The Russian Empire was the world's largest grain exporter. Even in the conditions of World War II, when all European countries were forced to switch to a card system for supplying the population, in our country bread and other products could be freely bought in stores.
The problems began later, after October 1917. The New Economic Policy seems to have solved them, but it turned out that it was not serious and not for long ...
Much has been written about the horrors of collectivization, hunger, and many other consequences of the practical introduction of Marxism on one sixth of the land. Then there was a war to which privations and hardships could be attributed. Now, if not for her, damned, we would have healed ...
The Soviet leadership has always tried to solve all problems by the simplest means. The complex ones lacked either general development or patience.
After Stalin's death, the new secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, this time not the General, but the First, again thought about how to finally feed the people. On a large map of the USSR, attention was drawn outlined by straight lines (this was Joseph Vissarionovich drawing under the ruler) large and sparsely populated Kazakhstan. And if you take and sow it with wheat?
The beginning of the development of virgin lands in February 1945 was initiated by the Kazakh Communists at the VII Congress of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR. However, the scale was not what was required to solve the grain problem on an all-Union scale. Local initiative needed to be supported.
On February 23, 1954, a plenum 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 become the main arena of revolutionary agrarian transformations. The beginning of the development of virgin lands was announced. The closing date of the plenum, March 2, became historic.
The tasks were large-scale: sow 13 million hectares, get a billion pounds of crop. What is needed for this? People and technology. More recently, the Gulag could supply workers, free of charge, in unlimited quantities. Now I had to act differently. The beginning of the development of the virgin lands was accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign glorifying the "new settlers" who dared to challenge nature itself. Enthusiasm, which more often took place on movie screens than in real life, required material reinforcement. People were lured with benefits, lifting and benefits. In addition to them, a loan was also issued - 10 thousand for 10 years, while only 6,500 rubles had to be paid. And free travel.
No one could have imagined the result that gave rise to the development of virgin lands. The year 1955 unexpectedly became fruitful, for which, of course, no one was preparing. There was nothing to export grain, and nowhere. About such trifles as elevators and other infrastructure, in those heroic years did not think.
Enthusiasts who decided to relocate found themselves in extremely harsh conditions. We had to live in tents and dugouts, the climate was harsh. In addition, the social composition turned out to be heterogeneous, it became difficult to maintain order in the villages of builders. Not only Komsomol volunteers traveled to the Kazakh steppes, but also people with a criminal past, and sometimes even a present.
The beginning of the development of virgin lands created another problem - the ecological one. 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 relevant agronomic research (and there simply wasn’t time for them) gave their deplorable results, one of which was a decrease in the productivity of the livestock sector, traditional for Kazakhstan’s agriculture.
By the scale of social and agrarian transformations, 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 native land without prejudice to the cause.
The seventy percent 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, an amateur parody of a propaganda song composed specially for virgin heroes was popular among the people: “New settlers are coming, faces are not happy ...”