Holy shit imagine being a little american child in the midwest, during the cold war, and being scolded by Mrs. kruschev. It really takes a village. Hahahahahaha.
Khrushchev was of the last generation of soviet leaders genuinely peasant in heart. He was amazed by what he seen in Iowa more than by what he seen in Detroit.
"Khrushchev said he'll bury us." Was and is often repeated, probably deliberately distorted to feed our Military Industrial Complex--he meant he'd *bury us economically,* as laughably incorrect as that was, it was not a physical threat.
I believe part of the reason why is that Soviet agriculture has been something of a nightmare for Moscow to solve since after the Civil War. He's not impressed with Detroit because Detroit already built the Soviet a practical 1:1 copy of Detroit in the USSR during the Third Five-Year Plan. Nearly every car and Truck made in the USSR at the time looks like it was made in Detroit. But seeing fields of corn that stretches for miles? That is not a thing in the USSR...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 If frequent collectivist caused famine was your life history--imagine how much more captivating a cornfield would be than a truck.
"Khrushchev said he'll bury us." Was and is often repeated, probably deliberately distorted-- *he meant he'd bury us economically,* out produce the USA, as laughably incorrect as that was, it was not an existential threat.
Romanian here. Our own dictator, Ceausescu, apparently employed his diplomats abroad to steal corn. This was told to be by an old diplomat who has sadly passed. He would take tours across the American countryside and steal actual corn seeds from the ground. They were then sent via diplomatic pouch back to Bucharest for investigation and Ceausescu eventually announced how he had discovered a new breed of better yielding corn :))
vietnam has had maize since the 16th century when a diplomat to ming-era china brought the seeds back home. if the chinese soldier was fighting in the border war then it might have made some sense, since we grow our corn in the delta and not on mountainous border areas.
During the Cold War, the US supplied the USSR 1/4 of all its annual grain use, largely in the form of below market value livestock feed. When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, in 1979, the US under Jimmy Carter embargoed these shipments. Unable to find a replacement source of this cheap grain, livestock production was devastated, in the USSR. The rest is history, but it does bring up some very strange questions.
@@Josh-yr7gd Alternatively i get irrationally annoyed by things i feel a strong need to nitpick! That's an option as well isn't it? I grew up in the Soviet Union.
A bit of context for all this is the fact that for many decades, there was genuine doubts about humanity's ability to feed itself as more and more countries had post industrial population booms. Both sides of the Cold War wanted to be food exporters because that was a surefire way to keep satellite states happy. Innovation like corn, and Norman Borlaug's dwarf wheat were essential to keep billions of people from regular famine.
it's interesting you mention that - i actually asked all three people if a lotta borlaug was in the air in their research, but it seemed like he didn't trigger much in this particular debate. i'm a big "wizard and the prophet" fan though, so i'm sure it was influential.
Before the 70s and 80s people starved because we couldn't produce enough food....now they die because we allow it. Plenty of food, but we choose to allow people to starve while others die from overconsumption.
@@nerfherder4284 Who is dying due to not being allowed food? Virtually the entire developed world gives even the poorest people access to food. And we deliver tremendous amounts of food aid to developing and undeveloped countries. Their governments have a tendency to seize that food so the population can't eat *coughHamascough*, but that's an interesting group to lump yourself in with if that's who you're referring to as 'we'.
@@avariciousaxolotl well yes and no - America was only one of the countries the Soviets parroted e.g., through copying the fordson tractor, another was Italy - a lot of soviet trucks were based on the Fiat series of trucks, a third was Germany - turbines in the dam that quintupled electricity production in the Soviet Union upon entering operation were German. The Soviets also traded with the British and Japanese - it was a system to take whatever was most applicable from whoever was willing to sell e.g., America wasn't fond of the commies but American companies had no such qualms.
@@nerfherder4284nah, a lot of socialist thinkers and leaders were big fans of America ever since Marx. America was the master of industrialization and actually allowed its people freedom unlike the brutal monarchies and colonial governments the socialists rose up against. America had a very good reputation in the world till the later 20th century as we lost our moral soul in the Cold War
Interesting video, Phil. Khrushchev was very different to Stalin - he was much more outward looking and willing to try ideas. He lost power after the Cuban missile crisis but he actually got some of his aims there too - in secret, the US agreed to remove missiles from Turkey but this was never made public. I have always been surprised that Khruschev wasn't able to use that as a victory back in the USSR.
Dude was already in hot water long before the Cuban Missile Crisis. His Secret Speech against Stalin ticked off a lot of people inside the CPSU, his handling of the Invasion of Hungary in 1956 ticked off the reformists, and his plan to beat the US in the Space Race which meant money meant for the military was skimmed off ticked off the Soviet military...
The problem was that it was secret. It wasn't a demonstration of Soviet strength, but weakness, or so the spin labelled it. In reality, it was a success, at least insofar as it yielded a mutual deescalation and a guarantee of Cuban sovereignty. But without a public loss of face from the US after such a gamble, Khrushchev was going to face difficulties.
Outward looking? His time in power was arguably worse for the country than WW2. Stalin built up a streamlined system of checks and counterbalanced which proved it's efficiency in the most dire circumstances. Khrush introduced voluntarist policies and put a bunch of his friends into power to lobby interests of ukrainian factories and officials specifically, usually at the expense of everyone else.
@@callumjohnston858 considering USA was not only the instigator but borderline aggressor, there was a field of opportunities to use this event for global politics. Khrushev blew all of them and settled for pathetic "let's all put away our nukes" option.
In the early 90s, my grandmother was a college literature professor selected to go to Moscow as part of an education exchange. They were looking at how our country teaches children. I have a copy of "Charlotte's Web" that's written in Russian and English. It's an example the Soviets used to show what American kids read. The people of Russia were no different than us. Most were kind, generous, and wanted to show and share the best of their home. However, there were others who cared only about the Soviet Party and were legitimately dangerous. Anyone who thinks that the worst of the USSR can't happen here is fooling themselves. Most Americans are awesome. The US Constitution is awesome. However we have our own issues with people turning ideology into religion. This video showing "systems failing ideas" is a great reminder of the hardships that grow from iron clad ideology.
Khrushchev visiting a farmer in Iowa is definitely not something I would've ever imagined during the Cold War 😅 Imagine how important that guy must've felt, especially in his farming town. "Whatcha got going on today Bob?" "Oh not much, just the leader of the Soviet Union coming to check out my corn." "No, really, what's on your plate for today?" "I'm serious. Khrushchev is flying in to hangout later tonight... 😑" It would just be so surreal, especially when everyone is worried about the Soviets nuking them lol
@corey2232 lol, NGL. The old school farmers where I'm from in Pennsylvania wouldn't be moved much by it. "Everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time" as they used to say.
In late '70's we had two visits by elite Soviet scientists, among some 200 Academy of Science top tier. They had official biz in Los Angeles but wanted to experience small town USA and used a high altitude (14000ft) research station as an excuse, since dad was only fluent Russian speaker around, they always ate dinner at our place. VERY interesting. Other group of engineers/mine operators visited the biggest tungsten mine in "free world" not far out of our tiny town. Friendly exchanges among 'adversaries' always a good thing. (obviously there was no animosity among individuals)
I think said farmer was a rather rich and important person, so it not like he was just a random Billy Bob. Still Soviet leader visiting US was unthinkable back in the beginning of USSR.
@@ShadowSumac Yeah, Roswell ran Garst & Thomas seed Co. and had a huge cattle operation. The Garsts had amassed a very large farming operation by the 1980's owning a lot of acres. That is mostly now sold off or in the Whiterock Conservancy. Iowa rocks.
I know it's not the most historically accurate show, but The Americans spends a lot of season 5 focusing on Cold War espionage related to food. They're tracking what they believe to be the creation of ways to contaminate wheat crops. Come to find out, the program was likely more focused on creating a super wheat that's resistant to contamination. Super interesting topic of discussion as always, Phil. Cheers!
Stalin had the greatest farmers in history, 2 million Germans thriving in the Volga river: Volga Deutch. One BIG reason Khrushchev hated Stalin fiercely was because he mass murdered/marched the entire German population to their death, thus removing the most productive peoples they had. My grandfather escaped by eating grass….German farmers are America’s greatest, uncelebrated, asset.
Yeah, American midwest is also majority german farmers. The areas around the Black Sea coast were also settled by, among others, Germans during the tsarist times, but they assimilated faster than Volga Germans.
Why wouldn't it be? The only people who aren't obsessed with corn are those who simply do not know enough about corn. Corn is incredible. There is nothing it can't do. There are three things that make the United States gamebreakingly overpowered: the Mississippi, effectively being an island, and corn. Corn is absolutely ridiculous.
There is an additional layer of irony is the upper Midwest was agriculturalized largely by Turkey Red wheat brought by Ukrainian farmers fleeing the Soviet revolution. Lysenko mat have been partially right, the Ukrainian winter wheat was not hybridized into bounty but selectively bred over countless generations.
Thanks for this! Something I want to share: During my history studies, I had to do a course on food history, how our history influence the food that we eat. There’s reading, and there is cooking. Fun time. We spent a month studying corn. The plentiful amount of corn was America’s answer to feeding its population during the Second World War. I remembered there was a cook book released I think by the government (or funded by the government) called 101 ways to cook corn. The consumption of corn was seen as a patriotic act as the rest of the food were sent to troops. Part of my study was to select a few recipes from that cookbook and I had nothing but corn all month. Memorable course for sure. This video bridged another understanding about corn, and how America seemingly tried to get rid of a surplus of corn after the war.
Omg! That sounds so cool and interesting on one hand, but on the other hand horrifying because of how allergic I am to corn 😢… I love history, and I love food! Two of my favorite subjects lol I would love to take a class like that some time. I’d just have to skip the corn recipes 😅 unfortunately…. I have always wanted to try sweet corn ice cream, mmmmmm that just sounds so delicious 😋
I'm the only person I know who misses the older, less sweet vaieties of corn that I grew up on. I still eat corn on the cob but it isn't the same. Creamed corn is definitely not the same.
Corn was an important food all the way back to colonial times. Corn bread, and other corn dishes were a mainstay of the poor and working class. White bread or wheat bread was seen as something fancy for the rich not something an ordinary person would eat every day.
@ Yes it was. With the advent of industrialization, corn and what it represents have a whole new meaning. It’s so interesting to see how corn itself, originated from the Americas, introduced to Europeans which later brought their industrialization to mass produce it, to a war time food, and then spread globally as a form of American soft power. On the same stroke, the over abundance in corn led to the popularization of popcorn in theatres during those war time periods.
I love this story. It's like a glimpse into an alternate timeline where the mid 20th century was, instead of being dominated by the Cold War, was defined by a cross-ideological cooperation. Oh, what could've been.
Consider the Soviets adopting computerization and AI to centrally plan their economy. Cybersoviets is a very interesting what if as humans centrally planning an economy is a Herculean task but something AI could do better to make more feasible.
There was a smattering of cases of such cooperation throughout the Cold War - the global initiative to eradicate smallpox probably being the biggest one.
@@badart3204 Sadly it was impossible - USSR was too mired with bureaucracy and corruption for any kind of effective planning to take place. Any initiative to make something more effective would have been sabotaged, because, it would make bureaucrats irrelevant and would've expose corruption and falsehoods.
There is something i find very likable about Khrushchev. This could have been a fantastic opportunity for peace to develop between the USA and USSR, started by finding common ground over farming. People brought together by what they have in common rather than being hostile to each other.
кукуруза не прижилась в ссср!климат тут не подходяший ,лето короткое,и сухое,раз в 10 лет кукуруза может дать нормальный урожай,поэтому в ссср в основном кукурузу начали использовать для силосования,в этом году у нас были аномальные дожди летом,поля превратились в болота и техника не могла все лето убрать кукурузу под силос и когда дожди закончились осенью кукуруза перезрела и стала высотой с деревья
To be fair lysenkoism is not completely wrong. You can influence genetics of things by introducing them to genetic influences like harsher weather. The problem is that lysenkoism completely rejected genetics and did not understand the amount of genetic offspring/generations required to make such a change occur. If Lysenko was just able to accept the basics of genetics then his method would have worked better.
Yeah but...that's a slow process of natural selection, grow corn in cold, most of it dies, some of it lives, plant that...Its like saying do nothing for crop disease, pest infestations... the surviving few stalks will have more immunity. That can take years of famine. And anyway, its wrong, we farmed for millennia and a famine hit every 7 years from weather and pests. So much for inherited immunity.
Yes it was completely wrong because it was based on ideology and not scientific observation. Just because we know now about Epigenetic phenomena from actual scientific study doesn't mean Lysenko knew what he was talking about.
No it wouldn't have worked better and it may as well have been completely wrong. He was right in a twisted way but most of his basic assumptions were fundamentally flawed and in more then a few cases were literally the opposite of reality. All it would have done is further legitimize his work by connecting it to real science.
That visit to Iowa and seeing those farmers as similar to his life growing up is likely the reason the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't go totally sideways. He saw those Iowans as similar to his people so he sought a resolution. @Phil Edwards, Wallace had a tour through China and the Soviet Union that is the reason Truman became President. (Wallace lost the nomination but made the initial connections that ended with the visit to Garst farm)
One of the weapons in our Cold War arsenal was our agricultural production. i remember we were selling wheat to the USSR in the 1970’s and they had to pay in cash which was in short supply.
For those of us that grew up in the rural Midwest, for me the 70’s, we understand the importance of corn (and soy). My great grandparents had 30 acres in rural, nowhereland, Ohio and grew both field and sweet corn. I remember going to the grain elevator with grandpa to buy seed and negotiate the sale of the crop. The main difference? It was all small, 30-50 acre, family farms and it was all local. You bought seed locally and sold crops locally.
When I open your videos I just instantly expect "but first, we have to go back. Way back!" :) As someone from Ukraine, it's always nice to see our history mentioned on a 'western' side of things
Starvation is a fate no person would ever wish on anyone. Before he was president, Hoover was single handedly responsible for feeding MILLIONS of people around the world, including in the Soviet Union. One of my favorite quotes of his is, “Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!” And that is the mentality I wish for every person in power.
Super interesting story. I'll have to check out that book. You hit the nail on the head about how much water corn needs over other crops. I live in an area that can be drier than average and have significantly scaled back how much corn I'm growing because of it (along with how bad deer damage can be and that it just costs more to put out so you need more back to pay for it and I'm just not getting it). Another tidbit I'll add here that I think fits in to this story although I'm not sure what year it was. (could be before or after this) The US gave Russia a bunch of seed wheat once because they didn't have enough to plant again.
Not necessarily Fidel Castro was obsessed with Ice cream and Shakes he wanted Cuba to be self reliant in the agricultural sector which unfortunately didn't work out even former agricultural experts in Cuba have agreed that milk production actually decreased before Fidel's campaign on dary.
I'm from Minnesota. With no major city the size of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Iowa is massively focused on corn and livestock. This is an inspiring story of US-Russia cooperation.
You can stay in the Garst house as a bed-n-breakfast at the Whiterock Conservancy. I was unaware and wondered why the bedroom had Nitka Khrushchev staring at me from every wall.
I haven't watched the video yet, but the US is also obsessed with corn... Nearly 30% of nationwide agricultural production in the US is corn, majority of which isn't even for human consumption, and the corn that is for human consumption is used primarily to make sweetening agents
Yeah we do grow to much. We've made it far too easy to do so, both from a policy and machinery point, that it makes it hard to do much else. When I already have to machines for it and a way to store it long term and to always have a buyer, I can't exactly go grow 100 acres of tomatoes or other produce on a whim instead of corn or other grain crop really without another expensive harvester or a lot of labor and a place to go with it before it goes bad.
The big issue is ethenol. We turn corn into fuel that destroys our vehicle because of the false idea we are at peak oil, but we have plenty of oil to ruin the planet without starving people to make corn into fuel. No food should power a vehicle if there is one starving person on earth.
Do you have a figure for how much is devoted to the production of ethanol? I suppose there are plenty of enzymes like amalase to turn starch into sugars before it can be fermented and distilled..
I wonder how much more could go into cars if it didn't go into soda lol Cars can absolutely be made to run reliably on ethanol, before all the good ol' boys come out to complain about the fuel systems on their 60s muscle cars.
Except corn is a horrible use for ethanol production when a plant like sugar cane or sugar beets can be grown and get much more sugars to be distilled into alcohol.
@@throwback19841 It doesn't make sense economically or environmentally relative to gasoline so I don't really see why we would do that unless we suddenly had a major gasoline shortage or something
@@seththomas9105 Plus it's easier to market sugar cane for ethanol because someone somewhere could figure out how to get the public to associate their cars with pirate ships running on "rum, matey! Arrrr!"
It wasn't until Putin's time for Russian agriculture to finally fulfill its promise of being a powerhouse. It took the transition to an agribusiness model for them to become a huge exporter of grains and finally end shortages of meat and poultry. I reckon this must be at least one reason he has remained so popular. Not about corn per se, but relevant.
Russia before the USSR back during the empire was a major food exporter it was only during the USSR period that food production became a problem because of agricultural collectivization, after the USSR collapse russia privatized it's agricultural industry which once again let it to become a food exporter like it was before , another example is China after den xioping order a halt to collectivization and rolled some of it back giving the Chinese farmers their land back food production increased although China still has to import because it's population is just too big.
@@AMERICAN_CAESARMinor correction: China never "gave farmers their land back" They gave their right to operate them independantly back. Most of the collective and state-owned farms were liquidated but the land is still owned by the state and leased to the farmers who sell their produce in a market and decide what to plant based on supply and demand (in addition to subsidies and other incentives for certain crops like the US) as opposed to an agricultural plan and quotas.
Thank you for keeping archival footage intact and not cropping it to widescreen. Too many channels show historical footage and then crop it so that everything is distorted, people's heads take up 90% of the screen, and sides are missing.
Another great video, Phil! 👏 14:31 I first learned about Lysenko from reading Carl Sagan, who used him as an example of how political influence can be damaging to scientific progress. One thing I remember in particular is how Soviet scientists who knew he was a charlatan were afraid to call him out since Lysenko had Stalin’s ear. Anyway, I’ve been fascinated by him ever since and think he would make a great subject for a documentary.
You seriously understated the 1930s famines and why Kazakhstan had so much "virgin" land. You really should say the word genocide at least once when you are discussing multiple genocides.
I know it's a sensitive issue, and I genuinely don't intend to come off as disrespectful to the suffering of the Kazakhs and Ukrainians who died as a consequence of the famines, but I don't understand why they're classed as genocides. As far as I'm aware famine triggered by collectivisation was simultaneously causing the deaths of millions of Russians in the country's South, doesn't there need to be an intent to target and destroy a specific group to constitue a genocide?
@Usernumber4994 yes they were intentionally targeted. Also many of the "Russians in the south" you referred to were various north Caucasian ethnic groups.
@@capnstewy55 Still around 2.5mln Russians died, even if 20% of them weren't ethnical Russians that is still too much to ignore. And don't forget that even inside Ukraine the territories that were mostly affected by the famine were the Southern and Eastern regions which became a part of Ukraine only 15 years before the famine (the short-lived Ukrainian republic annexed them from Russia during the Russian Revolution), and still had a huge percent of ethnic Russians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians which were generally more pro-Soviet. At the same time, the Western and Northern parts of Ukraine, which had more ethnical Ukrainians, were less affected. There are also 0 documents from the Soviet archives that would support the genocide theory, unlike many other Soviet crimes like deportations, executions, etc, which were pretty well documented.
I suppose this was just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I’m still a bit impressed by the degree of cooperation occurring right before the peak of the Cold War. Was there any public backlash about American farmers aiding the Soviet Union?
Kruschev was a coward. When Fidel told him he'd sacrifice himself to destroy evil. He should've pressed that button so far he'd broke the launching device.
@@OliverNorth9729 The Soviet Union would have been utterly defeated in a war with the US in 1962. The US nuclear arsenal was enormously larger and superior to the Soviets, who could not have fully destroyed the US, but the US could have destroyed the Soviets outright.
The US and USSR were allies during WW2 and there was still a lot of good feelings between the two peoples 10 or 15 years later. The common people especially were not into being blown to hell by atomic bombs because of some political disagreement. The fanatic anti communists were a small minority.
@mrdanforth3744 How does someone become allies when they take away Ukraine from them? Hmmm? *Right now the U.S. is trying to balkanize Russia, China, and Mexico.* Why not give texas and california independence or give them back to Mexico?
I think the why of corn should be mentioned. It produces 4 times the calories per acre vs. Wheat. Also, corn can be made into oil, sugar, ethanol and the residues can be used for animal feed
In times past, in certain parts of the country, most people took their corn in liquid form, and I don't mean as a sweetener in soda. That's what the moonshiners made their product from.
Thank You for this deep dive and video. I had never heard of this before, but this feels wholesome in its own weird way to me. Like The Leader of the Soviet Union and A Corn Farmer/Pioneer from Iowa? Yeah, I like that moment, now that I know of it!
The biggest power of the USA has always been how industrialized their agriculture is. Even to this day, a country sized state doing nothing but agriculture on such a massive scale, entirely mechanized, and a logistics system that can take that agriculture to virtually anywhere - is still not as common as we like to think. A well-fed population makes more time for the population to be educated, and a well-educated population leads to a more productive society, and a more productive society - thats how you become the number one on so many metrics.
Gotta love random connections with history. Whiterock conservancy has some of the nicer mountain bike trails in Iowa, would never have guessed the soviets visited the same area!
Thanks for doing this. I enjoyed all the video clips of Khrushchev's visit to the Garst farm and the side stories I hadn't known about. I do remember the year of Khrushchev's visit, though, and how it was controversial in the U.S. and Canada. My wife remembers the actual visit to the Garst farm more than I do, as her parents' farm was in a neighboring county in Iowa, and it was an especially big deal there. I bought Aaron Hale-Dorrell's book after reading the glowing review of it in American Historical Review. It wasn't quite what I expected from the review, but that's probably because it's impossible to get the kind of information from the people on the ground that would be especially interesting to me, and which would probably explain better why the project didn't succeed. I enjoyed seeing and hearing him in your video. I hadn't known about Laura Belin's blog/web site and will have to check that out.
Sounds like the lady was alluding to "regenerative agricultural" practices at the end of the video. I highly recommend looking up Gabe Brown's ranch/farm/practices on the regenerative ag topic up in Bismarck, ND if you're at all interested in the topic of rebuilding our top soil after centuries of it being lost and just building healthy, sustainable, and economic soil and farming practices in general.
Amazing video, Phil! I'm always floored at how much archival footage you must have to go through in order to pull out what we see in the final video. I feel like there's a follow up video about the craziest things you can make with corn?
If you know anything about US agricultural output how corn makes up majority and our current uses for corn, it's pretty obvious why. Because Soviet agriculture sucked to the point having to import US wheat in the 70s-80s. Soviets rarely got meat unlike Americans with our nearly daily cornfed beef, pork, poultry. While Collective farming completely useless, American farmers really suffered under Capitalism. Low prices great for us, crap for producers, agrocorporate takeover...I remember 1985 Iowa "America Needs farmers" campaign.
I am a farmer and we also sell again inputs like Garst corn seed, it's good stuff. Corns yield and scalability are unmatched at growing calories in temperate climates.
Thank you very much indeed for such a professional and very well narrated story. The only fact that I knew before I watched it was that Nikita Khrushchev was from Ukraine. Love your channel. I never miss a video. Greetings from Ecuador 🇪🇨
Goes to show how different were the ideologies. Khrushchev was obsessed in corn because he saw a way to implement american agriculture technology into a problematic soviet area. So he personally arrived here like a King visits a country. Eisenhower on the other hand couldn't even bother with Garst. He barely knew him because it was never Eisenhower job to administer the economy and the society.
My hometown of Wakefield, Massachusetts hosted a delegation of Soviet apparatchiks in the late '80s, when I was in middle school. Seeing the picture in the local paper of the Russkies trying to wrap their heads around candlepin bowling still makes me smile to remember it 35 years later. No amount of glasnost or perestroika could prepare them for eastern New England's weird and wacky favorite participation sport.
My Dad was a Hutsul from northwestern (more or less) Ukraine. Hutsuls really took to corn, long before Soviet days. Dad prepared a simplified form of banush almost every week, basically hot cornmeal mush poured over crumbled up feta or whatever substitute for bryndza he could get in the middle of Illinois. My German mother thought of corn as animal feed that one ate only when no proper human food was available. Us kids really liked the banush but Mom wouldn’t touch it.
Why is USA obsessed with corn? Half the country is a corn field. Simply because it grows a lot of grain easily, and responds to fertilizers very well. It makes at least 20% more grain per hectare than wheat, rice, rye or whatever else.
Also, a fun fact is the in the American farms the farmers had been using corncobs to literally wipe their buttholes after shitting. They used to this "tool" and preferred it to toilet paper.
Not whole of USSR, just Great Comrade Nikita had the corn obsession. I'm Lithuanian, and whenever the subject of Khruschev and his corn craze is brought up, people who had to live through that agri-experiment cringe hard to say the least. It's often said, that during this, the collective farms just had a few outer rows of corn sowed around the field's perimeter, enough to create illusion of it growing in full, and the middle was used to grow other crops.
In my lifetime experience, ridicule it as you like, a big part of the reason for the Corn Experiment failure were politicians, citizens and scientists who didn't want to participate to make it work. Maybe even worked against the project directly or quietly. All my life I've seen ideas sabotaged by purposeful neglect or opposition because it threatened the current order or someones position. Later they would resurrect the program and take credit for it.
Holy shit imagine being a little american child in the midwest, during the cold war, and being scolded by Mrs. kruschev. It really takes a village. Hahahahahaha.
i know!
Got to love the universal language of a scolding grandmother telling the children to stop causing a ruckus
@@ez8195 Yeah seriously, I'm pretty sure that would come across in every language, all she needed was the stern expression and the wagging finger lol
That lady has some pretty incredible stories!
Khrushchev was of the last generation of soviet leaders genuinely peasant in heart. He was amazed by what he seen in Iowa more than by what he seen in Detroit.
"Khrushchev said he'll bury us." Was and is often repeated, probably deliberately distorted to feed our Military Industrial Complex--he meant he'd *bury us economically,* as laughably incorrect as that was, it was not a physical threat.
I believe part of the reason why is that Soviet agriculture has been something of a nightmare for Moscow to solve since after the Civil War. He's not impressed with Detroit because Detroit already built the Soviet a practical 1:1 copy of Detroit in the USSR during the Third Five-Year Plan. Nearly every car and Truck made in the USSR at the time looks like it was made in Detroit. But seeing fields of corn that stretches for miles? That is not a thing in the USSR...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131Except they didn't produce cars like Detroit and the USSR never achieved the productivity of US automotive manufacturing.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 If frequent collectivist caused famine was your life history--imagine how much more captivating a cornfield would be than a truck.
"Khrushchev said he'll bury us." Was and is often repeated, probably deliberately distorted-- *he meant he'd bury us economically,* out produce the USA, as laughably incorrect as that was, it was not an existential threat.
Romanian here. Our own dictator, Ceausescu, apparently employed his diplomats abroad to steal corn. This was told to be by an old diplomat who has sadly passed. He would take tours across the American countryside and steal actual corn seeds from the ground. They were then sent via diplomatic pouch back to Bucharest for investigation and Ceausescu eventually announced how he had discovered a new breed of better yielding corn :))
Traditional Romanian behaviour
@@glassman1130Wow, and who are you a bot for? Putler?
@@jimtalbott9535dude, it's a FUNNY joke about Romanians. Even Romanians I know laugh at jokes like it.
@@jimtalbott9535 it ain’t that deep man😂
@@jimtalbott9535 My brother in Christ, it's a Balkan joke.
I'm from Iowa. Xi Jinping is also obsessed with corn. He stayed in Muscatine, Iowa.
Ooh interesting
Everyone loves Iowa
Xi was sent to live in a “cave home” during the great famine while his father was imprisoned in the “cultural revolution” wild story
When Xi’s father was imprisoned during cultural revolution he was sent to live in a cave while the great famine was happening, wild life
@@Aloddff When Mao purged Xi’s father He was sent to live in a cave during the great famine wild life
A Chinese soldier escaping Vietnam knew he had escaped Vietnam when he found some corn because Vietnam had no corn
I bet that same soldier probably took a cob off the plant and started eating it in celebration
@@Mistah_Boombastic_BiggieCheese Considering it's the chinese, it would be one of the more savory thing they could eat
You mean the invading Chinese in 1979 or long before that ?
vietnam has had maize since the 16th century when a diplomat to ming-era china brought the seeds back home. if the chinese soldier was fighting in the border war then it might have made some sense, since we grow our corn in the delta and not on mountainous border areas.
@@evrtt_trn bruh ....we do grow ALOT of corn in the border, it is my place
Reminds me of a line from David from the "Cold War" channel: "Don't settle, get a person to look at you as Khruschev looks at corn"
ha! great minds!
During the Cold War, the US supplied the USSR 1/4 of all its annual grain use, largely in the form of below market value livestock feed. When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, in 1979, the US under Jimmy Carter embargoed these shipments. Unable to find a replacement source of this cheap grain, livestock production was devastated, in the USSR. The rest is history, but it does bring up some very strange questions.
yes ran into this weird situation in my 1980 olympics boycott video as well!
Cool, thanks for telling us
@@PhilEdwardsInc - Thank you, I''ll check it out. It is also worth noting from the USSR's very inception the Soviets were reliant on US food aid.
USSR DID NOT INVADE AFGHANISTAN
@@tesmith47 yes it did
The title is something I would never care to think about or look up but now you have my full attention.
I'm in the same spot. And I had never heard of the visit. 10/10 would recommend
I sort of know the story and the visit now debating with myself whether i should watch the video.
@@SianaGearz Go ahead. Watch it. I'm sure you'll learn something.
@@Josh-yr7gd Alternatively i get irrationally annoyed by things i feel a strong need to nitpick! That's an option as well isn't it? I grew up in the Soviet Union.
It was a bit corny, but it was on point.
Hell, Soviets used to call him the Maize-man (Kukuruznik)
Lend an ear, I hear he comes running at night
A bit of context for all this is the fact that for many decades, there was genuine doubts about humanity's ability to feed itself as more and more countries had post industrial population booms. Both sides of the Cold War wanted to be food exporters because that was a surefire way to keep satellite states happy. Innovation like corn, and Norman Borlaug's dwarf wheat were essential to keep billions of people from regular famine.
it's interesting you mention that - i actually asked all three people if a lotta borlaug was in the air in their research, but it seemed like he didn't trigger much in this particular debate. i'm a big "wizard and the prophet" fan though, so i'm sure it was influential.
Before the 70s and 80s people starved because we couldn't produce enough food....now they die because we allow it. Plenty of food, but we choose to allow people to starve while others die from overconsumption.
@@nerfherder4284 Who is dying due to not being allowed food? Virtually the entire developed world gives even the poorest people access to food. And we deliver tremendous amounts of food aid to developing and undeveloped countries. Their governments have a tendency to seize that food so the population can't eat *coughHamascough*, but that's an interesting group to lump yourself in with if that's who you're referring to as 'we'.
@@nerfherder4284 Distribution of food has always been a bigger problem than production, and usually due to local politics/economics ...
@@nerfherder4284 what are you talking about?
The soviets always appreciated American technology. Stalin hired American engineers and technicians to industrialize in the 30s.
We were the dominant technological power in the ‘30s. They hired us to teach them our technology
Appreciate? 🤔 Not sure I'd call it that. Saw an opportunity to try and take advantage of? Probably.
Magnitogorsk Steel Works were directly based on plants on Gary and Pittsburgh and they hired American experts to build them
@@avariciousaxolotl well yes and no - America was only one of the countries the Soviets parroted e.g., through copying the fordson tractor, another was Italy - a lot of soviet trucks were based on the Fiat series of trucks, a third was Germany - turbines in the dam that quintupled electricity production in the Soviet Union upon entering operation were German. The Soviets also traded with the British and Japanese - it was a system to take whatever was most applicable from whoever was willing to sell e.g., America wasn't fond of the commies but American companies had no such qualms.
@@nerfherder4284nah, a lot of socialist thinkers and leaders were big fans of America ever since Marx. America was the master of industrialization and actually allowed its people freedom unlike the brutal monarchies and colonial governments the socialists rose up against. America had a very good reputation in the world till the later 20th century as we lost our moral soul in the Cold War
Interesting video, Phil. Khrushchev was very different to Stalin - he was much more outward looking and willing to try ideas.
He lost power after the Cuban missile crisis but he actually got some of his aims there too - in secret, the US agreed to remove missiles from Turkey but this was never made public. I have always been surprised that Khruschev wasn't able to use that as a victory back in the USSR.
Dude was already in hot water long before the Cuban Missile Crisis. His Secret Speech against Stalin ticked off a lot of people inside the CPSU, his handling of the Invasion of Hungary in 1956 ticked off the reformists, and his plan to beat the US in the Space Race which meant money meant for the military was skimmed off ticked off the Soviet military...
The problem was that it was secret. It wasn't a demonstration of Soviet strength, but weakness, or so the spin labelled it. In reality, it was a success, at least insofar as it yielded a mutual deescalation and a guarantee of Cuban sovereignty. But without a public loss of face from the US after such a gamble, Khrushchev was going to face difficulties.
And he also tried to berate Stalin for Moscow lagging behind Ukraine in repressions, but that's part of history people don't like mentioning.
Outward looking? His time in power was arguably worse for the country than WW2. Stalin built up a streamlined system of checks and counterbalanced which proved it's efficiency in the most dire circumstances. Khrush introduced voluntarist policies and put a bunch of his friends into power to lobby interests of ukrainian factories and officials specifically, usually at the expense of everyone else.
@@callumjohnston858 considering USA was not only the instigator but borderline aggressor, there was a field of opportunities to use this event for global politics. Khrushev blew all of them and settled for pathetic "let's all put away our nukes" option.
A big lump with knobs. It has the juice. When I heard about butter, everything changed.
a beautiful story
Is this a haiku?
@@SianaGearz search youtube for corn song
@@SianaGearz this man has not seen the meme
What's a meme?
In the early 90s, my grandmother was a college literature professor selected to go to Moscow as part of an education exchange. They were looking at how our country teaches children. I have a copy of "Charlotte's Web" that's written in Russian and English. It's an example the Soviets used to show what American kids read.
The people of Russia were no different than us. Most were kind, generous, and wanted to show and share the best of their home.
However, there were others who cared only about the Soviet Party and were legitimately dangerous.
Anyone who thinks that the worst of the USSR can't happen here is fooling themselves. Most Americans are awesome. The US Constitution is awesome. However we have our own issues with people turning ideology into religion.
This video showing "systems failing ideas" is a great reminder of the hardships that grow from iron clad ideology.
Bravo!
"systems failing ideas" was well stated.
America elected a fascist so I fear they're already lost 😊
Spot on!
that's the best horse-sense I have heard in quite awhile! Thankyou
Khrushchev visiting a farmer in Iowa is definitely not something I would've ever imagined during the Cold War 😅
Imagine how important that guy must've felt, especially in his farming town.
"Whatcha got going on today Bob?"
"Oh not much, just the leader of the Soviet Union coming to check out my corn."
"No, really, what's on your plate for today?"
"I'm serious. Khrushchev is flying in to hangout later tonight... 😑"
It would just be so surreal, especially when everyone is worried about the Soviets nuking them lol
It's a stereotypical Khrushchev move tbh.
@corey2232 lol, NGL. The old school farmers where I'm from in Pennsylvania wouldn't be moved much by it. "Everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time" as they used to say.
In late '70's we had two visits by elite Soviet scientists, among some 200 Academy of Science top tier. They had official biz in Los Angeles but wanted to experience small town USA and used a high altitude (14000ft) research station as an excuse, since dad was only fluent Russian speaker around, they always ate dinner at our place. VERY interesting.
Other group of engineers/mine operators visited the biggest tungsten mine in "free world" not far out of our tiny town. Friendly exchanges among 'adversaries' always a good thing. (obviously there was no animosity among individuals)
I think said farmer was a rather rich and important person, so it not like he was just a random Billy Bob. Still Soviet leader visiting US was unthinkable back in the beginning of USSR.
@@ShadowSumac Yeah, Roswell ran Garst & Thomas seed Co. and had a huge cattle operation. The Garsts had amassed a very large farming operation by the 1980's owning a lot of acres. That is mostly now sold off or in the Whiterock Conservancy.
Iowa rocks.
I know it's not the most historically accurate show, but The Americans spends a lot of season 5 focusing on Cold War espionage related to food. They're tracking what they believe to be the creation of ways to contaminate wheat crops. Come to find out, the program was likely more focused on creating a super wheat that's resistant to contamination. Super interesting topic of discussion as always, Phil. Cheers!
ha totally forgot that was a subplot. i think i was too focused on which of my neighbors were spies.
Relatable. That show made us all paranoid lol.
Stalin had the greatest farmers in history, 2 million Germans thriving in the Volga river: Volga Deutch. One BIG reason Khrushchev hated Stalin fiercely was because he mass murdered/marched the entire German population to their death, thus removing the most productive peoples they had. My grandfather escaped by eating grass….German farmers are America’s greatest, uncelebrated, asset.
You should see Texas. Without the German settlers, who knows what the land would have become.
Yeah, American midwest is also majority german farmers. The areas around the Black Sea coast were also settled by, among others, Germans during the tsarist times, but they assimilated faster than Volga Germans.
Why wouldn't it be? The only people who aren't obsessed with corn are those who simply do not know enough about corn. Corn is incredible. There is nothing it can't do.
There are three things that make the United States gamebreakingly overpowered: the Mississippi, effectively being an island, and corn. Corn is absolutely ridiculous.
The Mississippi? How so?
Genuinely interested!
@@joshuadunne th-cam.com/video/Uqs-f862YaU/w-d-xo.html
"Effectively being an island"?
@@hoilst265 Yeah we border Canada and Mexico. They might as well not exist, except for providing us maple sugar and burritos.
@@jakej2680 Oh, boy, Trump's tariffs are gonna do such a number on your head.
Intro gives a very Wes Anderson vibe if he was obsessed with corn
Lmao
Oh hey! I really enjoy your TH-cam videos.
There is an additional layer of irony is the upper Midwest was agriculturalized largely by Turkey Red wheat brought by Ukrainian farmers fleeing the Soviet revolution. Lysenko mat have been partially right, the Ukrainian winter wheat was not hybridized into bounty but selectively bred over countless generations.
Thanks for this! Something I want to share:
During my history studies, I had to do a course on food history, how our history influence the food that we eat. There’s reading, and there is cooking. Fun time.
We spent a month studying corn. The plentiful amount of corn was America’s answer to feeding its population during the Second World War. I remembered there was a cook book released I think by the government (or funded by the government) called 101 ways to cook corn. The consumption of corn was seen as a patriotic act as the rest of the food were sent to troops. Part of my study was to select a few recipes from that cookbook and I had nothing but corn all month. Memorable course for sure.
This video bridged another understanding about corn, and how America seemingly tried to get rid of a surplus of corn after the war.
Omg! That sounds so cool and interesting on one hand, but on the other hand horrifying because of how allergic I am to corn 😢… I love history, and I love food! Two of my favorite subjects lol I would love to take a class like that some time. I’d just have to skip the corn recipes 😅 unfortunately….
I have always wanted to try sweet corn ice cream, mmmmmm that just sounds so delicious 😋
I'm the only person I know who misses the older, less sweet vaieties of corn that I grew up on. I still eat corn on the cob but it isn't the same. Creamed corn is definitely not the same.
Corn was an important food all the way back to colonial times. Corn bread, and other corn dishes were a mainstay of the poor and working class. White bread or wheat bread was seen as something fancy for the rich not something an ordinary person would eat every day.
@ Yes it was. With the advent of industrialization, corn and what it represents have a whole new meaning. It’s so interesting to see how corn itself, originated from the Americas, introduced to Europeans which later brought their industrialization to mass produce it, to a war time food, and then spread globally as a form of American soft power. On the same stroke, the over abundance in corn led to the popularization of popcorn in theatres during those war time periods.
I can't find the book online. Do you have a link to the 101 ways to cook corn book, please.
I love this story. It's like a glimpse into an alternate timeline where the mid 20th century was, instead of being dominated by the Cold War, was defined by a cross-ideological cooperation. Oh, what could've been.
Yes, there's a YT video of his 1959 tour. Fascinating.
Consider the Soviets adopting computerization and AI to centrally plan their economy. Cybersoviets is a very interesting what if as humans centrally planning an economy is a Herculean task but something AI could do better to make more feasible.
There was a smattering of cases of such cooperation throughout the Cold War - the global initiative to eradicate smallpox probably being the biggest one.
@@badart3204 for a more modest attempt at this, look up Cybersyn in Chile under Allende.
@@badart3204 Sadly it was impossible - USSR was too mired with bureaucracy and corruption for any kind of effective planning to take place. Any initiative to make something more effective would have been sabotaged, because, it would make bureaucrats irrelevant and would've expose corruption and falsehoods.
I'm not sure we'd agree on everything politically, but you make some damn good documentaries.
now im curious about both our politics hah
There is something i find very likable about Khrushchev. This could have been a fantastic opportunity for peace to develop between the USA and USSR, started by finding common ground over farming. People brought together by what they have in common rather than being hostile to each other.
кукуруза не прижилась в ссср!климат тут не подходяший ,лето короткое,и сухое,раз в 10 лет кукуруза может дать нормальный урожай,поэтому в ссср в основном кукурузу начали использовать для силосования,в этом году у нас были аномальные дожди летом,поля превратились в болота и техника не могла все лето убрать кукурузу под силос и когда дожди закончились осенью кукуруза перезрела и стала высотой с деревья
To be fair lysenkoism is not completely wrong. You can influence genetics of things by introducing them to genetic influences like harsher weather. The problem is that lysenkoism completely rejected genetics and did not understand the amount of genetic offspring/generations required to make such a change occur. If Lysenko was just able to accept the basics of genetics then his method would have worked better.
Yeah but...that's a slow process of natural selection, grow corn in cold, most of it dies, some of it lives, plant that...Its like saying do nothing for crop disease, pest infestations... the surviving few stalks will have more immunity. That can take years of famine. And anyway, its wrong, we farmed for millennia and a famine hit every 7 years from weather and pests. So much for inherited immunity.
Although HUMANS adapted, we get fat quick and lose weight slow... because our genes survived a thousand famines.
Yes it was completely wrong because it was based on ideology and not scientific observation. Just because we know now about Epigenetic phenomena from actual scientific study doesn't mean Lysenko knew what he was talking about.
No it wouldn't have worked better and it may as well have been completely wrong. He was right in a twisted way but most of his basic assumptions were fundamentally flawed and in more then a few cases were literally the opposite of reality. All it would have done is further legitimize his work by connecting it to real science.
That visit to Iowa and seeing those farmers as similar to his life growing up is likely the reason the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't go totally sideways. He saw those Iowans as similar to his people so he sought a resolution.
@Phil Edwards, Wallace had a tour through China and the Soviet Union that is the reason Truman became President. (Wallace lost the nomination but made the initial connections that ended with the visit to Garst farm)
liz and laura both talked a bit more about wallace. he and garst were pretty tight. very interesting alternate history!
Her getting lectured by Mrs. Khrushchev for fighting with another kid.
One of the weapons in our Cold War arsenal was our agricultural production. i remember we were selling wheat to the USSR in the 1970’s and they had to pay in cash which was in short supply.
For those of us that grew up in the rural Midwest, for me the 70’s, we understand the importance of corn (and soy). My great grandparents had 30 acres in rural, nowhereland, Ohio and grew both field and sweet corn. I remember going to the grain elevator with grandpa to buy seed and negotiate the sale of the crop. The main difference? It was all small, 30-50 acre, family farms and it was all local. You bought seed locally and sold crops locally.
Corn isn't as nutritious as sorghum or wheat
It makes good pig feed but not really nutritious for humans
Correct me if i'm wrong
This video is incredibly interesting topic. Fantastic content, (as usual) thanks Phil!
Reminder that we should end corn subsidies in the states
When I open your videos I just instantly expect "but first, we have to go back. Way back!" :) As someone from Ukraine, it's always nice to see our history mentioned on a 'western' side of things
mr k's area!
I knew that's where corn comes from
Starvation is a fate no person would ever wish on anyone. Before he was president, Hoover was single handedly responsible for feeding MILLIONS of people around the world, including in the Soviet Union. One of my favorite quotes of his is, “Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!” And that is the mentality I wish for every person in power.
1:00 missed opportunity to do a Field of Dreams reference: "Is this Detente? No. IT'S IOWA!"
Super interesting story. I'll have to check out that book. You hit the nail on the head about how much water corn needs over other crops. I live in an area that can be drier than average and have significantly scaled back how much corn I'm growing because of it (along with how bad deer damage can be and that it just costs more to put out so you need more back to pay for it and I'm just not getting it).
Another tidbit I'll add here that I think fits in to this story although I'm not sure what year it was. (could be before or after this) The US gave Russia a bunch of seed wheat once because they didn't have enough to plant again.
Did you know that tumble weeds are from Russia and not native to the US? We give them corn and they give us tumble weeds, thanks Russia.
Corn is also a big nutrient hog. It needs a lot of phosphorous and nitrogen, which is managed with modern crop rotation and fertilizers.
Great work on this video showing us this history and excellent interview first hand source. Keep up the good work!
Kinda similar to how Castro was obsessed with milk
this is interesting - i'm adding this to my list
Not necessarily Fidel Castro was obsessed with Ice cream and Shakes he wanted Cuba to be self reliant in the agricultural sector which unfortunately didn't work out even former agricultural experts in Cuba have agreed that milk production actually decreased before Fidel's campaign on dary.
@@AMERICAN_CAESAR en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubre_Blanca
I'm from Minnesota. With no major city the size of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Iowa is massively focused on corn and livestock. This is an inspiring story of US-Russia cooperation.
You can stay in the Garst house as a bed-n-breakfast at the Whiterock Conservancy. I was unaware and wondered why the bedroom had Nitka Khrushchev staring at me from every wall.
the 1980s "save family farms" was due to US gov policy, "get big or get out". the US gov turned against small farms.
I haven't watched the video yet, but the US is also obsessed with corn... Nearly 30% of nationwide agricultural production in the US is corn, majority of which isn't even for human consumption, and the corn that is for human consumption is used primarily to make sweetening agents
Yeah we do grow to much. We've made it far too easy to do so, both from a policy and machinery point, that it makes it hard to do much else. When I already have to machines for it and a way to store it long term and to always have a buyer, I can't exactly go grow 100 acres of tomatoes or other produce on a whim instead of corn or other grain crop really without another expensive harvester or a lot of labor and a place to go with it before it goes bad.
The big issue is ethenol. We turn corn into fuel that destroys our vehicle because of the false idea we are at peak oil, but we have plenty of oil to ruin the planet without starving people to make corn into fuel. No food should power a vehicle if there is one starving person on earth.
That's super interesting, thanks for sharing
Do you have a figure for how much is devoted to the production of ethanol?
I suppose there are plenty of enzymes like amalase to turn starch into sugars before it can be fermented and distilled..
@@jimurrata6785 A quick google search shows 40% goes toward ethanol
What an incredible job researching this story and an amazing interview.
Hank told us that 40% of US corn is stuffed in the gas tanks of cars.
I wonder how much more could go into cars if it didn't go into soda lol
Cars can absolutely be made to run reliably on ethanol, before all the good ol' boys come out to complain about the fuel systems on their 60s muscle cars.
@@throwback19841be sure to never look up the enthalpy of combustion for ethanol vs gasoline
Except corn is a horrible use for ethanol production when a plant like sugar cane or sugar beets can be grown and get much more sugars to be distilled into alcohol.
@@throwback19841 It doesn't make sense economically or environmentally relative to gasoline so I don't really see why we would do that unless we suddenly had a major gasoline shortage or something
@@seththomas9105 Plus it's easier to market sugar cane for ethanol because someone somewhere could figure out how to get the public to associate their cars with pirate ships running on "rum, matey! Arrrr!"
Unbelievable history!!! Interviews added so much value
So you could say Roswell Garst was a Corn Star.
He would've been No.1 on Cornhub
Dad grown up in Lithuania. At some point they used to push corn buns. He hated these. He remembers this 60+ years later.
The damage Lysenko did still lives on.
I love these kind of videos. Great job!
It wasn't until Putin's time for Russian agriculture to finally fulfill its promise of being a powerhouse. It took the transition to an agribusiness model for them to become a huge exporter of grains and finally end shortages of meat and poultry. I reckon this must be at least one reason he has remained so popular. Not about corn per se, but relevant.
Russia before the USSR back during the empire was a major food exporter it was only during the USSR period that food production became a problem because of agricultural collectivization, after the USSR collapse russia privatized it's agricultural industry which once again let it to become a food exporter like it was before , another example is China after den xioping order a halt to collectivization and rolled some of it back giving the Chinese farmers their land back food production increased although China still has to import because it's population is just too big.
@@AMERICAN_CAESARMinor correction: China never "gave farmers their land back" They gave their right to operate them independantly back. Most of the collective and state-owned farms were liquidated but the land is still owned by the state and leased to the farmers who sell their produce in a market and decide what to plant based on supply and demand (in addition to subsidies and other incentives for certain crops like the US) as opposed to an agricultural plan and quotas.
Thank you for keeping archival footage intact and not cropping it to widescreen. Too many channels show historical footage and then crop it so that everything is distorted, people's heads take up 90% of the screen, and sides are missing.
0:43. O my god, IS HE THE MAN from every 80's commercial ever !!
Another great video, Phil! 👏
14:31 I first learned about Lysenko from reading Carl Sagan, who used him as an example of how political influence can be damaging to scientific progress. One thing I remember in particular is how Soviet scientists who knew he was a charlatan were afraid to call him out since Lysenko had Stalin’s ear. Anyway, I’ve been fascinated by him ever since and think he would make a great subject for a documentary.
I guess you could say they have a corn addiction.
Incredible journalism yet again Phil. One of my favorite channels for a reason !
You seriously understated the 1930s famines and why Kazakhstan had so much "virgin" land. You really should say the word genocide at least once when you are discussing multiple genocides.
seems like a fair topic for another video
Dark humor is like food, not everyone gets it. --Joseph Stalin
I know it's a sensitive issue, and I genuinely don't intend to come off as disrespectful to the suffering of the Kazakhs and Ukrainians who died as a consequence of the famines, but I don't understand why they're classed as genocides. As far as I'm aware famine triggered by collectivisation was simultaneously causing the deaths of millions of Russians in the country's South, doesn't there need to be an intent to target and destroy a specific group to constitue a genocide?
@Usernumber4994 yes they were intentionally targeted. Also many of the "Russians in the south" you referred to were various north Caucasian ethnic groups.
@@capnstewy55 Still around 2.5mln Russians died, even if 20% of them weren't ethnical Russians that is still too much to ignore. And don't forget that even inside Ukraine the territories that were mostly affected by the famine were the Southern and Eastern regions which became a part of Ukraine only 15 years before the famine (the short-lived Ukrainian republic annexed them from Russia during the Russian Revolution), and still had a huge percent of ethnic Russians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians which were generally more pro-Soviet. At the same time, the Western and Northern parts of Ukraine, which had more ethnical Ukrainians, were less affected. There are also 0 documents from the Soviet archives that would support the genocide theory, unlike many other Soviet crimes like deportations, executions, etc, which were pretty well documented.
Earned a sub for that fascinating story.
The latest varieties do grow well in North Dakota despite our short growing season and limited rainfall, depending on the seven-year cycle.
Great video! Fantastic hip mobility.
I suppose this was just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I’m still a bit impressed by the degree of cooperation occurring right before the peak of the Cold War. Was there any public backlash about American farmers aiding the Soviet Union?
Kruschev was a coward. When Fidel told him he'd sacrifice himself to destroy evil. He should've pressed that button so far he'd broke the launching device.
@@OliverNorth9729 The Soviet Union would have been utterly defeated in a war with the US in 1962. The US nuclear arsenal was enormously larger and superior to the Soviets, who could not have fully destroyed the US, but the US could have destroyed the Soviets outright.
The US and USSR were allies during WW2 and there was still a lot of good feelings between the two peoples 10 or 15 years later. The common people especially were not into being blown to hell by atomic bombs because of some political disagreement. The fanatic anti communists were a small minority.
@mrdanforth3744 How does someone become allies when they take away Ukraine from them? Hmmm? *Right now the U.S. is trying to balkanize Russia, China, and Mexico.* Why not give texas and california independence or give them back to Mexico?
Spent a good portion of the video trying to figure out if this was a TH-cam safe word excange...
🙈🌽
Poisoned food and food poisoning are two very different things
I think the why of corn should be mentioned.
It produces 4 times the calories per acre vs. Wheat. Also, corn can be made into oil, sugar, ethanol and the residues can be used for animal feed
Popcorn.
In times past, in certain parts of the country, most people took their corn in liquid form, and I don't mean as a sweetener in soda. That's what the moonshiners made their product from.
This is such a random video topic.... I love it 🤓
Some of my relatives grew up during post-USSR, and I had no idea about this corn craze. It’s wonderful to learn about history.
Because when the Big Guy is into corn, you're into corn
Thank You for this deep dive and video. I had never heard of this before, but this feels wholesome in its own weird way to me. Like The Leader of the Soviet Union and A Corn Farmer/Pioneer from Iowa? Yeah, I like that moment, now that I know of it!
"Gentlemen... BEHOLD! Corn!" -Khrushchev (probably)
"Oh, well, hey! Y'know, this is pretty nice! And I am kinda hungry..." - --Steve-- Georgy Malenkov
The biggest power of the USA has always been how industrialized their agriculture is. Even to this day, a country sized state doing nothing but agriculture on such a massive scale, entirely mechanized, and a logistics system that can take that agriculture to virtually anywhere - is still not as common as we like to think.
A well-fed population makes more time for the population to be educated, and a well-educated population leads to a more productive society, and a more productive society - thats how you become the number one on so many metrics.
15:20 Trump corn
MCGA!!! Make Corn Great Again
@@zpdrsn6315 Hell yeah brother
now that's pretty funny. I was like "oh damn, here we go with the politics" but it's nothing like that
In Soviet Russia, Corn corns you?!!
CORN!!!🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤😂🌽🧈🌽🧈🌽🧈🌽🧈🎉😢
Imagine "Field of Dreams", but Khrushchev comes out of the Cornfield instead of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson.
Throwing a shoe to Kevin Costner, so heartwarming
My grandfather was a farmer in northeastern Nebraska and my dad was an agricultural economist. I found this video super interesting!
Gotta love random connections with history. Whiterock conservancy has some of the nicer mountain bike trails in Iowa, would never have guessed the soviets visited the same area!
Thanks for doing this. I enjoyed all the video clips of Khrushchev's visit to the Garst farm and the side stories I hadn't known about. I do remember the year of Khrushchev's visit, though, and how it was controversial in the U.S. and Canada. My wife remembers the actual visit to the Garst farm more than I do, as her parents' farm was in a neighboring county in Iowa, and it was an especially big deal there. I bought Aaron Hale-Dorrell's book after reading the glowing review of it in American Historical Review. It wasn't quite what I expected from the review, but that's probably because it's impossible to get the kind of information from the people on the ground that would be especially interesting to me, and which would probably explain better why the project didn't succeed. I enjoyed seeing and hearing him in your video. I hadn't known about Laura Belin's blog/web site and will have to check that out.
Sounds like the lady was alluding to "regenerative agricultural" practices at the end of the video. I highly recommend looking up Gabe Brown's ranch/farm/practices on the regenerative ag topic up in Bismarck, ND if you're at all interested in the topic of rebuilding our top soil after centuries of it being lost and just building healthy, sustainable, and economic soil and farming practices in general.
Beautiful content. Great story!
5:47 'how and huuuwhy'
Hyuahbrid Cowuhn
hybrid kAWHN
Amazing video, Phil! I'm always floored at how much archival footage you must have to go through in order to pull out what we see in the final video. I feel like there's a follow up video about the craziest things you can make with corn?
If you know anything about US agricultural output how corn makes up majority and our current uses for corn, it's pretty obvious why. Because Soviet agriculture sucked to the point having to import US wheat in the 70s-80s. Soviets rarely got meat unlike Americans with our nearly daily cornfed beef, pork, poultry. While Collective farming completely useless, American farmers really suffered under Capitalism. Low prices great for us, crap for producers, agrocorporate takeover...I remember 1985 Iowa "America Needs farmers" campaign.
i recently made a video about all this! you can find it above your comment.
I am a farmer and we also sell again inputs like Garst corn seed, it's good stuff. Corns yield and scalability are unmatched at growing calories in temperate climates.
this is the most random thing ive come across today but damn i need to hear about it
Thank you very much indeed for such a professional and very well narrated story. The only fact that I knew before I watched it was that Nikita Khrushchev was from Ukraine. Love your channel. I never miss a video. Greetings from Ecuador 🇪🇨
thank you and greetings back!
Watching this, all I can think of is Stewie Griffin’s trip to Nebraska 😂
Up until the late 90s, early 100s, we didn't raise corn here in Idaho. The environment was too harsh, the growing season too short.
You could say those pictures are cornography. I wouldn’t but you could
I’ve heard a legend of an Idaho potato farmer that went to Russia as a Mormon missionary and taught them how to grow potatoes more efficiently.
My insurance company used to be a Soviet agriculture farm? The more you know
Earned my sub, very interesting.
Goes to show how different were the ideologies. Khrushchev was obsessed in corn because he saw a way to implement american agriculture technology into a problematic soviet area.
So he personally arrived here like a King visits a country.
Eisenhower on the other hand couldn't even bother with Garst. He barely knew him because it was never Eisenhower job to administer the economy and the society.
My hometown of Wakefield, Massachusetts hosted a delegation of Soviet apparatchiks in the late '80s, when I was in middle school.
Seeing the picture in the local paper of the Russkies trying to wrap their heads around candlepin bowling still makes me smile to remember it 35 years later. No amount of glasnost or perestroika could prepare them for eastern New England's weird and wacky favorite participation sport.
Algorithmic Punch!
Great Video!
Omg her stories about Mrs Khrushchev catching them fighting in the backyard..... What a treat it is to hear these stories of her beloved memories!
Corn addiction truly is the worst social disease
My Dad was a Hutsul from northwestern (more or less) Ukraine. Hutsuls really took to corn, long before Soviet days. Dad prepared a simplified form of banush almost every week, basically hot cornmeal mush poured over crumbled up feta or whatever substitute for bryndza he could get in the middle of Illinois.
My German mother thought of corn as animal feed that one ate only when no proper human food was available. Us kids really liked the banush but Mom wouldn’t touch it.
Say what you will about propaganda, that poster with the marching corn is awesome, so vibrant with little unused space. I want one now 😊
Why is USA obsessed with corn? Half the country is a corn field.
Simply because it grows a lot of grain easily, and responds to fertilizers very well. It makes at least 20% more grain per hectare than wheat, rice, rye or whatever else.
Also, a fun fact is the in the American farms the farmers had been using corncobs to literally wipe their buttholes after shitting. They used to this "tool" and preferred it to toilet paper.
I doubt very much that anyone would choose a dry corn cob over toilet paper, unless it was an emergency.
@@nerfherder4284 yup
Not whole of USSR, just Great Comrade Nikita had the corn obsession. I'm Lithuanian, and whenever the subject of Khruschev and his corn craze is brought up, people who had to live through that agri-experiment cringe hard to say the least.
It's often said, that during this, the collective farms just had a few outer rows of corn sowed around the field's perimeter, enough to create illusion of it growing in full, and the middle was used to grow other crops.
haha yes aaron shares the story in the video!
communism was never about delivering wealth to people
In my lifetime experience, ridicule it as you like, a big part of the reason for the Corn Experiment failure were politicians, citizens and scientists who didn't want to participate to make it work.
Maybe even worked against the project directly or quietly.
All my life I've seen ideas sabotaged by purposeful neglect or opposition because it threatened the current order or someones position.
Later they would resurrect the program and take credit for it.