People's Commissariat for Agriculture
Encyclopedia
The Soviet Ministry of Agriculture and Food was established in 1923 and known prior to 1946 as the People's Commissariat for Agriculture - Narkomzem). It took over the Narkomzem offices located at Orlikov Pereulok, 1, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, designed by Aleksey Shchusev. This building is currently occupied by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation
Ministry of Agriculture (Russia)
The Russian Federation Ministry of Agriculture, headquartered at Orlikov pereulok, 1/11, in Moscow, is the cabinet-level agency responsible for support of agricultural production, soil conservation, rural development, agricultural market regulation, and financial stabilization of the farm...
. It was formally known as the People's Commissariat for Agriculture ( - Narkomzem) was set up in Petrograd in October 1917. Vladimir Milyutin
Vladimir Milyutin
Vladimir Pavlovich Milyutin was a Bolshevik leader who was appointed People's Commissar of Agriculture in 1917....
was appointed the first People's Commissar of Agriculture. He was a member of the Council of People's Commissars.
The Narkomzem offices located at Orlikov Pereulok, 1, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
were designed by Aleksey Shchusev in 1928. This building is currently occupied by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation
Ministry of Agriculture (Russia)
The Russian Federation Ministry of Agriculture, headquartered at Orlikov pereulok, 1/11, in Moscow, is the cabinet-level agency responsible for support of agricultural production, soil conservation, rural development, agricultural market regulation, and financial stabilization of the farm...
.
Biological weapons research and production
Despite having signed the 1972 Biological Weapons ConventionBiological Weapons Convention
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the...
(BWC), the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
continued development and mass production of offensive biological weapons. These activities were conducted by a main directorate — "Biopreparat
Biopreparat
Biopreparat was the Soviet Union's major biological warfare agency from the 1970s on. It was a vast network of secret laboratories, each focused on a different deadly agent...
" — along with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and several other Soviet ministries and agencies (Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Health, USSR Academy of Sciences, the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, etc). In the 1980s, the Ministry of Agriculture successfully developed variants of foot-and-mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease
Foot-and-mouth disease or hoof-and-mouth disease is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids...
and rinderpest
Rinderpest
Rinderpest was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic buffalo, and some other species of even-toed ungulates, including buffaloes, large antelopes and deer, giraffes, wildebeests and warthogs. After a global eradication campaign, the last confirmed case of rinderpest was diagnosed in 2001...
against cows, African swine fever for pig
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
s, and psittacosis
Psittacosis
In medicine , psittacosis — also known as parrot disease, parrot fever, and ornithosis — is a zoonotic infectious disease caused by a bacterium called Chlamydophila psittaci and contracted from parrots, such as macaws, cockatiels and budgerigars, and pigeons, sparrows, ducks, hens, gulls and many...
to kill chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
. These agents were prepared to be sprayed down from tanks attached to airplanes over hundreds of miles. The secret program was code-named "Ecology".