From stalin to gorbachev: the role of the Soviet communist party in the implementation of agricultural policy

Abstract

Some eighteen months after the foundations for a new agrarian policy were formalized at the March, 1989, plenum, I it is now clear that agricultural reform in the Soviet Union is proceeding slowly, if at all, in some regions.2 Part of the reason, undoubtedly, has to do with what one western economist has termed “design flaws” which “wittingly or unwittingly, are built into the reform package.“” But another reason which has received much less attention is the way in which reform is effected by the role of the Communist Party in the countryside. The basic questions on which this essay intends to shed further light are: has the role of the Soviet Communist Party changed in the countryside from Stalin to Gorbachev, and if so, how and why? And second, to what degree is contemporary reform policy hindered or facilitated by the role the party plays in agriculture? Although it is still too early to write a definitive analysis of the communist party’s role in agriculture for the Gorbachev period, fortunately a large historical void has been filled by the authors whose books are under review here. Thorniley’s book, The Rise and Fall ofthesouiet Rural Communist Party, looks at the years 1927 to 1939; and Kaplan’s The Party