A Communist Utopia instead of a Chinese Miracle

The article discusses the main milestones of N.S. Khrushchev’s domestic policy, primarily in the agricultural sector and the field of private initiative. The author puts forward and proves on historical material the hypothesis that the pragmatist Khrushchev was largely in thrall to the communist utopia when it came to the socio-economic prospects of the country’s development. He notes that behind the populist slogans
about improving the efficiency and competitiveness of the Soviet national economy, there was not a single thought-out and economically justified reform. Agro-towns and the consolidation of collective farms, the virgin lands epic and the corn campaign, the Ryazan scam and the reorganization of machine and tractor stations, the reduction of household plots and the liquidation of cooperation are being built into a single chain of events that destroy the fabric of the Soviet economy. The results of all these “reforms”, according to the author, turned out to be diametrically opposed to the declared goals. The consolidation of collective farms has led to the impossibility of effective management of them. The plowing of virgin lands ended with a grain disaster in 1963 and the beginning of systematic purchases of grain abroad. The extensive path of development turned the agriculture of the USSR into a kind of “black hole”. The symbol of the failure of Khrushchev’s “reforms” was the shortage of products and the increase in retail prices for them, which served as a trigger for the events in Novocherkassk.