Sharashkin, Leonid. The socioeconomic and cultural significance of

The collectivized sector of agriculture (99.6% of agricultural producers were collectivized
by 1955) witnessed a significant growth over the post-war decades (Matskevich
1967). By the mid-1950s, grain production exceeded the 1913 level (pre-WWI and prerevolution)
and between 1950 and 1970 increased by more than 2.3 times to 186.8 million
tonnes (Goskomstat 1971). Production of meat by kolkhozes and sovkhozes rose six
fold between 1940 and 1970 to 8 million tonnes per year. These advances were largely
achieved by government-mandated and government-sponsored industrialization of agriculture.
Thus, between 1950 and 1974 the production of plough-tractors increased by 79% to
218,000 units per year, and the production of cereal harvesters increased by 91% to 88,400
units per year. Between 1950 and 1972, the supply of NPK fertilizers to Soviet agriculture
increased almost ten fold, and the rate of NPK application increased from 7.3 to 55.9 kg/ha
per year (Goskomstat 1975).
At the same time, the “private” (household-based) sector continued to grow as well and
by the mid-1950s accounted for 25% of the country’s agricultural output (Wadekin 1973).
Yet, throughout the Soviet period, the authorities have maintained an ambivalent attitude
to household producers: their importance to food security was tacitly recognized, yet the
government refrained from providing any support to household production so as not to
encourage any “capitalistic,” private ownership tendencies (Lovell 2003).
Gorbachev’s perestroika, the subsequent disintegration of the USSR, and Russia’s liberal
reforms radically altered the picture. As the state withdrew support to agricultural
producers in the early 1990s, kolkhoz and sovkhoz production dwindled. Yet, at the same
time, land became more readily available for household producers, which resulted in a
sharp increase in the number of household producers and their output. It is recognized that
the maintenance of adequate levels of food security over the transition period of 1990s was
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