(AV_167742_a) post-war Technological Economic and Institutional Development in USSR Agricultural

(AV_167742_a) post-war Technological Economic and Institutional Development in USSR Agricultural

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oh just for the recording i want to welcome you  to the first of a number of lectures this summer   on the summer series there is a listing out  and i think you can perhaps keep for record   and or be aware of what is being spoken up and  on on a particular day tomorrow is in the same   room at three o'clock the jody rottler has been  involved in the women's liberation movement here   and also associated with the union who's going  to speak on i've forgotten the exact title but   the role of women and stereotypes stereotype  views that we should remove and for this almost   predominantly male audience i would suggest that  maybe some of you come and get straightened out   this time i'd like to introduce professor  fouad who will introduce our speaker for today dr nils christian westermark   is professor of agriculture agricultural  economics at the university of helsinki he his vita is quite long and i selected just few  things to give our audience or not to mere with   dr westermark's background  some idea about his credentials among the former positions he held in his country   finland various positions with the production of  food and including being minister of agriculture   which corresponds in this country to being  secretary of the department of agriculture from mark's talk today is entitled  post-war technological economic   and institutional development in ussr  agricultural development dr westermark well i think that perhaps everybody knows that  the farms in soviet union are organized either   as collective farms called coal horses or are run  directly by the state as show in both cases the   land is the property of the state the soul horse  is entirely owned and controlled by the state   so has workers have paid summer holidays and  other social privileges for example they are   paid the same wage even in poor years except on  very prosperous coal horses the coalhouse farmers   have had none of these advantages a call  host farmer can influence decision making   and thus has a double function he is both  employer as a member of the co-host and employed the recent history of soviet agriculture  dates from 53 when stalin died incentives   in agriculture then were miserable wages were low  or non-existent and state procurement price is low   during 53-58 thanks to the opening  up of new lands some good seasons   and nikita khrushchev's enthusiasm soviet  agriculture production increased by about 50   this led soviet planners to have two high  hopes of what might be achieved later on already after the winding up of the new  economic policy in the soviet in the 30s   there has been a fairly consistent tendency  to increase the number of and extent of sow   horses in relation to coal horses whereas at  first some horses occupied only 25 of the zone   area in 1970 they occupied around half their share  has been increased both by the creation almost   exclusively of sow horses in the new land areas  and by the conversion of coal horses to saw horses   a comparison of selected 70 data brings  out marked differences between the two   types of farms even now that  they have become more similar   in table one which has been distributed  to you i do hope that everybody has a copy we have some statistical data we have no  time to penetrate those data more truly but   we can see that for the time being there are  about 34 000 coal horses and 15 000 sow horses   and the total zone area is in the both group are  relatively similar we also see that the average   zone area performed in hectares in the coalhouse  sector is lower than in the soho sectors the farms   the sawhorses are therefore larger about two  and a half times so large as the coal horses coal horse households are allowed to  have private plots so host workers   have less freedom through even they have  access to some privately operated land   but the land in all cases is owned by the  state coal horse families have been criticized   for devoting much more effort to their private  plots which occupy only a small namely three   point two percent of the farm area but are  used intensively coal horse and sawhorse types   of farm differ also according to payment the  land as already mentioned always is owned by   the state also on a small scale there are the host  household plots are run on capitalist a principle   the farmers devote much time to their  cultivation resulting in high yields the marketing of a produce of personal subsidiary  farming i mean this is the same as household plots   deviates from the principle of a socialist  economy and resembles the capitalist pattern   in times of scarcity the price is determined by  supply and demand the farmers sell their surplus   products on these conditions families living far  from cities are likely to consume most of their   products themselves but if a city is close by it  is more probably that they bring their commodities   to the market and sell them for cash the families  are not only allowed to sell their produce   they are free to determine their prices even if  there are set two or three times higher than the   level in the state owned stories the government  accepts this form or private initiative and thus   a system of double marketing prices is created as  it is quite useful that commodities are sometimes   not available in the state-owned stores a profit  of this kind is generally made and it is entirely   legal it should be pointed out however that the  significance of the market is relatively small   the state-owned and cooperative stores  control the trade however the free markets   function as a kind of barometer indicating  consumers wishes moreover the household plots are   the safety valve of socialist agriculture which  levels the fluctuation in a socialized production vendison say some few words about the horses the  contra the soul horses then in the soho sector   in the state farm sector we can say that every  and and every soho is a independent enterprise   and each given a definite assignment for the  production of agriculture commodities that   are needed by the country's economy each state  farm has a main branch in which it's specialized   proceeding from the planned assignments of  the state for producing marketable output   additional branches are organized for a more  efficient use of the resources in big state   farms with favorable conditions these branches  organized on a large scale are highly mechanized state farms and other state agriculture  enterprises account for the time being for   about 38 percent of the total marketable  agriculture output where the coal horses   account for 50 and consequently the residual  12 is produced on the household plots   the state authorities determine the prices for  agriculture commodities in the different parts of   the soviet union except what has already mentioned  on the household post where the price where no   price regulations exist the producers prices  are the result of a compromise between two   contrary goals on the one hand the prices must be  sufficiently low to warrant a high productivity in   the industry sector on the other hand sufficiently  high to make possible and increase production and   investment on the farms serving the maintenance of  reasonable standards of living for the farm people   today price calculations are based on the  average production cost per produced unit i think   it's a rather interesting phenomenon the price  calculation is based on the average production   cost per produced unit for every enterprise  this favors farms with a high cost and a poor   economic position rational units miss certain  advantages but they are compensated for this by   the privilege of receiving a higher price  for produce exceeding the planned amount then coming back to the  period during khrushchev's era   the general repression of the private sector  under khrushchev's regime is generally known   as support so under khrushchev the soul horses  were pressed to restrict private enterprises   although the assurance had been made that in  transforming coal horses into seoul horses   the size of the household plots would not be  diminished the campaign against the plots and   livestock of sawhorse workers in fact resulted  in such restrictions in the new south horses   both the general restriction of the private  sector and the specific results of the conversions   into soho's this affected a shift of  private agriculture production to workers i'm sorry to the southern climatically  favored parts of the country   with their predominantly intensive soil  utilization they transfer into salt horses   from coal horses had a double significance  and effect not only did it shift weight from   the coal horses to the sole horses but also from  the private to the socialized sector in general   but since khrushchev's removal in 64 64 the  transformation of coal horsey into soho has to   a great extent lost this side effect the reason  is that the norms governing the use of the soil   and the keeping of livestock for private purposes  introduced in 64 for sawhorse workers no longer   differ in essence from the private operations  existing in the cohort sector here one can see   an important new development the effects of which  will be of great interest in the coming years since the restrictions of the private sector were  abolished in some horses after the removal of   a new increase in private production has occurred  according to the german expert dr eddie king whom   i have cited here in many respects the age  structure of the soviet farm population it's   generally rather unfavorable on differs in its  effect in the private and in the social sector   the private sector gains more workers  as more retired people become available the soviet scientist ticonoff looks  on the existence of a private private   production sector in somewhat different way  to what i have here mentioned according to him   the socialist labor is practically the only form  of professional labor even labor in personal   subsidiary farming is in fact according taken of a  particular or labor utilized in socialist society   in a planned way the share of the gross product  of personal subsidiary farming is systematically   declining in view of the growth of the  socialist sector but for some types of produce   personal subsidiary farming still accounts for a  considerably share a potatoes 62 percent eggs 50   vegetables 40 meat and milk 38 in 71 at the same  time in the production of wool the socialized   sector prevails and in the production of grain  sunflower seed cotton and sugar beet it completely   predominates the share of personal subsidiary  farming in the marketable output of agriculture   amounts to 8 in the output of crop husbandry  and to 16 in the output of animal husband   personal subsidiary farming differs from small  peasant farming and even private enterprises   according to tickenoff in the following respects  first it is organically connected with the common   enterprise of the state and collective  farms and is conducted on the farm yard   plots which are property of the state second  a considerable path of raw materials consumed   in the personal subsidiary farming is produced  directly in the social sector or with the help   of socialized means of production third the  main part of the labor in subsidiary farming   is contributed by persons who owing to the  age are not included in the total labor force   of agriculture that means juveniles and retired  people and also non-working members or families   engage in socialized production through not  socialized labor in personal subsidiary farming   is a particle of the socialist social labor  its efficiency is determined by the efficiency   of labor in the social sector of agriculture  production as regard the statement of dr tikonov toward the end of his administration  khrushchev made the following statement   the sole horses are state enterprises they  are easier to control and to administrate   they give better assurance that the investment  of capital will be and they in this will be more   rationally utilized that a similar  attitude is prevalent also today   is apparent in that in all references  to specialization and localization which   are emphasized over and over again the  soul horses are given obvious preference as long as the balance of labor in soviet  agriculture is not even as long as there are   acute deficiency symptoms in some parts  of the country and a surplus of labor   in other parts the development of production  in the three sectors so horses call horses   and household plots depends decisively on the  availability of labor it is not the chance   that a transfer into sub-horses on a large  scale took place mainly in parts of the country   that had a more or less critical balance of labor  for the time being the transfer from coal horses   to sub-horses take place more slowly obviously in  my opinion owing to the fact that such a change   claims large amounts of capital and  adjustment of organization and management   in the soviet union the question as to the  desirable size of enterprises has been settled   on the basis of political doctrine without having  been subjected enough to theoretical research only   subsequently has a problem of the optimal size  of an farm unit attract attention and certain   investigations seem to indicate that the giant  enterprises do not represent the optimal size   they have exceeded it the question may be posed  as to whether the huge saw horses and co-hosts   with many departments running their own accounts  and with separate managerial centers should still   be considered as operational units this role seems  to have been taken over by the various departments   in accordance with marx doctrine it  was considered appropriate to furnish   socialized agricultural enterprises with  modern technological equipment first the   saw horses were supplied as far as possibly with  tractors and machinery as regards the coal horses   a proper plano organization was lacking in  the 20s however at the end of this decade   such a plan was developed as a special social  solution to the problem of mechanization however for 30 years from 28 to 5 to 58 a certain  complement to the co-hosts existed in the form of   machine tractor station mts and that was perhaps  one of the most conspicuous characteristics of the   socialist agricultural system the mts organization  i mean the machine tractor station organization   functioned as the industrial material technical  basis of the cohort system this form of   organization which played an important role in  part in the collectivisation of soviet agriculture   is today abundant however a development that  does not seem surprising weaved against the   background of the communist doctrine the cohort  system as such is also a transitional form in a way the mts experiment can also be  viewed as a trial of excessive specialization   it implied a separation of machine  technology from the productional units proper   technology was organized as large  service enterprises it is obvious however   that the advantages of large-scale farming and  specialization could not compensate for the   harmful consequences of isolating organic parts  from the production units the managerial problems   of the mts organization was not  solved to satisfaction either during the period of the mts existence the coal horses were not allowed to  possess any machinery equipment they had to   use the service of the machine tractor stations  when the co-hosts were enlarged this arrangement   ceased to be rational and with the course  of the time the political control over the   co-hosts exercised by the mts political sections  had become unnecessary the communist party had   established sub-organizations within the co-horses  which made external control or guns superfluous   moreover the mts system had proved very expensive  because tens of thousands of so-called brigadiers   had been employed by the mts and the coal horses  in parallel for almost exactly the same tasks a the basic form of labor organization  in the soviet agriculture is the brigade   work labor brigades are formed usually in  consisting of 30 to 40 workers under the   leadership of a brigadier the brigades are often  divided into subgroups of five to ten workers   under a group leader it is however not  possibly here to discuss in detail the   development of the brigade system it may briefly  be stated that after the abandonment of the mts   system the labor organization of the coal  horses has approached that of the show forces   and the difference between them will probably  soon disappear altogether the current tendency   is to institute brigades with a complete  machine equipment there are today field regards   livestock brigades and in addition  so-called universal brigades furthermore there are mechanized labor groups  which are designated for certain special   tasks such as the cultivation  of sugar beets corn and potatoes the basic form of remuneration that call horses  and saw horses is payment according to performance   but time wages also occur when automation  has been realized wages per hour   are considered to be a potentially even more  progressive form of remuneration than payment   according to performance so far however the latter  system has been predominant in the soviet union a fundamental distinctive feature of labor  in large socialist agriculture enterprises   state and coal horse farms is  the ever deeper division of labor   in the agriculture prior to the great  revolution 1917 the peasant as a rule   performed all the jobs in crop and animal  husbandry a collective farmer or state farm worker   specialized in performing operation in one  branch this reduces the number of functions   he performs and creates favorable conditions for  acquiring higher skill the number of universal   workers is reduced and the number of workers with  a narrow specialization increases the expansion   of the technical facilities and transition of  industrial industrial methods make new demands   on the educational level of personnel in the mass  vocations a need arises in workers who have not   only special training but also a sufficiently  high level of general education in view of this   the general educational level of workers in  crop and animal husbandry is swiftly rising at the seminar hall some years ago in warsaw  poland arranged by the police academy of science   and the international association  of agricultural economists   one research worker from soviet union madame  sassafra from the siberian branch of the ussr   academy of science presented an interesting  paper dealing with the labor productivity   and shortage of labor in siberia from her paper i  have quoted the following rather critical comments   most eastern areas of the soviet are notable for  rigorous climate but the southern part of siberia   is agriculturally productive suitable for  livestock and grain growing the efficiency   of agriculture in western siberia is 20  above the average for the soviet union   the cost of the most important products  is the same as the average for the country   the main factor retarding the rate of agriculture  development in siberia is the shortage   of labor evaluations conclude that if a fuller a  more effective utilization of production resources   is the a the number of agriculture workers must be  increased in siberia but this is very difficult to   achieve there is a high migration rate of siberian  rural people to the cities as a result the number   of rural workers in western siberia is falling  even quicker than the average for the country   the rapid outflow of young people from the  siberian countryside has serious consequences   in rural social life and it impedes agriculture  progress by diminishing the number of skilled   workers and equipment needed to run the ever  expanding fleet of tractors and other machinery   the findings on madame sofskaya were  that a significant rise of production   was achieved only in those groups of farms which  succeeded in increasing their numbers of workers   planning calculations support the view that  economic efficiency would be solved by increasing   the number of workers in siberian agriculture but  this result has not been attained in practice the   number of rural workers has decreased faster than  the average for the soviet this calls for research   into the reasons and motives for the mobility of  the rural workers and for working out practical   measures for controlling it from the national  level down to the level of a single enterprise the farms which suffer most from  labor sorties continue to lose   labor by those better supplied gay new workers  because they can offer better working and living   conditions in siberian regions a strong tendency  to move from collective farms to state farms   was recently noticed this fact to get away with  the direct evidence obtained in a special survey   of the population of collective and state  farms points to the need to achieve a more   rational control over the movement of labor  in collective and state farms the living   conditions of the people in collective farms  are still far worse than those in state farms   the rates of pay are lower and the provision of  housing education and medical facilities transport   services and consumer goods is worse at the same  time collective farms as a form of economy have a   good prospect i'm sorry as a form of economy have  as good prospects and are as viable as state farms   madame states with equal rates of pay provision of  equipment and transport facilities the mobility of   labor in collective farms appears more favorable  than on state farms therefore the task is   to level up the economic and living conditions  of a population of collective and state   farms an important factor of migration to the city  is dissatisfaction with the system of leadership   in agriculture the rural population  suffers from much from middle level   supervisors such as brigadiers and others who  have often had very little formal training   in contrast to the young generation  first coming to work in industry the low   educational level of the supervisors and  the repugnance towards any innovation   often cause psychological strengths and conflicts  in young people who eventually leave the land well what i just mentioned   was an excerpt of a paper elucidating in  a critically prospective way prevailing   problems in the west siberian agriculture due to  technological development in the siberian society while the collective farms grew larger and larger  the units reached a stage when existing form of   management was inadequate this has stimulated  the development of cooperation among collective   farms at the beginning of 65 there were four  thousand so-called inter-collective organizations   and associations of this type represent forms  of what we call for horizontal integration   on the other hand agriculture enterprises  unite with state plants processing farm   produce processing enterprise are organized within  specialized farms and a factory farm arises on   these bases or agriculture enterprises associate  with trading establishments with a view to improve   the sales of produce this form or these forms  of association represents vertical integration   and both this type of integration are now  typical for the farming in the soviet union i will end in citing some sentences from the 24th  congress of the communist party of the soviet   union which congress was held in moscow one and  a half years ago at this occasion in the earlier   two very interesting reports were delivered one  of them by the secretary general leonid brezhnev   and the second one by the premier alexei kosigan  is it it is indeed worthwhile to give here a very   at least at least a very brief summary of the  statements so far as agriculture is concerned   breisner stressed that for a number of  reasons agriculture has been and for the   time being remains the most difficult and  complex sector of ussr economy that is why   it is a source of satisfaction that the efforts  now have been crowned with major achievements   he continued but he also put his finger on  many weak spots in the agriculture in soviet he pointed also that as before increasing  grain production is one of the main   tasks in the soviet agriculture the grain  needs have been growing from year to year   and this applies not only to food grain but also  to feed grain the production of which should   should be expanded in view of the necessity of  rapidly developing animal husbandry also bresniff   mentioned that at present personal subsidiary  husbandry still plays an appreciable role in   the production of meat and milk however here and  there this does not get the attention it deserves and then some sentences from the speech of  mr cassign he also emphasized that increasing   grain production remains the key problem in  soviet agriculture during the fourth coming   five year period grain yields must be increased  he said by at least two four centers per hectare   through not an easy task this is quite feasible  four sentence per hectare corresponds roughly to   180 pounds per acre the increasing need of animal  produce also calls for a growth in the number   of livestock and poultry an increase in their  productivity and expansion of the output of meat   milk wool and other products to accelerate  the growth of the output of livestock farming   and enhance it its efficacy prohibition has  been made for the building or mechanized stock   units at collective and state farms and  setting up near the towns or large state   and collective farm are in an  inter-collective farm complexes   putting out livestock products by industrial  methods and also of poultry factories   one of the immediate tasks in the development of  stock farming is to enlarge the further resources   an increase of the number of livestock and poultry  personally owned that means the household plots   where the rural population must be encouraged  and help render in supplying their livestock   with further and posture this statement seems to  me is a very interesting one because it implies   that the so-called household plots are fully  accepted and recognized as a kind of food supply   also mr brezhnev as i just mentioned pointed out  the same matter affects although more vaguely the big qualitative changes taking place in  the material and technical basis of agriculture   are making new demands on its management system in  soviet the large-scale highly mechanized economy   of the collective and state farms is drawing  ever closer to modern industrial production   hence the need to apply in agriculture modern  forms and methods on management make wide use   of means of mechanization and automation or  management processes and train skill person here   i have also the second table i suppose that  somebody has al already have a look on the   table the table shows the statistical  figures for the agriculture production   during the last decade so to say and here we have  an indication of that the production has been   risen everybody knows however that during last  year the crop was decreased and everybody knows   i am sure also the shipping business  from usa to the soviet for the time being   i don't wish here to put my finger in this  business nobody knows how permanent it will be   i have here i give try to give an information  about the problems now existing in the soviet   union agriculture and we can if we like  to sum up what i have said here we can say   that for the time being soviet agriculture has  intricate economic relations between collective   and state farms on the on hand and enterprises  and organizations which purchase and process   agriculture produce on the other between  agriculture enterprises themselves and so on which seems to me to be quite a uh   should be an oversupply of labor on the  land i mean it's a very high relationship you mean that it's a short short labor in siberia my statement about the shortest of labor  referring to is there an oversupply but in certain regions there are  a shortage of labor and then to   one more point these numbers of persons  engaged in agriculture which are indicated here   they they are not only agricultural workers and  particularly on the coal horses there are in   those numbers are included also persons engaged  in the services in the school in the medical   care and in this kind of of people and of course  i should say that is still a surplus of labor but   maybe the surplus is is not so great as perhaps  these figures can give an opinion well yeah   youth i would like to clarify your interpretation  of the production figures here a bit further it   clearly shows that from 66 to 70 there's a  considerable increase yeah yeah from over   1961 to 65. do you see this mainly as a result of  better efficiency particularly on the soap posing   or are there other factors contributing  to this increased land under production   to what extent did weather  conditions what other factors you see i am not an expert in the soviet uh soviet  agriculture also i have been there many times but   firstly i should say that the weather conditions  have played a considerable role and secondly from the statistic it's evident that the  production costs on the sow horses are greater   are higher than the production cost on the  whole horses but this doesn't reflect the objective comparison because the coal horses are  located in the more favorable areas of the soviet   union and so horses are located in in the more  in the in the new land area and and more more   in the east then i really cannot say  which system is is more efficient the politic anyway the policy anyway  favored the the the sovereign system   are there statistics showing what the increase  was on contrast no i i know i have not find it   yeah of course we can no no i have not found this  such a figures but there perhaps we can get them or they use simpler simpler tools and then   then there is as a matter of fact  there exists what we can call a a concealed transfer of resources from from the  socialist sector to the private sector i mean   people take some feed feed for the cattle  from the socialist sector and and this and   also perhaps fertilizers and this kind  of or concealed transformation then but   i i see this as an as an indication of that people  still still have an interest to to be more or less independent entrepreneurs or  through in a very limited scale yeah um yeah know that in the last couple of years  the soviet union has been buying grain from   this country quite extensively if one reads  the current magazines in this country the   explanation they give for soviet agricultural  production problems is lack incentives yeah never or very certain does  one ever see any mention made of   weather factors or climate factors  uh affecting soviet production will the soviet union in the long run always have  an agricultural production problem those other i think that every country we still have  agriculture problems and i think that the problems   they are shifting and and if i am replying  to the question in a more indirect way than the policy here in this country is for the  time being uh quite an and another than it was   two or three years ago and because i have  i have read some papers or speeches by the   uh your minister of the secretary of agriculture  and now now you are you are putting more more   emphasis here in this country on on the on the  export and that cannot mean anything else that   that the government in this country is is  calculating with that there will be a deficit   in some other countries and for instance in soviet  union i i cannot interpret the policy now just   on the threshold so to say in this  country in other words and of course of course we can say that the agriculture  in soviet is is more sensitive for weathers   i think than in the states particularly  in the in the new regions and uh and   during crew chops era perhaps too much of  the new land was taken into cultivation   new land which not in the long run  can can serve as agricultural land well i am not sure that i could answer your  question well chemical yeah is that uh going up   it needs more yeah yeah your use of fertilizer  is is going up that's that's a matter of fact as a very high priority part of agriculture what do you feel are the possibilities that russia  might have say between these alternatives between   producing the feed grains in order to get their  animal proteins or in terms of importing their   feed grains to get their animal proteins or  in terms of importing their animal proteins and actually i haven't seen any uh uh in  indications of what where are the probabilities   attached to each one of those alternatives in  terms of realizing they're increasing proteins in for human beings but that's anyway interesting to note that both  both brezhnev and kassigan in their speeches they   first and foremost stressed the  importance of produce small grain and i have interpreted this in such a way  that in the short run they will put most   emphasis on grain production and i don't know  if anybody has been in moscow or in some other   other cities in soviet union recently but there  have been a shortage of brent in in some in some   instances we cannot deny it but then we  come to the long run long run aspects and i should think that for political reasons soviet the aim of the intention of soviet government  is to become as soon as possible self-sufficient   also in the protein and there are  of course technical possibilities   i should say there are very good technical  possibilities to grow to grow a protein folder i think the political reasons are the dominant  well yeah you have comments regarding a general   question about these five-year plans we have heard  for many years of a series of five-year plans   yeah has that been a method by which  the your what extent has that been goals have been achieved  and progress has been made you mean in the long run or i i think i have no figures about that but  i have only a feeling that that   the targets have not been fulfilled  in at least not in all respects and if we if we go back to the chops era during  then my feeling is that the plans at that time   they were too optimistic and now now they  have a more realistic grasp on the problem   but to what extent this current five  years plan we will be fulfilled or not   it's i am not capable to give any answer  it doesn't seem to be but nobody knows   well yeah do you have any uh feel for  the difference between the wheel the agricultural uh how much uh one is i have no other in the indication  of what i already mentioned that in the in the   speech of mr cassign he said that four center  prohectors should be a realistic to increase the gradient yeah it it's rather modest yeah but yeah you can see that they  are more careful now than during

2021-01-19 04:36

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