BREZHNEV PROMISES TO MAKE GOOD WHERE KHRUSHCHEV FAILED
By Pierre Frank
Some five months after Khrushchev's downfall, important additional light has been shed on the reasons behind that important ~ event. In his report at the meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, which ended March 26, Brezhnev revealed a startling fact.
"Gross agricultural production, as projected by the sevenyear plan (1959-1965), should have increased 70%," Brezhnev said. "But it increased only 10%. A noticeable increase occurred up to 1959, but after that, agriculture in actuality made no gains. A Lot was demanded of agriculture, but the necessary economic support was not forthcoming. Thus state investments in agriculture which amounted to 11.3% of all investments from 1954 to 1958, did not rise above 7.5% in the following period (1959 to 1965)."
From this admission only one conclusion can be drawn about the results in agriculture -- it was a disaster. Not to reach the projected increase of 70% was bad enough; but to reach only 10% signifies failure to keep up even with the rate of growth of the population.
The Trotskyist movement has continually stressed that agriculture has been the Achilles! heel of the Soviet economy under the bureaucracy. With Khrushchev's accession to power, the Trotskyists held that his fate would be linked primarily with his success or failure in the agricultural domain where Stalin's heritage is a particularly heavy millstone. Khrushchev resorted to various measures during the years lie headed the government. But after some progress due to certain reforms and. particularly a rise in the prices of agricultural products, Soviet agriculture fell into dangerous stagnation. Khrushchev made grandiloquent promises which could not be kept. Inevitably he had to serve as the scapegoat.
Brezhnev's report likewise clearly alluded to "scientists" of the Lysenko type. "Many solutions -- let's say thoughtless and often opposed to both the kolkhoz administration and the facts of life -were imposed on the leadership in agriculture," Brezhnev said.
Administrative measures, insufficient investments, official support for theories and dogmas lacking any scientific basis -- this was the indictment once levelled by Khrushchev to some extent against Stalin after the death of the dictator. Khrushchev's successors now level it against him.
It should be recalled that whatever official Soviet propaganda says about it, Soviet agriculture is by far the most backward part of the country's economy. An excellent description can be found in
the book by René Dumont which appeared last year, Sovkhoz, Kolkhoz : ou le Problématique Communisme |[Sovkhoz, Kolkhoz or Questionable Communism]. ,
"Soviet agriculture," writes Dumont, “remains largely underdeveloped." (p. 179.) "Since 1930, none of the Soviet agricultural plans have been fulfilled. Since 1958, progress has again become very slow. Too ambitious, the agricultural plans for '1970! and '1980' will surely not be fulfilled, without extremely profound structural reforms that are not realizable in the present circum stances." (p. 262.) |
For a long time, agriculture has been the principal source of accumulation in the Soviet economy. Dumont mentions this fact likewise in his book. "Up until 1953, agriculture paid much more in taxes to the state than it received in investments. Can the two figures now be brought into balance?" (p. 53.) Dumont refrains from answering in the affirmative. .
Until the full text of Brezhnev's report has been released, it is not possible to draw definitive conclusions about the measures he proposes. However, their nature is indicated by the promise to invest during the next five years 71,000,000,000 rubles Tone ruble = $1.11], the equivalent of everything that has been invested in the past nineteen years. <A promise was also made to the peasants. to cut down on obligatory deliveries. (The figure for 1965 will be lowered from 65,500,000 tons of grain to 55,700,000 tons, where it will stand until 1970.) The incomes of peasants will not be lowered since higher prices will be paid by the state for deliveries,
Brezhnev made a very imprudent assertion in his report. "Noticeable increases in prices in relation to current quotations will be offered, but will have no repercussions on the price of bread, cereal products, meat and meat products."
Khrushchev proceeded in a similar way in 1962 to raise the prices paid by the state for meat and milk products. The result was a rise in prices for the consumers. This gave rise to discontent among the workers, even touching off strikes (in the Zis plant in Moscow and in the Donetz coal basin) in the months preceding the downfall of Khrushchev.
Brezhnev did not say how he expected to avoid having increases in the prices of agricultural products affect the prices paid by consumers. At the moment it is not known where the increased investments for agriculture are to be drawn -- the field of consumption, heavy industry, or defense expenditures.
This involves the problem of general policy and government relations with Soviet society. The press has commented on the, removal of the "ideologist" Ilyichev from the post of secretary of the Central Committee during the meeting .and his replacement by a
"technician," Ustinov, stressing that in general "technicians" are replacing the “ideologists."
This is badly formulated. Since Stalin established the bureaucratic regime in the USSR; that is, an oligarchical power of top leaders who determine policy, there have been only "technicians" -- technicians of ideology, technicians of production, etc., who are compelled to serve the ruling power.
As a consequence, the bureaucratic system has put the most mediocre technicians in the field of "ideology," where the task was to liquidate Marxism. The more competent technicians were drawn into production where positive results had to be shown and progress made, The field of ideology has now reached such a point that it no longer serves the bureaucracy as it did in the past. To achieve the goals that are set, the development of Soviet society requires something more than the insignificant documents produced by the - "ideological" services of the Communist party of the Soviet Union.
Technicians from the field of production can take the place of the technicians of ideology. But what has to be determined is policy. And the technicians from the field of productian cannot propose anything at present but a bureaucratic policy offering, as in Khrushchev's case, only temporary results that open no real perspective inasmuch as Soviet society is still deprived of the fundamental element that is indispensable to give Soviet economy an irresistible impetus in all fields; that is, democracy -- democracy both economic and political, from the lowest level of production to the summits of government.
ITALIAN COMMUNIST YOUTH CONGRESS