Chapter 305
Yes, Comrade Burlatsky was a scholar-politician. After being appreciated by Gorbachev and becoming his senior staff, this doctor with a frighteningly low emotional intelligence worked hard to plan and operate for Comrade Gorbachev, and finally successfully operated the disintegration of the Soviet Union and also operated Comrade Gorbachev into a nursing home. As for himself, unfortunately, in the years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, he lost all the welfare benefits he had enjoyed in the past and could only rely on writing books to earn royalties to maintain his miserable life.
Of course, Comrade Burlatsky is still very young today , just an intern who can write good articles. No one knows his future, even Yuri who has been reborn knows nothing about him.
The suite in the room is Comrade Khrushchev's office. If you only look at the area, it is actually not much bigger than Angelica's office. It seems that the only difference is that this room has a large floor-to-ceiling window that almost takes up the entire wall.
"Sit down, Yuri," Khrushchev asked Yuri to sit down on the sofa, and then he sat on the sofa opposite him, saying, "I have wanted to have a good talk with you for a long time, and it just so happens that you are coming to Ukraine this time."
"Is there something wrong?" Yuri asked curiously.
"It's about some things about the Executive Bureau of the Disarmament Working Committee," Khrushchev said directly without beating around the bush. "I saw the work plan of the Executive Bureau and learned about some of the content of the development of the Propyat River Basin. According to the existing plan, will the Propyat River Basin Construction Corps of the Executive Bureau carry out corresponding development work with Modiri as the center?"
"Yes," Yuri nodded and said, "The entire development plan is centered on Mojiri and will be developed gradually to the east and south."
Modiri is a southern city in Belarus, located in the Propyat River Basin. According to the development plan formulated by the Executive Bureau, the production and development of the Propyat River Basin will start from Modiri. According to the development plan, in the next two years, the Production and Construction Corps in the basin will promote the work of land reclamation, swamp transformation, river construction, etc. to the border area between Belarus and Ukraine.
If this plan can eventually be realized, the entire area north of the Propyat River basin will be able to provide the Soviet Union with more than 500,000 hectares of arable land. It is for this reason that Belarus has shown great enthusiasm for this major opening project.
This raises a question: if it is a productive and constructive development, why is it mainly concentrated in Belarus while ignoring the problems in northern Ukraine?
This is also easy to explain, because there are many contiguous swamps in the part of the Propyat River basin in Ukraine, such as the vast Polesie swamp area. Most importantly, the swamp belt in northwest Ukraine is all immersion, without obvious boundaries. Even when the Propyat River reaches Ukraine, there is a large section where no obvious riverbank can be found.
It is obviously difficult to develop areas with this kind of environment, and drainage alone is a huge project.
Of course, such difficult problems are not Yuri's primary consideration. After all, he has almost a huge amount of manpower at his disposal. As long as there is labor, nothing can be considered difficult these days.
As the planner, Yuri was really concerned about an environmental issue. When formulating the corresponding development plan, he consulted experts in related fields, and he finally came to the conclusion that any form of development of the swamp area, including Polesya, would cause immeasurable damage to the local ecological environment.
Although no one in the Soviet Union today, or even in the world today, pays attention to the so-called environmental issues, Yuri does not want his proactive work to become a target of criticism in the future. For this reason, he has placed the main development focus on Belarus.
"The reason for this arrangement," Yuri continued after glancing at Khrushchev, "is mainly because the terrain and topography of the lower reaches of the Propyat River are complex and the swamps are too extensive. It would be difficult to develop it."
"We can't slow down our work in this area just because it's difficult," Khrushchev said with a frown. "Yuri, you need to understand one thing. The current situation is very..."
"Knock knock..." Just as he was saying this, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Khrushchev paused, looked back at the door and said.
Angelica pushed the door open and walked in, holding a tray with two cups of coffee in her hand. She walked up to the two men, placed the two cups of coffee in front of them respectively, smiled at Yuri, then stood up and walked out.
"The current situation is very bad," Khrushchev continued after the door was closed again. "Since the beginning of summer this year, 371 communities across Ukraine have suffered from flooding, and half of them may face a total crop failure. Although there are still sufficient food reserves, the key issue lies in next year. No one can guarantee a good harvest next year. You have to understand that the war has caused great damage to Ukraine's agriculture."
Yuri knew this. The war that had just ended had been devastating to Ukraine's agriculture, not only in terms of the massive loss of livestock and agricultural machinery, but also in terms of the barrenness of farmland and the damage to water conservancy facilities. It would take some time to restore everything to pre-war levels.
"What do you mean?" Yuri asked tentatively. He needed to figure out what Khrushchev meant.
"I hope that the Executive Directorate will include the development of the lower Pripyat River region in its work plan for the second half of this year," Khrushchev said. "In this plan, I hope that in addition to Volyn, Rivve and the northwestern regions of Chernigov, Zhitomir and the northern part of Kiev should also be included in the development scope."
At this point, he stopped, leaned closer to Yuri, and said in a low voice: "Moreover, Zhitomir and the northern region of Kiev should be regarded as a key area in development work."
Yuri immediately understood what this guy meant. To put it bluntly, he hoped to use the power of the Propyat River Basin Production and Construction Corps of the Executive Bureau to restore agricultural production in Zhitomir, the northern region of Kiev, and the southern region of Chernihiv.
These three regions are important grain-producing areas in Ukraine and also the areas that suffered the most damage in the war. In order to resist the offensive launched by the First Ukrainian Front against Kiev in the Gomel direction, the Germans blew up the embankment of the Dnieper River, making the northern part of Kiev Oblast and the southern part of Chernihiv a flood-stricken area.
After the war, Ukraine faced a serious labor shortage. Coupled with the large-scale floods since the beginning of summer this year, Khrushchev probably did not have the ability to fully restore agricultural production in these areas.
Since Ukraine could not restore agricultural production in these areas in the short term by relying solely on its own capabilities, why didn't Comrade Khrushchev report this to Moscow? There are two reasons for this:
First, once this report is submitted, his ability will be questioned from all sides, especially by Comrade Stalin.
Second, it is related to the rules of the Production and Construction Corps of the Executive Bureau. According to the working principles of the Disarmament Working Committee, the arable land developed by the Production and Construction Corps belongs to itself. In other words, the collective farm of the Construction Corps belongs to an independent first-level administrative division. It is not under the leadership of the local government, nor is it responsible to the local government. Instead, it is directly under the Disarmament Working Committee.
At the same time, the grain output of the collective farms under the Production and Construction Corps does not have to be paid to the local authorities, but is paid directly to the Disarmament Working Committee.
Just imagine, under such regulations, let alone Khrushchev, I am afraid that no local government would be willing to hand over the arable land they originally controlled to the Production and Construction Corps for operation. As for the reason for Belarus, it is because its southern part is a large uninhabited area, which is completely different from the northern part of Kiev and the southern part of Chernihiv.
When commanding operations, Yuri was a principled man. He could argue with anyone for what he thought was the right position, even if that person was Comrade Stalin. But when it came to production, construction, and development, his principles were not so strong. Moreover, since he had decided to cling to Comrade Khrushchev's thighs and follow him in pursuit of a better life in the future, he naturally had to consider his political achievements.
Khrushchev’s demands were actually not that high. He just wanted to borrow the labor force of the Production and Construction Corps, which was something Yuri could still take charge of.
Without any hesitation, Yuri immediately approved Khrushchev's "suggestion" and promised that he would start relevant work immediately after his trip to western Ukraine. However, Yuri also pointed out that the Production and Construction Corps is still in its infancy. Although the troops to be laid off are in place, they lack the corresponding equipment and resources. In this regard, the Ukrainian government needs to find a solution as much as possible.
Khrushchev certainly had no objection to Yuri's request. He also understood the situation and knew that what Yuri said was true. The most important thing was that what Ukraine lacked now was not materials, but precious labor.
What is Ukraine's top priority at the moment? It is not to restore agricultural production, but to restore industrial and mining enterprises. Moscow needs food from Ukraine, but it does not pay attention to the restoration of agriculture here. Moscow also needs minerals from Ukraine. At the same time, Comrade Stalin is also paying close attention to the restoration of industrial and mining enterprises in Donbass and Kharkov. Comparing the two, which one is more important?
