THE PLOT AGAINST THE PLOT: ONE PRONG OF SOVIET AGRICULTURAL POLICY*

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00937A000500020026-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 12, 2001
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: September 10, 1956
• Content Type: MEMO

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCT
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES
10 September 1956
STAFF MEMORANDUM NO. 74-56
SUBJECT: The Plot Against the Plots One Prong of Soviet Agricultural Polley*
1. In NIS 114,46, we noted a resumption of the Party's campaign to
reduce and eventually eliminate the area of private farming in Soviet
agriculture. We left open, however, the question of whether impatience
in this matter would result in an accelerated campaign which would further
alienate the peasantry and probably depress agricultural output. Recent
evidence is far from sufficient to provide a decisive answer, but it
sugrests that the Party, while firmly rureuing its goals, is exercising
considerable restraint to avoid such an outcome.
2. The reforms of 1953-55 -- price concessions, -strengthening of
rural Party control, new crop patterns, relatively high investment rate --
continue to be extended. Our prediction of further price adjustments has
been confirmed and in two cases, potatoes and vegetables, a second round
of increaseshas been granted. The incomes of collective farms continue
to rise, from 43 billion rubles in 1952 to 76 billion in 1955 and certainly
higher in 19560
30 Economic pressures upon unwanted activity -- the private plot,
private livestock, and private marketing -- were sharply decreased in 1953,
reappeared in 1954-55, and have now virtually regained their pre-1953 im-
portance in the total range of agricultural policy. But the present situation
is distinctive not only because this pressure is accompained by the reforma
cited above, but because of the more subtle and diffuse way in vhich it Is
being exerted. The technique appears to be to include discretionary provi-
sionsin new legislation or to make general recommendations to collective
farm and then to implement these laws and proposals piecemeal, farm by
farm and district by district, as local conditions permit. Under this
method, the capacities and judgments oflooal Party bodies play a crucial
role, a fact which explains whyKhrushchev devoted almost all his remarks
on Party activities at the 20th Congress to rural problems.
* This memorandum has been informally discussed vith analysts in ORR
and 00I,
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NO
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44) This approadh has been embodied in recent months in three decrees,
dated 10 March, 20 Jiay? and 27 August 1956. The decree of March 10 "recome
mending" that collective farms review private plots and livestock holdin
mith an eye to their reduction is the clearest example of the techniques
After the usual fellow-up comment in the succeeding two days, all mention
of this decree dropped out of Eta*" and Ineatjeas. The only official
comment since then has been a mall but steady stream of items in the
provincial press describing the "voluntary" adoption of this measure by
individual collective farms. It is therefore impossible to gauge the extent
to which pressure is being exerted, except to say that it is considerably
short of a whirlwind campaign of the type used in the original collectivi-
zation drive.
5. The Partyto major complaint against private headings is that they
require labor time which should be spent on collective tasks. In addition
to the March 10 decree, the minimum number of labor-days required of each
collective farmer 6aa been sharply raised in the last two years, again
on a farresby-farm basis and with considerable variatione among Ammo
Because the labor-day is an artificial unit capable of manipulation, some
farmc have recently supplemented the labor-day minimum with a minimum, nunber
of "show-ups" for work. On the incentive side, in addition to the higher
incomes received for collective work, the Old practice of paying collective
farmers In the spring in a lump sum for the previous year's work is being
gradually replaced by a eyatem of monthly cash "advances' against these
annual earnings?
6. The free market is an object of attack notelly.tmeause it provides
income incentives for spending time on private land and liveetock (since
prices exceed those offered by the state) but also because it disrupt
the state monopoly of retail trades As early as 2953, the government launched
attempts to inject itself into the free marl:et by gelling there on commission
for the peasants. Another step was taken on 20 JUly of this years, when the
state agreed to pay free market price to growers of fruits and berriess
Official policy has long sought to encourage the peasants to grew these
minor crops on their plots in place df the staples which form an important
part of free market sales and urban diets.
7. Another aspect of the campaign against the free market is seen in
the decree of 27 August, which seeks to wipe out the livestock holdings of
state employees, 1.e, everyone but collective farmers, who are aocused of
combining part-time farming in the udburbs with speculation by buying bread
in state stores at the low official prices, feedingit to their animalss
and selling the meat and milk on the free market at a profit. This deoree
provides a 500-ruble annual tax (about 6 percent of the average annual wags)
on each cow, compulsory deliveries to the state of 400 liters of milli. (about
one third of the average output per cow), and corresponding taxes and de-
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liveries for other types of stook, It thus, gives state control a clear
priority over production, reversing the policy of the 1953 reforms, when
such taxes and delivery obligations were Abolished for the explicit purpose
of encouraging state employees to build up their holdings for the sake of
greater national production. The Party is quite frank about this, admitting
that "this, of course, will result in a certain reduction in the amount of
livestock products put on the market" but arguing that "this reduction will
soon be compensated by an increase in the output of DO, collective and state
farms.* The stakes are surprisingly large; state employees (including 2,8
ndllion state farm workers) own 7.6 million head of cattle and account for
15 percent of all Soviet cows, 13 percent of all swine, 28 percent of all
goats, and 3 percent of all sheep.* Again, room is left for discretionary
maneuvers the decree is initially applicable only in the largest cities,
and republic organs have an option in extending it to smallsr cities and
towns. Thus the two-stage campaign - first against true speculation and
then against livestock ownership as such - can be executed at varying
speeds according to local conditions,
8. Other evidence makes it clear that the whole future of the collective
farm system, the only unfinished element in the institutions of Soviet
socialism, is being widely. discussed, Without public announcement, an un-
known number of collective farms have been transformed into state farms,
Proposals to give tractors to the collectives, which have always been de-
pendent upon the Machine 7ractor Stations for machines, have cropped up again
and had to be rebuffed. The ending of the dual system of pricing, under
which the state takes a large share of the crop at below-cost prices and
then buys another segment at considerably higher prices is due to be re-
placed by a single price schedule, The econopyAride emphasis upon ration-
alization rind efficiency has, when applied to agriculture, led the Soviets
straight to the anomalies of the collective farm system, under which it is
impossible to construct a rational set of prices.** The labor-day method
11 When the private awnings of collective farmers are added to these totals,
the share of private ownership in total herds is as fdllows: cattle
46 percent (including cows 57 percent), swine 42 percent, sheep 22 per-
cent, and goats 83 percent. All data for 1 October 1955.
This difficulty is responsible for the necessity the state has been under
continually to raise prices, crop by crop, over the last three years,
Since relative costs are unknown each boost leads the farms to concentrate
upon the most recently favored crop to the detriment of others, which
soon require additional incentives themselves. This trail-and-error pro-
cess came full circle last January, when prices far potatoes and. vegetables,
the first mope to benefit from increased prices, had to be raised again
despite Ihrushehevie 1953 statement that subsequent increases would not
be permitted.
* *
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_
of payment is also due for revision. A contradiction has long been evident
between the treatment of this system in the popular prems? which naintaims
that it equates rewards with remelts* mild speciallet :publications, Ale&
have criticized it for failing to perform this fenction. This sumer
Ihrushchev abolished the fiction by telling an agricultural conference ?
that ?collective farmers must be paid for their labor acoording to harvest
yields and the productivity of livestock breading. Are we able to owitch
over to this method? Urdoubtedly 0 0 ." Allegedly this switchover had
been acoomplAshed 20 years ngo.
90 The production record has nade Soviet post-1953 agricultural policy
a success to dates although not so much a success an Ihrushclurraredicted.
Within this framework, the policy of restricting private activities Ins had
less satisfactory restate. The government claims a 31-percent increase in
labor-days worked by the collective farm peasantry beton 1950 and 1955t
although reporting in such a slippery unites this should be regarded with
caution The role of the free market has been slietly reduced over the eamo
period, and it now accounts far about 15 percent of total retail sales of
food (9 percent of all seles)0 but in absolute terns both the volume and
priees on this market have continued to increase slowlys and it still accounts
for nearly half of all urban consumption of potatoes, about one third of urban
consumption of vegetables, and perhaps one third of marketings of livestock
products. Total private plot holdings fell slightly in the middle of the
fiveerear period bat had almost regained the 1950 level in 1955* Nbst of
the livestock gains following upon the 1953 reforms have been achieved 117
private owners, who have added 4 million cattles 1.5 million swine, and 9
million sheep to their holding between the fall oensuses of 1953 and 1955*
Some reversal of this trendy however, may appear in the 1956 census as a _
result of the decree of 10 March and the later edict of 27 August. Al].
these data4 In fact, refer to 1955 and do not yet reflect aey impact of th4
current year's policy innovations*
CMISLUId21111
10,, Policy towards private farming has practical consequences for
agriculture and also provides a political illustration. On the first counts
it appears that the recent record of production success has emboldened the
Party to increase the pressures upon private farming activities. But the
acceleration is gradual, and it is unlikely that the campaign will be drastically
stepped up to the point where production will be seriously affected. An
acceleration may come in the next few months if the heavy procurements which
Khrnshchev predicts for this year make the leadership feel secure enough to
move faster. But recent histarr indicates a continuation of the firms graduals
cautious approach.
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11. In the political field, agriculture has of course always been a
touchy matter; it was the basis for a rebuff to Khruehchav in 1951 and was
included in the charges against Beriya in 1953* and Malenkov in 19550 The
size of Khrushcheves current stake in this field must certainly argue against
rashness on his part. It is possible to speculate that the cautious nature
of poliey toward the peasant reflects dieagreement among the leaders, but
it is probably sounder to conclude that collegiality is acting as a brake
upon adventuriam. The Presidium must thus far be given credit for showing
considerable judioiousness in approaching a delicate and explosive iseueo
25X1A9a
* 'Lest week, the agricultural charge against Bettye was expanded after
a silence of three years, to state that he pursued on 'anti-collective
farm policy' which encouraged private ownership tendencies at the exp.-
pens? of the development of the communal eoonomy." This is probably
as nonsensical as the charge of foreign espionage, but the identification
of a dead traitor with a given policy is a particularly sharp reminder to
Party workers that they are expected to pursue the opposite course*
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