Dacha with a trick: why in the USSR plots of 6 acres were allocated

Now these notorious six hundred square meters look cramped and dull: you build a spacious house, a garage and a bathhouse and there is practically no room left for a vegetable garden, not to mention a garden. But at the time of total prohibitions, this piece of land was a real island of happiness for the Soviet people. So why in the biggest and most powerful "happiness" they didn't give more, for example, 20 acres each? Read about this and much more below.

Why did they decide to give land: a small excursion into history

According to the ideologues of communism, Soviet people should work for the good of their homeland, raise children and have cultural rest. Providing it with products and consumer goods is the task of agriculture and light industry. Everything necessary for life, including housing, a citizen of the USSR had to receive from the state. The possessive instincts in their heads were suppressed.

And it could have happened ...

Stalin's industrialization proceeded with an iron confident step. According to some experts, the growth rates of the Soviet economy were four times higher than the current Chinese ones! An illiterate agrarian country was turning into a powerful industrial power and, perhaps, an ideal state would have been built, but the war intervened. There is no need to tell anyone about its consequences - it was an unprecedented blow to the economy.

In the post-war country, there was a shortage of food and other goods. There was a shortage of workers, and especially specialists: the war knocked out a huge stratum of the able-bodied population. Agriculture was in a state of collapse: there was no equipment, horses, cattle and other livestock. The industry has not yet managed to get off the war footing. The combination of these problems led to the famine of 1946-1947.

Atypical solution

The country could not feed the population, the situation required radical action. One of these was the resolution of the Council of Ministers of 02.24.1949 "On collective and individual gardening and gardening of workers and employees." The document ordered to distribute free land of cities, villages, enterprises, institutions for vegetable gardens, to allocate plots in the right-of-way of railway branches and highways.

Plots were cut into 6 and 12 acres per family. The allotments were allocated according to the principle: the best and closest to the cities - the families of the victims and the veterans of the Great Patriotic War, the leaders. In addition to land allocation, the industry received an order to organize the production of fertilizers and implements for gardening and horticulture. From that moment on, partial provision of the population with agricultural products fell on his own shoulders.

Now, after a work shift, Soviet people did not read inspired newspapers and did not admire the achievements of the five-year plan. He forgot about the bright communist future and plunged into a dark present. His thoughts were occupied with planning a small vegetable garden: how to get a good harvest of potatoes; under which trees to plant carrots and beets; how to grow early seedlings.

Development of the suburban movement

The solution, atypical for the Communist Party, worked: the famine was over; the risk of civil unrest has come to naught - the majority are busy with vegetable gardens. The post-war economy breathed a sigh of relief.

It was decided to develop the saving initiative and on December 16, 1955, a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR "On the further development of gardening and viticulture of workers and employees" was issued. Thanks to the document, summer residents have the opportunity to build summer houses, already more adapted for temporary residence.

The land plots will be allocated indefinitely, but on the condition that the recipient of the land works continuously at the enterprise. The summer resident even had an unprecedented opportunity to receive compensation for the labor invested and the money spent when moving (analogue of a sale).

Shovels, rakes, secateurs, cultivators, garden knives and saws, watering cans, pollinators and sprinklers were widely available. Trade unions and enterprises are obliged to help summer residents in the fight against garden pests and plant diseases. In stores it became possible to buy seeds, fertilizers and other gardening delights.

The music played for a short time ...

By distributing land for long-term use, the state, without knowing it, launched a bourgeois poison into the consciousness of Soviet people. An enterprising vein woke up in him and, as they say, rushed... At the dachas they began to build houses and rent them out; hired labor was used in full in the gardens; land began to be leased illegally, and "surplus" products turned into a tax-free business.

For five years, spontaneous dacha capitalism acquired a catastrophic character and the state decided to end this matter. 12/30/1960 issued a decree from the USSR Cabinet of Ministers banning the issue of land plots for construction; a ban on summer cottage construction; strengthening control over the targeted use of land.

Old problem, old solution

But after just three years, the USSR was faced with a serious grain crisis. The corn campaign, the development of virgin lands, the monstrous drought - all this led to a lack of food, the displacement of Khrushchev, long-term grain purchases and a shortage of bread. Great and powerful again faced the threat of hunger.

They did not invent a solution to the problem, but took it out of the dusty pantry: since the late sixties, a number of decisions have been issued on the development of gardening and truck farming. So we got huge faceless summer cottages, cut into six acres.

So why exactly 6 acres?

The size of 0.06 hectares is not accidental. It was brought out by agronomists and economists of the fifties on the instructions of the party. The fact is that these 6 hectares were calculated only in order to provide one average family of 4-6 people with agricultural products. On such a piece, you can plant a few trees, a little shrubs, a plot of strawberries and several beds of vegetables; build a shed for meager inventory. That's all, comrades!

There was no question of any surplus that could be sold. It now has modern fertilizers, greenhouses, irrigation pumps and other delights to get a little more harvest. In those days, all this was not. Therefore, the calculation was accurate - I raised myself enough. There is no need to develop speculative and entrepreneurial inclinations! So 6 acres was just an ideology; a frame beyond which you cannot jump.

About myths

People say that Nikita Sergeyevich began to distribute six hundred square meters in order to promote the Soviet way of life. Like, we have a simple worker and has an apartment, and a country house. But this is fundamentally not so, and if Khrushchev had not been stopped, the Stalinist initiative had died back in those days.

In the midst of the grain crisis, Nikita Sergeevich generally wanted to withdraw all fertile land, including horticultural and horticultural associations. He planned to sow them with wheat in order to avoid shame and not buy grain in the west. But that didn't happen.

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