China, c 1955 (colour photo)

A mechanized farm established in 1950 by the Central People's Government in the previously flooded area of the Yellow River has transformed waste land into fertile fields. The area had lain waste since 1938, during the War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression, when the Kuomintang reactionaries breached the dyke of the Yellow River to the east of Kaifeng and flooded vast tracts of land in the border area of Honan, Anhwei and Kiangsu Provinces. Millions of the local people were then forced to seek refuge in other parts of the country. One of a set of loose plates edited by China Pictorial and printed in the People’s Republic of China, 1950s. No photo credits.