The agricultural development of Russia in the post-reform period was not so successful. True, in 20 years the export of grain from Russia increased 3 times and in 1881 amounted to 202 million poods. In the world export of bread, Russia was in first place.

But the growth in grain yields in Russia was not great. The increase in gross grain harvest was achieved mainly by plowing new lands. The main supplier of export grain remained the landlord economy, although the role of peasants gradually increased.

Huge land areas were in the hands of the landlords. For every 100 desyatins of peasant lands in the Central Black Earth region, there were 56 dess. landowner land, and in the Central Industrial - 30. In the total mass of landowner landownership, the share of latifundia (possessions larger than 500 dess.) was large. The largest landowners (the Stroganovs, Sheremetevs, Shuvalovs, and others) owned hundreds of thousands of acres in various provinces.

After the abolition of serfdom, the landowners had to rebuild their economy on a market basis. They had the opportunity to organize a transitional system from corvée to capitalist. The cuts made during the reform forced the peasants to rent land from the landowner. But often they could offer him nothing but their labor as payment. This is how the labor system of the economy arose. It was similar to the corvée in that the peasant worked the landowner's land here with his working cattle and implements. The hiring agreement was most often concluded in winter, when the peasants ran out of bread and they agreed to any conditions. Such forms of exploitation were called semi-serfdom.

In general, after 1861 the attitude of the landowners towards the peasants changed greatly. Previously, the landowner often felt sorry for his peasants, came to their aid (after all, it was still property). Now he was ready to squeeze all the juice out of them and leave them to the mercy of fate. Only the most humane and far-sighted landowners who worked in the zemstvos tried to somehow make up for the broken relations and get closer to the peasantry on the basis of the local economy.

The advanced landowners tried to introduce the capitalist system of economy. They started their own working cattle and equipment, bought agricultural machines, hired workers. But these forms of management took root with difficulty. It was not easy for them to compete with enslaving forms of exploitation, for which the reform of 1861 created favorable conditions. In addition, a purely entrepreneurial economy could not be profitable on very large areas.

And only in the steppe Trans-Volga and in the North Caucasus, where landownership was very small, entrepreneurial, farming began to develop rapidly. These areas became the breadbasket of Russia and the main supplier of bread for export.

In the post-reform twenty years, two paths of evolution of the agrarian system in Russia were outlined. The central agricultural region embarked on a slow, protracted path of restructuring the economy while maintaining large landownership. And in the steppe regions of the Trans-Volga region and the North Caucasus, another path began to emerge - farming, entrepreneurial.

After the reform of 1861, wealthy families began to pass it on by inheritance. On the other hand, in the countryside, along with the poor, completely ruined households appeared. Usually this happened due to the bad qualities of householders (laziness, drunkenness, wastefulness). But their children, no matter how hardworking and diligent they were, had little chance of improving their economy. The stratification of the peasantry began to take on an irreversible character.

The economic and social life of the Russian peasant proceeded within the framework of the community, which existed from time immemorial. In the laws of 1861, it was formalized as a rural society.

The peasant community was an economic association and the lowest administrative unit. The community distributed land among its members, set rules on how to use pastures and forests. The law placed on the community the responsibility of distributing taxes and maintaining order in its territory.

All important matters were decided by the village assembly. According to the law, only the heads of families were supposed to appear at the village meeting. In the provinces of the Chernozem belt, this rule is strictly observed. In the non-chernozem provinces, householders often found themselves "in the waste". Their wives came to the meeting. “There is more sense in a woman than in a peasant,” the local peasants used to say. Sometimes the sons of absent householders came to the meeting. At the age of 15-17, the peasant youth was already a real worker and fully understood the issues that were discussed at the gathering. Communal democracy, which did not disappear completely even under serfdom, received a new development in the post-reform era.

The community was built on a combination of collective land use and separate housekeeping for each yard. Peasants owned communal land in strips. Each yard received strips of both good and bad lands, both near and far, both on a hillock and in a lowland. Having stripes in different places, the peasant annually received an average harvest: in a dry year, strips were rescued in low places, in a rainy year - on hillocks.

The work of a plowman is very hard. In peasant families, it has long been customary that women look after the house and children, and men work in the field. Therefore, the land was distributed according to the number of men. If a man died in the family, the community took away his clothes. If a boy was born, he received an allotment. Such "discounts-capes" were called private redistributions. They could happen every year. But the number of births usually exceeded the number of deaths. From time to time it was necessary to divide the communal lands into a new number of souls, with a reduced allotment. There was a general change. It was repeated on average once every 12 years. But some communities did not make redistributions - neither general nor private. Sometimes, of two neighboring communities, one was divided, while the other was never divided. Why - no one could explain.

Crop failure and hunger pushed for redistribution. On the contrary, relatively good years the peasants reluctantly redistributed. In the first post-reform twenty years in the provinces of the Chernozem zone, redistributions became a rare occurrence. No matter how high the redemption payments were here, the allotment of fertile land still fed the peasant family, and the peasants valued it. Repartitions seemed to be a thing of the past. The pre-owners began to look at their allotment as if they were their own property. In some places it was already bequeathed and even sold. The land was gradually concentrated in the use of wealthy households, and the concept of private ownership of land took root in the peasant mind.

In the non-chernozem provinces, the peasant allotment was taxed in excess of its profitability. Only with the help of outside earnings did the peasant cope with the redemption payments. Those who could not go to work (small children, the disabled, the elderly) did not have any clothes. The land was distributed among the male workers. A peasant, perhaps, would have completely refused to put on allotment, but according to the law he could not leave his rural society without the consent of the gathering. Nevertheless, the peasant tried to “push” his allotment off at every opportunity. Repartitions of land in non-chernozem provinces were a frequent occurrence. Busy at work in the city, the peasant did not always have time to process his allotment. There were more and more abandoned lands, for which redemption payments and other taxes were collected. The 60-70s were a difficult period for the village of the non-Black Earth center. Although close communication with the city quickly developed entrepreneurial skills among the local peasants.

So the reform of 1861 responded differently in different Russian lands. In general, despite the severity of redemption payments and semi-serf exploitation on the part of the landowners, this reform significantly accelerated the transition of the peasants from a stagnant subsistence economy to a commodity-market economy.

Document

• (Extract)
• 1. Serfdom for peasants settled in landlord estates, and for householders is abolished forever, in the manner specified in this Regulation and in others, together with the same issued, Regulations and Rules.
• 2. Based on this Regulation and general laws peasants and yard people who have emerged from serfdom are granted the rights of the state of free rural inhabitants, both personal and property ...
• 3. The landowners, while retaining the right of ownership to all the lands belonging to them, provide, for the established duties, for the permanent use of the peasants their estate settlement and, moreover, to ensure their life and to fulfill their duties to the government and the landowner, that amount field land and other lands, which is determined on the basis of the situation specified in local regulations.
• 4. Peasants for the allotment allotted, on the basis of the previous article, are obliged to serve in favor of the landowners the duties determined in local regulations by work or money.
• 6. The allocation of land and other land to the peasants, as well as the following duties in favor of the landowner, are determined primarily by voluntary agreement between the landowners and peasants, subject only to the following conditions:
• 1) that the allotment provided to the peasants for permanent use, to ensure their life and the proper administration of state duties by them, should not be less than the size that is determined for this purpose in local regulations;
• 2) that those duties of the peasants in favor of the landowner, who are sent by work, be determined only by temporary contracts, for terms not longer than three years (and it is not forbidden, however, to renew such contracts if both parties wish, but also times - but not longer than for a three-year period);
• 3) that, in general, transactions concluded between landowners and peasants should not be contrary to general civil laws and should not restrict the rights of personal, property, and wealth granted to peasants in this provision.

In all cases where voluntary agreements

between landlords and peasants will not take place, allotment of land to the peasants and the administration of duties by them are carried out on the exact basis of local provisions.

• 7. On these grounds, “statutory charters” are drawn up, in which permanent land relations between each landowner and the peasants settled on his land should be determined. The drafting of such statutory letters is left to the landowners themselves. Two years from the date of approval of this Regulation are appointed both for the preparation of these, and for their consideration and entry into force ...
• 8. The landowners, having endowed the peasants with land for permanent use for the established duties on the basis of local provisions, are no longer obliged in any case to allocate them with any amount of land in excess ...
• 17. Peasants who have emerged from serfdom form rural communities for economic purposes, and for the immediate administration and court they unite in volosts. In every rural society and in every volost, the management of public affairs is left to the world and its elected on the grounds set forth in this Regulation ...
• 187. Each rural society, both in the community, and in the district or household (hereditary) use of land, is responsible for mutual responsibility for each of its members in the proper service of state, zemstvo and secular duties ...

Document by A. N. Engelhardt. Letters from the village

Letter nine. 1880

Alexander Nikolaevich Engelhardt (1832-1893) - publicist, agricultural chemist. Participated in the democratic movement. He was exiled to his estate Batishchevo, Smolensk province, where he created a model economy. His "Letters from the Village" was repeatedly re-published.

And now, as under serfdom, the basis of the landed estates has not changed. Of course, the landed estates, in our places, at least, have fallen, reduced in size, but the essence, the basis, the system remains the same as before 1861.

Previously, under serfdom, the landowners' fields were cultivated by peasants who went to these fields with their tools and horses, in the same way the landowners' fields are cultivated and now by the same peasants with their horses and tools, with the only difference that they work not serfs, but still indebted from the winter.

In exactly the same way as before, even now the landowner not only does not work himself, does not know how to work, but does not even manage work, because for the most part he does not understand the economy, is not interested in the economy, does not knows. The landowner either does not live in the village at all, or if he does, he is engaged in his lordly business, service or something else, perhaps he will walk through the fields - that's his whole economy ... who usually also does not know how to work and does not understand work, understands about land and cattle a little more than a master, knows only how to mersic with his foot and please the master, to serve, to serve. Then, if the estate is larger, there is a whole series of podbarins - clerks, housekeepers, housekeepers and other people with a mersic knife ... who understand nothing in the economy or in work, who cannot work and does not want , and work, and despising the peasant. Finally, the real owner is already on his way, the peasant headman, without whom the economy could not have run at all. The village headman knows how to work, he understands the work, he knows the economy, he understands both the land and the cattle, but, most importantly, the village headman knows what the peasant needs, knows when the peasant has lost his temper, knows how to deal with the peasant, how to abandon him how to put a clamp on it, how to insert it into shafts. The administrative staff of the estate only eats, drinks, rides and drives, but you are lucky, the peasant works, and in order to harness this peasant, it is necessary that he does not have money, bread, that he is poor, impoverished. A wealthy peasant tries to rent land and work on it for himself, at his own peril, but he is not hired to work with the landowner for any money. As for the landowners who, like American farmers, would work with their families, I do not yet know among people of the intelligent class. They say that there are some, but I did not see ...

I don’t know of any farms where all the work was done by farm laborers with the help of machines, and the landowner himself, who knew how to work, understood work and farming, was in charge of everything, looked after work and farming, just like in large American farms. -states. We don't have anything like it...

So, on the one hand, it is ruin for a peasant if he has to work for another in the summer; on the other hand, the landowner cannot run his household without summer work male host. Therefore, there is a constant struggle between the landowner and the neighboring peasant owners. The landowner wants to abandon the peasant, put a yoke on him, lead him into the shafts, but the peasant does not give in, gets out, tries not to fall into the yoke. All the thoughts of the landowner, his clerk, the headman are directed to handing over the land to the peasants for pastures, for cuts, for money; all the muzhik's thoughts are how to manage without taking from the landowner ... painful work. Here the question is not at all in the mask wages but in the fact that a peasant who has his own farm does not at all want to work on someone else's farm. And here, where the peasant manages to fight off work on the master's land, where he works for himself in the summer, there the peasants grow rich, get better. On the contrary, where the landowner has abandoned the peasants, put a yoke on them, there the welfare of the peasants is lower, there is poverty, drunkenness. The very first, most important means, the strongest way to lead the peasants into the shafts, are sections and pastures ...

That is why we hear this kind of praise of estates: “The peasants cannot help but work for me, because my land fits right under the village, the peasant has nowhere to let go of chickens,” or “He has an excellent estate, the segments stretch in a narrow strip for 14 versts and cover seven villages; they cultivate the whole land for him for cuts. In a word, when evaluating an estate, they look not at the quality of the land, not at the land, but at how the land is located in relation to neighboring villages, whether it supports them, whether the peasants need it, whether or not they can do without it. Therefore, now, with existing system farms, other estate and. without meadows, and with bad land, it gives a large income, because it is favorable for the landowner relative to the villages, and most importantly, it has "cuts" that the peasants cannot do without, which block their land from the lands of other owners, so that they cannot be beneficial for the peasants of the competition between the owners, who each want to get the peasants to work for themselves ...

The muzhik is oppressed, the muzhik is in poverty, the muzhik cannot rise as much as he would rise if he did not have to work in vain in the stupid, empty, incomeless landlord economy and could rent or—even better—buy the land that he is uselessly chatting with the landowner. On the other hand, even the landowner has no income from his farm—all landowners rightly complain about the lack of profitability of their farms—because the income earned by the peasant goes to support the administration, the horde of idlers who despise both work and the peasant parasites. ..

Such and such fruitless pounding of water takes place in most of the landowners' households. A truly ridiculous state of affairs. What is surprising here, that with all our natural wealth, we are in poverty. The man works tirelessly, but still there is nothing.

1. State of agriculture after the Civil War

In the conditions of a predominantly agrarian country, the restoration of the national economy after the Civil War, it was decided to start with agriculture and light industry. This made it possible to create the basis for the rise of heavy industry. However, the growth of agricultural production did not start immediately. By the end of 1922, the village had not recovered from the drought of 1921. And only from the fruitful year of 1923 did agriculture begin to rise. In 1925, the sown area in the country amounted to 99.3% of the 1913 level, and the gross agricultural output exceeded this level by 12%. The harvest of grain crops reached almost 4.5 billion poods and was 11% higher than the average annual harvest of the five pre-war years.

Large livestock cattle, sheep and pigs exceeded the figures of 1916 - the highest in the pre-revolutionary history of Russia. By 1927, there were 30 million cows in the country (15.1% more than in 1916), 126.8 million sheep (12.2% more), 23.2 million pigs (12.2% more). 11.1%). The number of horses remained smaller than before the war. In 1916, there were 35.8 million of them in the country, by 1920 - 30.5 million, by the spring of 1927 - 31.5 million (88.2% of the 1916 level).

1925 was the last year in the history of Russia, when there was an increase in the use of sokh in the peasant economy. By the spring of 1926, the number of sokhs, roe deer (a kind of plow that rolls the earth in one direction) and sabans decreased by 100.3 thousand in comparison with the spring of 1925, and by the spring of 1927 - by another 253.3 thousand. At the same time, the number of plows and bookers increased by 614.1 thousand and 924 thousand, respectively. In the spring of 1927, only 17.3 million arable implements were used in the USSR, including 11.6 million (72. ) plows and 5.7 million (32.9%) dry. Replacing the plow with a plow provided improved tillage and a noticeable (by 15-20/o) increase in yield.

According to data for 1927, when the number of peasant farms reached its maximum, the average allotment of a peasant farm in the European part of the RSFSR was 13.2 hectares (before the revolution it was 10.1 hectares). At the same time, only 15.2% of peasant farms had one or another machine (average data for the USSR). One seeder accounted for 37 farms, a reaper for 24 farms, a hay mower for 56 farms, a threshing machine for 47 farms, a winnower or sorting machine for 25 farms. This means that manual sowing prevailed everywhere; scythe and sickle, wooden flail and threshing roller continued to be the main tools for harvesting and threshing crops.

The situation was comparatively better in Ukraine, where specific gravity farms with cars accounted for 20.8%, and in the Steppe Territory - 35%. In the North Caucasus, 22.9% of peasant households had cars, in Siberia - 26.1%, in the Lower Volga region - 19.3%. In the peasant farms of the RSFSR, Belorussia and Transcaucasia, which consume the strip, there were 2-4 times fewer machines; in the republics of the Soviet East - 10-11 times less than in the RSFSR. At the end of the 20s. the production of agricultural machinery and tools increased significantly: from 1926/27 to 1928/29. the production of plows increased from 953.2 to 1677.3 thousand pieces; bookers - from 22.3 to 36.6; seeders - from 57.2 to 105.3; cultivators - from 60.7 to 91.5; loboheat - from 89.0 to 166.3; grain cleaning machines - from 99.7 to 233.2 thousand pieces. The output of tractors at domestic enterprises over the years increased from 732 to 3267. In 1929, the first combines were produced in the country.

The harvest of grain per hectare in the USSR during the years of the NEP ranged from 6.2 centners (1924) to 8.3 centners (1925). The average grain yield in Russia in 1922-1928 was 7.6 centners per hectare (in 1909-1913 it was 6.9 centners). The average annual grain harvest for the five years 1925-1929. amounted to over 733.3 million centners, which exceeded the pre-war level by 12.5%. Gross agricultural output, which in 1921 reached 60% of the pre-war level, already in 1926 exceeded it by 18%.

The social image of the rural population has changed significantly. In 1924/25, 61.1% of the economically active population of the village were middle peasants, 25.9% were poor, 9.3% were agricultural workers (labor laborers), and 0.4% were employees. Fists, according to this year, were 3.3% of the rural population. By 1927/28, the proportion of poor households had fallen to 22.1%; middle peasants - increased to 62.7%, kulak - up to 3.9%, proletarian - up to 11.3%.

An important role in the establishment of agricultural production was played by marketing, consumer, machine cooperatives, which united relatively prosperous peasants who produced marketable products. The poor, who did not produce products for sale, more often created collective farms - communes, artels and partnerships for the joint cultivation of the land (TOZs). In artels, the main means of production were socialized, and in TOZs they were kept in private ownership with joint work. In 1925, more than a quarter, and in 1928, 55% of all peasants were in cooperatives. In areas of specialized production (flax-growing, beet-sugar, vegetable-growing, dairy farms), the cooperatives covered the vast majority of peasants. In 1925 cooperative trade accounted for 44.5% of the country's retail trade. In the RSFSR, in 1926/27, cooperatives accounted for 65% of the supply of peasants with tools and machines.

Collective and state farms, which enjoyed great support from the state, were very few in number. By the middle of 1927, there were 14,832 collective farms in the USSR, in which 194.7 thousand peasant families united (0.8% of their total number in the country).

A year later, the collective farms already united 416.7 thousand peasant farms - 1.7% of their total number. State farms were even smaller (4398 at the beginning of 1927). Although they were served by approximately 40% of the tractors available in the entire agriculture of the country, they accounted for an insignificant share (1.5%) of grain production (in 1929 - 1.8%).

In 1927, the idea arose of organizing state-owned enterprises to service the countryside with machinery. At first, these were tractor columns (the first was formed in September 1928 in the Azov district of the Don district from 18 tractors to serve two collective farms and one land society). In November 1928, at the base of the column at the state farm. Shevchenko (Odessa region), a machine and tractor station was created. In the future, the MTS played a crucial role in the collectivization of peasant farms and the development of agricultural production in the country.

The main economic indicators of agriculture in 1926-1928. also surpassed the indicators of pre-revolutionary Russia. Gross agricultural output in the country was 18-20% more than in 1913. However, three-quarters of the sowing work in the country was carried out by hand; up to half of the grain was harvested with a scythe and a sickle, threshed with a flail and other primitive tools. Low yields and frequent crop failures, harsh natural conditions exacerbated the situation. Marketable bread (for the city) the village produced 30% less than before the revolution. The number of peasant farms reached its maximum in 1927 - 25 million against 21 million in 1916. The bulk of them were poor-middle peasant farms, which produced grain mainly for their own consumption. Against the background of the growth of industry, the unprofitability of small-scale peasant production became more and more pronounced. Hopes for improvement were associated with the transfer of small farms to large-scale production.

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I think that in order to come to the conclusion that the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU knew little about Marxism, class theory, political economy and economics in general, and therefore made many mistakes that led to the collapse of the country and the restoration of capitalism, you need to have not just the brains of a professor of philosophy, but also to crush these brains backwards on the chair of the department of Marxism-Leninism.

This is if their words about the reasons for the collapse of the USSR are taken as their sincere conviction. But even professors of philosophy are hardly that stupid. It is not for them to teach Mikhail Suslov Marxism. And even Nikita Khrushchev, in spite of the whole voluntarist image of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Especially not Anastas Mikoyan.

Moreover, there are no hidden secrets in Marxism, which can be comprehended only by reaching the rank of professor.

But on the other hand, one must have precisely the snobbish impudent shamelessness of a philosophy professor in order to assert with crystal honest eyes that if all property in the USSR was state property, then it was not capitalist and socialism was preserved in the country, while simultaneously agreeing that at the 22nd Congress there was open rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This is how we will get to the point where Rosneft and Gazprom will be considered socialist enterprises in our country. Only anxious about the health of Messrs. Miller and Sechin. They can break it from laughter.

It was no problem for the collective capitalist of the Central Committee of the CPSU to seize state property. It is enough to seize state power and state property automatically falls into your hands. And there is no need to bother yourself with printing shares and other legal formalities.

Sechin doesn't care about stocks. He represents the ruling group on the board of directors of Rosneft, therefore he manages this state-capitalist property in the interests of this group and in his personal interests. Hence the size of his salary, in which even the blind can easily see the form of appropriation of surplus value.

It is harder with collective (cooperative) property. The authorities are unable to control it directly. As long as it remains, of course, collective in the full sense of the word. Those. managed by the collective, generates income, which the collective is free to dispose of at its discretion. An enterprise, if this enterprise generates income that ensures the normal life of its owners, can be taken away from any collective only by a raider seizure. There are two more ways. Bankrupt this enterprise, make it unprofitable, unnecessary for the team of owners, even a burden for the team, by offering a guaranteed salary from the state in exchange for property.

And you can even impose a guaranteed salary on the owners of a profitable enterprise in exchange for the disposal of property income. Only in this case it is impossible to call the collective the owner. What kind of owners are these if they are excommunicated from income and put on a salary? Ordinary employees. And, just as with the appropriation of state property by the collective capitalist, the Central Committee of the CPSU, the state power legal formalities are completely redundant.

Let the enterprise, where its own owners work for wages received from the state, be called at least a collective farm, at least a cooperative - it is no longer in collective ownership, but in the state.

And collective property in the USSR in the early 50s was a very impressive segment in the economy. In cities, of course, although it was an important link in ensuring the life of people, especially in the service sector, it was not a determining factor in the urban economy. And agriculture was almost completely occupied by it. With the exception of a few state farms and MTS that were sinking in the collective farm sea. But the MTS were engaged in servicing the collective farms, this collective property. And more than half of the population of the USSR were just collective owners. This is a very serious power. And the first task of the state that abandoned the dictatorship of the proletariat, the competent power of the emerging dictatorship of the collective capitalist, should immediately have been the destruction of any threat to itself in the form of any socialist property.

What did Khrushchev immediately do, having barely established himself in power? Collective farms!

It is striking how skillfully and competently the state seized collective property, the transformation of a huge socialist sector into a state capitalist one. The very process of eliminating collective farms (even if the enterprises retained their former name - collective farm) is a clear demonstration of the political and economic literacy of Khrushchev and those who stood behind this figure.

Those cooperatives and artels that could not form a serious political counterbalance to the policy of the CPSU were liquidated by the most brazen raider seizure. They were simply transferred to the state or dispersed by directive. More on this later.

And with the collective farms they began to stir up even during the life of Stalin, preparing for a coup. In this regard, a very important point is the assessment of the famous article by N.S. Khrushchev, published on March 4, 1951 in Pravda “On construction and improvement in collective farms”.

A very important point - this article is interpreted as Nikita's quirk in agrocities. Allegedly, this is his personal projection. It is clear that there is no other way to disguise the role of the Central Committee in the upheaval and the collapse of the country, unless scapegoats are found. Khrushchev and Gorbachev.

In fact, everything is somewhat different, to put it mildly. N.S. Khrushchev did not write this article. More precisely, this article was compiled from excerpts from his speech at a meeting on construction and improvement in the collective farms of the Moscow region on January 18, 1951. This changes things significantly. One thing is when the article is as an expression of the personal views of an individual, albeit a party leader. By way of discussion, so to speak. And the other is the speech of the party leader of the country's largest party organization, approved by the meeting. This is already a political statement.

From the article, in principle, there is nothing special to quote. She has no economic sense. Absolutely none. The article is 100% populist. About how good it will be to live in the countryside if life is built according to Khrushchev's plan. There is hardly a word about agricultural production in it. About construction only: It is necessary to build large brick and tile factories on the collective farms, and in some areas where, even after enlargement, not particularly large collective farms remain, it seems expedient to build powerful inter-collective-farm factories. Having built such factories for the production of bricks and tiles, they can be mechanized and thus ensure high labor productivity. Then the product will cost much less.

True, after reading the question arises: who will milk the cows and sow oats on the collective farms if such factories are built? Where to take people for factories and for work in the fields and farms?

And most importantly, where to get money for such projects? The collective farms themselves, of course, will not pull this out. What remains is a government loan. And a loan invested in the non-productive sphere, which is located on the fields and farms of the collective farm, is a shackle. Then it will be impossible to pay him off. Do you understand what was hidden behind this populist program for the improvement of the village?

The Stalinist team realized that Nikita was not the only flute in this orchestra. Our historians interpret Stalin's answer in the form of a closed letter of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the tasks of collective farm construction in connection with the consolidation of small collective farms" dated April 2, 1951, as a reaction to the "little Marx" project. This is absolutely not true. Here are the lines from the closed letter:

« The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union (6) is addressing this letter to the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics, regional committees, regional committees, district committees, city committees and district committees of the party due to the fact that there is a misunderstanding among some of the party and Soviet workers, or an erroneous idea on a number of critical issues collective farm construction at the present stage.

Some leading workers, especially in connection with the ongoing measures to enlarge small collective farms, make serious mistakes and distortions of the party line in collective farm construction... fully acknowledged the fallacy of his article.

It is clearly seen that Nikita was far from the only problem. Stalin understood that an opposition was being formed with its own program in the field of collective farm construction ...

The rebuff in a closed letter from the Central Committee to populist projectors Khrushchev and those who stood behind him was rather harsh. Stalin immediately pointed out the inadmissibility of the measures they proposed:

« The following tasks of the Party follow from what has been said.

First, to put an end to the wrong, consumer-oriented approach to the questions of collective-farm construction and to carry out work to strengthen the mobilization of our Party and Soviet cadres in the countryside, the collective-farm activists and all collective farmers for the successful solution of the main task in collective-farm construction - to further increase the productivity of agricultural crops, to development of public animal husbandry and increase of its productivity.

Capital investments of funds and labor of collective farmers must be directed primarily to the development of public economy - the construction of livestock buildings, the construction of irrigation and drainage canals, reservoirs, the uprooting of land from shrubs, the planting of shelterbelts, the construction of outbuildings, collective farm power plants, etc ... " .

Stalin's position is clear not only to any more or less competent economist, but also to any sane person: there will be income from economic activity, the growth of production - there will be clubs, schools, well-appointed houses for collective farmers. And if you pump out funds from agricultural production for " cultural life”, then it is possible to set up new streets with asphalt in the villages, but only the further maintenance of the infrastructure will more and more ruin the low-power economy, drive it into debt to the state and worsen the life of collective farmers.

Further, the letter raised the question of ending the policy of liquidating small villages, which had already begun with the filing of especially zealous figures who seized on the idea of ​​amalgamating collective farms. The idea itself was correct, Stalin supported it in every possible way, but not in the same form as it had already begun to be implemented in some places:

« Secondly, to put an end to the incorrect attitude that the most important thing in collective-farm construction is the settlement of small villages into single collective-farm settlements. Party organizations must proceed from the fact that the amalgamation of small collective farms does not mean mandatory creation in each collective farm of a single locality by resettling villages. New cultural and community construction should be carried out in artels in accordance with the resources that the public collective farm economy has at its disposal ... ”.

This is already called economic sabotage, such a thing could not have been invented even out of stupidity. Only with a predetermined goal of ruining the enlarged collective farms. The enlargement program assumed that more powerful enterprises would be able to use personnel more efficiently, especially specialists, and would be able to maneuver with more serious material resources for the development of individual industries, but, as we see, this program began to be implemented in places with clearly criminal methods.

The existing small collective farms had their own production base in the form of warehouses, farms, small processing enterprises, and, in the end, housing for collective farmers. And under the brand of consolidation, they began to demolish all this, evicting people to the central estate of the collective farm. Throw at home industrial premises and build new ones on the site of the settlement. Instead of increasing efficiency, the enlarged farms received its decrease under the pressure of spending on the construction of new housing for people and the production base.

“Thirdly, we must resolutely suppress attempts to reduce the size of the household plot of the collective farm yard and to move part of the household plot outside the settlement, as unacceptable and harmful.”

This is Stalin about the proposal from Khrushchev’s article to leave 10-15 acres of land next to the house for collective farmers, and cut the rest outside the village, allocating a separate field for private owners. To make it easier to plow it with a tractor, so that not every garden at the court, but the whole field at once.

For the first time, I came across this “closed letter” about 20 years ago, and it was after reading these lines that I became infected, so to speak, with Stalinism. In this paragraph - the whole of Stalin. A leader who thinks about people, not about tractors. For those who have not lived in the countryside, it is difficult to immediately understand what kind of hard labor it is - a personal subsidiary plot, when you also plow full-time on a collective farm-state farm. Of course, if Stalin had a beard, like the genie Old Man Hottabych, he would have pulled hair out of it, said: mukhalai mahalai, - and all Soviet people would have everything at once, meat, butter, milk and cheese sandwiches. And the collective farmers would have enough wages for them. But Joseph Vissarionovich did not have a beard, only a mustache, and even that was not magical.

But there was a conscience that did not allow him to think more about tractors than about people. And understanding the realities of rural life. Then Khrushchev sang trills like a nightingale, as if Stalin did not know the village, had no idea about agriculture. Did Khrushchev know the village?!

Cutting a garden for a collective farmer and moving part of it outside the village is a special kind of sadism. Not only that, in the summer after work, the peasant had to weed the potatoes with a hoe. So, according to Khrushchev’s project, a person who was tired after a hard day’s work had to go from home for two kilometers, or even all four, beyond the outskirts.

And in 1952, Joseph Vissarionovich wrote the work "The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR." He began to receive letters with suggestions and feedback. He answered some of them. These answers were included in the pamphlet published work. Among them would be an answer to a letter from a married couple, Vladimir Grigoryevich Venzher, an agrarian economist who once even worked as the director of a state farm, and at the time of writing the letter, an employee of the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and his wife Alexandra Vasilievna Sanina, associate professor of the Department of Political Economy of Moscow State University.

The fact that, judging by the letter, Sanin and her husband understood political economy about like pigs in citrus fruits is still trifles. On the topic of collective farms, it is more interesting that they proposed to sell MTS equipment to collective farm ownership. Stalin's answer was unequivocal: " This means causing great losses and ruining the collective farms, undermining the mechanization of agriculture, and reducing the rate of collective farm production.».

Someone was driving Venzher and Sanina by hand, or it was their own initiative, I could not establish. It does not matter. The main thing is that the “reconnaissance in force” carried out about reforms in agriculture in the form of consolidation of collective farms, accompanied by the liquidation of “small villages”, the priority development of housing and communal infrastructure through the development of production, the sale of MTS equipment to collective farms - received a clear, reasonable answer from Stalin: this the path to the ruin of collective owners, collective farms ...

Already after the death of I.V. Stalin, on September 3, 1953, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the First Secretary of the Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev.

Today, this Plenum is being presented by some historians as a correction of Stalin's predatory policy towards the peasantry, by others as the beginning of Khrushchev's voluntarism, by others as the need to take urgent measures aimed at correcting the almost catastrophic situation with the collective farms. Who is into what.

Only there is nothing even close to that in Khrushchev's report. If we compare its text with the tasks defined by the 19th Congress of the CPSU, then a complete coincidence will be found. This includes increasing productivity in animal husbandry, productivity in crop production, improving management, personnel ... And something else, about which later.

And most importantly, Nikita Sergeevich at the Plenum declared that the grain problem in the USSR had been resolved: “ In general, we meet the country's necessary needs for grain crops in the sense that our country is provided with grain, we have the necessary state reserves and we carry out grain export operations to a certain extent.».

I remind you that this is September 1953. Even before the virgin epic in the USSR, the necessary state reserves of grain were created, the population was provided with bread, and grain was even exported. Khrushchev himself stated this.

In general, there is nothing in this report about the catastrophic situation in the collective farms, about which Nikita later told fables. Only criticism of individual shortcomings and real proposals for their correction. A well thought out report. We can say - in the Stalinist vein.

Yes, Khrushchev already skipped corn, but also with quite reasonable recommendations.

In the Report, the problem that needed to be solved was also voiced: “ With the growth of the material well-being of the working people, the demand of the population is increasingly shifting from bread to meat and dairy products, vegetables, fruits, etc. But it is precisely in these branches of agriculture that a clear discrepancy between the rapidly growing needs of the population and the level of production has been determined in recent years.».

The reasons that led to it are also indicated: The Communist Party has consistently pursued a policy of developing heavy industry in every possible way, as necessary condition successful development of all sectors of the national economy, and has achieved great success along this path. The main attention was paid to the solution of this priority national economic task, the main forces and means were directed here. Our best cadres were engaged in the industrialization of the country. We did not have the opportunity to ensure the simultaneous development of heavy industry, agriculture, and light industry at a high rate. For this, it was necessary to create the necessary prerequisites. Now these prerequisites have been created. We have a powerful industrial base, strong collective farms and trained personnel in all areas of economic construction ...

But there are other reasons for the lagging behind in a number of important branches of agriculture, reasons rooted in the shortcomings of our work, in shortcomings in the management of agriculture, that is, reasons that depend on ourselves. These reasons include, first of all, the violation of the principle of material interest in a number of branches of agriculture ...

The most important reason for the serious lag in a number of branches of agriculture is the unsatisfactory leadership of the collective farms, MTS and state farms by the Party, Soviet and agricultural bodies, especially in the selection, placement and education of personnel in agriculture and in carrying out Party political work in the countryside. Finally, it must be said about the causes that depend on the collective farms themselves, on the chairmen and boards of the collective farms, on the collective farmers. Labor discipline is still low in many artels, and not all collective farmers take full part in collective-farm production. The work of collective farmers is not well organized everywhere. There are still many facts of an irresponsible, negligent attitude towards the public good.».

Even with regard to the personal farming of collective farmers, N.S. Khrushchev spoke like this:

« Violations of the most important provisions of the Rules of the Agricultural Artel have been committed on many collective farms. Comrade Stalin pointed out that the cornerstone of the artel form of farming is the principle of correctly combining the social and personal interests of the collective farmers, while subordinating personal interests to the public. Proceeding from this guiding principle, it was determined in the Rules of the Agricultural Artel that on the collective farm, along with the main and decisive public economy, each collective farm household is granted the right to own a small farm in personal ownership. This auxiliary farm is necessary as long as the social economy of the collective farm is not yet sufficiently developed and cannot fully satisfy both the social needs of the collective farm and the personal needs of the collective farmers. In many collective farms this most important principle of artel economy has been violated. This could not but lead, and indeed led to a reduction in the number of cows, sheep, pigs, which are in the personal farms of collective farmers».

Already after the Report, after its discussion, before the last meeting of the Plenum to the head of government G.M. Malenkov was approached by Nikita's bosom friend Nikolai Bulganin and invited Georgy Maximilianovich to take the initiative to nominate Khrushchev to the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Those. not just to nominate Nikita, but also to introduce a new position in the Secretariat - the First Secretary. Bulganin warned the Chairman of the Council of Ministers that if this did not come from Malenkov, then he, Bulganin, would himself speak about the nomination of Khrushchev.

Malenkov realized that Bulganin was not alone behind this proposal, which he later told Kaganovich about, and at the next meeting he proposed Khrushchev's candidacy for the post of First Secretary.

The intrigue was planned uncomplicated. Only Bulganin screwed up. Nikolai Alexandrovich never distinguished himself for courage, he was afraid of both Khrushchev and Malenkov, and together with Malenkov, the old Stalinists, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov.

Surely, the Khrushchev group planned that N.A. Bulganin, unexpectedly for everyone, will voice a proposal about Khrushchev. Taken by surprise, the Stalinists will not be able to orient themselves at the meeting in time and will begin to oppose, because the post of General Secretary was abolished back in 1935. First Secretary - the same position.

And then the Plenum will have the opportunity to accuse the Stalinists of "anti-Party activity", that they are going against the Central Committee, opposing the candidacy of Nikita Sergeevich, who has just delivered such a landmark report. But Bulganin, being cowardly, broke the combination.

I think that Khrushchev tried for a long time to find out where the leak came from, why Malenkov unexpectedly nominated him for First Secretaries. And after Georgy Maksimilianovich was squeezed out of the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and the Stalinist group began to recruit an anti-Khrushchev majority in the Presidium of the Central Committee, Malenkov himself arranged an “information leak” about Bulganin. Nikita learned that his friend had thwarted the combination against the Stalinists at the September Plenum of the Central Committee and began to bully Bulganin. As a result, Nikolai Alexandrovich went into opposition to him, finding himself in 1957 in the “anti-party group”.

Of course, the Soviet people would not calmly take a hit on Stalin's closest associates. There would be outrage. Here in this case - Nikita's Report. Report in an absolutely Stalinist spirit. They would present Malenkov and others as opponents of the Stalinist course in collective farm policy. After all, the report also contains a significant increase in purchase prices for collective farm products. Collective farmers would definitely not understand the opponents of this.

Moreover, in the report - a further policy of reducing retail prices for food, the opponents of this would not be understood by the whole people.

This was the purpose of the September Plenum: to make Nikita the main speaker, with proposals for measures on agriculture, determined by the 19th Congress, and at the Plenum itself to create an intrigue, as a result of which the Stalinists can be portrayed as opponents of these measures. In fact, opponents of Stalin's policy.

If they are against Khrushchev, against his promotion to the head of the Party, then they are also against his report.

But, although the intrigue has not completely passed, Nikita Sergeevich has already become “dear Nikita Sergeevich”, and it has begun!

Everything that he reported at the Plenum was immediately forgotten and a heart-rending cry began: Allyarm! We have a grain disaster! We must plow virgin soil, there is no other way out! ...

To understand the meaning, the essence of the virgin epic, you must first realize one elementary thing - virgin grain in such a volume as the first harvests were, there was nowhere to go. It was completely redundant.

Judge for yourself. In September 1953, as Khrushchev himself reported, the population's needs for bread were fully met. Until the spring of 1954, when the plowing of the virgin lands began, the population was unlikely to have increased so much that it began to lack bread and pasta.

Grain has already been put into the state reserve. Khrushchev also said this himself. There you can only renew stocks by exporting something with an expiring shelf life to the national economy. And the state reserve storage facilities are not only not rubber, but also quite expensive.

Throw it away for export? Firstly, the USSR already supplied grain for export. Secondly, the export market is such a thing that you can’t immediately arrive there with a dump truck of wheat and buyers won’t immediately run into it. You need to start with a bag. And then, if at all they will let it into the market. Even on the market of socialist countries. They also have peasants there, and these peasants need to sell their wheat, no one would go for dumping from the USSR.

There is still animal husbandry. It was possible to feed grain to pigs, cows and chickens. But first it was necessary to build pigsties, cowsheds and poultry houses. Then get piglets, calves and chickens in excess of the amount that goes on sale to the population in the form of meat. Then, with this livestock, fill new livestock premises. This is a very lengthy process. It couldn't be done in a year.

That is, where was the first virgin grain supposed to go if no one needed it? It was supposed to rot on the roads, burn out on low-capacity elevators!

This is for you to understand what the protagonist Virgin lands - Leonid Brezhnev was not so stupid as not to understand: without elevators and other grain infrastructure, it makes no sense to sow wheat in Kazakhstan.

The death of a significant part of the harvest of the first years was planned in advance, when they began to sow vast territories with grain, without first creating an infrastructure for storage and processing.

You see, if the virgin grain of the first harvests had not rotted and burned, then a “wonderful” thing would have been revealed: the state reserve cannot accept it, flour mills also do not take it - the population will not buy so much bread and pasta, livestock enterprises do not know who it is to feed, so many livestock and poultry are not available. Export is also a problem.

And then even professors of philosophy at the departments of Marxism-Leninism would understand that the goal of Tselina is not bread...

Virgin lands became the debut of the politician Khrushchev. Let me remind you again that I use this surname only for convenience. There are no and never have been autocratic rulers in the world, even if they were called that at the coronation. Moreover, such could not be in states with a party political system. Autocracy, if we mean the unlimited power of one person, can still exist in the family, but outside the family it ended, probably, even before the ancient ancestors of man decided to move from under the baobab in the savannah to the cave.

In February-March 1954, the next Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held, which adopted a resolution "On a further increase in grain production in the country and on the development of virgin and fallow lands."

Just 5 months ago, at the Plenum, Nikita Sergeevich reported that there was complete order with grain, it only remained to bring the same kind with vegetables, meat and milk, and suddenly - an emergency decision.

No, when you read the text of the Decree itself, apart from what happened at the previous Plenum, without really understanding agriculture, then you really can run to dig the Kazakh steppe with a Komsomol shovel.

Let's read the Decree: The further, more and more complete satisfaction of the growing needs of the population for high-quality foodstuffs depends primarily on the growth of grain production. Resolution in the shortest time The problem of animal husbandry requires sufficient provision of the entire livestock with grain forage - corn, barley and oats. Expansion of the production of industrial crops in the areas of cotton and flax growing, development of vegetable, potato and livestock bases around cities and industrial centers also requires an increase in the supply of the population of these regions with bread».

Everything seems to be logical. Only back in September, Khrushchev himself said that the problem was the lack of livestock and its low productivity. And if there is grain fodder, will the gestation periods of cows and pigs be reduced?

It is clear that if you reduce the area of ​​grain in the collective farms around the cities, then you can grow potatoes and cabbage for the townspeople on the vacated land, but back in September Nikita Sergeevich spoke about the extremely low yield of potatoes and vegetables in these collective farms. And how in September he spoke about the “square-nested” method of planting potatoes, as a means of increasing its yield! And after five months, he did not care about the yield and he went for a simple intensification, to increase the planting area.

Finally, there is this: A socialist planned national economy presupposes the creation and annual renewal of state grain reserves. In addition, the country must have a surplus of grain to increase exports, whose needs are growing.».

In September, this bald miracle announced that grain was poured into the state reserve. Update? Yes. But renewal does not mean that the old grain is taken out to rot in the trash. It goes into normal processing. Those. the renewal of the state grain reserve does not require an increase in gross grain production. Grain with an expiring shelf life is taken to flour mills, and in return it is filled with grain of a new crop.

Now about the measures that were proposed: In order to carry out work on the development of fallow and virgin lands, the plowing of unproductive meadows and pastures, and an additional increase in the sowing of wheat, in 1954 to bring into the areas of development of new lands 120 thousand tractors (in 15-horsepower terms), 10 thousand combines and the corresponding number of tractors plows, seeders, heavy disc harrows, cultivators and other agricultural machines. For Maintenance of the machine and tractor fleet to deliver the required number of vehicles, mobile repair shops, tankers, tankers, stationary oil containers, tools and equipment».

I did not find data for 1954 on the production of tractors, but they must be less than for 1955. In 1955, 246.1 thousand tractors (in terms of 15 hp) were produced. Approximately half of the tractors went not to MTS, but to industry. Road construction, industrial construction, logging, the army... Don't forget that a bulldozer is a tractor.

Yes, and all the parts went to the virgin land. As a result, the MTS became unable to fulfill their contractual obligations to the collective farms. The decommissioning of equipment decommissioned after the resource was exhausted was not replenished by the arrival of a new one. There was a shortage of spare parts.

Also, agricultural machinery (seeders, plows, cultivators, etc.) began to be taken out of the MTS.

I haven't gotten to the frames yet. But even the situation with the equipment clearly indicates a plan to make MTS unprofitable. It ended up that the prices for collective farms for MTS services were raised. And in the absence of the necessary provision of equipment, these organizations could no longer provide the necessary agrotechnical measures. Yields plummeted.

And virgin bread rotted and burned, because there was nowhere to put it. And the main character of Tselina is L.I. Brezhnev. In Kazakhstan, he overfulfilled the plan for plowing by one and a half times.

The situation was further aggravated by the fact that the work of the machine and tractor stations had never been ideal even before the Tselina. In the 1930s, they were just beginning to form, then the war, the MTS suffered significant losses in equipment and personnel, much was restored, but there were still not enough state resources for everything, including the training of qualified personnel. Education is a very expensive thing.

At the September 1953 Plenum, Khrushchev himself reported:

« Last year, more than half of the MTS did not fulfill the work plan. Over 20 per cent. all work on sowing spring and winter crops was carried out with a delay. Poorly carried out important works, as the rise of vapors and the rise of plowing, hay harvesting, forage ensiling. Significant losses during harvesting are allowed. This happens because a significant part of tractors and other machines is idle during the field work. In 1952, only 34 percent of tractor drivers fulfilled the shift production norms ... One of the main reasons for this situation is the insufficiency of MTS with qualified machine operators.».

And he himself cited figures in the report that among the leaders of MTS higher education only 22.6% have, average - 47.0%, the lowest - 30.4%. Chief engineers (chief engineers!) of MTS: higher education, i.e., in fact, engineers - 14.8%. 20.8 - average. 64.4% - the lowest. 64.4% of MTS chief engineers had insufficient education for a tractor driver!

This needs to be understood simply in order to understand what reserves were laid in this organization, in the MTS, if with 14% of the staffing with qualified personnel, half of the stations managed to carry out planned work.

In September 1953, the Central Committee, as follows from the speech of Nikita Sergeevich, sees and understands the problem of staffing the MTS, and in March 1954 the Plenum decides:

« Considering assurance labor force MTS and state farms as an urgent measure, it is necessary to equip the MTS and state farms that are developing new lands with qualified personnel from among the workers of existing MTS and state farms, as well as through the training of tractor drivers and combine operators in trade schools for agricultural mechanization, in schools of agricultural mechanization and in courses at MTS and at state farms. The missing amount of labor force for the newly organized state farms on new lands must be replenished in the order of organized recruitment.

The plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU puts before the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union republics, the regional committees and regional committees of the CPSU, before the councils of ministers of the republics, regional executive committees and regional executive committees, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, the USSR Ministry of State Farms, before all party, trade union and Komsomol organizations the task of selecting and directing in 1954 to state farms and MTS, developing new lands, workers of the management staff, specialists and skilled labor. The selection should be made both from the existing MTS and state farms, and from industry and other branches of the national economy. The organized recruitment and dispatch of workers to the areas of development of new lands should be regarded as the fulfillment of an important task of the Party and government, as a great patriotic cause.».

It is understandable why the entire future "anti-party group" stood up in strong opposition to the plan for the development of the Virgin Lands, which was then directly blamed on them in 1957. It is interesting that the "anti-party group" - this was the top of the government, headed by G.M. Malenkov. But the majority of the Central Committee did not care about the government, using their majority, the Khrushchev group pushed through any decisions they needed.

Of course, MTS, after they were deprived in terms of technology and the most qualified personnel were swept out of them, were no longer able to carry out half of the planned work. They already worked only in a constant emergency mode. Somehow, with a delay in terms, they provided plowing, sowing and harvesting. About fertilization, harrowing, cultivation, processing of row spacings ... - all the agrotechnical measures that ensure productivity were not discussed.

Every year the situation only got worse and worse. It was necessary to bring it to the level so that the collective farms began to ask the question: why do we need these MTS, if they are not capable of cultivating our land with machinery?

MTS from the locomotive of the collective farm movement in the eyes of the collective farmers turned into freeloaders, taking payment in cash and in kind for cultivating the land, but really not having the opportunity to carry it out.

And what about the Soviet people? How did he react to all this? And the Soviet people welcomed the policy of the Party. Without irony.

First, there was no talk of any anti-Stalinism yet. At the Plenums, the continuation of Stalin's policy was announced.

Secondly, it was declared that this policy was aimed specifically at improving the well-being of workers. And it went up! There was nothing surprising in this.

Purchasing prices for collective-farm products in September 1953 were significantly raised and the collective farmers, even in the face of declining yields, began to receive higher incomes. And the decline in yields in the collective farms of traditional areas of agriculture was temporarily compensated by the first high virgin crops. Although almost half of the virgin grain was rotten, its gross harvest increased so much that even free bread appeared in canteens. There was nowhere for him to go. Then they began to feed the pigs with bread.

Everyone was happy so far. Against the background of this joy, anyone who would start criticism would immediately sign his own verdict. Yes, and would not have heard this criticism ...

… In addition to all of the above, a direct cut in state funding for MTS began. In 1954, machine and tractor stations received 1 billion 710 million rubles from the budget, in 1955 - already 1 billion 336 million. As if not cardinally?

But if we take into account that the lion's share of the funds was spent on creating new MTS from scratch (for servicing state farms! - this is important) in the virgin areas, then the picture looks impressive. Stations in areas of traditional agriculture, namely those that served not virgin state farms, but collective farms, the state began to openly go bankrupt. And in 1957, funding was cut to 557 million rubles. From there, footage began to flow in all directions, to all ends of the Motherland. The MTS was given up as a bad job.

But the ruin and liquidation of the MTS was not the goal of the CPSU. MTS is a state enterprise. The goal is collective farms. Bankrupt the remaining non-state enterprises in order to force the owners to give up their property.

And the devastated MTS began to bankrupt the collective farms. The collective farms did not have their own equipment, they plowed, sowed, mowed down state-owned enterprises, MTS. The state first raked out equipment from the MTS, then specialists, reduced funding and this further increased the outflow of specialists, the material and technical base began to degrade.

The collective farms began to worry. The impression was that MTS, as organizational form, need to be reformed, that the stations in their form are not able to satisfy the production needs of collective farms.

Moreover, the leaders of the MTS themselves, under the pressure of criticism from the customers of their services, collective farms, frantically tried to find a way out. For example, K.D. Karpov, head of the planning and financial department of the Main Directorate of the MTS Urals, proposed to merge the funds of the MTS with the funds of collective farms, to create socialist farms (socialist farms), about which he wrote a note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Moreover, Karpov argued his position in the note, relying on Stalin's work "The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR." But Karpov did not understand that the goal of the Central Committee was not socialist enterprises of collective ownership, but their development. The purpose of the Central Committee was - state farms. State enterprises. The Central Committee of the CPSU did not need any other property, except for the state. The total capitalist, the Central Committee, went for the liquidation of any other property.

20 years is a long period of time, after which, as a rule, irreversible processes begin both in society and in the economy. The first conclusion when getting acquainted with the village: the bulk of the rural population and agricultural producers do not have points of contact and live each for himself and on his own. The villagers in the majority literally survive and survive. Agricultural producers are under pressure from monopolies, price disparity, lack of markets, and expensive loans. Those funds that are allocated by the state and are loudly announced as support for the village, in fact, are meager help. As a rule, this is assistance to agricultural producers, and not to villagers, who are not being helped today.

About agriculture and agricultural producers of Russia
Authorities at all levels report on the achievements in the field of agricultural production in Russia. But I have never heard from the same Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation about problems in agriculture and among agricultural producers. Statements such as: "Russia has become one of the leaders in the export of grain, in 4-5 years it will provide itself with 80 percent of livestock products" are questionable. Is it so? Let's try to dispel this myth.
Favorable climatic and weather conditions prevailing in 2008-2009 in most of the territory Russian Federation allowed to get a good harvest of grain and industrial crops. But in and of themselves, output and yields say little about whether agriculture is working effectively.
Nevertheless, grain production has always been the main indicator of the state of agriculture in our country. Grain is a source of food for people and the main condition for the development of animal husbandry. Russia today produces grain 20 million tons less on average per year than was produced in the RSFSR. If we compare the five-year plan of 1986-1990, 521.3 million tons of grain were produced in the RSFSR. In the Russian Federation for the five-year period 2006-2010, a little more than 400 million tons will be produced.

It must be admitted that in the RSFSR the grain group accounted for about 45 percent of the sown area (cereals - 45%, fodder - 35%, technical - 15%, pure fallows - 5%). Today, the grain group in Russia makes up more than 60 percent of the structure of sown areas. There are fertile years with favorable weather conditions and high yields, but on the whole, Russia produces much less grain from large sown areas than it did before.

Then how can one explain the current situation: we produce less grain, but there is nowhere to put it and no one needs it? And everything is explained very simply. For the population, an average of 200 kilograms per person is required for food per year. For 142 million people living in Russia, about 30 million tons of grain are required per year, 10 million tons of grain - an insurance fund, 10 million tons of grain - a seed fund. That's all the need to ensure the nutrition of the population - 50 million tons per year.

The main consumer of grain is the livestock industry for the production of milk and meat, but horns, legs and ponytails remained from the livestock industry in Russia. I will give a few examples. The main producers of grain, milk and meat were the Voronezh, Tambov, Samara, Saratov regions and a number of other regions. Compared to 1990, the number of cattle in these regions has decreased by 5 times, and pigs by 3-4 times. These regions still somehow produce grain, but there is no one to feed.

We are convinced that Russian agriculture has not come out of the crisis even after 20 years of reforms and is operating inefficiently. And it cannot work effectively under these conditions.

Dealers rule the market
In 2009, the state allocated 43 billion rubles (less than 1% of budget spending) to support agricultural producers, or 300 rubles ($10) per hectare of arable land (in Russia, 126 million hectares of arable land). But the respirator alone costs 500 rubles. At the same time, the EEC countries allocated an average of $300 per 1 hectare of arable land to support agriculture, Japan - $480, the USA - $330, Canada - $200. The EEC countries plan by 2015 to bring compensation to more than 50 percent of market prices for agricultural products.

According to statistics, only about 25 percent of agricultural enterprises and 20 percent farms have some guaranteed market. Instead of a civilized market with a clear infrastructure, Russia received a market with a shadow criminal economy, ruled by monopolists, resellers, and criminal structures. And what has developed over the past 2-3 years can hardly be called even a shadow market.

Banks help the agricultural producer or themselves?
The state in the economy switched to manual control, abandoned market mechanisms and forgot what competition is. The state, represented by the government, is trying to negotiate with oilmen, bankers, processors of agricultural products, and power engineers. Oil companies at the request of the government, they reduce the price of fuel and lubricants for agricultural producers by 10 percent for the needs of the sowing industry and immediately increase the price of fuel and lubricants for all other consumers. But then they go all year long and beat with their fists in the chest that they helped both the government and agricultural producers. But at the same time, the cost of fuel and lubricants in Russia is 2 times more expensive than in the USA, 1.5 times more expensive than in the EEC countries. Banks helped both the government and the agricultural producer so much that it was impossible to get a loan. Firstly, it is expensive - the loan rate with all the bank markups is more than 20 percent. Secondly, many banks require collateral for a loan that is 2.5 times the size of the loan.

In 2009, the loan portfolio of banks in Russia decreased by 44.6 percent, but when banks published balance sheet data for 2009 in the first quarter of 2010, most large banks' income increased by 1.5 - 2 times. Why a large loan portfolio, if banks can earn big money on a small one? To whom is the crisis, and to whom it would never end. Almost every day, the ministers of finance and economic development, the chairman of the Central Bank report to the president and prime minister of the country about the reduction of the refinancing rate by the Central Bank, which allegedly reached 7.75 percent. But neither agricultural producers nor the population got anything from the "decrease" except for losses, since the interest rate on the loan remained at the same level (20 percent or more). And loan subsidies are determined at the rate of 3/4 of the refinancing rate, and now subsidies are about 20 percent of the loan rate (last year it was about 50 percent), and banks began to accept deposits from the population at 4-6 percent per annum. Again, it turns out that only banks have won: they take cheap loans from the Central Bank at the refinancing rate and cheap deposits from the population, and then sell expensive loans to both businesses and the public. Don't the ministers of finance and economic development, the chairman of the Central Bank know about this? I think they know, and why they do this, I will explain to the reader below, so as not to repeat myself several times.

Processor - agricultural producer: if you don't want it, don't sell it
According to our data, all agricultural processing enterprises in Russia belong to several holdings, whether they are elevators, sugar refineries or vegetable oil plants. There can be no question of any competition. One monopolist in dozens of regions, and dictates enslaving conditions. Laboratories for determining the quality of products belong to the same monopolist, and it is almost impossible to challenge or prove anything to an agricultural producer. Representatives of the owner always have one answer: if you don't want it under such conditions, don't sell it. They can't decide anything, and their owner is always in Moscow, and his current account is also in a Moscow bank. But they work here - "finish off" roads, bridges built 30 - 40 years ago. Or such an example. The plant of vegetable oils buys sunflower at 9 rubles per kilogram of oil seeds. The plant will shed on moisture, weediness, and, it would seem, paid for the net weight. It was not there - the plant will still charge the seller for drying and cleaning. After all discounts and payments, the agricultural producer will receive 6 rubles per 1 kilogram of sunflower seeds sold.

All over the world, production is private, processing is private, and laboratories for determining the quality of products belong to the state, but in Russia they do not want to do this, since monopolists can lose huge profits.

The price disparity during the reform has reached enormous proportions, and this gap continues to widen every year. For example, the purchase price ratio diesel fuel, fertilizers, tractors, other agricultural machines with selling prices certain types agricultural products:
Agricultural producers cannot purchase the missing agricultural machinery. The village lacks about 500,000 tractors, 150,000 grain harvesters and many other equipment. On average, the farms receive about 17,000 tractors and 8,000 combines per year. At such a rate, the machine and tractor fleet will be able to renew itself only after 40 years. Agricultural producers do not have the funds to purchase equipment, and buying on lease costs them 1.5 - 2 times more expensive. As a result of such a policy, agricultural engineering as an industry in Russia ceased to exist. A little over 10,000 tractors, about 5,000 combine harvesters, 1,000 plows, etc. are produced in the country annually. It can be said that the industry has switched to the production of piece goods.

At the beginning of 2009, the Minister of Agriculture E. Skrynnik announced that the state would intervene in the grain market and buy food grain from agricultural producers at 5-6 rubles per kilogram, the peasants held the grain in the hope that the state would buy it at the promised price. What happened in the end? The state began to buy grain in November-December 2009 at a price of 2.5-2.7 rubles per 1 kilogram. But agricultural producers received 1.5 - 2.0 rubles per 1 kilogram for the sold grain, as they paid for participation in the auction, for grain storage, in addition, they had to transport grain to elevators 200 - 300 kilometers away. Manure today is sold more expensive, it is in short supply. And the cost of grain in farms has developed over 3 rubles per 1 kilogram. There is no question of any profitability of agricultural production in this case.

Insurance in its current form will not protect the farmer
In 2010, most of the agricultural regions of Russia were engulfed in drought, and many agricultural producers will not receive even half of the 2009 harvest. The price of grain began to rise, but there is nothing to sell, there is little grain. So the peasants live, not knowing how to make ends meet. The prevailing weather conditions made it necessary to talk at all levels about crop insurance, and there are accusations against the peasants themselves that they insured only 5 percent of the sown area. It seems that in the current conditions, crop insurance makes little sense, and the owners of those 5 percent who have insured crops are unlikely to receive anything from insurance companies.
Here is what the agricultural producers themselves say: “In the regions, as a rule, there are representative offices (not even branches) of Moscow insurance companies. By the time insurance indemnities are paid or this representation is no longer there, and if it remains, then there is only one answer - here, in the region, they cannot solve anything. The parent organization believes that there are no grounds for the payment of insurance indemnities. Lawsuits are starting, and maybe in two years the agricultural producer will receive the amount that he once paid the insurance company in the form of an insurance premium, but nothing more. But while the lawsuits were going on, the agricultural producer would pay in the form of court fees and lawyers' fees a sum much larger than he would receive in court from the insurance company. Isn't the government aware of such outrages? We think he knows. Russia is a zone of unstable agriculture, out of five years two years are necessarily unfavorable, and the problem of protecting agricultural producers must be urgently addressed.
First of all, in our opinion, it is necessary to adopt a law on insurance in agriculture. The second is to create an insurance fund for agricultural producers, to which the state should direct 2 percent of budget expenditures annually, agricultural producers - 1 percent of the cash proceeds from the sale of agricultural products, and Insurance companies occupied with agricultural insurance - 2 percent of the insurance premium received from insurance in agriculture, in case of coverage of a large area by adverse weather conditions.

Urgent rescue action needed
The current situation in agriculture in 2010 requires the government to take urgent measures to provide assistance to agricultural producers. The villagers took loans, seeds, herbicides, fertilizers against the future harvest, and the time is coming to repay debts, but there is nothing to repay. We also have to prepare the soil for next year's harvest, sow winter crops. Agricultural producers do not know what kind of assistance will be provided and in what volume, so far there are only talks at all levels of government.

In Russia, there is no state policy regarding agriculture, which has led to the fact that up to the present, despite the harvest years, agricultural enterprises are in a very difficult financial position, and dry 2010 will further exacerbate the situation of agricultural enterprises and farms. The state intervention in the grain market did not give any positive result. Firstly, the state purchased small volumes of grain, and therefore the monopoly grain producers did not raise the price of grain. Secondly, the state, having purchased grain from agricultural producers, left it for storage with the same monopolists-grain producers and began to pay huge sums for grain storage. Throughout 2009, there were talks in the government about the huge losses the state incurs by paying for grain storage to producers. Again, only the monopolists won. Why is the foreign experience of the United States and European countries not used, where the need for agricultural products and the possibility of their production in the country are calculated? In the Federal Republic of Germany in the 80s. there was an overproduction of vegetables and milk, so the state was engaged in regulating the volume of production of these products at the primary stage. For each hectare not sown with vegetables compared to last year, the state paid 890 marks to agricultural producers, and about 5 thousand marks for each ton of unproduced milk, but it stimulated the growth of sugar beet and meat production with subsidies and soft loans. With the help of such mechanisms, developed countries keep fluctuations in purchase and retail prices within 2-3 percent per year.

In Russia, too, the state could stimulate an increase in the sowing of oilseeds, corn for grain, there are capacities for processing these crops and a sales market. And in Russia it is either dense or empty. Agricultural producers received a high harvest, prices for products immediately fell by 2-3 times, there is no harvest - prices increased by 3 times. And this situation is not only with grain, but also with vegetables and fruits. Russian agricultural producers are forced to show in their accounting reports not all the costs of production and sale of products, hiding the losses incurred in order to receive loans, since banks refuse loans to unprofitable farms, thereby driving themselves into debt. Agricultural producers engaged in the production of crop products can only hope that the state will pay attention to them and the situation will radically change for the better.

Material prepared:
Nikolai Ivanovich Kulikov, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head of the Department of Finance and Credit, Tambov State Technical University,
Ekaterina Sergeevna Vdovina, assistant of the Department of Finance and Credit, TSTU
TVNZ

Agriculture in post-reform Russia was extensive an increase in gross grain harvests was achieved by plowing new lands (while intensive development, the increase in production is ensured by the improvement of agriculture and the rise in productivity). The main supplier of bread remained the landowners' farms, but the role of the peasants gradually increased. In the world export of bread, Russia occupied the first place.

After the fall of serfdom, the landlords had to rebuild the economic system on a market basis. The “segments” made during the reform forced the peasants to rent land from the landlords, but often they could only pay with their labor. Created labor system of the economy, in which the peasant cultivated the landowner's land with the help of his inventory and livestock (this is its similarity with corvée). Winter hiring, when bread ran out, allowed the landlords to hire peasants on enslaving terms - semi-serf exploitation arose.

In the post-reform 20th anniversary, two ways of development of agriculture: 1) prussian way- slow reorganization of the economy with the preservation of large landownership - spread in the Central Agricultural Region (advanced landlords bought livestock and equipment, but it was unprofitable to conduct business on large areas); 2) american way- entrepreneurial, farming - was used in the steppe regions of the Trans-Volga region and the North Caucasus, where landownership was weak or did not exist at all.

After the reform of 1861 began cre bundlegentry, a few prosperous families stood out, and completely ruined ones appeared. The middle peasants and the poor made up the bulk of the peasant population.

Peasant community, existed in Russia from time immemorial, according to the reform received the status of a rural society. The community was engaged in the distribution of land allotment; as an administrative unit performed tax and police duties. The community government was rural gathering and elected village chief, who executed the decisions of the gathering and the orders of the provincial foreman and the conciliator. According to the law, only householders were allowed to attend. In the black earth provinces this rule was strictly observed; in the non-chernozem regions, where the heads of families often went to work, women and youth occupied a strong place at gatherings.

The community had collective land use and individual farming. The peasants owned the land in strips and received the average harvest of the year. In most communities the land was cut according to the number of men; at the birth of a boy, the family received an allotment, with the death of a man, they lost their allotment. Such "private redistribution" happened constantly. On average, every 12 years "radical change" communal lands were re-divided according to the number of men. (However, in some communities there were no redistributions at all.)

AT black earth provinces in the first post-reform 20th anniversary, a radical redistribution became a rare occurrence; put on, even reduced, fed the family, and the peasant cherished him. The beginnings of inheritance and testamentary law appeared. In some provinces, allotments began to be sold, and the land became the property of new owners. The view of land as private property took root in the peasant mind.

AT non-chernozem provinces the peasants coped with the redemption payments only with the help of extraneous earnings. Those who could not go to work were exempted from allotment; redistributions were a frequent occurrence, the land was distributed among male workers. But the peasants employed at work in the city did not always have time to cultivate their allotment; there were more and more empty, abandoned lands, for which payments and taxes were collected. The peasants sought to get rid of the despoiling allotment as soon as possible. The 60-70s were a difficult period in the life of the peasants of the non-Chernozem provinces, but close contact with the city developed entrepreneurial skills; many peasants broke with the land and settled in the city.

In general, the reform significantly accelerated themove from the stagnant natural-consumerth economy to the commodity market.

The agricultural development of Russia in the post-reform period was not so successful. True, in 20 years the export of grain from Russia increased 3 times and in 1881 amounted to 202 million poods. In the world export of bread, Russia occupied the first place. Bread prices on the world market were high.

However, the growth in grain yields in Russia was not great. The increase in gross grain yields was achieved mainly through the plowing of new lands. This path of development is called extensive, in contrast to intensive, when the increase in production is ensured by improving agriculture and raising productivity. The main supplier of export grain remained the landlord economy, although the role of peasants gradually increased. What has changed and what has not changed in the landlord economy. In the hands of the landlords were vast areas of land. For every 100 acres of peasant land in the Central Chernozem region, there were 56 acres of landlords' land, and in the Central Industrial region - 30 acres. The largest landowners (the Stroganovs, Sheremetevs, Shuvalovs, and others) owned hundreds of thousands of acres in various provinces. After the abolition of serfdom, the landowners had to rebuild their economy on a market basis. They had the opportunity to organize a system of economy, transitional from corvée to capitalist. The cuts made during the reform forced the peasants to rent land from the landowner. But often they could offer him nothing but their labor as rent. This is how the labor system of the economy arose. It was similar to the corvée in that the peasant worked the landowner's land here with his working cattle and implements. In order to further enslave the peasants, the landowner resorted to winter hiring (the hiring agreement was concluded in winter, when the peasants ran out of bread and they agreed to any conditions). Such forms of exploitation were called semi-serfdom.

In general, after 1861 the attitude of the landowners towards the peasants changed greatly. Previously, the landowner often felt sorry for his peasants, came to their aid (after all, it was still property). Now he was ready to squeeze all the juice out of them and leave them to the mercy of fate. Only the most humane and far-sighted landowners who worked in the zemstvos tried somehow to make up for the broken relations and to get closer to the peasantry on the basis of the common interests of the local economy. Some landlords tried to introduce the capitalist system of economy. They started their own working cattle and equipment, bought agricultural machines, hired workers. But these forms of management took root with difficulty. It was not easy for them to compete with enslaving forms of exploitation, for which the reform of 1861 created favorable conditions. In addition, a purely entrepreneurial economy could not be profitable on very large areas. In that era, before tractors, the margin of profitability was usually 500 acres. Large landowners cultivated only their best lands in an entrepreneurial way, and gave other lands "for working out." And only in the steppe Trans-Volga, in the North Caucasus, where landownership was small or did not exist at all, entrepreneurial, farming began to quickly establish itself. These areas became the breadbasket of Russia and the main suppliers of bread for export. In the post-reform 20th anniversary, two paths of evolution of the agrarian system in Russia were identified. The central agricultural region embarked on a slow, protracted path of restructuring the economy while maintaining large-scale landownership. This path is called Prussian. And in the steppe regions of the Trans-Volga region and the North Caucasus, another path began to emerge, a farming, entrepreneurial one, which historians call American. Peasantry in the 60≈70s 19th century In the pre-reform countryside, the groups of rich, middle and poor peasants were not constant in composition. During the life of one peasant, his family could visit all three groups. After the reform of 1861, the hereditary consolidation of peasant families in different social groups increased. Wealthy families, who no longer had to share their wealth with the landowner, began to pass it on by inheritance. On the other hand, in the post-reform village, not even poor, but completely ruined households appeared. This usually happened as a result of the bad qualities of householders (laziness, drunkenness, mismanagement, etc.). But their children, no matter how hardworking and diligent they were, had little chance of improving their household. The stratification of the peasantry began to take on an irreversible character. But there was no clear line between the middle peasants and the poor. These two social groups, closely interconnected, made up the bulk of the peasant population. Peasant community. The economic and social life of the Russian peasant proceeded within the framework of the community that existed in Russia from time immemorial. Under the reform of 1861, it received the status of a rural society.

The peasant community, a land-based neighborhood organization of small direct producers, was an economic association and the lowest administrative unit. The economic side of the community consisted of measures for the distribution and exploitation of the land allotment (redistribution of fields and meadows, the use of pastures and forests). As an administrative unit, the community was required by law to perform fiscal (tax) and police duties.

The main organs of community administration were the village assembly and the village headman. The latter had to execute the decisions of the meeting and the orders of the volost foreman and the mediator. According to the law, only householders (heads of families) were to attend the village meeting. In the provinces of the black earth belt, this rule was strictly observed. In the non-chernozem provinces, however, householders often found themselves "in retirement" (on earnings). Their wives came to the meeting. “There is more sense in a woman than in a peasant,” said the local peasants. Sometimes parents sent their sons 15-17 years old to the gathering - at that age a peasant youth was already a real worker. Peasant societies sometimes made decisions not to allow "youngsters" to attend the gathering - they "excite the gathering". And yet, women and youth have firmly taken a place at rural gatherings in the non-Chernozem provinces. In the Chernozem, the orders were more patriarchal. The community was built on a combination of collective land use and individual household management by each family. The peasants owned the land in the community in strips. Each yard was cut into strips of both good and bad lands, both near and far, both on a hillock and in a lowland. Having stripes in different places, the peasant annually received an average harvest: in a dry year, strips were rescued in low places, in a rainy year - on hillocks. The main condition for maintaining the economy and reproduction of life in the community was the labor of a plowman. The presence of healthy and strong workers, male plowmen was considered a guarantee of her well-being. Therefore, in many communities, land was distributed according to the number of men. If a man died in the family, society took away his clothes. If a boy was born, he received an allotment. Such "discounts-capes" occurred constantly and were called private redistributions. But the number of births usually exceeded the number of deaths. The resulting discrepancy could be eliminated if the communal lands were divided into a new number of souls with a reduced allotment. This was called the general (or radical) redistribution. It was repeated on average once every 12 years. But some communities did not make redistributions - neither general nor private. In such communities, the distribution of land was very uneven.

However, in the first post-reform 20th anniversary in the provinces of the black earth zone, redistributions became a rare occurrence. No matter how high the redemption payments were here, the allotment still fed the peasant family, and the peasants valued it very much. The long-term absence of redistribution led to the emergence of the beginnings of a hereditary right to land. “The spiritual testament is respected by society even more strongly thanks, perhaps, to the curses that the testator promises to violators of his will,” Zemstvo statisticians reported. Society looked at the acquired allotments as the inalienable property of the new owners. The land was gradually concentrated in the hands of wealthy families, and the concept of private ownership of land began to take root in the peasant mind. This suggests that the first post-reform 20th anniversary was a relatively favorable period in the life of the peasants of the Black Earth provinces. After all, land redistributions were not made from a good life. If there were no redistributions, then it was possible to live without them. Things were different in those years in the non-Chernozem provinces. Here the peasant allotment was taxed in excess of its profitability. Only with the help of outside earnings did the peasant cope with the redemption payments. Those who could not go to work (small children, the disabled, the elderly) did not have any clothes. The land here was distributed according to male workers (╚working souls╩). A peasant, perhaps, would have completely abandoned the allotment, but according to the law he could not leave forever the village to which he was assigned. Nevertheless, the peasant tried to “push” off his allotment at every opportunity. Repartitions of land in non-chernozem provinces were a frequent occurrence. Busy at work in the city, the peasant did not always have time to process his entire allotment.

There were more and more abandoned lands, for which, nevertheless, redemption payments and other taxes were collected. 60≈70s were a difficult period in the life of the village of the non-Chernozem center. Although close communication with the city quickly developed entrepreneurial skills among the local peasants.

So the reform of 1861 responded differently in different Russian lands. In general, despite the severity of redemption payments and semi-serf exploitation by the landlords, this reform significantly accelerated the transition of the peasants from a subsistence-consumer economy to a commodity-market economy.