Sergey Valerievich Sharapov,
Candidate in Historical Sciences, Junior Researcher, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Production and Procurement of Grain in the Novosibirsk Region in 1942
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2021-4-5
State grain procurement policy of the war years remains a poorly understood aspect of the functioning of Soviet economy in the “hard times of the forties”. Grain campaign 1942/1943 coincided with a turning point in the course of the war, bloody battles for Stalingrad. Tension on the fronts was transferred to the rear. Using the example of the Novosibirsk region, the author analyzes methods of grain procurement in the context of the high requirements of political center for the volume of products coming from the region. The task of increasing grain yields turned out to be unbearable, and the excessive load on able-bodied rural population led to the neglect of elementary agrotechnical rules. As a result, the grain yield in 1942 turned out to be extremely low, and the actual yield was more than two times lower than the official yield calculated according to the “biological” method. However, state authorities were suspicious of the actual yield and harvest data, believing that collective farm peasantry was inclined to underestimate the volume of products in order to meet their own needs. This led to a sharp tilt towards command-administrative methods of grain procurement, accompanied by repression against the “saboteurs” and “plunders” of grain. However, the actual volumes of the 1942 harvest became an objective economic constraint that did not even allow them to come close to fulfilling the planned targets.
Publishing: 28/08/2021
The article has been received by the editor on 19.05.2021
How to cite: Sharapov S.V. Production and Procurement of Grain in the Novosibirsk Region in 1942 // Historical Courier, 2021, No. 4 (18), pp. 53–66. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2021/ISTKURIER-2021-4-05.pdf
Links: Issue 4 2021
Keywords: agrarian policy of the Soviet state; agriculture; grain procurements; Great Patriotic War; Siberia
Funding: The research was funded by RFBR, project number 21-09-43020.