The life of senior officials of the USSR and the Russian Federation, or what they fought for.
A photo: http://www.savchenko.ru/photo-223.html
On the picture: Governor of the Belgorod region Savchenko E.S. receives from the hands of the Archbishop of Belgorod and Stary Oskolsky John a congratulatory spillikin in connection with his 60th birthday.
In a discussion of one of them, it turned out that the theme of the Soviet party nomenklatura requires some explanation. What did you ask for in particular? inga_ilm . What I am doing today. For without a clear understanding of this peculiar socio-political phenomenon - the party nomenklatura - it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand the essence of the so-called. "Soviet system". Yes, and many events of today remain somewhat misunderstood, if you do not keep in mind that the nomenklatura has not disappeared anywhere in the post-Soviet space.
What the term originally meant is not so important. Basically, the nomenclature is some classification list. In this connection, very often the term "nomenklatura" is understood simply as all large and medium-sized Soviet officials. That is, the term "nomenklatura" is perceived as a synonym for such terms as "officialdom" or "bureaucracy". Which is fundamentally wrong. To understand the difference between the bureaucracy and the nomenklatura, I will say a few words about the notorious bureaucracy.
This word - bureaucracy - has long acquired a negative meaning. And yet bureaucracy is, so to speak, a necessary evil. It is simply impossible to organize the administration of the state, or even at least one part of the state apparatus, without bureaucracy. In a word, whether someone likes it or not, nothing will work without an extensive hierarchy of state officials. Without bureaucracy, the document flow will not circulate, and without this, in fact, everything will stop.
Of course, the bureaucracy is prone to swelling, it strives to build barriers of soulless formalism between itself and people, it tends to elevate the paragraphs of various acts to the absolute, but mankind has not invented another mechanism. For example, the head of state cannot exercise his powers (whatever they may be) without a well-functioning mechanism of direct and feedback, which is carried out through the bureaucratic apparatus. The same can be said about the head of government, about ministers, about the judiciary, and so on. etc. That is, in a general sense, the bureaucracy is the totality of all officials in the state. You always want to have as few of them as possible, but it is obvious that no matter how you minimize them, it is impossible in principle to do without an army of bureaucracy.
How is a typical state structured? The state has a head - whatever his name is. Until 1917, it was the emperor, after 1991 it was the president, and in the USSR the head of state was ... that's right, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Forgive me to pay attention to this - it was not the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU that was considered the formal head of state in the USSR (we will discuss this in more detail a little later).
The state has a government consisting of ministers and leaders close to them in rank. Accordingly, there is also a head of government. Now this position is called the Prime Minister, and under Brezhnev - the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (and under Comrade Stalin, for example, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars). There is a Supreme Court in the state, there is the Prosecutor General's Office. There are legislative bodies (today it is the State Duma, and in the USSR it was the notorious Supreme Soviet of the USSR). There are regional and local authorities: today these are the offices of governors, city halls, prefectures, councils, and in the USSR these were Soviets and Executive Committees (in fact, they were called the Soviet government). There are various public associations, parties, creative and trade unions, etc. in the state. etc.
Very often, when discussing how the USSR differed politically from a normal state, they say that there was only one party in the USSR. And that was the real difference. And this single party ruled the state. This is true. But the question is: how exactly did she govern? What was the mechanism of total control by the Communist Party of the entire social and economic life of the country?
Usually, this question is answered as follows: since in the USSR almost all leaders of any level had to be members of the CPSU, and in some areas of activity even ordinary employees had to be communists, then this was the total control of Soviet society by the communists.
However, the fact that almost all the leaders of all bureaucratic Soviet institutions were communists is not a mechanism, but a condition for the power of the Communist Party. And what was the mechanism of total control? And the mechanism was precisely in the nomenclature. And here we come close to the description of this phenomenon.
How is any party organized? This is an extensive network of regional cells (primaries), which are combined into structures of a higher order according to the territorial principle (and in the USSR also according to production), for example, on a city or district scale. Accordingly, there is some kind of governing body for this. Several city organizations (within, for example, a region) are united into a regional organization, with an appropriate governing body. Well, even higher, all this is combined into a single party across the country with the corresponding highest party body. It doesn't happen otherwise.
The CPSU was built exactly on the same principle. Accordingly, the intermediate leading communist bodies were called: city committees, district committees, regional committees, regional committees. And the highest body was called the Central Committee of the CPSU, which was headed by the Politburo, with the General Secretary at the head. Logically, all these district committees and regional committees should have consisted of a certain amount of party bureaucracy, which would have to deal with the following issues: questions of admission and exclusion from the party, organizational issues, economic and financial affairs of the organization, analysis of personal files of party members, that is purely internal activities of party organizations and individual members. In any party, the entire list of issues dealt with by intermediate party divisions is limited to these issues.
However, in the USSR the functions of all these district committees and regional committees were wider, much wider. Consider the typical structure of the regional committee of the CPSU in the Brezhnev era.
The regional committee of the CPSU (oblast committee) consisted of a bureau, secretariat and departments. What departments were they: the department of organizational and party work, the department of agitation and propaganda, the party commission, the general department, the financial and economic department. That is, these are just the departments that dealt with those issues of party life that I listed in the previous paragraph. Everything seems to be beautiful. And yet, this was only the tip of the iceberg.
In each regional committee there were also the following departments: the industrial and transport department, the department of light and food industry, the construction department, the department of science and educational institutions, the agricultural department, the department of administrative and trade and financial bodies. Sometimes these names could vary, for example, instead of a single industrial and transport department in the regional committee (or regional committee), there could be two departments - the department of industry and the department of transport and communications. In some regional committees and regional committees, there could be departments for a specific type of industry in which a given area specialized (for example, a department of the coal industry).
It is probably not worth saying that exactly the same structure existed at the lower level (district committees) and at the upper level - the Central Committee of the Party (with slight variations). And here, a person inexperienced in the knowledge of Soviet realities should ask the following question: what the hell? Why did there exist departments in the organs of the party administration of the CPSU, which were structurally duplicated by government ministries and departments?
I will dwell on this "strangeness" once again. Let's take some plant, for example, for the production of turbines for hydroelectric power plants. This plant was subordinate to the relevant ministry - heavy engineering. Within the framework of this ministry, the plant received a plan (for a five-year, annual, quarterly, monthly), which it had to fulfill. And, accordingly, within the framework of the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the plan, the management of the plant was accountable to its ministry. Or, let's say, some institution, it was subordinate to the Ministry of Higher Education. Well, etc. It seems that the scheme is ordinary and does not require any additions in terms of control.
However, in the USSR, everything was completely different. Namely: in addition to being subordinate to the relevant ministry, any enterprise or organization was accountable to the regional party committee on whose territory it was located. For example, the very enterprise for the production of turbines was controlled by the industrial department of the corresponding regional committee. The director of this enterprise was without fail a communist and was in double subordination - to his minister (or head of department) and to the regional committee. And which of the submissions was tougher, it’s impossible to say right away. Regional committees sent their instructors, observers, representatives, etc. to the enterprises. etc., whose task was to control the implementation of the plan, and sometimes to correct this plan in accordance with party guidelines.
Thus, the uniqueness of the Soviet system lay in the fact that the leading bodies of the party were also bodies duplicating a number of functions of ministries and departments. Of course, the relevant departments of the regional committees and district committees were not engaged in allocating funds, establishing relations between the enterprises of the ministry, but they were engaged in the main thing - they controlled every sneeze of the enterprise management and punished him.
So this whole hierarchical structure: city committee - district committee - regional committees - Central Committee, or rather party employees, represented the notorious party nomenklatura. The nomenklatura received a salary solely for the fact that they worked in district committees and regional committees. In addition to the salary, as such, she had access to special distributors. It is believed that Stalin introduced special distributors in order to control the expenses of the party nomenklatura and, thus, fight corruption in this environment. Perhaps such an idea actually existed. However, in conditions of total Soviet shortages, special distributors very quickly became one of the main privileges of the nomenklatura. Another of the privileges were departmental sanatoriums, rest homes, hospitals and sanatoriums.
The nomenklatura permeated and controlled the entire life of Soviet society. There was not a single economic or social element in the USSR that would have remained outside the attention of the obkom or district committee nomenklatura. Hence, in fact, the name of such a society - totalitarianism, that is, a society of total control. However, it is wrong to say that it was total control by the entire party. The fact is that there was a certain gap between members of the CPSU and the nomenklatura, and every communist understood how he differed from a representative of a district committee or regional committee. Ordinary communists could not influence the nomenklatura in any way. Therefore, it would be more correct to say that in the USSR all social and economic life was under strict vigilant control not of the entire CPSU, but of its elite - the nomenklatura.
How did a person get into the nomenclature? There were two main ways: he was either called up from production (of course, he had to be a communist), or he came from the relevant bodies of the Komsomol. For example, a representative of the district committee of the Komsomol could, for special zeal, be recommended to the district committee of the CPSU. The Komsomol was generally considered by the communists as a personnel reserve of the party. However, not the entire VLKSM, but the Komsomol nomenclature. The Komsomol nomenclature, of course, was thinner in the knees, because they could not control industrial enterprises. However, the general skills, so necessary for a real party nomenklatura, were taught very well in the Komsomol district committees and regional committees.
Formally, both in the CPSU and in the Komsomol there was democracy (democratic centralism), that is, all the governing bodies were elected by the general meeting of the members of the organization. But this is on paper. But the reality was different. In fact, the head of any level was appointed by the party bureau of a higher level, and the general meeting was only a formal ceremony, so to speak, confirmation that the general meeting takes note that higher comrades have appointed such and such a person to the leadership.
It happened like this. The bureau of the regional committee (consisting of the first secretary of the regional committee and heads of departments) decided that Tyutkin should be appointed first secretary in such and such a district committee. After that, a district conference of delegates from the district's primary organizations was held. At the conference, the representative of the regional committee uttered the ritual phrase: “there is an opinion” and announced the name of the one whom the regional committee had appointed to the post of first secretary. The word "appointed" of course was not pronounced. And it was said that the regional committee believes that such and such a comrade is best suited and "recommends" the district organization to elect him. Since there were no other options, the voting ceremony (For? Against? Abstained?) sacredly confirmed the choice of the regional committee. By the way, the first secretaries of the regional committee were appointed in exactly the same way. They were only appointed by the main communist bureau - the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
This is how the nomenklatura exercised its power on the basis of party bureaus and party committees. Since from the outside no one who wanted to get into the nomenklatura could, and the nomenclature itself called to itself those people whom it considered worthy, such a mechanism was akin to Masonic lodges, or even just mafia clans. At the same time, it was the nomenklatura that carried out all the control and management of the life of everything and everything in the USSR. Not a single newspaper could print anything that would not have received approval from the department of the regional committee or district committee, not a single performance could come out, not a single film.
Did anyone control the nomenclature itself? No, no one controlled her. Even the notorious KGB was absolutely powerless against the nomenklatura. Moreover, although the KGB of the USSR was formally subordinate to the Council of Ministers of the USSR, but in reality the employees of the state security were hammered in that they were an instrument of the party and were completely subordinate to it. Moreover, the prosecutor's office could not do anything with the nomenklatura. In order to initiate a criminal case against the nomenklatura, the prosecutor's office had to secure the permission of the relevant district committee or regional committee. And, I think, it makes no sense to say that such permission was almost never issued. Of course, even against a simple communist it was not so easy to initiate a criminal case if the district committee was against it. But still, the district committee could extradite a communist by simply excluding him from the party (this was a sign that a criminal case could be initiated against such and such). But the nomenklatura defended itself according to mafia-corporate rules.
It is clear that very quickly the nomenklatura turned into such a closed elite, which understood its complete impunity on the part of society and at the same time got used to the fact that all other people are completely subordinate to it, the nomenklatura. The nomenklatura distinguished the nomenklatura in the same way as some secret freemason looked for a brother-mason in the crowd. The most important difference between the nomenklatura and the state-economic bureaucracy was that the nomenklatura did not live in the name of the state or the people, but in the name of itself - the nomenklatura. It was good that which was useful to the nomenklatura and bad that which posed a threat to the nomenklatura.
Another difference is the alignment of horizontal connections. A classic bureaucrat will not communicate with a bureaucrat of his own level, but from another department, except through the bureaucratic red tape of the document flow. And one former employee of the ministry will not consider any other former employee of another department as “his own”. But the nomenklatura are all brothers among themselves (again, almost like the Masons). I remember when I still sincerely believed in the existence of some kind of irreconcilable opposition, then when I got into the Mandatory Commission of the State Duma, I was somewhat shocked by the fact that the head of the apparatus of the Mandatory Commission (and the Mandatory Commission was then headed by a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation), on a short footing with officials from the Moscow mayor's office and constantly informally exchanges up-to-date information with them. But everything was explained by the fact that at one time he worked in the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, just like many employees of the Moscow mayor's office. Nomenclature brotherhood and telephone law.
By the way, the main communists' hatred for Yeltsin is not at all that Yeltsin destroyed the USSR. Not at all. Yeltsin was blamed first of all (although they did not declare it publicly) for having actually betrayed the corporate interests of the nomenklatura and got in touch with the plebs. That is, he betrayed the nomenklatura. But at the same time, it was recognized somewhere that Yeltsin had the right to power, since he was a candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee - one of the highest levels in the nomenklatura hierarchy.
Since Yeltsin was one of the main nomenklatura (although he betrayed corporate interests), the former Soviet party nomenklatura under him could not declare their claims to the restoration of the role that they played under the USSR. However, she was not going to give up her ambitions. The situation changed dramatically when the state was headed by a native of the state security. For all people, state security seemed to be a very, very tough institution. But not for nomenclature. For since Soviet times, the KGB in the eyes of the nomenklatura is a purely subordinate instrument of the power of the nomenklatura. And from that moment began a creeping nomenklatura revenge.
Since, as I said, the nomenklatura is not an ordinary bureaucracy, but a closed corporation similar to Masonic lodges (well, or, if someone likes it better, mafia clans), and besides, with a claim to total control over society, then such kind of revenge, if it is fully realized, is fraught with serious changes.
Here is a recent example. In the Belgorod region, with reference to the will of the governor Yevgeny Savchenko, "the fight against heavy metal as satanic music" began (http://kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1371891&NodesID=7) .. This is so in the spirit of the USSR, which is just mind boggling. The question is, why on earth is the governor, that is, in fact, a state official who must monitor compliance with the law, as well as the serviceability of roads and buildings, suddenly creeps into people's personal lives? By what right? And the answer can be found in his biography, on the official website: "He worked in the Soviet and party bodies of the district and regional level". That is, he comes from the Soviet party nomenklatura, and it is quite normal for the nomenklatura to try to subordinate everything that happens in its jurisdiction to its control.
Now they talk a lot about freedoms and their reduction in the Russian Federation. Well, there is nothing strange in this, because the stranglers of freedoms are not the notorious special services, but the nomenklatura. And the more rights the former Soviet nomenklatura takes back, the fewer freedoms citizens have. Here the dependence is linear.
Everyone remembers the case with the barbecue "Anti-Soviet". Let me remind you that Prefect Mitvol "listened" to the opinion of the "veteran Dolgikh" and ordered the sign to be eliminated. If we look at the matter through the prism of knowledge about the party nomenklatura, we will see that Dolgikh is not some kind of veteran, but one of the highest Soviet nomenklatura - a member of the Politburo! And in a situation of creeping nomenklatura revenge, those representatives of the nomenklatura who form the backbone of the Moscow authorities feel reverence for him (as a low degree Freemason will always feel reverence for a higher degree Freemason). And Mitvol, in fact, from the nomenklatura point of view - no one. Therefore, he must simply stupidly carry out any order of the highest level of the nomenclature (Dolgikh in this case). And fulfilled. For, apparently, he senses well which way the wind blows.
Well, that's probably all. I repeat once again: the nomenklatura is not a classical bureaucracy, but a completely unique phenomenon. The nomenklatura claims to subjugate the entire life of the state to its will and carries out its nomenclature revenge. So far, a complete victory has not been won. But part of the way in this direction has already been covered.
Well, as an illustration, I propose a fragment from the film "Village Detective" (Film Studio named after M. Gorky, 1969), in which the district police officer Aniskin (played by Mikhail Zharov) came into conflict with the nomenclature officer - the authorized representative of the district. True, the nomenklatura is still quite small, he is just starting to take his first steps. And yet, it is already clear what the nomenklatura is and how it evaluates its role in the life of society and its rights to manage this society:
Here, in a nutshell, is what nomenclature is. In general, rounding off, and even so something has written a lot. Perhaps missed something. But I think I managed to convey the main thing. And I hope it is now clear that it is very dangerous to confuse the nomenklatura with the usual bureaucratic bureaucracy.
The economy in the USSR was planned, money was distributed differently than today. A factory worker could earn more than a superior engineer or even a director. Diplomats, military men and astronauts earned good money.
Nomenclature privileges
There were no official millionaires in the USSR and could not be, but in the Soviet Union money never became a bourgeois relic, and someone was more equal than others in a society of equal financial opportunities.
First of all, it is necessary to say about the Soviet nomenklatura. Members of the Politburo and smaller officials drove official cars, rested at state dachas and good resorts, ate delicious food, and so on.
However, officials could not afford to show off either.
The benefits provided to them were related to their offices. Party purges often led to a change in owners of dachas and cars.
Of course, the Soviet nomenklatura was "baited". Thus, officials had the opportunity to buy scarce products at bargain prices. At the special base number 208 in 1976, you could buy a full meal of 6-7 courses, including sturgeon, black and red caviar for 1 ruble.
But even without privileges, the salaries of officials were high. Nikolai Ryzhkov and Yegor Ligachev admitted that top officials received up to 1,200 rubles in the late USSR.
"Curly" all lived in the USSR diplomats. Not only did they receive high salaries, but they could also afford to bring in valuable goods from abroad. Including foreign cars.
Sports and money
Compared to the current salaries of athletes, the money that football players and hockey players received in the USSR may seem ridiculous, but for their time they were very large.
Dynamo Kyiv football player Vladimir Lozinsky recalled that the standard salary rate was 250 rubles, and players were paid 100 rubles for a victory. In addition, there were prizes for prizes in championships and cups. The players of Dynamo and CSKA, in addition to salaries, bonuses and prize money, also received their money for long service.
The legendary Oleg Blokhin recalled: “I, as a police major, received 320 rubles for my length of service, another 20 for the title of Honored Master of Sports.” Thus, football players and hockey players accumulated rather high salaries. In addition, athletes could afford to buy cars without a queue, and they often rewarded players for victories. Athletes often simply resold these cars.
Salaries vary from club to club. Among the top teams in the USSR, Zenit was the lowest paid. There was even a joke about this: Zenit plays not for money, but for the Bronze Horseman.
Specialists in price
The Soviet Union knew how to value specialists in their fields. Highly skilled workers, turners, mechanics, equipment adjusters received substantial salaries, which consisted of the initial rate and bonuses for qualifications (digit system). At the same time, the salaries of plant directors could not be higher than the salaries of the highest paid workers of these enterprises.
In the early 1980s, the salaries of "top" specialists were 500-1000 rubles. If we add to this a variety of benefits, the possibility of sanatorium treatment, priority in the queue for housing and other bonuses, then it can be argued that the life of highly qualified workers in the USSR was very acceptable, and the salaries were comparable in amounts to the salaries of the scientific nomenclature - professors universities and directors of scientific institutes.
astronauts
Cosmonauts in the USSR were a real elite, but again, if we compare their salaries with the salaries of the current space explorers, especially foreign ones, then these amounts will be small.
Every cosmonaut who flew into space in the USSR was entitled to a car (today an apartment), and the state paid for the gasoline for the car for life.
A bonus to this was sanatorium treatment, various benefits and, of course, honors. Yuri Gagarin was the most favored of the Soviet cosmonauts. In general, the salaries of cosmonauts in the Soviet Union, although they were high, were not enough to last them for the rest of their lives. In 2007, at a press conference, cosmonaut Georgy Grechko recalled: “For a month of space flight I received 5,000 rubles, it was almost 40 years ago, when a Volga car cost 6,000 rubles.” Merchandisers and store directors, bartenders at Intourists, dentists, butchers in the markets, masters of television studios and household houses, sea captains also lived well.
The formation, after the Bolshevik Party came to power in October 1917, of a new statehood, called the Soviet one and which existed for more than seven decades, led to fundamental changes in the principles of governing the country and organizing the public service.
From the "realm of freedom" to the "realm of necessity":
the first years of Soviet power
The Bolshevik Party, having become the ruling party, under the influence of the postulates of Marxism on the self-government of workers, in which the concept of management as a professional sphere disappears, initially focused on the rejection of the services of the pre-revolutionary (“old”) bureaucracy and officials in general, replacing them with elected people. The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 24, 1917 liquidated the former hierarchy of civil servants and recorded that "all civil ranks are abolished" and "the names of civil ranks (secret, state and other advisers) are destroyed" . However, the dream of a state-commune, in which there would be no professional bureaucracy and everyone would become managers ("every cook will manage the state"), remained unfulfilled. It soon became clear that in a disintegrating country engulfed in civil war, to master the situation, a clear system of organizing power and administration is needed.
The formation of a rigidly centralized system of power took place on the basis of the apparatus of the Bolshevik Party. IN AND. Lenin was convinced that there was no other political force in Russia than the Bolshevik Party, capable of leading and leading the people from split to unity, and then to socialism. The party apparatus became the backbone of the system of power, gathering together the society that had crumbled during the revolution and the civil war. In the conditions of the collapse, the Bolshevik Party retained an all-Russian organization: cells in factories, plants, in the countryside (although not on the same scale as in the city), in the army, in mass organizations (trade unions, Soviets, etc.), efficient party structures at all levels - the Central Committee, regional bureaus (the regions united several provinces), provincial, city, district committees. Because of this, it acted as a ready basis for the formation of power structures. The personnel corps of civil servants was formed primarily from members of the RCP(b). The principles of personnel selection were initially simple: personal contacts of prominent Bolsheviks with the future appointee for revolutionary activities; clarification of the social origin and degree of political devotion to the goals of the Bolshevik party. In 1920, 53% of communists were employees of Soviet institutions. The form of power remained Soviet. The Soviets continued to function, but the Soviet bodies gradually lost their importance. There is a merging of the party (Bolshevik) and Soviet apparatuses with the transfer of the prerogative of decision-making to the party bodies. The principle of unity of command is affirmed instead of the initially proclaimed unlimited Soviet collegial self-government. IN AND. Lenin wrote: "Soviet socialist democracy does not in the least contradict individualism and dictatorship... The will of a class is sometimes carried out by a dictator, who sometimes alone does more and is often more necessary."
The sphere of management, regardless of its level, requires qualifications, competence, relevant skills and qualities. The communist system of power called for a new elite to rule the country, which for the most part did not have education and management skills. I.V. Paramonov, who worked in Donsovnarkhoz in 1920, recalled: "We, Soviet business executives, in the overwhelming majority at that time had not yet matured to a theoretical understanding of our tasks. We acted more according to common proletarian sense." The lack of elementary managerial knowledge and experience among the majority of the Bolshevik Party members made it necessary, overcoming resistance and unwillingness to cooperate with the new government ("sabotage"), to attract a significant part of the old bureaucracy to the state apparatus. Managers agreed to work not only under pressure from the authorities (it was significant, including the methods of the Cheka), but also out of necessity - the civil service was their only source of livelihood. According to the first census of employees conducted in Moscow in August 1918, the share of the old bureaucracy among employees in Soviet state departments was: in the Cheka - 16.1%, in the NKID - 22.2%, in the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Revolutionary Tribunal under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Narkomnats and the Administration of the Council of People's Commissars 36.5-40, in the NKVD 46.2, in the Supreme Economic Council 48.3, the People's Commissariat of Justice - 54.4, the People's Commissariat for Health - 60.9, in the People's Commissariat for Maritime Affairs - 72.4%, etc. Among the leading employees of the central state bodies, the number of employees with pre-revolutionary experience ranged from 55.2% in the People's Commissariat of War to 87.5% in the People's Commissariat of Finance. The old specialists worked under the vigilant control of the representatives of the Communist Party. Here is how V.I. Lenin in 1922 regarding the specialists who worked in the State Planning Commission: "... The overwhelming majority of scientists, of whom, naturally, the State Planning Committee was compiled, are inevitably infected with bourgeois views and bourgeois prejudices. Checking them from this side should be the task of several persons who may form the presidium of the State Planning Committee, which must consist of communists and monitor day by day in the entire course of work the degree of devotion of bourgeois scientists and their rejection of bourgeois prejudices, as well as their gradual transition to the point of view of socialism.
Thus, in the first years of Soviet power, the corps of civil servants consisted, as it were, of two parts: the new, Soviet administrative bureaucracy, which professed communist principles, and the old one, which was gradually eroded (either completely accepted the new principles, or was ousted, including by repressive methods). , as the managers of the Soviet generation acquire qualifications and knowledge). In the non-management composition, a significant, and in many departments even the predominant part of the employees were workers' and peasants' representatives, or, in any case, people who had nothing to do with managerial activity in the past. The training of qualified managerial personnel corresponding to the communist system of power was launched at the Socialist Academy (renamed in 1924 to the Communist), communist universities, in an extensive network of Soviet party schools throughout the country and other educational institutions. By the beginning of the 1930s, the need for the old "specialists" had practically disappeared, and the bureaucracy had become unified.
With the rapid pace of total nationalization (nationalization of banks, land, industry, housing, the system of distribution of material goods, etc.), a large number of employees were required who would take into account all this, control, distribute and manage everything. The state apparatus swelled with terrifying speed. V.D. Bonch-Bruevich wrote on this occasion: “In less than a few months of a new existence, like Petrograd and Moscow, and behind them all the cities and villages of vast Russia were chock-full of new bureaucratic people. It seems that from the very creation of the world to the present day there was nowhere under the sun of such a colossal, blatant number of officials as in the days after the October Revolution. According to the 1920 census, there were at least 230 thousand employees of state institutions in Moscow. In 1921, the bureaucracy in Soviet Russia was 5.7 million, with a population of 61 million. For comparison: in 1913, in the Russian Empire, with a population of 174 million people, there were 253 thousand officials in the public service.
The population of Soviet Russia has become the subjects of the bureaucracy. The lack of control of the bureaucracy in the absence of democratic institutions, the undeveloped legal and regulatory framework for the work of government agencies gave rise to abuses of power, arbitrariness, protectionism, corruption, red tape and other inevitable ulcers. Already in the first years of Bolshevik power, all this manifested itself in full. The summary of the Cheka No. 1 for 1918 in only 10 provinces (excluding Moscow and Petrograd) recorded 2533 cases of malfeasance. There were widespread cases related to speculation, in which employees of state bodies were involved, distributing certain goods. Since the emergence of the Cheka, its most important function has been to control the work of the state apparatus. Already at the beginning of 1918, a subdepartment was organized, and then a department for combating malfeasance. The control and purge of the rapidly expanding state apparatus has become an important part of the activities of other departments of the Cheka (to combat counter-revolution, speculation, etc.).
Initially, the Bolshevik leaders proclaimed that the wages of officials should not exceed the wages of the average skilled worker. By a corresponding decree, all members of the Council of People's Commissars (higher officials) were given a low salary - 500 rubles. per month (the average wage of a skilled worker in 1917 was 450 rubles). However, already in the spring of 1918, wages for specialists and senior officials were increased and various benefits were introduced for party and state leadership. Since hyperinflation raged in the country during the civil war, money lost its significance, and the volume of non-monetary privileges increased. If for the majority of civil servants of a low rank the privileges were limited to the right to receive a poor ration (which was very important in conditions of famine and devastation), then the position of senior officials differed significantly from the bulk of the bureaucracy. At the end of the civil war, when there was famine in the country, high-ranking officials in the central government received 12 kg of meat, 1.2 kg of butter, the same amount of sugar, 1.3 kg of rice per month. 360 billion rubles were allocated for their sanatorium care. In addition, they were given leave to go abroad together with the attending physician, for which they were given 100 rubles. gold "for the device and petty expenses." The same 100 rubles. they relied on gold at the end of the last month of the year. Responsible party workers who had a family of three received a salary increased by 50%, and another 50% was paid for work outside of office hours. The growth in the material well-being of responsible workers caused discontent among party members, especially the "Leninist Guard". The IX All-Russian Conference of the RCP(b) set the task "... to develop quite suitable practical measures to eliminate inequality (in living conditions, in wages, etc.) between "specialists" and responsible workers, on the one hand, and the working masses , on the other side" . The Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) confirmed "the course towards equalization in the area of the financial situation of party members." In practice, however, little has changed.
Party nomenclature and civil service
With the end of the civil war and the formation of the USSR, many features of state administration that had developed in the early years of Soviet power were strengthened. All power was concentrated in the hands of the leader - the leader of the ruling communist party. Since the time of I.V. Stalin's transformation into a leader is associated with the occupation of the party post of General Secretary of the Central Committee. The leader could hold government posts or not. So, V.I. Lenin was the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, the chairman of the STO, and I.V. Stalin for a long time (from 1922 to 1941) had only the party post of General Secretary of the Central Committee, and only during the Second World War did he occupy government posts. The leader of the party, raised above society, had virtually unlimited power and acquired charismatic features in public opinion. Stalin, who became the undisputed leader after the death of Lenin, for almost three decades single-handedly determined both the personal composition of the highest echelon of government and the principles of public service.
The Communist Party remained the core of the system of power and an instrument of state administration. The Constitutions of 1936 and especially those of 1977 spoke directly about the leading role of the Communist Party in society. The most important tasks of the party bodies were the selection, education and placement of personnel related to the organization and leadership of people: from the collective farm foreman to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, from the chairman of the village council to the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The party developed policies and "rules of the game" that ensured the stability of the system. Personnel issues were dealt with by the Secretariat and the organizational and distribution department (organizational distribution department) of the Central Committee. Accounting and distribution departments existed in all other party bodies - from the Central Committee of the republics to the district committee, dealing with personnel of the appropriate level "in all areas of management and management without exception." This practice was based on the decision taken back in 1923 at the XII Congress of the RCP (b) along with party cadres to select "... the heads of Soviet, in particular, economic and other bodies, which should be carried out with the help of a correctly and comprehensively set accounting system and selection ... of employees of Soviet, economic, cooperative and professional organizations.
Gradually, a clear mechanism for the selection, education and verification of managerial personnel was created. For responsible employees employed at different levels of government, a category of nomenclature was introduced. The nomenclature was a list of the most important positions in the state apparatus and in public organizations, candidates for which were considered and approved by party committees - from the district committee to the Central Committee. Nomenclature workers are a closed social layer of "bosses" at all levels. It existed on the basis of strict principles and rules defined by the communist leaders. In 1923, the basic principles for the selection and appointment of nomenklatura workers were formulated in the relevant documents, which have never been published. The lists of such posts were strictly secret. JV Stalin defined the requirements for the nomenclature as follows: "... People who know how to implement directives, who can understand directives, who can accept directives as if they were their own, and who know how to put them into practice." All aspects of the life of the nomenklatura were controlled. Stalin argued: "... It is necessary to study every worker by the bones."
The nomenklatura principle began to take shape immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power, but in its full form took shape by the end of the 30s and existed until the end of the 80s - half a century (the nomenklatura was abolished by a decree of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU of August 22, 1990). It covered the entire sphere of management, although it did not have legal formalization. Leading posts could only be occupied by members of the Communist Party recommended for these positions by the relevant party committees. The recommendation for leading positions of non-party people was an exception that only confirmed the rule. The characteristic features of the nomenklatura bureaucracy: secrecy, closeness, strict selection on the basis of loyalty to the communist party and business qualities, paramilitary character (for a long time the nomenklatura was literally armed - had personal weapons). The nomenclature is not a class, although this point of view is widespread. It did not have private property (it did not and could not exist at all in the Soviet period), but on behalf of the people it disposed of a huge pie of public property concentrated in the hands of the state. Society, deprived of property and independence from power, was entirely dependent on the bureaucracy, which was at the "faucet" of material and social benefits.
The Stalinist and post-Stalinist nomenclature was more educated than under V.I. Lenin. It has become a imperative of time and prestige to have a higher education. In 1946, the Academy of Social Sciences was established under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which trained responsible managerial personnel for district, city, regional and republican authorities. Characteristically, professional lawyers and economists were actually excluded from the highest nomenclature. Specialists with technical and military education prevailed.
The distribution of managers according to the "floors" of management was no less, and perhaps even more rigid, than in tsarist Russia in accordance with the "Table of Ranks". The power hierarchy in the Soviet state, of course, was closely intertwined with the party hierarchy. The nomenclature of the Central Committee was the highest category and numbered approximately 22.5 thousand people in 1980, but then it was consistently reduced: in 1988 - 18 thousand, in 1990 - 15 thousand (former secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU E. Ligachev, speaking in the Constitutional Court at the trial of the Communist Party, he argued that "later" - apparently, he meant after 1990 - the nomenclature of the Central Committee was reduced to 3 thousand people). Next came the nomenclature of regional committees, district committees, city committees. There are no exact data on the number of these discharges. Some publications gave a general figure: up to 2 million (this figure was also heard in the Constitutional Court).
Without exception, all issues of the life of managers were resolved in the party bodies. The Communist Party acted as a patron organization in relation to civil servants. Acquaintance with the leaders and prominent functionaries of the Communist Party (joint work in the past, "fought together in civilian life", family relations, etc.) gave advantages in promotion and taking up positions. In this regard, the personnel policy of the Soviet era is sometimes called the nomenklatura-patronage system. In the Russian Center for the Storage and Study of Documents of Contemporary History, in the personal fund of a major statesman of the Soviet era F.E. Dzerzhinsky, there is a document that at first glance may seem insignificant, but in fact gives an idea of the mechanisms of the functioning of power, perhaps more vividly than nationwide documents.
"In the Central Committee of the RCP(b).
The health, efficiency and planning of the work of our responsible workers would rise many times over if they had, free from all meetings and receptions, except Sunday, one more free day a week - Wednesday or Thursday. Then they would be able to think over their work, review the material, and so on... If my proposal is approved by the Central Committee, then it is necessary to appoint a commission that would work out the text of the resolution indicating the day and the list of workers in relation to whom this measure is obligatory. October 12, 1925 F.E. Dzerzhinsky ". Please note: the private question of the need to introduce a second day off for senior officials was raised by the chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy F.E. Dzerzhinsky not before the government, but before the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Comments are superfluous.
The layer of the Soviet bureaucracy was heterogeneous. Sometimes the entire governing bureaucracy of the Soviet period is called the nomenklatura, but this is not accurate. The nomenklatura was only a part of the bureaucracy, engaged in responsible management work at various levels. The bulk of officials were engaged in ordinary work in departments, offices, etc. The bureaucracy of the Soviet period was distinguished by its special "purity" in terms of origin, upbringing, and social affiliation. She was not burdened by class, hereditary stratifications, as, indeed, education. She came mainly from the lower classes. The Soviet bureaucracy lived by strict rules that applied to all aspects of life, including personal ones. Isolation from a common unified background was condemned. The unification of social life was expressed even in clothing, which played the role of a symbolic belonging to a certain stratum in the social hierarchy. A.A. Solts in a report on party ethics, read at the Communist University. Ya.M. Sverdlov in 1925, said: "... If a person outwardly, so to speak, sharply departs from the masses that he represents, then we ourselves will make the struggle difficult for ourselves and put off the time for putting our ideas into practice." The life of the communists had to correspond to the proclaimed general principles, at least outwardly. Household commissions were created in the party organizations, which were engaged in checking the life of the communists. In Siberia, for example, surveys of the life of communists were carried out according to a predetermined program, which took into account the furnishings of the home, the presence of a library (with communist literature), the use of free time, the use of alcoholic beverages, etc. The facts of personal life that did not fit into the standard were the subject of public discussion with face-to-face confrontations, interrogations in the party organization. The XVI Conference of the CPSU(b) (April 1929) condemned excessive digging into personal life, but the very control and standardization of the behavior and lifestyle of the communist elite was not in doubt and persisted throughout the period when the Communist Party was in power.
In a country where legally everything belonged to the state and was controlled by the state, the number of bureaucracy was huge and constantly growing. In social statistics, data on this was blurred by including the bureaucracy in the impersonal category of employees, which also included doctors, teachers, etc., so it is difficult to determine its exact number. But still there are numbers that give an idea of this. By the beginning of 1954, the total number of workers and employees in the national economy reached 44.8 million people, of which 6 million 516 thousand people were administrative and managerial personnel, i.e., on average, every seventh was an employee of the administrative apparatus. In the 1980s, according to some estimates, the management stratum, together with their families, amounted to 18 million people.
"Gingerbread" of privileges and party "stick"
Gradually, the bureaucracy acquired privileges distributed in strict accordance with the official hierarchy. Nomenclature workers had the greatest privileges. The well-being of the nomenklatura was determined primarily not by salary, not by property, but by the share of the free public pie that was at its disposal. The privileges of the bureaucracy began to take shape immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. But if during the formation of the communist system of power they ranged from a personal armored train to a personal horse, then in subsequent years a developed system of full support for the bureaucracy was created, but in strict dependence on the category. In 1922, at the XII Party Conference, a resolution "On the material situation of active party workers" was adopted. 15,325 people were assigned to this category. In addition to top-class monetary remuneration, all these comrades must be "...provided with housing (through local executive committees), medical care (through the People's Commissariat of Health), and the upbringing and education of children (through the People's Commissariat for Education)". At the same time, the XII Party Conference established the highest monthly salary limit for responsible Party workers (the Party maximum, which was abolished in 1935 as a matter of routine). Amounts in excess of this limit were to go to the party's mutual aid fund.
But this did not mean at all that the party-state bureaucracy began to live like everyone else. Leveling trends in wages have led to an increase in free privileges for the nomenklatura. Until 1947, members of the Politburo of the Central Committee, the nomenklatura, which had the highest status, did not receive a monetary allowance and were fully provided at the expense of the state as needed. Daughter I.V. Stalin S. Alliluyeva in the book "20 Letters to a Friend" reported: "Until then (until 1947 - L.S.) I existed without money at all, except for a university scholarship, and always borrowed from my "rich" nannies who received a hefty salary ... "A developed, strictly ranked system of privileges was created. Subsequently, it was constantly improved, and the privileges expanded both in volume and quality. For the nomenklatura, at the expense of the state, the best housing was built, special medical and sanatorium services were provided, the best food was supplied, state dachas were provided, special pensions were established (personal pensions of union and republican significance), even funerals were carried out in special cemeteries in a special category. It is important to understand that privileges were a means of manipulating the nomenklatura bureaucracy. In order not to lose the opportunity to live in a cozy "special world", one had to "play by the rules." The privileges of ordinary civil servants were much more modest and were expressed primarily in "orders" with food, access to scarce goods, the opportunity to get housing without a queue, good sanatorium vouchers, etc.
The way up the nomenklatura ladder was fraught with constant risk. Under J. Stalin, abuse of power, blunders were punished severely. Stalin, in a letter to V. Molotov, wrote: “We should publish all the testimonies of pests on meat, fish, canned food and vegetables immediately .., and give a notice from the OGPU in a week that all these scoundrels have been shot. They must all be shot.” At a time when the flywheel of repression was in full swing and every civil servant was literally shone through, corruption was a risky business, but it inevitably existed in different forms. Harsh measures helped little. The bureaucracy worked according to its own laws.
During the repressions, the nomenklatura at all levels suffered the greatest damage. The workers of the Council of People's Commissars, industrial people's commissariats, the officer corps of the Red Army, and the director's corps suffered the most. The most serious were accusations of a political nature (in organizing conspiracies, illegal political groups, spying for foreign states, etc.), which in fact were not true. The repressions especially affected public servants during the years of the "great terror". In 1937-1939. the party nomenclature was updated everywhere at least two or three times. Even those who belonged to the select circle of those who took part in the armed uprising on October 25, 1917 and held out for quite a long time in the highest echelons of power, were among the repressed. A. I. Rykov, who from the age of 17 connected his fate with revolutionary activity, was introduced to the first composition of the Council of People's Commissars, then, after the death of Lenin, he took the post of head of government. In 1930, accused of right deviation, he was removed from this post and appointed People's Commissar of Communications. But that was not all. In 1938 he was convicted and shot. One more example:
V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko, a participant in the capture of the Winter Palace, also joined the first composition of the Council of People's Commissars in subsequent years, despite the fact that he was in 1923-1927. he joined the Trotskyist opposition, held high positions - the plenipotentiary in Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland, the prosecutor of the RSFSR, etc. His views changed, Antonov-Ovseenko broke with the opposition, admired Stalin. However, this did not help him avoid the meat grinder of Stalinist terror. In October 1937 he was arrested, and in February 1938 he was sentenced to death on charges of belonging to the leadership of a "Trotskyist terrorist and espionage organization." A new wave of repression seized the state apparatus in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The aging leader (he was in his eighties) carried out radical changes in the structure of the central party apparatus. It was decided to renew the higher echelons of power, to remove those who had sat too long, as well as those who claimed to replace Stalin in his post.
From the restless "thaw" to the imaginary well-being of the "era of stagnation"
With the death of Stalin, there were some changes in the principles of the existence of the Soviet bureaucracy. A new mechanism for the change of leaders took shape, which affected the conditions of the civil service and the composition of the highest echelon of the bureaucracy. Now the change took place more often, it was possible to take the place of the leader through an exhausting and dangerous struggle of groups - clans at the top of the party-state bureaucracy (any methods were acceptable, including arrest). The victor placed people loyal to him in key positions (most often these were people with whom he worked at different stages of his party career). This mechanism was launched by N.S., Khrushchev and operated flawlessly until the election of the last head of the CPSU - M.S. Gorbachev in 1985
The repressive machine was suspended, and fear ceased to dominate the officials. They gained greater independence and independence, but at the same time, even the minimal publicity of those years made them more vulnerable, as it highlighted the incompetence and low culture of many officials. N.S. Khrushchev achieved the introduction of a provision on the mandatory rotation of personnel in the Party Charter - at each election it was supposed to change a third of the number of members of party committees from the Central Committee to the district committee. An exception was made only for the first secretary and a small circle of "experienced and distinguished workers." The highest nomenklatura met this with dissatisfaction, since the most prominent managers of the corresponding levels were represented in the party bodies. Membership in a party body gave the actual managing part of the bureaucracy additional weight and security, and it did not want to lose them. This was one of the reasons for the unanimity in the release of N.S. Khrushchev in October 1964 from all posts in the party and the state "due to advanced age and health." N.S. Khrushchev, returning from the Plenum of the Central Committee, said: "Perhaps the most important thing that I did is that they could remove me by a simple vote, while Stalin would have ordered them all to be arrested."
Attempts to further liberalize the civil service were blocked with the advent of L.I. Brezhnev to the highest power post in the state - the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, renamed again in 1965 into the General Secretary. The principle of personnel rotation was immediately abolished. The sedentary, mothballed system rejected everything new. The role of the bureaucracy in all spheres of life has increased, the list of nomenklatura positions has expanded, and the tenure of office has increased. Stable groups of managers were formed, which consolidated around officials who held higher positions and acted as patrons. The system of personal patronage, which was formed in the 60-80s, covered the entire bureaucracy from top to bottom and was built on the basis of personal loyalty. The solution of this or that state issue, the occupation of an important post depended on the outcome of the struggle between clan groups and the degree of influence of the patron.
Some ministers have held office records of 20 years or more. Corruption among officials acquired significant proportions, the state bureaucracy merged with mafia groups. Features appeared that testify to the transformation of the bureaucracy into hereditary, the role of family ties increased. Under some members of the family of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev, ministries were created, which they were supposed to head. By the end of Brezhnev's life, his son (First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade) and his son-in-law (First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs) were members of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The same thing happened at other levels of government - relatives and close secretaries of the republican Central Committees, regional committees and regional committees received prestigious positions in the state apparatus and advantages in career advancement. Brezhnev's time is called the golden age of the nomenklatura, when its life was distinguished by stability, a relatively high level of material security and confidence in the strength of its status. Yu. Andropov, becoming General Secretary, in the early 80s tried to stop the processes of decomposition in the managerial layer. Cases of bribery and extortion at a high level received loud publicity. Show trials were held against bribe-takers from various ministries. However, a deep systemic crisis was brewing in the country, covering all areas: economic, socio-political, spiritual, power and management. Society has taken possession of the consciousness of the need for change. The nomenclature management system has exhausted itself.
Notes
2. Lenin V.I. Full coll. op. T. 40. S. 272.
3. Quoted. Quoted from: Historical experience and perestroika. S. 24.
4. Iroshnikov M.P. Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin). Essays on state activity in 1917-1918. L., 1974. S. 424-427.
5. Lenin V.I. Full coll. op. T. 45. S. 352.
6. Government Bulletin. 1989. No. 6. S. 10.
7. Russia: Encyclopedic Dictionary. L., 1991. S. 265. Without the military and naval departments.
8. The CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. T. 2. M., 1971. S. 302.
9. Stalin I.V. Op. T. 5. S. 225.
10. Ibid. S. 396.
11. For the first time this point of view (however, following L. Trotsky) was expressed by M. Djilas in the famous book "The New Class", supported by M. Voslensky in the work "Nomenklatura. The Ruling Class of the Soviet Union" with a preface by M. Dzhilas.
12. RTSKHIDNI, f. 76, on. 1, d. 189, l. nine.
13. Party ethics: Discussions of the 20s. M., 1989. S. 284.
14. See: Isaev V.I. Life of the workers of Siberia. 1926-1937 Novosibirsk, 1988, p. 74.
15. CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. T. b. S. 510.
16. Communist. 1990. No. 11. S. 104.
17. Soviet society. Origin, development, historical finale. M., 1997. S. 418.
On the question of the privileges of the party nomenklatura in the socialist countries,raised by Lankov , I will lay out some thoughts about the position of the party elite in the USSR. I have already voiced some of these considerations on "Tuesday" at Maccavity's. Many thanks to Ilya for a number of valuable comments and additions.
Of course, any ruling elite in any country of the world has benefits and privileges, but the position of the Soviet nomenklatura had a number of fundamental differences.Any ruling class is privileged by virtue of those material goods that it has: whether it is land, slaves or means of production. The state provides him with property over these assets, protecting them from the encroachments of other groups, and therefore is considered "class" by Marxists. A number of researchers (Djilas and Voslensky) considered the nomenclature (“new class”) to be just another elite that seized power over property as a result of the revolution, on which they built their theories. But this premise is absolutely wrong.
The nomenklatura actually had nothing, legally everything in the country belonged to the state, and he could manage this property only to the extent of his authority, but I cannot dispose of it. The capitalist could donate or sell the plant, pass it on by inheritance, and in the end - drink it away. A member of the Soviet nomenklatura could not do any of this; at best, while making a successful career, he could retain a certain set of benefits during his lifetime, but neither the law nor the state could guarantee their safety. To some extent, the position of the nomenklatura resembled the fate of the first feudal lords, who had land only while serving the overlord. In the event of a loss of office, a Soviet official remained with what he had in his pockets, so the joke that “Stalin left a pipe and 40 rubles” is only part of the joke.
However, having made this theoretical reservation, let's move on to considering the specific benefits that the Soviet nomenklatura had. First of all, it should be noted that the availability of privileges and their level changed very much from period to period, so a description should be given for almost every period of the reign of the first persons of the Union.
During the first “Leninist” period, the material and other privileges of the nomenklatura were minimal. Yes, the ration received by a high-ranking party official could be more than that of the average worker, but it was far from plentiful. Moreover, the size of the maximum salary of a member of the CPSU (b) was legally limited (the so-called “party maximum”), and the opportunity to purchase essential goods on the black market was absent, both in terms of morality and under the threat of repression. In general, in the "Lenin times" the requirements for a party worker were extremely high, the party was something like a monastic order, and the punishment for any violation could be inadequately harsh. (Letters have even been preserved where Lenin threatened local officials with execution for poor organization of supplies).
After the fever of the Leninist years, already under the collective leadership, a system of privileges for the ruling elite began to gradually take shape. There was no talk of any general standard yet; in fact, everyone took according to their position and needs. The country's leadership had many other concerns besides regulating its own financial situation, especially since many top officials (Stalin, for example) remained ideological ascetics of the "Leninist formation."
The semi-official system of privileges began to take shape along with the development of industry, in the 1930s, and took its final form with the abolition of the card system. The state guaranteed its employees a certain salary and a guarantee of the opportunity to purchase a certain set of benefits for it. In conditions of a shortage of a huge variety of goods (and the queues in the late 1930s were really terrible, in large cities they were sometimes occupied in the evening), these guarantees were implemented with the help of special distributors, to which only certain groups of employees had access. I emphasize that special distributors were not only for the party nomenclature, there were departmental supply points at many enterprises and institutions, and were a reaction to the shortage. The worker, to the extent of his "usefulness", was freed from the need to "get" the goods, but simply purchased them at the place of work. The system of special distribution has since become an integral part of the privileges of the nomenklatura, but over time its importance has gradually declined. The production and wealth of the population grew, and an increasing number of goods could be purchased or obtained without gross violations of the law and the use of special distributors.
But back to Stalin. Simultaneously with the "distribution", suburban dachas, decent urban housing, the nomenklatura received a number of very severe restrictions. I'm not even talking about responsibility, in which any serious flaw could be declared "wrecking" and punished accordingly. We are talking about the severe restrictions on consumption that the system imposed. Under the ban was not even luxury, but simply a lot of things in the house. The famous disgrace of Zhukov, at least formally, was rigidly linked to the export of his property from Germany. We are not talking about “cars” and “jewels”, we are talking about a large number of fabrics, carpets, hunting weapons that were stored in his dacha, which, if desired, can be taken away in a couple of races of a modern passenger car. All these were gifts or things bought at bargain prices in post-war Europe, but a Bolshevik “cannot” have so much “junk” and G.K. flew down from the highest army posts. And if his military glory was a little less, everything could have ended worse. Of course, "junk" was not the only reason for repression, but "junk" was presented as a serious crime for an official, which put him in a very bad position. In fact, the rejection of Stalin among the communist elite that developed towards the end of the 1940s was largely the result of all these “monastic strictness”, under which a shock worker could sometimes afford more than a people's commissar.
Under Khrushchev, restrictions gradually began to soften, and in the USSR there was already a classic type of privilege for a member of the elite. Under the ban turned out to be only very impudent, eye-catching luxury. The nomenklatura had the right to a country house, a luxurious apartment (by today's standards - the highest stratum of the middle class), a large dacha (only top management houses reached the standards of the modern elite), a foreign car (I can’t vouch for this, cars are not my forte, but something then the level of the modern average Muscovite), salary, the opportunity to travel abroad. Plus all sorts of elite vacations, theater tickets for good seats. Before the spread of VCRs (for peers, I’ll explain that they already were in the Union), it was a privilege to show foreign films in elite cinemas (as for “permitted” workers of culture and art), but with the spread of this technique, this privilege turned into a zilch. It was more difficult for a private citizen to get cassettes, and pornographic films were under a strict ban, but a resident of most large cities with an appropriate income could really satisfy his love for cinema.
However, this consumption standard applied only to the highest stratum of the elite: members of the Presidium, the Council of Ministers, and the Central Committee. Approximately the same quality of life could count on the generals of the army and special services, correspondent members and academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences, perhaps some of the officials of the apparatus of these structures. The lower echelons of the party nomenklatura could legally lead only a much more modest lifestyle, indistinguishable from the wealth of many engineers and industrial workers with their high salaries.
Actually, even the top management could not show off too much. A scandal throughout the country rose when Brezhnev's son, who managed to rise to the rank of Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, on a business trip abroad, having drunk too much, gave a waiter a hundred dollars for a tip. Against the backdrop of Abramovich's bride's adventures in European boutiques, where hundreds of thousands in US currency remain, this looks simply ridiculous.
Yes, the nomenklatura and economic workers with access to monetary and other resources could try to secure a better standard of living for themselves at the expense of those very “resources”, but this was fraught with time in prison, and starting with a certain scale of “use”, execution.
In this regard, under Brezhnev, a “thrifty” attitude towards the highest nomenklatura cadres (at the regional or republic level and above) developed. As a rule, minor sins: drinking at the workplace, not too big theft, incompetent management, led only to a transfer to a new position of the same level. If a deficiency did not make it possible to work effectively, for example, a person systematically drank, he was pushed to a secondary position (most often in a party organization of some institute, where all the current work for a person was done by a deputy). Major thefts involving several persons, systematic opposition to the official ideology, defeat of a candidate in an election in a subordinate area, mass non-attendance or riots by citizens were considered serious sins. For this, responsible persons were sent to a non-prestigious outback (most often to the Northern regions) with a large demotion and a significant loss in prosperity. I do not know of cases of direct criminal prosecution of nomenklatura during the Brezhnev era.
This tradition collapsed with brilliance under Andropov and Gorbachev at many trials of high officials on charges of bribery and embezzlement. If you call a spade a spade, it was the second 1937 year of the nomenklatura. The system of inviolability under Brezhnev, apparently, was nevertheless of an accidental nature, since we find reverse examples in many other socialist countries: modern China or Romania under Ceausescu, where an official could answer with his head for rather minor misconduct. (One of the Romanian defectors recalled an episode when an official was arrested for “arranging his personal life” in his office at 11 am, when the working day had already begun).
So, this set of benefits was formed by the party, administrative, scientific, military and other Soviet nomenklatura by the end of the era. The only thing in which they surpassed any successful worker in the country: access to elite medicine and medicines, the right to servants, to some extent the provision of transport and suburban housing. Every day these benefits experienced inflation, because a nomenklatura could get much of the above by holding less important posts, for which he did not have to work all his life, to hold positions associated with significant work and responsibility (I think only very naive people believe that the job of a major manager consists only of privileges).
There was also an understanding of the shortcomings that could not be eliminated within the framework of the Soviet system: all the benefits were in use, not property, Brezhnev's "liberalism" still guaranteed some stability, but the subsequent changes showed that everything he had could be taken away at any moment. There was also the problem of family well-being. The blessings are inexpressible. During his life, the nomenklatura could transfer part of the "service" benefits to his relatives, but he could not leave anything. It was very difficult to get relatives to nomenklatura positions. Any notable career of a relative, even if it was thrice normal and deserved, as in the case of Kosygina Jr. and Adzhubey, became an extraordinary phenomenon and was perceived as an official sin of the official himself. There was a very characteristic episode in "The Overstocked Barrel" where the hero promises two brothers working in the same regional police department that "you will answer for the nepotism of relations." Easy by the standards of the day.
Someone may take this description as praise, but in my opinion I am listing the most important shortcomings of the Soviet system, in which its top leaders were not interested in preserving it. For ordinary citizens, it had quite obvious advantages: a guarantee against poverty and unemployment, a free set of social benefits, a certain level of law and order, and protection from major civil conflicts and wars. The elite of any developed country has all this by definition, but as payment for labor, it must have a hereditary monopoly on part of the national property as payment for keeping the rest. For example, Frederick Harrison sees this as a guarantee of the training of qualified personnel to govern the country:
« I will give only two necessary characteristics of the elite.
First, in order to concentrate disproportionately large power in their hands, the elite needed to secure vital social roles (religious, military, political). This approach provides maximum control over the lives of a large number of people.
Secondly, the acquired power must be inherited. This requires the creation of an appropriate institution of property rights. Without these rights, the elite will lack incentives to accumulate wealth and pass on privileges to their descendants.
We can take for comparison the elite that occupied the highest position in the Communist Party of the USSR. This elite extracted for itself a part of the public wealth, its representatives enjoyed numerous privileges (state dachas, access to shops with Western goods, special entertainment centers and hospitals, etc.). But this elite was held back by two features of Soviet communism:
(1) the social system was driven by ideology, not by vested interests; and
(2) members of the elite were randomly promoted to the highest echelons of power, i.e. there was no basis for expanding a privileged position by personalizing power and transferring it to relatives.
Therefore, the Soviet elite could not turn into a separate independent class outside the ideological apparatus that gave birth to it. It did not become a self-interested layer, interested in the transfer of rights and privileges by inheritance. Without these cultural characteristics, Soviet leaders could not develop into a stable entity with complete and independent control over their own personal destiny, regardless of the collective interests of the rest of society.
This is one of the reasons why the Soviet civilization lacked a stable leadership capable of extending the life of the system for more than the relatively short period of seventy years. The second reason was that the Soviet elite could not develop to its fullest form - a self-sufficient stable group, could not turn into a closed social unit. The party called for fresh blood to the upper echelons of power, which did not give the leadership the opportunity to acquire those qualities that could only appear over time.
The isolation of the elite from outsiders is necessary if it is going to place itself outside the social system, become independent of it and thus be able to effectively manipulate it. ».
In this sense, however paradoxical it may sound, the USSR was too democratic to survive. His egalitarian policy was a time bomb, which was supposed to sooner or later force the elite to try to remake the country for themselves, even at the cost of the well-being of part of the population and national power. Thus began perestroika, which led to the collapse of the USSR. Perhaps I am making too broad generalizations, but the relatively modest standard of living of the majority of the population of North Korea in comparison with the party bosses leads to the fact that the regime of this country is largely mothballed. And the system of certificates (“songbuns”) associated with the trustworthiness of ancestors leads to partial inheritance of social status.
Of course, I do not believe that the Soviet Union was worth the complete copying of this system (although its particularly gloomy appearance is more likely a consequence of the poverty of the NC than the objective properties of the regime itself), but it seems interesting to understand what measures could save the socialist system in the country. To what extent could the Korean or Chinese version of development contribute to the preservation of the system under consideration?
Since modern democrats make him look like a monster in human form, then this aspect of his life must be outstanding. And, perhaps, better than his own daughter, Svetlana Aliluyeva, no one can tell about the life of the Soviet leader.
It's no secret that Comrade Stalin received a huge number of gifts literally from all over the world. At that time, our country was still considered, and many politicians, by no means only local bottlings, tried to appease the formidable leader of the USSR. Among the gifts were many very valuable, including works of art: paintings, rare porcelain, collectible weapons, custom-made furniture, various national products. Of all the gifts sent, it was possible to collect an impressive mountain of treasures, which would be the envy of another fabulous dragon.
However, and this was noted not only by Svetlana Aliluyeva, but also by other eyewitnesses, nothing like this could be found either in Joseph Stalin's office or at his dacha. The maximum that could be seen in the residence of the leader was reproductions of famous paintings. And where were all the numerous gifts? They went directly to the Gift Museum, opened in Moscow in 1950. Here is what Stalin's daughter says about this: “Father simply did not understand why he needed all this wealth, he did not know what to do with all this. In his own words, the feelings invested in these things were symbolic, which means that they should be treated precisely as symbols. Therefore, all gifts were immediately transferred to the museum. As for reproductions, my father simply did not like bare walls, but he did not consider it possible to hang at least one of the sent paintings in the country.
Trotskyists and Modernity
It is interesting that at one time Joseph Stalin was highly criticized by the Trotskyists, moreover, in connection with the indulgence of bureaucratic privileges. The starting point was the abolition of the party maximum, that is, the upper limit of wages for the CPSU (b). Leon Trotsky saw in this direct steps towards the loss of the achievements gained during the revolution.
However, if you look at the rest house of the leaders, it becomes incomprehensible why the Trotskyists were so indignant. The walls, again, are decorated with reproductions and portraits of Lenin, as well as tin coats of arms of hero cities, in the bar there are only drinks from fraternal communist countries (no collectible wines), furniture - and even then, domestic. However, maybe the Trotskyists from their bell tower were right, we just don’t understand them now.
I wonder what Trotsky said when he saw the mansions of modern officials? After all, now, according to the Global Wealth Report in Russia, 1% of the population (officials and oligarchs) account for 71% of all the country's assets. Who does not shun really expensive things, and who certainly does not have reproductions in their offices, is the current government. Everything is only genuine, and there is no talk of donations to the museum at all. Perhaps this is what democracy is all about.
The game "Skyrim": all the screams Skyrim scream of 4 words
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Walkthrough