Российская империя была крупнейшим мировым grain exporter. Even in the conditions of world war, when all European countries were forced to switch to a rationing system for supplying the population, in our country bread and other products could be freely bought in the store.
Problems began later, after October 1917. The New Economic Policy seemed to have decided them, but it turned out that it was not in earnest and for a short while ...
On the horrors of collectivization, hunger and many othersthe consequences of the practical implementation of Marxism on one-sixth of the land has been written a lot. Then there was the war, which could write off the deprivation and hardship. If it were not for her, damned, we would have healed ...
The Soviet leadership has always tried to solve all the problems with the simplest means. The complex lacked neither general development nor patience.
После смерти Сталина новый секретарь ЦК КПСС, на This time, not General, but First, again wondered how to finally feed the people. On the large map of the USSR, attention was drawn to the delineated by smooth lines (this was Joseph Vissarionovich conducted under the ruler) a large and sparsely populated Kazakhstan. And if you take it and sow it with wheat?
The beginning of the development of virgin lands in February 1945was initiated by the Kazakh Communists at the VII Congress of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR. However, the scales were not the ones that were required to solve the grain problem on an all-Union scale. Local initiative needed support.
On February 23, 1954, a plenary session of the Central Committee was convened,which directly raised the question of increasing the acreage in different regions of the USSR, including the Urals, Siberia, the Volga region, and even the Caucasus, but it was clear to everyone that Kazakhstan would be the main arena of revolutionary agrarian reforms. It was announced the beginning of the development of virgin lands. The closing date of the plenum, March 2, has become historic.
Tasks were scaled:sow 13 million hectares, get a billion pounds of crop. What is needed for this? People and technology. Most recently, the Gulag could supply workers, and free ones, in unlimited quantities. Now I had to act differently. The beginning of the development of virgin lands was accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign, glorifying the "new settlers" who dared to challenge nature itself. Enthusiasm, which took place more often on movie screens than in real life, required material reinforcement. People lured benefits, lifting and benefits. In addition to them, a loan was also issued - 10 thousand for 10 years, while it was necessary to give only 6,500 rubles. And free travel.
Nobody could guess the result, whichgave rise to the development of virgin lands. The year 1955 suddenly became fruitful, for which, naturally, no one prepared. There was nothing to take out the grain, and nowhere. In those heroic years, such trifles as elevators and other infrastructure did not reflect.
Enthusiasts, who decided to move,turned out to be in extremely harsh conditions. Had to live in tents and dugouts, the climate was harsh. In addition, the social composition was heterogeneous, it became difficult to maintain order in the settlements of builders. Not only Komsomol volunteers traveled to the Kazakh steppes, but also people with a criminal past, and sometimes a present.
The beginning of the development of virgin lands has created anotherthe problem is ecological. The fertile layer turned out to be unusually thin, its deep plowing led to soil erosion and dust storms. The lack of a scientific approach and appropriate agronomic research (and there was simply no time for them) yielded its deplorable results, one of which was a decline in the productivity of the livestock sector, traditional for agriculture of Kazakhstan.
By the scale of social and agriculturalTransformations of the virgin epic was unparalleled. 650 thousand people from different republics of the USSR moved to Kazakhstan. As further practice showed, almost half a million of them could remain in their homelands without prejudice to the cause.
Seventy percent planned increaseagricultural production turned a more modest figure - 15%. The beginning of the development of virgin lands was not prepared. In the mid-fifties, amateur parody of a propaganda song composed especially for virgin heroes was popularly popular among the people: “New settlers go, faces are sad,”
