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Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6 i 2 Stalin's Great Plan for Remaking Nature And Soviet Agriculture By V. Matveyev HE historic decision adopted by the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the Com- munist Party on October 20, 1948, with a view to transforming nature in the steppe and mixed forest-and-steppe dis- tricts of the European part of the USSR, outlined a vast afforestation and melior- ation program designated to ban drought from a territory of 120,000,000 hectares.* Millions of Soviet people have undertaken with uncommon enthusiasm the practical realization of the Stalin plan for transforming nature, with the result thet the various provisions of the government plan — forest planting, the construction of ponds and_ reservoirs, the adoption of grass-and-crop rotation, and other such measures — are being carried out ahead of the scheduled dates. In the spring of 1950, the collective farms, forest stations and state farms in the steppe and mixed forest-and- steppe districts of the European part of the USSR planted shelter-belts over a territory exceeding 700,000 hectares, or 2.5 times greater than that planted in the spring of 1949. The annual plan for * 1 hectare—2.471 acres, 586 planting forest shelter-belts in 1950 has been accomplished ahead of schedule. The greatness of the Stalin plan for transforming nature lies in the fact that it is an all-embracing plan, affecting fields and meadows, forests and rivers. Tt provides for a radical change in the local climate, for the creation of fertile soils, for regulating the depth of the local rivers, and the creation of addi- tional water resources in the form of a tremendous number of ponds and reser- voirs, Eight large state forest shelter-zones stretching along the banks of the Ural, Volga, Don, and Donets Rivers for more than 5,300 kilometers* will rise in a solid green barrier in the path of the arid eastern and southeastern winds like a faithful guardian of the socialist * 1 kilometer—=.621 of a mile. STATE SHELTER BELT. Mechanized planting of trees on state shelter-belt in the Kuibyshey Region. USSR INFORMATION BULLETIN Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6