Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2019 number

The article objective is to identify specifics of development of the state’s agricultural technology policy during the post-war Stalinism and “Khrushchev” decades and measures implemented by the Soviet government to develop the agricultural technology in the collective and state farms of Siberia. The study objective is to represent the scale and results of introducing modern systems of agriculture at the time, as well as the level of management culture. The author concludes that intensive methods were used to increase grain production during the period under review. The strategies of ecological technologies (herb crops, fallow lands, field-protective forest planting, land reclamation, etc.) and agriculture chemicalization (application of mineral fertilizers, herbicides and other means) were used in the policy of intensifying agriculture. The first strategy was deemed to be the “main” by the government in the second half of the 1940s and early 1950s. The emphasis was on introducing the grassland system without large capital investments. Applying this agricultural technology did not lead to increase in productivity of arable lands in the collective and state farms. N. S. Khrushchev called to abandon it completely. Expensive chemicalization was envisioned mainly in plans of agricultural development implemented only in the mid-1960s, when the comprehensive program appeared to intensify agricultural production with sufficient financial support. During the period under review, the authorities expected to increase agricultural production, primarily of grain, with extensive development of virgin and fallow lands. During the “Khrushchev” decade, it became the main lever to revitalize agriculture. Considerable funds were invested in the industry thanks to the virgin soil campaign; the country received additional grain yields. The reverse side of the new lands development was a significant drop of qualitative indicators of agricultural production.