A Yakut village in 1945-1947: crop failure, drought, famine (from the correspondence of local authorities with the Bolshevik Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR)
The Great Patriotic War, its severe consequences strongly affected the economic situation of the population in the second half of the 1940s. In the midst of widespread devastation, collective farmers faced crop failures and droughts. The lack of centralized supply meant that their well-being was totally dependent on their vegetable gardens, market and exchange (as it was in 1941-1945). In Yakutia, where growing fruits and vegetables was hardly ever available (due to the harsh climate) and the personal cattle was collectivized, collective farmers still lived in extreme poverty. This fact is proved by the correspondence of local authorities with the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR as well as the inspections of party control committees and the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR.