457 
catches. The Fisheries Ministry catches the fish, freezes it, and delivers 
it to Soviet ports, where the (Domestic) Trade Ministry takes over 
and sells it. However, a funny thing happens to fish on the way 
to consumers: it gets waylaid by the “esteemed trading agencies,” 
as the author points out sarcastically. (Additional details can be found 
in appendix 2). 
The infighting continues. There is no doubt that Soviet marketing 
practices will improve as Soviet managers become more familiar with 
the advanced packaging and distributing techniques of the West. 
Whether wholesale fishery marketing will improve greatly unless and 
until the Ministry of Fisheries achieves a greater marketing role—if 
not ““complete control’’—is problematic. 
The simplest solution would be to give the MinFish full and un- 
disputed control of all fishery processing and wholesale distribution. 
The retail distribution would remain the province of the Ministry 
of Domestic Trade if it would provide modern stores equipped with 
cold-storage and refrigeration facilities. Such stores, called Okean 
(Ocean) have been seen in Moscow. They were constructed recently 
and can compete with anything available in capitalist countries. How- 
ever, Moscow is not the Soviet Union: its population is only 2 percent 
of the total. The fish marketing practices in the rest of the U.S.S.R., 
with the exception of the largest cities, remain appalling. 
The fact that such a major bureaucratic infighter as is the present 
Fisheries Minister, Mr. Ishkov, was unable to achieve a satisfactory 
solution of the problem does not bode well for the future of Soviet 
fisheries. After all, Ishkov has been the Fisheries Minister since 1935 
and has survived Stalin, Malenkov, and Khrushchev not to speak 
of lesser lights like Bulganin, Beria, Molotov, etc. They were all dis- 
graced, but Ishkov remained in his position and expanded his fisheries 
“empire” tenfold. He is an (alternate) member of the Central Commit- 
tee, knows Premier Kosygin well from the days when the latter was 
the Minister of Food Industries, has friends in the Planning Commis- 
sion *’ as well as throughout Moscow and its bureaucratic layers. 
The probable reason for MinFish’s inability to achieve a reasonable 
solution is a political fact: the Soviet Minister of Domestic Trade, 
Mr. Aleksandr Ivanovich Struev, is a full member of the Central 
Committee, while Mr. Ishkov is only an alternate member. In other 
words, Struev outranks Ishkov in the party hierarchy. That is a distinc- 
tion of crucial importance in the Soviet Union. 
FISHERY EXHIBITIONS IN LENINGRAD 
Inspired by glistening examples of the marketing techniques prac- 
ticed at trade fairs in Western Europe, the Soviet Fisheries Ministry 
requested the government to be allowed to hold a major commercial 
exhibition in Leningrad on the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik 
Revolution, which began in that city in 1917. 
The Ministry hoped to attract foreign companies to exhibit advanced 
fisheries technology and also to introduce its own executive and ad- 
ministrative personnel to foreign machinery, gear, and equipment. This 
was especially desirable in the field of fish processing, where the 
47 The Soviet Planning Commission has a “Fishing Industry Section’ which coordinates planning 
for the development of fisheries. ; 
