WHY THE SOVIET UNION UNDER KHRUSHCHEV AND BREZHNEV FAILED WITH THE COMPLEX MECHANIZATION OF AGRICULTURE: INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS (1953–1986)
Journal: Russian Peasant Studies
Year: 2020

The article provides archival evidence to the argument that complex mechanization after 1953 was a failure International contacts were quickly restored after Stalin's death. They made evident to what extent the Soviet Union had fallen behind the West in agricultural technology and reliability of machinery. The article describes how successfully the Ministry of Agriculture collected information on Western technology. Already in 1955, models of the Western agricultural machinery, seeds, highly pro