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The Making of Modern Russia, 1855–1991

Feeding the population, 1861–1991

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 3

Overview

Recall questions on the famine of 1891, grain procurement in the 1930s, wartime shortages, private plots, the scale of grain imports, and the Food Programme.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

What was the significance of the 1891 famine?

Who and when

How did the Second World War affect food supply?

Key term

What was the significance of private plots?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why did the USSR import Western grain in 1972–79?

    Model answer

    Because domestic agriculture repeatedly failed to feed the population, forcing large grain purchases from the West.

  2. 2

    How well did Russian agriculture feed the population before 1914?

    Model answer

    It produced exportable surpluses in good years, but famine recurred, notably in 1891-92 when around 400,000 died, and peasant diets were poor.

  3. 3

    What was the significance of the 1891 famine?

    Model answer

    Government inadequacy in relief discredited the autocracy, and the voluntary relief effort mobilised educated society politically for the first time.

  4. 4

    How did the state extract grain in the 1930s?

    Model answer

    Through compulsory deliveries at nominal prices from collective farms, with Machine Tractor Stations taking payment in kind and enforcing quotas.

  5. 5

    How did the Second World War affect food supply?

    Model answer

    Occupation of the grain-producing west, loss of livestock and manpower, and Lend-Lease food imports were needed to prevent famine in the cities.

  6. 6

    What was the significance of private plots?

    Model answer

    Around three per cent of cultivated land produced roughly a quarter of Soviet agricultural output by value, which demonstrated the incentive problem starkly.

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AThe government admitted 96 dead and 333 wounded.
BOther estimates run to several hundred dead.
COpponents claimed thousands.

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