[MIM comments: Blind anti-communism rooted in the
middle-class nature of U.$. politics causes many to
think that China under Mao was as bad as capitalism in
the West on the environment. Having also adopted the
Western view of socialism without serious study, many
budding environmentalists do not distinguish between
what was happening in the Soviet bloc before it
collapsed and what happened under Mao in China.
The truth is that Chinese communists under Mao's
leadership attacked Soviet renegades Khruschev and
Brezhnev on the subject of the environment. The Soviet
Union under Khruschev became a capitalist country,
with the right to make profit enshrined in the
Constitution. Below we reprint an excerpt from the
most authoritative publication of the Communist Party
of China, 1976.]
Excerpt from
"The Brezhnev Renegade Clique Damages Soviet
Agriculture"
Peking Review, No. 21
May 21, 1976
[ITALICS]
In the vast countryside of the Soviet Union, land
resources have been seriously damaged, crops have
declined and the peasants' living standards are going
from bad to worse. These are inevitable evil results
of the all-round restoration of capitalism in the
country by the Soviet revisionist renegade clique,
which has stopped at nothing to grab maximum profits
in the rural areas.
The following two articles expose how the clique has
brought this about.
[END ITALICS]
Land resources seriously spoiled
After usurping political power the Khruschov-Brezhnev
clique has thrown Soviet agricultural production into
an increasingly grave crisis. To extricate itself from
the predicament in grain production, this clique has
resorted to land reclamation. Vast areas of wasteland
were opened up in Kazakhstan, Siberia, the Urals,
areas along the Volga River and some regions in north
Caucasus. Brezhnev has on many occasions bragged about
the "results" of land reclamation in Kazakhstan,
alleging that is has "rejuvenated" Kazakhstan and
brought about "radical changes in economy, culture and
the complexion of this vast region."
But facts are the very reverse. The living cover in
the steppe of the newly reclaimed areas has been
gravely damaged as a result of the Soviet
revisionists' policy of land reclamation, which is
aimed at grabbing grain for the year without paying
attention to capital construction on the farms. This
is a capitalist method of management, namely, draining
a pond to catch all the fish.
Dust storms
The Soviet journal ITALICS Agricultural Economy END
ITALICS admitted that dust storms have been caused
"mainly by the shortage of ordinary and
field-protecting forests and by the unsatisfactory
conditions and distribution of existing shelter
belts." Another Soviet journal ITALICS Our
Contemporary END ITALICS disclosed in its 12th issue
last year that dust storms occur "more frequently
indeed" in the country and have almost become
"ordinary phenomena." Beginning from 1969, nearly
every spring there has been wind erosion," it added.
The Soviet press reported that two dust storms in the
spring of 1960 swept the vast southern part of the
great Russian plain and more than 4 million hectares
of spring crops in reclaimed areas were affected. In
1963 dust storms affected a larger area than in 1960.
The affected cultivated land in the reclaimed areas in
Kazakhstan came to 20 million hectares. A dust storm
in 1969 destroyed in a few days all the wheat on
820,000 hectares in Krasnodar, Stavropol and Rostov.
The Soviet publication ITALIC Moscow END ITALICS
admitted: "Dust storms sweep over all reclaimed land
in Kazakhstan every year."
The Brezhnev clique's militarization of the national
economy has resulted in a shortage of funds for
capital construction of farmland. Its management
policy of "profit comes first" has led the leading
members of collective and state farms to confine their
attention to immediate interests at the expense of
farmland protection.
Water erosion
Construction of new water conservancy projects has
become sluggish in recent years while existing
establishments have been rapidly out of commission
owing to lack of maintenance. According to obviously
doctored data released by official Soviet quarters,
every year, the newly increased irrigated acreage
accounted for only 0.4 percent of the total arable
land of the country, while the rejected irrigated land
was equal to one-sixth of the increase. Woods have
been felled at random in many places. As a result,
soil erosion has become more serious year after year.
The journal ITALIC Agricultural Economy ITALICS END in
its 8th issue last year reported that in Azerbaijan
alone, "48 million tons of fertile soil are washed
away every year. . . 3.3. million hectares of land are
eroded. It is not difficult to conceive what great
losses erosion has brought to the national economy in
Azerbaijan."
Take the Don River basin in the Russian Federative
Republic. "In Rostov, water erosion brings longer and
more serious damage than wind erosion," according to a
report by ITALICS Our Contemporary END ITALICS in its
12th issue last year. "The arable land decreases by
8,000 hectares every year in the Don River basin as a
result of the washing away of soil" and "the losses
caused by water loss and soil erosion in the Don River
basin amount to 40 million rubles every year," it
noted.
The journal ITALICS Moscow END ITALICS also revealed
that "more and more ravines have appeared" owing to
water erosion, and that "in the Ukraine about one
million hectares of land are criss-crossed with many
ravines. In the Russian central black-soil belt, the
average length of ravines per square kilometre is 580
metres and, in Kursk and Orel Regions, 700 metres."
Land turning alkaline
Since the Soviet revisionist renegade clique usurped
political power, vast tracts of fertile Soviet land
have become barren. ITALICS Agricultural Economy END
in its 8th issue of 1975 disclosed that "owing to bad
management fertile land in some areas is undergoing a
process of erosion, becoming alkaline or turning in to
swamp land again." The journal also reported that in
the Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia there
were 9.6 million hectares of swamp, alkaline, wasted
and erosive land shrubbery in 1973, constituting 52
percent of the total land area. It is reported that in
Volgograd of the Russian Federative Republic erosive
and alkaline land accounts for over 80 percent of the
arable land.
According to the fifth issue of ITALIC Agricultural
Economy END ITALICS last year, in Vietebsk Region of
Byelorussia 361,000 hectares of arable land were
overgrown with shrubs, constituting 20 percent of the
total arable land. In a state farm of this region,
"all the arable land has become wild, swampy and full
of shrubs and rocks." The ITALICS Moscow END ITALICS
revealed that one-third of the farmland in the Ukraine
has turned poor as a result of water erosion.
Thirty-one thousand hectares of fertile land in Rostov
turned barren in the decade of 1961-70.
Arable land shrinking
The acreage of Soviet arable and grazing land
decreases year after year as more and more farmland
lies waste. The Soviet press has to admit that "owing
to various causes, arable land in some areas has kept
shrinking." Because of "neglect and violating
elementary rules of utilization, large stretches of
natural grazing land and grassland are covered with
shrubs, dunes and swamps." ITALICS Agricultural
Economy ITALICS END disclosed in its 8th issue last
year that "arable land in Georgia, Azerbaijan and
Armenia decreased by 961,900 hectares or 9.8 percent
in 1973 as compared with 1950; and cultivated land by
676,400 hectares, or 22 percent. In this respect, the
problem in Georgia is more serious. In the same
period, its cultivated land contracted by 486,400
hectares, or 41.1 percent."
The damage done to land resources affects grain
production. It is precisely in Kazakhstan where
Brezhnev once took charge of land reclamation, that
harvests have fallen for three years running since
1972 and grain output in 1975 was down 60 percent
compared with 1972.
