1. V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1971), “Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions” (1920), p. 435 and “The Question of Nationalities or ‘Autonomisation'” (1922), p. 751.

2. Charlotte, Saikowski and Leo, Gruliow, eds., Current Soviet Policies IV(New York, 1962), p. 26.Google Scholar

3. L eonid, Brezhnev, Leninskim kursom, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1974), p. 57.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 58.

5. Ibid., p. 50.

6. Ibid., pp. 93-94.

7. That interpretation is supported by Peter, Zwick, “Intrasystem Inequality and the Symmetry of Socioeconomic Development in the USSR,” Comparative Politics, 8, no. 4 (July 1976) : 501–24Google Scholar. Iu. Vorob'ev clearly spelled out the implications of Brezhnev's thesis : “In the initial stages of socialist construction … it was essential above all to equalize the economic levels of republics. Now that the problem of such equalization has for the most part been resolved, the central problem is to increase the effectiveness of all social production…. The relatively independent problem of equalizing levels is subordinate to the broader problem of securing the proportional development of the USSR economy. With the elimination of substantial differences in the economic development of regions and republics, the equalization problem will play a less and less independent role, ” Vorob'ev, , “The Economy of Union Republics Under the Conditions of Developed Socialism,” Problems of Economics, 21, no. 3 (July 1978) : 43–44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted from Voprosy ekonomiki, 1977, no. 11).

8. Vsevolod, Holubnychy, “Some Economic Aspects of Relations Among the Soviet Republics,” in Erich Goldhagen, ed., Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union (New York, 1968), pp. 72–73 Google Scholar. As an overall measure of inequality, Holubnychy used the level of production for the non-Russian republics as a proportion of the level for the Russian republic.

9. I. S. Koropeckyj, “Equalization of Regional Development in Socialist Countries : An Empirical Study, ” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 21, no. 1 (October 1972) : 73, 79.

10. Zwick, “Intrasystem Inequality, ” p. 507.

11. Gertrude Schroeder, “Regional Differences in Incomes and Levels of Living in the USSR, ” in V. N. Bandera and Z. L. Melnyk, eds., The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective (New York, 1973), pp. 167-95.

12. Alastair McAuley, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union (Madison, Wis., 1979), pp. 109- 111, 128-30.

13. The most commonly used measure in the research cited above was the coefficient of relative variation. It was used as a summary measure of dispersion or inequality by Koropeckyj, Zwick, and McAuley. It also will be used in this research.

14. Zwick, “Intrasystem Inequality, ” p. 521.

15. Saikowski and Gruliow, eds., Current Soviet Policies IV, p. 19. The party program also called for equalization of the economic conditions of collective farms within each region.

16. Quoted in E. P. Chernikov, Problemy vyravnivaniia ekonomicheskikh uslovii khoziaistvovaniia kolkhozov (Moscow, 1975), p. 4.

17. For discussions of post-1965 increases in regional differentiation of agricultural purchase prices, see Robert G., Jensen, “Regional Pricing and the Economic Evaluation of Land in Soviet Agriculture,” in Bandera and Melnyk, eds., The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective, pp. 305–24Google Scholar, and Morris, Bornstein, “Soviet Price Policy in the 1970's,” in John P. Hardt, ed., Soviet Economy in a New Perspective (Washington, D.C., 1976)Google Scholar, especially pp. 42-46. The Soviet state charges no rent for land; differences in purchase prices are supposed to remove that part of farms’ profit attributed to advantages in natural conditions. Soviet economists often complain that the existing differentiation of agricultural purchase prices is insufficient. The differentiation in purchase prices since 1965 has tended to favor northern regions of the USSR, including the Baltic republics and the non-black earth zone of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR).

18. Measures said to favor equalization in the economic conditions of farms in different regions (and within regions)are discussed by Chernikov, Problemy vyravnivaniia, pp. 52-56; Kuznetsov, G. la., Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskieproblemy sovetskoiderevni (Moscow, 1977), pp. 27–33 Google Scholar;and Kotovand, G., Kvachev, V., “Vyravnivanie ekonomicheskikh uslovii khoziaistvovaniia, ” Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, 1976, no. 7, pp. 86–90.Google Scholar

19. Unfortunately, it is seldom possible on the basis of published Soviet data to make the sort of comparisons found in this article on the economic planning regions of the RSFSR. An examination of the information that is available on agricultural modernization in the regions of the Russian republic would require a separate study. However, the reader should keep in mind the great differences among regions of that republic, which contains more than three-fourths of the territory of the USSR.

20. According to the USSR census of 1970, 43.8 percent of the population of the Kirgiz SSR was Kirgiz and 29.2 percent, Russian. In the Kazakh SSR 42.8 percent were Russians, and 32.4 percent were Kazakhs (Ellen P. Mickiewicz, ed., Handbook of Soviet Social Science Data [New York, 1973], p. 59). In most republics other than the RSFSR, Russians are concentrated mainly in urban areas. However, there is a large number of Russians and other Slavs in the grain-growing areas of northern Kazakhstan.

21. Yujiro Hayami and Vernon Ruttan distinguish between labor-intensive and capital-intensive agricultural development (Hayami and Ruttan, Agricultural Development : An International Perspective [Baltimore, 1971], pp. 44-45).

22. A discussion of the relationship between agricultural development and levels of consumption is provided by Alfred Evans, Jr., “Interrepublic Differences in the Level of Living of the Rural Population of the USSR, ” a paper delivered at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in New Haven, Connecticut, October 1979. The relationship between agricultural development and the levels of reward and consumption of agricultural workers is more problematic than is indicated in the Soviet works cited above.

23. The fixed agricultural capital (basic agricultural productive funds) of collective farms and state farms includes buildings, equipment, means of transportation, working livestock, productive livestock, and perennial plantings used for productive purposes. It includes only fixed capital used in socialized agriculture.,

24. Mechanizers (mekhanizatory) include tractor drivers, combine operators, truck drivers, and tractor machinists.

25. John Mellor, The Economics of Agricultural Development (ithaca, N.Y., 1966), p. 226.

26. A representative statement of that concept is G. Loza and I. Kurtsev, “The Growth of Productive Forces in Agriculture in the Tenth Five-Year Plan, ” Problems of Economics, 19, no. 10 (February 1977) : 3-22 (reprinted from Voprosy ekonomiki, 1976, no. 7).

27. Construct validation is explained by Fred N. Kerlinger, Foundations of Behavioral Research, 2nd ed. (New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973), pp. 461-62. The question in this case is whether multiple indicators of the same variable (agricultural development, as defined above) are interrelated. Weak correlations between the measures would suggest that they measure different variables. The concept of agricultural development, even when limited to labor-saving development, refers to a rather broad range of phenomena; hence multiple indicators of the concept are used in this research. The correlations between measures are presented in the Appendix.

28. Data on fixed capital per worker in agriculture for each union republic are available only from 1962 on.

29. For a summary of Soviet agricultural policy of recent years, see David W. Carey, “Soviet Agriculture : Recent Performance and Future Plans, ” in Hardt, ed., Soviet Economy in a New Perspective, pp. 585-90 and James R. Millar, “The Prospects for Soviet Agriculture, ” Problems of Communism, 26, no. 3 (May-June 1977) : 1-16. While investment in Soviet agriculture has increased sharply since 1965, the output of agriculture has increased more slowly.

30. The coefficient of relative variation (CRV) expresses the standard deviation of a distribution of data as a percentage of the mean of the distribution. The CRV will not increase if the standard deviation increases while the mean increases as greatly. The CRV, which is intended to facilitate comparison of dispersion between distributions with values of differing levels of magnitude, is based on a proportionate concept of dispersion or inequality. The CRV will be “forgiving” of a certain degree of increase in the overall magnitude of absolute differences within a distribution in which values are generally increasing. working collective farmers, see NKh I960, p. 522; NKh 1962, p. 369; NKh 1975, p. 441; NKh 1978, p. 266. For the number of state farm workers, see SKh 1970, p. 454; NKh 1975, p. 436; NKh 1978, p. 279. For the number of workers in agriculture in interfarm agricultural enterprises, see NKh 1975, p. 429; NKh 1978, p. 273. For the number of (state) workers and service personnel in agriculture and the number of (state) workers and service personnel in state farms, subsidiary, and other agricultural enterprises, see NKh 1960, pp. 640-41; NKh 1965, pp. 562-63; NKh 1970, pp. 514-15; NKh 1975, pp. 536-37. For figures on fixed capital, see NKh 1962, p. 242; NKh 1965, pp. 272-73; NKh 1970, pp. 288-89; NKh 1975, pp. 329-31; NKh 1978, pp. 206-208. For energy power, see SKh 1970, p. 377; NKh 1975, p. 179; NKh 1978, p. 104. For mechanizers, see SKh 1970, p. 464; NKh 1974. p. 456; NKh 1977, p. 301. For specialists, see NKh 1960, p. 524; NKh 1965, p. 438; NKh 1970, p. 407; NKh 1975, p. 443. For gross production, see NKh 1960, p. 366; SKh 1970, p. 44; NKh 1975, p. 336; NKh 1978, p. 198.

31. Compare Gertrude Schroeder's conclusion that “It is hard to discern implementation of any clear national policy in this area, ” Schroeder, “Regional Differences, ” p. 193.

32. In Estonia, Latvia, and Moldavia, the gross production of agriculture was lower in 1978 than in 1977. Armenia and Turkmenia also suffered decreases in agricultural production in 1978 (Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1978 g. [Moscow, 1979], p. 198). It would be somewhat preferable to use fixed capital per worker in table 2. However, data on fixed capital are not available for all union republics in 1960.

33. Since gross production is measured here in rubles, part of the increase may be attributed to the raising of purchase prices for agricultural products.

34. The all-union level of production per worker is identical to a weighted average for the fifteen union republics.

35. The rate of growth in production per worker in Moldavia was lowered somewhat by an uncharacteristically poor harvest in that republic in 1978. The rate of modernization of agriculture in Moldavia may be slightly underestimated in table 2. From 1965 to 1978, fixed capital per worker in farms in Moldavia grew from 63 percent to 83 percent of the all-union level.

36. The conditions of agriculture vary among regions within the Ukraine. The Ukraine has a much larger proportion of land with black earth and a milder climate, in comparison with the republics to the north of it. However, some parts of the southern Ukraine receive small amounts of precipitation.

37. An excellent discussion of problems of cotton growing in Central Asia is provided by Grey, Hodnett, “Technology and Social Change in Soviet Central Asia : The Politics of Cotton Growing,” in Henry Morton and Rudolf Tokes, eds., Soviet Politics and Society in the 1970's (New York, 1974), pp. 60–117 Google Scholar. A lack of sources of water in Central Asia currently places limitations on the further expansion of irrigation in that area. Thane Gustafson notes that in recent years the main focus of Soviet irrigation has shifted from Central Asia to grain-growing regions in the Ukraine and southern Russia (see Thane, Gustafson, “Transforming Soviet Agriculture,” Public Policy, 25, no. 3 [Summer 1977] : 295 and 304Google Scholar).

38. Kuznetsov, Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskieproblemy, p. 17; R. I. Tonkonog, Nauchno-tekhnkheskii progress i agrarnye otnosheniianasovremennom etape (Moscow, 1976), pp. 186-88. See also Bornstein, “Soviet Price Policy in the 1970's, ” p. 39, for data on profitability by branches of Soviet agriculture.

39. Profitability rates vary substantially within livestock farming; they are lower for dairy farming and for sheep raising than for cattle raising or hog raising. On the average, profitability rates are lower for livestock raising than for crop raising (see Gumerov, R, “Procurement Prices and the Stimulation of Agricultural Production,” Problems of Economics, 22, no. 6 [October 1979] : 27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar [reprinted from Planovoe khoziaislvo, 1979, no. 3, pp. 84-93]). One Soviet scholar has openly expressed doubts about the feasibility of equalizing the economic conditions of work of farms indifferent branches of agriculture ( Kvachev, V. M., Vyravnivanie ekonomicheskikh uslovii raboty sovkhozov [Moscow, 1976], pp. 12, 125Google Scholar). Yet an expressed goal of the Soviet regime is the deepening of the specialization of each republic in agricultural production.

40. Paul Lydolph, Richard Johnson, Julie Mintz, and Margaret Mills, “Recent Population Trends in the USSR, ” Soviet Geography, 19, no. 8 (October 1978) : 524-25. In Soviet collective farms, wages are paid out of gross revenue, before the formation of the collective farms’ investment funds. Thus, unless the production of a kolkhoz rises rapidly, the increase in the number of working members of the kolkhoz drains funds away from investment.

41. That point is discussed by Hodnett, “Technology and Social Change, ” pp. 82-83 and Michael Rywkin, “Central Asia and Soviet Manpower, ” Problems of Communism, 28, no. 1 (January-February 1979) : 1-13.

42. Elizabeth Clayton, “Productivity in Soviet Agriculture, ” Slavic Review, 39, no. 3 (September 1980) : 446-58.

43. Hayami and Ruttan, Agricultural Development, pp. 44-45, 68-69, demonstrate that laborintensive agricultural development, such as that in Taiwan and Japan, has been associated with an abundance of labor and a scarcity of agricultural land, while capital-intensive agricultural development, such as that in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, has been associated with an abundance of land and a scarcity of labor.

44. Would increasing interrepublic inequality in agricultural development mean increasing inequality in the wages of agricultural workers and in the incomes and levels of consumption of farm workers' families? The answer to that question is not clear. Soviet ideology assumes that levels of reward are largely a function of levels of productive development. The evidence reviewed in Evans, “Interrepublic Differences in the Level of Living of the Rural Population of the USSR, ” shows a moderate relationship between agricultural development and some measurable indicators of levels of consumption. However, interrepublic inequality in rural living levels seems less than that in levels of agricultural development. There may be a general tendency in the Soviet system for wages and for expenditures on public consumption to be more nearly equal than investments in industrial and agricultural development (see Jack Bielasiak, “Policy Choices and Regional Equality among the Soviet Republics, ” American Political Science Review, 74, no. 2 [June 1980] : 394-405). Either increasing the wages in agriculture in some republics to a degree unwarranted by increases in the productivity of labor or allowing the wages in agriculture in those republics to lag behind wages in republics with more rapidly developing agriculture would have unpleasant implications for policy makers.

45. For expressions of concern with regional imbalances in the supply of agricultural labor, see A. Sosk'ev, “Vosproizvodstvo rabochei sily, ” Ekonomika sel'skogo khoziaistva, 1978, no. 10, pp. 68-76 and Popov, V, “Povyshenie proizvoditel'nosti truda v sel'skom khoziaistve,” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1976, no. 8, pp. 82–94Google Scholar. The most outspoken suggestions for restraining agricultural wages in the laborsurplus southern regions have been made by Kuprienko, Lidiia Petrovna, “Influence of the Standard of Living on the Movement of Labor Resources,” Problems of Economics, 15, no. 5 (September 1972) : 61–77 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted from Voprosy ekonomiki, 1972, no. 3); Kuprienko, Lidiia Petrovna, Vliianie urovnia zhizni na raspredelenie trudovykh resursov (Moscow, 1976)Google Scholar, especially pp. 58-69.

46. The non-black earth zone of the RSFSR composes an area approximately equal to that of Western Europe. Located in the northwestern part of the Russian republic, the area is characterized by relatively high annual rainfall, but poor soils, a large amount of boggy land, and a rapidly declining rural population. For the years 1976-80, investment in agriculture in the zone was to total thirty-five billion rubles, with emphasis on the draining of land and the application of lime and fertilizer. The goal of the program of development of agriculture in this zone is to achieve something closer to self-sufficiency in food products for the area, which contains a very large urban population (see N. Borchenko, “The Program of Integrated Development of Agriculture in the Nonchernozem Zone, ” Soviet Geography, 16, no. 4 [April 1975] : 249-56 [reprinted from Planovoe khoziaistvo, 1974, no. 7]).

47. That and other uses of state budget appropriations for agriculture are described by V. S emenov, “Voprosy finansirovaniia i kreditovaniia sel'skogo khoziaistva, ” Ekonomicheskie nauki, 1976, no. 8, pp. 45-54.

48. Ibid., pp. 50-51. State credit actually functions as a subsidy when, as in the case of drought, collective farms are excused from the repayment of loans. State farms also receive credit from Gosbank.

49. I. S. Kononov, “Sovershenstvovanie finansovo-kreditnykh otnoshenii v sel'skom khoziaistve, ” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1978, no. 8, p. 71, shows the details of that transition in financing. See also Semenov, “Voprosy finansirovaniia i kreditovaniia, ” pp. 47-48.

50. Also, after 1965, the prices paid to state farms were raised to a level of equality with prices paid to collective farms.

51. The high levels of net revenue and profitability in agriculture in the Baltic republics help to account for the high level of development of agriculture in those republics. On the other hand, the rates of agricultural development in Latvia, Kazakhstan, and Moldavia, cited by Tonkonog as having high levels of net revenue and/or profitability in agriculture, have been below the rate for the Soviet Union as a whole. It will be some years before we can judge whether the growing interrepublic inequality in net revenue in agriculture shown by Tonkonog is related to rates of agricultural development. However, it does seem likely that the degree of financial self-reliance by collective and state farms places serious difficulties in the way of a redistributive investment policy, which would be necessary to bring consistently higher rates of development in the republics with less modernized agriculture.

52. R. I., Tonkonog, “Vyravnivanie ekonomicheskikh uslovii razvitiia sel'skogo khoziaistva,” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1976, no. 3, p. 65 Google Scholar. See also Tonkonog, Nauchno-tekhnicheskii progress i agrarnye otnosheniia na sovremennom etape, pp. 181 -209 and Kvachev, Vyravnivanie ekonomicheskikh uslovii, pp. 113-14. The rate of profitability (renlabel'nost’) expresses the relationship between net revenue (chistyi dokhod) and enterprise costs of production (sebesloimost’).