“The damned communists are to blame for everything,” this quote literally became the motto of the breakaway Baltic republics more than 20 years ago. But the word “communists” has long been replaced by “Russians”, explaining all the current problems with the hand of Moscow. In the same vein, there are the steadily appearing “bills for the Soviet occupation” that the Baltic countries present to Russia from year to year. This time, Latvia estimated the damage from the USSR at 185 billion euros, and this does not take into account demographic losses and environmental damage. And on April 21, they decided to present a couple more “receipts” to Russia, increasing the amount of damage to 300 billion euros.
Back in 2009, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Andrey Nesterenko stated:
Statements about the “occupation” of Latvia by the Soviet Union and related claims of any kind, including material ones, ignore political, historical and legal realities and, as a result, are without foundation.
Andrey Nesterenko
It remains to figure out what realities contradict the Baltic claims. But if you do this, then Russia will not have to pay the bills.
The Baltics: before, during and after the USSR
It’s worth starting, perhaps, with the economic state of the Baltic republics before unification with the USSR. For example, in 1930, the industrial employment rate in Estonia was 17.5%, in Latvia - 13.5%, and in Lithuania - 6%. In 1938, Latvian industry was only 56% of the 1913 level. All this led to large migration flows from the country, which some analysts even call an “exodus.” From 1919 to 1940 alone, over 100 thousand people left small Lithuania.
After the countries joined the Soviet Union, the situation changed significantly. The Estonian SSR was in first place among the republics in terms of investment in fixed capital per capita.
It actively developed such high-tech industries as the chemical, electrical and radio engineering industries, instrument making, and ship repair. The Republic of Latvia found itself in a similar situation, which joining the USSR made one of the most industrially developed regions - it took the leading place in the production of national income per capita in the Union. More than strange consequences of the “occupation”.
Investments in the industry of Latvia - “the main victim of the Soviet occupation” - in the first 5 years as part of the USSR ensured an increase in industrial production of 45% per year. Over 20 years, more than 20 factories were built on its territory, including Gidrometpribor, the RAF minibus plant, the Riga plant Kompressor, Avtoelektropribor, the Rezekne and Daugavpils power tool plants, the agricultural engineering plants Rigaselmash, Elgavselmash, " Liepaiselmash", Association of Electronic Equipment "Alpha" and others. In addition, to ensure such a sharp jump in industry, two thermal power plants were built in Riga, the Plavinas and Riga hydroelectric power stations. In the 60s, enterprises appeared in Latvia that are still the backbone of the country's economy - the Ventspils oil depot and the Polotsk-Ventspils oil pipeline.
After gaining independence, the largest electrical engineering factory (VEF), which formed the central link of the economy of the Latvian SSR, literally fell apart in pieces. The cumbersome enterprise was first divided into several parts so that they could independently survive and develop. This did not save him, since conditions changed radically, and production and logistics chains tied to the USSR were destroyed.
If before the collapse of the USSR the most significant part of the plant, which produced switching equipment, provided jobs for 14,000 people, then in the early 90s only 400 people remained at work.
It was possible to fire all those “who did not fit into the market” in a civilized manner only in the mid-90s, after receiving money from the Privatization Agency, since before that the enterprise could not pay back wages. It all ended with its complete liquidation, and on the site of the plant there is now one of the largest shopping centers in Riga.
The “difficult” Soviet legacy of other republics
It was not only the Baltic states that faced such problems after gaining independence. An equally sad example is the aircraft plant SJSC "TAPOiCh" in Tashkent, the capital of the Uzbek SSR. The enterprise was created on the basis of a Russian aircraft plant, which was evacuated from Moscow in 1941. Think about it - Uzbeks, today's guest workers, participated in high-tech production, producing aircraft such as the Il-76, An-12, and Antey.
After Uzbekistan gained independence, the plant was first repurposed to produce various components, building structures, auto components, etc., and in 2015 it became known that the plant would produce door locks.
Also in Armenia in 2002, the once famous throughout the Soviet Union was declared bankrupt Yerevan Automobile Plant (YerAZ), which produced delivery vans. After privatization in 1995, there was a gradual decline in production. In 2000, it was planned to produce VAZ at the plant’s facilities, but the project was not implemented, after which the plant was closed 2 years later.
Another automobile plant, which was located on the territory of Georgia, had a similar fate. We are talking about the Kutaisi Automobile Plant, which during the USSR covered the great need for truck tractors of the “Kolkhida” (KAZ) model. In 1991, the history of the plant essentially ends, since car production dropped to virtually zero. There were ideas about creating a family of trucks based on the KAZ-4540, but this issue did not progress beyond thoughts and plans. It is not known how the enterprise preserved its territory and industrial buildings with equipment, but in 2002 there was an attempt to revive production: a project to assemble Indian Mahindra SUVs was presented at the plant. The contract cost was $26 million, but nothing is known about the project now. As well as the fate of the plant itself.
Perhaps the largest number of examples of the actual shutdown of the largest enterprises built during the Soviet era can be found in Ukraine. Just a year ago, the media reported serious problems at the largest Ukrainian enterprise for the production of rocket and space technology, Yuzhmash, in Dnepropetrovsk. In October 2015, the company’s employees were transferred to a one-day work schedule so as not to “run away.” Since May 2015, people have not received wages, and the total debt of the plant to workers at that time was about 80 million hryvnia. At this point he is effectively dead.
The problems of some factories were due to the fact that after the collapse of the USSR, supply chains between enterprises of different republics were actually interrupted. An indicative case here is the plant for the production of stackers in Bishkek, whose products were supplied to all regions of the Soviet Union. Before the collapse, the plant received compressors that were produced only at two enterprises - in Estonia and in Russia. The Estonian plant stopped supplies after the separation, and the Russian plant was unable to fully compensate for the losses, which led to the bankruptcy of the enterprise.
In general, most countries that originated from the USSR received the foundations of their modern economies precisely before the 1990s. One has only to look at the list of all the enterprises that were built on their territories during the years of Soviet power.
In Azerbaijan, for example, the largest oil refineries, machine-building and cotton ginning plants were built, as a result of which the volume of industrial production increased by 5.7 times only from 1913 to 1937. In Kyrgyzstan over the same period, volumes increased 95 times, and in Tajikistan - a record 195 times. Georgia also received a serious economic impetus in Soviet times, where engineering, ferro-smelting, cement, oil, and textile plants were built, where the food industry developed and the mining of gold and molybdenum began. However, this list can be continued endlessly.
How Moscow “oppressed” the peoples of the USSR
The situation with the all-Union budget is also complicated. It is impossible to find exact data on the republics’ contributions to the budget, but well-known fragmentary facts allow us to build a holistic picture of what is happening. So, . At the end of the 50s, many republics achieved the preservation of this tax within the framework of their union budgets. Subsidized Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Armenia retained 100% of the fees.
And the Baltic republics had a special status: receiving funds from the union budget, they also had the opportunity to keep most of the tax for themselves. In addition, the economy of the republics was boosted due to the policy of purchasing prices, at which the center purchased products of the republics at inflated prices, many times higher than the cost.
75% of the budget consisted of contributions from the RSFSR, and 25% from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. At the same time, the legislation determined the following order: only 6.2% fell on the shoulders of the republics, and 78.5% of funding came from the center.
The picture is finally clarified by the ratio of data on production and consumption in the republics, even with all the conventions of converting Soviet rubles into dollars.
Photo: kp.ru
If from 1985 to 1990 a positive ratio of these indicators was observed only in the RSFSR, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, then at the time of the collapse of the USSR it was preserved only in the first two. As for the Baltic states, the picture here is not in their favor. On average, Lithuania's consumption in these years exceeded production by 10 thousand dollars. Until 1989, Estonia also demonstrated similar indicators, but in 1990 the figure soared to 20 thousand dollars. The most modest country in the Baltic region in this case is Latvia, whose consumption exceeded production by 2-3 thousand dollars until 1989, and in 1990 the ratio also reached 10 thousand.
Finally, it is worth dwelling on the indicators of the standard of living of the population in different republics, where, according to most measurements, the Baltic states are again in the lead. Data provided for the same years 1989-1990. The following indicators ideally describe the situation in the “occupied territories”: the level of wages, the provision of housing for the population and the ownership of personal vehicles.
The highest salaries were in Estonia - 341 rubles. The second place was awarded to the RSFSR with 297 rubles, followed by Latvia and Lithuania - 291 and 283 rubles, respectively. Estonian salaries, by the way, were 40% higher than Azerbaijani ones (last place in the ranking). Not bad for republics in which production lags consumption by 10 thousand dollars. The five most housing-provided republics are as follows: Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Lithuania. All of them received tax benefits and funds from the all-Union budget.
The housing supply of the RSFSR turned out to be almost 25% less than that of Estonia. All three Baltic republics are again in the top three in terms of personal vehicle ownership: their indicators are 2.5 times higher than the USSR average. The RSFSR is in 7th place on this list.
Numbers are numbers, but personal memories of the Union of ordinary citizens who are not blinded by anti-Russian rhetoric are also important. of the current "unsupported" authorities. Most statements about life in Lithuania during the Soviet Union focus rather on the positive aspects. For example,
Natalia Irtenina
The Russian question in the USSR
The author of the recently published book “The Leningrad Affair,” historian V. Kuznechevsky, answers the question of what was the underlying reason for the declaration of Russian sovereignty within the USSR in 1990 (what we celebrate on June 12).
"By the way, N. Khrushchev, in the memoirs he left behind, recalled that A. Zhdanov in 1945-1946, in conversations with him, more than once complained that in the socialist family of union republics the RSFSR remained the most deprived, that the cities and villages of the Central Russia looks simply poor compared to those in other republics, and the standard of living of Russians is significantly lower compared to other nations within the USSR...
Where did such sentiments arise from and prevail (if they prevailed) among the “Leningraders”? I think there is an answer to this question. Well, someone, and the chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR N. Voznesensky knew well that the Lenin-Stalin creation - the Soviet Union, if viable, then only in one case: if all the union republics exist and develop at the expense of the economy of the RSFSR.
The fact is that immediately after the formation of the USSR, an all-Union budget was formed, and within its framework, by the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 21, 1923, the Union-Republican Subsidy Fund of the USSR was created, funds from which began to be directed to the economic and social development of the Caucasian, Central Asian and other union republics, including Ukraine. This entire Fund was formed at the expense of the RSFSR (there was simply nothing to take from the Union republics). Unlike the RSFSR, turnover tax collections (one of the main sources of budget revenues) were fully included in the budgets of the union republics, and income tax also remained completely in the republics. And although the Russian economy played a decisive role in the formation of the mentioned Fund, it never used subsidies from it.
As he openly admitted in the 30s. G.K. Ordzhonikidze: “Soviet Russia, replenishing our (Georgian SSR) budget, gives us 24 million rubles a year in gold, and we, of course, do not pay her any interest for this. Armenia, for example, is being revived not due to the labor of its own peasants, but on funds of Soviet Russia."
Doctor of Economic Sciences Professor V.G. Chebotareva, at an international conference in Moscow in 1995, presented her calculations, which showed how the process of pumping surplus product from the RSFSR to the union republics proceeded.
Firstly, cash injections in their purest form. Published reports of the USSR Ministry of Finance for 1929, 1932, 1934, 1935. allow us to conclude that in these years, 159.8 million rubles were allocated as subsidies to Turkmenistan, 250.7 million to Tajikistan, 86.3 million to Uzbekistan, and 129.1 million rubles to the ZSFSR. As for, for example, Kazakhstan, until 1923 this republic did not have its own budget at all - funding for its development came from the budget of the RSFSR.
But the calculation should include not only purely cash injections. For decades, Professor V. Chebotareva reported to the international and Russian public, in addition to purely monetary tribute, Russia gave the union republics “its most precious capital - highly qualified specialists. In 1959, there were 16.2 million Russians outside Russia, in 1988. - 25.3 million. Over 30 years, their number increased by 55.5%, and within Russia - only by 22%. Representatives of the Russian diaspora created a significant part of the national income in the republics. For example, until 1992, 10% of the Russian population of Tajikistan produced up to 50% of the domestic national product...
In 1987, in Latvia, receipts from the RSFSR and Ukraine amounted to 22.8% of the total national income produced by the republic.
No less impressive are the figures of inter-republican exchange, which show how all the Baltic union republics developed. Thus, in 1972, Estonia imported goods worth 135.2 million rubles. more than exported, Lithuania - by 240 million, Latvia - by 57.1 million rubles. Over the years, the gap between imports and exports has only grown. For example, in 1988, for Estonia this gap was already 700 million rubles, for Lithuania - 1 billion 530 million rubles, for Latvia - 695 million rubles.
In other words, the entire state policy of the USSR in all directions was based on satisfying the interests of the national outskirts, and the interests of the indigenous population of the RSFSR were sacrificed to this absolute minority.
While the industry and infrastructure of the union national republics grew fat and plump, the original Russian cities and towns became poor.
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR in 1971-1983. M. S. Solomentsev recalled how in the early 70s. On a trip to the Bryansk region, I saw an entire village living in dugouts since the Great Patriotic War. In his memoirs, he writes: “When Brezhnev recommended me for the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, I set only one condition: to stop shutting down Russia. Leonid Ilyich, I remember, did not understand me, asked: “What does shutting down mean?” I explained: the branch departments of the Central Committee and The union government directly commands Russian regions and specific enterprises, guided more by the interests of the union republics, leaving Russia only crumbs from the all-union table."
A curious picture was painted in this regard in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on June 12, 1992 by Ivan Silaev, the first prime minister of the Yeltsin government. In the summer of 1990, he discovered that during all the years of Soviet power, the RSFSR annually paid 46 billion rubles to the union republics, including Ukraine, and since 1940 to the Baltic republics. in year. Having recalculated this money at the exchange rate that existed in 1990 (1 dollar was equal to 60 kopecks), the prime minister in June 1991 reported to the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, that the RSFSR annually allocated 76.5 billion dollars for the development of the union republics.
After his report, the government of the RSFSR demanded to radically change the practice of depleting Russia’s economic resources and to put only (only!) 10 billion rubles into the subsidy fund. And even then, on the condition that the republic that will take funds from this fund will not do so irrevocably, but only on credit and undertakes to enter into an agreement with the government of the RSFSR on the supply of its products against the obligatory repayment of the loan within the agreed period. Hearing this, republican leaders, including Ukraine and the Baltic union republics, immediately demanded that USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev “put these Russians in their place.”
In the USSR, all nationalities and republics were equal. However, the citizens of the USSR, and especially their leadership, knew without any Orwell that in a multitude of equals, some are always “more equal” than others.
Who fed whom
It's no secret that the development of many republics of the Soviet Union was carried out by pumping funds mainly from the RSFSR. The all-Union and republican budgets were established by party directives, there was no public control and independent sources of information, therefore the policy of fleecing Russia in favor of the outskirts almost until the collapse of the USSR was carried out by the communists easily and unhindered. Even some party leaders were outraged by this practice. Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR Mikhail Solomentsev once even said to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev: “Stop shutting down Russia!” But it was the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
However, in what amounts was this subsidization of the economy expressed? Calculations here are complicated by the fact that the prices themselves in the USSR were set prescriptively and did not correspond to real market prices. In addition, the topic “the national outskirts of the USSR milked Russia” has become speculative, and within its framework completely absurd figures are often given, without citing sources. Let us turn to information that there was no need for the publishers to manipulate.
Subsidies and benefits
Yegor Gaidar’s work “The Death of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia” (2006) provides the following figures. In 1989, the RSFSR exported 30.84 billion rubles worth of products to other republics and abroad, more than it imported. In terms of each resident of the RSFSR, this comes out to 209 rubles per year - slightly more than the then average monthly salary. This is where so much was leaving Russia as a result of the policies of the Union Center on pricing, budget formation and foreign trade.
According to the same data, these funds were distributed across all republics, excluding Turkmenistan (another republic, key in the system of oil and gas exports from the late USSR). In absolute numbers, Kazakhstan benefited the most – 6.6 billion rubles. However, the population size in the union republics is not the same.
In per capita terms, the highest figure was in Lithuania, where each resident received approximately 997 rubles in indirect subsidies per year. This was followed by Estonia (812), Moldova (612), Latvia (485), Armenia (415), Kazakhstan (399), Georgia (354), Kyrgyzstan (246), Tajikistan (220), Belarus (201). Uzbekistan (128). Azerbaijan (64) and Ukraine (56 rubles per year per inhabitant) received the least amount of indirect subsidies.
It is not surprising, for example, that a resident of the RSFSR who entered the Soviet Baltic states was always struck by the contrast between the clean, well-groomed streets of the Baltic cities and the shabby, unpaved, littered streets of most Russian regional centers. However, what also mattered, of course, was what the subsidized amounts were spent on, and this is always determined by the culture of the management personnel.
Direct subsidies are not taken into account in these calculations; there is no exact data about them. Therefore, it is difficult to create a complete picture of the redistribution of financial resources in the USSR.
Educational policy
There is another interesting indicator - the percentage of people with education, including higher education. As a result of the state’s de facto serfdom on university graduates, called “distribution,” as well as for the purpose of “indigenization of personnel,” education received preferential development on the national outskirts. At the same time, applicants from other union republics were admitted to the main universities of Russia under preferential quotas.
According to the latest All-Union Population Census, in 1989 Georgia had the highest percentage of people with higher education - 15.1%, then Armenia - 13.8%, Estonia - 11.7%, Latvia - 11.5%, followed by Russia (11.3) . In terms of the share of people with higher, secondary and incomplete secondary education, Armenia was ahead - 90.1%, followed by Azerbaijan (87.8), Georgia (87.7), Uzbekistan (86.7), Turkmenistan (86.4). Russia occupied 11th place in this list (80.6).
Political independence
Economics is not everything. The republics in reality had varying degrees of political independence. Thus, Russia was deprived of even many of the formal attributes that other union republics enjoyed (its republican party organization, the Academy of Sciences); its government institutions only duplicated and executed the decrees and orders of the union bodies.
A characteristic feature of the independence of the union republics was the presence of a state language (and not just the “language of the union republic”). In 1970-1972 three Transcaucasian republics adopted laws on state languages. Their knowledge was mandatory for holding public office. All other republics were allowed to do this only during “perestroika”.
The Communist Party's policies regarding national culture were pursued differently. Few traditional religions were subjected to such persecution in the USSR as Russian Orthodoxy and the Old Believers. The attitude towards the Georgian and Armenian churches, as well as towards Catholicism and Lutheranism in the Baltics, was much more tolerant. The exceptions were the Uniates in Western Ukraine and supporters of the Romanian autocephalous church in Moldova, as they were considered as political agents of the separatists.
In general, Islam was at one time regarded by the Soviet leadership as a means of sparking an anti-colonial revolution in the East. At the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Hajj was legalized, although until 1989, pilgrims underwent special selection by “competent authorities.” Some party leaders in the Central Asian republics openly professed Islam, and after retirement they traveled to Mecca. The author knows how one Tajik said back in the mid-80s, before the start of “perestroika”: “We don’t have Soviet power in our village, our mullah is the main person.”
Conclusion
The degree of privilege of the union republics in the USSR can be assessed by various indicators. In some cases, the republics of Transcaucasia look most favored, in others - the republics of Central Asia, in others - the Baltic republics. In any case, the Russian Federation did not fall into any of these categories, except that the Russian language was required to be studied in all republics of the USSR.
Eighteen years ago, on December 25, 1991, the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered over the Kremlin. Those present on Red Square on that frosty day, many dozens of Soviet citizens (including the author of these lines) and representatives of the embassies of China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos, stood without hats. Many had tears in their eyes.
The destruction of the USSR, caused by interconnected internal and external factors, was accompanied by many interethnic bloody conflicts and socio-economic catastrophe in almost all the union republics. But some of them, even after the collapse of the USSR, took possession of a significant part of Soviet economic funds. The very decision to dissolve the USSR took place, we emphasize, precisely after the actual and, we emphasize, free division of all-Union property was basically completed.
Thus, by the end of December 1989, the bulk of the Soviet merchant fleet in the Baltic ended up in the Baltic countries; in Ukraine and Kazakhstan - up to a third of the USSR freight car fleet. In the Black Sea, Azov and Caspian "post-Soviet" republics - with the exception of the RSFSR-Russia - over 70% of the Soviet merchant fleet of the southern waters of the former Soviet Union ended up...
In a word, even on the eve of the collapse of the USSR and even in the last hours of its agony, the once “brotherly” republics took care of the weight of their share in the property of the destroyed country.
This policy of the last leadership of the Soviet Union stemmed from the Kremlin’s long-term line of establishing the national republics at the expense, mainly, of the RSFSR and the Russian population.
In this regard, it is not surprising that the Baltic countries and Ukraine and Georgia, having already received a lot during the agony of the USSR, over the past 15 years have directly or indirectly made financial claims against Russia, as the legal successor of the USSR, “for damage during the period Soviet occupation." Moreover, such bills amount to tens and even hundreds of billions, of course, of dollars.
But, what’s interesting: in July-August 2009, funding was stopped for state commissions in the Baltic countries to clarify the amounts of their claims against the USSR-Russia. The fact is quite remarkable. Moreover: according to reports from a number of Baltic media, some economists from the same countries recently calculated that, in socio-economic and foreign trade relations, it was much more profitable for the Baltic countries to be in the USSR and even... in the Russian Empire (!) than to be independent after 1990!
However, on September 30, the Lithuanian Seimas approved a bill according to which the refusal of any Lithuanian citizen (including many Russians and Belarusians) to recognize the Soviet period as an “occupation” will entail criminal prosecution...
True, in the last months of 2009, the mentioned “plaintiffs” took a break from putting forward official claims against the Russian Federation regarding the Soviet “account”. In any case, the applicant countries know well how and, more precisely, at the expense of which union republic and nation these countries, more precisely, other national regions of the USSR lived and developed, to put it mildly, much better and more comprehensively than the RSFSR.
The fact is that over the last 45-50 Soviet years, it was Russia (RSFSR) that was, literally, the donor of almost all the union and most autonomous republics. They were made into “showcases” of socialism and abundance precisely at the expense of Russia (and, partly, Belarus), and the “showcases” knew this. Therefore, it is not surprising that, unlike the same “showcase” regions, the socio-economic situation was precisely in the RSFSR, according to statistics for official use and other documents, it deteriorated most rapidly. But after the collapse of the USSR, the same dependent republics became so emboldened that they continue to demand Russian support in a different form - provocative and humiliating for Russia. That is, in the form of the notorious financial claims for the allegedly Soviet period of occupation.
In this regard, we cite the opinion of Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor Vladimir Miloserdov: “The centralized planned system of economic management that existed in the USSR allowed the state to concentrate human, financial and material resources in a single “fist.” But the well-being of the population of national regions, which also had political significance, largely depended on revenues from government resources, although, unfortunately, there was no clear relationship between the investments for which the whole country worked and the return on them.
In these conditions The leaders of most republics hid their internal reserves, tried to receive more from the “center” and give as little as possible to the “common pot.”
“It makes no sense to work better,” said the former Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the Estonian SSR, R. Otsason, frankly, “but it makes a lot of sense to write letters for help. It is important to be able to beg for money, food, feed, goods, whatever - this is more important than to be able to make them ". Such a dependent ideology has especially widely entered the minds of the Baltic and Transcaucasian leaders."
According to V. Miloserdov, “despite the fact that the bulk of the gas was produced in other regions of the country, the Baltic villages in terms of gasification were significantly ahead of the Russian ones. By the time the Baltic states left the Union, almost all the villages of the Baltic states, and even Western Ukraine and Transcaucasia, were gasified. And in Russia today, even thousands of villages near Moscow are waiting for gas to come to them.And what can we say about the Russian outback!
A huge differentiation has emerged between the union republics in the size of allocations from the state budget, in the volume of supplies of material and technical resources, in the allocation of currency, imported goods and in other areas. And, as a result, in the standard of living between the republics."
But here is the testimony of academic economists T.S. Khachaturov and N.N. Nekrasov - an excerpt from their joint letter to the Minister of Gas Industry of the USSR S.A. Orudzhev, November 16, 1977: “Over the last 10 years, the RSFSR has been constantly disadvantaged in the allocation of various centralized resources: an increasing volume of them is allocated to other republics, although control over the use of allocated resources in those republics is weakening and becoming formal. Moreover: even from that , which is allocated for the RSFSR, is then very often withdrawn from its funds.There is also an unfavorable tendency to freeze not only capital investments, but also various natural resources on the territory of the RSFSR, while an increasing volume of both, respectively, is directed and developed in other republics. The latter require an increase in both capital investments and supplies through import lines (limits), which, unlike most of the same requests from the RSFSR, are satisfied. The continuation of this situation will entail... irreversible imbalances in socio-economic development and resource provision for regions throughout the USSR...".
Although this appeal remained without an official response, it, of course, predetermined the corresponding attitude of the authorities towards Khachaturov and Nekrasov.
And it began... after 1917, when the Bolsheviks “delineated” the territory of Russia, including the newly formed RSFSR, into a mass of union, autonomous republics, autonomous regions and national districts. The share of these autonomies in the total territory of the RSFSR, as well as the current Russian Federation, exceeds 65%, although the share of Russian residents in the same autonomies today reaches 60, or even 70%. Since then The newly formed RSFSR, especially the Russian countryside, became a perpetual donor of the “rising outskirts.”
True, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The leadership of the USSR, judging by the then party-government and party documents, relied on socio-economic development in the union republics mainly at the expense of their own resources and capabilities.
This line was emphasized, for example, in the report of G.M. Malenkov, then the de facto leader of the CPSU, on October 5, 1952, to the 19th Party Congress. And in the report at the same congress (October 7), the chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee M.Z. Saburova. Apparently, it is no accident that the materials of this particular congress have not yet been published in Russia, just as they were not published in the USSR as a separate brochure (but the full speeches at that congress and its documents were published in China in 1971-1972, including in Russian ...).
But by the mid-1950s they returned to their previous course: direct and indirect pumping out of Russia forces, means and resources for the well-being of the “showcase republics.” During that period, the Khrushchev leadership planned and already implemented socio-economic, domestic political, foreign trade and foreign policy reversals, as they say, in all directions in comparison with the Stalin period. And the main feature of such reversals was, according to Josip Broz Tito’s definition, “the collapse of the pro-Russian-pro-Slavic-pro-Orthodox policy of the last Stalinist decade.” According to Mao Zedong, “a slide towards cosmopolitanism, nomenklatura bureaucracy and separatism.” By the way, the same Mao, in a conversation in Beijing with foreign journalists in the fall of 1964, predicted: “Nationalists and careerist bribe-takers came to power locally in the USSR after 1953. Covered up by the Kremlin. When the time comes, they will drop their masks and throw away their party cards and they will openly rule their districts as feudal lords and serf owners..." (see, for example, "New China", Beijing, 1964, No. 12; "Materials of the plenum and meeting of the Central Committee of the CPC", Beijing, March 5, 1993) .
This Kremlin policy naturally weakened the presence and influence of the “center” in the regions. But in order to maintain the integrity of the country and the party, the national nomenklatura and the regions governed by it received what is called free hands in internal affairs. From the second half of the 1950s, they began to increasingly receive - at the expense of mainly Russia (RSFSR) - gratuitous grants, subsidies, other cash, as well as commodity flows.
In the 1950-1980s, the level of wages and other social benefits in most union republics was 30-45% higher than in Russia (RSFSR).
Let's say, a cleaner in Lvov or the Baltic cities in the 1970s and 1980s received at least 100 rubles in net, while the “average” Russian engineer in the RSFSR barely earned 120 rubles in net. But the level of retail prices in the RSFSR was higher by 20, or even 40% in comparison with most other union republics...
Another example: on May 21, 1947, a “closed” resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks ordered to slow down the pace of collectivization of agriculture in the Baltic states, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and the former Finnish regions of the Karelo-Finnish SSR. This was carried out until the collapse of the Soviet Union (see "Decisions of the Party and Government on Economic Issues", vol. 3, M., 1968). As a result, by the end of the 1980s, over 70% of commercial agricultural products in these regions, as well as 60% in the republics of Transcaucasia and many regions of Central Asia, were produced and sold legally or actually by private farms.
Let us note, in this regard, that only in the RSFSR did widespread collectivization of agriculture take place. And only the RSFSR in the mid-1950s - mid-1980s experienced, for example, such excesses as the widespread liquidation of religious institutions, mostly Orthodox; widespread elimination of so-called “unpromising” villages; widespread planting of "Khrushchev's" corn and removal of livestock and poultry from the personal use of collective farmers and state farm workers.
Same R The SFSR and Belarus, in comparison with other union republics, received the least amount of agricultural machinery and state budget money for the improvement of rural and urban housing, as well as for the development of other industries. And, let us emphasize, mainly only in the Russian regions of the RSFSR - i.e. not even in the autonomies of the RSFSR - in the literal sense, “Khrushchev” houses were stamped, which, according to all international standards, were initially unsuitable for human life.
Even the official standards for living space in the RSFSR were less than for the Baltic states, Transcaucasia, Western Ukraine, capital cities of the republics of Central Asia, the North Caucasus, Tataria, Bashkiria...
It is also noteworthy that rent in the RSFSR has always been more expensive than in most other union republics. And first of all, collective farms and state farms, along with their personnel, equipment, seed fund and livestock, were transferred from the RSFSR, as well as from Belarus, to other republics. According to available data, over 150 collective and state farms were transferred to the Kazakh virgin lands of exclusively Russian territories - that is, not from the autonomies of the RSFSR, but also from Belarus and Eastern Ukraine(see, for example, D.I. Korkotsenko, V.I. Kulikov “CPSU in the struggle for further development of agriculture (1946-1958), M., “Higher School”, 1974). In addition, almost for All Union republics - except the RSFSR and Belarus - were publicly and secretly reducing their planned targets.
As for the saturation of the USSR with consumer imports, the corresponding decisions of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers in 1959, 1963, 1978 and 1983. provided for a strict priority: imports of consumer goods should be directed primarily to non-Slavic union republics and Western Ukraine; then to Belarus, the rest of Ukraine, the autonomous republics of the RSFSR, and primarily to the North Caucasus. Then - to the national autonomous regions and districts of the RSFSR. Exactly in the mentioned sequence. And only after all this, i.e. according to the “residual principle” - to the rest, officially Russian territory of the RSFSR...
So is it any wonder that Moscow, Leningrad, and other large Russian cities in the 1960-1980s were besieged by “sausage”, “fish”, “confectionery” and other “landing forces” of residents of the Russian, or more precisely, Russian outback? And that the capitals and most cities not only of other union republics, but even the cities of the autonomous republics of the RSFSR were, as a rule, overflowing with a varied assortment, including Russian?..
I remember the spring of 1985. Center of Moscow, area of Gorky Street near Pushkinskaya Square. A long queue for pastry sets - only 2 sets were sold to one buyer - transformed into a fight with visitors. Then there was no police, but how many such excesses were there in Russian stores, and not only in confectionery shops? In the same year and later (before the collapse of the USSR), the author of these lines had a chance to visit Latvia, Estonia, Yerevan, Tbilisi, Grozny, Makhachkala, Baku, Tashkent. The same, for example, candy sets, including Moscow, Leningrad, Kuibyshev, Kursk, Pskov, Ukrainian, Belarusian, even Yugoslav and Bulgarian ones, were available there in amazing abundance and at low prices. Not to mention, for example, Yugoslav, Polish, Hungarian, Chinese knitwear, imported shoes, household appliances and plumbing fixtures from the GDR, Yugoslavia and Finland.
So, from the second half of the 1950s - in connection with the deterioration of the internal and external economic situation of the USSR and, as a consequence, socio-political protests in a number of republics, the bet was made on the Kremlin to interfere as little as possible in the affairs of the “non-Russian” union republics and non-Russian autonomies of the RSFSR. To avoid the development of separatism there. As a result, the local authorities finally merged with the local mafia clans and, naturally, began to almost directly blackmail Moscow: they say, if you don’t release any more money and will often check our affairs, we can take “our” peoples out of the USSR.
I remembered: back in 1973 in Baku, a relative of the author of these lines said that when applying for a job for her son, she was asked: “Do you know that this place is for sale?” She answered adequately: “I know this place is being bought.”
That same year, in Kirovabad (western Azerbaijan), I accidentally heard a song that some seventh-graders were singing in the courtyard of a nearby school: “My name is Mirza, I can’t work. Let Ivan work and carry out the plan”...
The situation is illustrated by the following economic and political fact: since the mid-1960s. Transcaucasian, Central Asian, Western Ukrainian, Moldavian vegetables and fruits were sold in the RSFSR mainly only in markets. Naturally, at high prices: at least twice as expensive as state retail. The authorities of those regions achieved this from Moscow (see, for example, “Issues of improving the transportation of perishable products,” M., Institute of Complex Transport Problems under the USSR State Planning Committee, issue 28, M., 1972). For all goods of the “allied” Baltic states and Transcaucasia, the Soviet state has always set the highest prices in the RSFSR, including government procurement prices...
Yes indeed modern economic powers of the same Baltic states were created, for the most part, during the Soviet years. For example, not Kaliningrad, but namely Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian ports became the main foreign trade gates of the USSR in the Baltic. And even today their share in Russia’s foreign trade transportation exceeds 25%.
Moreover, as in other industries of the Baltic Union republics, at least 60% of the revenues of the port industry remained at their own disposal. This figure was at the level of 40-55% for ports and other industries in Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Moldova and Western Ukraine. But the RSFSR and Belarus did not have such benefits, however, with the exception of the North Caucasus autonomies of the RSFSR.
In a word, if we “take into account” the same Baltic and not only with it, the result will not be in favor of the former Soviet republics.
But it is obvious that it is not so much voluntary as forced, prescribed extravagance of Russia, especially in the last 40 Soviet years, that has become, in a way, a magnet of constant attraction for other republics.
