The People's Commissariat for Agriculture, abbreviated as ''Narkomzem'' was established in the

RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

following the October Revolution. When the RSFSR joined the other Soviet republics to form the

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by are ...

(USSR), agriculture was to be an area of policy (along with education, health, etc.) governed exclusively by the individual union republics and Narkomzem remained a Commissariat of the RSFSR and other respective Soviet Socialist Republics. Coinciding with the onset of the policy of mass collectivisation of agriculture and the Five Year Plan, it was decided to create a union-level People's Commissariat for Agriculture of the USSR in 1929 which would exist above the republic-level People's Commissariats of Agriculture. Its headquarters building was located at Orlikov Pereulok, 1,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, designed by Aleksey Shchusev in 1928. ''Narkomzem'' was reformed as the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Ministry of Agriculture and Food (''Minsel'khoz'') in 1946.

History

1930-33grainUSSRandUkrSRRgraincollection

The commissariat united all republican commissariats of the Soviet Union. It was formally known as the People's Commissariat for Agriculture ( - ''Narkomzem'') was set up in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

in October 1917.

Vladimir Milyutin Vladimir Pavlovich Milyutin (Russian: Влади́мир Па́влович Милю́тин; 5 September 1884 – 30 October 1937) was a Russian Bolshevik leader, Soviet statesman, economist, and statistician who was People's Commissar for Agricu ...

was appointed the first People's Commissar of Agriculture. He was a member of the

Council of People's Commissars The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (), were the highest executive (government), executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Sovi ...

. The Ministry was abolished in November 1985 with the creation of the State Agro-Industrial Committee (''Gosagroprom'') which took over the functions of the Ministry for Agriculture, the Ministry for Fruit and Vegetable Production, the Ministry for the Meat and Dairy Industry, the Ministry of the Food Industry and the Ministry for Rural Construction.

Role in offensive Soviet biological warfare programme

For more than four decades, the USSR Ministry of Agriculture managed a large Soviet offensive biological warfare programme focused on the development of anti-livestock and anti-crop agents. The crucial step to initiating a coordinated large-scale agricultural biowarfare effort was the issue on the 7 August 1958 of decree No. 909–426 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the USSR Council of Ministers. It was officially focused on "''strengthening work in the field of microbiology and virology''". In reality the decree established six specialised research institutes and their affiliated branches under a secret new department of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture, the Main Administration for Scientific-Research and Experimental-Production Establishments (''GUNIiEPU''), also known as the 7th (Special) Administration of ''Minsel'khoz''. The agricultural biowarfare programme was given the name "Ekologiya" ("''Ecology''"), and was also referred to as Problem "E". The ''Ekologiya'' programme was composed of two very distinct strands, one focusing on plant diseases and the other on diseases associated with agricultural animals. Despite having signed the 1972

Biological Weapons Convention The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans Biological weapons, biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, ...

(BWC), the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

continued development and production of offensive

biological weapon Biological agents, also known as biological weapons or bioweapons, are pathogens used as weapons. In addition to these living or replicating pathogens, toxins and Toxin#Biotoxins, biotoxins are also included among the bio-agents. More than 1,2 ...

s. Under a new, top-secret, national nerve centre, the Interdepartmental Scientific-Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics, there was a major shift in focus to the development of genetically modified biological warfare agents, with wholly new and unexpected properties. Under the direction of the council, there was an intensification of the agricultural biowarfare programme with an expansion of the network of facilities. Some 10,000 scientists and technicians would eventually be enrolled within ''Ekologiya''. One aspect of the programme concerned the creation of reserve mobilisation production facilities for anti-agricultural BW agents. The best documented of these mobilisation plants was the Pokrov Factory of Biological Preparations, which was commissioned in 1979. During his 1993 visit to Pokrov, David Kelly, a UK weapons inspector, is reported to have departed the site feeling this was "''the most sinister facility''" he had visited in Russia. A number of biological agents were focused on by the ''Ekologiya'' network. The anti-livestock pathogens included:

rinderpest virus Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic water buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, buffaloes, large antelope, deer, giraffes, wildebeests, and ...

;

foot-and-mouth disease virus Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is a virus in the genus '' Aphthovirus'' that causes foot-and-mouth disease. As a member of the family ''Picornaviridae'', FMDV is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus. Like other members of the picornav ...

; ''

Bacillus anthracis ''Bacillus anthracis'' is a gram-positive and rod-shaped bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease to livestock and, occasionally, to humans. It is the only permanent (obligate) pathogen within the genus ''Bacillus''. Its infection is a ty ...

'' (the causative agent of anthrax),

African swine fever virus African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a large, double-stranded DNA virus in the ''Asfarviridae'' family. It is the causative agent of African swine fever (ASF). The virus causes a haemorrhagic fever, hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates i ...

, African horse sickness virus and sheeppox virus. Anti-crop pathogens studied and developed included: rice blast (''

Magnaporthe grisea ''Magnaporthe grisea'', also known as rice blast fungus, rice rotten neck, rice seedling blight, blast of rice, oval leaf spot of graminea, pitting disease, ryegrass blast, Johnson spot, neck blast, wheat blast and , is a plant-pathogenic fungus ...

''), rice bacteriosis (''

Xanthomonas oryzae ''Xanthomonas oryzae'' is a species of bacteria. The major host of the bacterium is rice. The species contains two pathovars, neither of which is native to Europe: ''X. o.'' pv. ''oryzae'' and ''X. o.'' pv. ''oryzicola''. ''Xanthomonas oryzae ...

''); late blight of potatoes (''

Phytophthora infestans ''Phytophthora infestans'' is an oomycete or Oomycete, water mold, a fungus-like microorganism that causes the serious potato and tomato disease known as late blight or potato blight. Early blight, caused by ''Alternaria solani'', is also often c ...

''); and rust diseases of wheat and other small grain crops. There is no reliable information at all with regard to which delivery systems were to be employed to allow the agricultural BW agents developed by the network to be used against enemy crops and herds of livestock.

Ken Alibek Kanatzhan "Kanat" Baizakovich Alibekov (born 1950), known as Kenneth "Ken" Alibek since 1992, is a Kazakh-American microbiologist, bioweaponeer, and biological warfare administrative management expert. He was the first deputy director of Biop ...

, who had some limited interaction with the Soviet military agricultural network, claims that the agents were "''designed to be sprayed from tanks attached to Ilyushin bombers and flown over a target area along a straight line for hundreds of miles''".

List of ministers

''Source'':

People's Commissars for Agriculture

(8.11.1917 - 29.11.1917) *

Andrei Kolegayev Andrei Lukic Kolegayev () (22 March 1887 – 23 March 1937) was a Left Socialist-Revolutionary and later Soviet statesman who advocated an alliance with the Bolsheviks. He was born in Surgut, Tobolsk Governorate in the family of an exiled Narodna ...

(23.12.1917 - 1.3.1918) *

Semyon Sereda Semyon Pafnutyevich Sereda (; 1 February 1871 – 21 May 1933) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician. He was the son of a railway employee. From 1896 to 1917 he worked as a statistician. Sereda joined the Bolshevik wing of th ...

(1.3.1918 - 1.12.1921) * Vasili Yakovenko (1.12.1921 - 6.7.1923) *

Yakov Yakovlev Yakov Arkadyevich Yakovlev (real name: Epstein; , 9 June 1896 – 29 July 1938) was a Soviet politician and statesman who played a central role in the forced collectivisation of agriculture in the 1920s. Early career Yakov Yakovlev was born in ...

(8.12.1929 - 1.4.1934) * Mikhail Alexandrovich Chernov (1.4.1934 - 29.10.1937) *

Robert Eikhe Robert Indrikovich Eikhe (, ; August 12, 1890 — February 4, 1940) was a Latvian Bolshevik and Soviet politician who was the provincial head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Siberia during the collectivization of agriculture, unt ...

(29.10.1937 - 15.11.1938) *

Ivan Benediktov Ivan Aleksandrovich Benediktov (; 23 March 1902 – 30 July 1983) was a Soviet official who served in different posts, including people's commissars for agriculture, then minister of agriculture and Soviet ambassador to India and to Yugoslavia. ...

(15.11.1938 - 11.12.1943) *

Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev (; 30 October 1895 – 5 December 1971) was a Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Soviet Communist politician. An Old Bolshevik who rose to power during the rule of Joseph Stalin, joining the Politburo as a candid ...

(11.12.1943 - 15.3.1946)

Ministers of Agriculture

* Andrei Andreev (19.3.1946 - 26.3.1946) *

(26.3.1946 - 6.3.1953) * Alexei Kozlov (6.3.1953 - 26.9.1953) *

(26.9.1953 - 18.10.1955) *

Vladimir Matskevich Vladimir Vladimirovich Matskevich (; 14 December 1909 – 7 November 1998) was the Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers from 9 April 1956 to 25 December 1956.Mikhail Olshanski (29.12.1960 - 24.4.1962) * Konstantin Pysin (25.4.1962 - 8.3.1963) * Ivan Volovtshenko (8.3.1963 - 18.2.1965) *

Vladimir Matskevich Vladimir Vladimirovich Matskevich (; 14 December 1909 – 7 November 1998) was the Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers from 9 April 1956 to 25 December 1956.Dmitry Polyansky Dmitry Stepanovich Polyansky (; – 8 October 2001) was a Soviet statesman who was First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union from 1965 to 1973. From 1958 to 1962 he was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ru ...

(2.2.1973 - 16.3.1976) * Valentin Mesyats (16.3.1976 - 18.11.1985)

Ministers of Agriculture and Food

* Vjatsheslav Chernoivanov (20.3.1991 - 24.8.1991)

References

External links

The Governments of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 1917-1964
{{authority control Agriculture and Food Agricultural organizations based in the Soviet Union

1991 disestablishments in the Soviet Union Soviet biological weapons program