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Soviet Farm Mechanization in Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Folke Dovring
Folke Dovring*
Affiliation:
College of Agriculture, University of Illinois
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Extract

The Soviet Paradox of high mechanization and continuing intensive use of hand labor in agriculture has been commented upon many times. For its level of capital intensity, Soviet agriculture is easily the least productive in the world. The purpose of this paper is not to elaborate anew on these well-known oddities or their consequences for the current and prospective (short-run) supply of farm goods in the USSR. The problem here is: Given the collectivist ideology which found expression in the collective-farm and state-farm systems, what will mechanization ultimately do to the farm system? In countries with advanced farm mechanization and effective use of capital, such as the United States, the farm labor force tends to become rather small; a similar development is clearly under way also in western Europe.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1966 , pp. 287 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1966

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References

1 F. Dovring, Land and Labor in Europe in the Twentieth Century, with a chapter on Land Reform as a Propaganda Theme by Karin Dovring (3d rev. ed.; The Hague, 1965), p. 108.

2 Problems of Manpower in Agriculture (by F. Dovring) (Paris, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1965; “O.E.C.D. Documentation in Food and Agriculture,“ Vol. LXVII).

3 Agriculture in the United States and the Soviet Union (Washington, 1963; U.S. Department of Agriculture, ERS Foreign 53), p. 13, referring to 1958.

4 Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1959 goda SSSR (Svodnyi torn) (Moscow, 1962), pp. 104 ff., footnote; Sel'skoe khoziaistvo SSSR (Moscow, i960), p. 450; and (for i960) Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1961 godu (Moscow, 1962), p. 118. Higher estimates of labor use on collective farms were computed by A. N. Gol'tsov, “Ispol'zovanie trudovykh resursov v kolkhozakh,“ Ekonomicheskie nauki, No. 1, 1961, pp. 43-55; similar but somewhat lower estimates by the same writer appear in Trudovye resursy SSSR, ed. N. I. Shishkin (Moscow, 1961), Chap. 4.

5 Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1963 godu (Moscow, 1965), p. 363.

6 Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1961 godu, p. 461; and Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1963 godu, p. 363. Cf. Sel'skoe khoziaistvo SSSR, p. 450, which shows some difference in data for 1959 and earlier years.

7 Seasonal variation, for the years 1953-59, is indicated in Sel'skoe khoziaistvo SSSR, pp. 460 f.; peak demand in July required over 30 million workers, while January, at the other extreme, took little more than 18 million. In some areas slack-season demand was less than half the peak-season demand. Underemployment is also analyzed in some recent articles. Thus, A. Glukhov (“Ispol'zovanie trudovykh resursov v sel'skom khoziaistve,” Ekonomicheskie nauki, No. 2, 1964, pp. 24-30) has stated that in Voronezh Oblast underemployment is severe in all months except April, May, October, and November, when it is small but still significant. Z. Kirianova (“Utochnit’ uchet ispol'zovaniia rabochei sily v sovkhozakh,” ibid., No. 2, 1965, pp. 75-77), also on the basis of data from Voronezh Oblast, argued that the state farms there had an unused labor surplus of 5 to 7 percent.

8 See Problems of Manpower in Agriculture, pp. 30, 35. The comparison understates the difference, since the Soviet figure refers to manpower actually used in agriculture, those for other countries manpower committed to agriculture but to some extent underemployed.

9 This point was made again quite recently by Soviet Minister of Agriculture Matskevich, V, “Ekonomicheskie problemy dal'neishego razvitiia sel'skogo khoziaistva” Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 6, 1965, p. 7.Google Scholar

10 Narodnoe khoiiaistvo SSSR v 1961 godu, pp. 414, 417; and Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1963 godu, pp. 332, 340; and Sel'skoe khoziaistvo SSSR, pp. 409, 419.

11 Inter-industry tables (incomplete input-output tables) are published in Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v i960 godu, pp. 104-43 (in naoney terms), and Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1961 godu, pp. 78-117, in terms of direct labor used by one industry for the goods and services it delivers to another industry, specified for 72 industries (73 in the money-term table). The 1961 yearbook also gives two synthetic tables (pp. 118-19) t o show the total labor use in the “agribusiness” complex, which is shown as 45.1 million work-years, of which 32 million are in agriculture, 6.4 million in the food processing, textile, and footwear industries, 2.2 million in other industry, and 4.5 million in transportation, trade, etc. The data are not directly comparable with those of the inter-industry table; the link between the two can be established only by aid of an elaborate mathematical operation plus certain information not included in the inter-industry table. From proportions between data in the inter-industry tables it can be concluded that most of the “other industry” input and a sizable part of the transportation input are in goods and services supplied as current inputs to farms. Such an estimate comes to between 2.5 and 3 million man-years and still does not include the labor spent for durable investment, which is not included in the data of the inter-industry table or in the synthetic tables derived from it.

12 On indirect labor requirements for United States agriculture (including investment, contract services, etc.), preliminary findings are given in F., Dovring, Labor Used for Agricultural Production, University of Illinois, Department of Agricultural Economics, AERR-62, April 1963 Google Scholar; detailed calculations are in W. F. Gossling, “A New Economic Model of Structural Change in U.S. Agriculture and Supporting Industries” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Illinois, 1964), with tabulated results pp. 250 f.; a summary of method and findings is in Gossling, W. and Dovring, F., “Labor Productivity Measurement” Journal of Farm Economics, No. 2, 1966 (Proceedings of Winter Meetings), pp. 369–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Shimkin, D. B., “Current Characteristics and Problems of the Soviet Rural Population,” in Soviet Agricultural and Peasant Affairs, ed. Laird, R. D. (Lawrence, Kan., 1963), pp. 79–127, esp. pp. 100 f.Google Scholar

14 Matskevich, p. 12. The data chosen are such as to minimize the change in agriculture; those for external inputs are many times higher than the real ones and thus irrelevant to the subject at hand. In other places also, Soviet writers fail to grasp the real distance between U.S. and Soviet agriculture.

15 Sel'skoe khoziaistvo, pp. 442 ff.; Vestnik statistiki, No. 10, 1963, pp. 88 ff. Cf. Obolenskii, K. P., Opredelenie ekonomicheskoi effektitmosti sel'skokhoziaistvennogo proizvodstva (Moscow, 1963), p. 69 Google Scholar; Khlebnikov, V, “Proizvoditel'nost’ truda v kolkhozakh i sovkhozakh,” Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 10, 1963, pp. 55–63Google Scholar, and several other recent articles.'

16 “Koszty podstawowych produktow rolnych w Polsce w latach 1960/61—1961/62,” Zagadnienia ekonomiki rolnej (Warsaw), appendix to No. 3, 1963, pp. 78 ff.

17 Kis'liakoŭ, la., Pasiolki (Minsk, 1928)Google Scholar (Pratsi Belaruskaga navukova-das'ledchaga instytutu sel'skae i liasnoe gaspadarki, Vol. V, No. 1), p. 61.

18 For instance, Spravochnik po opiate truda v sovkhozakh i drugikh gosudarstuennykh sel'skokhoziaistvennykh predpriiatiiakh (Moscow, 1962); Ekonomicheskaia effektivnost' novykh sel'skokhoziaistvennykh mashin, ed. N. F. Zhitnev and A. P. Kolotushkin (Moscow, 1961).

19 On this subject see, for example, Spravochnik po okhrane truda v sel'skom khoziaistve (2d rev. ed.; Moscow, 1963); and Larionov, A. P., Normirovanie i tarifikatsiia truda v kolkhozakh i sovkhozakh (Moscow, 1961)Google Scholar.

20 Ruzskaia, E. A., Perspektivy razvitiia i razmeshcheniia zhivotnovodstva v SSSR (Moscow, 1959)Google Scholar, uses a 25 percent allowance for overhead work in animal husbandry (p. 223, with note 3)—an extraordinarily high allowance, especially in connection with enterprise-specific norms as high as those the writer uses. The terms for “overhead” are obshcheproizvodstvennyi and obshchekhoziaistvennyi. The meaning of these terms can be seen from current handbooks in bookkeeping, for example, Spravochnik dlia bulkhgal'terov sovkhozov i drugikh gosudarstvennykh sel'skokhoziaistvennykh predpriiatii (Moscow, 1961), pp. 41, 76 ff., with data from decrees of 1959 and 1961; Spravochnik bukhgal'tera kolkhoza (2d rev. ed.; Moscow, 1964), pp. 124 ff., 356 ff.; and from various recent analyses, such as the article in Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 8, 1965, pp. 26 ff. A. Gol'tsov (see note 4 above) and other recent writers also assume very high rates of overhead work in Soviet agriculture. See also, for instance, Metodika planirovaniia proizvoditel'nosti truda v sel'skom khoziaistve (v kolkhozakh i sovkhozakh) (Moscow, 1964), pp. 15 f.

21 Especially Gol'tsov, in the papers cited in note 4 above.

22 Thus, several articles of recent years in Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, mainly under the heading “Progressivnye formy organizatsii, normirovaniia i oplaty truda,” and in Kolkhozno-sovkhoznoe proizvodstvo, usually titled ‘“Doroga v budushchee.“

23 Speech of July 27, 1962, as quoted in Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1961 godu, p. 459.

24 Mashenkov, V. F., Rezervy rosta proizvoditel'nosti truda v sel'skom khoziaistve SSSR (Moscow, 1960), pp. 28 fGoogle Scholar. The point about hired auxiliary services is largely invalidated by the fact that such services are included in the above-quoted estimate of merely 2 million man-years of external inputs into U.S. agriculture, which only makes the corresponding higher figure for Soviet use of external inputs all the more striking.

25 See, for instance, Afanas'ev, L., Agrarnoe perenaselenie (Moscow, 1963).Google Scholar

26 V. N., Starovskii, “Proizvoditel'nost’ obshchestvennogo truda i problemy narodonaseleniia,” Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR, No. 5, 1962, pp. 43–53.Google Scholar

27 For instance, in her projections of numbers of cows (Ruzskaia, p. 202), milk output (p. 230), and labor use per 100 kg. of milk (p. 222) the labor norm per cow is close to that indicated by Obolenskii for 1958. Indications elsewhere in the book are differently organized but are on the whole compatible with the same high level of labor use. Shimkin, D. B., “Resource Development and Utilization in the Soviet Economy,” in Natural Resources and International Development, ed. Clawson, M. (Baltimore, 1964), p. 170 Google Scholar, assumes that the figures for i960 exclude the private sector, which is not the case, as can be checked both against the global estimates quoted from other sources (and including the private sector) as well as from details such as those on potatoes and milk. The implied improvement in productivity in Ruzskaia's calculations is therefore smaller than Shimkin concludes, and apparently no reconciliation with other forecasts is possible or even intended. See also note 20 above on overhead work.

28 Gol'tsov, A. N., “Raspredelenie i ispol'zovanie trudovykh resursov v sel'skom khoziaistve,” in Trudovye resursy SSSR, ed. Shishkin, N. I. (Moscow, 1961), p. 112.Google Scholar

29 For instance, Mashenkov, p. 36.

30 Thus, for instance, Lukinov, I. I., Puti povysheniia proizvoditel'nosti truda v sel'skom khoziaistve (Moscow, 1958), p. 51 Google Scholar, states that on a certain kolkhoz, in 1956, labor use on cattle amounted to 106 work-days per head of cattle. Of these, 76 days per head were in work directly for animal care, and comparable to 45 days per milk cow and 17 days per head of other cattle, according to Obolenskii. The resulting expense of labor per 100 kg. milk was said to be 5 work-days, or three to four times as much as on sovkhozes and two or three times as much as on progressive kolkhozes. Labor use at this level easily rivals the worst inefficiencies on undersized farms in the least progressive parts of Europe and America.

31 Vestnik statistiki, No. 9, 1965, p. 95.

32 See Basiuk, T. L., Organizatsiia sotsialisticheskogo sel'skokhoziaistvennogo proizvodstva (Moscow, 1962), pp. 310 ffGoogle Scholar. On the zveno system in general see also R. D. Laird, “Khrushchev's Administrative Reforms in Agriculture” (a paper delivered at the Conference on Soviet and East European Agriculture, Santa Barbara, Calif., Aug. 26-28, 1965), pp. 18 ff. (mimeo).

33 Cheshkov, A, “Vnedriat’ opyt raboty mekhanizirovannykh zven'ev V. Pervitskogo i V. Svetlichnogo (obzor literaturny)” Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 9, 1963, pp. 118–23Google Scholar, listing numerous brochures and several articles on each of the two zven'ia of Pervitskii and Svetlichnyi (both “heroes of Socialist labor“). See also Skliar, V, “Akkordno-premial'naia sistema oplaty i uchet truda v sovkhozakh Kubani” Vestnik statistiki, No. 1, 1965, pp. 24–29.Google Scholar

34 Basiuk, p. 310.

35 Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 12, 1963, pp. 92-94.

36 V. Pervitskii, “Ekonomika i organizatsiia vozdelyvaniia kukuruzy bez zatrat ruchnogo truda,” ibid., No. 8, 1964, pp. 52-67; see also note 33 above.

37 Svetlichnyi, V, “Kompleksnaia mekhanizatsiia vozdelyvaniia sakharnoi svekly” Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 8, 1964, pp. 33–51Google Scholar, and articles in Zemledelie, No. 6, 1965, pp. 13 f., and No. 11, 1964, pp. 46-51.

38 Cheshkov, A, “Opyt raboty mekhanizirovannykh otriadov na tselinnykh zemliakh,“ Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 8, 1964, pp. 92–97.Google Scholar

39 D. Kuchiev and V. Platonov, “Kompleksnaia mekhanizatsiia proizvodstva khlopka,“ ibid., pp. 36-54.

40 V. Kuznetsov, “Kompleksnaia mekhanizatsiia vozdelyvaniia kartofelia,” ibid., No. 9, 1964, pp. 37-53; also article in Zemledelie, No. 6, 1964, pp. 39-52.

41 Sazanskii, la. I., “Kollektivno-gruppovaia forma organizatsii i oplaty truda v zhivotnovodstve,“ Vestnik sel'skokhoziaistvennoi nauki, No. 1, 1963, pp. 88–93.Google Scholar

42 See, for instance, Plotnikov, G, “Mekhanizirovannyi otkorm svinei” Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 11, 1964, pp. 23–36Google Scholar (from a sovkhoz in Rostov Oblast, considered to be progressive).

43 N. Tsogoev and M. Tkalenko, “Pochemu ukhodiat kolkhozniki,” ibid., No. 3, 1965, pp. 94-97. In the case of Stavropol’ Krai, exodus from an area near to a city was balanced by an influx from areas with lower levels of farm income—as far away as Belorussia.

44 Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1959 goda SSSR (svodnyi torn), pp. 38 ff. (Table 9), and corresponding tables in the volumes by republics.

45 For analysis, see F. Dovring, Land and Labor in Europe, Appendix 1.

46 Vestnik statistiki, No. 10, 1963, pp. 94 ff.

47 For instance, articles in Vestnik sel'skokhoziaistvennoi nauki, No. 1, 1965, pp. 127-31 (Ukraine); Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 4, 1965, pp. 74-76 (Mari ASSR); and Kolkhozno-sovkhoznoe proizvodstvo, No. 1, 1963, pp. 48 ff. (Belorussia).

48 Altaiskii, I, “Brigada—vazhneishaia proizvodstvennaia edinitsa v kolkhozakh i sovkhozakh,” Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 8, 1965, pp. 17–25.Google Scholar

49 “Sostav i razmer mekhanizirovannykh zven'ev,” Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, No. 8, 1965, pp. 83-91 (two articles by five writers).