Comrade Andreyev was actually in charge of agriculture-related work. During the war, he was in charge of coordinating agricultural production as a deputy people's commissar of the People's Commissariat of National Defense. During the several years of war, he worked here. It's done pretty well.

This time, the Central Committee suddenly coordinated the work and reassigned Andreyev to an important post in charge of agricultural work. The main reason should be that it felt the huge pressure brought by the post-war agricultural reconstruction work. Therefore, Moscow needs to A person with agricultural work experience will be specifically responsible for the relevant aspects of the work.

On the whole, after entering the second half of this year, with the completion of the first draft of the next five-year plan by the State Planning Commission, many problems that were originally hidden have all emerged. Among them, the most The serious problem is agriculture and food.

As the saying goes: people take food as their heaven. Although the Soviets do not say this, the food issue is obviously a top priority for them.

Affected by the war, during the autumn harvest this year, there were grain harvests in Belarus and Ukraine one after another. Even if the entire Ukraine tightens its belt, the grain harvested into the warehouse will exceed 100 million pood. Before, the figure was 500 million poods, in other words, Ukrainian agricultural production had only just recovered to one-fifth of what it was before the war.

Compared with the situation in Ukraine, Belarus is even worse. Not only is there no way for Minsk to hand over a grain of grain to the alliance, they even need assistance from Moscow, otherwise, people there will starve to death.

In the middle of the year, Moscow did not raise its vigilance about the large-scale grain failures in Ukraine and Belarus, mainly because according to Comrade Kosygin's opinion, the Union had already made plans to purchase bulk materials from the international market - although the Union was in Huge losses were suffered in the war, but in the process of advancing to Germany, the alliance also obtained a large amount of valuable materials, which could be easily exchanged for foreign exchange for large-scale international purchases.

But the sky is not beautiful. This year's poor harvest is not only in Belarus and Ukraine. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam has been hit by typhoons, locusts and droughts one after another. Coupled with the plundering of the Japanese and the previous war, this once food The big country has experienced a full-scale famine since August, and the number of people starved to death in the entire northern region of Vietnam has increased exponentially. Of course, this kind of famine is not limited to Vietnam, from Thailand to Malaysia to Indonesia, the scope of the poor harvest spread throughout Southeast Asia.

In Australia, the earthquake in New Zealand made the country's grain exports almost cut off. For food security, New Zealand and Australia, the two grain exporting countries, had to tighten their grain bags.

All in all, in the entire international market, the price of food is rising rapidly. For the alliance, if it wants to solve its own food crisis by importing food, it obviously needs to pay more, and this is the Kremlin. Unwanted to see.

Perhaps it is precisely because of realizing the seriousness of the food problem that in the new five-year plan officially released by the State Planning Commission, the emphasis on post-war agricultural reconstruction has been significantly improved, and it has been placed in the "development of heavy industry". In other words, in the next five years, the alliance will devote its main energy and resources to the restoration and development of agricultural production, and after that, it will focus on heavy industry, including the military industry. development of.

In an interview with Comrade Andreyev, the big man who had returned to his agricultural job openly mentioned the issue of prison management by the NKVD. The prison system should also be invested in the construction of the restoration of agricultural production, just as they did in the Great Patriotic War.

For Comrade Andreyev's suggestion, Viktor absolutely agrees with both hands and feet. As a former employee of the NKVD, he is very aware of the situation of the Prison Administration under the NKVD.

Based on some historical problems, the Prison Administration under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is a very large system. It holds tens of thousands of prisoners in many prisons and labor camps across the Union. During the war, under the leadership of Comrade Nasheedkin, Director of the Prison Service, these prisoners made an outstanding contribution to the war, producing a total of 70.7 million units of ammunition, doubling the original production plan for As a result, Comrade Nashedkin was not only promoted to major general of national security, but also received a Hero of the Soviet Union Medal.

It was only after the war that the daily work of the Prison Administration returned to normal, and as far as Victor knew, the Prison Administration's normal management of the prison was that no matter what, the work of managing the prisoners was directly handed over to the prisoners, as for the efficiency of the work. Yes, there is no guarantee at all.

The most important thing is that in today's NKVD education system, not all prisoners work. In fact, the high-intensity labor prisons described by later Solzhenitsyn are only a small number of labor camps. The situation, at least in Victor's perception, is that most of the prison inmates in the NKVD do not participate in labor.

In many prison systems, there are even prisoners who take pride in not cooperating with prison guards. They refuse any form of labor, and even specifically fight against those prisoners who participate in labor. This has become a kind of League-specific prison culture.

Viktor did not know how much Comrade Andreyev knew about the prisons under the jurisdiction of the NKVD, but the suggestion made by the old comrade was obviously correct. The Union was not obliged to keep those prisoners in vain, and allowed them to "reject any form of refusal." In Victor’s opinion, since he has committed a crime, he should actively atone for it. If he refuses to participate in labor after committing a crime, then such criminals deserve to be pulled out to “shoot a target”. The Union has even defeated the fascist Germans, and there is no reason why they can't deal with a group of law thieves.

The most important thing is that the biggest problem facing the alliance at present, in addition to the failure to resume agricultural production, is the large-scale shortage of labor. What is the reason to leave those young and strong prisoners unused, but to feed them with precious food in vain?

Before he knew it, the Volga car had entered the Red Square, and when Viktor felt the car slow down, Varenka had already driven the car into the Kremlin.

During the few days he stayed in Moscow, Victor came to the Kremlin almost every day. Sometimes there was something wrong, sometimes it was okay, but no matter if there was something wrong, he would meet with Comrade Stalin, at least let the comrades know about it. He comes every day.

In recent days, the temperature has dropped dramatically. Perhaps because of the changing weather, Comrade Stalin caught a cold. Yesterday, the symptoms were relatively obvious. Today, I don't know if it has improved.

The Volga car drove slowly across the square in front of the armory, and before turning to Yong Road, Victor saw a few figures in front of Comrade Stalin's office building from a distance.

He threw the newspaper on the side of the seat, lowered his head slightly, looked at the figures, and found that among them, the leader was Comrade Stalin.

At this time, the car was still fifty or sixty meters away from Comrade Stalin. Varenka hurriedly slowed down the car and leaned to the side of the road - not far ahead, the Kremlin guards had already blocked the road in the middle, although the car It was Victor's car, but it was impossible to move forward at this time.

When the car stopped, Victor pushed the door and got out of the car. He was wearing a black woolen trench coat today and held a black peaked cap in his hand. He got out of the car, put a cap on his head, and adjusted his windbreaker before walking towards Comrade Stalin's direction.

Although the Kremlin guards would not allow Viktor's car to approach Comrade Stalin, when he got out of the car and walked over on foot, no one would jump out to stop him, let alone search him. The scene where anyone who approaches Comrade Stalin will be subject to a strict body search will only appear in movies and TV dramas in Western countries.

Comrade Stalin noticed the young comrade when Victor came over, and he stopped, holding a pipe in one hand and the front of his overcoat in the other, and looked up in the direction Victor came from. After walking in, he asked with a smile, "What honor did Leon Abgarovich give you?"

Victor subconsciously stopped, he shrugged first, then put his hand into the pocket of his trench coat, took out the envelope containing the ruble bills, and said, "Give me an honor that smells of copper... ..”

Restarting his steps, he lifted the envelope, shook it, and said, "One thousand and seventy-nine rubles, yes, one thousand rubles, plus a fraction of seventy-nine rubles."

Leon Abgarovich refers to Leon Abgarovich Orbeli, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, and academician of the Academy of Medicine, in addition, he and Viktor also received a "Socialist Labor Hero" Medal , Furthermore, this person also has a military rank and is a general in health service. This time it was this guy who gave Victor the bonus.

After listening to Victor's reply, Comrade Stalin laughed. He seemed to be in a very good mood, but just listening to his voice, it was obvious that the cold was not cured, at least his nose should be blocked.