Les nouvelles expériences du monde socialiste ou les raisons d'un colloque sur « Agriculture et développement socialiste »
Authors: Mainié Philippe 
Published: October 2009

The recent experience of the socialist world, or the reasons for a symposium on Socialist agriculture and development - At the invitation of Prof. W. Schmidt of the well-known Humbolt University in East Berlin, a delegation of rural economists from the SFER visited the GDR in October 1974.

Thorough visits of the agri-business combinats in the province of Rostock enabled them to understand the the problems and to see the changes under way in farming in the socialist countries. A delegation of colleagues from the GDR later visited France at our invitation and these different socialist experiences (Germany, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Jugoslavia) were compared at a symposium organized by the SFER in Montpellier from 24-26 September, 1975. It is with pleasure that Economie Rurale in nos. 111 and 112 reviews the discussions which took place at the Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen, whose Director is our President, L. Malassis. We would like to thank our foreign colleagues for their active and constructive participation, Profs. Schmidt and Rohde from Berlin, Prof. K. Bajan from Warsaw, Prof. Florea from Bucarest, Prof. Guorguiev and Mrs Koleva from Sofia and Prof. Radovic from Belgrade, and our French colleagues who are specialists in these problems. A few remarks will show that it is time we abandoned our old preconceptions to see what is really at stake in the experiments and realizations being carried out in these countries.

The organization models in the agri-business sector as they exist today, seem much more diversified than Western economist usually think. These differences are not explained only by geographical conditions but above all by changes in the ideology behind the models of collectivization. The technical and productivist attitude adopted until today to lay the foundations of industry in the service of the people, required that agriculture should be a source of accumulation for the rest of society. Farming had to be mechanized to release labour for the towns, to drain off the surplus value for industry, to feed citydwellers cheaply and to ensure food supplies for the towns.

Since 1960, a great variety of models have been developed, ranging from complexes of unprecedented size, like those in the GDR, Rumania, Bulgaria, Jugoslavia, to ingenious forms of peasant cooperatives (Poland). The processes of vertical and horizontal integration, the high degree of specialization, the extreme concentration of the production units (models of dairy stables of 4000 cows !) which not only are in harmony with new socialist conceptions of society but also modify the fundamental terms of the relationship between farming and the rest of society. These changes pose formidable problems ; the industrialized processes thus set up, considerably increase the vulnerability of these agri-business systems, which are a totally new departure from the old form of semi-autarchic peasant economy, and are becoming dependent on foreign trade and thus suffering the full effects of the recession in capitalist countries. The Soviet choice of a stock-breeding model based on cereals and soja, like the American model, underlines these constraints and becomes a factor of change.

The agri-business sector is no longer a source of accumulation. Its growth is increasingly « subsidized » by the rest of the nation. The high capital cost of the industrial-type units, Stade aid for investment, credit based on urban savings, a reduction in the difference between farm purchase price and retail price — all these factors contribute to a complete reversal of the situation. This is probably the price the socialist societies will have to pay to ensure equality of income and living conditions between workers in town and country.

The Jugoslavian experience of « self -management » in its vast combinats opens new perspectives for decision techniques in centralized socialist economies. This involves the question of the control and sharing of the surplus value. Real decision-making power is thus obtained by the workers who decide democratically with the bureaucratic technistructure how the « profits » should be shared between investment and immediate consumption.

This reconsideration of the division of labour between the sectors leads to the setting-up of complex firms, difficult to manage well. The problem of the quality of the managers is now posed. The days of specialized brigade leaders and «commanders of production», unaware of human problems, are over. These complex firms need the individual's full agreement with group decisions and the group's openness to the creative aspirations and genuis of individuals.

As one observes all these developments one cannot help asking whether the socialist world of tomorrow will still be built with « peasants » or not, in other words, with people who over the centuries have been the great country- planners, the creators of our familiar landscapes, the great developers of natural resources, indispensible to maintain life.

What has become of the dream of the « garden-city » ? What price must be paid to equip the country-side like the towns and avoid the desertification to be seen in capitalist countries ? What kind of decentralization of power is possible or desirable to encourage individual and collective creativity in future in socialist countries ?

These discussions have convinced us that a comparison between capitalist and socialist societies cannot only be made quantitatively. The main question is human happiness and in this struggle for life, judgment will be made with reference to the global aspects of « all » life — the level of consumption but also the degree of participation, ability to create, the quality of justice.

There remains the whole problem of relations between industrialized societies and the rest of the world, more or less developing countries. Will the socialist countries agriculture ; like that of capitalist countries, become the predator of the world ecosystem ? Will it also become a consumer of the energy resources of the Southern countries ? These questions are beyond us today, but we, citizens of the dominant countries, can no longer ignore them. Efficient models of biologico-chemical production are still to be invented... that will provide an exciting task for the future.