1 , No. 9, 1959, pp. 33–51, condensed in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, XI, No. 36 (October 7, 1959), 3–8, 13. According to Khrushchev the plan for 1965 calls for a 70 per cent rise in agricultural output by 1965. , January 28,1959, pp. 2–10.

2 , NO. 3, 1959, p. 43.

3 , op. cit. Both the 1959 and 1960 harvest in the new lands were disappointing.

4 Stalin, J., Economic Problems of Socialism in the V.S.S.R. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1952), p. 76.Google Scholar

5 , December 16, 1958, pp. 1–7.

6 , No. 2,1959, p. 115.

7 According to Lazar Volin the greatly increased amount of cash distributed to the peasants in 1956 as compared with 1952 (the period in which the greatest increase occurred) only amounted to a total average income per peasant family of “a little more than $200 at a realistic rate of exchange.” “Reform in Agriculture,” Problems of Communism, VIII, No. 1 (January-February, 1959), p. 39.

8 Stalin, op cit.,p. 100. The fact that the MTS have been operated at a loss should not be taken as an indication that, on balance, agriculture has been subsidized by industry. Indeed the contrary is true. To speak of the state subsidizing agriculture by operating the MTS at a loss only reflects that agricultural prices have been kept at such a depressed level (in order that the collectives can contribute to the continued expansion of industry) that, at least in the past, forcing them to pay for the actual costs of the MTS work would have forced peasant standards of living even lower than they have been. In short, the subsidy implied by Stalin in this instance was merely a reflection of the Soviet system of bookkeeping and not economic relationships.

9 , No. 3, 1958, p. 30.

10 Ibid.,p. 30.

11 Counting agricultural specialists, machine operators, administrative personnel, clerks, and all other categories of workers, there were some 3,000,000 MTS employees. Some, of course, have been retained by the newly created Repair-Technical Stations. Khrushchev, Ilpaoda, March 1,1958, pp. 1–3.

12 npae∂a, March 18, 1958, p. 2, condensed in Current Digest, X, No. 12 (April 30, 1958), 11.

13 Indeed, although I was unable to verify it in my visit to rural Russia in June, 1960, there is a persistent rumor among colleagues abroad that at least some agricultural prices have been reduced during recent months.

14 Volin, op. tit., p. 39.

15 , No. 2,1959, p. 41.Google Scholar

16 A comprehensive study of the political role of the MTS is presented in a work by the present author and two colleagues. Roy Laird, D., Sharp, Darwin E., and Sturtevant, Ruth E., The Rise and Fall of the MTS as an Instrument of Soviet Rule (Lawrence, Kansas: Governmental Research Center, 1960)Google Scholar.

17 op. cit.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid. Ilpaeda, December 16, 1958, pp. 1-7.

20 , No. 18, December, 1956, p. 73.

21 EfaxTep, op. cil.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid. Of sixteen countries listed by Shlikhter only Argentina, Mexico, and Canada lag behind the United States in grain yields p e r acre.

25 This point was emphasized i n a British evaluation of American agriculture when the author noted: “The American authorities fully realize that the economic advantages of specialization and of the resultant high output per man may be outweighed by lower yields per acre and by long-term adverse effects of poor husbandry.” Duckhan, A. N., American Agriculture: Its Background and Its Lessons (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1952), p. 55.Google Scholar

26 Nove, A. and Laird, R. D., “A Note on Labour Utilization in the Kolkhoz,” Soviet Studies, IV, No.4 (April, 1944), 434–42.Google Scholar

27 , December 16, 1958, pp. 1-7. According to figures supplied in a discussion with Mr. Seivek, chairman of the multimillionaire Red Star Kolkhoz near Krasnodar (where labor efficiency is surely better than the national average) the collective has one able-bodied kolkhoznik for every 14 acres of land, calculated on the basis of those who are engaged solely in field work (each field brigade has 200-250 hands and is responsible for 7,500 acres). The collective has one field hand for every 33 acres. The average Kansas or Nebraskafarmer probably cultivates ten times this area of land; other crops will, of course, require more intensive labor employment. On the Red Star the major crops were small grains (8,300 acres), corn (7,300 acres), sugar beets (7,780 acres), sunflowers (1,900 acres), vegetables (600 acres), annual and perennial grasses (8,400 acres), and gardens and vineyards (1,500 acres).

28 , op. cit.

29 The often noted penchant for “gigantomania” in agriculture is expressed in the large working brigades and huge machines, but most dramatically in the changing size of the farms themselves. Before the 1950 amalgamations there were more than 250,000 collective farms in the USSR. Amalgamation reduced the total number of farms to some 70,000 by 1959; and Ilpaeda, April 1, 1960, reveals that further unifications have cut the total number of kolkhozy to only 54,000. The average collective was about 1,600 acres in 1950; the 1960 collectives must average nearly 8,000 acres.

30 Mitrany, David, Marx Against the Peasant (London: George Weidenfeld and Nicholson, Ltd., 1951), pp. 228–29.Google Scholar

31 , op. cit.

32 Ibid.