there was an opportunity of challenging the authority of central and
local party organs, has been revived. In its most extreme form it repre-
sents a rejection of the concept of collective operations under party
direction; but extreme views are rarely uttered. For the time being
fairly moderate experiments are advocated. Limited areas of cropland
i are being allocated for a certain period of time to a team of farm
workers or members of collectives, in order to counter the indifference
which is the most prominent feature of the `Farming Anonymous Inc.'
that rules the Soviet countryside.
. The need to arouse the interest of the operating farmhands became
urgent when more and more of them abandoned their place of work
i W. Matt, 'Soviet Farm Output and Food Supply- in 1970', St. Antony'ar Papers,
No. 19 (Oxford, 1966).
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in the unattractive conditions of Central Asia. It was thus not surpris-
ing that Zhulin,_ the most vocal advocate of the link system originally
recommended small operational units for thciarms m tfie virgin lands.
It is not without significance that the traditional areas of peasant farm-
ing, where the family zveno was the normal unit of ..operation, have so
far not been found suitable for this kind of innovation. Komsomolskaya.
Pravda, the party organ whose task it is to cater for the young in town
and country, has provided a platform for these proposals, whilst the
official organs of the party and the Ministry of Agriculture have shown
little enthusiasm for experiments which axe bound to interfere with
the pattern of" things that is to the liking of the bureauct'pts.
Whereas Soviet industry is beginning to accept innova?tio0s such as
measuring success in terms of sales and profits, no Nemphinov or
Liberman has yet risen from the ashes to which Stalin burned the
countryside some forty years ago. Venzher, who courageously stuck
out his neck when it was still dangerous to do so, is once again among
those in the forefront of the campaign in favour of liberalising the
farming industry. He wishes to see prices and market forces take the
place of central planning and state procurement, but so far he has not
met with the response from official quarters which in industry is taken
more or less for granted nowadays. The sinews of the agrarian fabric
remain fully stretched; they leave little room for slack. That is why
Brezhnev and Kosygin, not unlike Khrushchev before them, prefer to
limit their reforms to the area of technical and administrative detail
and to leave more fundamental changes in the structure of Soviet
farming to an unspecified date in the future.
Russia is entering a period charged with emotion, and an over-
generous gesture could damage beyond repair the sluices of carefully
controlled public opinion and private sentiment. It is not only heroic
achievements that are being remembered in October 1967. Among the
demonstrating young men and women there are all too many unable
to find the graves of their fathers on which to place flowers, while the
flags flutter over the platforms from which the achievements of five
decades are celebrated. The present leadership hope to avoid answering
for the hecatombs which were the price of these achievements, but they
will not be able to defer indefinitely the moment of reckoning. On the
day when a full account is given, Soviet agriculture will no longer be
what it is today; the mammoth site farms and collectives as we know
them now will have become a matter of the past.
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9
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 F,lnit t;AC;,W.P4 fN ljR"se 2005/08/17: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400030031?ly 1968
Student Disorders in Ethiopia
At the end of March, Communist-inspired student riots broke out in
Addis Ababa; they lasted several days and led to a month of student unrest.
Triggered by a protest against what they termed a "corrupting" and "obscene"
fashion show (see attachment 2), the riots led to attacks on United States
Embassy buildings and to a lesser degree on the Ethiopian Ministry of Infor-
mation, and forced the closing of the Haile Selassie Imperial University and
all schools in the city. The university students who led the disorders were
joined by secondary school students and groups of street boys and hoodlums.
These demonstrations were not the first of this type, but, unlike previous
disorders, in this instance the university students were supported in their
demands, if not in their methods, by students outside the capital and by
many non-students, such as university faculty members, businessmen and gov-
ernment officials. While the demands for reforms and for the dismissal of
allegedly corrupt officials were not new, direct and open expression of
them was new.
Marxist Origin of Student Groups
Marxist elements emerged on the campus of the university in late 1966
when, with the support of the student body, they established the University
Students' Union of Addis Ababa (USUAA). Since then, student declarations
and protests, backed by the USUAA and the leftist National Union of Ethiopian
University Students (NUEUS), have become increasingly vocal and hostile and
clearly pro-Communist in tone. The chief targets of these outbursts have
been the Government of Ethiopia and the United States.
The number of confirmed Marxists among the university students has been
estimated at less than 100 in a student body of 3,000, with the majority of
students basically conservative in outlook and generally skeptical of the
ideas and tactics of the radical leadership. The latter have apparently
succeeded in becoming the acknowledged representatives of the students for
two reasons: (a) They have successfully exploited the average student's
feeling of frustration and his urge to promote national reforms; (b) There
has been neither an effective organized effort among the students to rally
support for alternative, pro-democratic views, nor have they been encouraged
by either the university administration or the government to make such an
effort -- or, for that matter, to place any limitations on Marxist politi-
cal activity on the campus.
Foreign Meddling in Student Action?
During the riots, in a search of the offices of the two student organi-
zations and of the official USUAA newspaper, Struggle, the police found con-
siderable amounts of pro-Communist, anti-American material in the form of
posters, pamphlets and handbills, many from the International Union of Stu-
dents, and also films of Soviet and Czech origin, reportedly dealing with
"revolution," "espionage" and general educational matters. During police
questioning, the arrested student leaders revealed they had been in contact
with the Counsellor of the Czech Embassy. There were also unsubstantiated
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reports that some of the students were paid to demonstrate, with the money
coming from the Soviet Embassy, and that the students were being called
upon to support efforts to establish a Communist party in Ethiopia. The
government publicized the findings of the police search and at one point
during the disorders it broadcast a statement labelling the student leaders
of the violence as "tools of foreigners" and as having been "bought by
foreign enemies."
About thirty students were arrested after the initial outbreak and
subsequently released for lack of evidence. Several of the student organi-
zation leaders were later picked up by the police and held for trial.
Among those jailed were the President and International Affairs Chairman
of the USUAA, the former Secretary General of the NUEUS and the Editor of
Struggle. This led to a student boycott of the university which lasted
until they were released on bail. Their trial has been postponed until
an investigation is completed and they have in the meantime been read-
mitted on probation to the university.
Student Attitudes
Since the disturbances of early April, there has been sharp criticism
of the government by the young Ethiopian elite, including the students.
Their views and reactions are typical of student attitudes in other devel-
oping countries, and they are deeply suspicious of and often hostile toward
the developed nations. The student leaders of Ethiopia have emphasized
their suspicion of foreigners with some pride, having called it one of their
outstanding virtues in an article which appeared in Struggle just before
the first riots broke out. In addition, the Ethiopian students claim there
is corruption in the government and that progressive reform is moving too
slowly, both of which are sources of further aggravation and frustration.
Also, the extremists harbor a particular animosity toward the United States
because it is the chief supporter of the government and Americans make up
approximately one-fifth of the university administration and faculty (see
attachment 1).
The recent wave of student protests occurred when there were increas-
ing rumors of divisions within the top levels of the government. The re-
portedly inconsistent and obviously ineffective action of the security forces
during the student crisis may have reflected these rumored divisions, but
there is believed to be genera]- agreement within the government that the
student demonstrations and their extremist leadership represent a political
threat which must be contained. For, whatever the differences in outlook
and motivation of the university students, they comprise the principal
center of opposition to the government. As an educated, action-oriented
group, they are a significant political factor. The Communists have ob-
viously recognized this and have acted accordingly. It is expected they
will continue to seek opportunities to act as long as the internal situa-
tion in Ethiopia remains unchanged and there continue to be strains between
the young elite and the establishment.
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i may 1968
GPY RCS H
T
actor
First of two articles.
By Anthony Astrachan
Washington Post Porelen vergic'
ADDIS ABABA, April 20---
Addis Ababa's students went
back to class this week, a
month after they started vi-,
olent demonstrations that
closed this capital's schools
and put new shapes of radical
dissent in the bewildering mo-
sii.c of Ethiopia's politics.
r Elementary and high schools
grid Halle Selassie I University
were calm, Emperor Halle Se-
lassie himself thought things
quiet enough to leave for a
month's tour of the Far East.
But many Ethiopian officials,
foreign observers, and student
leaders agree that student pro-
test in Ethiopia must be taken
more seriously than ever be-
fore, especially as a force that
could mobilize other opposf-
tion groups. .
"There won't be a revolution
this year," one observer said,
but most doubt that the gov-
ernment Is' looking hard
enough for answers that might
avert a revolution some day.
Serious Agitation
100-year-old practices. And
many students share a belief
common in the developing
world: That three out of every
five Americans abroad work
' for the CIA, and that they ma-
nipulate foreign governments
like puppeteers.
U.S. Contributions
only one-filth as much as it
could on its fertile lands, be-
cause of its outwornlnethods.
?An increasing proportion of
the growing number of stu-
dents come from poor back-
grounds. They are less im-
pressed by the transformation
of Ethiopian society since lib-
eration from the Italians in
1941, than byiwhat remains to
be done to bring It Into the
modern world.
Some of the authorities
question how close the radical
students can be to the conserve
ative rural masses. The stu-
dents say they are closer than
the authorities think.
Peace Corps volunteers, ,
teaching'in the provinces since
1962, may have helped bridge
the gap between student and
peasants -
In any case, peasant'8emon-i
strations in the provinces
against new taxes appear tol
have been triggered by the{
student demonstrations , In
Addis Ababa.
The protests must be seen
against these facts:
s The. U.S. government has
contributed $24.9 million to
Haile Selassie University, The
Ford Foundation has given
about' 400,000 more. .i
e Of the 518 members of thef
university staff, 118 are Ameri-
cans. Nine of the top 15 uni-
versity - administrators are
Americans. James C. 'I. Pal, a
law professor from the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, is aca-
dernic vice president and was!
the chief decision matter 'and;
spokesman during the student,
disturbances. The Americans
have reputations as hard
markers, which the students
,admit Is one reason they dis-
lik* them.
PU.S. economic aid to Ethio-
pia totals $209.8 million since
1952, not including the Peace
Corps. Military aid totals more
than $100 million; not Includ-
ing the American commu dca-
lions base at Astnara` .
+Ethiopia has several pock-
cis of modernity like the uni-
versity, the army, the airline
and the new buildings going
up in Addis Ababa. But it re-
mains the society of an often
corrupt government, a rich
land-owning elite and a mass
of poor peasants, with an tt5 to
D0 per cent illiteracy rate, and
influenced by an obscurantist
church. -
?Its 22 million people have a
per capita gross national prod-
uct of $54 a year. Central gov-
ernment revenues, not court-
ing foreign aid, are $7.20 per
capita per year, one of the low-
est rates In Africa. Both Its
domerde and Its export erono-
Mies are predominantly agri?
cultural, but Ethiopia grows
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Student agitation here is'
certainly the most serious In
Africa since students helped.
overthrow the military govern
rnent of the Suc'1an in 1964.
The chief victims of this
month's violence here were.
American, Rock-throwers did
$5000 worth of damage to the
U.S. Information Service
building and an American In-
structor at the university lost
an eye from a stone. thrown In
the market area.
The students say-they were.
.protesting American domina-
tion of tho university and what
,they consider disproportionate
'American influence on the
government. The regime was
also a. major target-what one
student leader-" called, "the
'reactionary government's po-
litical, economic, and social
oppression."
Some students 'even blame
the Americans for. unpopular
 CPYRGHT
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Month
Fateful Ethiopia ~'as
ion Show
Second of Two Articles
By Anthony Astrachan
waRhlnston Post Pareitn Oerrko
ADDIS ABABA, May 1=The
month-long , student unrest
which has altered the Ethio-
pian political equation began
over a faghlon show sponsored
by the university Women's
Club on March 30.
The club, composed mostly
of faculty wives and With
many American members,
planned the show for the bene-
fit of students. It was to be
held In Ras Makonnen flail.
Two student groups-the
National Union of Ethiopians
Students and the Universit
Students' Union Addis Abab,
-Initiated a protest when they
were denied use of the hall on
the day of the fashion show
for a session of political poetry
reading.
It'l.ot Charged
The students claimed that
the show was a plot by "West-
ern exploiting monopolistic
merchants" to dump foreign-
made clothes on the Ethiopian
market as "an effective means
of Invading and corrupting our
national culture." The words
are from the student newspa-
per, Struggle, which charged
beforehand that the show
would be full of miniskirts,
which "sow the seeds of ob-
seenity.--obscenity of the
worst kind."
About 200 students started
demonstrating at the hall be-
fore the arrival of about 500
women. After half an hour,
eggs and rocks began to fly at
the visitors. The students
roughed up some. And some
fought back. Police used tear
gas and firb hosts to disperse
the students and the show
went on. ?
About 30 students were ar-
rested at the scene. Police
picked up seven student lead-
ers elsewhere during the after-
noon.
2500 Students
Authorities decreed the clos-
ing of the university the fol-
lowing day, stating that it
could not operate "litoprto-
mosphere of tension or vio-
lence."
This put 2500 students off
campus and on the streets.
The university students sum-
moned high sc0ool and even
elementary students Into the
streets. Minor incidents In the tern-
next two ,days built up to an There is still neither legal
assault on the United States nor, Loyal opposition here, but
Information Service building sonic of the authorities seem
on April 3. to recognize,that the students
Eyewitnesses report that are fulfilling some of the oppo.
many of the demonstrators at sition's functions.
USIS were not students but Others see nothing new. A
Jobless youths from the mar- conservative cabinet minister,
ket area, school dropouts and asked why the government
"just plain kids." was so lenient, laughed and
Addis Ababa police had to said he was not worried by the
scurry back and forth all day demonstrations because ',I was
and could not concentrate in radical too when I was a stu?
dent
enough strength to break up dent.?
Differences Noted
the USIS attack until evening,
after three hours of assault. But several observers note a
The U.S. Embassy and the number of differences since he
Ethiopian Ministry of Informa- was a student.
tion were also stoned. Hun- One Is that demonstrations
dreds of cars were Indiscrimi and violenc? are increasing.
nately dam aged In what A second Is the reputed role
seemed to be carefree attacks of. Eastern Europen embassies
on the haves by the have-nots. in advising and financing the
The university officially re- students. Some Ethiopian offi-
opened April 5, but only a c.lais mention the Soviets, the
handful of students attended. Bulgarians and the Czechs.
The rest boycotted classes, Others say this is only "strong
presumably in protest against rumor" and add that the
the arrest of the student lead- rumor mentions Americans,
ers and the banning of the two too.
groups which began the dent Another difference from the
onstrations. The membership old days is the way the stu-
of the two Is small, but many dents attracted the jobless and
Ethiopians feel they have the the dropouts, Ethiopia's em-
support of the majority of the bryonic proletariat. There was
students. apparently no advance plan-
Emperor's Reprimand ning, but it Is something new
The Emperor went on the here when such-forces merely
air April 8 to reprimand the converge.
students. But the boycotting There"are other potential op-
university students kept call-
ing the younger ones out, and
the city's primary and second-I
ary schools were shut down
April 10.
Classes have started up once
again, and the arrested stu
dents have been released, the
30 because there was no evi-
dence against them. The seven
leaders were released on ball,
but few observers expect there
to be tried. They have all been
tea
~a eh~$a 2tAb 0 J
.a.,?~,,,,,,~?~ au,,,lniu z air
pear to have been more leni-
ent than they would have been
six years hgo, when the univer-
sity was established. New con-
cepts of legality and a new lat-
itude for public. opinion have
flitered Into the Ethiopian sys-
Is Ethiopian separatism, which
combines tribalism, religion
and historical differences. It
has broken surface only in
Eritrea, where the Eritean Li-
beration Front has been fight-
ing a serious but off-and-on
guerrilla war for years, The
Eritrean students are reported,
to be the most radical of the
lot, and the only separatist
ones. -Students from the domi-
nant' Amhara people want to
keep Ethiopia one and Indeed
centralize it further while
overturning the system.
They don't necessarily want
to overturn the emperor.
(They stopped throwing rocks
and applauded when he toured
the riot areas.) They say he Is
just one individual and It's the
system that must be changed.
But they will tell a visitor lit-
tle about how It should be
changed or to what.
Some of them say their si-
lence Is strategic. Their voices
and faces are unconvincing.
Others offer a variety of aims
from progressive consitu-
tutional government under the
crown prince to army rulg to a
worker';, democracy. The clev-
erest sathey must not offend
the elders "or they will allen-
ate us from society," and In-
deed the elders of Addis
Ababa Intervened with the em-
perior, asking clemency for
the students.
But student demands and
perhaps student violence have
clearly emerged as one of the
factors that will determine the
future of Ethiopia--if not
soon, then at that unmention-
able time when Haile Selassie
is no longer on the scene. One
student leader, asked when he
expected his revolution, smiled
anti gain. 11nnt in the ^rnnnrnrlt
Important than the stuoents-
but still affected by them.
Many young civil servants
with radical pasts of their own
gave the students money and
,advice. One of the big ltnan-
swered quc8tions is -whether
young army officers who
might have Nasserist or West
African coup leanings are In
anything closer than sympaUty
with the students.
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CPYRGH
T
oscow Radio Peace and Progress
.3 June 1968
CIA PLANNED REPRESSION.OP ETHI?PAN STUDENTS
Ethiopian students learned with anger and indignation that the recent
slice reprisals against the leaders and active members of the largest student
pion in Ethiop#.a vero organized by the American CIA. It will be recalled that
rrests followed outbursts of hooliganism by several scores of stool pigeons
ho prevented the holding of a fashion ehc+r tn.the Addis Ababa Haile Selassie I
niversity by Ethiopiaf,'African,and international exhibitors. ..The stool pigeons
ere directed by the vice chancellor of the Addis Ababe'iaile Selastie.I University,:
ames Paul; who in an American and an agent of the CIA.
sing the excuse of restoring order, he called the police out to the university,
mandina the arirest of, the leaders of the National Union of Addis Ababa University
ItudentA Ohm he named as having started the disturbances.
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3