Tag Archives: Soviet Union

Paul Reynolds

‘The future’s bright’ – be wary of futurology

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 7th October 2025 - 11:54 am
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The Soviet politburo member stands on a high pedestal above the vast crowd. ‘In the future’ he says ’there will be no hunger. In the future you will be able to eat as much as you wish’; adding  ‘Vast state farms will provide for your needs, and science will bring us new foods’. He waved at the sea of flags.

In Post-War USSR there were continuing food shortages, mostly due to the abolition of ‘politically threatening’ collective farms, in favour of larger state mega-farms. Those new state farms were catastrophically unproductive. ‘Artificial food’ factories stayed experimental.

I heard similar messianic speeches when I worked in an unreformed Belarus in the 1990s for President Lukashenka and Piotr Kapitula. They had a strangely familiar ring… Why tackle the nitty-gritty problems of the agriculture sector when you can paint a picture of a coming nirvana and plenty, subduing the ‘impatient’ masses.

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