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Reinventing the Steppe: The Agromeliorative Complex in the Russian Periphery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2022
Abstract
For centuries, the steppe had served as a frontier and as a borderland to the Russian empire. In the 1930s, however, the semi-arid fields to the northeast of Stavropol became the object of intensified agricultural reclamation. Following the Central Asian example of dryland irrigation, the Soviet leadership dreamed of transforming the steppe biome into an oasis of high-modernist progress. Promises of plentiful yields fueled the planning of new hydro-infrastructures devised to counter the destructive forces of nature and to make the steppe bloom. Poverty, hunger, and natural disasters were to be threats of the past. As large swaths of land in the North Caucasus were re-imagined on the drawing boards of Soviet hydro-engineers, an agromeliorative complex evolved that favored large-scale solutions over locally adapted means. From 1965, this complex was represented by the Ministry of Melioration and Water Management (Minvodkhoz). It was supported by leading members of the nomenklatura like Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, and Mikhail Gorbachev. However, their one-sided reclamation policies ignored ample warnings on soil erosion and agricultural degradation that were caused by excessive irrigation. As a result, yields declined whereas state investment continually increased. This paper shows how the vision to convert semi-arid lands into blossoming oases of progress created a path dependency with largely devastating consequences, as the hydro-engineers did not acknowledge the fragile ecosystem of the steppe. This reveals a deep and systemic sustainability crisis within Soviet agriculture that contributed to the economically fueled collapse of 1991.
- Type
- Cluster: The Soviet Steppe–Transformations and Imaginaries
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- Copyright © 2022 Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
References
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65. Marc Elie (CERCEC, Paris) is currently researching this conflict.
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80. A.V. Kolganov, N.V. Sukhoi, V.N. Shkura, and V.N. Shchedrin, Razvitie melioratsii zemel΄ sel΄skokhoziaistvennogo naznacheniia v Rossii (Novocherkassk, 2016), 64. In pre-Chernobyl times, the imminent dangers of nuclear energy were generally overshadowed by the destructive power of the atomic bomb.
81. Anatolii Cherniaev, ed., V Politbiuro TsK KPSS. . .: Po zapisiam Anatoliia Cherniaeva, Vadima Medvedeva, Georgiia Shakhnazarova: 1985–1991, (Moscow, 2008), 25.
82. H.K. Jain, The Green Revolution: History, Impact and Future (Houston, 2012).
83. Philip Hanson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR from 1945 (London, 2003), 153.
84. Paul R. Josephson, Nicolai Dronin, Aleh Cherp, Ruben Mnatsakanian, Dmitry Efremenko, and Vladislav Larin, An Environmental History of Russia (New York, 2013), 150–52.
85. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 100, d. 926, ll. 109–113; and GARF, f. R-5446, op. 109, d. 944, ll. 1–5 (O priemke v ekspluatatsiiu Krasnodarskogo vodokhranilishcha na reke Kubani).
86. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 103, d. 1111, ll. 46–48 (O meropriiatiiakh po pereseleniiu naseleniia, perenosu na novye mesta i snosu stroenii i sooruzhenii v sviazi so stroitel΄stvom Krasnodarskogo vodokhranilishcha na r. Kubani); and V.P. Kazachinskii and S.V. Mineeva, Ekologiia: Sostoianie okruzhaiushchei sredy na Kubani (Krasnodar, 2004), 58–59.
87. See the criticism by President of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Adygea Adam Tleuzh in April of 1993, who demanded the reservoir’s liquidation in GAKK, f. 506, op. 1, d. 224, l. 22 (Pis΄ma B.M. Kozenko v Gosudarstvennyi komitet po gidrometeorologii i drugie organizatsii o sud΄bakh r. Kubani i Azovskogo moria).
88. Michail Gorbatschow, Erinnerungen: Das Vermächtnis eines Reformers (Berlin, 1995), 143.
89. Grigory Leonidovich Zelenskii, “K voprosu o proizvodstve milliona tonn Kubanskogo risa: Istoriia i perspektivy,” Nauchnyi Zhurnal KubGAU 70, no. 6 (2011), at ej.kubagro.ru/2011/06/pdf/29.pdf (accessed February 9, 2022).
90. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 103, d. 1112, ll. 3, 16, 20–21 (Ob utverzhdenii kompleksnogo proektnogo zadaniia orosheniia i osvoeniia zemel΄ v zone Bol΄shogo Stavropol΄skogo kanala).
91. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 141, d. 1086, ll. 28–36 (Po obshchim i organizatsionnym voprosam melioratsii i vodnogo khoziaistva).
92. GARF, f. R-5451, op. 58, d. 7971, ll. 1–3, 13–14 (Informatsii Krasnoiarskogo, Stavropol΄skogo kraevykh i Luganskogo oblastnogo sovetov profsoiuzov o meropriiatiiakh po likvidatsii posledstvii uragana i pyl΄nykh bur).
93. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 105, d. 1007, ll. 3–6 (Ob uskorenii stroitel΄stva Bol΄shogo Stavropol΄skogo kanala. . .).
94. William Taubman, Gorbachev: His Life and Times (New York, 2017), 130.
95. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 110, d. 1083, ll. 20–31 (O merakh po razvitiiu sel΄skogo khoziaistva v zasushlivykh raionakh Stavropol΄skogo kraia); GARF, f. R-5446, op. 110, d. 931, ll. 8–10 (Ob okazanii material΄no-tekhnicheskoi pomoshchi kolkhozam i sovkhozam Stavropol΄skogo kraia); and GARF, f. R-5446, op. 110, d. 1022, l. 18 (O prieme pshenitsy v gosudarstvennye resursy v poriadke obmena ot khoziaistv Ukrainskoi SSR i Stavropol΄skogo kraia, ne vypolnivshikh plany prodazhi zerna gosudarstvu).
96. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 106, d. 914, l. 106, 1. 56 (Po obshchim i organizatsionnym voprosam melioratsii. . .). However, of the 4,030 Fregat produced until August of 1975, only 3,128 were assembled and 2,602 ready for use: GARF, f. R-5446, op. 110, d. 1084, l. 3.
97. GAKK, f. R-687, op. 7, d. 34, ll. 211–220 (Ob obespechenii ekspluatatsii v 1980 godu dizel΄nykh nasosnykh stantsii na risovykh sistemakh).
98. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 106, d. 921, l. 31 (Po voprosam provedeniia meliorativnykh i vodokhoziaistvennykh rabot); and GARF, f. R-5446, op. 106, d. 915, l. 63 (Po obshchim i organizatsionnym voprosam melioratsii. . .).
99. Philip Hanson, Trade and Technology in Soviet-Western Relations (London, 1981), 83.
100. Cf. Stefan Guth, “One Future Only: The Soviet Union in the Age of Scientific-Technical Revolution,” Journal of Modern European History 13, no. 3 (August 2015): 355–76.
101. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 107, d. 933, ll. 82–126 (Po obshchim i organizatsionnym voprosam melioratsii. . .). In 1973, the USSR’s irrigated area encompassed 11.42 million hectares—l. 87.
102. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 108, d. 945, l. 122 (Po obshchim i organizatsionnym voprosam melioratsii. . .).
103. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 107, d. 933, ll. 131–136.
104. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 86, d. 4257, ll. 151–153 (O vvode v ekspluatatsiiu Kubanskoi orositel΄noi sistemy. . .); and Philip R. Pryde, Conservation in the Soviet Union (Cambridge, Eng., 1972), 111.
105. GARF, f. A-341, op. 4, d. 1522, l. 157.
106. Thane Gustafson, Reform in Soviet Politics: Lessons of Recent Policies on Land and Water (Cambridge, Eng., 1981), 123–33.
107. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 109, d. 848, ll. 89–90ob (O merakh po uluchsheniiu organizatsii rabot po zashchite pochv ot vetrovoi i vodnoi erozii).
108. Gustafson, Reform in Soviet Politics, 123.
109. RGAE, f. 4372, op. 66, d. 6897, ll. 163–197 (Materialy ekspertizy skhemy kompleksnogo ispol΄zovaniia i okhrany vodnykh resursov basseina reki Kuban΄).
110. Cf. Philip P. Micklin, “Water Management in Soviet Central Asia: Problems and Prospects,” in John Massey Stewart, ed., The Soviet Environment: Problems, Policies and Politics (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 88–114.
111. RGAE, f. 4372, op. 67, d. 4644 (Materialy ekspertizy TEO uvelicheniia emkosti Krasnodarskogo vodokhranilishcha na r. Kubani).
112. E.I. Pankova, “Critical Analysis of Irrigation History in the Soviet Union,” Eurasian Soil Science 41, no. 9 (September 2008): 1005–1007; and RGAE, f. 4372, op. 67, d. 5339, ll. 215–226 (Materialy ekspertizy tekhniko-ekonomicheskogo obosnovaniia rekonstruktsii Kubanskogo vodokhranilishcha v Stavropol΄skom krae).
113. The lozung “Идет вода Кубань-реки, куда велят большевики” is commonly ascribed to the local poet Andrei Isakov, see photo at www.etoretro.ru/data/media/744/1360829124d82.jpg, (accessed February 10, 2022).
114. “Министерство само утверждает план проектных работ, само проектирует, осуществляет экспертизу проектов, само утверждает проекты и само строит. Это бесконтрольность полная, но так и удалось”: GARF, f. R-5446, op. 100, d. 922, l. 280.
115. Such was the criticism by the People’s Control Committee (komitet narodnogo kontrol΄ia) in GARF, f. R-5446, op. 107, d. 933, ll. 18–37, among others.
116. James C. Scott, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, 1998).
117. RGAE, f. 4372, op. 67, d. 5339, ll. 234–235, 264; and Karl Eugen Wädekin, “Sowjetische Landwirtschaft in der Stagnation,” Osteuropa 33, no. 2 (February 1983): 89–100.
118. Sergei P. Zalygin, Povorot (Moscow, 1987), 30.
119. Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams, 382–86; and Micklin, “Water Management,” 88–114.
120. Douglas Weiner, A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev (Berkeley, 1999), 423.
121. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 147, d. 861, ll. 19–25 (Po obshchim i organizatsionnym voprosam. . .).
122. Zhores A. Medvedev, Soviet Agriculture (New York, 1987), 359, aptly called these the “disaster areas” of Soviet agriculture.
123. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 148, d. 773, ll. 67–74 (Po voprosam zemlepol΄zovaniia i gosudarstvennogo balansa zemel΄ i zashchity pochv ot erozii).
124. Hanson, Rise and Fall, 149–54, 159–61.
125. Paul Josephson, An Environmental History, 203. These ideas date back to Kosygin’s economic reforms: Medvedev, Soviet Agriculture, 358.
126. Hanson, Rise and Fall, 68, 144.
127. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 144, d. 881, ll. 1–7 (O sozdanii agropromyshlennogo kombinata ‘Kuban’’ v Krasnodarskom krae); and Michael Ellman, Socialist Planning (Cambridge, Eng., 2014), 222–24.
128. Medvedev, Soviet Agriculture, 323–34.
129. GARF, f. A-259, op. 48, d. 7196, ll. 17–18; 1. 25–33ob (Delo o merakh po dal΄neishemu razvitiiu oroshaemogo zemledeliia v Stavropol΄skom krae).
130. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 148, d. 859, ll. 7–7ob (Ob usilenii roli agropromyshlennykh komitetov v planirovanii rabot po melioratsii zemel΄); and Medvedev, Soviet Agriculture, 333–34; while Medvedev acknowledged the creation of Gosagroprom as a “bureaucratic masterpiece,” he also noted that “approaches to reform on the basis of sensible economic principles could hardly be discerned,” Zhores Medwedjew, Der Generalsekretär. Michail Gorbatschow: Eine politische Biographie (Darmstadt, 1986), 173.
131. Peter Rutland, The Politics of Economic Stagnation: The Role of Local Party Organs in Economic Management (Cambridge, Eng., 1993), 148, diagnosed “The whole Gosagroprom structure was a disaster for Soviet agriculture.”
132. GARF, f. A-259, op. 49, d. 1654, ll. 21–25 (Delo o merakh po uluchsheniiu meliorativnogo sostoianiia oroshaemykh zemel΄ v Povolzh’e i na Severnom Kavkaze, t. 2).
133. T.I. Saslavskaia, Die Studie von Nowosibirsk [commented German translation], Osteuropa-archiv (January 1984): A1–A25; and Dietmar Neutatz, Träume und Alpträume: Eine Geschichte Russlands im 20. Jahrhundert (München, 2013), 499, further points at the high dependency on the international energy market.
134. GARF, f. R-5446, op. 147, d. 879, l. 73 (O prekrashchenii rabot po perebroske chasti stoka severnykh i sibirskikh rek); and Tat΄iana Chernova, “Povorot rek. ‘Za’ i ‘protiv’ techeniia. . .,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, December 23, 2014, at www.ng.ru/stsenarii/2014-12-23/13_sibreka.html (accessed February 11, 2022).
135. Stephen Whitefield, Industrial Power and the Soviet State (Oxford, 1993), 180–92; and Hanson, Rise and Fall, speaks of a “trial-and-error character of Gorbachev’s reforms” as they became more erratic, but also more radical, 222.
136. Hans-Hermann Höhmann, “Der ökonomische Systemwechsel,” in Eduard Schewardnadse, Andrej Gurkow, Wolfgang Eichwede, and Friedhelm Wachs, Revolution in Moskau: Der Putsch und das Ende der Sowjetunion (Hamburg, 1991), 207–23, here 214.
137. Among other publications, this is exemplified in the foreword to the reissue of E.E. Alekseevskii’s memoirs, Ia liubliu etu zemliu (Moscow, 2006) by the former deputy minister of Minvodkhoz and chairman of Vodstroi Polad Adzhievich Polad-Zade (1931–2018).
138. D.V. Kozlov, A.N. Danil΄chenko, I.V. Korneev, and S.A. Maksimov, “Bol΄shoi Stavropol΄skii kanal,” at water-rf.ru/Водные_объекты/882/Большой_Ставропольский_канал (accessed February 10, 2022).
139. Alexey V. Sobisevich, Vera A. Shirokova, “Bol΄shoi Stavropol΄skii kanal—obvodnitel΄no-orositel΄naia sistema Severnogo Kavkaza,” Groznenskii estestvennonauchnyi biulleten΄ 3, no. 1 (July 2018): 81–89; A.V. Sobisevich, and T.B. Schönfelder, “Ekologicheskie aspekty proekta sozdaniia kanala ‘Volga-Chograi,’” Vestnik Instituta kompleksnykh issledovanii aridnykh territorii 38, no. 1 (2019): 77–79.
140. Andrew C. Isenberg, “Seas of Grass. Grasslands in World Environmental History,” in Andrew C. Isenberg, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History (Oxford, 2014), 133–53, here 139.