MY GALLERY OF HISTORY

After the liberation of Ukraine in 1944, Khrushchev reassumed control of the Ukraine as First Secretary of the Ukrainian party organization. He worked to restore the civil administration and to bring that devastated country back to a subsistence level. A famine in 1946 was one of the worst in Ukraine’s history; Khrushchev fought to restore grain production and to distribute food supplies, against Stalin’s insistence on greater production from Ukraine for use in other areas. During this period Khrushchev gained a firsthand acquaintance with the problems of Soviet agricultural scarcity and planning. In this September 1947 document, sent to D.S. Korotchenko, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, Khruschev tells him that a Comrade Strokach has referred him to a letter indicating that the Yuzhavtostroi Trust is not fulfilling its obligation to create normal conditions for the housing and work of a contingent of prisoners. The Yuzhavtostroi is believed to have been an automobile plant in the south of the USSR, probably in the Ukraine. Khruschev has signed the document in his characteristic green ink. At the bottom of the page someone has scribbled that a meeting was held on 29/IX/47 and "the existing deficiencies have been corrected."