Kazakhstan in the years of “ khrushev decades” (1953-1964 yy)

Lecture № 45+46

Brief contents:Policy of Nikita Khrushev –Policy of

“Virgin lands campaigns”Positive and negative results of “Virgin

lands”

In the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev decided to use Kazakhstan to showcase Soviet ingenuity in land management and agriculture. was later known as the “Virgin Lands” project.

Nikita Khrushev is First secretary of Communist party in USSR in 1953-1964 yy.

In September 1953 y. the Central Committee plenum (council) – composed of Khrushchev, two aides and one agricultural specialist – met to determine the severity of the agricultural crisis in the Soviet Union.Khrushchev’s plan both expanded the reforms and proposed that 13 million hectares (130,000 km2) of previously uncultivated land be plowed and cultivated by 1956.

This land was located on the right bank of the Volga, the northern Caucasus, Western Siberia, and Northern Kazakhstan

The 1955 Virgin Lands crop fell far below expectations due to a severe drought in the virgin land regions, especially Kazakhstan, which received only one-tenth of its normal rainfall. Even though the total sown area in 1955 was almost double that of 1954, the grain harvest went down by 35% from 1954 in Kazakhstan.

Khrushchev was forced to acknowledge the validity of some of the opposing viewpoints regarding the Virgin Lands Campaign but he maintained that as long as two harvests in a five-year period were good, the plan would be a success in terms of recovering costs and making a profit.