456 
how in Vladivostok we had to discuss no less important problems, but there 
was no division into mine and yours, everything was ours. . . . 
The Soviet fisheries catch in 1970 increased by 10.5 percent over 
that of the previous year and it would take a superb marketing and 
sales organization to absorb it in its trading network for delivery 
to consumers in a wholesome state. The Soviet Ministry of Domestic 
Trade obviously was unable to perform that service and, as the 
polemics continued, an important Soviet fisheries official called for 
the transfer of the wholesale fish marketing function to Minrybkhoz.* 
The article, one of the best and most informative ever written 
on this subject, was authored by the Chief of the Fish Marketing 
Administration of the Northern Regional Fisheries Administration 
(Sevryba), Mr. P. Efimov. It is given in appendix 1 in its entirety. 
Efimov accuses the Ministry of Domestic Trade of simply distributing 
rather than promoting fishery products, of an inability to make availa- 
ble a wide assortment of such wares, of not having expanded its 
wholesale facilities to the degree the population increases demanded, 
and of shipping fishery products across the entire U.S.S.R. rather 
than selling them in nearby population centers at lower cost. The 
publication of the article in the Ekonomicheskaia Gazeta, the organ 
of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party must have 
caused shudders in the Ministry of Domestic Trade. 
Nothing happened, however, and when in August 1973, the re- 
doubtable Soviet Fisheries Minister, Mr. Ishkov, used an interview 
with a prestigious Soviet trade publication to discuss his Ministry’s 
trials and tribulations with other Soviet bureaucracies, he was much 
more restrained in his statement: 
It is even worse when a fish product obtained .. . from the depths of the 
Indian Ocean, is poorly stored and time is allowed to pass (before) the organization 
sells it. . . . The Ministry of (Domestic) Trade and the Central Union of Con- 
sumers’ Societies must think about this. They must also help us in advertising 
marine products to inform the buyers that fish is healthful and contains protein 
and many other useful substances. 
The marketing problems, however, did not abate and in June 1974, 
the Secretary of the Klajpeda* City Committee, Mr. D. Rozhnov 
wrote: 
There are large stocks of frozen fish that can’t be sold until they’ve been 
processed (like sardines). But nobody has organized their processing; for several 
years there have been negotiations between MinFish and MinTrade as to who 
should organize processing, but nothing has been decided.*® 
Another glaring example of the inefficiences in the fish-marketing 
system appeared, again in Ekonomicheskaia Gazeta, in December 1974. 
The author is picturing one day in the life of the Ukrainian Fishery 
Marketing enterprises. He alludes to the fact that there are two minis- 
tries which have “complete and unconditional control” over fishery 
43 Ministerstvo Rybnogo Khoziaistva, abbreviated Minrybkhoz, is the Russian term for the Soviet 
Fisheries Ministry (often improperly translated as the ‘‘Ministry of Fish Economy”’). 
44 Interview with U.S.S.R. Minister of Fisheries Aleksandr Akimovich Ishkov: ‘‘The Soviet People 
and the Riches of the Seas and Internal Waters.” In: Kommercheskii Vestnik, No. 8, August 1973. 
45 A major fishing port in Lithuania. 
46 Vodnii Transport, June 18, 1974. 
