ALFRED EVANS AND CAROL NECHEMIAS

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy

From Khrushchev to Gorbachev, Soviet leaders in the post-Stalinist era have sought to

transform the countryside, to close the gap between urban and rural living conditions.

This goal generally has entailed the development of cultural establishments, retail

stores, housing with modern amenities, and educational and medical services in the

rural sector. Modernization strategies have, however, changed over time. Nowhere is

this more evident than in a central aspect of the struggle to modernize the countryside-

rural resettlement policy. The Soviet approach to rural resettlement has undergone a

remarkable evolution, from the Khrushchevian emphasis on consolidating the popula-

tion into urban-type settlements and ugrogorody (agricultural cities) to the present

preference for preserving the existing settlement network. Perhaps the most riveting

symbol of the virtual turnaround in policy involves the plight of isolated homesteads

(khutory), a form of settlement characteristic of the Baltic republics. These settlements,

denounced in the 1950s as bastions of backwardness and long listed for elimination, now

command favorable Soviet press coverage. Indeed, a family establishing a new khutor in

Estonia was recently celebrated on the front page of Pruudu as a positive role model.’

This essay looks at changes in official policy regarding rural settlement patterns. Our

focus covers policy intent-what the Soviet state has aimed to do and why-as well as

policy implementation and the actual results in society. As this narrative indicates, the

Soviet approach to village planning has reflected the influence of broader questions

concerning agricultural policy, the relationship between state and society, ideological

goals and values, and the role of specialists in policy-making. The change in official

thinking on rural settlement issues from Khrushchev’s time to the Gorbachev years

demonstrates considerable adaptation in the manner of formulating policies as well as in

policy content.

The Khrushchev Era: The Adoption of the Village Resettlement Program

As early as 1950-1951 Nikita Khrushchev, then a Secretary of the CPSU as well as

Secretary of the Moscow oblast (region), emerged as an advocate for the radical trans-

formation ofthe countryside. More personally identified with distinctive preferences for

village modernization than his successors, Khrushchev introduced an array of basic

concepts and principles that were to figure prominently in future debates. His speeches

in favor of the reconstruction of villages included several crucial ideas: the mass resettle-

ment of peasants into stronger, well-appointed population points; the creation of more

compact, urban-type communities with a mix of multi-family and single-family

dwellings; and the achievement of one of communism’s goals-the effacement of

1, V. Shirokov, “Na khutore,” Pmuda, June 23, 1989, pp. 1, 3

S1X’l)ll.b IN COMPAKA1.1\~1- COMMCNIbhl, VOL. XXIII, No. 2, SUh4hlF.R 1990, 125- 147

0039.3592/90/02 0125-23 $03.00 @ 1990 Universitv of California

126 SITDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

distinctions in rural and urban living conditions. 2 Thus the policy of village amalgama-

tion had its roots in the early 1950s. During that period the Soviet press included several

accounts of how peasants in small, outlying villages were resettled at chosen kolkhoz

centers by dismantling and then reassembling their houses, outbuildings and related

structures. Over 400 small villages reportedly disappeared in the non-black earth

Vladimir oblast 3 Faced with fierce political opposition, Khrushchev backed off from his support for

rural population resettlement and the issue largely faded from view. Indeed, scholarly

works on rural village planning in the 1950s are mainly of interest for what they do not

say. A volume published in 1955 by researchers associated with a scientific research

institute for rural construction fails to mention the desirability of amalgamating settle-

ments: homes are shown as single-family houses located next to or within private agri-

cultural plots; the flow of capital investment-the siting of economic-productive

buildings-is to be concentrated in one population point or in separate locations,

depending on economic appropriateness; and public service centers are to be located in

large, medium-sized, and small villages. 4 Another text, written by scholars of the

Department of Rural Population Planning of the Moscow Institute of Land Engineer-

ing, does call for the elimination of khutory, largely for the technical and practical reasons

that they were deemed incapable of satisfying the demands of a rural socialist economy.

On the whole, however, this latter text discussed plans for the construction and location

of buildings and other facilities within each village, while presenting no suggestions for

the creation, relocation, or distribution of villages.”

By the late 195Os, however, Khrushchev, now firmly in control as First Secretary,

returned to the theme of village reconstruction. He set about establishing an authorita-

tive terminology and basic principles that would define the direction of policy toward

rural settlements. One such term was u~~r~~~c~d, which Khrushchev had introduced in

1950, and then quickly abandoned in 1951, conceding that an agrogorod demanded

unrealistically high requirements of urban culture; instead he pronounced himself in

favor of the more modest title of “collective farm settlement” (posyolok).” Although the

term ugroforod was revived in 1958, even then its limited relevance was acknowledged,

since only advanced collective farms could radically reshape rural life.7 If the term

uyroforod implied an overly ambitious approach to rural modernization, then collective

farm settlement apparently suffered from the opposite fault: it was dropped in favor of

a term suggesting purposeful social transformation- “the urban-type settlement.”

That concept was enshrined in key documents like the 1961 Party Program, which

stressed the merging of kolkhoz villages into enlarged urban-type communities with

2. Khrushchev’s early efforts at village consolidation are best drsrribed by Luba 0. Richter, “Plans to Urbanize thr Countryside. ” in-Jane Drgras and Alex Nave, eds., SOL~LPI Plannzn,y- LLsa_y~ zn Honour qf NaunxJusn_y

(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964), pp. 32 -45. Se? also KatlEugen Wadekin, “The Countryside.” Erohletr~~ qf Communtsm, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (May-June 1969) pp. 12220, on trends of policy in that area from the Khrushchev period until the late 1960s. A n analysis concluding that Soviet policy on village settlement planning in the 1970s showed basic continuity with Khrushchrv’s conceptions is Judith Pallot, “Rural Settlr- ment Planning in the USSR,” So& Studies, Vol. XxX1, No. 2 (April 1979), pp. 2144230.

3. Richter, op. cit., note 2, pp. 36-37. 4. V. S. Ryazanov, N. E. Schmidt, and D. A. Zhmudsky, Planirovka sefskikh nasyelyonnykh mesl (Moscow:

Gosudarstvennoye Izdatelstvo Literatury po Stroitelstvu i Arkhitckturc, 1955). 5. M. I. Mazaretov and V. M. Bogdanov, eds., Planirouka JeLkzkh nasyelyonnykh mest (MOSCOW: Gosndatst-

vennoye Izdatelsvo Selskokhozyaistvennoi Literatury, 1957). 6. Nikita S. Khrushchev, “On Building and I mprovements on the Collective Farms,” a speech ofJanuary

18, 1951, in Thomas Whitney, ed., Khrushcheu S,eaks(Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1963), p. 52. 7. Richter, op. rn.. note 2, p. 42.

Chanp in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 127

well-appointed housing, stores and service establishments, cultural facilities, and

medical instituti0ns.s

To many observers, the distinction between urban-type settlements and agroforody

may have proved confusing. A 1959 article in Izvestia attempted to sort out-the issue by

pointing to the planned typical population as the key factor.” Enlarged agricultural

settlements of the urban type would contain no more than 5000 people while that of an

apogorod would range from 10 000 to 20 000 or even to 30 000. A larger population was

viewed as a necessary precondition for the replication of a full range of urban institutions

and life styles.

The issue of what type of housing to construct prompted diverse responses. In 195 1

Khrushchev had labeled as “profoundly mistaken” the views of architects who thought

it best to construct only (or mainly) one-family individual dwellings; at that time his own

recommendation did, however, include a mix of designs, ranging from individual

homes to houses with two to four apartments. “’ Later as First Secretary, he was , inclined to advise collective farmers to build multi-story structures not more than five

stories in height.” In actuality, there was no single standard for how the village of the

future should look. The Soviet press endorsed a variety of proposals. For example, two

architects writing in Izvestia explained that “the best type of dwelling in rural

communities is a two-story flat-roofed structure with duplex apartments or a pitched-

roof house, as a rule separate; ” the chairman of a non-black earth collective farm noted

the great advantages of replacing his collective farm’s 137 villages with six or seven

population points, each containing two-story houses with eight to sixteen apartments,

with the central portion of the main village including four-story houses with thirty to

forty apartments; and alournalist praised the movement of people from isolated farm-

steads in Latvia to a large new settlement consisting of one-story and two-story

individual homes, albeit with sharply reduced private plots.” Despite their apparent

diversity, these cases all share the common thread of a desire to concentrate the

population in more compact communities.

The magnitude of the project defies comprehension: the Soviet state was cheerfully

planning the extinction of most of the country’s villages. In working out methodological

guidelines for the party’s latest campaign, in 1962 the Central Research and Design

Institute for City Planning released a document which contained the idea of separating

villages into those with a future (perspektivnye) and those without (neperspektiunye).‘3

Specialists recommended that the majority of rural populated points in the future should

range from 500 to 3000 residents, with the greatest relative weight involving settlements

8. “The Program of the Communist Party ofthe Soviet Union, ” Praodn, November 2, 1961, translated in Charlotte Saikowski and Leo Gruliow, eds.. Currenl Sourel Z’olicier ZV(New York: Columbia University Press,

1962), p. 20.

9. Ya. Kravchuk, “Discussing the Problems of City Construction: Features of the City of the Future,”

Irue&, December 2, 1959, translated in The Current Di& ofthe Soviet fms (hereafter CUSP), Vol. XI, No. 48

(December 30, 1959), p. 31.

10. Khrushchev, op. cit., note 6, p. 46. 11. Ibid ; see also G. Lopatin, “On Various Themes: City in the Country,” Irues&, July 15, 1962,

translated in CDSP, Vol. XIV, No. 29 (August 15, 1962), p. 30.

12. A. Vasilyev and P. Mikhalevich, “Urgent Needs of Village Construction,” Zzues~za, April 12, 1959, translated in CUSP, Vol. XI, No. 15 (May, 13, 1959), p. 27; “Speech by Comrade P. A. Prozorov,” Prauda,

December 28, 1959, translated in CUSP, Vol. XII, No. 3 (February 17, 1960), p. 24; V. Kalnin, “The End

of Radivilishki Farmstead,” Ime&, April 8, 1960, translated in CDSP, Vol. XII, No. 14 (May 4, 1960), pp. 22-23.

1.3. “Letter to the Editors: Restructuring and Morality, ” Sovyetskaya kullura, February 14, 1989, translated in C&W’, Vol. XLI, No. 9 (March 29, 1989), p. 4.

128 SRIDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

with a population from 800 to 1200.‘* Actual planning, however, was done at the raion

(district) level, where the basic concept involved the consolidation of settlements to 2000

residents and more. l5 The implications of these figures can be grasped by noting that in

1959 over half (53 per cent) of the rural population lived in places with populations

ranging from 101 to 1000, while an additional 10 per cent of the total rural population

lived in settlements with fewer than 100 people. The impact would especially be felt in

the non-black earth belt of the European part of the Soviet Union, where the bulk of the

rural population lived in small, scattered settlements; and in the Baltic republics of

Estonia and Latvia, where 57 per cent of the farm population lived on single-family

homesteads. Overall, the end result called for reducing the number of populated points

by four to five times and for uprooting the ma,jority of the rural population.

Surely weighty reasons must have stood behind such grandiose plans. What perceived

problems could conceivably have generated demands to reshape the countryside once

again? The village consolidation scheme initially rested on several rationales: (1) the

goal of improving agricultural management and productivity; (2) the goal of raising

rural living standards to a par with those of the urban sector; and (3) the goal of

constructing communism within a relatively short time. For the most part, the par-

ticipants in these early discussions included party leaders, state officials concerned with

agriculture, collective farm chairmen, architects and engineers involved with planning,

municipal services, and sanitation, and, increasingly over time, geographers,

economists, and sociologists. In the 1960s the village consolidation strategy commanded

considerable support: one of the Soviet Union’s most prominent authorities on rural

social patterns, V. I. Starovyerov, has reported that the majority of specialists and prac-

titioners had then viewed the task as both necessary and urgent. “’

Practitioners and specialists saw the creation of a new settlement pattern as a means

of resolving agricultural problems and raising rural living standards. According to con-

ventional wisdom, small, scattered settlements hindered the management of farms and

held back productivity. As one collective farm chairman complained, “It is hard to run

a big farm in the face of such dispersion.“” The old settlement pattern allegedly

impeded the mechanization of crop cultivation and the application of agricultural

science. Extravagant claims were made that a sharp increase in the harvest yield of fields

and in the productivity of animal husbandry would follow resettlement.‘s

But it was not so much resettlement itself as one of the intended effects of resettlement

that would account for this agricultural upsurge. The amalgamation of villages served

several purposes, including one of Khrushchev’s pet penchants: a substantial reduction

in the size of private plots and, consequently, the fading of their importance in the lives

of Soviet farmers. Within the more compact communities, smaller plots would be

allotted and the keeping of livestock would become immeasurably more difficult. The

Khrushchev regime had introduced more restrictions on the private sector and

14. A. N. Kondukhov and A. B. Mikhailov, Planirouka t zas/rozka Jelskzkh pmyolkoo (Moscow: Izdatelstvo

literatury po stroitelstvu, 1966), p. 13.

15. V. P. Butuzova and V. A. Tatarynov, “Puti povyshenia effektivnosti preobrazovania selskovo rassy-

vlenia v svyasi s realizatsiyei prodovolstvennoi programmy SSSR, ” in E. M. Markov, ed., Gzdmtro@ye aspekty reai~zatsziprudovafstvennoiprogrammy SSSR (Moscow: TsNIIP Instituta Gradostroitelstva, 1985).

16. V. I. Starovyerov, “Sushchnost i nekotorye problemy sotsialnovo vosproizvodstva sovyetskoi

drrevni,” in Starovyerov el al, Problemy sotJialnovo ~~ospro&dstvo moet,kol deryeoni ~8 uslowtakh a,~ropromyshlennoi integratsii (Moscow: Institut Sotsiologischeskikh Issledovany AN SSSR, 1986), p. 41

17. “Speech by Comrade Prozorov,” OP cit., note 11, p. 24.

18. K&in, op. cit., note 12, p. 23.

Chaqes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 129

encouraged the “voluntary” selling of privately held animals to the public sector.

Private plots were regarded as a brake on agricultural progress, since they eroded labor

discipline by diverting a great part of the peasants’ energies to their individual farms,

and they employed “backward,” unproductive agricultural techniques. Time-budget

studies in the Russian republic in 1962 showed that able-bodied collective farmers spent

not less than one-fourth of their time on private plots. I9 Soviet leaders sought to force

“loafers” -people who had built up their personal farming-to take up communal

labor.

The 1961 Party Program proposed a sharply contracted role for private plots in the

immediate future-after all, the USSR was scheduled to construct a communist society

by 1980. Scholarly work incorporated the assumption that private plots were on the road

to extinction as a significant element for agricultural production and personal income.

As a 1961 article in Sovyetskoyegosudarstvo ipravo related, the growing economic strength

of the collective farms had created the need to revise legislation on personal-plot land

tenure, since the private sector would soon lose its importance on advanced farms and

would serve as only a transitional feature on weaker ones.20 In light of the private

plot’s presumed demise, specialists could readily contend that living in a compact

village would pose no difficulties for future collective farmers; because they would not

be burdened with a large personal farm, all that was needed would be the opportunity

to commune directly with nature, to relax in their own little orchards, and to grow

flowers and vegetables. 21 Other specialists recommended that future collective farmers

live in multi-story housing, with private garden plots (for as long as they continued to

be required) placed outside residential areas. 22 Housing could be designed for everyday

life rather than for production, since there would be no need for a cow-shed, a barn, or

a poultry house. 23 The denigration of individual holdings in Soviet agriculture thus

accompanied the strategy of village consolidation.

Another argument promoting village consolidation reflected the traditional Soviet

strategy of securing economic growth through increased inputs of land, capital, and

manpower. The abandonment of small villages and roads would free more land for

production. In other words, widely scattered villages waste space. In 1962 a Belorussian

planning official estimated that five-hundred thousand hectares of land in buildings and

roads would become available in his republic as a result of resettlement.24

From the perspective of planners and builders, the strengthening of rural population

points promised to do more than unleash agricultural productivity: it was regarded as

a necessary precondition for bringing modern amenities to the countryside. Vydyborets

and Rogovin, for example, noted that: “In amalgamated rural populated points with a

population of 1500 to 2000 persons, the quality of construction and level of cultural daily

service of the population can more easily be raised and with lower expenditures.“25

19. Yu. V. Arutiunian, “Sotsialnaia struktura selskovo naseleniia,” Voprozyjilosof, No. 5 (1966), p, 57. 20. I. S. Chernyak, “Place Legislation on Personal-Plot Land Tenure at the Level of New Tasks,”

Sovyefskoyegosudarstvo iprauo, No. 5 (May 1961), translated in CDSP, Vol. XIII, No. 21 (June 21, 1961), p. 3. 21. Vasilyev and Mikhalevich, op. cit., note 12, p. 27. 22 S. A. Kovalev, “Problems in the Soviet Geography of Rural Settlement,” Geografia nasyelyenia u SSSR

(Moscow: Nauka, 1964), pp. 131 - 143, translated in Souief &?~rophy, Vol. IX, No. 8 (October 1968), p. 645 23. N. A. Aitov, “An Analysis of the Objective Prerequisites for Eliminating the Distinctions between the

Working Class and the Peasantry, ” in G. S. Osipov, ed., Town, Counlry, andPeople(London: Tavistock, 1969), p. 135.

24. Richter, op. cit., note 2, p. 43. 25. A. V Vydyborets and G. N. Rogovin, Perspektivy rami& selskikh nasyelyonnykh punkbx (Moscow:

Ekonomika, 19731, p. 61.

130 STUIXES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

Although the specific calculations varied, specialists stressed that it was much cheaper

to provide a complex of streets, water mains, and sewerage to compact communities

than to the traditional, strung-out settlement. 26 For many years village consolidation

enjoyed unquestioned pre-eminence as the only reasonable approach to the problem of

bringing better living conditions to rural residents; there simply were no alternative

models for addressing the issue at hand.

Aside from technical questions related to constructing modern amenities in the

countryside, the village consolidation program received additional impetus from the

Khrushchevian ideological atmosphere. The old Bolshevik Clan that favored radical

transformation of the society from above was alive and well; a mix of doctrinal belief and

unremitting optimism marked the approach to policy questions. Careful study of policy

questions carried little weight. As Tatyana Zaslavskaya, a prominent Soviet sociologist,

remarked in an interview, “Khrushchev acted in a revolutionary manner, but really he

was often like a bear, stumbling somewhere; he wasn’t rational, it was impossible to do

such things as breaking up farmers’ subsidiary plots .“27 There was no search for

the best way. Instead, there was an impetuous call for the rapid construction of

communism-for forcing society into doctrinal molds determined by the top party

leaders.

The doctrinal fervor often featured a style of thinking in which the old was labeled

backward and the new progressive. As a result, public opinion counted for little;

peasants who opposed resettlement had “weeds in their heads”-a petty bourgeois,

private property mentality that merited only disdain and hostility. The dispersed system

of settlement was viewed as part of the heritage of old Russia, as consistent with the

petty-commodity character of agricultural production. Collectivization had amal-

gamated farms and labor but not residences; now it was time to finish the task and create

a settlement system compatible with socialist agriculture.28 One journalist argued that

the farmstead system was “the only thing that still disunites people who have decided to

work in common and to live as one family.“2g The Lithuanian farmsteads especially

drew fire for harboring kulaks, isolating people from one another, and providing a clear

field for priests and monks. Indeed, resettlement was sometimes posed as the victory of

the club over the church, as part of a strategy to immerse peasants in a network of Soviet

institutions.30 From an ideological standpoint, village consolidation promised even

more than improvements in agricultural output and rural living standards: it served a

broader, longstanding effort by the Soviet regime to create circumstances in which it

could more easily control people’s hearts and minds.

In the design of policy, however, the social-psychological dimensions of village con-

solidation initially received little attention. In the early 1950s Khrushchev expected

collective farmers readily to give up the custom of living in individual houses; from his

viewpoint, they were capable of understanding and appreciating more advanced life

styles, of grasping the “correct opinion,” even though the new housing proposals

entailed a considerable reduction in the size of private plots.3’ The “true” interests of

26. See S. A. Kovalev, SelJkoye rassyelenlye(Moscow: Izdatelstvo Moskovskovo Universiteta, 1963), p. 189;

and K&in, op at., note 12, p. 22.

27. Bohdan Nahaylo, “Interview with Tatyana Zaslavskaya,” &ho Liberty Remmh Buifelm, RL365l87 (September 16, 1987), p. 13.

28. Kondukhov and Mikhailov, op. cit., note 14, p. 7; and Kovale\,, op. cit., note 26, Chapter 5.

29. K&in, op. ctt , note 12, p. 2i. 30. N. Konovalov. “On the Farmsteads,” Irues&, September 13, 1959, translated in CDSP, Vol. Xl,

No. 37 (October 14, 1959), p. 25.

31. Khrushchev, op. cit., note 6, p. 46.

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132 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

where large-scale irrigation projects were being introduced; and the formation of

specialized state farms for vegetables and meat near large cities. But even where there

were opportunities to start anew, as in the Virgin Lands, new settlers were as apt to live

in tents and barracks for years than to embark on building new cities. The priorities

attached to production and to the urban sector continued to hold sway, despite

Khrushchev’s greater emphasis on raising living standards and on agriculture.

As Table 1 illustrates, under Khrushchev the Soviet state played a secondary role in

shaping rural housing conditions. The private sector proved dominant, accounting for

81 and 67 per cent of new rural housing stock built, respectively, during the sixth and

seventh five-year plans. That kolkhozy had little money and other priorities is evident

in their relatively marginal position as a provider of new housing-only 3 per cent of new

housing space for the seventh five-year plan. While it is noteworthy that the state’s share

of new rural housing construction did increase sharply from the sixth to the seventh five-

year plan, rising from 19 to 30 per cent, even this increased commitment compares

unfavorably with the burgeoning urban sector, where the state was accounting for 75 per

cent of new housing stock by the early 1960s.

Severe underfunding was not the only factor that upset Khrushchev’s grandiose

plans. In order to identify suitable settlements for future growth, a December, 1959,

Central Committee plenum had called for the preparation ofland-use plans in all raions

of the country. By 1966 only 45 per cent of the rural raions in the RSFSR, the Ukraine,

Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, and Estonia had completed this task; moreover, significant

changes in the methods and principles used to select villages had rendered many of these

completed plans useless. 33 Part of the difficulty stemmed from the participation of two

types of organizations-oblast farm design agencies and land-engineering institutes-

that tended to adopt different approaches to rural area planning, with the former more

sensitive to the significance of private plots in the present and in the future.

Additional problems involved the use of prefabricated units in housing construction.

The Soviet state envisioned large-scale housing construction in terms of industrialized

construction, with the widespread employment, as in the cities, of prefabricated panels

or blocks. As late as 1970, however, only 13 per cent of the housing built by the USSR

Ministry of Rural Construction and by interfarm construction organizations embraced

these urban-style techniques. Persistent shortcomings associated with the lack of skilled manpower, unpaved roads, and the urban orientation of the housing construction

industry, undercut efforts to erect multi-storied apartments in rural settings.“4 In

general, multi-story buildings were constructed in areas close to major cities, where

logistical problems could more readily be resolved.

The Khrushchevian countryside continued to look very much as it had in the past.

Indeed, linkages with the pre-revolutionary period were evident. In Russian villages,

for example, privately owned, single-family detached homes, strung out along unpaved

roads and situated on private plots, remained predominant. Indeed, the vast bulk of

Soviet rural residents, some 90 to 95 per cent of them, lived in their own home.“” The

33. S. A. Kovalev and V. S. Ryazanov, “Paths of Evolution ofRural Settlements,” from Nauchnyeproblemy

,p~pg‘iz nadmza (Moscow: Moscow University, 1967), pp 164- 167, translated in So&l Gqraphy. Vol. IX, No. 8 (October 1968), p. 661.

34. K. Taichinova, “Raising the I.’ 1’ nmg Standard of the Rural Population,” Voprosy ekonomki, No. 6

(1974), pp. 33-52. translated in ‘The Sm~id Review, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 1975m76), p. 50. 35. Henry W. Morton, “What Have the Soviet Leaders Done about the Housing Crisis?” in Henry W.

Morton and Rudolk I.. Tokcs (eds.), Svule~ PO/~&S andSociely in fhe 1970s (New York: The Free Press, 1974), p_ 175.

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 133

figure is not surprising, since the state rural housing program was both of recent vintage

and eclipsed by private building activity. Yet the stress on continuity can be overstated.

Rural housing conditions had improved over the decades. In the Russian republic the

characteristic one-room hut (da) of the past had largely given way to multi-room

layouts, usually consisting of two to three rooms and containing a dwelling space

ranging from 30 to 60 square meters. New construction practices such as plastering

walls, adding and enlarging windows, covering log homes with boards, installing

electric or gas ranges for cooking, and building foundations with strong materials had

been adopted.

But some areas of rural life have proved stubbornly persistent. While electrification

had become virtually universal, other amenities like indoor toilets, running water, and

central heating remained virtually non-existent. Country life was physically hard and

laborious, characterized by outhouses, outdoor wells, unpaved roads, and stoves fueled

by wood to provide heat in the winter. The provision of utilities was largely left to the

initiative oflocal Soviets. As a consequence, resettlement in kolkhoz central villages held

little promise in terms of improved access to basic amenities. It made more sense to stay

put if you lived where you could dip a bucket into a river.3”

Khrushchev thus did not resolve the goal of bringing modern amenities to the

countryside. As we shall see, his successors likewise have found success in this area

elusive. The key to closing the gap between urban and rural housing conditions has

especially focused on the provision of basic utilities to the countryside. From the

beginning of Soviet efforts to change rural settlement patterns, the city has enjoyed a

clear advantage: in 1959 one-third of urban units had water and sewage, one-fourth had

central heating, and one-fifth had gas; the comparable figures for the rural sector would

have been close to zero.37

The rural housing sector did, however, fare better than its urban counterpart with

respect to the goal of separate housing for each family. According to one estimate, in

1959 there was a 30 per cent shortfall of housing units per 1000 population in the urban

sector, while the countryside experienced an apparent 5 per cent oversupply of

houses.3R The outmigration of people from urban to rural areas, associated largely with

the Slavic and Baltic republics, as well as the possession of second homes (dachas) by

many Soviet citizens, accounts for the excess rural housing. While Soviet data for that

time period do not permit an exact accounting of how many rural families lived in a

separate apartment or house, the nature of housing problems clearly differed for urban

and rural residents. With respect to housing, these differences are crucial in that the city

acted as a magnet, as the key to a more comfortable life-style-turning a spigot rather

than hauling buckets of water.

The Khrushchevian experience, starting in 1958, of increased administrative

pressure on private plots, including limitations on the holding of livestock and

reductions in the size of land allotments, proved a negative one. These attacks

threatened the well-being of collective farm families as well as the country’s food supply.

Kolkhoz families not only consumed part of what they produced on private plots but

36. Stephen P. Dunn and Ethel Dunn, The Pensants of Central Russia (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1967), p. 45.

37. B. Svetlichnyi, “Some Problems of the Long Range Development of Cities,” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1962, no. 3, translated in Sovief Sociology, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Summer 1962), p. 62.

38. Willard S. Smith, “Housing in the Soviet Union-Big Plans, Little Action,” in Soviet Econbomic PIospectsfor the Seumfk, Joint Economic Committee (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1973), pp. 408-409.

134 S-runr~s IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

derived 38 per cent of their income from the private sector.“” Moreover, the plots

accounted for a substantial share of total agricultural output-64 per cent of potatoes,

41 per cent of meat, 47 per cent of milk, and 81 per cent of eggs.40

Khrushchev’s campaign generated unhappy results. Compared with 1958, private

meat production fell 17 per cent by 1964; milk production was down 11 per cent, eggs

7 per cent.41 In the country as a whole, livestock output was 6 per cent above the 1958

level but the population had grown by 10 per cent. This unsatisfactory agricultural per-

formance of the latter years of Khrushchev’s rule can, in part, be attributed to the

stepped-up drive against private plots.4’

Khrushchev’s legacy thus consisted largely of unfinanced plans. But many of the

conceptual approaches developed during those years continued to influence the

direction of Soviet rural policies long after his ouster.

Growing Doubts in the 1970s

The Brezhnev regime continued the drive to liquidate “futureless” villages. There were

some initial differences in nuance, however: an end was put to administrative pressures

against private plots; and in contrast to Khrushchev’s stress on multi-storied apartment

buildings, a more open-ended approach was taken to the issue of what type of housing

to construct for rural residents. But the central objective of the village amalgamation

program persisted, and received greater material support as the Brezhnev regime

poured more funds into rural social development.

The stepped-up flow of investment into agriculture ensured greater state activism in

reshaping rural housing conditions. In the 1970s investment in agriculture accounted

for more than 26 per cent of the total in the economy, compared with 20-23 per cent in

the 1960s and 16 per cent in the 1950s. 43 By the early 198Os, Western analysts had

concluded that agricultural reconstruction and modernization had emerged as the

Soviet Union’s top civilian priority. But no changes in the basic structure of Soviet agri-

culture, its centralized planning and reliance on collective and state farms, were con-

templated; indeed, the enhanced flow of rubles represented an attempt to stave off more

fundamental reform.

In contrast to Khrushchev, Brezhnev shifted the geographical focus of agricultural

modernization, especially after 1974, toward the non-black earth zone, an area that

includes the core of the Russian republic as well as parts of Belorussia and the Baltic

republics. It was hoped that a broad-based program of socio-economic development

would transform this region into a bulwark of stable and productive agriculture. The

policy of resettlement thus took on a special significance in this zone, due to the region’s

multitude of small villages and the high degree of state intervention.

Whether from conviction or because it was demanded or expected, scholars and

specialists by and large continued to embrace the party’s perspectives on village con-

solidation. However, that consensus gradually evaporated. By the late 1960s and early

39. Paul Dibb, &u&t Agriculture Since Khrushcheu, Occasional Paper No. 4, Australian National University, 1969, p. 49.

40. Norton T. Dodge, “Recruitment and the Quality of the Soviet Agricultural Labor Force,” in James R. Millar (ed.), The Souzet Rural Community (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1971), p. 185.

41. Dibb, op. cit., note 39, pp. 12-13. 42. Alec Now, An Economic Hislory ofthe U.S.S.R. (Middlesex, England: Pelican Books, 1984), p. 368. 43. Boris Rumer, “The ‘Second’ Agriculture in the USSR,” S&et Studies, Vol. XxX111, No. 4 (October

1981), p. 570.

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 135

197Os, and with growing forcefulness, scholars and practitioners began to question the

wisdom of rural population consolidation. Several factors facilitated this growing

criticism: the consequences (many of them unexpected) of village amalgamation; a

redefinition of the meaning of “scientific decision-making ” in the direction of a more

empirical approach that did not excessively prejudge conclusions; and the growing

opportunities for experts to unleash their critical faculties and even engage in publicist

activities.44 While initial critiques addressed aspects of policy implementation rather

than the basic thrust of the program, those studies nonetheless chipped away at the

arguments underpinning village consolidation and contributed to its eventual rejection.

Indeed, by the late 1970s scholars were suggesting alternative approaches to the entire

question of village modernization.

One of the first important critiques was written by two geographers, S. A. Kovalev

and V. S. Ryazanov, who in 1967 published a scholarly tract on the evolution of rural

settlements.4s While endorsing the general principle of village amalgamation, largely

on the ground of the difficulties of providing amenities and services to small

communities, Kovalev and Ryazanov nonetheless argued that the requirements of agri-

cultural production had been overly ignored by urban planners. They warned that agri-

cultural production would suffer due to the failure to recognize the importance of private

plots, which the authors asserted would remain significant for an indefinite time to

come, and from the liquidation of small livestock farm settlements, which could not meet

the optimal size recommended by design specialists. Within a few years other scholars

joined in advancing those themes, arguing that planned resettlement depressed the

output of private plots, since resettled villagers left their established family plots behind,

and fewer families tended to be engaged in private plot farming in larger villages.46

As the village resettlement program progressed, evidence supporting these arguments

accumulated. In discussing resettlement, one scholar pointed out that private plots

owned by families living in apartments are 20 to 30 per cent smaller than those kept by

people living in houses on individual pieces of land; he also contended that the resulting

loss of output exceeded the savings realized by the construction of multi-family

housing. 47 The experience of one non-black earth province, Perm, is instructive. In the

197Os, 5170 of Perm’s 5642 rural villages had been declared “futureless.” Nearly half

a million square meters of housing had been built in villages proposed for development,

but not one unit was planned to include outbuildings for farm purposes. Over a five-year

period state purchases of privately raised meat dropped by two-thirds.48 In contrast to

the early hopes of increasing the amount ofland under cultivation, scholars now link the

abandonment of villages with the loss each year in the non-black earth zone of tens of

thousands of formerly arable hectares of land. Where small livestock sections and

patches of fields once held sway, birch and grey alder now are creating a young forest.49

44. The reinterpretation of “scientific decision-making” after Khrushchev’s fall from power is described

by George W. Breslauer, “On the Adaptability of Soviet Welfare-State Authoritarianism,” in Erik P. Hoffman and Robbin F. Laird, eds., The Soviet Po/iay UI the Modern Era (New York: Aldine Publishing Co.,

1984), pp. 225-226.

45. Kovalev and Ryazanov, op. cit., note 33. 46. T. I. Zaslavskaya and R. V. Ryvkina, “The Fate of the Small Siberian Village,” Souyetskaya Rossia,

September 12, 1980, translated in CDSP, Vol. XxX11, No. 37 (October 15, 1980), p. 6.

47. V. Stern, “Perspektivy pereustroistva sela,” Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 1 (1980), pp. 86-87. 48. Ildus Zakirov, “Both Urban Comforts and Rural Blessings,” Literaturnaya Gareta, March 21, 1979,

translated in CDSP, Vol. XXXI, No. 19 (June 6, 1979), p. 18.

49. V. Shchutkivich, “Village on the Far Shore,” Komsomolskaya frauda, March 29, 1981, translated in CDSP, Vol. XXXIII, No. 20 (June 17, 1981), p. 5.

136 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

Kovalev and Ryazanov also argued for greater flexibility and a choice of alternatives

in proposed settlement schemes for various areas. These two scholars suggested that

where a good road network existed, exceptions could be made to the general policy of

village consolidation by developing a system of settlements using larger populated places

as service centers. This proposal bears a close resemblance to approaches which were

later advanced by some specialists as an outright replacement for the village consolida-

tion program. An additional complaint was the charge that the methods for categorizing

villages as with or without a future were unscientific and insensitive to local

conditions.50

Scholarly complaints about the style of policy implementation proved a persistent

feature of essays on village resettlement. Writing in 1973, A. V. Vydyborets and G. N.

Rogozhin questioned the realism of recent plans, objecting to the short time frames and

the overly large number of villages designated as “futureless.” They warned against

imposing a single solution on the entire country, contending that where fields were

small, villages should be small. They pointed out that the average size and spacing of

villages, the demographic composition of the rural population, and the rate of migration

from rural to urban areas vary strikingly across regions. In the southern part of the

USSR, for example, the amalgamation of villages is hardly an issue, since very large

settlements already predominate. The concern for preserving small villages is especially

directed toward the non-black earth zone of the European part of the USSR.“’

Variation has, in fact, characterized the state’s role in reshaping rural housing

conditions. As Table 2 shows, the public sector has played a significant role in those

republics affected by the non-black earth program and in Kazakhstan, due to the earlier

Virgin Lands campaign and the preponderance of state farms. In large areas of the

USSR, the overwhelming bulk of rural housing continues to be privately held. The

range in the percentage of rural housing stock owned by the state sector is striking: from

a low of 4 per cent in Georgia and Azerbaidzhan to over 50 per cent in Kazakhstan,

Latvia, and Estonia. A radical change in this percentage in favor of public housing is

closely related to resettlement efforts, since plans for villages often specify a figure of 70

to 80 per cent.52

Sharp regional differences also mark demographic trends. A declining rural popula-

tion characterizes only the Slavic and Baltic republics (see Table 3). Excessive out-

migration, coupled with an unfavorable population structure, is an affliction largely

limited to the non-black earth zone. By 1984 the rural population of Russian republic

provinces like Kirov, Kalinin, Kostroma, Orel, Tula, Novgorod, Pskov, and Yaroslav

was only 44 to 50 per cent of what it had been in 1959. The human resources available

are viewed as insufficient for carrying out agricultural production: in Pskov province,

for example, there were only 14 300 machine-tractor operators, whereas 25 000 were

needed.53 The renewal of the non-black earth zone thus has been seriously, perhaps

irreparably, threatened by the depletion ofan able-bodied work force. By the early 1980s

50. Kovalev and Ryazanov, op ci/., note 33. See also L. Nikiforov, “Overcoming Socioeconomic Dif- ferences between Town and Country,” Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 2 (1975), translated in Problems of Economics, Vol. 18, No. 17 (November 1975), p. 77.

51. Butuzova and Tararynov, op. cit., note 15, pp. 27-31; T. I. Zaslavskaya and E. E. Goryachenko, ~&ma s&,&o XIJ~J+Y&: sotslaln~e problemy i puti ikh rerhenia (Novosibirsk: Institut ekonomiki i organizatsii promyshlennovo proizvodstva, Sibirskoe otdelenie AN SSSR, 1986), p. 36.

52. Stern, op. cit., note 47, p. 79. 53. Carol Nechemias, “Recent Changes in Soviet Rural Housing Policy, ” in Kenneth R. Gray, ed., Souzet

Agriculture- Comparatiue Penpectiues (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1990), pp. 158- 159.

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 137

TARI,E 2. Rural Housing Stock Owned by State Sector in the USSR and Republics, 1987.

Percentage

USSR 30

Kazakhstan 60 Latvia 56 Estonia 51 RSFSR 44 Lithuania 33 Belorussia 23 Uzbekistan 16 Tadzhikistan 16 Kirghizia 16 Turkmenistan 13 Armenia 11 Ukraine 11 Moldavia 6 Georgia 4 Azerbaidzhan 4

Source: Sel~koe khotiaistvo SSSR (Moscow: Financy i statistika, 198&J), p. 495.

TABLE 3. Rural Population of the USSR and Republics, in Millions

1959 1987

1987 as percentage of

1959

USSR 108.8 95.7 88

Belorussia 5.6 3.6 64 RSFSR 55.9 38.4 68 Lithuania 1.7 1.2 71 Ukraine 22.7 17.1 75 Latvia 0.9 0.8 89 Moldavia 2.3 2.2 96 Estonia 0.5 0.5 100 Georgia 2.3 2.4 104 Armenia 0.9 1.1 122 Kazakhstan 5.2 6.8 130 Azerbaidzhan 1.9 3.1 163 Kirghizia 1.4 2.5 178 Uzbekistan 5.4 11.0 203 Turkmenistan 0.8 1.8 225 Tadzhikistan 1.3 3.2 246

Source: Selskoe khoriaistvo SSSR (M oscow: Financy i statistika, 1988), p. 477

138 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

the non-black earth region’s rural work force was being supplemented with people from

towns and with construction detachments from other republics, in particular from

Uzbekistan.54 As a consequence, stabilizing the rural work force in European Russia

now commands a high priority.

During the 1970s the conventional wisdom that bringing modern comforts to the

countryside inevitably meant concentrating the population also began to draw critical

comments. One Soviet scholar noted that isolated farmsteads in Scandinavia, Canada,

and the United States have modern amenities. Rather than transfer the urban model to

the countryside, the USSR could choose an alternative route-the use of electrification

and decentralized systems as a basis for providing modern amenities.“” Another scholar

also undercut the linkage between population concentration and the acquisition of

modern amenities by citing statistics showing that the policy was not in fact delivering

on its promise: dismally low percentages of rural housing were connected to centralized

water, heating, or sewerage systems.56

The poor quality of state housing construction in the countryside made a mockery of

all the rhetoric about building “well-appointed” apartments. In 1980 in the Russian

republic, only 38 per cent of state-owned rural housing units were connected to a central

water supply and only 22 per cent to sewer lines; 26 per cent had some sort of central heating. The situation was worse for housing owned by collective farms, and few

privately held homes possessed any of these amenities.“’ Interestingly, places with

large-scale housing construction but of poor quality exhibited a high population

outflow.“s Village consolidation often involved precisely those characteristics-apart-

ments whose appearance frequently resembled urban workers’ dormitories and whose

utilities often did not work or were non-existent. Thus one of the key goals of state-

owned housing remained largely unfulfilled: a rural dwelling with all the conveniences

of a city apartment.

Some Soviet social scientists added to the debate by charging that the village

amalgamation policy not only did not stem the migration of residents from the country-

side to the cities, but in fact stimulated that migration. 59 As early as 1975 it was asserted

that when small villages were being abandoned, most of their residents moved to cities,

bypassing the central settlements of collective farms and state farms.6” Many rural

dwellers feel that if they are going to leave their native villages and their family agri-

cultural plots, they might as well enjoy the full advantages of urban living.6’ Migration

from rural to urban areas is attributed not only to deliberate resettlement, but also to the

neglect of villages which are classified as futureless. In villages without prospects, all

construction and capital repairs were prohibited, and stores and schools often were

54. Andrea Tension, “Causes and Consequencess of the Rural Population Drain m th~Nonchernozem

Zone,” Radio Liberty Report 69/85 (March 1, 1985), p. 4.

55. V. Perevedentsev, “Izmereniye peryemen,” Nash soueremennik, No. 3 (March 1974), pp. 139- 141.

56. Vladimir Belenky, “Neperspektivn& x10,” Zhurnalist, No. 3 (March 1975), pp. 139-141.

57. G Kulik, “On the Effectiveness of Capital Investments in Agriculture, ” Planwoe khoziuzstuo, No. 10

(1981) translated in Problems ofEconomics, Vol. 25, No. 7 (November 1982), p. 42. 58. A. G. Zubanov. “Motives for Migration of the Rural Population and Means of Influencing Them,”

So~szoiogicheskte tssledoua;~iza, No. I (1980) ;ranslated in Souzet Sax&y, Vol. 19 (Summer 1980). p. 41 59. M. L. Strongina, “Development and Regulation of Settlement Systems,” Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 12

(1978), L. V. Nikiforov, “Stanovleniyc integrirovannovo territorialnovo-posyelyenrhrskovr, potyentsiala

goroda i sela,” in Nikiforov, ed., Sotsialno-ekonomicheskypotyentsial se/a (Moscow: Nauka, 1986), p. 29.

60. Belenky, op. cit., note 56, p. 12. 61. Zaslavskaya and Ryvkina, op. cit., note 46, p. 5.

Changres in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 139

closed.“* Since the lack of a future for small villages was well advertised, people living

in such villages were effectively, though unintentionally, encouraged to move to the

cities.

The experience of the non-black earth during the 1970s does suggest that village

consolidation undercut the goal of stabilizing the rural population. A typical study

showed, for example, that from 1970 to 1979 the number of villages dropped signifi-

cantly-by 17 per cent-in the southern part of the non-black earth zone (Bryansk,

Orel, Ryazan, Gorky provinces), yet the average population of villages proposed for

development grew by only 3 per cent. 63 The formation of strengthened population

points, one of the fundamental goals of village consolidation, did not follow from the

liquidation of large numbers of small villages. Peasants were voting with their feet.

In 1974 it was pointed out that foisting solutions on the peasants did not work, since

multi-storied apartments built in farm settlements stood half occupied.64 Social science

research increasingly provided support, linking lower rates of rural outmigration with

private home ownership and personal subsidiary farming.65 Moreover, sociological

studies suggested that the longer a person lived in a community, the less likely he or she

is to move.“”

More support came in the form of survey research focusing on the housing preferences

of rural residents. In 1975 Sotsiologicheskiye issledovania published an article reporting the

results of a survey conducted in Novosibirsk oblast.67 As was the case with similar

studies carried out in other regions, the data confirmed that a majority of rural

inhabitants preferred living in single-family housing with private plots. And that

preference now commands considerable scholarly defense. Soviet sources began to show

greater appreciation of many features traditionally associated with single-family

housing in small villages: living close to nature, clean air, peace and quiet, small-scale

farming, and the stronger sense of community found in rural communities. Some

scholars even paid homage to the peasant’s attachment to the land, warning against

policies that tear him away and turn him into an urbanite, and that break “the basic ties

which have been formed over centuries and have become the main content of the cast of

life and psychology of the working person of the village.“‘j8

Dissatisfaction with aspects of the program’s implementation was making itself felt.

By the mid-1970s plans for village consolidation had been considerably modified but not

dropped: while targets in 1960 called for preserving 120-130 thousand villages, the

comparable figures for the 1970s spoke of 300-320 thousand settlements.6g These

62. Starovyerov, op. cit., note 16, p. 12. 63. B. Pankov, “Problema selskogo rasselenia-kompleksnoe reshenie,” Ekononika selskogo khozyoistua,

No. 10 (1989), p. 22.

64. Perevedentsev, op. cit., note 55, pp. 139- 141. 65. Zubanov, op cit., note 58, p. 41.

66. Stern, op. cit., note 47, p. 82. 67. R. V. Ryvkina, “Zhilishchneye u&via i obraz zhizni selskovo naselyenia,” Solsiologicheskzje issle-

douania, No. 4 (1975), pp. 95-96. 68. Vydyborets and Rogozhin, op. cd., note 25, p. 61. Such statements were rare in Soviet scholarly and

journalistic writings in 1973, when those words were published, but became quite ccxrunon by the end of the 1980s. It should be noted that before it was safe for scholars publicly to explore such issues, some Soviet creative writers openly lamented the weakening of peasants’ ties to the land. The “Russian village prose” described in Kathleen Parthe’s contribution to this issue can be seen as having served for a time both as a surrogate for the direct expression of rural residents’ opinions on rural settlement policy, and as a stimulus for the gradual expansion of scholarly and journalistic discussion of such policy.

69. Belenky, op. al., note 56, p. 11.

revisions did not, however, defuse the situation; criticism of the resettlement program

continued to grow.

Opposition to resettlement programs became more vocal in 1978. In May of that

year, Voprosy ekonomiki published an article by Yu. A. Mezhberg, a senior economist of

the Ministry ofAgriculture ofthe USSR, stressing the desirability ofincorporating rural

communities into “territorial systems of interconnected rural and urban settlement,”

and advising against the concentration of the entire population of each collective farm

or state farm into a single settlement in the near future. ‘(I In October, 1978, an essay in

Pravda by three social scientists, S. Lavrov, B. Khorev, and V. Belenky, though paying

lip service to the amalgamation of communities in the countryside, cautioned in favor

of improving living conditions in futureless villages, and against haste in the concentra-

tion of rural residents. That essay also publicized the “Volnovakha experiment” in the

Ukraine, in a district where the program of consolidating villages was abandoned in

favor of the construction of paved roads and service centers.” A few days later, Pravda

reported on letters from readers complaining of insensitivity and neglect towards the

needs of futureless villages. Despite the newspaper’s affirmation that the amalgamation

of villages was “an important, shining goal,” it agreed with the charge that “some

officials” deprived small villages “of the elementary amenities of life.“72 An article in

V@rosy ekonomiki in December, 1978, presented the organization of “systems of settle-

ment” as an alternative to the consolidation of populated places, and asserted that the

development of such systems would “make it possible to preserve the existing network

of rural settlements of different size and type. “73 By the late 1970s some Soviet scholars

were close to expressing open repudiation of the principle of planned resettlement of

rural residents.

Abandonment of the Policy of Village Consolidation in the 1980s

In the early 198Os, opposition to deliberate village consolidation came completely into

the open, as denunciation of the neglect of futureless villages became more frank and

vehement. An article in Voprosy ekonomiki in January, 1980, advocating the

strengthening of ties among villages in grouped systems of settlement, contended that

the development of larger state farm and collective farm settlements “does not obviate

the need to draw the residents of small settlements into the sphere of service and of

intensive productive and social contacts.“74 In September of the same year, T. I.

Zaslavskaya and R. V. Ryvkina argued in Sovyetskuyu Rossiu that artificially speeding up

the process of consolidating villages was undesirable, and that in areas where population

density was low, “the process should even be ‘held back’ as much as possible.” They

concluded that “this necessitates a policy of social protectionism with respect to the

small village.“75 In October Pravda printed a report by B. Khorev providing further

publicity for the Volnovakha experiment and flatly stating that the division of settle-

70. Yu. Mezhberg, “Sovremyennye problemy pereustroistva sela,” Vopq ekonomiki, No. 5 (1979),

pp. 81, 86. 71, S. Lavrov, B. S. Khorev, and V. P. Belenky, “Changing the Habitual Way of Life,” Pravda, October

22, 1978, translated in CDSP, Vol. XXX, No. 42 (November 15, 1978), pp. l-3. 72. D. Novoplansky, “Don’t Look Down on the Small Village,” Pravda, October 25, 1978, p. 11. 73. Strong& op. cit., note 59, pp. 69, 71. 74. Stern, op. cit., note 47, pp. 78-89. 75. Zaslavskaya and Ryvkina, op. cil., note 46, p. 6.

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 141

ments into those with a future and those without a future was known to be false.76 Later

in the same month, commentary in Pravda agreed that the categorization of villages as

either promising or futureless was no longer fruitful, and in some cases was harmful.”

Articles in other Soviet newspapers containing similar themes appeared in subsequent

montlls.7R It had become acceptable publicly to reject the classification of some villages

as futureless, and to call for efforts at the preservation of some small settlements.

The willingness to allow the re-examination of the practice of village consolidation

was encouraged by the continuing woes of Soviet agriculture. The annual growth rates

of agricultural production declined from 2.5 per cent in 1971-75, to 1.65 per cent in

1976-80 and to less than 1 .O per cent in 1981-85. And the Soviet government’s return

for its sizeable investments in agriculture has been disappointing: instead of the 63

kopeks for every ruble increment in the value of agricultural production in 1966-70, the

comparable outlay had risen to 5.29 rubles by 1986-88.”

To cope with these difficulties, the Soviet leadership moved toward enthusiastic

endorsement of the benefits of private plot farming. In a speech on agriculture at a

Central Committee meeting ofJuly, 1978, Brezhnev insisted that “we should also show

concern for the personal farming operations of collective farmers, workers, and office

employees. This is an important source for the replenishment of food resources.“8o In

January, 1981, the Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers adopted a

resolution designed to increase aid from the state and collective farms to private

farming. At that time the private sector accounted for 30 per cent of the meat produced

in the USSR, 31 per cent of the eggs, and 63 per cent of the potatoes.81 Soon after the

resolution was passed, an article in Voprosy ekonomiki asserted that “personal auxiliary

farming will retain its important role in food supply for many years to come.“s* Among

scholars there was an effort to legitimize the private plot by stressing its multilateral and

complementary ties with the public sector, even leading the author of that article to

argue that “personal auxiliary farming has a socialist nature.“83

By the late 1970s party leaders clearly had growing reservations about the effects of

village amalgamation on private plot farming. In July, 1978, Brezhnev urged that rural

construction should consider “the special features of the life and interests of the rural

population” and should “be oriented toward providing families, as a rule, with

individual well-appointed houses with auxiliary plots.“84 In response to his

suggestions, the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers adopted a resolution

favoring “the construction of well-appointed farmstead-type individual houses with

76. B. Khorev, “The Volnovakha Experiment,” Pravda, October 20, 1980, translated in CDSP, Vol.

XxX11, No. 43 (November 26, 1980), p. 15.

77. S. Deshkov, “What Kind of Settlement Should Be Built?,” Pravda, October 27, 1980, translated in CDSP, Vol. XxX11, No. 43 (November 26, 1980), p. 24.

78. V. Sasayeva, A. Golovyakshin, and T. Sokolova, “And the Village Was Dubbed ‘Futureless’,”

Irue&, May 15, 1981, translated in CDSP, Vol. XxX111, No. 2O(J une 17, 1981), pp. 4-5; V. Shchutkevich,

“Village on the Far Shore, ” Komsomolskaya pravda, March 29, 1981, translated ibid., p. 6.

79. Vladimir Tikhonov, “Agricultural Reform in the USSR,” Meeting Report ofthe Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, February 17, 1989.

80. Ixonid I. Brezhnev, “On the Further Development of USSR Agriculture,” Pravda, July 4, 1978, translated in CDSP, Vol. XXX, No. 27 (August 2, 1978), p. 7.

81. I. Kh. Raig, “The Development of Personal Auxiliary Farming in the Soviet Countryside,” Istoria SSSR, No. 5 (September-October 1984), t ranslated in CDSP, Vol. XXXVII, No. 19 uune 5, 1985), p. 14.

82. G. Shmelyov, “Public-Sector Production and Personal Auxiliary Farming,” Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 5

(1981), pp. 66-74, translated in CDSP, Vol. XxX111, No. 27 (August 5, 1981), p. 3. 83. Ibid., p. 10.

84. Brezhnev, op. cif., note 80, p. 12.

142 STUDIES IN COMPAKAIWE COMMUNISM

outbuildings for livestock and poultry. “s5 An article in Planovoye khosyaistvo in 1983

commented that general construction plans for central villages were being corrected in

order to take into consideration the conduct of private agriculture by village residents.8b

Since the drive for consolidating small villages into larger settlements had been asso-

ciated with an emphasis on erecting multi-unit apartment buildings in the countryside,

the adoption of a more favorable attitude toward single-family homes in rural areas

implied that official support for rural resettlement had been undermined.

The official Soviet position on rural settlement policy had been reversed, rather

quietly but quite clearly, during the 1980s. In 1980 Gosgrathdanstroi (the State

Committee for Construction) of the USSR repealed the division of villages into

promising and futureless. 87 Those Soviet social scientists who now openly repudiate the

objective of consolidation of villages usually support the idea of development of systems

of settlement in rural areas. They favor planning the development of populated points

within each area, not as autonomous entities, but as parts of a cluster of sett1ements.s”

The question of viability is then to be resolved on the scale of the system, not of the

individual settlement. That approach obviates the necessity of providing a full range of

trade and services within the confines of each village. Instead, centers of retail sales and

public services can meet the needs of the residents of surrounding populated places.

A variety of types of work may be available to those commuting between villages

or from villages to a city. The expansion of interaction among settlements is seen as the

main means ofbreaking down the social and economic isolation ofvillages and achieving

greater integration between urban and rural society.89 In that perspective, it is

desirable, at least in some areas ofthe country, to preserve each populated point, regard-

less of its size, in order to make full use of its potential as part of an interdependent

system.“O

Different points of view on the best means of improving the pattern of rural settlement

may still be found among Soviet sources, however. Even in the late 1970s and the 198Os,

some Soviet scholars still advocated the amalgamation of settlements, with the reduction

of the number of populated points on each collective farm or state farm to no more than

two or three. Proponents of that approach have characterized the small size of many

villages as the main bottleneck in providing services and raising the standard of living

of rural dwellers.g* In December, 1984, Ekonomika selskovo khozyaistva published an

article by G. Khomenko, secretary of the Gorky oblast party committee, arguing

vigorously that village consolidation inevitably accompanies the greater concentration

85. “In the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers,” Pm&, July 11, 1978, translated in CDSP, Vol. XXX, No. 28 (August 9, 1978), p. 17. Changes in Soviet official policy toward rural housing construction are analyzed by Carol Nechemias, op. cit., note 53, pp. 155- 175.

86. A. Ogarkov, “zhilishchnoye stroitelstvo i kulturno-bytovoye obsluzhivaniye na sele,” Planouoye

khozyaistuo, No. 6 (1983), pp. 76-77.

87. M. L. Strongina, .So&lnoye rarviliye s&z. poryelyencheskii aspekl (Moscow: Agropromizdat, 1986), p. 22; see also I,. V. Nikiforov, “ Osnovy sotsialno-ekonomicheskoi sistemy ‘gorod x10’,” in Nikiforov, ed., Osnounye napmulenm i khoryaixtvennye predposylki stanoolenia sotsialno-ekonomlchtkoi sistemy “xorod-3elo” (Moscow: Institut Ekonomiki AN SSSR, 1983), p. 7.

88. Stern. op. ctl., note 47, p. 83. 89. Nikiforov, op cit., note 87, pp. 28-29. 90. Strongina, op. cit., note 59, p. 70; Strongina, “Problemy razvitia selskogo posyelyencheskovo

potyentsiala,” Izuestza AN SSSR. seria ekonomicheskaya, No. 1 (1985), p. 71. 91. A. Sorokin, “Tender&i rosta urovnei zhizni selskogo nasyelyenia, ” Ekonomika selskouo khozyaistua, No.

5 (1978), p. 83.

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 143

of production.g2 Another school of thought, described above, favors the preservation of

most or all of the existing network of settlements in the USSR, while advocating the

construction of roads, the expansion of transportation, and the creation of base centers

of services within grouped systems of settlement, rather than the resettlement of people.

A third position concedes the importance of integrated development of systems of settle-

ment, but calls for a differentiated approach to individual settlements, stressing the need

to preserve and enhance “strong points” (opomnyepunkty) of production and services, but

foreseeing the disappearance of most of the smallest villages, which are said to be headed

for extinction in any case because of spontaneous population migration.g3 It should be

acknowledged that there is considerable diversity within each of the three schools of

thought, with only slight shadings of difference between those on the fringe of different

schools. It should also be realized that the proponents of the last two positions

mentioned, the preservationists and the moderate consolidationists, are aware of the

enormous differences in settlement patterns and potential among the different regions

of their enormous country, and support the differentiation of policy toward rural settle-

ment among those various regions.

As we have seen, the stated objectives of Soviet policy toward rural settlements were

revised during the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, some Soviet scholars com-

plained that only the terminology of rural settlement theory, and not the practice of rural

construction policy, was changed at that time. g4 Strongina, after noting the abolition of

the formal distinction between promising and futureless villages by Gosgrathdanstroi in

1980, added that “the essence of the matter has not changed, since till this time all

productive, housing, and social construction is being carried out predominantly in the

central farmsteads of farms and in the larger villages.“g5 Even the language of policy

toward rural settlements apparently had not changed altogether by the mid-1980s; it was

reported in 1985 that a classification of rural populated points as promising, to be

preserved for the planned period, and to be resettled in first order, was still widely

employed. g6 Regardless of the labels used, it seems clear that investment in amenities,

services, and housing is still concentrated mainly in the central settlements of collective

farms and state farms, and in district (raion) centers.g7

The Gorbachev Era

In 1989 Gorbachev noted that in the past twenty years the USSR’s agrarian sector

received massive injections of capital investments, equipment, fertilizer, and large-scale

land reclamation projects, yet the food question was not resolved in any fundamental

way. The disappointing record associated with these earlier efforts has formed a

backdrop for more radical proposals encompassing new forms of socialist ownership and

9’2. G. Khomenko, “Sotsialnoye pereustroistvo sela-klyuch k povysheniyu effektivnosti proizvodstva,”

ihid., No. 12 (1984), p. 25.

93. V. Kirsanov, “Problema selskovo rassyelyenia-kompleksnove reshenive.” ibid.. No. 8 119821. 1 \ /I pp. 18-19; B. S. Khorev and V. P. Belenky, “dsnovnye napravldnia razvitia selskikh posyelyenii,” in Khorrv, ed., Problemy rassyelyetua u .SsSR (Moscow: Statistika. 1980). D. 214.

94. V. M. Stern,Ekonbm2cheskyeproble;ny raruitia i rekonstruktsy JC~~‘(~OSCOW: Agropromizdat, 1985), p. 5. 95. M. S. Strong&, Sotsialnoye razuitzje s&z: posye(yenchisky aqxkt (Moscow: Agropromizdat, 1986), p. 22. 96. Zaslavskaya and Goryachenko, op. cit., note 51, p. 34.

97. A number of Soviet sources suggest that the result of that disparity has been increasing differentiation of living conditions between central settlements and smaller villages. Nikiforov, op. cit., note 87, p. 6;

Nikiforov, “Razvitiye vzaimosviazei goroda i sela,” Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 3 (1987), p. 85.

144 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

a new respect for family and individual peasant enterprise.g” With respect to rural

social policy, Gorbachev has similarly emphasized that previous attempts to upgrade

the daily lives of rural residents had not made it “possible to overcome the country-

side’s profound and chronic lag behind the city.“g”

As part of his rural development strategy, Gorbachev has sought to implement many

of the policy trends already visible in the early 1980s. On the subject of settlement policy,

the language of the new version of the Program of the CPSU which was adopted by the

Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in 1986 differed sharply from that of the 1961 Party

Program. Avoiding any mention of amalgamated villages, the new Program said that

“populated points should constitute rationally organized complexes of productive zones

and housing districts and a network of social, cultural, and educational institutions,

trade and consumer-service enterprises, sports facilities, and public transportation,

ensuring the best conditions for people’s labor, everyday life, and recreation.“‘“” The

objective of village consolidation had been replaced by an emphasis on the development

of integrated systems of settlement.

In order to further this goal, Gorbachev has declared that the main priorities for

accelerating the social development of the countryside have been assigned to housing

construction and the upgrading of municipal services. The situation with respect to the

provision of utilities remains far from resolved. The extent to which rural housing stock

is provided with utilities and other equipment ranges from 20 to 50 per cent of the figure

for urban stock. Gorbachev has called for a new approach to the problem of providing

the countryside with gas service, central heating, and running water, and like some of

the critics of village consolidation, he has directed attention to the fact that most

developed countries use local systems to provide life’s necessities, thus obviating the

need for concentrating the population. ‘01 The non-black earth zone continues to draw

special consideration with a new state plan calling for building a gas main and an

extensive gas-distribution network in order to satisfy the demands of the rural

population. lo2 Perhaps influenced by social science findings regarding the positive psychological and

material effects of private ownership, Gorbachev has recommended that state and

collective farms sell to their employees-on highly favorable terms-farmstead-type

residences with outbuildings that have been erected using state capital investments or

the monies of farms. Moreover, in order to spur individual housing construction and

personal auxiliary farming in rural areas, generous new grants have been made

available since February, 1988, for the construction of farmstead-type housing: the

ceiling on private home loans has been raised from 3000 to 20 000 rubles and the period

of repayment in the countryside is fifty years. These new terms represent encouraging

news for would-be home builders. In 1986 a new house cost between 15 000 and 25 000

rubles, and the average Soviet savings bank account was 1361 rubles.lO”

98. M. S. Gorbachev, “On the CPSU’s Agrarian Policy in Today’s Conditions,” Report at the Plenary Session ofthe CPSU Central Committee on March 15, 1989, Pravda and Izuestia, March 16, 1989, translatrd in CUSP, Vol. X1,1, No. 12 (April 19, 1989), p. 10.

99. Ibid., p. 14. 100. “Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovyetskovo Soyuza, ” in XXVII sezd Kornmunirticheskot partii

Suvyetskogo Soyuza. 25feur. -6 morta 1986g. Stenograficheskii otchot (Moscow: Politizdat, 1986), p. 587.

101. Gorbachev, O/J czt., note98, pp. 14-15. 102. “In the Politburo of the CPSU CC,” Prmda, Sept. 2, 1988, translated in CDSP, Vol. XL, No. 35

(September 28, 1988), p. 22. 103. Aaron Trehub, “Decree on Individual Housing in the USSR,” Radio Liberty Research, RL 83/88

(Feb. 25, 1988), p. 4.

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 145

Gorbachev’s support for rural farmsteads also is evident in his demand that all restric-

tions on the size of structures, the number of floors and the type of architecture, be

removed. As he put it, “Let people build as they want.“lo4 Although it is too early to

fully evaluate the effect of these measures, it should be noted that the amount of money

in private home loans borrowed by Soviet citizens during 1988 was four times the sum

they borrowed the previous year. lo5

A second major priority involves road building. The integration of settlements

depends upon ending the isolation of villages by facilitating the flow of goods and people.

Here, again, as in the case of basic utilities, a herculean task faces the Soviet state.

Although the bulk of raion (county) centers and central farm villages are now connected

with all weather access roads, only a small proportion of intra-farm roads, 20 per cent

in the early 198Os, were paved. lo6 “Russian roadlessness” denies many rural residents

easy interaction with other communities and complicates the task of developing

integrated systems of settlements. In the case of the poverty stricken non-black-earth

zone, Gorbachev has described the lack of good roads as a “downright calamity.“107

Like other post-Stalinist leaders, Gorbachev speaks of the need for the social

reorganization of the countryside. His goals and the price tags attached to them are

impressive. He has, for example, called for the doubling of the rate of opening rural

housing for occupancy during the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (1991-1995) and the

building of 226000 kilometers of hard-surface intra-farm roads, a figure far above

Brezhnev’s promise, incorporated into the 1982 Food Program, of constructing 150 000

kilometers of intra-farm roads between 1982-1990. More than thirty-five billion rubles

have been allocated for road building in the Russian republic’s non-black earth zone

alone. to8

Whether Gorbachev has found the correct formula for the successful modernization

of the countryside remains to be seen. It seems prudent to heed the warning, which was

contained in a recent unattributed article in Selskaya zhizn (Rural Life).

It would be unforgivably complacent to assume that all these state plans will be turned into reality simply and easily. The village toilers, as they say, are up to their ears in alluring promises, plans, and programs. How many of them have ‘gone down

the drain’ in spite of enormous multibillion expenditures!‘O”

Material investments, while necessary, are seen as no substitute for fundamental reform

that would make the peasant “an owner without any exception.““’

Conclusion

Though the actual practice of planning rural construction may not have changed

radically, we have observed a distinct evolution in official and scholarly Soviet thinking

104. Gorbachev, op. cit., note 98, p. 15. 105. Aaron Trehub, “Soviet Construction Chief on the Housing Program,” Radio Liberty Research, RL

528188 (November 25, 1988), p. 2. 106. Elizabeth M. Clayton, “Soviet Rural Roads: Problems and Prospects,” Studies in Comparative

Communism, Vol. XX, No. 2 (Summer 1987), p. 169. 107. M. S. Gorbachev, “On the CPSU’s A grarian Policy in Today’s Conditions,” Report to the Plenary

Session ofthe CPSU Central Committee on March 15, 1989, Pravda and Izvestia, March 16, 1989, translated in CD%‘, Vol. XLI, No. 11 (April 12, 1989), p. 4.

108. Gorbachev, op. cit., note 98, p. 15. For the information on Brezhnev’s goal, see Clayton, op cit., note 106, p. 170.

109. “The Congress: Turning Toward Human Needs,” Selskaya zhizn, June 13, 1989, translated in FBIS- SOV-89-12‘2, June 27, 1989, p. 48.

110. Zbtd., p. 49.

146 Srunr~s IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

concerning the appropriate manner of improving the pattern of rural settlements. It also

might be noted that the reversal of policy toward rural settlement patterns took place

before the advent of Gorbachev’s program of radical restructuring of Soviet social,

economic, and political institutions. The preoccupation with the resettlement of

residents and the amalgamation of villages which originated with Khrushchev and

continued into the 1970s died off by the early 1980s. While official policy for some years

envisioned moving rural residents to centers of services, now it emphasizes bringing

services to people in various locations. The change in thinking about rural settlement

policy reflects a process of learning experienced by the Soviet regime. Because the policy

of resettlement which was adopted in the early 1960s proved unsuccessful, the explicit

orientation of policy was gradually revised. The regime had embraced the idea of con-

solidating villages in a relative vacuum of factual information, and under the influence

of simplistic ideological preconceptions. The creation of enlarged settlements of the

urban type in rural areas was considered essential for overcoming the distinctions

between city and countryside during the full-scale construction of communism.“’

The official line in favor of rural resettlement was also influenced by specialist

opinion. During the 1950s and early 196Os, the specialists who evidently were consulted

by high-ranking officials for advice on settlement policy were architects, experts on city

planning, and experts on agricultural production. All those categories of specialists

found (he program of village consolidation consistent with their professional wisdom,

which stressed the convenience of planning settlements as autonomous entities and the

desirability of economizing on investment in “non-productive” construction. The

assumption that the pattern of settlements should be determined by the level of con-

centration of farms reflected the “production mentality” inherited from the Stalin

period, which insisted that planning should consist of the channeling of resources to

achieve targets for economic output, while taking it for granted that positive social

changes would flow almost automatically from the development of production.

However, Khrushchev should be credited with heightening attention to the living

standards of the rural population of the USSR, and at least talking about the expansion

of services provided to rural dwellers by collective and state farms.

Soviet leaders were made aware that rural settlement policy was not producing the

intended resuits partly through increasing reliance on information from social scientists.

The opinions on rural settlement policy among Soviet economists, geographers, and

sociologists became more diverse (and differences of opinion were voiced more

candidly), while those specialists acquired much more information concerning the

conditions relevant to that area of policy. Official policy began increasingly to consider

not only economic-productive resources and targets, but also social factors, in

evaluating settlement policy. To the question, “Is it proper that planning is still

frequently based on production indices alone, that social indices are virtually

ignored?,““’ official thinking increasingly gave a negative answer.

The realization that the future of rural settlements was a “socio-economic problem”

of many dimensions prompted another change-greater consideration of the

preferences of rural residents themselves. Under Khrushchev, when a policy affecting

the lives of rural dwellers was announced, the regime created the appearance of popular

111, A. N. Kondukhov and A. B. Mikhailov, Planirda i zaslrozka relrkikh posyolkov (Moscow: Izdat&tvo literatury po stroitelstvu, 1966), p. 4: “The scale of rural settlements of the new type should facilitate the successful transition to communist social relations.”

112. Sasayeva, Golovyashkin, and Sokolova, op cd., note 78, p. 4.

Changes in Soviet Rural Resettlement Policy 147

support for change. However, by the late 1970s opponents of resettlement complained

that it was carried out “without regard to the preferences of rural dwellers for place of

residence, work place, social milieu, and so on. “t13 Social scientists and journalists who

were opposed to village consolidation brought the attitudes of the residents of small

villages to the attention of Soviet policy makers. Those writers encouraged the expecta-

tion that the process of making policy pertaining to the pattern of rural settlement would

provide for a growing degree of consultation of the interests of those affected.‘14 As

Gorbachev has emphasized, an important feature of rural social policy involves the

“complete renunciation of methods of force and pressure,” of administrative fiat.“”

The abandonment of the official policy of village consolidation also reflected change

in Soviet thinking about the methods of raising the standard of living in rural areas.

Policy statements during the Khrushchev period were based on the assumption that the

effacement of differences between city and countryside meant the creation of identical

conditions of life and work in all urban and rural locales. That objective was to be

achieved by mechanically reproducing an urban concentration of population,

production, and services in each rural populated point. However, most Soviet scholars

now reject the notion of precisely imitating the urban mode of settlement and the urban

style of life in rural areas, and accept the prospect of differentiation of settlements by

functions and size. It is thought that the task of urban-rural equalization involves, not

the imposition of uniformity on all settlements, but the growth of integration among

settlements of different types. A consequence of that viewpoint is greater emphasis on

increasing access to services for the residents of small, dispersed villages. There is fear

that planned resettlement and the neglect of small settlements have contributed to the

disruption of those historically formed attachments which might have kept more of the

most industrious farmers on the land. Many Soviet scholars, and perhaps many high-

ranking officials, now hope that the development of a complementary relationship

between urban and rural settlements will help to strengthen the ties which could give

farmers a greater stake in the future of Soviet agriculture.

113. Strongina, op. cit., note 56, p. 72; see also Strongina, op. cit., note 95, p. 20. 114. While the consultation of the opinions of rural residents (and others) under Brezhnev came to involve

the relatively quiet use of opinion surveys, the expression of rural dwellers’ interests (as well as the interests of other members of Soviet society) under Gorbachev has meant the open expression of opinions in public

forums. Gorbachev’s emphasis on democratization entails mire institutionalized means of representation of

popular interests than were encouraged by Brezhnev.

115. Gorbachev, op. cif., note 98, p. 15.