Expansion of crops of Khrushchev corn. Posters from the time of Khrushchev's "Corn Campaign"

September 7 marks 65 years since Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev took over as first secretary of the Communist Party. In March 2016, a survey was conducted: respondents were asked to answer what events that occurred during his tenure in power, they remember the most. In the first place, predictably, was Gagarin's flight into space, in the second - the development of virgin lands, and the third were expensive and unsuccessful experiments in agriculture. Khrushchev and corn are remembered more than "Khrushchev" or the debunking of Stalin's personality cult.
It is believed that the idea to sow almost the entire territory of the USSR with corn came from Khrushchev during a trip to the United States. But interest in this culture, according to the ex-head of the country's own recollections, arose in his youth, when he became a fitter's apprentice at a machine-building and iron foundry near Yuzovka (now Donetsk).

“Corn was the main crop for feeding livestock. It used to happen that a Ukrainian goes to the market in Yuzovka, grabs a bag of corn and, of course, a trough in a cart, then pours cobs into the trough, and the horses gnaw the corn,” Khrushchev wrote in his book “Time. People. Power (Memories).
In 1955, Khrushchev spoke at the plenum and talked a lot about animal husbandry. He set the Americans as an example: they are doing business much more successfully than us, and therefore they don’t line up for meat. And the editor of one of the newspapers published in the state of Iowa went further and even invited Soviet collective farmers to come to the USA. Khrushchev decided to send a delegation of agricultural scientists to the States to collect agricultural "intelligence". At the end of the trip, the delegates presented a report, one of the main places in which was given to corn. When in 1956 Khrushchev demanded to “catch up and overtake America” in terms of meat and milk production, there were no questions about how to feed this army of cows, pigs and other livestock.

In 1959, the area occupied by corn increased by about a third - at that time it replaced only industrial crops and forage grasses. Landings were placed in the North Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova. In the same year, Nikita Khrushchev spent two weeks in the United States, where he managed to visit Roswell Garst's farm in Iowa.

The head of the USSR, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1954, after assigning the status of "the main agricultural crop" to corn, called it "a tank in the hands of soldiers." And besides, Nikita Sergeevich felt genuine sympathy for the "queen of the fields", as she would later be called. But corn happiness never came to the USSR. Probably the US intelligence agencies also played a role in this.

Corn can be said to have saved Khrushchev's life. An inexperienced politician, coming from peasants, nevertheless possessing a peasant grip, back in 1948, being the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, he ordered an increase in the area under corn. And as he looked into the water - the next year the republic was struck by a drought, which was nothing to corn. But for the new "Holodomor" the party governor could answer to Comrade Stalin not only with his position, but also with his head.

Catch up and overtake America.

Of course, varieties of this cereal were grown in the USSR - in Ukraine, in Moldova, in the Kuban and in the North Caucasus. But after genetics was declared a pseudoscience in the country, selection work was practically reduced to zero, as a result of which varieties began to degenerate. Specialists of the Ministry of Agriculture conducted monitoring and came to the conclusion that the most promising variety is the "double interline hybrid" "Cooper Supercross", bred in the United States on the basis of farms of the Pioneer Hee-Bred Corn agricultural company, which was reported to Khrushchev. He, after a brief hesitation, agreed to purchase a large consignment of grains. Nikita Sergeevich was also impressed by the fact that the founder and current president of the company was a certain Henry Egard Wallace, who had a benevolent attitude towards socialism in general and the Soviet Union in particular. As a result of the negotiations, the supply of grain was entrusted to Pioneer's chief manager, an experienced farmer Roswell Garst, whom the head of the Soviet state received in 1955 in Moscow with open arms, and during a visit to the United States four years later visited his friend's farm in Iowa. And now, after a batch of grain arrived in the USSR, our breeders, on the basis of the revived experimental stations of the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing, began to create domestic varieties. For three years, agronomists and breeders managed to breed four species - VIR-42, VIR-25, Odessa-10 and Krasnodar 1/49. It remained only to throw the grain into the ground and wait for the harvest.

Celebration of the "Queen of the Fields".

In the excitement that arose, no one noticed the first danger - instead of the sown areas intended for the usual crop rotation (rye, wheat), plantations of the "miracle cereal" began to grow like mushrooms after rain. Moreover, in accordance with the instructions from above, not only in the southern regions of the country, but also in the northern ones - in particular, in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions. The main motto of agricultural workers was: “Give 50 centners per hectare!” Those who overfulfilled this plan received state awards or were awarded the title of “Honorary Corn Grower”. But negligent bosses, whose farms did not fulfill the plan, were ruthlessly removed from their posts and lost their party cards. It even came to paradoxes: okay, magazine covers were full of color pictures of the “queen”, let books like “Corn grower Pelageya Gontar” appear, but everyone was outdone by a combine harvester from Zaporozhye, who named his son Kukutsapol (“corn is the queen of the fields”). But the second mistake was noticed only in 1964, when it turned out that at least 60% of the crops from grains produced two years ago died. And then it turned out that the “Cooper Supercross” quality of the grains is indeed preserved not only in the first, but also in subsequent generations in accordance with the “heterosis effect”. But this same effect is valid only at the latitude of the state of Iowa, on which our southern, but by no means central, and even more so northern regions are located.

Did the Americans know about it? Of course, they knew, but "tactfully" kept silent. The Americans were well aware that you would not find such climatic conditions in the USSR during the day with fire. It can be said that it was a well-planned action, as a result of which the main "corn grower" of the country lost his position, and the USSR took a new course - towards stability, then towards stagnation, and then towards the complete collapse of the country.

But it all started with innocent corn, which in experienced hands can also become a time bomb.

In 1959, the II Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR opened (until August 16, 1959). For the first time, teams of production teams were allowed to participate in the final competitions of the Spartakiad - winners of the championship of the Union republics in athletics, cycling, weightlifting, gymnastics, which greatly influenced the level of results in these types of programs.


In total, 78 teams from 60 territories, republics and regions of the USSR took part in the Spartakiad. The best prizes were awarded by the Central Council of sports societies and organizations. About 40 million Soviet citizens participated in the qualifying competitions that preceded the final starts and were held in 190,000 physical education teams. The final competitions were held in Moscow in 22 sports. Chess, motorsport and table tennis made their debut at the Spartakiad.


8452 sportsmen of 43 nationalities of all union republics took part in the final stage. At the Spartakiad, 12 records of the Soviet Union, 3 world records were set. In the team standings, the first place was taken by the athletes of the Moscow team - 344 points. In second place - the team of the RSFSR - 329.5 points, in the third team of Leningrad - 324 points.

Khrushchev believed that the widespread cultivation of corn would help to get out of the crisis of unprofitable Soviet agriculture and raise the collective farm-state farm village to a new level. The fact is that at that time there was a shortage of grain in the country, and this despite the plowed virgin lands. The shortage of grain, in turn, created a shortage of feed for livestock and, as a result, a shortage of meat. But here a way out appeared, corn can easily solve these two problems. And here a boom began, almost all areas are sown with corn in all agricultural regions, including the "cultivated" areas of the Non-Black Earth region with its cold climate and poor soils for this crop.

Corn is moving into the category of the queen of the fields, it alone should help to develop, coping with the shortage of raw materials, several branches of the agricultural industry at once. The zeal in spreading this almighty savior even crossed the boundaries of the Arctic Circle, and there the authorities demanded to grow it. Yes, yes, they demanded it, at that time there was such a saying among the local heads of agricultural enterprises: “Corn must be planted and harvested so that you yourself are not planted or harvested.”

Nikita Khrushchev and corn fever

What has so influenced such a general hobby for growing corn. As they say, the fish rots from the head, Khrushchev, at that time the leader of our country, played a special role in this.

Not only was Nikita Sergeevich a native of the Chernozem region (Kursk region), he also lived for a long time in Ukraine, where corn grows well and was always willingly grown there, he was also in close friendship with the American farmer Roswell Garst, an ardent propagandist of corn culture . This friendship with an American farmer finally formed such a categorical love for corn in the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Khrushchev, since 1955, after the first visit to Garst, more than once hosted him, and he himself, when he was on a visit to the USA in 1959, specially drove to the farm to his beloved friend. On the Garst farm, he was once again convinced of the enormous possibilities of corn culture.

Garst had a highly profitable corn farm. The Secretary General did not take into account only that this highly profitable farm is located at the latitude of Georgia and agricultural technology and capabilities, to put it mildly, differ from our Soviet principles of management. Once, on one of his visits, Garst, traveling around farms somewhere in the Kuban, was shocked by local agricultural technology, he almost got into a fight with the chairman of the local collective farm when he saw that when sowing corn, fertilizers were not applied here at the same time. What to do, he did not know that the collective farm had neither fertilizers nor special equipment - also a shortage.

Nikita Khrushchev about corn

Nikita Khrushchev will retain his reverent attitude towards corn even when he is already retired!

Nevertheless, one branch received an incentive to develop due to the widespread cultivation of corn - this is agricultural aviation, and those same AN-2 "corn-growers". True, Soviet reality did not go away here either, the fact is that there was a strong shortage of herbicides for pollinating fields that were supposed to fight weeds.

As a result of all these efforts to make a revolution in agriculture, nothing good came of it, except for glory, of course. It was expected to receive 500-600 centners of green mass, as it was in America, but it turned out to be 70 centners, and even then, this is in the Chernozem zone, in the Non-Chernozem region, 30 centners came out per hectare.

The realization of the unfulfillment of the dream came to Khrushchev later, so to speak, when he was already on a well-deserved rest and writing his memoirs.

Only anecdotes, propaganda materials and an established stereotype remained from the corn company: if corn is necessarily Khrushchev.

I am a grain culture

Me and consumer goods!

I am cereal and margarine

I'm cereal and gelatin.

rubber and acetone

And triple cologne.

Etc -

I'm capable of anything!

This is an excerpt from a ditty performed by corn in the form of a pullet in a skirt, in the 1957 propaganda cartoon "Wonder Woman". The cartoon tells and shows how successfully and easily the northern latitudes of our country were sown with corn. This is a musical poster film promoting the virtues of corn.

September 7 marks 65 years since Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev took over as first secretary. In March 2016, he conducted a survey: respondents were asked to answer which events that occurred during his tenure in power, they remember the most. In the first place, predictably, was space flight, the second was the development of virgin lands, and the third were expensive and unsuccessful experiments in agriculture. Khrushchev and corn are remembered more than "Khrushchev" or the debunking of Stalin's personality cult.

It is believed that the idea to sow almost the entire territory of the USSR with corn came from Khrushchev during a trip to the United States. But interest in this culture, according to the ex-head of the country's own recollections, arose in his youth, when he became a fitter's apprentice at the Machine Building and Iron Foundry near Yuzovka (now Donetsk).

“Corn was the main crop for feeding livestock. It used to happen that a Ukrainian goes to the market in Yuzovka, grabs a bag of corn and, of course, a trough in a cart, then pours cobs into the trough, and the horses gnaw the corn, ”Khrushchev wrote in his book Time. People. Power (Memories).

In 1955, Khrushchev spoke at the plenum and talked a lot about animal husbandry. He set the Americans as an example: they are doing business much more successfully than us, and therefore they don’t line up for meat. And the editor of one of the newspapers published in the state of Iowa went further and even invited Soviet collective farmers to come to the USA. Khrushchev decided to send a delegation of agricultural scientists to the States to collect agricultural "intelligence". At the end of the trip, the delegates presented a report, one of the main places in which was given to corn. When in 1956 Khrushchev demanded to “catch up and overtake America” in terms of meat and milk production, there were no questions about how to feed this army of cows, pigs and other livestock.

American miracle

By 1959, the area occupied by corn had increased by about a third - at that time it had replaced only industrial crops and forage grasses. Landings were placed in the North Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova. In the same year, Nikita Khrushchev spent two weeks in the United States, where he managed to visit Roswell Garst's farm in Iowa.

He ended up there not by chance - in 1955, after the departure of the Soviet delegation from the States, the USSR invited American farmers to visit. Garst obtained permission to travel to the USSR and even the right to trade. The farmer met with Khrushchev and persuaded him to buy 5,000 tons of corn kernels. They paid in gold bars - there was nothing more to pay with.

Khrushchev's son, Sergei, in the book Nikita Khrushchev. Reformer,” recalls: “I found out that my father put his hand into the gold storerooms soon after his return from vacation. He, in my presence, discussed with one of his colleagues the benefits of the deal made with Garst. I got angry...

My father listened to me benevolently and replied with a quote from Eugene Onegin: How the state grows rich, And how it lives, and how, It does not need gold, When it has a simple product.

Corn for every home

Since 1959, corn plantings in the USSR began to grow almost exponentially: if in 1956 18 million hectares were allocated for them, then by 1962 - 37 million hectares. Corn was sown not only in the south of the country, but also in the northern regions, up to the Vologda Oblast, although it did not ripen well in the local climate. Only in Western Siberia, corn crops from 1953 to 1960 increased from 2.1 thousand hectares to 1.6 million hectares, while the yield was 7.5 q / ha.

For the North Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova, hybrid corn seeds were purchased in the USA and Canada, which gave large yields, and for a while this made it possible to solve the problem of feeding livestock in these regions. But already in 1960, imported seeds became too expensive, and Soviet seeds had to be planted.

The whole country was captured by the "corn fever" - films and cartoons were made about it, poems and songs were written, and corn champagne, sticks, bread, cereal and even corn sausage were presented in stores. Corn appeared both in children's amateur performances and on campaign posters - for example, with the slogans "Let beans walk around the Union in an embrace with corn" and "Each heifer for corn."

It would seem that the construction of communism was in full swing (in 1960, Khrushchev at the XXII Party Congress assured that it would be completed in 20 years), feed for livestock in the form of corn silage was found, and, consequently, a bright future awaited people. But everything turned out to be not so simple - in the south, corn gave excellent harvests, but in the north they could not boast of success. Just as important, corn supplanted other essential crops, and this eventually led to a shortage of bread.

“The failure was due to the very mechanism for implementing the idea of ​​the chairman of the Politburo. The political situation of those years assumed unconditional, automatic conciliation with the initiative party, its Central Committee and the Politburo of the Central Committee. Therefore, as they said back in Stalin's, "excesses on the ground" not only took place, but prevailed. It must also be taken into account that, by the time of Khrushchev's leadership, the Soviet school of genetics in crop production, scientific breeders, the selection school as a whole were either physically destroyed to a large extent (the clearest example is) or brought under the "administrative line". The implementation (ideologically, in terms of materiel) was not headed by specialists, in fact, planting (without taking into account the properties of the soil and often climatic conditions) was carried out by student, volunteer Komsomol detachments - they did not have special specialized training, ”explains the director of the NRA corporate ratings department.

Payment for labor

If in 1955-1959 Soviet agriculture showed an annual growth of an average of 7.6%, then during the years of Khrushchev's reforms and innovations (1959-1962), this figure fell to 1.7%. In 1962, the “queen of the fields” already occupied 37 million hectares, but in most of the Non-Chernozem and eastern regions, the entire corn crop was lost. For the needs of livestock, corn turned out to be a help, which had a positive effect on the state of animal husbandry.

“Some people in the USSR did not understand me before and do not understand me now. There are those who condemned me then and condemn me now. I think it's due to ignorance. They do not understand that there is no other crop equal to corn for animal husbandry. It may be objected that not everywhere. Yes, but the main thing is the people. In the same climatic region, corn does not grow in one person, while in another it yields 500 and 1000 centners of silage mass. To put it bluntly: for a smart one, it has an effect, but for a fool, oats and barley will not grow, ”Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs.

In the fall of 1962, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the allied Council of Ministers issued a decree "On putting things in order in the expenditure of grain resources", limiting the sale of bread to 2.5 kg per person - there was no longer enough grain for grinding.

“The consequences of thoughtlessly following the directives “from above” were catastrophic. I remember well how, as a child, I stood in line for bread - there was gray bread, black too, but there was no white. Rolls were given either by coupons, or in accordance with the norms of leave. I was then 7-8 years old, and in one hand I could get two white rolls for 7 kopecks. To do this, it was necessary to stand in two lines - one to the cashier, the other to issue, because there might well not be enough bread. On TV they showed clogged store shelves - they say, look, there is bread. But these were photographs taken before people entered this store, ”Alexander Bessolitsyn, professor at the Department of the History of Economics at the Institute of Social Sciences, shared his memories with Gazeta.Ru.

In 1963 the situation worsened. Due to crop failure, the gross grain harvest amounted to only 107.5 million tons (30% less than in 1962), and the yield dipped from 10.9 to 8.3 c/ha. “The country is on the brink. There was no talk of a famine comparable to the famine of 1890, but my father had no time for reforms. In 1963, all efforts were reduced to how to hold out until the new harvest, ”writes in his book. According to him, not only white bread disappeared from the shelves, but also semolina, vermicelli and other products.

“The crop failure of 1963 hit hard on the authority of the father. Still, two years ago he promised to build communism, and now you won’t find decent bread in the store. And free bread disappeared from canteens, as they explained - temporarily, only for a year ... Contrary to the facts, people suddenly began to think that under Stalin they lived better, ”complains Sergey Khrushchev.

The USSR had to buy grain from the capitalists. “All together amounted to about 12 million tons. Getting rid of hunger cost 372.2 tons of gold out of the stock of 1082.3 tons available for that year,” Sergey Khrushchev calculated.

In mid-October, she announced that the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee granted Khrushchev's resignation. After coming to power, corn was almost completely ousted from arable land - it was no longer grown even in those parts of the country where it had been done for a long time and successfully.