Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

The paper reconstructs the content and specifics of the discourse of 1932-1933 on the problem of choosing the preferable farming techniques in the West-Siberian Region. Analysis is carried out against the background of agricultural policy of the Soviet state, situation in the agriculture of the region as well as ideological and theoretical disputes in agronomic science. It is established that soil fertility decline occurred due to the neglect of basic farming techniques during the period of forced collectivization. In this regard the Soviet leadership in September, 1932 emphasized the importance of introducing the preferable farming techniques. The science and technology institutions of the region developed a range of agrotechnical measures that were supposed to lead to higher yields. In early 1933 some of these recommended techniques were considered as “harmdoing”. This was followed by the political and ideological campaign in the course of which the requirements of shallow ploughing, medium length planting season for grain crops, substitution of complete fallows for the seeded ones, refusal of the fall plowing etc. were exposed and identified as “harmdoing”. Agrarian workers were also supposed to obey policies in choosing crop rotation systems. “Harmdoing” was exposed not only in farming techniques, but also in zootechnics and animal husbandry systems. The rejected farming techniques were replaced with agrotechnical “innovations” that had not been previously tested in practice in the region. They either proved to be ineffective under Siberian conditions or had been of anti-scientific character from the outset (ultra-early planting, vernalization). The campaign undertaken in 1932-1933 to find the preferable farming techniques and fight against the “harmdoing policies” failed to bring qualitative changes in farming. The agricultural technology in the region and in the country remained at the unsatisfactory level.