247 



Van Atta 



13 



policy advisor. Nikolai Radugin. justified this extreme measure because of the 

 incompetence of the Ministry of Agriculture andGoskomzem. a clear reference 

 to the struggle for policy authority between those bodies and the Federal 

 Center. ■'4 However, doubts about Rutskoi's authority to issue such a command, 

 as well as quick clarifications from Goskomzem. blunted the effect of the order. 

 In areas of the country where local officials favored land reform, the directive 

 had little effect. Where they did not favor reform, thelirective simply 

 strengthened their reasons for resisting.^s 



Although Rutskoi's attempts to stop institutional change in the 

 countryside, like his repeated declarations during 1992 that the agrarian reform 

 had failed 16. could be justified as purely technical judgments-food supplies 

 had not been increased by reform, so it was not successful— they effectively 

 allied him with the most vocal opponents of any agrarian reform at all. the most 

 intransigent farm managers and local officials. 



Perhaps the most hopeful thing that can be said about this confused tale 

 of central wrangling is that it may not matter very much. The conflict of laws, 

 regulations, and agencies in post-Soviet agriculture is so severe that much of 

 the system is running on inertia or newly established direct ties between 

 producers, suppliers and consumers which avoid all the administrative 

 agencies and so any systematic accounting. 



14 N. Radugin. "O khode zemel'noi reformy.Ssilskaia ZtliZDl (November 



15 This analysis is based on the author's conversations in Moscow in 



16 For instance. Aleksandr Rutskoi. "Agropromyshlennaia reforma: Kakoi 

 ei byt'rSeLsllsia zhizn' (April 15. 1992). pp. 1-2 and 'Aleksandr Rutskoi. 

 Legche poiti v ataku na batareiu vraga chem pobedif korrumpirovannykh 

 chinovnikov."l2V£stiia (October 8. 1992). p. 3. 



