Chapter 523 No Need to Import Food

Food is the most important thing for the people. For the people, the first thing is to have enough food to eat. The history of China illustrates this problem. As long as people have enough food to eat, the country will be stable. If they are not full, the country will be in turmoil.

The same was true for the Soviet Union. During the war, because of foreign invasion, they had to support the front line even if they were hungry, because they had a common enemy.

But now, history has gone far away. The newly born generation has not experienced the cruel World War II and is not so firm in their beliefs. If we want them to accept the Soviet Union and support the red rule, we must make them feel that they are living a happy life. Having enough food to eat is a basic condition.

In history, the Soviet Union has been experiencing poor harvests since 1979, and has been importing grain since 1975, becoming a net importer of grain. In 1970, the Soviet Union exported 3.5 million tons of grain, and in 1974, grain imports and exports were flat. In 1975, it began to import grain, reaching a scale of tens of millions of tons. After that, the intensity of grain imports continued to increase. For example, in 1984, 26.8 million tons of grain were imported from the United States and Canada alone. After 1986, it became more serious, with food shortages of about 21 billion rubles, while the total food production at that time was only 136 billion rubles. In addition to importing a large amount of grain, other food-related categories also need to be imported, such as 600,000 tons of meat, 240,000 tons of butter, 1.2 million tons of vegetable oil, 5.5 million tons of sugar, and 500,000 tons of citrus in 1989.

Because of the food problem, the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s and was already full of complaints. All the profits from exporting oil had to be invested in the bottomless pit of food, and therefore the Soviet Union had to look to the West for the favor.

Is it because of the growing population? Of course not! Except for the rapid population growth after World War II, which reached an annual growth rate of 17 per thousand, the population growth rate of the Soviet Union has been declining since then.

What is the reason? Is it a natural disaster? Of course not. There have been almost no large-scale natural disasters in recent years! Then, there is only one other reason, people's enthusiasm for work! This is no longer the period when the Soviet Union was just founded, nor is it the period of World War II. Now, people's enthusiasm for work is extremely low!

Even in the city’s factories, it is not uncommon to see workers coming out to line up in shopping malls during working hours. Without special measures, the big-pot system will inevitably lead to low efficiency!

Regarding agricultural reform, Andrei once gave Andropov some advice. He said that this agricultural reform needed to break the big-pot system and implement a responsibility system!

(Regarding this system, when it was first proposed, it was scolded as brain-dead by a small number of book friends, and even readers with 0 fan value scolded and abandoned the book. Huadong Zhixiong would like to explain again that the Soviet Union had vast land and not enough people engaged in agricultural production, so the household contract responsibility system was not suitable. However, putting aside the phenomenon and looking at the essence, Huadong Zhixiong is not saying that the land should be divided according to each family for cultivation. The core idea is the division of responsibilities! Under the Soviet system, everything is allocated by the superiors, including seeds, fertilizers, agricultural machinery, and whether to plant corn or wheat. Farmers only need to farm and do not need to bear any responsibility. Even if the land is full of grass, it has nothing to do with them! Huadong Zhixiong was born in a farming family. Village, has a deep understanding of all this. Under the domestic big pot system, work points are purely for work without effort, and it doesn’t matter whether you do a good job or a bad job. No one has a sense of responsibility! The Soviet Union was like this at the time! Therefore, the core of reform is responsibility! The land is managed by farmers, and the superiors only collect a part of the tax. The rest is managed by farmers themselves. They can plant whatever they want, and the income from the grain they grow is closely related to the farmers. Only in this way can the enthusiasm of farmers be mobilized and they can invest in agricultural production! As for who the points are distributed to, it can be one family, or multiple families can combine to contract a farm! Well, those who want to criticize Huadong Zhixiong can continue to criticize, and this part of the words is free of charge. )

At that time, Andrei was just a suggestion. The specific implementation had to be decided by Andropov. No matter what he did, it would affect a large number of vested interests. Therefore, the reform measures must be steady, targeted and realistic. Now that the country is fighting against corruption, the resistance to reform is very small.

Under such circumstances, Gorbachev, who was in charge of agriculture, carried out agricultural reforms in the country. It was precisely because of the success of his agricultural reforms that he accumulated the capital to enter the Communist Party.

"Yes, report to the General Secretary, all members of the Communist Party of China." Gelbachev said: "The reform we are carrying out in agriculture is to vigorously promote the collective contracting system of agriculture. Our agriculture must take the development path of contracting output. We no longer carry out planned agricultural production, but completely hand it over to grassroots farmers. At the same time, our country no longer invests in agriculture. Our funds are used to purchase grain from farmers, and the agricultural machinery and equipment in the original machine farms are sold to farmers after we evaluate them. Because farmers do not have much funds for the time being, they can be temporarily provided in the form of interest-free loans, and then repaid to the state after the grain is sold after production. At the same time, farmers need to pay a certain amount of agricultural taxes to the state. In other words, the state no longer interferes in our agriculture, and it is completely left to farmers to operate independently. I promote contracting and sharing at the level of production teams, production groups and families."

In the past, this was completely contrary to the idea of ​​socialism. In the Stalin era, anyone who dared to do this would definitely be exiled to Siberia for reform. But now, with the support of Andropov, this reform is progressing smoothly.

"Through this reform, we have greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of farmers. Last year, we piloted it in Ukraine and achieved a bumper harvest in Ukrainian agriculture that year. This year, we have promoted it throughout the Soviet Union. After careful statistics, our total national grain output this year is 230 million tons. We no longer need to import grain from the West. We predict that our grain production next year will exceed 250 million tons. By then, not only will we not have to import grain from the West, we can even export some of it or use it for storage."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. This was a very important turning point! The Soviet Union had finally solved the food problem! No longer had to worry about the West choking the Soviet Union by refusing to export food!

Andrei also nodded. This policy was actually similar to the agricultural reform implemented by Gorbachev after he came to power in history. After carefully examining the great success of China's agricultural reform and taking into account the actual situation in the Soviet Union, Gorbachev also introduced this set of policies to promote contracting and sharing at the production team, production group and household level.

Unfortunately, Gorbachev did not succeed in history, not because this system was not applicable, but because the Soviet Union was already terminally ill. As the general secretary, Gorbachev did not have enough ability to implement it. This system touched the interests of too many people. Under the original planned economy, government officials at all levels could benefit. Needless to say, the funds allocated by the state for agricultural production could be withheld by them!

But what about now? All these people's interests are gone, and even the functions of these departments have been lost. The state will no longer invest any money in agriculture. The state only needs to prepare money and purchase grain directly from farmers! If anyone dares to engage in corruption in these areas, the local KGB organization will come forward to send them to where they should go.