One of the most large-scale projects of the world history - the so-called Great Plan of Nature Transformation, called "Stalin's Plan", because its development and approval at the legislative level (October 20, 1948) were initiated and personally controlled by I.V. Stalin [Bushinsky, p.9]. The plan was intended to solve several problems at once: the tasks of the immediate future were the rapid restoration of the national economy after the devastation caused by German Nazism; the next set of tasks covered the general improvement of the culture of land use in order to ensure the food security of the population in the long run; and finally the third set of tasks included the further evolution of large socio – technical systems through the acquisition of innovative technologies of environmental management, and therefore-a new civilizational leap of Soviet society.
Background behind the creation of the Great plan for the transformation of nature
Direct material damage from the war and temporary occupation of part of the territory of the USSR by the enemy is estimated at 678 billion rubles (in pre-war prices), which is close to the total value of all Soviet investments for the first four five-year plans [Chuntulov, p.261].
Hitlerites and their accomplices completely or partially destroyed 1710 cities and over 70 thousand villages and villages, liquidated 31,850 enterprises, plundered 98 thousand collective farms, 1876 state farms, 2890 MTS, destroyed 65 thousand km of railways from 4100 railway stations, blew up 13 thousand bridges, caused other destruction. [Criminal goal..., sec. 310-311]
The plan for the post-war reconstruction of the national economy of the USSR provided for the allocation of 338.7 billion rubles to the economy in order to restore 3200 enterprises in the former occupied territories and build another 2700 new industrial facilities in other regions of the country [Chuntulov, p.262]. This breakthrough was to a large extent facilitated by monetary reform, the idea of which was born back in 1943–1944. [Zverev, p.231–232], however, the implementation immediately after the war turned out to be impossible, largely due to the consequences of the monstrous drought of 1946 [Spitsyn, p.17].
Cont. In comments
The drought zone of 1946-1947 occupied 5 million square kilometers (over 20% of the territory of the USSR) within the limits of the European part of the country at latitudes from 55° in the north to 35° in the south, which included Ukraine, Moldova, the Lower Volga region, the North Caucasus and the Central Black Earth region of the RSFSR [Koldanov, p.32; Spitsyn, p.17].
Because of the drought, the delivery of grain to the state only by collective farms of the Lower Volga region, for example, fell in comparison with 1945 by 21.7% in the Astrakhan region, 2 times in Saratov, 2.1 times in Stalingrad [Kuznetsova, p. 235]. In the first post-war years, the main production of legumes and many industrial crops was concentrated within the drought zone, as well as the largest industrial settlements with a high population, so the agrarian crisis was not only of local importance, but threatened to disrupt the plan for the restoration of the national economy and provoke a decline in the whole. The agricultural problem had to be solved against the background of the rapidly deteriorating international situation: as part of the policy of "containment of the USSR", according to the Truman Doctrine (March 12, 1947) - an American echo of the Fulton speech of W. Churchill (March 5, 1946) - the US government in March 1948 introduced export licenses that prohibited the export of most American goods to the Soviet Union [Katasonov, p. 32].
Under these conditions, Stalin returned to the project of integrated agroforestry in the steppe zone, the idea of which was first proposed in 1924 [korchemkina, p. 31]. For these purposes, it was planned to allocate 15 million rubles, but then the country, which was preparing for forced industrialization and had not yet completed collective farm construction, did not have the material resources or the human resources to implement such a large-scale task.
Forest plantations in the steppe and forest-steppe zones were carried out in Russia-the USSR long before 1948. but until the 19th century, it was mainly aimed at restoring the ship's and commercial forests. The practice of reforestation was established by Peter the Great in the 1720s, but until the 19th century it was mainly aimed at restoring the ship's and commercial forests. Exceptions to this rule are rare (e.g., protective forest plantations of the Don Cossacks on the Khopor River in the 18th century). [Mikhin]). The scientific substantiation of steppe afforestation for the purposes of protective, erosion control and reclamation purposes was an outstanding discovery of the Russian scientists of the XIX century - P.A. Kostychev, A.A. Izmailsky, V.B. Dokuchaev, N.G. Vysotsky, etc., who developed the system of dry agriculture [Logginov, p.5]. At the same time steppe forestries were created, the first of which was the Veliko-Anadolskoye (1843) in Yekaterinburg province [Yerusalimskiy, p.123].
A turning point in the history of steppe agroforestry is considered to be the period of Activity of V. V. Dokuchaev's Special expedition of the Voronezh province (1892-1898) in response to the drought of 1891, which covered 26 provinces and was accompanied by a terrible famine. During the expedition on the territory of the so-called Stone Steppe the system of protective forest plantations was created for the first time, an integral part of which were ponds [erusalimsky, p. 124]. As a result of the research, Dokuchayev proposed, among other things, a program of the following measures to regulate water management in the open steppes: (a) creation of pond systems in watershed steppe areas, the banks of which should be planted with trees; (b) planting of hedge rows; (c) continuous planting of forests in all areas inconvenient for arable land, "especially if they are open to strong winds" [Dokuchaev, p.104]. Similar conclusions were reached independently by climatologist A.I. Voyeikov, geologist V.A. Obruchev, chemist and economist D.I. Mendeleev [Kovda, p.16]. The latter in his “Explanatory Tariff” (1892) emphasized that “not only measures protecting forests from further reducing their proportion in all provinces where forests are less than 20% in area, but also stimulating intensified afforestation, are of particular state and direct agricultural importance. where the forest area is less than 10% of the entire surface ”[Mendeleev, p.306].
Like D.I. Mendeleev, many Russian scientists believed that growing forests in the steppe was a matter of national importance and, moreover, a manifestation of patriotism. In 1884, the forester M.K. Turskiy, having visited the Great Anadolu, said with fervent love: "You have to be there, on the spot, you have to see the Great Anadolu forest with your own eyes to understand all the greatness of the steppe afforestation, which is our pride. No words can describe the satisfying feeling that this forest oasis causes among the vast steppe on the visitor. It is indeed our pride, because in Western Europe you will not find anything like this" [quoted from: Koldanov,]
In Soviet times, the beginning of protective afforestation occurred in 1918, when the "Basic Law on Forests" was adopted (May 27), where the planting of forest crops was included in the number of planned reforestation measures. More detailed instructions are given by the Decree of the Council of Labor and Defense on combating drought (April 1921). The second period of steppe afforestation in the USSR is associated with the results of the All-Union Conference on Combating Drought (1931), where it was decided to plant 3 million hectares of forest mainly in the Volga region [Koldanov, p.23]. In total from 1931 to 1941. 844.5 thousand hectares of forest lands were laid, of which 465.2 thousand hectares fell on the share of field-protecting forest strips [Pisarenko, p.8]. The Great Patriotic War interrupted the development of steppe afforestation in the country. However, the drought of 1946 showed that in the experimental plots protected by forest belts, the grain yield is 3-4 times higher than on neighboring lands and reaches 6-17 centners per ha [Koldanov, p. 28; Prasolov, p.11]. The fight against drought by afforestation is one of the most important work vectors of the newly formed (in April 1947) USSR Ministry of Forestry [Koldanov, p.32]. In 1948, the third period began in the development of steppe afforestation in the Soviet Union, when, based on the teachings of Dokuchaev-Kostychev, a comprehensive 15-year project for agroforestry in the arid zone was created - the Great Stalinist Plan for the Transformation of Nature.
A Great Plan In Action
The project was approved by the decree of the USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) dated October 20, 1948, No. 3960 "On the plan of field-protective forest plantations, introduction of grass crop rotation, construction of ponds and reservoirs to ensure high and stable yields in steppe and forest-steppe areas of the European part of the USSR". Within the framework of the plan it was supposed to occupy the area of 5709 thousand hectares with the simultaneous creation of 44,200 ponds and reservoirs in collective and state farms of over 44,200 hectares to ensure the sustainable yield of grain crops on 120 million hectares of arable land, where 80,000 collective farms work [Savelyeva, p. 10; Spitsyn, p. 19]. The central element of the plan is the creation of eight large state protective forest belts with the total length of 5320 km (later, in 1951, the length was revised and increased to 5674 km [Koldanov, p.59]):
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The Vyshnevaya-Caspian LRTL is the greatest and widest mountain, 1080 km long (later reduced to 675 km), which will run along the Ural River by three ribbons from each side in the direction of Orsk-Chkalov-Uralsk-Caspian Sea coast [Lositsky; Pisarenko, p.8-9];
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Voronezh - Rostov-on-Don LRTL with a length of 920 km (increased to 1055 km), which will run along both banks of the Don in the direction from Voronezh to Rostov [Zemlyanitsky; Pisarenko, p.8-9];
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SLPP Saratov - Astrakhan with the length of 900 km (increased to 1081 km), which will pass along both banks of the Volga River in the direction of Saratov - Nizhnyaya Bannovka - Kamyshin - Stalingrad - Astrakhan [Godnev; Pisarenko, p.8-9];
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SLPP Penza - Kamensk with the length of 600 km (increased to 733 km), which will run along the watersheds of the rivers Khopra and Medveditsa, Kalitva and Berezova in the direction of Penza - Yekaterinovka - Veshenskaya - Kamensk on the river Seversky Donets [Zaitsev (b); Pisarenko, p.8-9];
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SLPP Chapaevsk - Vladimirovka 580 km long (reduced to 425.6 km), which will run along the left bank of the Volga River through Syrtovoye Zavolzhye to the Caspian lowland in the direction of Chapaevsk - Ershov - Vladimirovka [Pisarenko, p.8-9; Senkevich];
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SLPP Stalingrad - Cherkessk with a length of 570 km (increased to 582 km), which will pass along the right bank of the Volga River, through the hills of Yergeni and Primanichskaya lowland in the direction of Stalingrad - Stepnoi - Cherkessk [Ivanenko; Pisarenko, p.8-9];
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SLPP Belgorod - Don with the length of 500 km (increased up to 518 km), which will run along both banks of the Severskiy Donets in the direction of Belgorod - Lisichansk - Voroshilovgrad - Ust-Donetsk [Pisarenko, pp. 8-9; Skorodumov];
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SLPP Kamyshin - Stalingrad with the length of 170 km (increased up to 250 km), which will be held along the watershed of the Volga and Ilovli (Right Bank) in the direction of Kamyshin - Stalingrad [Zaitsev (a); Pisarenko, p.8-9].
According to the plan, the forestry plan should consist of a number of small forest belts, “ribbons” (usually 2–4) 60 m wide each with a distance of 300 m between them. In addition, the decree obliged the USSR Ministry of Forestry to take measures to preserve valuable forest areas in the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the European part of the USSR (Shipov Forest, Khrenovsky Bor, Borisoglebsky Forest, Tula Forests, Shatilovsky Forest, Black Forest, Veliko-Anadolsky Forest, Buzuluksky Bor, Leninsky and Manychsky Forestries of the Rostov Region, watershed e woodlands Kuibyshevskaya and Ulyanovsk areas Seigniorial hut, Feodosiyske forestry and forest Beshtaugorsky et al.) [Spitcin, p.20]. “The implementation of all these activities will be a wonderful example of a scientific alteration of the nature of the steppes, which until now has not been known to mankind,” stated one of the most active participants in the acad plan. L.I. Prasolov [Prasolov, p.11].
Implementation of the plan was entrusted to the Central, regional and local institutions for forest protection under the leadership of the Main Department of forest protection under the Council of Ministers of the USSR [Koldanov, p. 39]. By 1951, the formation of a network of steppe afforestation institutions was completed, which included territorial forest plantation departments, forestry departments, forest protection stations, steppe forestries and forestries, state forest nurseries, expeditions of the design and survey association “Agrolesoproekt".
As of 1 January 1953, the system of these organizations employed 6,000 professionals with higher and secondary vocational education.
During the first three years of the plan implementation (from 1949 to 1951) 119 thousand tons of seeds were harvested for the purpose of afforestation, 105 thousand tons of them were acorns, for the transportation of which up to 3000 cars were engaged in every autumn from the places of harvesting to the plantations [Ibid., p.51]. During the same period of time, about 14 billion seedlings were raised in the forest nurseries and other forest management organizations of the USSR, 3890 million of them in 1949 4719 million units in 1950, and in 1951. - 5130 million units. [ibid., p. 52]. Over 4 years, 64.6 thousand hectares of forest crops were planted on the GZLP routes [ibid., P.69].
Forestry and agronomic measures stipulated by the decree of 1948 required in-depth agrobiological and related studies, which significantly enriched science with knowledge about the design of sustainable agroforestry. When developing and at the initial stage of the implementation of the plan, scientific work was carried out by the All-Union Research Institute of Forestry, the All-Union Research Institute of Agroforestry, the Ukrainian Institute of Agroforestry, the Uzbek Institute of Forestry and the Institute of Agriculture named after V.V. Dokuchaev [ibid., P. 47].The network of scientific institutions included about 20 experimental stations and up to 40 reference points [ibid.]n addition, specialists from the Institute of Forestry, the Komarov Botanical Institute and the Integrated Expedition on Field Protection Forestry developed programs the following programs:
1: survey geobotanical studies (routing); (b) study of vegetation as a forage base; (c) stationary and semi-stationary studies of forests, the study of the underground part of plant communities (forest and herbaceous), the seed bank and its restoration, etc. Instructions were prepared for each group of programs to carry out the relevant work Zoning of the forest protection afforestation was carried out by such scientists as A.E. Dyachenko (1948), V.A. Bodrov (1940, 1951) and others [Logginov, p.15]. Additional geological (including geomorphological and hydrogeological) and geographical studies were carried out in 1949 by I.P. Gerasimov, N.E. Ivanov, N.I. Nikolaev, N.N. Slavyanov [Koldanov, p.48].
Since artificially created field-protective forest plantations are expected to bring about deep changes in the composition of the local entomofauna, Soviet zoologists at the early stages of the plan actively began to study the community of insect pests that damage trees and shrubs of the plantations. A large amount of research in this area was carried out by E.N. Pavlovsky, G.Ya. Bei-Bienko, L.V. Arnoldy, M.S. Gilyarov, A.N. Kirichenko, M.N. Nikolskaya, A.A. Richter, G.H. Shaposhnikov, etc. [Bei-Bienko, p.4]. At the same time, ornithologists (Spangenberg E.P., Shaposhnikov L.V., etc.) considered the possibility of regulating the number of pests by natural, ecological methods, i.e. through the introduction of useful bird species into the field protection zones, including by attracting birds. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to solve a number of complex biotechnical problems, because without human intervention, the settlement of artificial plantings by birds occurs quite late (up to 6 years of age, the diversity of ornithofauna varies between 7 and 15 species), and the migratory species are not included in the reserve for settlement [Spangenberg, pp. 3-4, 19; Shaposhnikov].
In those years and subsequent years of research, it was established that the field protection belts made it possible to regulate a wide range of abiotic environmental factors, primarily microclimatic ones, such as surface air temperature, relative and absolute humidity, snow cover distribution (the length of the snow plume from the forest belts), and snow cover height. Also, forest belts actively influence hydrothermal properties of the soil (temperature in the surface layer, moisture content, structure of soil aggregates, content of toxic salts, etc.) [Gostyshchev, p.39; Mikhin]. In addition, the content of humus and biofilm elements in the zone of influence of FTZs increases, microbiological processes are activated [Gostyshchev, p.39]. All this leads to an increase in the average yield of grain crops under the protection of plantations by 18-23%, industrial crops - by 20-26%, fodder crops - by 29-41% [Ibid.]
Naturally, the results at different sites varied greatly, since the efficiency and activity of the bands' influence on the interstrip fields depend on the age of plantations (usually not younger than 3-5 years), on the species composition of the latter, the method of planting, the structure (blown, openworked, openworked, dense), and, in addition, on the local physical and geographical conditions, types and properties of soils. It is important to note that the creation of forest belts will not bring the expected results, if it is not accompanied by other forest engineering works (strip packing, maintenance) and agronomic works (stubble preservation, competent placement of crops, cracking, etc.) [Paramonov, p.34]. Unfortunately, these measures were not observed everywhere, which is why in some places there was a death of the LNP. Later, the consequences of negligence and banal laziness of responsible persons began to be presented by the opponents of the Stalinist plan as evidence of its "thoughtlessness" and even "malignancy".
Nevertheless, the task of economic stabilization was generally solved, and the Soviet Union reached such a level of management of large agrobiotechnical systems that guaranteed the sustainable development of artificially designed agroforestry landscapes. GOELRO's plan (also 15 years old) gave the country a unified state energy system for industrial growth based on new technologies; the process of electrification was accompanied by the unification of enterprises into large regional complexes. The plan of nature transformation opened a new page in the economic zoning of the USSR, as it was aimed at building a unified agricultural system with controlled landscapes. In the future, it would be possible to synthesize systems with combined resource management and technology (primarily integrated land, water, forest and subsoil use).
But even before such a synthesis was achieved, the problem of food security of the population was removed, which was obvious to Western experts. Thus, in 1948, the American newspaper "The Washington Post", touching upon the fact of exhaustion of fertile soils in the U.S. after the ecological catastrophe of the “Dust Bowl", noted that "if the Cold War turns into a long-term conflict, the achievements in respect of land reclamation can solve the question of who will be the winner in this war" [quoted from: Spitsyn, p.19; Brian, p.91-92]. At the same time, the United States definitely lost to the Soviet Union in the matter of agroforestry, because the Great Plains afforestation program progressed only at a rate of 3.3 thousand hectares per year and, being implemented by 12-14%, was curtailed [Bovin, p.93].
Winding down the Great plan
In March 1953, i.e. immediately after the assassination of I. V. Stalin, the Ministry of forestry was liquidated and the pace of implementation of the nature transformation plan began to decline sharply [Pisarenko, p. 9; Yarygin, p. 201]. Khrushchev, who seized power, led the onslaught on all large-scale projects designed to increase the population (population) of territories, the manageability of territorial and industrial complexes, the complexity of the Soviet technosphere. At the end of March 1953 the secret decree of the USSR Council of Ministers cancelled the construction of the Main Turkmen canal, a Gravity canal Volga–Ural, the second branch of the Volga-Baltic waterway, waterworks don, Ust-Donetsk port is the polar TRANS-Siberian railway, tunnel under the Tatar Strait and a number of other industrial and infrastructure projects [Spitsyn, p. 140]. The curtailment of the Great plan for the transformation of nature is included in the list of Khrushchev's "reforms" to dismantle Soviet civilization.
All work on the state stripes of Saratov - Astrakhan, Stalingrad - Cherkessk, Chapaevsk-Vladimirovka and Mount Vishnevaya - Caspian (total forested area of 46.41 thousand hectares) was mothballed; these forests were abandoned for gradual extinction [Koldanov, p.71]. By the fall of 1953, compared with 1952, the proportion of surviving PLNs fell from 95 to 63% [ibid.]. By 1960, the total area of state forest belts was reduced by 2000 ha [Yarygin, p.201]. Along the way, Khrushchev eliminated 570 forest protection stations [Spitsyn, p.21]. In general, for the period 1954-1966. the planting volume of protective forest stands fell to 70 thousand ha / year, and 53% of 950 thousand ha planted during these years remained [Pisarenko, p.9]. These harmful actions led to an ecological catastrophe on the virgin lands in 1962–1963, which undermined the country's food security, forcing the authorities to sell gold for grain purchases for the first time in the post-war years (600 tons of gold were sold and 13 million tons of grain were purchased) [Spitsyn , p.21]. Thus, the destruction of agriculture by Khrushchev simultaneously put an end to Stalin's policy of accumulation of gold reserves of the state.
Only in March 1967. the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "on urgent measures to protect the soil from wind and water erosion" was adopted, which to a certain extent revived the practice of protective afforestation [Yarygin, p. 201]
http://stalinism.ru/stalin-i-gosudarstvo/70-let-velikomu-planu-preobrazovaniya-prirody.html
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Wish I could take credit. It's from a Russian comrade that posted this and the one on the Soviet financial system years back and I had it saved.