Issue 132 (2017)

P. Satskyi, PhD in History, Associate Professor

Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman, Kyiv, Ukraine

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2017.132.1.11

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF SOUTH-UKRAINIAN AND NORTH-CRIMEAN CANALS (1950 – 1953)

This paper is looking at the financial support for the construction of Southern-Ukrainian and Northern-Crimean Channels. It gained the status of "communism construction" and started in 1951 on the basis of the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from the 20th of September in 1950. The research of the financial support for the building of channels was made in the context of the analysis of the command-administrative system of the USSR of the late Stalinist period. In particular, there was also the analysis of the reasons for underfunding of the building and also the role of the Council of Ministers of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the supply of the process of building of Southern-Ukrainian and Northern-Crimean Channels considering the difficulties with the financial support. Thus, a particular attention has been paid to the fact that the financing of the building of Southern-Ukrainian and Northern-Crimean Channels was done together with the building of The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station. However, in the beginning of construction works the financial resources, which were supposed to be spent on the building of channels, in majority were spent on the building of The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station. In the author's opinion, it was related to the fact that during the initial stage of channel building the first constructions build were the buildings for the employees as well as social and transport infrastructure buildings surrounding the channel constructions. Thus, the exploration of the Southern areas of Ukraine and Northern areas of the Crimea has started the backgrounds for the active inhabitance of these regions has started, which was the main target of the constructions works. The research of the financial support of the building was done on the basis of the backgrounds of the budget system and the budget politics of USSR. We can conclude that the building of the Southern-Ukrainian and the Northern-Crimean Channels attracted the incoming investments for the construction sites built on the territory of the Crimea. This fact had a particular impact for the social-economic development in terms of ineffective economical system of USSR in the late Stalinist period. Moreover, this was a start of the Crimea's integration in the Ukrainian social-economical system.

Keywords: construction of the South-Ukrainian and North-Crimean channels, General Directorate "Ukrvodstroy" of Ministry of cotton USSR, State Planning Committee of the USSR, Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine.