Narkomzem (People's Commissariat of Agriculture), RSFSR
The People's Commissariat for Agriculture (Narkomzem) of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was established in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in October 1917. Its headquarters later moved to 1 Orlikov Way in Moscow. Narkomzem was managed at the republic level and was therefore considered a lower-status administration. In 1929-‘30, the All-Union Narkomzem was created and the commissariat’s status was elevated. While Narkomzem played an important role in the socialist transformation of agriculture in the USSR, it did not expressly carry out forced collectivization of the countryside in the early 1930s. In 1946, All-Union Narkomzem was supplanted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
![PP 1174: Comrades peasants and workers!
Protect our bread from [General] Denikin's locusts.
Remember, comrades, only with a rifle in hand will we be able to defend the harvest!](https://www.posterplakat.com/thumbs/the-collection/posters/pp-1174/pp-1174-catalog-image-200x142.jpg)
Sources & Citations
Wengle, S. (2022). Black earth, white bread: a technopolitical history of Russian agriculture and food. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Smith, J. L. (2014). Works in progress: Plans and realities on Soviet farms, 1930-1963. New Haven: Yale University Press. (P. 240, Narkomzem post-1946)
Rees, E. A. (1997). Decision-making in the Stalinist command economy, 1932-37. London: Macmillan. (P. 153, Narkomzem’s role in socialist transformation of agriculture)
Davies, R. W. (1980). The industrialisation of Soviet Russia1: The Collectivisation of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-30. London: Macmillan. (P. 14, Narkomzem within the structure of the government)