The beginning of the development of virgin lands and the results of the heroic epic

The Russian Empire was the world's largest grain exporter. Even in the conditions of the World War, when all European countries were forced to switch to the card system of supplying the population, in our country bread and other products could be bought freely in the store.

The problems began later, after October 1917. The new Economic Policy seems to have decided them, but it turned out that it was not for a long time and not for long ...

A lot has been written about the horrors of collectivization, the famine and many other consequences of the practical introduction of Marxism on one sixth of the land. Then there was a war that could be attributed to deprivation and hardship. Now, if it were not for her, damned, we would have healed ...

The Soviet leadership has always tried to solve all problems by the simplest means. The complex lacked a general development, no patience.

After the death of Stalin, the new secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, this time not the General, but the First, once again thought about how to finally feed the people. On a large map of the USSR, attention was drawn with even lines (this is Joseph Vissarionovich spent 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 1945 was initiated by the Kazakh Communists at the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR. However, the scale was not the one that was required to solve the grain problem on an all-Union scale. The local initiative needed to be supported.

On February 23, 1954, a plenum of the Central Committee was convened, on which the question of increasing the acreage in different regions of the USSR, including the Urals, Siberia, the Volga region and even the Caucasus, was directly raised, but it was clear to everyone that the main arena of revolutionary agrarian transformations would be Kazakhstan. It was announced the beginning of the development of virgin lands. The closing date of the plenum, March 2, has become historic.

The tasks were large-scale: sow 13 million hectares, get a billion poods of harvest. What is needed for this? People and technology. More recently, workers, and free, in unlimited quantities could supply Gulag. Now we had to act differently. The beginning of development of virgin lands was accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign, glorifying "new settlers" who dared to challenge nature itself. Enthusiasm, which often took place on movie screens, than in real life, required material reinforcement. People were lured with benefits, lifts and allowances. In addition to them, a loan was also issued - 10,000 for 10 years, while it was necessary to give only 6,500 rubles. And free travel.

Nobody could guess the result, which gave rise to the development of virgin lands. The year 1955 unexpectedly became productive, to which, naturally, no one was preparing. There was nothing to export grain, and nowhere. About such a trifle, as elevators and other infrastructure, in those heroic years did not think.

Enthusiasts, who decided to relocate, found themselves in extremely harsh conditions. I had to live in tents and dugouts, the climate was severe. In addition, the social composition was not homogeneous, it was difficult to maintain order in the settlements of the builders. They went to the Kazakh steppes not only Komsomol volunteers, but also people with a criminal past, and sometimes even the present.

The beginning of the development of virgin lands created another problem - the ecological one. The fertile layer was unusually thin, its deep plowing led to soil erosion and dust storms. The lack of a scientific approach and the corresponding agronomic research (and there was simply no time for them) produced deplorable results, one of which was the decline in the productivity of the livestock sector, which is traditional for Kazakhstan's agriculture.

On the scale of social and agrarian transformations, the virgin epic was unrivaled. 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 native lands without prejudice to the case.

Seventy percent of the planned increase in agricultural production turned into a more modest figure - 15%. The beginning of the development of virgin lands was not prepared. In the mid-fifties in the popular people enjoyed someone's amateur parody of propaganda song, composed specifically for the heroes-virgin: "Newcomers are coming, faces are not happy ..."