Import of grain from abroad to the USSR. How the USSR bought grain from the bourgeoisie

There is not a word about grain, about its imports, about grain harvesters in general, and about the relationship with the United States, in particular.

But that's not all.

The USSR ... collected much less grain [than the USA - MG] and made itself dependent on its import supplies.

What can be understood from this statement? Harvesting less grain than in the United States is wrong, this situation leads to dependence on imports.

The question arises. What is import dependence? In all likelihood, the ratio of imports to domestic grain production can provide an answer to this question. Indeed, when comparing these indicators for the USSR and the USA, one might think that everything is clear. Still would! By the first half of the 1980s, the average annual grain import in the USSR reached 26% in relation to its own harvest, while in the USA it was only 0.3%. And if we are talking about the rivalry of these two countries, then there is no dispute - dependence!

But if you still look at the rest of the world, it turns out that even in 1981-1985, when the ratio of purchased and produced grain in the USSR was maximum, in 81 countries of the world the share of imports was even higher. And next to the Soviet Union on the list, for example, countries such as Germany and Mexico, which imported 25.6 and 25.5% of grain in relation to their own production.

Maybe, despite the growing imports, the USSR really lagged significantly behind America in terms of grain provision? No, the gap doesn't look significant.

Moreover, there are only a few countries in which in the 70s and 80s there was more grain per capita than in the USSR. These are the USA, Canada, Denmark, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania.

Here is such " dependence on import supplies". We bought it to be among the top ten leaders in terms of grain per capita. The notorious propaganda ton!

In order to intensively develop animal husbandry in order to further increase the consumption of meat, it is necessary to have a sufficient amount of grain for livestock feed. At one time, Academician Nemchinov, one of the largest Soviet economists, determined the country's total need for grain: a ton per year per inhabitant.

1986-1990 in the USSR, the per capita grain resources were far from a ton, but practically equal to those of the USA. At the same time, in 1990, the inhabitants of the USSR consumed 59 kg of meat per year, and the Americans in 1989 - 113 kg.

But the "reformer" Gaidar begins his story about grain with the same thing that the Soviet agitation talked about - with the statement about the lack of domestic production and the need for imports.

To be continued.

The phrase "we will not finish eating, but we will take out" is standardly attributed to the tsarist finance minister I.A. Vyshnegradsky (1888-1892). Some attribute it to S.Yu. Witte or even P.A. Stolypin. However, this is not so important, since there are some doubts that such a phrase was ever said. For example, there are other "quotes" attributed to Vyshnegradskiy: "We must export, even if we die." Etc.

Accordingly, apocalyptic pictures are drawn - an eternally starving Russia, from which the tsarist government pumps domestic grain to the Western bourgeoisie. Some talk about the "monstrous" famine of 1901, 1911, 1912, etc. years (sometimes there is such a listing: "In the XX century, the mass famine of 1901, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1911 and 1913 stood out, when millions of inhabitants of the Russian Empire died from hunger and diseases accompanying hunger."). True, it should be noted that for some reason all these "millions of victims" were not identified by the statistics.

If we ignore the obvious myth-making, then in fact the reproaches are mostly unfounded.

Tsarist Russia from the 70s of the XIX century was engaged in the same thing as the "comrades" who replaced it - in fact, the industrialization of the country. Of course, the methods and tools were completely different. Not the best or the worst, but simply different, since the general conditions were different. But again, the essence of the process was the same. In order to buy Western equipment, technologies and attract specialists, the country sold what was in demand from its goods in the foreign market. Plus, of course, loans.

Apologists of the Soviet myth are for some reason piously convinced that the USSR went some other way. No, the same. He also sold grain on the world market (+ gold, furs, caviar and eggs), and also attracted loans. But with two significant differences: there are almost no verifiable data on Soviet loans, plus it is worth taking into account the factor of artificial limitation of domestic consumption (card system, etc.) and the characteristics of the socialist "supply" in general. But these are particulars.

In tsarist Russia, the last actually recorded famine, which entailed statistically significant casualties and covered a fairly large area, happened in 1891-1892 (for comparison, in France - in the 60s of the XIX century, in Germany - in the 40-50s) ... The reasons for this and the previous famine were the rapid growth of the country's population, resulting in the agrarian "overpopulation" of some regions (Volga region, Non-Black Earth Region); crop instability; weak transport infrastructure, which did not allow for the prompt transfer of surplus grain from one region of the country to others; backwardness of agriculture (and + low yield).

According to the estimates I met, the death rate from the famine of 1891-1892 ranged from 0.44 to 0.77 million people. In general, the population of the country in subsequent years grew at a frantic pace. If the census of 1897 recorded about 128 million people, then in 1914 the population was from 168 to 175 million people (the discrepancy is obtained, judging by the reports of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Statistics Service).

In general, it would be interesting to compare the share of exports and their role in the specific grain consumption in Russia. For the 80s of the XIX century, the picture is as follows: the average gross harvests fluctuate on average from 45 to 55 (1887) million tons. And here are the data on the export of grain abroad (it is not known whether corn is included there):

1881 - 3.32 million tons
1882 - 4.82
1883 - 5.49
1884 - 5.12
1885 - 5.5
1886 - 4.45
1887 - 6.28
1888 - 8.76
1889 - 7.46
1890 - 6.68
1891 - 6.26
1892 - 3.14

Pokrovsky DI Collection of information on the history and statistics of Russia's foreign trade. T. 1.SPb., 1902.

Tonnage converted from poods

If you do not take the last year, then in general, about (on average) 8.6% of the gross harvest was exported. Of course, in certain years this figure was higher. The population of the country can then be estimated in the range of 100-110 million people. That is, the average export per capita can be estimated at about 55-57 kilograms (three and a half poods of grain).

Thus, he was quite visible. Therefore, in 1891, the government, having delayed at first with actions to prevent hunger, tried to rectify the situation by sharply reducing exports (it was banned for almost 8 months) and providing subsidies to peasants (160 million rubles). In 1892, half of the grain was exported. It is noteworthy that even in 1891-1892 there were provinces in Russia where there was a surplus of grain, which, due to the weak infrastructure, was difficult to deliver to the starving regions.

In general, the Volga region and some areas of the Non-Black Earth Region are turning into depressed agrarian regions - in contrast to the Kuban and Ukraine, where from 1891 to 1913 the yield increased by 35-45%, this does not happen there. The development of industry in the country eased the situation, which began to drag unnecessary workers into cities, the development of the transport network (the construction of the Great Siberian Road began in 1891) and the beginning of large-scale colonization of Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. In 1906-1914 alone, almost 4 million people moved beyond the Urals. It's funny that the structure of the population of Vladivostok looked like this at the beginning of the 20th century: 24 thousand men and about 4 thousand women. That is, the picture is characteristic of the early stage of colonization.

Later, despite the continuation of the export of grain, such agrarian catastrophes were avoided, although there was a local shortage of grain in tsarist Russia. First of all, in the named depressed regions. Of course, we like to fan this into the canvas of the all-Russian famine. That is at least an exaggeration.

It is even more interesting to compare RI with the USSR in terms of the share of grain exports. Here is some table:

The grain harvest in 1913 - the smallest of the estimates encountered was taken, the harvest of 1930 - the estimate of I.V. Stalin, although there are figures of 77 million tons. Bread export data - from the USSR Foreign Trade Statistics Collection of 1937. The data on the export of grain from the Republic of Ingushetia in 1913 was taken without corn (with corn it will be about 10.5 million tons. The reason is the practically absence of corn export from the USSR in the comparable period). Tonnage - conversion from poods for four cereals (wheat, rye, barley, oats).

It is not difficult to see that in the specific ratio, grain exports in the 1930s were significantly lower (with similar population figures) than in 1913. However, everyone knows that in 1931-1932 there was a famine in the country, the numbers of whose victims are still being disputed. In any case, there are clearly more of them than in 1891-1892.

Of course, it should also be noted that by the 1930s the share of the urban population increased to 24-26% (by 1940 - up to 28-29%), while in 1913 it was estimated at about 15.5-16.5% ... Nevertheless, it turns out that with a lower unit load per capita than in 1913 and with a slightly lower share of export supplies in the gross harvest than in 1913, a full-scale famine occurred in many regions of the country. This is not counting the fact that most of the urban population (80-90%) received bread in general at modest rationing rates (which was not the case under tsarism before the war). Cards, let's not forget, it was necessary more to stock up.

The last notable famine in the USSR happened in 1946-1947. The grain export figures at this time look like this:

1946 - 1, 23 million tons (with a harvest of 37 million tons - 3% was exported);
1947 - 0.6 million tons;
1948 - 2.6 million tons;

It is impossible to establish the total number of deaths from hunger, but estimates range from 0.7 to 1.5 million people. It's hard to say how accurate they are.

In principle, we can conclude that under tsarism the population was constantly undernourished and dying out from "hungry exports", while under the Bolsheviks - from insignificant exports. :) But it will already be surrealism. Most likely, as I suspect, the gross harvest in the USSR was overestimated, while the volume of real exports was underestimated. In addition, the growing urban population, the army and the bureaucratic apparatus, which also increased the burden on the consumption of grain products, should not be written off.

On December 26, 1963, the United States began shipping grain to the USSR. For the first time, the Soviet Union was forced to buy 12 million tons of grain abroad due to the fact that the efficiency of the developed virgin soils in Kazakhstan fell annually. The withdrawal from circulation of about a third of the virgin lands raised testified that the extensive methods of developing the agricultural complex - the development of new areas without using the products of the oil economy - did not work. If in 1954-1958 the average yield was 7.3 centners per hectare, then by 1962 it dropped to 6.1 centners. In 1964, every third loaf of bread was baked from imported grain.

However, according to official statements, the USSR bought grain not because of its shortage, but in order to produce milk and meat from fodder grain to improve the nutrition of the Soviet people, the Voice of America newspaper writes on its pages today.

During the development of virgin lands in 1959, a US national exhibition was held in Sokolniki, which was visited by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The exhibition, in particular, presented a sectional view of an American house with a kitchen, a washing machine and a dishwasher. It was here that the famous "kitchen debate" took place, when, demonstrating these achievements of the American way of life, US Vice President Richard Nixon reproached Khrushchev that such a powerful country as the USSR did not know how to make decent goods for people. Then for the first time the famous Khrushchev sounded: "We will show you Kuzka's mother!"

Nevertheless, the achievements of the American economy, coupled with the failure to develop virgin lands, made a strong impression on the Soviet leader. And soon Khrushchev began his restructuring of the national economy in four main directions. First, the borrowing of American agricultural technologies began, in particular, the "cornification of the whole country."

Secondly, the search for new oil fields began, including in the regions of Western Siberia that were inaccessible at that time.

Third, the priorities in the field of armaments changed: Khrushchev declared tanks, artillery, surface ships and aircraft to be "cave technology", and the basis of the Armed Forces, according to his plans, was to be rocket forces.

Finally, realizing that with the vertical of power that has existed since Stalin's times, reforms are unthinkable, Khrushchev started restructuring the system of managing the national economy, replacing the sectoral principle of organizing the economy with a territorial one (creating economic councils), the newspaper notes.

Khrushchev intuitively guessed a set of directions, movement along which could lead the country to a more efficient economic order. However, the practical implementation of the reforms completely discredited good intentions. But most importantly, the system opposed the reforms. In October 1964, Khrushchev was overthrown.

Information of the IA "Kazakh-Zerno": In prosperous years (1973, 1976, 1978, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990), the USSR collected an average of 812 kg gross and 753 kg net per inhabitant, or, respectively, an average of 222 million tons (in bunker weight of grain) and 206 million tons (in elevator weight of grain).

Since July 1972, the USSR began to make record purchases of food in the USA

Today Russia is one of the main exporters of wheat. But the flip side of the coin is an increase in imports from the West, in particular, of coarse grains and meat products from the United States, including poultry meat. Meanwhile, the decisive role of these supplies from the United States for the USSR-Russia became apparent 40 years ago.

Since July 1972, the USSR fell into the strongest dependence on grain imports from the United States. Moreover: the United States by the mid-70s. received an unprecedented right: to control the course of the annual grain harvest and its results on Soviet territory. And the prices for the Soviet oil imported by the Americans, by way of mutual exchange, were understated. By the way, even today Russian oil on the world market is 10 or even 15 percent cheaper than its foreign counterparts.

This situation was caused not only by the consequences of the notorious Khrushchev's "innovations" in agriculture (virgin and corn campaigns, the sale of MTS to collective farms, the elimination of grass-field crop rotations and clean fallows, "conservation" of soil-protective forest plantations). After all, even after the resignation of N.S. Khrushchev's policy of the country's leadership remained the same, that is, the extensive development of agriculture and animal husbandry continued, which presupposed, for example, the elimination of the so-called "unpromising villages"; widespread drainage of swamps and deforestation for a record expansion of agricultural area; rapid depletion of soils due to, again, a record supply of them with chemical fertilizers, etc.

The Voice of America reported on December 26, 2010: “In 1963, the United States began supplying grain to the USSR. For the first time, the Soviet Union was forced to purchase 12 million tons of grain abroad due to the fact that the efficiency of the developed virgin soils in Kazakhstan fell annually. The withdrawal from circulation of about a third of the virgin lands raised showed that extensive methods of development did not work. If in 1954-1958 the average wheat yield in the USSR was 7.3 centners per hectare, then by 1962 it had dropped to 6.1 centners / ha. In 1964, every third loaf of bread was baked from imported grain ... ”.

In 1959, at the end of the development of virgin lands, the first national exhibition of the USA in the USSR was held in Sokolniki, which was visited by N.S. Khrushchev. According to the American delegation, "the achievements of the American economy, coupled with the failures in the development of virgin lands, made a strong, depressing impression on the Soviet leader."

However, the USSR, according to his official statements and publications in Pravda and Rural Life, did not buy grain because of its shortage, but allegedly in order to “produce more milk and meat to improve the nutrition of Soviet people”.

Meanwhile, the situation was getting worse ...

So, June 1972: in the USSR, according to the US Department of Agriculture, a catastrophically low grain harvest is expected. Especially wheat. Already in the first ten days of July 1972, the delegation of the Soviet "Exportkhleb" literally within a week conducted successful negotiations on the purchase of grain with six American companies - the so-called "Big Six". Almost 8 million tons were contracted - that was the record level of the annual Soviet grain import for 1945-1972.

By the way, the visit of the Soviet delegation was deliberately timed to coincide with the US Independence Day - July 4, which psychologically helped the negotiations. And on July 8, 1972, President Richard Nixon announced, without specifying details, that "the USSR will buy from the United States the largest grain consignment in history."

When the leading comrades from "Exportkhleb" reported to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU about the successfully completed mission, they immediately received a new task: to buy more grain in the United States. And already in August the same delegation returned to the States, having contracted about 11 million tons more. In return, the USSR lowered "for an indefinite period" the export prices of its oil for the USA and Canada by 12-15 percent.

For 1973-1975, according to official statistics, Soviet grain purchases in the West exceeded 55 million tons in total, but, as in the 60s and early 70s, the share of imports from the United States exceeded 55 percent (the same products were purchased in Canada, Australia, Argentina, France). At the same time, in 1975, American lawyers accused the Big Six of the fact that the share of soaked cereals and even sand and various husks in export consignments was growing in order to “achieve” the contract volume. And to hide these facts, the companies allegedly bribe American and foreign inspectors. But this case was put on the brakes. According to a number of data, due to the fact that Soviet inspectors refused to testify against these companies ...

In the spring of 1975, US President Gerald Ford announced that a long-term mutually beneficial grain supply agreement would soon be signed with Moscow. On October 20, 1975, such an agreement was signed for a period of 5 years.

According to this document, the USSR pledged to annually purchase 6 million tons of grain from the United States for about 1 billion dollars. Moreover, the USSR had the right to increase the annual volume of purchases by 2 million tons without additional approvals from the US administration.

But already in 1977 the situation changed for the worse for Moscow. For under a special agreement, experts from the United States were allowed in the USSR ... to inspect areas under grain crops, and tsereuschie satellites were allowed to monitor these areas (!). Thus, the leadership of the USSR, willingly or unwillingly, voluntarily went to an unprecedented infringement of state sovereignty ...

These "innovations" were associated with the aggravation of the grain, or rather, the general food crisis in the USSR. Brezhnev himself mentioned the difficulties experienced by the country in his speech on November 7, 1977, announcing the planned grain imports of 20-25 million tons. And then, at the end of 1977, the Soviet delegation bought 15 million tons of grain, again from the United States.

1978 - 1979 Soviet purchases of grain in the United States amounted to about 16 million tons, but in January 1980, the United States imposed an embargo on these supplies due to the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. However, Moscow continued to buy these products through firms in Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Argentina, Scandinavia. Moreover, Soviet grain imports increased in the 1980s, according to official Soviet data, more than twofold. If we trace the dynamics of purchases, then in 1982 the volume of grain imports amounted to 29.4, in 1983 - 33.9, in 1984 - 46.0, in 1985 - 45.6, in 1986 - 26, 8, in 1987 - 30.4, in 1988 - 35.0, in 1989 - 37.0 million tons. At the same time, in percentage terms, almost half of all imports fell to the share of the same United States.

It is clear that the USSR, due to the growing grain dependence on the United States, became less active in foreign policy and, accordingly, was forced to increasingly reckon with the interests of Washington and the West as a whole.

This manifested itself, for example, during the British-Argentine war over the Falklands (1982), in the Soviet "information" reaction to the visits of government delegations of Pol Pot Cambodia to Romania and Yugoslavia (1977 - 1978), in the reaction to the destruction by Israeli Air Force of the nuclear center near Baghdad (1981), as well as during the Israeli and then NATO intervention in Lebanon (1982-1983). Let's remind that, for example, the Soviet ultimatum of 1958 prevented the aggression of Turkey and NATO against Syria ...

When foreign currency was in short supply, the Soviet Union was forced to spend its gold reserves to pay for grain and meat imports. According to American and other foreign sources, the USSR used over 900 tons of gold from the state reserve for the import of grain and meat in the 1960s and the first half of the 1980s. On average, this amounted to 12, or even 15 percent of this stock per year. It is clear that the country's gold reserves were replenished annually, including through gold mining. Nevertheless, if on January 1, 1953 it reached almost 2,100 tons, then by January 1, 1985 it was already less than 700 tons, and on January 1, 1992, it was only 480 tons (see, for example, Chadwick M, Long D ... Nissanke M. Soviet Oil Exports: Trade Adjustments. Refining Constraints and Market Behavior. Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 1987; Gold and Soviet trade: CIA. Wash. 1988).

It is also noteworthy how the then Soviet propaganda explained the usefulness of grain imports from the United States.

So, in the book of A.V. Kunitsyn "Economic relations of the CMEA countries with the USA" (Moscow: Nauka, 1982, pp. 61-62) said in all seriousness: "... By purchasing feed grain and other agricultural products in the United States, the CMEA countries take advantage of the international division of labor, associated with both natural and climatic, weather conditions, and with technical and economic factors of production and distribution. For example, it is economically more expedient for the Soviet Union to import grain to the Far East from the United States and other countries than to transport it over vast distances by rail from Ukraine or Kazakhstan "(but the distance from the Soviet Far East, at least to Kazakhstan, is much less than the distance from this region of the RSFSR to the Pacific coast of the United States! - A.L.). And further: “Additional purchases of American agricultural products helped our country to mitigate the negative effects of extremely unfavorable weather conditions in individual years. Among the CMEA countries, the USSR remains the main buyer of grain from the United States (73% of the total grain imports of the CMEA countries from the United States). In 1975 - 1979, cereals accounted for 60% of Soviet imports from the United States ... ".

The same edition provides a kind of additional justification for such a policy: “... As the Soviet economist M. Maksimova notes (see“ USSR and International Economic Cooperation. ”M .: Mysl, 1977), our country's purchases abroad helped to avoid interruptions in the supply of foodstuffs to the population, possible due to the difficult drought conditions, in which a number of large agricultural regions of the USSR found themselves in these years ... ".

Note that Australia, Argentina, Canada offered the USSR approximately the same volumes of grain at prices lower than American ones. Moreover, Australia and Argentina offered, in contrast to the United States, and barter payments. More precisely, a partial payment for these deliveries with Soviet goods. However, such transactions were for some reason scanty, and, accordingly, the pro-American balance of grain supplies in the USSR did not change ...

We also note that since the mid-1970s, imports of beef and poultry products from the United States began and began to grow rapidly - until the collapse of the USSR and later. True, up to 80 percent of these deliveries before 1986 - 1987. received Soviet meat processing and ... the Beryozok chain - currency check shops in the USSR. This is understandable. On the one hand, there are almost daily Soviet "records" in the field of animal husbandry. On the other hand, there are “Made in USA” labels on meat products. Could such a combination be allowed in mass trade stores?

In a word, the agricultural policy of the Soviet leadership in the 60s - 80s. led to a systemic crisis in agriculture and food industries. This, in turn, strengthened the country's dependence on the United States and significantly influenced the internal political situation in the country.

In the reports of the same “Voice of America” back in the late 70s, it was reported, in particular, that “more and more stores in the regions of the central regions of Russia (Central European Economic Region of the RSFSR. -A. L.) are sitting on“ hungry soldering ". Interruptions in bread, meat, milk and other products have become the norm. " It was also noted that “there are fewer quality food products in these and a number of other areas, and people from there are forced to“ storm ”shops in Moscow, Leningrad and regional centers. But there is an abundance of Soviet products in the so-called "collective farm" markets, but even many townspeople cannot afford their prices ... ".

According to the Kostroma agrarian economist Sergei Dovtenko, “since the 1960s, in connection with the resettlement of villages, an orientation toward large rural urban-type settlements prevailed in the Russian Non-Black Earth Region. But it contradicted traditional agricultural production, which, given the vast spaces and underdeveloped infrastructure in the new settlements, including household ones, actually self-destructed. And since the 1970s. the policy of eliminating "extra" villages has become more active, with inevitable socio-economic and environmental damage to the entire RSFSR. All these and similar problems have passed into present-day Russia, which, given the current agro- and land, and general economic policy of the authorities, cannot be resolved. "

Especially for the Century

It's not a mistake

Should we attach serious importance to “ blooper», « error», « inaccuracies», « use of unverified data», « incomplete storytelling»?

All these questions arose from my interlocutors during the discussion about the insistent presentation of the events of 1963 as significant for drawing the Soviet Union into dependence on grain imports by E.T. Gaidar, while completely ignoring the unexplained turning point that occurred in the mid-70s.

My boundless gratitude to A.N. Illarionov, who found my research interesting andput together my answers to these questions.

The result is as follows: The scale of falsifications, based on the postulate of the turning point of 1963, eventually grows to a direct distortion of periodization (“By 1965, it became obvious that not everything was in order in the Soviet national economy. The symptom was the transition from the position of a large net grain exporter, which Russia has been for many decades, to the position of a net importer. "- E. Gaidar, A. Chubais, Forks of the modern history of Russia, pp. 22-23).

Since "Fork" is, in fact, a digest of the book "The Death of an Empire", permeated with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe dominant role of grain and bread in Soviet history (which ended catastrophically due to a lack of foreign exchange due to the need to buy grain abroad), it can be assumed that the attribution of the beginning of dependence The USSR from imported grain in the mid 60s instead of the mid 70s was fundamentally important for the author.

So what happened in the mid-70s?

The International Grains Council (IGC), in its historical reference, publishes the following formulation of the extraordinary situation of those years:

« Large and unexpected purchases of grain by the USSR in the mid-1970s led to a decrease in global grain supplies to extremely low levels and a rapid increase in prices.».

Let us remember that Yegor Timurovich drew the readers' attention to the words of N.S. Khrushchev about how the world reacted in 1963 to the USSR's exit with a request for imports: “This immediately created a stir in the international grain market.". (Hereinafter, in italics - quotations from the book "The Fall of the Empire").

In fact, the volume of purchases by the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s was not reflected in the world price of wheat (Fig. 1). The country continued to remain a major exporter of grain in those years, despite the fact that in 1964-1966 the grain trade balance was negative.

Why did the purchases of grain from the USSR in the 70s so shook the world market? Unfortunately, it is impossible to find out the reason for what happened from the book The Death of an Empire, since it does not even say that the very fact of sudden large volumes of Soviet purchases was far from trivial, and even more so nothing about their impact on the world situation.

There is only a description of the situation, which the author presents as typical: “Selling gold is a critical way to manage the problems posed by low yields. This is evidenced by a sharp increase in the supply of gold abroad in 1973, 1976, 1978, 1981. The rise in gold prices following the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreements in the early 1970s helped the Soviet Union finance grain purchases. However, against the background of the rising gold prices from 1974-1975 on the international financial markets, the USSR becomes a net debtor. In the volume of borrowed loans, a high proportion are short-term - up to one year. In 1975, a bad harvest again forced the USSR to increase grain imports.»

We have already noted how Gaidar examined in detail the USSR's first entry into the world market, which led to a negative grain trade balance for three years in 1964-1966. (in total for these 3 years 11.8 million tons).

1963 is included in the book as an example for understanding the growing problem: “Grain consumption continues to exceed purchases, and reserves are dwindling. In 1960, grain procurement in the country, its consumption and the state reserve amounted to 46.7, 50.0 and 10.2 million tons, respectively, in 1963 - 44.8, 51.2 and 6.3 million tons,"- this is the only place in the book when Gaidar names the values \u200b\u200bof state grain reserves.

The description of the same period includes figures on the volume of gold sales required for the purchase of grain in 1963 (explanation - “low harvest, sharp decline in government reserves») - 372.2 tons of gold - more than a third of the gold reserves. And then simply: “In subsequent years, it becomes clear that grain purchases abroad are a given, ”- and in 1965 another 335.3 tons of gold were allocated for the purchase of food.

For the 70s, there is no such detailed study and exact numbers. The author confines himself to the wording linking increasing purchases with crop failures: “In the late 1960s - early 1980s, the Soviet leadership used the sale of gold only during crop failures, when the need for grain imports increased.»

If, on the graph showing the gross grain harvest (Fig. 2), we mark the years of large gold sales by the Soviet Union, named by E.T. Gaidar in the book "The Fall of an Empire", perhaps you can better understand why purchases of the 70s shocked the world market grains.

1963 and 1965 are lean years. Since the situation is clear to market participants, nothing happens to prices.

But if, after the not-so-significant drought of 1972, when, nevertheless, the USSR made purchases exceeding the total for the previous 5 (!) Years, a fantastically fruitful 1973 comes, and purchases increase by 1.5 times !? Prices are soaring.

And the surprises continue: after such and such a crop, expect a crop failure, but that was not the case - the indicator of 1974 is higher than all the previous ones, except only last year. But the Soviet Union continues to buy! - Yes, more than three times less than the day before, but this is 8 million tons.

1975. Maybe the world will breathe easy? - There is a drought in the USSR, but is it really a problem after three years of aggressive purchases (48.8 million tons were purchased)! No, it won't sigh. Purchases doubled over the previous year.

1976. New record of gross collection in the country. What about imports? - 21.6 million tons. And prices are where they should be in such a situation.

1977. It can be called unsuccessful only after two leaps (1973 and 1976). But, apparently, the world is tired of living in fear, so with almost 12 million tons of imports, the price went down.

1978. Harvest is habitually record, purchases abroad - 23.6 million tons.

And that is all. The harvest records have ended, but prices have remained. Rather, they went up the hill again.

“However, against the background of the rising prices for gold from 1974-1975 on the international financial markets, the USSR becomes a net debtor.”

So you need to save?

Apparently yes. For example, on partners.

Continuation.