The use of foreign scientific and production experience in agriculture of the USSR during the "Thaw" period

The article examines the problems of using foreign scientific and production experience in agriculture of the USSR during the "Thaw" period. The sources were archival materials from the collections of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, the Russian State Archive of Economics, as well as special agricultural literature. The author came to the conclusion that the reason for the Soviet leadership to turn to foreign scientific and production developments was the lack of a well-thought-out program for the development of the agricultural sector. At the same time, the mechanism by which foreign technologies would be harmoniously and massively "integrated" into the Soviet system of management in the agricultural sector was never formed, as a result of which only episodic "inclusions" of elements of Western scientific and production experience into the Soviet planned system of agricultural management took place. In the organizational and scientific sphere, the borrowed management decisions (the cost-accounting procedure for financing agricultural science, the creation of a network of Soviet analogues of "demonstration farms," the transfer of agricultural universities and scientific institutions to rural areas) were not implemented, since they did not take into account the real state of affairs in agriculture, which for a long time occupied a subordinate place in the Soviet economy in relation to the tasks of industrialization, and, as a consequence, its weak material, technical and personnel support. The introduction of specific agricultural measures from foreign agricultural experience (the corn "epic," the "row-crop system" of farming) into production was carried out without taking into account the natural and climatic features of the regions of our country, and the material and technical capabilities of enterprises were not taken into account. As a result, production indicators decreased, environmental problems worsened, and the food supply of the population worsened. Technological development of the industry was limited by the capabilities of Soviet industry, which was becoming increasingly costly and focused on the production of more expensive and capital-intensive equipment, which turned out to be practically incapable of creating machines and mechanisms for specific and diverse agricultural technologies. According to the author, the passion for copying foreign experience had a negative impact not only on the development of agricultural production, but also slowed down the scientific development of the most important problems of the agricultural sector, in particular the soil-protective farming system for virgin lands. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References