«Crop Production Is Possible Wherever The Sun Shines»: Political and Climatic Aspects of Agricultural Development in the Soviet North in the 1920s and 1930s
https://doi.org/10.69571/SSPU.2025.99.6.006
Abstract
The development of agriculture in the North in the 1920s and 1930s was an integral part of the development of the northern territories by the Soviet state. The purpose of the article is to reveal the political and climatic aspects of the development of agriculture in the Soviet North in the 1920s and 1930s. To show, on the one hand, the continuity of the practical aspects of the advancement of agriculture to the North with the pre-revolutionary period, on the other hand, the fundamental difference in the political aspects of this process in the 1920s and 1930s and their priority importance for the Soviet authorities. It was constantly emphasized that the development of northern agriculture was associated with the need to overcome great difficulties. Overcoming these difficulties was beyond the power of tsarist Russia, with its small private farms and predatory methods of production. Such a task was possible only for a large collective farm within the framework of a planned socialist economy. There were also purely practical reasons. Exactly the same as in the pre-revolutionary period. The authorities were forced to develop possible forms of agricultural production in the Far North due to the huge distances separating agricultural areas from new industrial centers. The climate has become an ally of the supporters of the «assimilation» of agriculture. In the period 1879-1938, scientists recorded a warming climate in the Arctic. It is important to note that during the period under review, the new government managed to achieve serious, systematic, quantitative results in promoting agriculture in the Far North. Nevertheless, in the 1930s. In the development of «northern agriculture», political, ideological, cultural and managerial tasks prevailed over scientific and purely practical ones. In this regard, it is certainly possible to state a fundamental break with the pre-revolutionary tradition of agricultural development in the North.
About the Author
E. I. Gololobov
Surgut State Pedagogical University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Gololobov Evgeny Ilyich — Doctor of Historical Sciences, Chief Researcher, Professor of the Department of Social and Humanitarian Education
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Review
For citations:
Gololobov E.I. «Crop Production Is Possible Wherever The Sun Shines»: Political and Climatic Aspects of Agricultural Development in the Soviet North in the 1920s and 1930s. Surgut State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2025;(6(99)):66-75. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.69571/SSPU.2025.99.6.006
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