Livestock Organization in the Formerly Nomadic Livestock Areas of the Soviet Union

1956of Pacific Coast Geographers57 LIVESTOCK ORGANIZATION IN THE FORMERLY NOMADIC LIVESTOCK AREAS OF THE SOVIET UNION Howard K. Albano University of Washington The following discussion is an attempt to clarify the present organizational structure of the formerly nomadic livestock industry of the dry areas of the Soviet Union. Within this area are included the Union Republics of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Astrakhan and Rostov Oblasts in the R.S.F.S.R., and parts of the North and Trans-Caucasus. This attempt at clarification appears necessary because the collective system of agriculture has been discussed by most western writers as though it had been imposed in an unvarying form over the whole of Russia.'-2 In the case of the former nomadic livestock industry of the areas indicated , at least, this does not appear to be the case. Since the fundamental characteristics of the collective system of agricultural organization in the Soviet Union are perhaps not generally familiar, a short discussion of these characteristics will be included. The bulk of the paper will then be devoted to a consideration of the organization of livestock in the formerly nomadic areas. The Collective System of Agriculture In terms of sown area the most important institution in the collective system is the kolkhoz. These are large scale units of from 1,000 to 2,000 or more acres cultivated on a collective basis. The state, which owns all land in the U.S.S. R., grants each kolkhoz a certain acreage in perpetuity. The increment of production after the obligatory fixed demand of the state has been fulfilled, and after the demands for storage, seed, and machinery rent have been satisifed, is divided amongst the members of the kolkhoz. Approximately 85-90% of the sown area of the U.S.S. R. is cultivated by the kolkhozes. A second institution, the sovkhoz or state farm, is an even larger scale unit than the kolkhoz. It is owned and operated by the state with the aid of hired labor which receives a fixed wage. All products produced go to the state. A third Soviet agricultural institution that is an integral part of the collective system even though it does not directly cultivate any agricultural land is the Machine Tractor Station. The Machine Tractor Stations supply the power machinery and other heavy equipment needed in the operation of the kolkhozes. The sovkhozes own and manage their own machinery. The Organization of Livestock Production In The Formerly Nomadic Areas It is contended that the organization of livestock production in the areas indicated differs in certain aspects from that in the remainder of the Soviet Union. It is further contended that the system of livestock organization that has evolved under the Soviet regime is not fundamentally different than that under 58Yearbook of the AssociationVol. 1 8 the old nomadic order. In pre-collective times nomadic livestock production prevailed in dry areas of the Soviet Union. Nomadism is defined as being the lateral movement of animals on pasture the year around with little or no winter feeding of stored hay and no fixed base of operations. This system pre-dominated in the relatively flat areas of Kazakhstan. In the Caucasus and in the Central Asian Mountain Ranges a form of nomadism, transhumance, was practiced. Transhumance refers to the movement of animals across vertical vegetative zones — from a low to a high elevation in the spring and to a lower elevation again in the fall. In this paper the term nomadism refers to both the lateral movement of livestock common in Kazakhstan and to the vertical movement of livestock common in Central Asia and the Caucasus, The collective system of agriculture instituted by the Soviets in 1929 and essentially completed by 1933 or 1934 produced the kolkhoz-sovkhoz structure characterized previously. This same formal structure was imposed in the nomadic areas, however, there appears to have been a significant time lag in the effective imposition of even the formal structure, and in addition, the resultant actual form has not been the same as in the remainder of the Soviet Union. Resistance to collectivization was particularly strong in the nomadic areas. Loss of both livestock and human population during the...