This is an uncredited editorial from a 1955 issue of Collier’s that addressed an issue that had tugged at the elbow of all Soviet premier’s from the nation’s first day to it’s last: agricultural production.
“Russia isn’t producing enough food to meet the needs of its people, and the situation is worsening steadily. Russia’s livestock herds are leaner and more sparse than they were under the czars. There is one third less milk produced in Russia today than 30 years ago. The most vigorous efforts of the Communist party have failed to boost grain production anywhere near a level adequate to feed the 3,000,000 new Russians born each year.”
Crocodile tears were shed for Georgi Malenkov (1902 – 1988), a buddy of Stalin’s who was forced to resign as Soviet premier a few weeks earlier on the grounds that he had failed to produce any memorable reforms in agriculture (Nikita Khrushchev had drawn up a laundry list of additional Malenkov failings as well). The author sweetly pointed out that the Premiere was not to blame; after all,the entire system of government had been schemed by a dreamer who intended his utopia to be built in Germany or Britain.
Click here to read about Stalin’s Five Year Plan.
Additional magazine and newspaper articles about the Cold War may be read on this page.
