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New Directions in Czechoslovak Agricultural Policy Under Novotny
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
Extract
Agriculture continues to present the regimes of the Communist world with some of their most important economic and political problems even after the trials of collectivizing are past. There are constant pressures, on the one hand, to make the collective system much more productive by improving organizational efficiency and raising the level of technology. On the other hand, the official ideology commits these regimes to eventually abolishing the collective system itself by transforming the collective farms into institutions of state property. There are indications, moreover, that this commitment may not be postponed indefinitely. The issue of how to establish a viable, permanent, and uniform organization of agriculture with completely nationalized enterprises has recurrently arisen in the Soviet Union over the last decade: in Khrushchev's “agro-town” proposal of the early 1950's, for example, with its implicit aim of eliminating the private plots of collective farmers, and in the later fairly large-scale experiments with a system of fixed wages in collective farms and with direct conversions of collective into state farms.
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References
1 jiři Hendrych, “40 let KSČ—40 let bojů za socialismus a komunismus,” Život strany, No. 5, 1961, pp. 268-79.
2 The regime's current proposal is that eventually the present 14,000 village communities of the country will be merged into 4,000 new units. Zemědělské noviny, June 15, 1961.
3 R., Conquest, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R.: The Study of Soviet Dynasties (New York, 1961), esp. pp. 22–24, 26-27, and 112-28.Google Scholar
4 From the end of 1955 to the end g 1959 the collectivized sector rose as a share of total agricultural land from 26 per cent to 65 per cent and that of the socialist sector as a whole (including state farms and farms owned by nonagricultural state enterprises) from 43 per cent to 85 per cent. As of January 1, 1961, 88 per cent of all agricultural land was reported under the socialist sector. Czechoslovakia, State Statistical Office, Statistická ročenka ČSSR 1960 (“Prague, 1960), p. 220. Rudé právo, May 20, 1961.
5 See his Central Committee reports to the 21st and 22nd Party Congresses in 
Jan. 28, 1959, and Oct. 18, 1961. See also his recent remarks at Tashkent in 
, Nov. 19, 1961.
6 Kooperativno zemedelie (Sofia), August, 1960, p. 8.
7 See section on “Domestic Economic Effects” below, Sec. III.
8 Based on Soviet data on state agricultural workers and on the estimated number of collective farmers on a system of fixed wages, the latter figure being derived by multiplying the number of collective farms operating under the new system by the average number of workers per collective farm. 
(Moscow), No. 5, 1961, p. 45.
9 JZD is the Czech official abbreviation for united agricultural co-operatives, referred to in this study as collective farms.
10 Rudé právo, Nov. 13, 1959.
11 Ibid., July 6, 1960.
12 V. Kyprová, Ekonomickd strdnka pfechodu od kapitalismu k socialismu (Prague, 1960), esp. pp. 173-75.
13 See esp. Karel Svoboda et al., “Vyzkum velikosti socialistickych zem6d£lskych zavodu s ohledem na specializaci a velkovyrobni technologii,” Zemědělskeá ekonomie, No. 4, 1960, pp. 251-345. See also articles in Nova mysl, No. 6, 1960, pp. 632-43, and No. 11, 1960, pp. 1181- 92; Zemědělskeá ekonomie, No. 7, 1960, pp. 621-23; and Zemědělskeá noviny, Nov. 12, 1960. i*
14 See esp. Jaroslav Ko£i and Miroslav Zubina, Zdhumenkove hospoddhtvi a jeho vyhledy (Prague, 1960). See also Novd mysl, No. 6, 1960, pp. 621-31; entire issue of Zemědělskeá ekonomie, No. 7, 1960; and Zemědělskeá’ noviny, Jan. 11, 1961.
15 Strougal's early affiliation with Novotny is indicated by the strong support he gave to the latter's collectivization policies in the mid-1950's. Lubomir Strougal, “Aktiv—opora stranickho vyboru,” Hvot strany, No. 18, 1955, pp. 8-12.
16 Statisticke zprdvy, No. 2, 1961, p. 52.
17 Lidovd demokracie, Sept. 16, 1960.
18 At a regional party meeting in March, 1960, Novotn urged that agricultural production should match that of industry by 1970, and one of the slogans commemorating the anniversary of the Russian Revolution in October, 1960, made the same point. Neither statement, however, amounted to official acceptance of the slogan by the party as an action program. See Rude prdvo, March 22 and Oct. 1, 1960.
19 Ibid., Feb. 12,1961.
20 Ibid., March 27, 1961.
21 Zemědělskeá noviny, March 28, 1961.
22 Rudé právo, June 11, 1961.
23 Zdeněk Valentík, “Výstavba socialistické vesnice,” Plánovani hospodářstvi, No. 7, 1961, pp. 588-97, esp. pp. 588-89, and 591.
24 FrantiŠek Hájek and Jiřf Rulf, “Naše zemᆹdělstvi vstupuje do nové etapy,” Nova mysl, No. 5, 1961, pp. 633-39. Miroslav Halml and Bohumil Prouza, “Překonávání rozdilu mezi m£stem a vesnici v CSSR,” Rudd prdvo, April 7, 1961. In2. Rudolf Ruffer, “Problemy zemědě1ske velkovyroby v dlouhodobem plánu do r. 1980,” Plánovane hospodářstvi, No. 6, 1961, pp. 509-17. Novotný speech in Rudé právo, May 14, 1961.
25 Zdeněk Valentik, in Plánovand hospoářfstvi, No. 7, 1961, p . 589.
26 Halml and Prouza in Rudé právo, April 7, 1961.
27 ibid.
28 Antonin Novotný in 
, April 8, 1955.
29 Rudé právo, May 14, 1961.
30 Ibid., June 23, 1961.
31 Compare Široký's and Novotný's addresses to the Tenth Congress of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in Nova mysl, No. 7, 1954. Also see Široký's article, “Spravné chápat politické a ekonomické otázky rozvoje zemědělstvi,” Nová mysl, No. 5, 1955, pp. 451-67. Compare with Novotný's in 
, April 8, 1955. Quotations from Siroky's article in Nová mysl, No. 5, 1955, pp. 455, 457.
32 Rudé právo, April 30, 1961.
33 See, for example, Novotn in 
, April 8, 1955.
34 A noteworthy example of the attribution of past national leadership to the central party organs rather than to leaders individually (except for Gottwald) is contained in a popular history of the postwar period published in 1960. Czechoslovakia, , State Publishers of Political Literature, 15 Budovatelskych let, 1945-60 (Prague, 1960)Google Scholar. For an officially sponsored discussion on collective leadership see Stanislav Jagerman, O ne'kterych otdzkdch demokratickeho centralismu v KSC (Prague, 1957).
35 For an example of Hendrych's early support of Novotny's main economic policies see Jiři Hendrych, “Vést lid k novým vítězstvim,” Život strany, No. 3, 1954, pp. 3-8.
36 Jiři Hendrych, “40 let KSČ—40 let boju za socialismus a komunismus,” Žvot strany, No. 5, 1961, pp. 268-79.
37
Rudé právo, May 14, 17, and 20, 1961. 
, May 16, 1961.
38 Plamen, May, 1961.
39 See Kopecký's speech on the ninety-first anniversary of Lenin's birth, Rudé právo, April 22, 1961. Also Široký's recent article in 
, May 13, 1961.
40 Zdeněk Bradáč, “Ucebnice historických zkušenostf KSČ,” a review article in žvot strany, No. 10, p. 615.
41 Zápotocký speeches in Rudé právo, Aug. 2, 1953, and Feb. 20, 1955.
42 See section “An Ideological Approach to Agricultural Production” above, Sec. I. The main point at issue between Zapotocky and Novotnf at that time was party hegemony in the trade unions, an argument which Zapotocky lost in 1954, when the last remnants of independence in those organizations were eliminated. Rozehnal, Dr. Alois, “Metamorfosa Českoslovensých odboru,” Československý přehled (New York), No. 12, 1955, pp. 16–19 Google Scholar. Also Robert B. Warner, “Role of the Czechoslovak Trade Unions after 1948,” research paper for the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, May, 1959, pp. 29-35.
43
, May 9, 1961.
44 Esp. Hendrych in Žvot strany, No. 5, 1961, pp. 269-70.
45 Oldřich Truhláf, “Podstata a funkce záhumenkovho hospodářstvi a perspektivy jeho výoje,” Politická ekonomie, No. 8, 1960, p. 700.
46 Czechoslovakia, State Statistical Office, Statistická ročenkaČSSR 1960 (Prague, I960*, p. 238.