«New agrarian policy» in the USSR and its specific features in the BSSR: main directions (1986-1991 years)
Abstract
Study of the history of perestroika - one of the topical problems of the Belarusian historiography. Belarusian historians have not still accumulated scientific papers in the format of theses or monographs on the history of perestroika (the restructuring), including the history and development of agricultural production. Policy of acceleration of the USSR social and economic development, which was adopted in 1986, was declarative and optimistic. Gorbachev's leadership did not provide any other scenarios and possible directions of country development. This short-sighted, erroneous position of the party and political leadership would later play a crucial role in the fate of the Soviet state. In the late 1988 it was revealed that the rate of acceleration of social and economic development hadn't only brought positive results, but also lead the country to a crisis, Gorbachev's leadership hadn't provided any alternative action programs. The same situation was typical for agriculture. The transition process of changing agriculture to the new economic mechanism, the organization of production, based on the principles of self-government and self-financing, was contradictory. There wasn't any experience of proceedings based on the rental organization of labor in farms. There was not appropriate legal framework. It leaded to a different kinds of abuse. Part of the administrative and managerial staff wasn't interested in the implementation of cost accounting and rent. Pricing policy of the state didn't motivate the development of agricultural production. Increased profitability of agriculture in BSSR in 1990 was the result of increased procurement prices for agricultural products. However, despite the difficulties arising from consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, agriculture in the Soviet Belarus had been developing slowly. Entry into the crisis zone began in the second half of 1990. Collective and state farms were mainly the resource base of organization and development of the cooperative movement. Activities of producers' cooperatives, which were created in agriculture, were built on the principles of the lease. Motivation of cooperation, built on the financial «maintenance» of cooperatives by collective and state farms, was one of the areas of Gorbachev's policy to eliminate the latter. The source of the social contradictions development were such cooperatives in the villages, farmers were displeased by agricultural policy of the ruling party. In Belarus, the peasant (farmer's) farms couldn't become a real alternative to the collective farms and state farms. They had to go a long way of evolution and adaptation to modern production. The country had not prospects and policies for rapid redistribution of farm property and the destruction of collective and state farms. In 1990, the party and state leadership of the BSSR refused to pursue a policy of Gorbachev's perestroika. Later there was developed its own program of social and economic transformation, based on the idea of a gradual transition to a socially oriented market economy. After that, the party and state institutions of the Soviet Belorussia actually went into opposition to Mikhail Gorbachev's leadership. It was a principled position of the Belarusian party and state elite.
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