After Stalin, who ruled the country. From Lenin to Putin: what and how Russian leaders were ill

Image caption The royal family hid the illness of the heir to the throne

Disputes about the state of health of President Vladimir Putin make us recall the Russian tradition: the first person was considered as an earthly deity, which was not supposed to be remembered irreverently and in vain.

Possessing practically unlimited power for life, the rulers of Russia fell ill and died like mere mortals. It is said that in the 1950s, one of the liberal-minded young "stadium poets" once said: "Only they have no control over heart attacks!"

Discussion of the personal lives of the leaders, including their physical condition, was banned. Russia is not America, where the analysis data of presidents and presidential candidates and their blood pressure figures are published.

Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolayevich, as you know, suffered from congenital hemophilia - a hereditary disease in which blood does not coagulate normally, and any injury can lead to death from internal hemorrhage.

The only person capable of improving his condition in some way still incomprehensible to science was Grigory Rasputin, who, in modern terms, was a strong psychic.

Nicholas II and his wife categorically did not want to make public the fact that their only son is actually a disabled person. Even the ministers knew only in general terms that the Tsarevich had health problems. Ordinary people, seeing the heir during rare public outings in the arms of a hefty sailor, considered him a victim of an assassination attempt by terrorists.

Whether Alexei Nikolayevich could subsequently lead the country, or not, is unknown. His life at less than 14 years was cut short by a KGB bullet.

Vladimir Lenin

Image caption Lenin was the only Soviet leader whose health was not a secret.

The founder of the Soviet state died unusually early, at the age of 54, from progressive atherosclerosis. An autopsy showed damage to the cerebral vessels incompatible with life. There were rumors that the development of the disease was provoked by untreated syphilis, but there is no evidence for this.

The first stroke, which resulted in partial paralysis and loss of speech, happened to Lenin on May 26, 1922. After that, for more than a year and a half he was at the dacha in Gorki in a helpless state, interrupted by short remissions.

Lenin is the only Soviet leader whose physical condition was not a secret. Medical bulletins were published regularly. At the same time, comrades-in-arms assured until the last days that the leader would recover. Joseph Stalin, who visited Lenin in Gorki more often than other members of the leadership, posted optimistic reports in Pravda about how he and Ilyich joked merrily about reinsurer doctors.

Joseph Stalin

Image caption Stalin's illness was reported the day before his death

The “Leader of the Peoples” in recent years suffered from severe damage to the cardiovascular system, probably aggravated by an unhealthy lifestyle: he worked hard, while turning night into day, ate fatty and spicy foods, smoked and drank, and did not like to be examined and treated.

According to some reports, the "doctors' case" began with the fact that professor-cardiologist Kogan advised a high-ranking patient to rest more. The suspicious dictator saw this as someone's attempt to remove him from business.

Having started the "doctors' case", Stalin was left without qualified medical care at all. Even the closest people could not talk to him on this topic, and he intimidated the servants so much that after a stroke that happened on March 1, 1953 at the Middle Dacha, he lay on the floor for several hours, as he had previously forbidden the guards to disturb him without calling.

Even after Stalin turned 70, public discussion of his health and forecasts of what would happen to the country after his departure were absolutely impossible in the USSR. The idea that we would ever be "without him" was considered blasphemous.

For the first time, the people were informed about Stalin's illness the day before his death, when he had long been unconscious.

Leonid Brezhnev

Image caption Brezhnev "ruled without regaining consciousness"

Leonid Brezhnev in recent years, as the people joked, "ruled without regaining consciousness." The very possibility of such jokes confirmed that after Stalin the country had changed a lot.

The 75-year-old general secretary had enough senile illnesses. In particular, sluggish leukemia was mentioned. However, it is difficult to say from what, in fact, he died.

Doctors spoke of a general weakening of the body, caused by the abuse of sedatives and sleeping pills, which caused memory lapses, loss of coordination and speech disorder.

In 1979, Brezhnev lost consciousness during a meeting of the Politburo.

"You know, Mikhail," Yuri Andropov said to Mikhail Gorbachev, who had just been transferred to Moscow and was not accustomed to such scenes, "everything must be done to support Leonid Ilyich in this position as well. This is a matter of stability."

Brezhnev was politically killed by television. In the old days, his condition could have been hidden, but in the 1970s it was impossible to avoid regular appearances on the screen, including on the air.

The obvious inadequacy of the leader, combined with the complete absence of official information, caused an extremely negative reaction from society. Instead of pity for the sick person, the people responded with jokes and anecdotes.

Yuri Andropov

Image caption Andropov suffered from kidney damage

Yuri Andropov most of his life suffered from severe kidney damage, from which, in the end, he died.

The disease caused an increase in blood pressure. In the mid-1960s, Andropov was intensively treated for hypertension, but this did not give results, and there was a question about his retirement due to disability.

Kremlin doctor Yevgeny Chazov had a dazzling career thanks to the fact that he correctly diagnosed the head of the KGB and gave him about 15 years of active life.

In June 1982, at the plenum of the Central Committee, when the speaker called from the rostrum to "give a party assessment" to the spreaders of rumors, Andropov unexpectedly intervened and said in a harsh tone that he was "warning for the last time" those who talk too much in conversations with foreigners. According to the researchers, he meant, first of all, leaks of information about his health.

In September, Andropov went on vacation to the Crimea, where he caught a cold and never got out of bed again. In the Kremlin hospital, he regularly underwent hemodialysis, a blood purification procedure using equipment that replaces the normal functioning of the kidneys.

Unlike Brezhnev, who once fell asleep and did not wake up, Andropov died a long and painful death.

Konstantin Chernenko

Image caption Chernenko rarely appeared in public, spoke breathlessly

After Andropov's death, the need to give the country a young dynamic leader was obvious to everyone. But the old members of the Politburo nominated 72-year-old Konstantin Chernenko, formally the No. 2 man, as general secretary.

As the former Minister of Health of the USSR Boris Petrovsky later recalled, they all thought exclusively about how to die in office, they had no time for the country, and even more so, no time for reforms.

Chernenko had suffered from emphysema for a long time, heading the state, almost did not work, rarely appeared in public, spoke, choking and swallowing words.

In August 1983, he suffered a severe poisoning after eating on vacation in the Crimea fish caught and smoked by his neighbor in the country, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Vitaly Fedorchuk. Many were treated to the gift, but nothing bad happened to anyone else.

Konstantin Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. Three days earlier, elections to the Supreme Soviet were held in the USSR. Television showed the General Secretary, who unsteadily walked up to the ballot box, dropped the ballot into it, languidly waved his hand and slurred: "Good."

Boris Yeltsin

Image caption Yeltsin, as far as is known, suffered five heart attacks

Boris Yeltsin suffered from severe heart disease and reportedly suffered five heart attacks.

The first president of Russia was always proud of the fact that nothing takes him, went in for sports, swam in ice water and built his image on this in many respects, and was used to enduring ailments on his feet.

Yeltsin's health deteriorated sharply in the summer of 1995, but elections were ahead, and he refused extensive treatment, although doctors warned of "irreparable harm to health." According to journalist Alexander Khinshtein, he said: "After the elections, at least cut, but now leave me alone."

On June 26, 1996, a week before the second round of elections, Yeltsin had a heart attack in Kaliningrad, which was concealed with great difficulty.

On August 15, immediately after taking office, the president went to the clinic, where he underwent coronary bypass surgery. This time he conscientiously followed all the instructions of the doctors.

In the conditions of freedom of speech, it was difficult to hide the truth about the state of health of the head of state, but the entourage tried as best they could. It was admitted, in extreme cases, that he had ischemia and temporary colds. Press Secretary Sergei Yastrzhembsky said that the president rarely appears in public, because he is extremely busy working with documents, but his handshake is iron.

Separately, the question of Boris Yeltsin's relationship with alcohol should be mentioned. Political opponents constantly exaggerated this topic. One of the main slogans of the Communists during the 1996 campaign was: "Instead of the drunken El, let's choose Zyuganov!"

Meanwhile, Yeltsin appeared in public "under the fly" the only time - during the famous conducting of the orchestra in Berlin.

The former head of the presidential guard, Alexander Korzhakov, who had no reason to shield the former chief, wrote in his memoirs that in September 1994 in Shannon, Yeltsin did not get off the plane to meet with the Prime Minister of Ireland, not because of intoxication, but because of a heart attack. After a quick consultation, the advisers decided that people should believe the "alcoholic" version rather than admit that the leader was seriously ill.

Retirement, regime and peace had a beneficial effect on the health of Boris Yeltsin. He lived in retirement for almost eight years, although in 1999, according to doctors, he was in serious condition.

Is it worth hiding the truth?

According to experts, illness is certainly not a plus for a statesman, but in the era of the Internet it is pointless to hide the truth, and with skillful PR, one can even extract political dividends from it.

As an example, analysts point to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who made good publicity out of his fight against cancer. Supporters got a reason to be proud that their idol does not burn in the fire and even in the face of illness thinks about the country, and rallied around him even stronger.

Russian history

Topic #20

USSR AFTER STALIN in the 1950s

LEADERSHIP OF THE COUNTRY AFTER THE DEATH OF STALIN (1953–1955)

At the end 1952 a large group was arrested by the MGB Kremlin doctors, who were accused of deliberately killing the leaders of the party and state (in 1945 - the 1st secretary of the Moscow city party committee and chairman of the Sovinformburo Alexander Sergeevich Shcherbakov, in 1948 - Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov). The majority of those arrested were Jews by nationality, which gave reason to declare "disclosure of a Zionist terrorist group of killer doctors", "associated with the international Jewish bourgeois-nationalist organization "Joint"". A TASS report about this was published in Pravda on January 13, 1953. “The pests were exposed” by the doctor Lidia Timashuk, who was awarded the Order of Lenin for this (in April 1953, after Stalin’s death, the decree on awarding was canceled “as incorrect”). The arrest of doctors was supposed to be the end of the anti-Semitic campaign in the USSR: after the public execution of murderous doctors, mass repressions were to be launched against all Jews, they were evicted to Siberia, etc. The arrest of doctors was carried out with Stalin's sanction, among those arrested was Stalin's personal doctor, Professor V. N. Vinogradov, who, having discovered that the leader had a cerebrovascular accident and multiple small brain hemorrhages, said that Stalin needed to retire from vigorous activity. Stalin regarded this as a desire to deprive him of power (in 1922 he did the same with Lenin, isolating him in Gorki).

Organizers "Doctors' Affairs" were L.P. Beria and the new Minister of State Security S.D. Ignatiev, the executor was the head of the investigative unit of the MGB, Major Ryumin. In this way, Stalin was deprived of the help of the most qualified doctors, and the very first serious cerebral hemorrhage became fatal for him.

(A month after Stalin's death, a report was published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the verification of this case, on the illegality of the arrests, on the use of methods of investigation in the MGB that were unacceptable and prohibited by Soviet laws. The doctors were released, Major Ryumin was arrested and shot in the summer of 1954, six months after Beria. )

March 2, 1953 Stalin was struck by a blow at his dacha in Kuntsevo near Moscow, and for about half a day he was not provided with any help. Stalin's condition was hopeless ("Cheyne-Stokes breath"). Without regaining consciousness Stalin died at 21.50 March 5, 1953 From March 1953 to October 1961, Stalin's body was in the Mausoleum next to Lenin's body. On the day of the funeral (March 9) there was a stampede in Moscow, hundreds of people were killed or maimed.

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR(Stalin's successor as head of government) became George Maximilianovich Malenkov. His first deputies were L.P. Beria, V.M. Molotov, N.A. Bulganin and L.M. Kaganovich.

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR(formally it was the position of the head of state) March 15 at the session of the Supreme Council was approved Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov.

MIA and MGB were united within the framework of the new Ministry of the Interior (MVD), the Minister of the Interior again (after 1946) became Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria. In 1953, an amnesty was held, and many criminals were released ("The Cold Summer of 53rd"). The country's crime rate has risen sharply (a new surge after 1945–1947). Beria intended to use this situation to strengthen the powers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for his own purposes.

Minister of Foreign Affairs again (after 1949) became Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov(A. Ya. Vyshinsky, who held this position, was sent to the USA by the Permanent Representative of the USSR to the UN, where he died of a heart attack).

Minister of War remained (since 1947, replaced Stalin himself in this post). Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov and Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky became his first deputies.

Thus, after the death of Stalin, the period of disgrace for V. M. Molotov, K. E. Voroshilov and G. K. Zhukov ended.

Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was the only secretary of the Central Committee who was part of the top party leadership - the Bureau of the Presidium. It was decided to release him from the duties of the 1st Secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, so that he could concentrate on work in the Central Committee. In fact, Khrushchev became manage the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU, although formally he has not yet become the First Secretary. G. M. Malenkov and L. P. Beria, actually leading the country after Stalin's death, intended to concentrate power in the Council of Ministers - the government of the USSR. They needed the party apparatus for the precise execution of government decisions. In Khrushchev, they saw a simple performer who did not pretend to power. (They made the same mistake as Zinoviev and Kamenev, who in 1922 recommended Stalin for the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP(b).)

Beria and Malenkov understood the need for changes in the country, but while maintaining the essence of the regime. Beria took the initiative to normalize relations with Yugoslavia, Malenkov urged to take care of the material and cultural needs of the people. But the leadership of the party and the state was afraid that Beria, relying on the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, would sooner or later want to take all power into his own hands and eliminate all his rivals. Khrushchev initiated the elimination of Beria. Malenkov was the last to agree to the elimination of his friend Beria.

AT June 1953 Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee in the Kremlin. The arrest was made by 6 officers led by marshals Zhukov and Moskalenko. Before that, all the guards in the Kremlin were replaced by the military, and Zhukov brought the Taman and Kantemirovskaya tank divisions into Moscow in order to prevent possible actions by the Interior Ministry officials to free Beria. The people were informed that the Plenum of the Central Committee, held on July 2–7, exposed “the agent of the British and Musavatist (bourgeois Azerbaijani) intelligence, the enemy of the people Beria”, who “wormed his way into confidence” in the leadership of the party and state, sought to “place the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the party” and establish their personal power in the country. Beria was removed from all posts, expelled from the party, convicted by a military tribunal (chairman - Marshal I. S. Konev) and at the end December 1953 shot.

AT September 1953 Khrushchev was elected 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The term "cult of personality" was first mentioned in the press. Verbatim records of the Plenums of the Central Committee (glasnost) began to be published. The people got the opportunity to visit the Kremlin museums. The process of rehabilitation of the innocently convicted has begun. Khrushchev's popularity grew, and the military and party apparatus supported him. In fact, Khrushchev became the first person in the state.

In 1955 Malenkov declared his unwillingness to hold the post of head of government. new Chairman Council of Ministers became Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin, and Malenkov became the Minister of Power Plants.

Even Malenkov, in his first speeches as head of government, spoke about the need to increase the production of consumer goods (group "B") and the priority of group "B" over group "A" (production of means of production), about changing attitudes towards agriculture. Khrushchev criticized the outstripping pace of development of group "B", saying that without a powerful heavy industry, the country's defense capability and the rise of agriculture cannot be ensured. The main problem in the economy was the agrarian problem: there was a shortage of grain in the country, although Malenkov declared at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in 1952 that "the grain problem in the USSR has been solved."

Task number 1. Was G. M. Malenkov right when he spoke about the priority of group "B" over group "A"?

September (1953) Plenum of the Central Committee decided to increase purchase price for agricultural products (for meat - 5.5 times, for milk and butter - 2 times, for vegetables - 2 times and for grain - 1.5 times), take off debt from collective farms cut taxes on personal farms of collective farmers, not to redistribute income between collective farms (equalization condemned). Khrushchev declared that the improvement of the life of the people is impossible without the rise of agriculture and the improvement of the life of the collective farmers. Were reduced mandatory deliveries agricultural products to the state, reduced(subsequently cancelled) household taxes. This led to a greater interest of collective farmers in production, and the supply of cities improved. In peasant farms, the number of poultry increased, cows appeared. By the spring of 1954, 100,000 graduates were sent to collective farms and state farms.

Referring to the grain problem, Khrushchev said that Malenkov's statement at the 19th Party Congress about its solution was not true, and that the shortage of grain impeded the growth in the production of meat, milk and butter. Solving the grain problem was possible in two ways: the first - increase in yield, which required fertilizers and an increase in the culture of agriculture and would not give an immediate return, the second - expansion of cultivated areas.

In order to immediately increase grain production, it was decided to develop virgin and fallow lands in Kazakhstan, Southern Siberia, the Volga region and the Southern Urals. People landed right in the steppes, in off-road conditions, without basic amenities, lived in tents in the winter steppe, there was not enough equipment.

February-March (1954) Plenum of the Central Committee approved the decision to development of virgin lands . Already in the spring of 1954, 17 million hectares of land were raised and 124 grain state farms were created. The leaders of Kazakhstan, who insisted on preserving the traditional sheep breeding, were replaced: Panteleymon Kondratievich became the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan Ponomarenko, and the 2nd secretary - Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. In 1954–1955 350 thousand people went to work in 425 virgin state farms on Komsomol vouchers. In the record-breaking year of 1956, virgin lands produced 40% of the country's total grain. At the same time, grain production in the arid steppes required a high degree of agricultural culture and was highly dependent on weather conditions. In the future, extensive (without the introduction of scientific achievements and new technologies) farming methods led to the impoverishment of the fertile soil layer and a drop in yields due to wind erosion of the soil.

Thus, Khrushchev's attempt to solve the grain problem within the framework of the collective farm system failed, but grain production increased, which made it possible to eliminate bread lines and start free sale of flour. However, there was not enough grain for the needs of animal husbandry (for fattening beef cattle).

Task number 2. Was the development of virgin lands justified in the USSR?
XX CONGRESS OF THE CPSU. HIS SOLUTIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE

C 14 to 25 February 1956 The 20th Congress of the CPSU was held, which determined the final turn to de-Stalinization Soviet society, liberalization domestic economic and political life, expanding foreign policy ties and establishing friendly relations with a number of foreign countries

The report at the congress was made by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Basic provisions international part of the report:

a) the fact is stated that it was formed and exists world system of socialism("socialist camp");

b) a desire is expressed cooperation with everyone social democratic trends and parties (under Stalin, social democracy was considered the worst enemy of the working-class movement, since it distracts the workers from the revolutionary struggle with peaceful slogans);

c) stated that transition forms various countries towards socialism can be varied, including the possible way for the communists and socialists to win the parliamentary majority following the results of the elections and carry out all the necessary socialist transformations by peaceful, parliamentary means (under Stalin, such statements would have been followed by an accusation of opportunism);

d) the principle is emphasized peaceful coexistence two systems (socialist and capitalist), building confidence and cooperation; socialism does not need to be exported: the working people of the capitalist countries will establish socialism themselves when they are convinced of its advantages;

e) danger of war persists, but her inevitability is no more, because the forces of peace (the socialist, labor movement, the countries of the "third world" - the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America) are stronger than the forces of war.

The report gave an analysis of the internal economic situation of the USSR and tasks in the field of economics:

a) electrify the entire national economy, accelerate the electrification of railways;

b) create a powerful energy, metallurgical and machine-building base in Siberia and on Far East;

c) in the VI Five-Year Plan (1956-1960) to increase production industrial products by 65%, catch up with the developed capitalist countries in per capita output;

G) in agriculture to bring the annual grain harvest to 11 billion poods (1 pood = 16 kg), to fully provide the country with potatoes and vegetables in 2 years, to double the production of meat in a five-year period, focusing mainly on development pig breeding;

e) sharply increase crops corn, primarily to provide livestock with fodder (Khrushchev, working after the war as the 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, saw that corn yields high yields; it was a mistake to distribute corn crops in areas where it had never been cultivated before and could not produce high crops - in Belarus, the Baltic states, the Tula, Leningrad regions, etc.); in 1953 there were 3.5 million hectares under corn, and in 1955 - already 17.9 million hectares.

Decisions of the XX Congress in social policy:

a) to transfer all workers and employees during the VI Five-Year Plan to a 7-hour working day with a 6-day working week, from 1957 to begin the transfer of individual sectors of the economy to 5-day work week with an 8-hour work day;

b) increase volume housing construction by 2 times due to its transfer to industrial rails (transition to large-panel housing construction, when the elements of houses are produced at house-building factories, and at the construction site they are only assembled into a single whole). Khrushchev called for the creation of a socialist architectural style - durable, economical, beautiful. This is how “Khrushchev” houses appeared with separate apartments of a small area, but they were also a great joy for those who moved there from communal apartments and post-war barracks;

c) Khrushchev called for an increase production of household appliances and to expansion catering networks to liberate the Soviet woman;

d) from September 1, 1956 canceled introduced in 1940 tuition fee in high schools, technical schools and universities;

d) it was decided raise the salary low-wage workers by 30% and increase the minimum pensions up to 350 rubles (since February 1, 1961 - 35 rubles); it was considered expedient that the salary of the heads of enterprises depended on the results achieved.

In the report of the Central Committee, the name of Stalin was mentioned with respect: the report was approved by the Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee, in which the majority was against exposing the cult of personality, primarily V. M. Molotov, G. M. Malenkov, K. E. Voroshilov, L. M. Kaganovich, themselves involved in mass repressions. Khrushchev believed that it was necessary to tell the truth and repent in order to restore the confidence of ordinary communists and the common people in the leadership of the party. Despite the objections of Stalin's associates, Khrushchev on the evening of the last day of the congress (February 25) gathered closed session at which he made a presentation "About the cult of personality and its consequences", in which for the first time he openly connected "deviations from the Leninist norms of party life" and what was happening in the country lawlessness and arbitrariness with the name of Stalin. Khrushchev's speech was a courageous step, because he himself, implicitly believing Stalin, signed sanctions for the destruction of "enemies of the people."

The congress delegates learned for the first time about many things: about Lenin's characterization of Stalin in the supplement to the "Letter to the Congress"; that most of the delegates to the 17th Party Congress (1934) were killed for "counter-revolutionary crimes"; that the confessions of many prominent figures of the party and the state about their participation in sabotage and espionage were extorted from them under torture; about the falsification of the Moscow trials of the 30s; about torture with the permission of the Central Committee of the Party (Stalin's letter to the NKVD in 1937); that Stalin personally signed 383 "execution" lists; on violation of collective norms of leadership; about Stalin's gross miscalculations during the war, etc. By decision of the congress, a commission was formed to investigate the circumstances of the murder of Sergei Mironovich Kirov.

What we know today in all details came as a shock to the congress delegates. Khrushchev's report was classified for the Soviet people until 1989, although it was immediately published in the West. The text of the report was read out to the communists at closed party meetings; notes were not allowed. After such meetings, people were taken away with heart attacks. Many have lost faith in what they lived for (the suicide of the writer Alexander Fadeev in 1956 was caused, in particular, by this circumstance). The lack of clarity in assessing the Stalinist regime led to a pro-Stalinist demonstration of Georgian youth in Tbilisi in October 1956, who were shot.

Based on the decision of the XX Congress June 30, 1956 decision of the Central Committee "On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences". Stalin's "individual mistakes" were condemned there, but the system he created was not called into question, neither the names of those who were guilty of lawlessness (except for Beria), nor the facts of lawlessness themselves were named. It was stated that the cult of personality could not change the nature of our order. After this decision, mass rehabilitation illegally repressed. They were released without returning the confiscated property and were given compensation in the amount of 2 months of earnings before arrest. The executioners and scammers, meanwhile, continued to work in their places, avoiding punishment.

Task number 3. What decisions of the XX Congress of the CPSU, in principle, could not be taken under Stalin and why?
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE USSR

From the mid 50s. an era has begun scientific and technological revolution (NTR). First of all, it was expressed in the application atomic energy for peaceful purposes, as well as in the development outer space. In 1954, the world's first nuclear power plant, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, was put into operation; The nuclear icebreaker "Lenin" was put into operation. Scientific and technological revolution in the USSR developed within the framework of military-industrial complex.

October 4, 1957 launched the first artificial satellite Earth. In the USSR, more and more powerful samples of ballistic missiles were developed and tested. After test flights of the dogs Laika (without a descent vehicle), and then Belka and Strelka (returned to Earth) April 12, 1961 man flew into space for the first time Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin(left as a senior lieutenant, after 108 minutes of flight - 1 orbit around the Earth - landed as a major).

The era of scientific and technological revolution was accompanied by qualitatively new catastrophes. In 1957, a radioactive release occurred at the Mayak plant in the Chelyabinsk region, and the radioactive trace was not eliminated, and the consequences of contamination are still being felt. In 1960, a ballistic missile exploded at the start. Marshal M. I. Nedelin, several generals, hundreds of engineers, soldiers, and officers burned alive.

The oil and gas industry developed rapidly, oil and gas pipelines were built. Priority attention was paid to the construction of ferrous metallurgy enterprises.

In the mid 50s. it became clear that super-centralized management of the economy, when any minor issues are resolved only at the level of the ministry, does not justify itself and hinders the development of production. In addition, the ministries duplicated each other's activities. On the line of different ministries, counter-transportations of the same goods were carried out. In 1957, the economic reform began . The entire territory of the USSR was divided into 105 economic regions, in each of which territorial economic management bodies were established - councils of the national economy (sovnarkhozes). Each economic council included one or more regions and developed as a single economic system, devoid of departmental contradictions. Economic councils got the right independent planning, could establish among themselves direct economic ties. The need for the existence of large all-Union ministries disappeared, about 60 ministries were liquidated, their functions were transferred to the economic councils; only 10 most important ones remained, which could not be divided (the Ministry of Defense, the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Communications, Communications, etc.).

In 1957–1958, when the ministries had already been abolished and the economic councils had not yet been formed, the national economy worked most efficiently, as it got out of control and guardianship of the overgrown bureaucratic apparatus. Dissatisfaction with the economic council reform was primarily expressed by officials who lost their posts. Gradually, the employees of the abolished ministries became part of the apparatus of the economic councils or the branch departments of the State Planning Commission, and the number of bureaucratic apparatus that controlled the economy did not practically decrease.

Task number 4. What are the positive and negative sides of the economic reform in the USSR?

Enterprises in the 1950s appeared communist labor brigades, but the incentives were still only moral (a pennant for winning the competition), the salary was time-based - almost the same for both the leaders and the laggards.

In the field of agriculture, the reform was that in 1958 all equipment of state machine and tractor stations (MTS) was mandatory sold to collective farms. Only large rich farms benefited from this, for which it was convenient and profitable to maintain their own equipment. Most of the rest did not have the funds to either buy the equipment or maintain it, so when they were forced to buy the equipment, they were on the verge of ruin. In addition, the machine operators did not want to move to the collective farms along with the equipment and looked for other jobs in the city so as not to worsen their standard of living. The bankrupt collective farms were written off their debts and turned into state farms - state-owned agricultural enterprises.

Khrushchev's visit to the USA once again convinced him of the need to develop corn (after visiting the fields of the farmer Garst, who grew hybrid corn). A new wave has begun corn campaign: corn was sown up to Yakutia and the Arkhangelsk region. The blame for the fact that it does not grow there was shifted to the local leadership (“they let things take their course”). At the same time, American varieties of corn gave good yields in the Ukraine, the Kuban, and other southern regions of the country.

At the end of the 50s. The 1st secretary of the Ryazan regional party committee, Larionov, announced that he would increase meat procurement in the region by 3 times in one year. As a result, all collective-farm dairy cattle of the region, cattle confiscated from the population, and cattle bought in other regions with huge bank loans were put to slaughter. The next year there was a sharp drop in the level of agricultural production in the Ryazan and neighboring regions. Larionov shot himself.

Khrushchev personally traveled around the country and supervised agriculture. With 1958 started again struggle with personal subsidiary farms. Collective farmers trading in the markets were called speculators and parasites. Citizens were forbidden to keep livestock. In the mid 50s. private farms provided 50% of the meat produced in the country, in 1959 - only 20%. Another campaign was the fight against squandering on a state scale (“you don’t need to make museums wherever Pushkin has been”).

In 1957 were expanded budgetary rights of the union republics, they were partially transferred to the functions of the State Planning Commission. By the end of the 50s. began equalization of the pace of their development. The development of industry in Central Asia and Kazakhstan was provided by labor from the central regions of Russia, and unemployment appeared among the local population traditionally employed in agriculture. Lands between the republics of Central Asia were redistributed without taking into account the national composition of the inhabitants and their desires. All this became the basis for interethnic conflicts in the future. AT 1954 Crimea was transferred from the RSFSR to Ukraine in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. The decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU was not even supported by an official act of state bodies.

By the end of 1958, there were failures in the implementation of the Sixth Five-Year Plan. AT January 1959 took place XXI (Extraordinary) Congress of the CPSU, who took seven year plan development of the national economy for 1959–1965. (the last 2 years of the 6th Five-Year Plan + the 7th Five-Year Plan) to establish a long-term perspective of economic planning. The seven-year plan provided for: an increase in industrial output by 80% (actual fulfillment - 84%), an increase in agricultural production by 70% (actual fulfillment - 15%). By the end of the seven-year plan, it was planned to overtake and overtake the United States in per capita agricultural production, and by 1970 in industrial production.

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The path of the Soviet Union finally ended in 1991, although in a sense, its agony lasted until 1993. The final privatization started only in 1992-1993, simultaneously with the transition to a new monetary system.

The bright period of the Soviet Union, more precisely, its dying, was the so-called "perestroika". But what brought the USSR first under perestroika, and then under the final dismantling of socialism and the Soviet system?

The year 1953 was marked by the death of the long-term de facto leader of the USSR, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. After his death, a struggle for power began between the most influential members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. On March 5, 1953, the most influential members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU were Malenkov, Beria, Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kaganovich, Mikoyan. On September 7, 1953, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

At the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU in February 1956, Stalin's personality cult was condemned. But the most important mine was planted under the very structure of the Leninist principle of the Soviet state at the XXII Congress in October 1961. This congress removed the main principle of building a communist society - the dictatorship of the proletariat, replacing it with the anti-scientific concept of a "state of the whole people". What was also terrible here was that this congress became a virtual mass of voiceless delegates. They accepted all the principles of a virtual revolution in the Soviet system. The first shoots of decentralization of the economic mechanism followed. But since the pioneers often do not stay in power for a long time, already in 1964 the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU removed N. S. Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

This time is often called the "restoration of the Stalinist order", the freezing of reforms. But this is just philistine thinking and a simplified worldview, in which there is no scientific approach. Because already in 1965 the tactic of market reforms won out in the socialist economy. The "People's State" came into its own. In fact, under the strict planning of the national economic complex, the result was summed up. The unified national economic complex began to unravel, and subsequently to disintegrate. One of the authors of the reform was A. N. Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Reformers constantly boast that as a result of their reform, enterprises have gained "independence." In fact, this gave power to the directors of enterprises and the right to conduct speculative transactions. As a result, these actions led to the gradual emergence of a shortage of necessary products for the population.

We all remember the "golden days" of Soviet cinema in the 1970s. For example, in the film “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession”, the viewer is clearly shown how the actor Demyanenko, who plays the role of Shurik, buys the semiconductors he needs not in stores that are closed for repairs or for lunch for some reason, but from a speculator. A speculator who was kind of "condemned and condemned" by the Soviet society of that period.

The political and economic literature of that time acquires a unique anti-scientific terminology of "developed socialism". But what is "developed socialism"? Strictly following the Marxist-Leninist philosophy, we all know that socialism is a transitional period between capitalism and communism, a period of the withering away of the old order. An acute class struggle led by the working class. And what do we get as a result? That some incomprehensible stage of something appears there.

The same thing happened in the party apparatus. Hardened careerists and opportunists rather than ideologically hardened people began to willingly join the CPSU. The party apparatus becomes virtually uncontrolled by society. No trace of the dictatorship of the proletariat remains here.

In politics, at the same time, there is a tendency towards the irremovability of leading cadres, their physical aging and decrepitude. Career ambitions emerge. Soviet cinematography also did not ignore this moment. In some places this was ridiculed, but there were also brilliant tapes of that time that gave a critical analysis of the ongoing processes. For example, the film of 1982 - the social drama "Magistral", which posed with all its frankness the problem of decomposition and degradation in a single industry - on the railway. But in the films of that time, mainly in comedies, we already find direct glorifications of individualism, ridicule of the working man. In this field, the film "Office Romance" especially distinguished itself.

There are already systematic disruptions in trade. Of course, now the directors of enterprises are in fact the masters of their destinies, they have “independence”.

Anti-communists often mention in their "scientific" and anti-scientific writings that in the 1980s the country was already seriously ill. Only an enemy can be closer than a friend. Even if we do not take into account the frank slop that the anti-communists poured out on the USSR, a rather difficult situation actually loomed in the country.

For example, I myself remember well how in the early 1980s we traveled from the “undeveloped” Pskov region of the RSFSR to the “developed” and “advanced” Estonian SSR for groceries.

Such a country approached the turn of the mid-1980s. Even from the films of that period, it is already clear that the country no longer believes in building communism. Even the 1977 film "Racers" clearly shows what ideas were in the minds of the townsfolk, although at that time they also tried to show the character of this film in a negative light.

In 1985, after a series of deaths of "irremovable" leaders, a relatively young politician, M. S. Gorbachev, came to power. His long speeches, the very meaning of which went into the void, could go on for many hours. But the time was such that the people, as in the old days, believed the deceitful reformers, since the main thing on their minds was changes in life. But what happens to the layman? What do I want - I do not know?

Perestroika became a catalyst for accelerating all the destructive processes in the USSR, which had been accumulating and smoldering for a long time. Already by 1986, openly anti-Soviet elements appeared, which set as their goal the dismantling of the workers' state and the restoration of the bourgeois order. By 1988 it was already an irreversible process.

Anti-Soviet groups of that period appeared in the culture of that time - "Nautilus Pompilius" and "Civil Defense". According to an old habit, the authorities try to "drive" everything that does not fit into the framework of the official culture. However, even here dialectics threw out strange things. Subsequently, it was the "Civil Defense" that became a bright revolutionary beacon of anti-capitalist protest, thereby forever fixing all the contradictory phenomena of that era behind the Soviet era, as rather Soviet than anti-Soviet phenomena. But even the criticism of that time was at a fairly professional level, which was clearly reflected in the song of the Aria group - “What did you do with your dream?”, where the entire path traveled is actually overturned as erroneous.

In its wake, the era of perestroika brought out the most disgusting characters, the vast majority of whom were just members of the CPSU. In Russia, B. N. Yeltsin became such a person, who lowered the country into a bloody mess. This is the shooting of the bourgeois parliament, which, out of habit, still had a Soviet shell, this is the Chechen war. In Latvia, such a character was the former member of the CPSU A. V. Gorbunov, who continued to rule bourgeois Latvia until the mid-1990s. These characters were praised by the Soviet encyclopedias of the 1980s, calling them "outstanding leaders of the party and government."

"Sausage inhabitants" usually judge the Soviet era by perestroika horror stories about Stalin's "terror", through the prism of their narrow-minded perception of empty shelves and shortages. But their mind refuses to accept the fact that it was the large-scale decentralization and capitalization of the country that led the USSR to such results.

But how much strength and mind of the ideological Bolsheviks was applied in order to raise their country to a cosmic level of development by the mid-1950s, to go through a terrible war with the most terrible enemy on Earth - fascism. The dismantling of communist development, which began in the 1950s, continued for more than 30 years, preserving the main features of socialist development and a just society. After all, at the beginning of its journey, the Communist Party was a truly ideological party - the vanguard of the working class, a beacon of the development of society.

Throughout this story, it is clearly manifested that not owning one's ideological weapon - Marxism-Leninism, leads the leaders of the party to the betrayal of the entire people.

We did not set ourselves the goal of analyzing in detail all the stages of the decomposition of Soviet society. The purpose of this article is only to describe the chronology of some significant events of Soviet life and its individual significant aspects of the post-Stalin period.

Nevertheless, it would be fair to mention that the relative modernization of the country continued throughout the entire period of the country's existence. Until the end of the 1980s, we observed the positive development of many social institutions and technological development. Somewhere the pace of development slowed down significantly, something continued to remain at a very high level. Medicine and education developed, cities were built, infrastructure improved. The country moved forward by inertia.

In the Dark Ages, our path went at an accelerated pace and irreversibly only since 1991.

Andrey Krasny

IN AND. Lenin

The first significant decision of the new Russian government was the refusal to participate in the bloody world war. Lenin managed to achieve it, despite the fact that some members of the party were against the conclusion of peace on unfavorable terms (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). Having saved hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives, the Bolsheviks immediately put them at risk in another war - the civil one. The fight against the interventionists, anarchists and White Guards, as well as other opponents of the Soviet regime, brought quite a few human casualties.

In 1921, Lenin initiated the transition from the policy of war communism to the New Economic Policy (NEP), which contributed to the rapid recovery of the country's economy and national economy. Lenin also contributed to the establishment of a one-party system in the country and the formation of the Union of Socialist Republics. The USSR in the form in which it was created did not meet the requirements of Lenin, however, he did not manage to make significant changes.

In 1922, the hard work and the consequences of the assassination attempt made on him by the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan in 1918 made themselves felt: Lenin fell seriously ill. He took less and less part in government and other people came to the fore. Lenin himself spoke with anxiety about his possible successor, the general secretary of the party, Stalin: “Comrade Stalin, having become general secretary, has concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power with sufficient caution.” On January 21, 1924, Lenin died, and Stalin, as expected, became his successor.

One of the main directions to which V.I. Lenin paid great attention to the development of the Russian economy. At the direction of the first leader of the country of the Soviets, many factories for the production of equipment were organized, the completion of the AMO automobile plant (later ZiL) in Moscow began. Lenin paid great attention to the development of domestic energy and electronics. Perhaps if fate had given the “leader of the world proletariat” (as Lenin was often called) more time, he would have raised the country to a high level.

I.V. Stalin

A tougher policy was pursued by Lenin's successor, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili), who in 1922 took the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Now the name of Stalin is mainly associated with the so-called "Stalinist repressions" of the 30s, when several million inhabitants of the USSR were deprived of their property (the so-called "dispossession"), went to prison or were executed for political reasons (for condemning the current government).
Indeed, the years of Stalin's rule left a bloody trail in the history of Russia, but there were also positive features of this period. During this time, from an agrarian country with a secondary economy, the Soviet Union turned into a world power with a huge industrial and military potential. The development of the economy and industry affected during the Great Patriotic War, which, although it cost the Soviet people dearly, was nevertheless won. Already during the hostilities, it was possible to establish a good supply of the army, to create new types of weapons. After the war, many were restored at an accelerated pace, destroyed almost to the foundation of the city.

N.S. Khrushchev

Shortly after Stalin's death (March 1953), Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev became General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (September 13, 1953). This leader of the CPSU became famous, perhaps, most of all for his extraordinary deeds, many of which are still remembered. So, in 1960, at the UN General Assembly, Nikita Sergeevich took off his shoe and, threatening to show Kuz'kin's mother, began to knock on the podium with it in protest against the speech of the Filipino delegate. The period of Khrushchev's rule is associated with the development of an arms race between the USSR and the USA (the so-called "Cold Out"). In 1962, the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba almost led to a military conflict with the United States.

Of the positive changes that occurred during the reign of Khrushchev, one can note the rehabilitation of the victims of Stalinist repressions (having taken the post of general secretary, Khrushchev initiated the dismissal of Beria and his arrest), the development of agriculture through the development of unplowed lands (virgin lands), as well as the development of industry. It was during the reign of Khrushchev that the first launch of an artificial Earth satellite and the first manned flight into space took place. The period of Khrushchev's rule has an unofficial name - "Khrushchev's thaw."

L.I. Brezhnev

Khrushchev was replaced as General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee by Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (October 14, 1964). For the first time, a party leader was replaced not after his death, but by removal from office. The era of Brezhnev's rule went down in history as "stagnation". The fact is that the Secretary General was a staunch conservative and an opponent of any reforms. The Cold War continued, which caused most of the resources to go to the military industry at the expense of other areas. Therefore, during this period, the country practically stopped in its technical development and began to lose to other leading powers of the world (excluding the military industry). In 1980, the XXII Summer Olympic Games were held in Moscow, which were boycotted by some countries (USA, Germany and others), in protest against the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

During the Brezhnev era, some attempts were made to defuse tensions with the United States: US-Soviet treaties on the limitation of strategic offensive weapons were concluded. But these attempts were crossed out by the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in 1979. In the late 80s, Brezhnev was no longer actually able to govern the country and was only considered the leader of the party. On November 10, 1982, he died at his dacha.

Yu. V. Andropov

On November 12, Khrushchev's place was taken by Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, who previously headed the State Security Committee (KGB). He achieved sufficient support among party leaders, therefore, despite the resistance of former supporters of Brezhnev, he was elected General Secretary, and then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Having taken the helm, Andropov proclaimed a course for socio-economic transformation. But all the reforms were reduced to administrative measures, strengthening discipline and exposing corruption in the highest circles. In foreign policy, the confrontation with the West only intensified. Andropov strove to strengthen his personal power: in June 1983 he held the post of chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, while remaining secretary general. However, Andropov did not stay in power for long: he died on February 9, 1984 due to kidney disease, before he could make significant changes in the life of the country.

K.U. Chernenko

On February 13, 1984, the post of head of the Soviet state was taken by Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, who was considered a contender for the post of general secretary even after the death of Brezhnev. Chernenko held this important post at the age of 72, being seriously ill, so it was clear that this was only a temporary figure. During the reign of Chernenko, a number of reforms were undertaken, which were never brought to their logical conclusion. On September 1, 1984, the Day of Knowledge was celebrated for the first time in the country. March 10, 1985 Chernenko died. His place was taken by Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, who later became the first and last president of the USSR.

Lavrenty Pylych Beria
Didn't justify the trust.
Remained from Beria
Only down and feathers.

(folk ditty 1953)

How the country said goodbye to Stalin.

Stalin, during his lifetime, appeared in the Soviet state, where atheism denied any religion - an "earthly god." Hence, his “sudden” death was perceived by millions of people as a tragedy of universal proportions. Or, in any case, the collapse of all life until this Judgment Day - March 5, 1953.

“I wanted to think: what will happen to all of us now?” the front-line writer I. Ehrenburg recalled his feelings of that day. “But I could not think. I experienced what many of my compatriots probably experienced then: numbness. Then there was a nationwide funeral, a nationwide mourning for millions of Soviet citizens, unprecedented in its scale in world history. How did the country deal with this death? This was best told in poetry by the poetess O. Bergholz, who lost her husband during the repressions, who served time on false charges:

"Heart bleeds...
Our beloved, our dear!
Grabbing your head
The Motherland is crying over You.

A 4-day mourning was declared in the country. The coffin with the body of Stalin was brought into the Mausoleum, above the entrance to which two names were inscribed: LENIN and STALIN. The end of Stalin's funeral was heralded by lingering beeps at factories across the country, from Brest to Vladivostok and Chukotka. Later, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko said about this: “They say that this many-pipe howl, from which the blood ran cold, resembled the hellish cry of a dying mythical monster ...”. The atmosphere of general shock, the expectation that life could suddenly change for the worse, hovered in the public atmosphere.

However, there were other moods caused by the death of the seemingly immortal Leader. “Well, this one is dead ... - the legless disabled order-bearer Uncle Vanya turned to a 13-year-old neighbor who brought her felt boots to be repaired and then seriously pondered for two days: should she go to the police or not” (Quoted by Alekseevich. S. Charmed by death .).

Millions of prisoners and exiles, languishing in camps and living in settlements, took this news with joy. “Oh joy and triumph!” the exiled Oleg Volkov later described his then feelings. “Finally, the long night will dissipate over Russia. Only God forbid! To reveal one's feelings: who knows how else it will turn around?... When the exiles meet, they do not dare to express their hopes, but they no longer conceal a cheerful look. Thrice cheers!"

The palette of public sentiments in the country frozen by the Stalinist dictatorship was diverse, but on the whole, an atmosphere of general shock prevailed, the expectation that life could suddenly change for the worse. However, it became clear that with the death of the one who was considered a superman and an "earthly god", power was henceforth deprived of its divine halo. Since all the successors of Stalin were at the top, they looked like “mere mortals” (according to E.Yu. Zubkova).

New collective leadership headed by G. Malenkov

Stalin had not yet died, lying in an unconscious position, when his closest associates began an open and behind-the-scenes struggle for power at the very top. To some extent, the situation of the beginning of the 1920s was repeated in the party elite, when Lenin was hopelessly ill. But this time the bill was for days and hours.

When on the morning of March 4, 1953, “a government message about the illness of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR ... Comrade Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin” was transmitted on Moscow radio, it was, in particular, reported that “... the serious illness of Comrade Stalin will entail more or less prolonged non-participation in leadership activities ... ". And as it was further reported that the government circles (the party and the government) "... seriously take into account all the circumstances related to the temporary departure of Comrade Stalin from leading state and party activities." So the party-state elite explained to the population the convening of an urgent Plenum of the Central Committee, on the distribution of power in the country and the party at the time of the incapacity of the leader who was in a coma.

According to a great specialist in this matter, historian Yuri Zhukov, already on the evening of March 3, some agreement was reached among Stalin's associates regarding the occupation of key posts in the party and government of the country. Moreover, Stalin's comrades-in-arms began to divide power among themselves, then when Stalin himself was still alive, but could not stop them in any way. Having received news from the doctors about the hopelessness of the sick leader, the comrades-in-arms began to divide the portfolios as if he were no longer alive.

The joint session of the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet began its work on the evening of March 5, again when Stalin was still alive. In the same place, the power roles were redistributed as follows: the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which Stalin had previously held, was transferred to G. M. Malenkov, who, in fact, from now on acted as the No. 1 figure in the country and represented it abroad.

Malenkov's first deputies were L.P. Beria, V.M. Molotov, N.I. Bulganin, L.M. Kaganovich. However, Malenkov, for a number of reasons, did not become the new sole leader of the party and state. The politically "dexterous" and most educated Malenkov, due to his personal qualities, was not able to become a new dictator, which cannot be said about his political "ally" - Beria.

But the power pyramid itself, which developed under Stalin, has now undergone decisive changes by his associates, who no longer considered the will of the leader who had departed to another world late in the evening (at 21.50 Moscow time) on March 5. The distribution of key roles in power structures was carried out in private, with Beria and Malenkov playing the main role in this. According to the historian R. Pikhoy (who worked well with archival documents), on March 4, Beria sent Malenkov a note in which the most important government posts were distributed in advance, which were approved at a meeting the next day on March 5.

The Stalinist secretariat, elected at the 19th Congress, was abolished. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, consisting of 25 members and 10 candidates, was reduced to 10 members (consisting of Malenkov, Beria, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kaganovich, Saburov, Pervukhin, Molotov and Mikoyan) and 4 candidates; most of them entered the government.

The younger Stalinist nominees were immediately relegated to the background. This, like the very fact of the return, previously disgraced, under Stalin, Molotov to the political Olympus (he was returned to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR) was a kind of sign of the beginning of the rejection of Stalin's latest political reshuffles. According to Yuri Zhukov, the inclusion of Molotov required the growth of a new narrow leadership to the "five" - Malenkov, Beria, Molotov, Bulganin, Kaganovich. Such an organization of power was subsequently presented as a "collective leadership", which was largely temporary in nature, formed on the basis of a balance of conflicting views and interests of the top leadership of that time.

L. Beria received enormous power, who headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs, united after the merger of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security, which became a kind of super-ministry that also carried out a number of national economic tasks. The well-known political figure of the Soviet era O. Troyanovsky in his memoirs gives the following characterization: “Although immediately after the death of Stalin, Malenkov was considered the number one figure as chairman of the Council of Ministers, in fact, Beria played the leading role. I never came across him directly, but I knew from eyewitness accounts that he was an immoral man who did not disdain any means to achieve his goals, but possessed an extraordinary mind and great organizational skills. Relying on Malenkov, and sometimes on some other members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, he consistently led the matter to consolidate his leadership.

N.S. began to play the third key figure in the collective leadership, after Malenkov and Beria. Khrushchev, who already in the last years of Stalin's rule had great political influence.

In fact, already in March 1953, 3 main centers were formed in the highest echelons of the party, headed by Stalin's associates - Malenkov, Beria, Khrushchev. In this struggle, each one relied on and exploited his own nomenklatura possibilities, connected with the peculiarities of the situation in the party-state system. The base of Malenkov was the government of the country, the support of Beria was the law enforcement agencies, Khrushchev was the party apparatus (Pyzhikov A.V.).

In the established triumvirate (Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev), Beria became the second person in the state. From now on, Beria, heading all the all-powerful punitive bodies in the country, possessed at the same time all the necessary information - a dossier on all his associates, which could be used in the fight against his political competitors (Zhilenkov M.). The triumvirators from the very beginning began to cautiously revise Stalin's policy, starting with the refusal to single-handedly make key decisions. Moreover, Malenkov and Beria played a key role in this, and not Khrushchev, as is commonly believed.

Already in Malenkov’s mourning speech at Stalin’s funeral on March 9, 1953, where foreign policy problems were discussed, an “unconventional” idea for the Stalin era appeared about “the possibility of long-term coexistence and peaceful competition of two different systems - capitalist and socialist.” In domestic policy, the main task was seen by Malenkov as “steady to achieve further improvement in the material well-being of workers, collective farmers, the intelligentsia, and all Soviet people” (cited by Aksyutin Yu.V.).

The day after Stalin's funeral (March 10), Malenkov invited the ideological secretaries of the Central Committee M. A. Suslov and P. N. Pospelov, as well as the editor-in-chief of Pravda D.T. Shepilova. Malenkov at this meeting declared to all those present about the need to “stop the policy of the cult of personality and move on to the collective leadership of the country”, reminding the members of the Central Committee how Stalin himself strongly criticized them for the cult planted around him (cited by Openkin L.A.). This was the very first stone thrown by Malenkov to debunk Stalin's personality cult, followed by others. As early as March 20, 1953, the name of Stalin ceased to be mentioned in the headlines of newspaper articles, and his citation was sharply reduced.

Malenkov himself voluntarily withdrew some of his powers when, on March 14, 1953, he resigned from the post of secretary of the Central Committee, transferring this post to Khrushchev. This to some extent divided the party and state authorities, and, of course, strengthened the position of Khrushchev, who gained control over the party apparatus. However, at that time the center of gravity was more in the government apparatus of the Council of Ministers than in the party Central Committee, which of course did not please Khrushchev.

The socio-economic program of the triumvirate was received in the first official report by G.M. Malenkov at a meeting of the fourth session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 15, 1953. From Malenkov’s speech: “The law for our government is the obligation to unremittingly care for the welfare of the people, for the maximum satisfaction of their material and cultural needs ...” (“Izvestia”, 1953).

This was so far the first test of strength in the further correction of the Stalinist model of economic development, with its traditional priority in favor of heavy and military industry. In 1953, the obligatory minimum for the production of workdays on collective farms, introduced in May 1939, was abolished.

Beria is a mysterious reformer

Even greater reformist fervor began to show Lavrenty Beria. He, being a power-hungry and cynical person, at the same time, of course, had a great organizational talent, probably one of the best in the post-war USSR. On March 27 of this year, on his initiative (Beria wrote a note on amnesty to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on March 26), an amnesty was announced for prisoners whose term did not exceed 5 years, as well as minors, women with children and pregnant women. In total, 1.2 million prisoners were released (except for political prisoners convicted of "counter-revolutionary crimes"), although this immediately had a negative impact on the level of crime, which literally jumped in the cities.

Due to increased crimes, parts of the internal troops were brought into Moscow, horse patrols appeared (Geller M.Ya. Nekrich A.M.). faked, and he himself was killed. In the note, in fact, Stalin, Abakumov, Abakumov's deputy Ogoltsov and the former minister of the Ministry of State Security of Belarus Tsanava were called the organizers of his murder. This was the first serious accusation against the divine idol Stalin.

On April 4, the “case of poisoning doctors” was terminated, and a week later the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution “On Violation of Laws by State Security Agencies”, thereby opening up the possibility of reviewing many cases. On April 10, 1953, again at the initiative of Beria, the Central Committee of the CPSU cancels earlier decisions to justify the repressed and completely closes the so-called "Mingrelian case" (Decrees of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of November 9, 1951, and March 27, 1952). It was on the initiative of Beria that the dismantling of the Stalinist Gulag began. The largest “great construction projects” erected by the hands of prisoners, such as the Salekhard-Igarka railway in the tundra, the Karakum Canal and an underwater tunnel (13 km) to Sakhalin, were abandoned. The Special Conference under the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs troops were liquidated, the Supreme Court received the right to review decisions on cases of special jurisdiction (“troikas”, the Special Conference and collegiums of the OGPU).

On April 4, Beria signed an order in which it was forbidden to use, as it was written in this document, “savage “interrogation methods” - brutal beatings of those arrested, around-the-clock use of handcuffs on hands turned behind their backs, prolonged sleep deprivation, confinement of those arrested in a naked state in a cold punishment cell” . As a result of these tortures, the defendants were brought to moral depression, and "sometimes even to the loss of human appearance." “Using such a state of the arrested,” the order said, “the falsifying investigators slipped them fabricated “confessions” in advance about anti-Soviet and espionage-terrorist activities” (cited by R. Pikhoy).

Another part of Beria's mass amnesty policy was a decree of May 20, 1953, which removed passport restrictions for citizens released from prison, which allowed them to find work in large cities. These restrictions, according to various estimates, concerned three million people (Zhilenkov M.).

The April revelations of illegal methods of state security, multiplied by the death of the chief architect of repression, Stalin, caused a lively protest response in the camps and exiles, as well as among the relatives of the prisoners. The editorial offices of the newspapers, the prosecutor's office and party organs literally rained down from all over the country complaints and petitions for a review of cases. It was restless in the camps themselves. On May 26, 1953, an uprising broke out in the Norilsk Gorlag, which was brutally suppressed by the troops, and the number of those killed was estimated at several hundred people.

Beria knew firsthand about the nationalist underground in the western republics of the USSR, as he mercilessly suppressed it for many years. Now he proposed more flexible methods in national policy, such as indigenization, partial decentralization of the union republics, some assumption of national and cultural characteristics. Here his innovation was expressed in proposals for a broader replacement of Russians in leading positions in the union republics with national cadres; the establishment of national orders and even the ability to create national military formations. In the context of an acute political struggle for power in the Kremlin, Beria, thus, also expected to receive support and support from the national elites in the union republics of the USSR. Subsequently, such Beria's undertakings in the national question were regarded as "bourgeois-nationalist", as inciting "enmity and discord" between the peoples of the USSR.

The ubiquitous Beria tried to carry out transformations in foreign policy. He was clearly trying to stop the Cold War that had begun with the West, the fault of which, in his opinion, lay with the inflexible Stalin. The most daring was his proposal - to unite Germany from its two parts - the eastern (under the control of Soviet troops) and the western - controlled by the Anglo-Americans, allowing a single German state to be non-socialist! Such a radical proposal by Beria met with an objection only from Molotov. Beria also believed that in other countries of Eastern Europe, socialism should not be accelerated along the Soviet model.

He also tried to restore relations with Yugoslavia spoiled under Stalin. Beria believed that the break with Tito was a mistake, and planned to correct it. “Let the Yugoslavs build what they want” (according to S. Kremlev).

The fact that the partial dismantling of the punitive system began to be actively carried out by Beria with the support of Malenkov and other high-ranking members of the party and Soviet leadership, today no one doubts. Disputes are based on Beria's "liberal" reformism. Why was it the main "punisher of the country" of recent decades that turned out to be the most "liberal" of all Stalin's associates? Traditionally, many authors and biographers (mostly of the liberal camp) Beria were inclined to consider his reform undertakings solely as a desire from the outset "vicious villain and intriguer" to wash off the image of the main "Stalinist executioner".

Such motives in the real, and not the "mythological-demonic" Beria (as he was represented in the 90s), of course, were present. However, it would be wrong to explain all of Beria's reformism in the short period of 1953 with these motives. Even during the life of Stalin, he repeatedly expressed the great danger to the country in continuing the course of "tightening the screws" and especially the super-exploitation of the collective farm peasantry. However, being a cautious and executive person, Beria carried out all Stalin's orders as energetically and efficiently as possible, which earned him the respect of the "master".

But with the death of the charismatic Stalin, Beria, being the person most aware of the moods of Soviet citizens, well understood the need to abandon many of the most odious repressive features of the Stalinist system. The country, compressed like a spring, living for a long time according to the laws of war, was in dire need of a respite and, finally, to make life easier.

At the same time, as a strong power-hungry personality, he certainly claimed the role of Stalin's main successor. But to do this, he had to get around his many rivals in the collective leadership, especially such political heavyweights as Malenkov (to whom he was formally subordinate). And it was possible to circumvent them only by intercepting the initiative of reform reforms in the country. And Beria did it well at first.

In fact, under the weak-willed Malenkov, Beria became the shadow ruler of the country, which, of course, could not but cause deaf discontent among many of his “comrades-in-arms”. The very logic of the struggle, unfolding in the highest echelons of power, spoke of the need to eliminate a dangerous rival who could turn into a “new Stalin”. It is not surprising that even yesterday's political comrades-in-arms of Beria (especially Malenkov) are joining forces to topple the most dangerous political figure, Beria, with the help of a conspiracy.

Neither ideological disputes, nor possibly different opinions on the further development of the USSR or its foreign policy were the motive for this game, the fear of Beria and his secret police played a decisive role here (Prudnikova E.A.). The leaders from the collective leadership were very worried about Beria's plans to curtail the influence of the party and subordinate the party structures to government bodies, and those, in turn, to the all-powerful Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

As documents of that time testify, Khrushchev and Malenkov played a leading role in the conspiracy against Beria, relying on party activists and all members of the Presidium of the Central Committee. It was they who brought into action the most significant political component - the army, or rather the military leadership, and, above all, marshals N.A. Bulganin and G.K. Zhukov (Pozharov Alexey). June 26, 1953 during a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which then turned into a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, as all its members were present.

At this meeting, Khrushchev voiced accusations against Beria: revisionism, an "anti-socialist approach" to the situation in the GDR, and even spying for Great Britain in the 20s. When Beria tried to protest the accusations, he was arrested by a group of generals led by Marshal Zhukov.

In hot pursuit, the investigation and trial of the all-powerful marshal from Lubyanka began. Along with the real crimes of Beria in organizing “illegal repressions” (which, by the way, were organized by all his “accusers”), Beria was charged with a whole set of standard charges for that time: espionage in favor of foreign states, his enemy activities aimed at eliminating the Soviet worker the peasant system, the desire for the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie, as well as in moral decay, in the abuse of power (the Politburo and the Beria case. Collection of documents).

His closest associates from the security agencies got into the “Beria gang”: Merkulov V.N., Kobulov B.Z. Goglidze S.A., Meshik P.Ya., Dekanozov V.G., Vlodzimirsky L.E. They were also repressed.

From the last word of Beria at the trial on December 23, 1953: “I have already shown the court that I plead guilty. For a long time I hid my service in the Musavatist counter-revolutionary intelligence service. However, I declare that, even while serving there, I did nothing harmful. I fully acknowledge my moral decay. Numerous connections with women, which have been mentioned here, are a disgrace to me as a citizen and a former member of the party. ... Recognizing that I am responsible for the excesses and perversions of socialist legality in 1937-1938, I ask the court to take into account that I did not have selfish and hostile goals. The reason for my crimes is the situation of that time. ... I do not consider myself guilty of trying to disorganize the defense of the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War. When sentencing me, I ask you to carefully analyze my actions, not to consider me as a counter-revolutionary, but to apply to me only those articles of the Criminal Code that I really deserve. (Quoted by Dzhanibekyan V.G.).

Beria was shot on the same day, December 23, in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R. A. Rudenko. The first shot, on his own initiative, was fired from a personal weapon by Colonel-General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P.F. Batitsky (according to the memoirs of the prosecutor A. Antonov-Ovseenko). As in the recent past, the massive demonization of the image of Beria in the Soviet press caused outrage among Soviet citizens, who literally began to compete with each other in sophistication to brand the "fierce enemy" more strongly. Here's how gr. Alekseev (Dnepropetrovsk region) poetically expressed his righteous anger at Beria:

"I do not ask, I demand by right
Wipe you snake off the face of the earth.
You raised a sword for my honor and glory,
Let it fall on your head." (TsKhSD. F.5. Op. 30. D.4.).

Beria turned out to be a convenient "scapegoat" for everyone, especially for his associates, who also had their hands "elbow-deep in blood." It was on Beria that almost all the crimes of the Stalin era were hanged. Especially the destruction of the leading cadres of the party. Like, it was he who, having rubbed himself into the confidence of Stalin, deceived the “great leader”. Acting through Stalin, Beria killed many innocent people.

It is significant that at that moment Stalin was beyond criticism. According to A. Mikoyan, who commented on the time before the XX Congress of the CPSU (1956): “We did not immediately give a correct assessment of Stalin. Stalin died, we did not criticize him for two years ... We psychologically did not reach such criticism then.

Khrushchev vs. Malenkov

The fall of Beria was the end of the first triumvirate. The prestige and influence of Khrushchev, the main organizer of the anti-Beria plot, increased significantly. Malenkov lost his support in party circles and was now increasingly dependent on Khrushchev, who relied on the party apparatus. Khrushchev could not yet dictate his decisions, but Malenkov could no longer act without Khrushchev's consent. Both still needed each other (Geller M.Ya., Nekrich A.M.).

The struggle between the two political heavyweights took place over socio-economic programs. The initiator of the new course was initially G. Malenkov. In August 1953, Malenkov formulated a new course that provided for the social reorientation of the economy and the priority development of light industry (Group B).

On August 8, 1953, Malenkov delivered a speech at the 6th session of the USSR Supreme Council, in which he noted the unfavorable situation in agriculture and urged: “The urgent task is to sharply increase the provision of the population with food and industrial products - meat, meat, fish, oil, sugar, confectionery, clothes, shoes, dishes, furniture. In his speech, Malenkov proposed to halve the agricultural tax for collective farmers, to write off the arrears of previous years, and also to change the principle of taxation of the villagers.

The new premier also called for a change in the attitude towards the personal farming of collective farmers, to expand housing construction, to develop trade and retail trade. In addition, to significantly increase investment in the development of the light, food, and fishing industries.

Malenkov's proposals, fateful for millions of the masses, were accepted. The plan of the fifth five-year plan, which began in 1951, was as a result revised in favor of light industry. In the course of the reforms, the size of household plots of collective farmers increased by 5 times, and the tax on them was halved. All old debts from collective farmers were written off. As a result, in 5 years the village began to produce 1.5 times more food. This made Malenkov among the people the most popular politician of that time. And the peasants even had such a tale that Malenkov is “Lenin's nephew” (Yuri Borisenok). At the same time, the economic course of Malenkov was perceived with caution by the party and economic elite, brought up on the Stalinist approach of "heavy industry at any cost." Malenkov's opponent was Khrushchev, who at that time defended the slightly corrected old Stalinist policy, but in favor of the predominant development of the "A" group. "Narodnik" Khrushchev (as Stalin once called him) was at that time much more conservative in his political programs than Beria and Malenkov.

But Malenkov, finally, called for a fight against the privileges and bureaucracy of the party and state apparatus, noting "complete disregard for the needs of the people", "bribery and the decay of the moral character of the communist" (Zhukov Yu. N.). Back in May 1953, on the initiative of Malenkov, a government decree was adopted that halved the remuneration of party officials and eliminated the so-called. "envelopes" - additional remuneration that is not subject to accounting (Zhukov Yu.N.).

It was a serious challenge to the main owner of the country - the party apparatus. Malenkov literally played "with fire", it is not surprising that he immediately turned against himself the mass of the party elite, who were accustomed to considering themselves the main manager of state property. And this, in turn, gave N. S. Khrushchev a chance, acting as a defender of the interests of this party and economic elite and relying on it, to neutralize another competitor in the struggle for power.

Historian Yuri Zhukov cites evidence that party apparatchiks literally bombarded Khrushchev with requests for the return of surcharges for them in envelopes and an increase in their amounts. As in the 20s, the rivalry between the leaders was only masked by political programs, but most of all it took place between the leaders headed by two political forces: the government and economic apparatus represented by Malenkov and the party represented by Khrushchev. Obviously, the second force was more powerful and more consolidated.

Already in August 1953, Khrushchev made a "knight's move", he was able to return the previously canceled "envelopes" to the party workers and returned the unpaid amounts to the party apparatchiks for 3 months. The support of bureaucrats from the Central Committee, regional committees and city committees elevated Khrushchev to the pinnacle of power. As a result, the September Plenum of the Central Committee, having restored the post of first secretary of the Central Committee, immediately gave it to Khrushchev, his "defender". As Khrushchev's son-in-law Adjubey pointed out, "he only seemed to be a simple-minded person and even wanted to look like that" (Boris Sokolov).

From that time on, Khrushchev, relying on the powerful support of the party apparatus, began to confidently bypass his main rival, Malenkov. Khrushchev was now catching up, trying to win the approval of the masses as well. That is why at the September (1953) Plenum of the Central Committee, Khrushchev spoke, in essence, with a repetition of Malenkov's proposals - to support the development of the countryside and stimulate the development of light industry, but on his own behalf.

The fact that the party bureaucracy was on the side of Khrushchev and fully supported him is evidenced by this fact. In November 1953, a meeting was held in the Central Committee, in which G. Malenkov once again delivered a speech condemning bribery among the staff of the apparatus. According to the memoirs of F. Burlatsky, there was a painful silence in the hall, "bewilderment was mixed with fear." It was broken only by Khrushchev's voice: “All this, of course, is true, Georgy Maximilianovich. But the apparatus is our backbone.” The hall responded to this remark with stormy and enthusiastic applause.

By the end of 1953, the situation in party and government circles had developed in such a way that there was no longer a triumvirate, but not even a duumvirate (Malenkov and Khrushchev). Khrushchev outplayed Malenkov on the very “main field”, becoming the head of the party, the backbone of Soviet statehood. However, Khrushchev's leadership throughout the country was not yet so obvious. The form of collective leadership was preserved, and Malenkov, as prime minister, had even more weight in government circles. But his power and influence in the state was much inferior to the authority of Khrushchev, a more ambitious and powerful man. Khrushchev became the new leader of the entire country, in which the processes of de-Stalinization were gaining momentum.