Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

On April 30, Soviet television broadcast a report to the entire country.

New vegetable markets have been built near some neighborhoods in Kyiv and Moscow—direct sales points for vegetables set up by a consortium around the cities. The camera pans across the shelves, which are stocked with large quantities of fast-growing vegetables: bok choy, cucumbers, eggplants...

All fresh vegetables!

These vegetables were just delivered from the suburbs that evening. There were no canned goods, no dehydrated vegetables, and no wilted stock in warehouses—this was the first major event for the Soviet people since the 80s!

The price isn't too high either. The central government's subsidies for these kinds of vegetables are far less than those for necessities like bread, so the consortium can sign contracts with the cities it belongs to and earn profits. Part of these profits are used to expand production, and the other part is used to subsidize frontline workers.

The television report showed the Soviet Minister of Agriculture inspecting the project, followed by a speech from General Secretary Ivanov. He stood in front of the camera and declared that the "vegetable basket project" was very effective, a truly beneficial project that improved people's lives.

The General Secretary said, "The CPSU plans to promote it nationwide by the end of 1988, and expects to guarantee the vegetable supply in all cities by 1990, so that every Soviet citizen can eat fresh vegetables!"

When the camera panned back to the direct sales point, an elderly woman who had bought fresh cucumbers walked out of the market with a smile, carrying her groceries.

The other side wasn't shown on TV.

The vegetable direct sales points were almost completely sold out within three hours of opening. Residents who wanted to wait for the next wave of deliveries would have to wait a while longer, because the cooperatives around the city had not yet completed their large-scale planting. The current output was only enough to get started and to make a show of things, not enough to satisfy the appetite of an entire city.

In the past, this would have been met with criticism—the TV hype was outrageous, yet the vegetable shops emptied out in three hours; wasn't that just fooling people?

But this time, the people didn't complain.

Everyone knew this was a first in over a decade. For the first time, they could buy freshly picked vegetables right at their doorstep—a groundbreaking advancement for city dwellers who had endured over a decade of rigid, bureaucratic, directive-based economic systems!

Even if they sell out in three hours, they're still real, fresh vegetables that were actually on the shelves and available for purchase. This is different from those fake products that were "on TV but not in real life."

Everyone understands, and everyone is willing to wait.

Because everyone believed it; they believed what General Secretary Ivanov said—that he would promote it nationwide, that he would ensure all cities had fresh vegetables by 1990.

In recent years, the Soviet Union's new General Secretary has largely kept his word. He said he would stabilize food supplies, and they did; he said he would reform, and he truly implemented reforms. Therefore, when he says that food supplies will be available nationwide, they believe him, believing that tomorrow will be better than today!

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The following day, Labor Day, Moscow citizens spontaneously organized a march.

The parade floats were decorated with bags of vegetables and fruits, all green, red, and purple, swaying in the sunlight.

A sign was erected on the float, which read: "Wishing you good health, Comrade General Secretary!"

This was probably the best blessing the simple-minded Soviet people could think of. After all, in the Soviet people's perception, since the 80s, the turnover of the top leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, including the General Secretary, had been very frequent: Brezhnev died of a heart attack, Andropov died of kidney disease, Chernenko suffered organ failure, and Gorbachev "retired due to health reasons"...

Since this General Secretary has done a good job, let's wish him good health. Young people should work a few more years; everyone has a bright future ahead.

Slava watched this scene from his office window. He had been incredibly busy these days, dealing with the mess of military-industrial reforms, the reports of declining consumer goods, and the difficulties reported from various regions... He hadn't had a proper laugh in a long time.

He stood at the window watching the parade below, and a smile slowly spread across his face.

Director Nian stood beside her, looking at Slava's profile.

She remembered when Slava had last laughed like that.

At that time, he made a name for himself in agriculture in Ukraine. On the day he was transferred, the local people spontaneously came to see him off, crowding around him and waving goodbye with smiles.

The praise and recognition of the people is the highest honor a Communist Party member can receive in his lifetime.

The photo taken by the reporter showed Rislava looking genuinely happy, and now he's smiling like that again, for bags of cucumbers and eggplants.

Director Nian didn't say anything; she just watched him and laughed with him.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

On May 4, the Politburo held a regular meeting convened by Ligachev.

Slava was in high spirits. He saw the joy on the faces of the people during the food basket campaign, which was the fuel he needed most for his reforms.

“I think Comrade Ivanova’s initial proposal was very good. Short-term gains are also important. We should do more of these kinds of projects that improve people’s livelihoods,” Slava said. “The people don’t actually want much. They’re so happy with a bite of fresh vegetables. We should continue to work on that.”

Everyone nodded.

Taking advantage of this momentum, Slava put forward a new idea.

"The Premier's proposal can now be implemented. We've already got vegetables on track, and the next step is to talk about meat."

Slava nodded to Ryzhkov and said, "But you know how long the production cycle is for beef and pork. It takes a year and a half to two years to raise a cow from calf to market weight, and at least half a year to raise a pig. That's too slow."

He paused for a moment: "So I thought—why not vigorously promote chicken farming?"

The meeting room fell silent for a moment.

From a purely cost-benefit perspective, Slava's proposal is the most rational. In terms of feed conversion ratio, chickens are unparalleled—approximately two kilograms of feed yields one kilogram of meat—what an incredible ratio! Pigs need three to four kilograms, and cattle six to eight kilograms!

In terms of growth cycle, a broiler chicken only takes six to eight weeks from hatching to market. You feed it today, and you can have meat to sell two months later – the capital turnover is astonishingly fast!

Moreover, chickens are not picky about location; chicken farms can be built directly in industrial areas on the outskirts of cities, without the need for large pastures for grazing, and can be completely industrialized.

This aligns perfectly with the "city-centric" approach of the industry-academia collaboration model adopted by the leader in 2010.

The reasoning was so clear, but as soon as Slava finished speaking, the Minister of Agriculture's face turned somewhat ugly.

The Minister of Agriculture carefully considered his words before speaking.

"General Secretary, raising chickens... this matter may not be so simple."

The Minister of Agriculture's concerns are not unfounded.

First, there's the issue of ideological inertia. The Minister of Agriculture didn't dare say it directly, but the senior members of the Politburo present all understood.

Since Stalin's time, the Soviet leadership has equated the word "meat" with beef.

Cattle were a symbol of socialist agriculture—propaganda posters repeatedly depicted herds of cattle on collective farms and state-run ranches. When Khrushchev shouted "to surpass the per capita meat and milk production of the United States," he was thinking about cattle, and the core indicators of Brezhnev's food program were also beef and pork.

But what about chickens? Chickens have always been a less-than-respectable element in the Soviet Union's meat politics. After all, the Americans started this approach first, and if the Soviet Union followed suit, it would be at a disadvantage ideologically. Chickens are too cheap, too fast, and too... unlike what a socialist superpower should do.

Yes, although this reason sounds very absurd and stereotypical, this problem does exist in the Politburo!

Solving the meat supply problem by raising chickens? That's American practice, that's capitalism! It doesn't sound grand at all, nor does it resemble the grandeur of a superpower. Chicken farming is a calculation for small families to make a living, not something a red empire should be putting on the table.

But it doesn't matter. Slava prioritizes pragmatism, and this issue has never been a problem for him. Let the Americans say what they want, let them shout all they want!

In Slava's view, it would be putting the cart before the horse to let the people go hungry just because of concerns for the Americans!

Then came the problem of structural mismatch in the Soviet production system.

"Comrade General Secretary, in the past our animal husbandry was supported by collective farms and state-owned farms. These places managed large pastures, large herds of cattle, and large pigsties, which was an extensive type of animal husbandry."

Modern industrial chicken farming requires a completely different set of systems—dense poultry houses, precise temperature and humidity control, automatic feeding, strict disease prevention, and rapid production lines... While this system may be called agriculture, it's more like running a factory.

He shrugged: "We lack the technology and skilled labor we have accumulated in modern chicken farming. If we blindly expand production, we may not achieve the expected results."

This is the core issue that is holding us back. Marxist principles tell us that production activities must follow objective laws. If the higher levels do not solve these problems and instead pass them on to the lower levels, all we will get is false reporting of output and falsification of targets!

"There's also the issue of breeds, but that's easy to solve," the Minister of Agriculture said. "General Secretary, the core of the modern broiler chicken industry lies in breeding. Currently, the world's fastest-growing, most economical, and highest-yielding commercial broiler chicken breeds are almost entirely monopolized by a few Western companies—American, British, and French."

The white-feathered broiler chickens that they've bred over decades are something we can't compare to. We in the Soviet Union had our own chickens, but they grew slowly, ate a lot, and produced little meat. Without good breeds, raising chickens is incredibly inefficient.

If we want to catch up quickly in the short term, the best way is to introduce new varieties.

At this moment, Ligachev, who had been mostly silent, spoke up.

Ligachev, a conservative within the party and cautious in his actions, said: "Comrade General Secretary, even if a chicken has a high feed conversion rate, it still needs to eat concentrated feed—high-protein feed mainly consists of soybean meal and corn. I would like to ask: where does this feed come from?"

Ligachev's question left everyone speechless.

"Our soybean yield is pitifully low. At the beginning of the year, General Secretary, you specifically discussed cooperation with China on soybeans. Now, only a few agricultural states in the Amur Far East have started planting soybeans. But what about corn?"

"It's not that I don't support corn farming, it's just that... it's a sensitive topic. Everyone still remembers how Khrushchev messed up corn farming back then."

After listening, Slava pondered for a long time before speaking, "Comrades' concerns are all valid. Breeds, technology, feed, systems—these difficulties are real, but what do we lack most right now?"

He answered it himself.

"It's time."

"The people's patience is limited, the window of opportunity for reform is limited, and the time we can wait is also limited!" Slava said. "At this time, given the choice between something that can be produced in one or two months and something that takes two years, which would I choose? Of course, I would choose the faster one. As for whether it's 'respectable' or 'like what a major power would do'—"

He said solemnly, "Comrades, ensuring that ordinary people have meat on their tables is the greatest dignity in itself!"

In a large country that can't even feed its own people, who are the grandest herds and magnificent pastures for? The meat in the mouths of the people is more important.

Khrushchev's push for corn set a bad precedent, and Gorbachev amplified it. Being too concerned about what the West says only leads to neglecting other aspects.

Over the years, we've focused too much on saving face and sacrificed too much on substance!

Those were strong words. Several senior members of the Politburo present seemed somewhat affected.

“As for the difficulties, let’s tackle them one by one,” Slava decided.

We can rely on China for the varieties.

"China is one of the world's largest chicken producers. They have mature chicken farming experience, and the broiler chicken industry in Shandong and Guangdong has taken off in recent years. Moreover, China just imported commercial broiler chicken breeds from the United States a couple of years ago, so we can indirectly obtain Western broiler chickens through China."

Feed, a commodity used in large quantities, must be produced independently; it cannot be entirely imported.

"Regarding feed, we can start to increase the quotas for soybeans and corn. If the quotas are too tight this year, we can urgently import more from China first, and then reduce imports next year."

For modern industrial chicken farming technology, we need to rely on France.

"As for the technology for large-scale industrialized chicken farming, I think cooperating with France is the most suitable option."

French-bred commercial egg-laying and broiler breeds are highly competitive in the international market. Moreover, unlike the United States, which focuses solely on the fast-growing white-feathered broiler breed, France also maintains an emphasis on "labeled chickens": slow-growing breeds that prioritize meat quality and flavor.

This shows that the French have a more comprehensive understanding of chicken farming (actually, they are more discerning when it comes to food).

In terms of husbandry and management, environmentally controlled chicken houses, such as temperature control, ventilation, and automatic feeding and watering, are already standard equipment in France. France's feed conversion ratio and mortality rate are on par with advanced countries like the United States and the Netherlands.

The French National Institute for Agricultural Research has consistently produced research findings in areas such as poultry nutrition, disease control, and reproductive physiology.

“Our Soviet Union already had a foundation in collective industrialized broiler chicken farming,” Slava said. “Based on this foundation, cooperating with France to introduce advanced technology was a better fit than cooperating with others.”

With the chicken farming deal settled, Slava then set his sights on the agricultural targets for the second half of the year.

This feed is for chickens, cattle, and pigs in the future, and the Soviet Union was precisely lacking in this area.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences had already begun developing dual-purpose crops, but how many years does it take for a new variety to go from the laboratory to the whole country? Scientific research is often not about building a technology tree, but about drawing cards from a gacha pool; it really depends on luck.

As soon as Koslava mentioned growing corn for animal feed, some people in the meeting room changed their expressions.

"General Secretary, aren't you... going to do what Comrade Khrushchev did again? Do we really want to continue doing this?"

Khrushchev's corn campaign remains a scar in the political memory of the Soviet Union. Any proposal related to large-scale corn planting would trigger a conditioned reflex, and "corn adventurism" was one of the charges against Khrushchev when he was ousted from power.

Slava knew that he had to distance himself from Khrushchev at this moment.

He calmly said, "Where did Comrade Khrushchev go wrong? Many people think he went wrong by planting corn, but that's not right! He went wrong by planting corn in Siberia."

He looked around.

"Why are there so many ideological twists and turns about corn? There's nothing wrong with growing corn!"

His mistake was ignoring basic agricultural knowledge and imposing a blanket policy, forcing the entire country to plant corn. He was amazed by the corn grown in Iowa, USA, and upon returning, he ordered corn to be planted everywhere from Ukraine all the way to near the Arctic Circle!

The corn planting area increased several times within a year, including a large portion of areas with climates completely unsuitable for corn. The result? Corn simply couldn't ripen in cold regions; what was harvested were either empty stalks without ears or died frozen in the field.

He also used corn to crowd out traditional wheat and rye, forcing local governments to cut the acreage of staple crops in order to meet corn quotas—which led to the first time that they were forced to import grain from abroad.

Not to mention, he had neither varieties suitable for our climate nor specialized machinery, and he lacked even basic knowledge of corn agronomy. The officials below couldn't grow them and dared not report it, so they resorted to falsifying data to deceive Moscow. Moscow then used this false data to expand the planting area even further.

Slava then changed the subject: "We communists must solve this problem realistically, instead of clinging to past mistakes and being afraid to move forward."

"First, we only grow it in suitable places, such as Ukraine."

Slava had worked in agriculture in Ukraine, and he was familiar with that black soil.

"The black soil of Ukraine was the most ideal place in the entire Soviet Union to grow corn, without exception."

Summers are warm and humid, and the growing season is long enough. Back then, corn thrived and yielded good results in Ukraine! Besides Ukraine, the North Caucasus and southern Russia—Krasnodar, Stavropol, Rostov—have warm climates and are among the most suitable places for corn cultivation in Russia.

Add to that Moldova and Georgia, and you have the rest of Europe south of 45 degrees north latitude. These places combined are enough to support a sizable feed industry.

As for Siberia—not a single one will be planted.

He paused for a moment.

The same principle applies to soybeans.

One suitable region for soybean cultivation is the Amur Oblast and Primorsky Krai in the Far East, which faces Northeast China across the river. The climate and soil are compatible, and we can conduct cross-border cooperation with China in terms of germplasm, technology, and joint breeding. Another suitable region is southern Russia—Kursk, Belgorod, Krasnodar, and other areas with low latitude and warm summers, which are suitable for early-maturing varieties.

As for Central Asia, corn and soybeans are not grown there, but legume forage grasses like alfalfa can be planted, which can both feed livestock and fix nitrogen to improve soil quality.

Since Slava's decision wasn't made on a whim and he was willing to take responsibility for it, the committee member who mentioned Khrushchev remained silent.

What else is there to say? The leader is willing to take responsibility, offer solutions, listen to the scientific advice of professionals, and understand the difficulties of subordinates. If we don't do a good job, we'll be letting our mentor down!

The agricultural targets for the second half of the year were thus set.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.