Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2018 number

The article objective is to study the problems of agrarian development of Kulunda steppe, a region constantly subjected to severe droughts, in the 1930s. The situation was aggravated by the government procurement policy, according to which resources necessary for agrarian development were withdrawn. Several years of drought forced searching new methods of avoiding its damage, both at central and regional levels. In 1932, the West Siberian Territorial Administration (Krayzemupravlenie) proposed to the party’s regional committee a project of Kulunda steppe melioration. It was planned to build a dam near the town of Kamen’ and a canal network to irrigate arid regions. Due to inability to implement the project in coming years, regional authorities were looking for alternative ways to solve the problem. After a several arid years, regional authorities decided to offer the central government a new plan of Kulunda’s agricultural development based on the complex agrotechnical measures without considering land reclamation. References to the impossibility of fighting the drought without creating an irrigation system were declared as “kulak agitation”. This conclusion was based on the opinion of district authorities to reduce the sowing and harvesting plans because of unfavorable weather and climate conditions. Nevertheless, despite the actual prohibition, region’s leaders continued to appeal to the central government regarding the creation of irrigation systems. The problem of drought and low harvests in the 1930s was not solved. The project to create an irrigation network was developed further in the postwar years. The construction of Kulunda main canal began in 1973-1983. Thus, projects of 1930s on Kulunda agricultural development were realized in the late Soviet period.