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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 56-1-466
TITLE:             Khrushchev and Corn -- 1958
BY:                cz
DATE:              1958-7-1
COUNTRY:           Soviet Union
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Background Information USSR

--- Begin ---

Radio Free Europe/Munich
Office of the Political Advisor
Background Information USSR

1 july 1958

KHRUSHCHEV AMD CORN--1958

There is no single innovation in the Soviet economy more closely
identified with the Great Innovator Khrushchev than the corn [maze]
expansion program. While the virgin land reclamation project was
essentially a continuation of an established Russian policy of eastward peasant
migrations, the bold decision to expand corn production almost everywhere
in the Soviet Union remains exclusively associated with the image of the
First Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers. No opportunity
is lost in domestic or international affairs for Khrushchev to propagate
his corn line. Even the northerly located satellites have been required
to grow the crop. As a measure of the political esteem Khrushchev attaches
to kukuruza, during his visits of state to the DDR and Czechoslovakia the
first Secretary spent more time trudging among corn rows than reviewing
honor guards. Almost every foreign speech, the recent Sofia declamation being
an exception, pays tribute to corn and often yields such bon mots as
"Corn in the hand means a pork chop in the mouth". Alone among the nations
of the socialist camp, China has not responded with an all-out corn
expansion campaign.

Khrushchev was on record to expand the corn acreage back in 1939;
not until 1955 was he able to implement the vision. The dynamics of Soviet
production can be summarized

1940-50 Average	(Million hectares)	Area used]
		as grain

1954	4.3	-
1955	17.9	9.1
1956	23,9	9.2
1957	16,8	-
1958	17.9	-

------------------------------

Data for Posevnya Ploshchadi, SSSR, 1956. I, 651957-58 data from
Agriculture. June 14, 1958.

In the first flush of enthusiasm following the 1955 four-fold
expansion to 17.9 million hectares, and the subsequent record of 23.9 million
hectares in 1956, the 6th FTP target was set at 28 million hectares. There
was a precipitous drop of 7 million hectares in 1957 as a result of
widespread crop failure in the northern areas. All indications point to a
maximum potential of about 17-18 million hectares, half of which in the form of
green feed and silage.

[page 2]

Khrushchev's original idea in 1955 was that corn could be universally
grown in Russia, even in the cold northern regions where it could be utilized
in immature form as silage. He was forced to abandon this dogma for those
regions where potatoes were a more stable feed crop. Another genuinely
original idea was also unceremoniously dropped: the separate ensiling of
corn cobs and residual stalks. Corn silage, cobs and stalks ensiled
together is now the principal feed. About one-half the present area planted
to corn is harvested as feed grain. Corn requires hot weather, rich soil
and abundant rainfall to mature as grain--natural requirements that occur
only in areas in the Ukraine and the Caucasus, Khrushchev's contribution
to corn science was that unripe corn grown in the cold regions could be as
valuable as ripe corn grain when it was ensiled. In this he was mistaken,
as all western agricultural technicians had forecast,, for essentially corn
silage is a low-grade supplementary feed with high labor input costs. Yet
given the poor feed resources allocated to the Soviet livestock industry,
the improved supply of even a low-grade feed was primarily responsible for
the increase in milk production. It had little effect on the meat output
however, as grain feed is essential for the production of pork, poultry,
and much of beef. Apart from the high cost of production, the corn (for
silage) campaign brought results in improved milk supplies.

The corn campaign continues in full intensity, in spite of an
apparent dragging of heels by kolkhoz and sovkhoz officials. Responsibility
for poor yields, Khrushchev has reiterated, lies with the non-complying
local authorities.

"the low crop yields of corn are due in many areas to lack
of attention, to the negligent attitude toward that crop by
authorities...everything depends on the desire, the skill to
do the thing correctly and on perseverance". (Agriculture".
21 June 1958)

The apparent lag in interest in corn growing in the countryside is
based on the high labor demands of the crop, its cost, and a lack of adequate
specialized machinery. It also affords a practical vehicle for anti-party
manifestations. This year's special problem involves a late and wet season,
and according to the collegium of the Ministry of Agriculture, the weed
growth threatens the corn crop. The struggle with weedy fields has been a
convenient escape clause for erring farm officials, as the collegium revealed

"the harmful practice of neglecting the case of the crop
(cultivation) so that the field is overrun by weeds and is
then pastured off is to be condemned" (Agricultures. 7 June 1958)

That the degree of resistance to the corn program apparently caused
serious concern to the Party can be assumed from the creation of another
echelon of farm authority-the kolkhoz corn inspector! The Bureau of the
CC of the RSFSR decreed, among other measures, that each farm was to designate
one experienced agronomist whose duty was to supervise and control the timely
and effective field operations for corn growing. (Sovetskaya Rps8lya, 23 May
1958), Even before the announcement of the decree, the eager officials in
one raion in Baschkiria claimed that of 62 inspectors, 17 were party members,
(Agriculture, 18 May 1958) Such posts open up fertile fields for the
disengaged former MTS officials.

Only a Gogol could do justice to the Khrushehevian kolkhoz corn
inspector.

cz

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