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Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6 Achievements of Housing Construction In the Soviet Countryside By V. Ivanov Chief, Central Rural and Collective Farm Construction Board Under the Council of Ministers of the Russian SESR HE rise in the well-being and cul- ture of the countryside is one of the greatest achievements of the collec- tive farm system. The finest minds of mankind have dreamed of the time when the distinction between town and country will be effaced. The collective farm system has opened unusual possi- bilities for solving this highly important problem. Soviet villages now have schools, clubs, kindergartens, electricity, radio, machine-and-tractor stations, and mechanized livestock sections. Thou- sands of houses and farm buildings are going up in the villages: the larger col- lective farms are building power sta- tions, water works, clubs and stadiums and are laying out parks. The perfidious attack of Hitlerite Germany on the USSR interrupted the constructive labor of the Soviet people. The fascists burned down and destroyed the people's property. More than 1,000,- 000 peasant homes, 850,000 farm build- ings, 130,000 granaries, tens of thou- sands of schools, and other buildings were razed and otherwise destroyed in 22 regions of the Russian Federation overrun by the fascists. Altogether more than 70,000 villages were destroyed in the Nazi-occupied regions. After the Great Patriotic War ended the Soviet Government decided to guide the organization of the revival of the counttyside, while the direct construc- tion plans were to be carried out by the collective farms. The State has allotted credits, set aside forest tracts for the felling of timber, and established a spe- cial machinery for guiding construction on the collective farms. The scope of this help is illustrated by the following figures: in the Rus- sian Federation alone collective farms and their members received about 2,000,000,000 rubles of credits and more than 635,600,000 cubic feet of timber for restoration and construction NEW CONSTRUCTION. The example of the Pobeda Collective Farm is quite typical. Photo shows new houses for collective farmers, 592 from 1945 to 1949. Soviet industry has provided more than 2,000 trucks and tractors for the transportation of build- ing materials, 20,000 tons of gasoline, 650 saw frames, 1,500 woodworking machines, and machines for the produc- tion of bricks and tiles, the necessary quantities of nails, glass, cement, stove fixtures, and other materials and tools. Regular building brigades have been organized on the collective farms. ‘They work under the direct guidance of en- gineers and technicians of the local sural and collective farm construction departments. The past years have shown how cor- rect these decisions were and what tre- mendous prospects they opened to the collective farm countryside. In 1949 the restoration of villages and other sural communities had already been complet- ed in the main. Thousands of wrecked villages have arisen from the ashes and tuins, They have become finer and bet- ter than before. By 1949 in 22 regions, territories, and autonomous republics of the RSFSR which had suffered from occupation, more than 1,200,000 homes of collec- tive farmers were restored or built into which 5,000,000 persons who had dwelt in mud huts, dugouts, afd sheds moved ; about 300,000 livestock buildings, 27,- 000 cultural and service institutions, in- cluding 5,000 clubs, were rehabilitated or put up anew. In the former war-torn areas new houses comprise 50 to 70 per cent of the total housing facilities in the countryside, while in the Bryansk, Pskov, Smolensk and Orel Regions they constitute 80 to 90 per cent. A case in point is the Staro-Shcher- binovskaya Village in Krasnodar Terri- tory which suffered greatly from fascist occupation. Now, thanks to the efforts of the collective farmers and the help of the Soviet State, it has become finer than before the war. The House of Cul- ture, with a hall seating 400 persons, USSR INFORMATION BULLETIN Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6