Re: soviet collectivization

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>       I'm currently taking my oral exams, and one of my questions
>centers on James Scott's latest book "Seeing Like a State."  In the book,
>Scott makes the claim that in the half-century period following WW II,
>yields per hectare of many crops grown on Soviet collectivized farms were
>stagnant or actually inferior to levels recorded in the 1920s or the
>levels reached before the Revolution (page 203).  I find this hard to
>believe, given the limited reading I've done on Soviet agriculture in the
>1950s and 60s, and Scott provides no documentation for this claim.  Can
>anyone provide some feedback on this question?
>
>Chris Carrick
>PhD Candidate
>Department of City and Regional Planning
>Cornell University

There's a useful article titled "Soviet Agriculture Since 1953" by Roger W.
Opdahl in the Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 1. (Mar., 1960). If
the Cornell library does not have a copy, I can mail it to you. (I have
access to JSTOR at Columbia, which is a database of scholarly journals
searchable by keyword. That's how I found this article. If Cornell has it,
you should check it out.)

Opdahl, despite his anticommunist beliefs, is forced to recognize the
improvements in Soviet agriculture that Khrushchev made. Taking into
account the havoc wreaked by Stalin that lasted into the 1950s, the
consequences of WWII's scorched earth policies, and generally unfavorable
agricultural environmental conditions in a northern climate, there were big
improvements during the 1960s.

For example, Opdahl is forced to admit:

"Milk and meat procurements were also up in 1957, and the goal of 1,700
kilograms per kolkhoz cow was said to have been reached in 1957; the
average of 1,857 kilograms went beyond the 1960 goal by a considerable
margin. The prediction was again made that in 1958 the Russians would catch
up with the United States in the per capita production of milk."

Louis Proyect

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