Maoist Internationalist Movement

[MIM comments: Blind anti-communism rooted in the 
middle-class nature of U.$. politics causes many to 
think that China under Mao was as bad as capitalism in 
the West on the environment. Having also adopted the 
Western view of socialism without serious study, many 
budding environmentalists do not distinguish between 
what was happening in the Soviet bloc before it 
collapsed and what happened under Mao in China. 

The truth is that Chinese communists under Mao's 
leadership attacked Soviet renegades Khruschev and 
Brezhnev on the subject of the environment. The Soviet 
Union under Khruschev became a capitalist country, 
with the right to make profit enshrined in the 
Constitution. Below we reprint an excerpt from the 
most authoritative publication of the Communist Party 
of China, 1976.] 
  

Excerpt from 
"The Brezhnev Renegade Clique Damages Soviet 
Agriculture" 
Peking Review, No. 21 
May 21, 1976 

[ITALICS] 
In the vast countryside of the Soviet Union, land 
resources have been seriously damaged, crops have 
declined and the peasants' living standards are going 
from bad to worse. These are inevitable evil results 
of the all-round restoration of capitalism in the 
country by the Soviet revisionist renegade clique, 
which has stopped at nothing to grab maximum profits 
in the rural areas. 

The following two articles expose how the clique has 
brought this about. 
[END ITALICS] 

Land resources seriously spoiled 

After usurping political power the Khruschov-Brezhnev 
clique has thrown Soviet agricultural production into 
an increasingly grave crisis. To extricate itself from 
the predicament in grain production, this clique has 
resorted to land reclamation. Vast areas of wasteland 
were opened up in Kazakhstan, Siberia, the Urals, 
areas along the Volga River and some regions in north 
Caucasus. Brezhnev has on many occasions bragged about 
the "results" of land reclamation in Kazakhstan, 
alleging that is has "rejuvenated" Kazakhstan and 
brought about "radical changes in economy, culture and 
the complexion of this vast region." 

But facts are the very reverse. The living cover in 
the steppe of the newly reclaimed areas has been 
gravely damaged as a result of the Soviet 
revisionists' policy of land reclamation, which is 
aimed at grabbing grain for the year without paying 
attention to capital construction on the farms. This 
is a capitalist method of management, namely, draining 
a pond to catch all the fish. 

Dust storms 

The Soviet journal ITALICS Agricultural Economy END 
ITALICS admitted that dust storms have been caused 
"mainly by the shortage of ordinary and 
field-protecting forests and by the unsatisfactory 
conditions and distribution of existing shelter 
belts." Another Soviet journal ITALICS Our 
Contemporary END ITALICS disclosed in its 12th issue 
last year that dust storms occur "more frequently 
indeed" in the country and have almost become 
"ordinary phenomena." Beginning from 1969, nearly 
every spring there has been wind erosion," it added. 

The Soviet press reported that two dust storms in the 
spring of 1960 swept the vast southern part of the 
great Russian plain and more than 4 million hectares 
of spring crops in reclaimed areas were affected. In 
1963 dust storms affected a larger area than in 1960. 
The affected cultivated land in the reclaimed areas in 
Kazakhstan came to 20 million hectares. A dust storm 
in 1969 destroyed in a few days all the wheat on 
820,000 hectares in Krasnodar, Stavropol and Rostov. 
The Soviet publication ITALIC Moscow END ITALICS 
admitted: "Dust storms sweep over all reclaimed land 
in Kazakhstan every year." 

The Brezhnev clique's militarization of the national 
economy has resulted in a shortage of funds for 
capital construction of farmland. Its management 
policy of "profit comes first" has led the leading 
members of collective and state farms to confine their 
attention to immediate interests at the expense of 
farmland protection. 

Water erosion 

Construction of new water conservancy projects has 
become sluggish in recent years while existing 
establishments have been rapidly out of commission 
owing to lack of maintenance. According to obviously 
doctored data released by official Soviet quarters, 
every year, the newly increased irrigated acreage 
accounted for only 0.4 percent of the total arable 
land of the country, while the rejected irrigated land 
was equal to one-sixth of the increase. Woods have 
been felled at random in many places. As a result, 
soil erosion has become more serious year after year. 
The journal ITALIC Agricultural Economy ITALICS END in 
its 8th issue last year reported that in Azerbaijan 
alone, "48 million tons of fertile soil are washed 
away every year. . . 3.3. million hectares of land are 
eroded. It is not difficult to conceive what great 
losses erosion has brought to the national economy in 
Azerbaijan." 

Take the Don River basin in the Russian Federative 
Republic. "In Rostov, water erosion brings longer and 
more serious damage than wind erosion," according to a 
report by ITALICS Our Contemporary END ITALICS in its 
12th issue last year. "The arable land decreases by 
8,000 hectares every year in the Don River basin as a 
result of the washing away of soil" and "the losses 
caused by water loss and soil erosion in the Don River 
basin amount to 40 million rubles every year," it 
noted. 

The journal ITALICS Moscow END ITALICS also revealed 
that "more and more ravines have appeared" owing to 
water erosion, and that "in the Ukraine about one 
million hectares of land are criss-crossed with many 
ravines. In the Russian central black-soil belt, the 
average length of ravines per square kilometre is 580 
metres and, in Kursk and Orel Regions, 700 metres." 

Land turning alkaline 

Since the Soviet revisionist renegade clique usurped 
political power, vast tracts of fertile Soviet land 
have become barren. ITALICS Agricultural Economy END 
in its 8th issue of 1975 disclosed that "owing to bad 
management fertile land in some areas is undergoing a 
process of erosion, becoming alkaline or turning in to 
swamp land again." The journal also reported that in 
the Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia there 
were 9.6 million hectares of swamp, alkaline, wasted 
and erosive land shrubbery in 1973, constituting 52 
percent of the total land area. It is reported that in 
Volgograd of the Russian Federative Republic erosive 
and alkaline land accounts for over 80 percent of the 
arable land. 

According to the fifth issue of ITALIC Agricultural 
Economy END ITALICS last year, in Vietebsk Region of 
Byelorussia 361,000 hectares of arable land were 
overgrown with shrubs, constituting 20 percent of the 
total arable land. In a state farm of this region, 
"all the arable land has become wild, swampy and full 
of shrubs and rocks." The ITALICS Moscow END ITALICS 
revealed that one-third of the farmland in the Ukraine 
has turned poor as a result of water erosion. 
Thirty-one thousand hectares of fertile land in Rostov 
turned barren in the decade of 1961-70. 

Arable land shrinking 

The acreage of Soviet arable and grazing land 
decreases year after year as more and more farmland 
lies waste. The Soviet press has to admit that "owing 
to various causes, arable land in some areas has kept 
shrinking." Because of "neglect and violating 
elementary rules of utilization, large stretches of 
natural grazing land and grassland are covered with 
shrubs, dunes and swamps." ITALICS Agricultural 
Economy ITALICS END disclosed in its 8th issue last 
year that "arable land in Georgia, Azerbaijan and 
Armenia decreased by 961,900 hectares or 9.8 percent 
in 1973 as compared with 1950; and cultivated land by 
676,400 hectares, or 22 percent. In this respect, the 
problem in Georgia is more serious. In the same 
period, its cultivated land contracted by 486,400 
hectares, or 41.1 percent." 

The damage done to land resources affects grain 
production. It is precisely in Kazakhstan where 
Brezhnev once took charge of land reclamation, that 
harvests have  fallen for three years running since 
1972 and grain output in 1975 was down 60 percent 
compared with 1972. 
 
 


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