TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/032789/03278900.025

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 2KB | 34 lines

WORLD, Page 53

SOVIET UNION

New Masters of The Land

Attempting to free agriculture


    Even 60 years later, Soviet farmers have not forgiven Joseph
Stalin for taking away their land. Now Mikhail Gorbachev is
offering, more or less, to give it back. Under a new policy
unveiled by the Soviet President last week at a plenum of the
Communist Party's Central Committee, private farmers will be able
to lease land for 50 years and beyond and even pass their tenancy
on to their children. It will, Gorbachev declared, make the Soviet
farmer "the master on the land."

    State land, that is. Ever heedful of reluctant conservatives
like agriculture boss Yegor Ligachev, who believe the collectives
could be resuscitated with an infusion of government funds,
Gorbachev stopped short of true privatization. Even as he gave an
approving nod to "individual property," Gorbachev announced that
conversion to free farming would be on a "voluntary" basis. He also
made clear that the leasing scheme would fall within the framework
of the collective system.

    The new system is supposed to tame the Soviet Union's problems
of waste, inefficiency and food shortages. Citizens continue to
queue daily for limited stocks of meat, butter and milk. Small
wonder Gorbachev calls food "one of the most important problems we
need to solve."

    Still, some observers warn that the moderate reforms fall short
of what is needed to overcome the agriculture crisis. A major
obstacle to bolder reforms will be fear among farmers that the push
toward privatization may be rolled back again. Such inherent
caution cannot have eased when Ligachev announced at a press
conference that a free-market agriculture system would be adopted
only after there is "an abundance of food."