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
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]
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