In the Soviet Union, the private life of the country's leaders was strictly classified and protected as a state secret of the highest degree of protection. Only an analysis of recently published materials allows us to lift the veil on the secrecy of their payroll records.
Having seized power in the country, Vladimir Lenin in December 1917 set himself a monthly salary of 500 rubles, which approximately corresponded to the wages of an unskilled worker in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Any other income, including fees, to high-ranking party members, at Lenin’s proposal, was strictly prohibited.
The modest salary of the “leader of the world revolution” was quickly eaten up by inflation, but Lenin somehow did not think about where the money for a completely comfortable life, treatment with the help of world luminaries and domestic service would come from, although he did not forget to sternly tell his subordinates every time: “Deduct these expenses from my salary!”
At the beginning of the NEP, the General Secretary of the Bolshevik Party Joseph Stalin was given a salary less than half of Lenin’s salary (225 rubles) and only in 1935 it was increased to 500 rubles, but the next year a new increase to 1200 rubles followed. The average salary in the USSR at that time was 1,100 rubles, and although Stalin did not live on his salary, he could well have lived modestly on it. During the war years, the leader's salary became almost zero as a result of inflation, but at the end of 1947, after the monetary reform, the “leader of all nations” set himself a new salary of 10,000 rubles, which was 10 times higher than the then average salary in the USSR. At the same time, a system of “Stalinist envelopes” was introduced - monthly tax-free payments to the top of the party-Soviet apparatus. Be that as it may, Stalin did not seriously consider his salary and did not attach much importance to it.
The first among the leaders of the Soviet Union who became seriously interested in his salary was Nikita Khrushchev, who received 800 rubles a month, which was 9 times the average salary in the country.
Sybarite Leonid Brezhnev was the first to violate Lenin’s ban on additional income, in addition to salaries, for the top of the party. In 1973, he awarded himself the International Lenin Prize (25,000 rubles), and starting in 1979, when the name of Brezhnev adorned the galaxy of classics of Soviet literature, huge fees began to pour into the Brezhnev family budget. Brezhnev’s personal account at the publishing house of the CPSU Central Committee “Politizdat” is replete with thousands of sums for huge print runs and multiple reprints of his masterpieces “Renaissance”, “Malaya Zemlya” and “Virgin Land”. It is curious that the Secretary General had the habit of often forgetting about his literary income when paying party contributions to his favorite party.
Leonid Brezhnev was generally very generous at the expense of “national” state property - both to himself, and to his children, and to those close to him. He appointed his son first deputy minister of foreign trade. In this post, he became famous for his constant trips to lavish parties abroad, as well as huge senseless expenses there. Brezhnev's daughter led a wild life in Moscow, spending money coming from nowhere on jewelry. Those close to Brezhnev, in turn, were generously allocated dachas, apartments and huge bonuses.
Yuri Andropov, as a member of the Brezhnev Politburo, received 1,200 rubles a month, but when he became secretary general, he returned the salary of the general secretary from the time of Khrushchev - 800 rubles a month. At the same time, the purchasing power of the “Andropov ruble” was approximately half that of the “Khrushchev ruble”. Nevertheless, Andropov completely preserved the system of “Brezhnev’s fees” of the Secretary General and successfully used it. For example, with a basic salary rate of 800 rubles, his income for January 1984 was 8,800 rubles.
Andropov’s successor, Konstantin Chernenko, having kept the Secretary General’s salary at 800 rubles, intensified his efforts to extort fees by publishing various ideological materials in his own name. According to his party card, his income ranged from 1,200 to 1,700 rubles. At the same time, Chernenko, a fighter for the moral purity of communists, had the habit of constantly concealing large sums from his native party. Thus, researchers could not find in the party card of Secretary General Chernenko in the column for 1984 4,550 rubles of royalties received through the payroll of Politizdat.
Mikhail Gorbachev “reconciled” with a salary of 800 rubles until 1990, which was only four times the average salary in the country. Only after combining the posts of president of the country and secretary general in 1990 did Gorbachev begin to receive 3,000 rubles, with the average salary in the USSR being 500 rubles.
The successor to the general secretaries, Boris Yeltsin, fumbled almost to the end with the “Soviet salary”, not daring to radically reform the salaries of the state apparatus. Only by decree of 1997 was the salary of the President of Russia set at 10,000 rubles, and in August 1999 its size increased to 15,000 rubles, which was 9 times higher than the average salary in the country, that is, it was approximately at the level of the salaries of his predecessors in running the country, who had the title of General Secretary. True, the Yeltsin family had a lot of income from “the outside”.
For the first 10 months of his reign, Vladimir Putin received the “Yeltsin rate.” However, as of June 30, 2002, the president's annual salary was set at 630,000 rubles (approximately $25,000) plus security and language allowances. He also receives a military pension for his rank of colonel.
From this moment on, for the first time since Lenin’s times, the basic salary rate of the leader of Russia ceased to be just a fiction, although compared to the salary rates of the leaders of the leading countries of the world, Putin’s rate looks rather modest. For example, the President of the United States receives 400 thousand dollars, and the Prime Minister of Japan has almost the same amount. The salaries of other leaders are more modest: the Prime Minister of Great Britain has 348,500 dollars, the Chancellor of Germany has about 220 thousand, and the President of France has 83 thousand.
It is interesting to see how the “regional secretaries general” - the current presidents of the CIS countries - look against this background. Former member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, and now the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, essentially lives according to the “Stalinist norms” for the ruler of the country, that is, he and his family are fully provided for by the state, but he also set a relatively small salary for himself - 4 thousand dollars per month. month. Other regional general secretaries - former first secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of their republics - formally set themselves more modest salaries. Thus, the President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, receives only $1,900 a month, and the President of Turkmenistan, Sapurmurad Niyazov, receives only $900. At the same time, Aliyev, having placed his son Ilham Aliyev at the head of the state oil company, actually privatized all the country's income from oil - the main currency resource of Azerbaijan, and Niyazov generally turned Turkmenistan into a kind of medieval khanate, where everything belongs to the ruler. Turkmenbashi, and only he, can resolve any issue. All foreign currency funds are managed only by Turkmenbashi (Father of the Turkmens) Niyazov personally, and the sale of Turkmen gas and oil is managed by his son Murad Niyazov.
The situation is worse than others for the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia and member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee Eduard Shevardnadze. With a modest monthly salary of $750, he was unable to establish complete control over the country’s wealth due to strong opposition to him in the country. In addition, the opposition closely monitors all personal expenses of President Shevardnadze and his family.
The lifestyle and real capabilities of the current leaders of the former Soviet country are well characterized by the behavior of the wife of the Russian President Lyudmila Putina during her husband’s recent state visit to the UK. The wife of the British Prime Minister, Cherie Blair, took Lyudmila to view 2004 clothing models from the Burberry design firm, famous among the rich. For more than two hours, Lyudmila Putina was shown the latest fashion items, and in conclusion, Putina was asked if she would like to purchase anything. Blueberry's prices are very high. For example, even a gas scarf from this company costs 200 pounds sterling.
The Russian president's eyes were so wide-eyed that she announced the purchase... of the entire collection. Even super-millionaires did not dare to do this. By the way, because if you buy the entire collection, people will not understand that you are wearing next year’s fashion clothes! After all, no one else has anything comparable. Putina’s behavior in this case was not so much the behavior of the wife of a major statesman of the early 21st century, but rather resembled the behavior of the main wife of an Arab sheikh in the mid-20th century, distraught by the amount of petrodollars that had fallen on her husband.
This episode with Mrs. Putina needs a little explanation. Naturally, neither she nor the “art critics in plainclothes” accompanying her during the collection display had as much money with them as the collection was worth. This was not required, because in such cases, respected people only need their signature on the check and nothing else. No money or credit cards. Even if Mr. President of Russia himself, who is trying to appear before the world as a civilized European, was outraged by this act, then, of course, he had to pay.
Other rulers of countries - former Soviet republics - also know how to “live well.” So, a couple of years ago, the six-day wedding of the son of the President of Kyrgyzstan Akaev and the daughter of the President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev thundered throughout Asia. The scale of the wedding was truly Khan-like. By the way, both newlyweds graduated from the University of College Park (Maryland) only a year ago.
The son of Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev, Ilham Aliyev, also looks quite decent against this background, having set a kind of world record: in just one evening he managed to lose as much as 4 (four!) million dollars in a casino. By the way, this worthy representative of one of the “General Secretary’s” clans is now registered as a candidate for the post of President of Azerbaijan. Residents of this one of the poorest countries in terms of living standards are invited to elect in the new elections either the son Aliyev, who loves the “beautiful life,” or father Aliyev himself, who has already “served” two presidential terms, has crossed the 80-year mark and is so sick that he can no longer able to move independently.
I've been wanting to write for a long time. The attitude towards Stalin in our country is largely polar. Some hate him, others praise him. I always liked to look at things soberly and try to understand their essence.
So Stalin was never a dictator. Moreover, he was never the leader of the USSR. Do not rush to hem skeptically. Let's do it simpler though. I will now ask you two questions. If you know the answers to them, you can close this page. What follows will seem uninteresting to you.
1. Who was the leader of the Soviet state after Lenin’s death?
2. When exactly did Stalin become a dictator, at least for a year?
Let's start from afar. In every country there is a position, holding which a person becomes the leader of that state. This is not true everywhere, but exceptions only prove the rule. And in general, it doesn’t matter what this position is called, president, prime minister, chairman of the Great Khural, or just a leader and beloved leader, the main thing is that it always exists. Due to certain changes in the political formation of a given country, it may also change its name. But one thing remains unchanged: after the person occupying it leaves his place (for one reason or another), another always takes his place, who automatically becomes the next first person of the state.
So now the next question is - what was the name of this position in the USSR? Secretary General? Are you sure?
Well, let's take a look. This means Stalin became the General Secretary of the CPSU (b) in 1922. Lenin was still alive then and even tried to work. But Lenin was never General Secretary. He held only the position of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. After him, Rykov took this place. Those. what happens that Rykov became the leader of the Soviet state after Lenin? I'm sure some of you haven't even heard of this name. At the same time, Stalin did not yet have any special powers. Moreover, from a purely legal standpoint, the CPSU(b) was at that time just one of the departments in the Comintern, along with parties in other countries. It is clear that the Bolsheviks still gave money for all this, but formally everything was exactly like that. The Comintern was then led by Zinoviev. Maybe he was the first person of the state at that time? It is unlikely that in terms of his influence on the party he was far inferior to, for example, Trotsky.
Then who was the first person and leader then? What follows is even funnier. Do you think Stalin was already a dictator in 1934? I think you will now answer in the affirmative. So this year the post of General Secretary was completely abolished. Why? Well, like this. Formally, Stalin remained a simple secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. By the way, that’s how he signed all the documents later. And in the party charter there was no position of general secretary at all.
In 1938, the so-called “Stalinist” constitution was adopted. According to it, the highest executive body of our country was called the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Which was headed by Kalinin. Foreigners called him the "president" of the USSR. You all know very well what power he actually had.
Well, think about it, you say. In Germany, too, there is a decorative president, and the Chancellor rules everything. Yes it's true. But this was the only way it was before and after Hitler. In the summer of 1934, Hitler was elected Fuhrer (leader) of the nation in a referendum. By the way, he received 84.6% of the votes. And only then did he become, in essence, a dictator, i.e. a person with unlimited power. As you yourself understand, Stalin legally did not have such powers at all. And this greatly limits power opportunities.
Well, that's not the main thing, you say. On the contrary, this position was very profitable. He seemed to stand above the fray, was not formally responsible for anything and was an arbiter. Okay, let's move on. On May 6, 1941, he suddenly became Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. On the one hand, this is generally understandable. War is coming soon and we need to have real levers of power. But the point is that during war, military power comes to the fore. And the civilian one becomes just a part of the military structure, simply put, the rear. And just during the war, the military was led by the same Stalin as Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Well, that's okay. What follows is even funnier. On July 19, 1941, Stalin also became People's Commissar of Defense. This already goes beyond any idea of the dictatorship of one specific person. To make it clearer to you, it is as if the General Director (and owner) of the enterprise also became the Commercial Director and the head of the supply department. Nonsense.
People's Commissar of Defense during war is a very minor position. During this period, the main power is taken by the General Staff and, in our case, by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, headed by the same Stalin. And the People's Commissar of Defense becomes something like a company foreman, who is responsible for supplies, weapons and other everyday issues of the unit. A very minor position.
This can be somehow understood during the period of hostilities, but Stalin remained People's Commissar until February 1947.
Okay, let's move on. In 1953, Stalin dies. Who became the leader of the USSR after him? What are you saying Khrushchev? Since when has a simple secretary of the Central Committee ruled our entire country?
Formally, it turns out that Malenko. It was he who became the next, after Stalin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers. I saw somewhere here on the net where this was clearly hinted at. But for some reason, no one in our country later considered him to be the leader of the country.
In 1953, the position of party leader was revived. They called her First Secretary. And Khrushchev became one in September 1953. But somehow it’s very unclear. At the very end of what seemed to be a plenum, Malenkov stood up and asked how those gathered thought about electing the First Secretary. The audience responded in the affirmative (this, by the way, is a characteristic feature of all transcripts of those years; remarks, comments and other reactions to certain speeches on the presidium are constantly coming from the audience. Even negative ones. People would sleep with their eyes open at such events already under Brezhnev. Malenkov suggested voting for Khrushchev. Which is what they did. Somehow it doesn’t resemble the election of the first person of the country.
So when did Khrushchev become the de facto leader of the USSR? Well, probably in 1958, when he threw out all the old people and also became Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Those. Can one assume that by essentially holding this position and leading the party, the person began to lead the country?
But here's the problem. Brezhnev, after Khrushev was removed from all posts, became only the First Secretary. Then, in 1966, the position of General Secretary was revived. It seems like we can assume that it was then that it actually began to mean complete leadership of the country. But again there are rough edges. Brezhnev became the leader of the party after the post of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Which. as we all know very well, it was generally quite decorative. Why then, in 1977, Leonid Ilyich returned to it again and became both General Secretary and Chairman? Did he lack power?
But Andropov had enough. He became only General Secretary.
And that's actually not all. I took all these facts from Wikipedia. If you go deeper, the devil will break his leg in all these ranks, positions and powers of the highest echelon of power in the years 20-50.
Well, now the most important thing. In the USSR, the highest power was collective. And all the major decisions on certain significant issues were made by the Politburo (under Stalin this was a little different, but essentially correct). In fact, there was no single leader. There were people (like Stalin) who, for various reasons, were considered first among equals. But not more. We cannot talk about any dictatorship. It never existed in the USSR and could never exist. Stalin simply did not have the legal leverage to make serious decisions on his own. Everything was always accepted collectively. There are many documents on this.
If you think that I came up with all this myself, then you are mistaken. This is the official position of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union represented by the Politburo and the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Don't believe me? Well, let's move on to the documents.
Transcript of the July 1953 plenum of the CPSU Central Committee. Just after Beria's arrest.
From Malenkov’s speech:
First of all, we must openly admit, and we propose to write this down in the decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee, that in our propaganda in recent years there has been a deviation from the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the question of the role of the individual in history. It is no secret that party propaganda, instead of correctly explaining the role of the Communist Party as a leading force in the construction of communism in our country, was confused by the cult of personality.
But, comrades, this is not just a matter of propaganda. The question of the cult of personality is directly and directly related to the question of collective leadership.
We have no right to hide from you that such an ugly cult of personality has led to peremptory nature of individual decisions and in recent years began to cause serious damage to the leadership of the party and the country.
This must be said in order to resolutely correct the mistakes made in this regard, draw the necessary lessons and in the future ensure in practice collectivity of leadership on the principled basis of Lenin-Stalin teachings.
We must say this so as not to repeat the mistakes associated with lack of collective leadership and with an incorrect understanding of the issue of the cult of personality, for these mistakes, in the absence of Comrade Stalin, will be three times dangerous. (Voices. Correct).
No one dares, cannot, should or wants to claim the role of successor. (Voices. Correct. Applause).
The successor of the great Stalin is a tightly knit, monolithic team of party leaders....
Those. In essence, the question of the cult of personality is not connected with the fact that someone made mistakes (in this case, Beria, the plenum was dedicated to his arrest) but with the fact that making serious decisions individually is a deviation from the very basis of party democracy as a principle of governing the country.
By the way, from my pioneer childhood I remember such words as Democratic centralism, election from bottom to top. Purely legally, this was the case in the Party. Everyone was always chosen, from the minor secretary of the party cell to the general secretary. Another thing is that under Brezhnev this became largely a fiction. But under Stalin it was exactly like that.
And of course the most important document is ".
At the beginning, Khrushchev says what the report will actually be about:
Due to the fact that not everyone still understands what the cult of personality led to in practice, what enormous damage was caused violation of the principle of collective leadership in the party and the concentration of immense, unlimited power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee of the party considers it necessary to report materials on this issue to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union .
Then he scolds Stalin for a long time for deviations from the principles of collective leadership and attempts to crush everything under his own control.
And at the end he concludes with a programmatic statement:
Secondly, to consistently and persistently continue the work carried out in recent years by the Central Committee of the Party to strictly observe in all Party organizations, from top to bottom, Leninist principles of party leadership and above all the highest principle - collectivity of leadership, to comply with the norms of party life, enshrined in the Charter of our party, to develop criticism and self-criticism.
Third, fully restore Leninist principles Soviet socialist democracy, expressed in the Constitution of the Soviet Union, to fight against the arbitrariness of persons who abuse power. It is necessary to completely correct the violations of revolutionary socialist legality that have accumulated over a long period as a result of the negative consequences of the cult of personality.
And you say dictatorship. The dictatorship of a party, yes, but not of one person. And these are two big differences.
Historians call the dates of Stalin's reign from 1929 to 1953. Joseph Stalin (Dzhugashvili) was born on December 21, 1879. Many contemporaries of the Soviet era associate the years of Stalin’s reign not only with the victory over Nazi Germany and the increasing level of industrialization of the USSR, but also with numerous repressions of the civilian population.
During Stalin's reign, about 3 million people were imprisoned and sentenced to death. And if we add to them those sent into exile, dispossessed and deported, then the victims among the civilian population in the Stalin era can be counted at about 20 million people. Now many historians and psychologists are inclined to believe that Stalin’s character was greatly influenced by the situation within the family and his upbringing in childhood.
The emergence of Stalin's tough character
It is known from reliable sources that Stalin’s childhood was not the happiest and most cloudless. The leader's parents often argued in front of their son. The father drank a lot and allowed himself to beat his mother in front of little Joseph. The mother, in turn, took out her anger on her son, beat and humiliated him. The unfavorable atmosphere in the family greatly affected Stalin's psyche. Even as a child, Stalin understood a simple truth: whoever is stronger is right. This principle became the future leader’s motto in life. He was also guided by him in governing the country.
In 1902, Joseph Vissarionovich organized a demonstration in Batumi; this step was his first in his political career. A little later, Stalin became the Bolshevik leader, and his circle of best friends includes Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov). Stalin fully shares Lenin's revolutionary ideas.
In 1913, Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili first used his pseudonym - Stalin. From that time on, he became known by this last name. Few people know that before the surname Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich tried on about 30 pseudonyms that never caught on.
Stalin's reign
The period of Stalin's reign begins in 1929. Almost the entire reign of Joseph Stalin was accompanied by collectivization, mass death of civilians and famine. In 1932, Stalin adopted the “three ears of corn” law. According to this law, a starving peasant who stole ears of wheat from the state was immediately subject to capital punishment - execution. All saved bread in the state was sent abroad. This was the first stage of industrialization of the Soviet state: the purchase of modern foreign-made equipment.
During the reign of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, massive repressions of the peaceful population of the USSR were carried out. The repressions began in 1936, when the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR was taken by N.I. Yezhov. In 1938, on the orders of Stalin, his close friend Bukharin was shot. During this period, many residents of the USSR were exiled to the Gulag or shot. Despite all the cruelty of the measures taken, Stalin's policy was aimed at raising the state and its development.
Pros and cons of Stalin's rule
Minuses:
- strict board policy:
- the almost complete destruction of senior army ranks, intellectuals and scientists (who thought differently from the USSR government);
- repression of wealthy peasants and the religious population;
- the widening “gap” between the elite and the working class;
- oppression of the civilian population: payment for labor in food instead of monetary remuneration, working day up to 14 hours;
- propaganda of anti-Semitism;
- about 7 million starvation deaths during the period of collectivization;
- the flourishing of slavery;
- selective development of sectors of the economy of the Soviet state.
Pros:
- creation of a protective nuclear shield in the post-war period;
- increasing the number of schools;
- creation of children's clubs, sections and circles;
- space exploration;
- reduction in prices for consumer goods;
- low prices for utilities;
- development of industry of the Soviet state on the world stage.
During the Stalin era, the social system of the USSR was formed, social, political and economic institutions appeared. Joseph Vissarionovich completely abandoned the NEP policy and, at the expense of the village, carried out the modernization of the Soviet state. Thanks to the strategic qualities of the Soviet leader, the USSR won the Second World War. The Soviet state began to be called a superpower. The USSR joined the UN Security Council. The era of Stalin's rule ended in 1953. He was replaced as Chairman of the USSR Government by N. Khrushchev.
Lenin Vladimir Ilyich (1870-1924) 1917-1923 reign
Stalin (real name - Dzhugashvili) Joseph Vissarionovich)
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