L. I. Brezhnev's "closed" speech during the grain "tour" in 1972

Scientific article

doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2025-3-857-874

For citation

Orlov, Dmitry S. (2025). L. I. Brezhnev's "closed" speech during the grain "tour" in 1972, Herald of an Archivist, no. 3, pp. 857-874, doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2025-3-857-874

Orlov, Dmitry S., Biysk V. M. Shukshin Branch of Altai State Pedagogical University, Biysk, Russia

L. I. Brezhnev's "closed" speech during the grain "tour" in 1972

Abstract

The article examines a historical source, an archival document that includes a speech by General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU L. I. Brezhnev on government procurement of grain crops in the region on August 27, 1972 at the VII Plenum of the Altai Regional Committee of the Party in Barnaul. The purpose of the article was to characterize and publish a documentary source identified in the archive fund of A. N. Nevsky (b.1808) in the State Archive of the Altai Territory (GAAK). The study is devoted to insufficiently studied issues of the development of the Soviet economy - the relationship between the state and direct agricultural producers at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. The source allows us to clarify the idea of the interference of party leaders in setting targets. The document is also interesting in its content because L. I. Brezhnev evaluates almost all the main directions of the economic policy of the Soviet state, not limited, at the same time, only to the agrarian one. A special place in the document is devoted to the problems in the main grain-producing regions of the European part of the RSFSR. In order to prevent problems with food and fodder, it was planned to significantly increase grain procurements in the Asian part of the country. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that increased socialist commitments providing for over-planned grain sales have become a tool for increasing government purchases of grain. The unscheduled arrival of the leader of the Soviet state during his vacation and his speech aimed to put pressure on the regional elite of the Altai Territory and to get the region to fulfill not only planned, but also over-planned purchases of grain crops. The piquancy of the situation is due to the fact that there is no text of this speech in the documents of the Altai Territory Committee of the CPSU and L. I. Brezhnev himself forbade to keep a transcript. After the visit of the Secretary General, Minister of Agriculture of the RSFSR L. Ya. Florentyev visited the region. The result of his visit was an additional increase in the standards for the delivery of grain crops to the state. In the 1970s, the government completely abandoned the previously proclaimed principles of the immutability of targets. Later, this became one of the reasons for the decline in agricultural production and the growing problems in the agricultural sector. The published archival source is of interest to both Russian agricultural historians and economists, as well as foreign scientists specializing in the history of the agrarian development of the USSR in the second half of the twentieth century. The document is another important element in the study of the agrarian history of the USSR and its regions in the late Soviet period.

Keywords

Historical sources, archival documents, agrarian policy, agriculture, USSR, Altai Territory, L. I. Brezhnev.

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About authors

Orlov Dmitry S., Doctor of Historical Sciences, Altai State Pedagogical University, Biysk Branch named after V. M. Shukshin, Department of Historical, Legal, Social and Humanitarian Disciplines, Professor, Biysk, Russian Federation, +7-385-441-64-6, +7-913-233-65-811, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

ORCID 0000-0002-6500-354X

The article was received in the editorial office on 02.09.2024, recommended for publication on 20.06.2024.