Question by light the lamp 93: What were some of Nikita Khrushchev reforms and policies and how did they change the USSR?
how did these reforms change the USS after stalins death
Answers and Views:
Answer by Spellbound
Khrushchev had three big ideas regarding agriculture and industry. The first idea was the Virgin Lands Scheme, coupled with a move to grow maize rather than wheat – as he saw maize as a modern crop and a reorganisation of collective farms into larger units. This was the ploughing up of thousands of acres of empty steppes in Kazakhstan, Southern Russia and Southern Siberia. It was an enormous undertaking – thousands of people were mobilised, new tractors and other machinery had to be built and new towns for all the new people. Initially the schemes were a success; yields increased massively – the first harvest doubled the Soviet harvest. But after a few years all the nutrients were robbed out of the soil and the harvests began to fail. The scheme was quietly abandoned after the 1963 harvest failed and the Soviet Union had to import grain from Canada.
http://www.askwinston.co.uk/page48.html
His second big idea was to split the party into industrial and agricultural wings, this was coupled with a programme to de-centralise the USSR. This had the effect of making people move to where their expertise was needed – so industrialists went to the cities and agriculturalists went to the provincial towns and cities. It was hugely unpopular and repealed as soon as he was deposed in 1964.
His third idea was to refocus the economy from heavy industry to produce more consumer goods. There were many discussions at politburo level, but he never managed to devise a systematic programme in order to push through these reforms.
See:
Khrushchev Remembers – Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
Unpersoned – The Fall of Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev – Martin & Burg, David Page
http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/russian-and-east-european-history/soviet-economic-development-lenin-khrushchev
http://countrystudies.us/russia/13.htm
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