Khrushchev Criticises Private Car Production

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29766, 8 March 1962, Page 7

Khrushchev Criticises Private Car Production

(N L.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, March 6. Mr Khrushchev had criticised the switching of a former combine harvester works to producing cars that the Soviet Union could “still get along without,” Moscow Radio reported today.

The radio, broadcasting in full die Soviet Prime Minister's speech on agriculture yesterday, quoted him as saying: “How can one rest on one's laurels if no more titan a quarter of 'tic cows are milked mechanically even on the State farms, if a large part of the maize or grain is harvested by hand, if the harvesting of sugar beet and potatoes is not mechanised, if there are far too few machines for loading and unloading work? "We cannot but be disturbed by the fact that, in

comparison with 1957. when far more attention was given to the problem of mechanisation. the supply of certain machines to agriculture has decreased. Is there really any justification for this? Agricultural Machines

"1 think that we began too soon to turn over agricultural machine building works to the output of other goods, which are far from being the most necessary “You remember the Kom-

munar combine harvesters? They were highly praised

by agricultural workers. . . . “What is now produced at the former combine harvester works? Small-capacity Zapozhets cars for sale to private persons. The country could, of course, still get along without these cars,” he said. At today's central committee meeting, the first secretary of the Kazakhstan Party Central Committee (Dr. Dinbuhammed Kunayev) blamed shortcomings of management.

the grassland rotation system, poor cultivation, and the use of non-certified seed as the main reason for the lag in the Republic's grain production.

The first deputy chairman of the Communist Party

Bureau of the Russian Republic (Mr Gennady Voronov) told the committee that under Stalin agriculture had been managed by inefficient people who gave a rosy picture of tile state of affairs. These people, by their wrong actions, had been wrecking 'the economic foundation of farm production. Reuter quoted Mr Voronov as saying a new structure for

managing agriculture had been worked out in the Russian Federation. The row crops system was being used widely, replacing the outdated land rotation system.