Table Of ContentCOLLECTIVE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL
DEVELOPMENT IN SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA
The World Employment Programme (WEP) was launched by
the International Labour Organisation in 1969, as the ILO's
main contribution to the International Development Strategy
for the Second United Nations Development Decade.
The means of action adopted by the WEP have included the
following:
- short-term high-level advisory missions;
-longer-term national or regional employment teams;
- and a wide-ranging research programme.
Alandmark in the development of the WEP was the World
Employment Conference of 1976, which proclaimed inter alia
that 'strategies and national development plans should in
clude as a priority objective the promotion of employment and
the satisfaction of the basic needs of each country's popu
lation'. The Declaration of Principles and Programme of
Action adopted by the Conference have become the corner
stone of WEP technical assistance and research activities
during the closing years of the Second Development Decade.
This publication is the outcome of a WEP project.
COLLECTIVE
AGRICULTURE
AND RURAL
DEVELOPMENTIN
SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA
Azizur Rahman Khan
and
Dharam Ghai
A study prepared for the International Labour Office
within the framework of the World Employment
Programme
© International Labour Organisation 1979
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1979
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1979 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LT D
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in De/hi
Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos
Me/boume New York Singapore Tokyo
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Khan, Azizur Rahman
Collective agricuIture and rural development
in Soviet Central Asia
1. Collective farms - Soviet Central Asia
I. Title 11. Ghai, Dharam Pal
111. International Labour Office. W orld
Emp/oyment Programme
334'.683'09584 HDl492.R9
ISBN 978-1-349-04840-3 ISBN 978-1-349-04838-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04838-0
The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articIes, studies and other
contributions rests solely with their authors, and publication does not
constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of the
opinions expressed in them.
The designations employed and the presentation ofmaterial do not imply the
expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the International
Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country or territory or of its
authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its fron tiers
This book is sold subject
to the standard conditions
of the Net Book Agreement
For Mohua and Neela
Contents
Preface VB
Map xii
I. An Introduction I
I. ABrief Historical Background I
2. The Purpose of the Study 3
3. Methodology and Data 4
4. A Plan of the Study 5
2. The Evolution of Agricultural and Development
Policies in Soviet Central Asia: An Overall
Perspective 6
I. Introduction 6
2. Demographie Factors 7
3. Industrial Growth 12
4. Trends in Sectoral Incomes 15
5. An Exception to the Strategy of Primitive
Socialist Accumulation 21
6. Some Consequences of the Strategy 25
(a) Change in Cropping Pattern 25
(b) Employment 27
(c) Difference in Sectoral Incomes 28
7. Changes Since 1953 31
3. The Evolution and Working of Collective Farms 37
I. The Process of Collectivisation in Soviet
Central Asia 37
2. The Evolution of the Collective Farms 39
3. Working of the Kolkhoz 45
(a) The External Framework 45
(b) Internal Structure and Organisation 53
(c) Participation and Decision-making 59
Vll
VllI Contents
4. Production and Accumulation in Collective
Agriculture 62
I. Introduction 62
2. Productive Efficiency 62
(a) The Success Story of Cotton 62
(b) Relative Performance of Kolkhoz and
Sovkhoz in Growing Cotton 63
(c) Relative Incentive for Cotton and Grain 68
(d) Grain Crops 74
3. Collective Agriculture and Personal Plots 75
4. Accumulation 78
5. Income Distribution and Social Consumption 81
1. Introduction 81
2. The Distribution of Income 82
(a) The Degree of Inequality between
Collective Farms 82
(b) Intra-Kolkhoz Inequality 85
(c) Personal Plots and Income Distribution 86
3. Social Consumption 88
6. A Profile of the Five Collective Farms 90
1. Size 90
2. Employment Characteristics 90
3. Resource Endowment 92
4. Production and Pricing of Cotton 92
5. Income and Eamings 93
6. Other Aspects 95
7. Some Concluding Observations 102
&w 1M
Index 117
Preface
This monograph represents apart of the ongoing research
project on alternative agrarian systems being carried out by the
Rural Employment Policies Branch within the framework of
the World Employment Programme ofthe ILO. This research
project evaluates agrarian systems in terms of their contri
bution to increasing employment and production, reducing
poverty, promoting an egalitarian distribution of income,
generating surplus for self-sustained growth and mass partici
pation. In this study the performance of the Soviet Central
Asian collective agriculture is assessed. It is a very interesting
case since for nearly five decades communal agriculture has
served as the vehicle for transforming and developing what
was a once poor and backward rural society.
In preparing this study the authors received a great deal of
help from so many institutions and individuals that it is
impossible to mention all of them. First and foremost they
would like to thank the governments of the USSR and of the
Tajik and Uzbek SSRs for granting permission for and
organising a field visit to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In
Moscow the authors received much assistance from the State
Committee of Labour and Social AfTairs of the Council of
Ministers of the USSR (especially from Mr A. F. Bordadyn,
the Chief of its Division of International Relations and Mr A.
Kulagin who accompanied the authors to Tajikistan) and the
Ministry of Agriculture (particularly Mr V. Ashomko who
accompanied the authors to Uzbekistan). Professor Vladimir
Venzher was kind enough to come out of retirement to have
discussions with the authors. The ILO Branch Office in
Moscow (especially its Director, Mr N. Korioukine and
Messrs Solomonov and Borodavkin) made a material contri
bution to the preparation ofthis study by working closely with
ix
x Preface
the Soviet authorities in organising the field visit and making
other arrangements.
In Tajikistan Mr Narzibekov, the Chairman of the State
Committee ofLabour and Mr Zuraev, the Deputy Minister of
Agriculture spent a lot of time with the authors and shared
their vast experience and knowledge ab out the deve10pment of
Soviet Central Asia. Mr Sahibnazarov, the Secretary ofthe All
Republic Council of Kolkhozy in Tajikistan and Mr Ham
roaliev, who acted as the interpreter, were always with the
authors to explain things and to he1p in every possible way.
In Uzbekistan the authors' chief debt of gratitude is to Mr
Khalikulov, Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of
Labour and to Mr Pulatov of the Ministry of Agriculture. The
authors would like to thank the members of the statT (es
pecially Mr Kaiumov, the Deputy Director, Mr Galeev, who
prepared a background paper and Mr Zakhirkhojaev) of the
Central Asian Scientific Research Institute of Agricultural
Economics at Tashkent for two very useful meetings. Mr
Samatov, of the State Committee of Labour and Mr Yul
dashov, the Minister of Agriculture, both of the Samarkand
Oblast, were of very considerable assistance.
The authors would like to record the remarkable hospitality
received at the five collective farms that they visited. For all
their acts ofkindness and many memorable events the authors
would like to thank the Chairpersons ofthese collective farms:
Mr Khaitov (Kolkhoz Kar! Marx), Mr Baimuradov (Kolkhoz
Rossiya), Mr Sharipov (Kolkhoz XXII Party Congress), Mr
Isakov (Kolkhoz Leninism) and Mrs Annakulova (Kolkhoz
Kholkabad).
At the ILO Headquarters the authors acknowledge with
gratitude the moral and material support provided by Madame
Antoinette Beguin, Chief of the Employment and
Development Department. They also received helpful com
ments from Jacques Gaude, Vladimir Kondratiev, Stanislav
Kouzmin, Eddy Lee, Harold Lubell, Jean Mouly, G. B. Ng,
Peter Peek, Samir Radwan, Anisur Rahman and Gerry
Rodgers. Norman Langford helped with the translation of
terms. Frances Kaufmann and Sandra Berlinka typed and
provided technical help in preparing the manuscript.
Keith Griffin of Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, gave very
