This book explores the interconnections between climate, policy and agriculture in Russia and the former Soviet Union between 1900 and 1990. During this period there were several periods of grain and other food shortages some of which reached disaster proportions resulting in mass famine and death on an unprecedented scale. Several new sources of information not previously available as well as traditional official and other sources have been used to explore the extent to which policy and vagaries in climate conspired to affect agricultural yeilds. Were the leaders (Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev) policies sound in theory but failed in practice because of unpredictable weather? How did the Soviet peasants react to these changes? What impact did Soviet agriculture have on the overall economy of the country? These are all questions that are taken into account in this book. The book is arranged in chapters representing different time periods and the various political eras. In each the policy of the central government is discussed followed by the climate vagaries during that period. Crop yeilds are then analysed in the light of policy and climate.
This is probably the first text that comprehensively brings together all of these factors from such a wide range of sources in the last century.