Word: matskevich
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...U.S.S.R.'s perennial agricultural crisis has once again taken its toll in fall guys. This time the Kremlin abruptly removed Vladimir Matskevich, 63, as Minister of Agriculture. A two-time loser, Matskevich had been fired from the same job in 1960 for "mismanagement," then shunted off to be chairman of Nikita Khrushchev's much criticized "virgin lands" project before being restored to the agriculture ministry five years later. Earlier this month Izvestia reported that Sergei Shevchenko, the ministry official in charge of farm machinery, had also been discharged for "violating state discipline"-Soviet jargon for quarreling with...
Although the Soviet Union's capricious weather and its inefficient collective farm system are the basic causes for crop failures, such scapegoats as Matskevich and Shevchenko serve handily to divert public discontent away from top Kremlin leaders. And shortages in 1972 of basic foodstuffs provided ample grounds for discontent, as citizens queued for bread in major Soviet cities last fall (TIME, Oct. 30). A recent Soviet statistical report showed that grain production fell 30 million tons below expectations in 1972, while the potato crop was down 14.5 million tons. That disaster forced the Soviets to contract for $2 billion...
...Matskevich's successor turned out to be First Deputy Premier Dmitri Polyansky, 55, who has had overall policy charge of agriculture for several years in the Politburo, but now assumes daily operational control of the Soviet Union's $100 billion investment in farms. Some specialists view his appointment as a demotion. They speculate that it may be a canny move to unseat him from the Politburo altogether, reflecting an obscure Kremlin power struggle...
...Soviet Union is suffering from its worst food shortages since the crop failures of 1963-as Agriculture Minister Vladimir Matskevich recently acknowledged. Such admissions are rare. As Russian trade officials in Washington pressed last week for rapid delivery of 11 million tons of American wheat and other foodstuffs, the Soviet press maintained silence about the $ 1.5 billion worth of agricultural produce the U.S.S.R. has contracted to purchase from the West through June...
...with the entire loan repaid within three years after the last delivery. As recently as Nixon's summit trip to Moscow in May, Soviet negotiators were insisting on interest rates only half as large. Said Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz, who showed American farms to Soviet Agriculture Minister Vladimir Matskevich last fall: "The agreement does not involve subsidies to the Russians...