Among some Russians, there is still a legend about "order under Stalin." However, archival documents show that the administrative system created under him was struck from top to bottom, as they would say at the time, “degeneration”, corruption, nepotism and inefficiency.
An analysis of the Leningrad archives of the post-war period shows that the most widespread form of corruption in 1945-1953 was the so-called "self-supply", that is, the receipt of additional benefits and privileges not entitled to this representative of the "nomenklatura" by status. In most enterprises and institutions, this has become a daily occurrence. An objective check of any institution revealed massive facts of abuse by representatives of its leadership.
Here is what, for example, was shown by the results of audits of peat mining enterprises in the Leningrad Region in 1946.
In conditions when employees of enterprises suffered from a lack of normal social conditions, low wages and poor food, their directors took full advantage of the opportunities of their official position. So, at the peat enterprise located in Shuvalovo, during January-June 1946, 778.5 kg of bread, 336.2 kg of cereals, 55.9 kg of sugar, 29.4 kg of meat were wasted for banquets, food inspectors, self-supply. were written off as allocated for additional meals for workers.
For the same purposes, 135 liters of vodka was used, intended to support peat loaders during severe frosts (100 g per person per day). The director of the peat enterprise Makhov and the chief engineer Aganin bought out two cows from the subsidiary farm at a price 10 times lower than the book price. At the same prices, the cows were sold to the chairman of the regional committee of the union of peat bogs, the head of the transport department of the Torfsnab trust, etc. As the chief economist at the enterprise, Makhov registered his wife, who lived in Leningrad. She did not even come for a salary (money and cards were transported to her in Leningrad). Makhov used three people registered as workers at the enterprise as domestic servants.
At the Irinievsky district peat enterprise in February 1946, 120 kg of meat was allocated from the subsidiary farm for distribution to the workers. Almost all of it was distributed among the leaders of the enterprise. In May, an additional 504 kg of meat was received. Of this, 29.1 kg were used to improve the nutrition of the workers. The executives were given 139 kg, and where the rest of the meat went, the auditors could not establish.
Of the 4 thousand liters of milk received by the enterprise in January-May from the subsidiary farm, the workers received 1,700 liters, and the rest was distributed among a narrow circle of people from the management team (the director of the subsidiary farm of the enterprise Buzhenko received 263 liters of milk, the director of the enterprise Mitrofanov (who has his own cow) - 161 liters, accountant Sharymov 115 liters, food warehouse manager - 107 liters, police chief - 66 liters, etc.).
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It was in the form of "self-supply" that the process took place according to the formulations of those years of "merging of party and economic cadres", by which the country's leadership understood the situation when the regional party-Soviet nomenclature was acting not in the interests of the state (but in practice - in the interests of the center, the Kremlin), but in the interests of local business executives. From the point of view of the Politburo, this phenomenon posed a threat to the current system of power and caused serious concern for Stalin and his entourage. Indeed, party and Soviet officials, especially at the regional level, willingly made contact with representatives of economic bodies, receiving from them, free of charge or for a symbolic price, products and scarce goods, building materials, transport and labor.
For example, in the Novoladozhsky district of the Leningrad region, the secretary of the district committee Boytsov, the chairman of the district executive committee Mikhailov, employees of the district land department (head, senior agronomist, senior land surveyor, veterinarian, livestock technician) purchased cows from collective farms free of charge. When the prosecutor's office became interested in this fact, they retroactively formalized the purchase of cows at reduced prices based on fictitious protocols of decisions of general meetings of collective farmers.
Of the 85 pigs allocated in 1947 to the Oredezhsky district for distribution to collective farms, not a single one got there. All the pigs were "dismantled" by district officials. Employees of the regional committee, city committee, city and regional executive committees, heads of municipal institutions also followed the example of their subordinates. So, the instructor of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Vederkin in 1944 received a new apartment, forging a fake certificate that his previous apartment was destroyed. As a result, he had two apartments (2 and 4 rooms each). The family, which previously owned the apartment Vederkin had received (the front-line's widow, her sick mother and child), was given a replacement upon returning from evacuation - a room in a communal apartment (former kitchen).
In 1942-1948, the head of the city department of social security, E. Nikitina, systematically authorized the use of fabrics intended for clothing for the disabled, for sewing suits and trousers for department employees (in 1947 alone, 69 m of woolen fabric, 22 m cloth, 70 m boston, 3 m gabardine, 18 m cashmere, etc.).
From the money intended for the provision of material assistance to war invalids, benefits were paid to employees of the department and subordinate institutions. For 1947, the amount of such benefits amounted to 5.3 thousand rubles. In addition, vouchers for war invalids were also distributed among the employees of the department (in 1947 - 10 vouchers for 10.5 thousand rubles). For such "achievements" in 1948 Nikitina was "punished" by transfer to the post of deputy head of the pawnshop. However, here, too, she was caught in large-scale theft and abuse.
The atmosphere of widespread abuses and petty extortions created a situation when the process began, as a specialist in economic criminal cases, lawyer E. Evelson wrote at that time, of merging small handicraft-factory production with the interests of state and planning organizations. The result was a fundamentally new phenomenon - the transformation of many enterprises of trade, supply and production of consumer goods into shadow corruption systems, which, formally remaining state and public institutions, actually served to satisfy the private interests of their leaders and employees.
According to the same principles in the mid-40s - early 50s, most of the trades and associations of artels of production, consumer cooperation and cooperation of disabled people of the district level functioned. So, in the Leningrad canteens trust in 1945-1946, a pyramid of ubiquitous extortions flourished, at the top of which stood the director of the trust Legovoy. In all canteens, stalls, tea trusts, the practice of weighting and calculating consumers prevailed. In February 1946 alone, food was stolen from the trust for 18 thousand rubles, in June - for 50 thousand.
Legovoy directly patronized the thieving subordinates. The directors of canteens, convicted of abuses by the trade inspection and dismissed at its instructions, immediately received new positions. Workers who opposed the theft were expelled from the trust, and Legovoy's cover from the excessive activity of law enforcement agencies ensured the protection of friends from the district party committee.
Exactly the same situation has developed in the districts of the region. For example, during the investigation of the fire in the building of the Sosnovsky District Consumer Union in 1949, the police found that there was arson in order to destroy accounting documents, to conceal information about theft. According to the far from complete estimates of the OBKhSS, over 300 thousand rubles were stolen from the district consumer union. And these are far from accurate figures, since almost all documents on commodity-money transactions in shops and canteens for December 1946 - January 1947 have disappeared from the accounting department.
Not only ordinary workers were "squeezed out" from work, but also the leaders, including the representatives of the party organs - those who criticized the leadership and their machinations. So, according to the information of the regional party committee, the secretary of the party organization of the district utilitarian, elected on the recommendation of the Pargolovsky district committee of the CPSU (b), could not start her duties for more than three months. The chairman of the artel Pavlov, not wanting to let a stranger into his patrimony, with the full support of the regional Utilsoyuz, simply did not allow her to work. The secretary of the party organization of another artel "Fanerdrevtrud", who too actively spoke out against the abuses of its leaders, was not without their help, was blackballed in the elections. The secretary of the Party organization of the Pargolovskaya artel "Leather haberdasher" was dismissed due to staff reductions, as he "became too much to know."
On the other hand, people with a rich criminal record were willingly appointed to work in artels and shops, including in leadership positions. According to the police, in the early 1950s, 69 Leningrad store managers and their deputies had a criminal record (mostly for embezzlement).
Citizens who sent complaints to the city committee, regional party committee, and other authorities had to be prepared for a variety of troubles. Here are the two fates of such idealist complainers. In May 1947, E. Fedorova, an employee of the Piskarevka state farm, sent a statement to the state control commission about the abuse of the state farm administration. She accused the director of the state farm A. Komanov, the chief agronomist and other responsible workers of the state farm of keeping personal livestock in the collective farm cowshed, using materials for repairing state farm premises for building their houses, stealing feed, milk, concealing and appropriating part of the harvest, illegally obtaining ration cards, and etc. The statement was forwarded for verification to the prosecutor's office, which confirmed the correctness of the charges and returned the documents to the state control for a comprehensive audit of the economy. However, instead, the materials began to flow from one controlling institution to another until they were archived. None of the heads of the state farm was punished.
Fedorova herself was the only victim in this situation. The director of the state farm, with the help of friends from the district executive committee, evicted her from the room (the decision of the people's court on the illegality of such actions was simply ignored). The complainant was summoned to the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and warned that if she continued to slander honest communists, she would be arrested for anti-Soviet agitation.
The manager of one of the households in the Smolninsky district of Leningrad, M. Makov, became a kind of record holder for the number of troubles for adherence to principles. In 1947, he wrote a statement about the facts of speculation in housing, which was engaged in by the leaders of the district housing administration. The result was his dismissal. Makov did not calm down and continued his attempts to achieve the truth. In response to his complaints against Makov in 1948-1952, with the help of the district prosecutor, who patronized the crooks, 32 times criminal cases were opened (all closed as falsified), they tried to declare insane. The head of the Leningrad Department, Lomov, refused to reinstate Makov at work.
Any investigation into the activities of economic managers, starting with the posts of chairman of a collective farm or artel, head of a store or director of an enterprise, had to overcome powerful opposition from the party and state apparatus. This was also facilitated by a special procedure for bringing representatives of the nomenclature to justice. According to him, the issue of bringing to criminal responsibility the executives included in the nomenklatura lists required the approval of the party committee that approved his appointment, or a higher party body, heads of the relevant ministry and department. Attempts by law enforcement agencies to circumvent this order were immediately suppressed.
When in March 1947 OBKHSS of the Leningrad City Militia Directorate in the case of embezzlement in the Workers Supply Department of the plant No. 283 of the Ministry of Aviation Industry arrested without the consent of the Ministry, the party organization and the leadership of the Police Department, the deputy director of the supply plant, a member of the VKP (b) E. Skorokhod, head of the OBKHSS Grigoriev, who gave such an instruction, received a reprimand.
In March 1948, the law enforcement agencies of the Tikhvin region established that the chairman of the Lipkaya Gorka collective farm, Dolgonik, had appropriated 1.5 thousand rubles. state money. However, the district committee refused to give a sanction to bring him to criminal responsibility and, having removed Dolgonik from the post of chairman, transferred him to work at the Lespromkhoz. In 1950, the prosecutor's office of the Roshchinsky district convicted the chairman of the collective farm Evstikheev (retired colonel, deputy of the regional council) that he bought himself a dacha - a house at the price of a log house, squandered collective farm property, sold 6 collective farm houses to outsiders, etc. The district prosecutor Kharitonov handed over materials for the consideration of the issue of bringing Evstikheev to justice for consideration by the bureau of the district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. However, the representative of the regional committee and the secretary of the regional committee, Bogdanov, spoke in defense of Evstikheev. As a result, the prosecutor's submission to bring Evstikheev to trial was rejected. The collective farm chairman got off with a reprimand without entering into a personal file.
This position of local party leaders was explained by various motives. In a number of cases, this was, apparently, an attempt to protect a valuable employee who was forced to break certain rules in the “interests of the business”. However, much more often the motivation of party officials had personal reasons - unwillingness to lose the "necessary" person who would solve their problems, or even to be in the spotlight of punitive bodies themselves.
A story that took place in the spring of 1945 in the Kirishsky district of the Leningrad region can give an idea of these motives. Here, the district prosecutor Ivanishchev checked the distribution of American humanitarian aid intended for distribution to the most needy workers of the regional timber industry enterprise. As its results showed, the director, party organizer, other officials of the administrative apparatus, as well as the chairman of the district executive committee, took 102 food sets for themselves. The prosecutor reported the results of the investigation to the district committee, which decided not to bring the perpetrators to justice, but to confine themselves to a reprimand on the party line and the return of gifts.
In the course of the case, it turned out that part of the gifts did not reach the timber industry enterprise at all, but was appropriated by the deputy head of the state support department of the district executive committee Loginov, who was in charge of their distribution. However, the district committee here also limited itself to a reprimand. When the prosecutor for the second time convicted Loginov of stealing gifts, the secretary of the district committee categorically forbade the prosecutor Ivanishchev to deal with this case.
The principal prosecutor appealed to the regional prosecutor's office, which, through the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), managed to bring Loginov to criminal responsibility. However, his party patrons remained unpunished, and the prosecutor Ivanishchev was soon dismissed on the initiative of the district committee.
Police officers and prosecutors, who came into conflict with high-ranking corrupt officials, had to be ready for the prospect of not only losing their posts, but also getting themselves on trial. So, the prosecutor of the Oyat district of the region, Verevkin, who opened a criminal case on the abuse of the head of the trade department of the district executive committee, Malyshev, was accused by the secretary of the district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of raping a witness in a criminal case in his office.
A check by the regional prosecutor's office and the district department of the NKGB showed that all these charges were falsified with the participation of some district leaders (including the chairman of the district executive committee). Malyshev eventually appeared in court on charges of abuse of office and was sentenced to two years' suspended imprisonment, other schemers went unpunished. Verevkin, however, was reprimanded for his inability to establish contact with the district leadership.
If in relation to local economic leaders, despite opposition, the prosecutor's office and the police still sometimes managed to initiate criminal cases on charges of malfeasance and bring them to a court conviction, then in relation to high-ranking economic workers of the city and regional level and party and Soviet workers it was impossible. The compromising materials received on them were to be transferred to the controlling party bodies, which made a decision on punishing the guilty.
In a number of cases (as in the case of Legovoy and Movsesyants), those convicted of corruption were expelled from the party and dismissed from their jobs. But much more often the penalties were limited to either transfer to another job or a reprimand.
So, in 1951, the assistant to the deputy chairman of the city executive committee, Berdnikov, was dismissed from his post, involved in the illegal transfer of several trucks to the collective farms of the Novgorod region, which ended up in the hands of illegal dealers. The chairman of the district executive committee Zhitnev, caught in large abuses by the OBKHSS officers in 1948, was dismissed from his post and sent to study at the regional party school. The secretary of the Pavlovsk regional executive committee Semyonov and the head of the regional road department Lebedev, who used the forest intended for the construction of a wooden bridge to build their houses, got off with an educational conversation at a meeting of the regional executive committee.
Soviet and party officials could only be put on trial on corruption charges when they fell victim to another political campaign. In this case, it was the famous "Leningrad affair" of 1949-50.
So, by the decision of only one of the bureau of the city committee of the CPSU (b) in August 1949, 15 leading employees of the Leningrad City Executive Committee were dismissed from their jobs and expelled from the party for abuse of office. Practically all the secretaries of the district committees and the chairmen of the district administrations of Leningrad were convicted on charges of squandering state funds and self-supply. Many ordinary employees of the Leningrad law enforcement system perceived the unfolding events as a campaign to cleanse the party, state and economic apparatus of corrupt cadres. Both really corrupt officials and persons not involved in abuses were accused of supplying, merging with economic bodies, and malfeasance - all in bulk.
The fight against these phenomena was rather declared than carried out in reality, and the anti-corruption campaigns proclaimed by the authorities carried political overtones. A striking example of this approach is not only the "Leningrad case", but also a number of other cases at the regional level at the turn of the 40-50s ("Mingrelian", "Moscow", etc.). Their emergence was a consequence of Stalin's policy aimed at weakening regional nomenklatura groups and destroying their "unofficial" (including corruption) ties.
Stalin, of course, understood that the strengthening of the regional nomenklatura could lead to a weakening of the power of the center and an increase in corruption. However, an attempt to correct these negative factors turned, in accordance with the internal logic of the Stalinist regime, into mass political repression and noisy campaigns that did not affect the basis of nomenklatura corruption - the system of power and distribution of benefits in Soviet society.
sources
Quotes: Igor Govorov, "Corruption in the conditions of post-war Stalinism" - magazine "Modern history of Russia", No. 1, 2011
Illustrations - artist Yuri Pogorely