How the advanced financial system of the USSR was destroyed
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M. S. Gorbachev. 1987.
Restructuring of state governing bodies
In addition to the particularly harsh “restructuring” of the security forces – the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Soviet Army, in essence, this was a pogrom with the aim of completely discrediting and denigrating the service class ("Suitcase, station - Russia!"), the destruction of state governing bodies took place.
This was a radical "reform" (pogrom) of the entire management structure. In one year, as part of the transition to "economic management methods" and full business accounting of enterprises in the industries, the middle management link was eliminated with the transition to a two-link "ministry - plant" system. Almost 600 thousand people were cut in the central management bodies of the USSR and the republics. The number of structural divisions of the central apparatus was reduced by 40%.
The information system of the national economy was destroyed. Since the USSR did not yet have a computer system for the accumulation, storage and distribution of information, experienced personnel with their card files were the main elements of the system. Now they were sent to the "dump". Documentation and card files were dumped in storage rooms, in archives, and essentially disappeared.
This became one of the important reasons for the ensuing devastation of the last years of the USSR. In essence, the informational, economic collapse and chaos were deliberately organized to make it easier to destroy the Red Empire.
In 1987, the process of merging and separating ministries began. There was no unified system. It was a real "ministerial hodgepodge", familiar to us from the last years of the Russian Empire, when preparations were underway to destroy the autocracy and Great Russia.
Thus, the USSR Ministry of Construction was "zoned" - on its basis, 4 ministries were created, responsible for construction in different regions of the USSR. In 1989, they were abolished. Six agricultural departments were liquidated, and the USSR State Agro-Industrial Committee was established. In 1989, it was abolished, and some of its functions were taken over by the State Commission of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Food and Procurement. It was liquidated in April 1991 and the USSR Ministry of Agriculture was created.
The same chaos was going on in other ministries and departments. In fact, since 1986, the central management apparatus of the economy has been destroyed. It is easier to catch fish in muddy water.
The destruction of the financial system and the consumer market
The Soviet financial system had two basic features that helped create the autocratic Soviet superpower, independent of the capitalist and dollar systems.
The first is that a special financial system of two circuits successfully operated in the Soviet Union. Non-cash money was used in production, the amount of which was determined by the inter-industry balance, and which was repaid by mutual offsets.
In essence, in the Union there was no financial capital and loan (parasitic) interest, which enriches a handful of oligarchs, plutocrats and bankers, as in the Russian Federation since the 1990s and 2000s, who have been living fat at the expense of the country’s natural resources and the exploitation of the people.
The consumer goods market was circulated with ordinary money received by the population in the form of salaries, pensions, benefits, etc. Their quantity was strictly regulated in accordance with the mass of cash goods and services. This allowed maintaining low prices and preventing inflation. Such a system worked effectively until the systems of the two circuits mixed - non-cash money was not converted into cash.
The second feature is the fundamental non-convertibility of the ruble. In the late 80s and 90s, there was a lot of laughing at the "wooden ruble". In fact, the exchange of the ruble for currency was only beneficial to a narrow layer of the new rich, the "new Russians", the new nobility in a rapidly degrading Russia, quickly losing the achievements of the most advanced civilization on Earth - the Soviet one. Such an exchange was also beneficial to the owners of the USA, who in exchange for their "green wrappers" (cut paper) received real resources - oil, gas, timber, ore, gold, uranium, etc.
The scale of prices in the USSR was completely different from that on the world market, and the ruble could only circulate within the country. This allowed each Soviet citizen to receive their dividends from public property, for example, in the form of low prices, low housing and communal services tariffs, etc. Therefore, the contour of cash had to be strictly closed in relation to the external market by the state monopoly of foreign trade.
The "perestroika" destroyers destroyed this harmonious and effective system. In 1988-1989, both contours of the financial system were exposed. First of all, the monopoly on foreign trade was abolished. From the beginning of 1987, 20 ministries and 70 large enterprises received the right to conduct export-import operations. A year later, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the State Committee for Economic Relations of the USSR were liquidated. The Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations was established, which only had the right to regulate foreign trade. By the law of 1990, local Soviets also received the right to foreign trade.
Thus, the opportunity was created to plunder the people's wealth, enrich various kinds of speculators, social parasites. For the creation of "shadow" capital.
Thus, according to the "Law on Cooperatives" (1988), a network of cooperatives and joint ventures quickly emerged at state enterprises and local councils. Only they did not have a production character, as under Stalin, but a trading, parasitic-robber character in relation to the national economy. They were engaged in the export of goods abroad, which sharply reduced their supply to the domestic market and worsened the situation of Soviet citizens who had nothing to do with this "celebration of life."
It was a very profitable exchange, on which businessmen made fortunes. Thus, many goods during speculation gave revenue of up to 50 US dollars per 1 ruble of expenses and therefore were bought up from enterprises in full. Some products (for example, aluminum cookware) were turned into scrap and sold as material. According to experts, in 1990, 1/3 of consumer goods were exported. Naturally, all this was at the expense of the country and the people. But a bunch of speculators, the organizers of this robbery operation, became fabulously rich.
It is obvious that and The countries of the West and East also got their gesheft-profit. The plundering of the Soviet civilization, which saved the capitalist system from another crisis and, possibly, catastrophe, was gaining momentum.
Queue for food cards, 1988
Further pogrom
The Law on the State Enterprise (Association) (1987) exposed the contours of non-cash money – it was allowed to convert it into cash. This was a step towards the privatization of the banking system. To a large extent, this work was entrusted to Komsomol activists. The then-created “centers of scientific and technical creativity of youth” (TSNTTM), supervised by the Central Committee of the All-Union Komsomol, received the exclusive right to cash non-cash money. For example, one of the first commercial banks – “Menatep”, before turning into a bank was TsNTTM “Menatep” under the Frunzensky District Committee of the CPSU.
Naturally, this led to the emergence of inflation. The CNTM were called "inflation locomotives".
Under the planned system, such a distribution of enterprise profits was maintained. Example 1985: 56% was contributed to the state budget, 40% remained with the enterprise, including 16% went to economic incentive funds (bonuses, allowances, etc.). In 1990, 36% of enterprise profits were contributed to the treasury, 51% remained with the enterprises. Moreover, 48% went to economic incentive funds.
That is, not only were contributions to the treasury sharply reduced, but almost no funds were left for the development of the enterprises themselves. This led to a sharp jump in personal incomes unrelated to production. The annual increase in the monetary income of the population of the USSR in 1981-1987 averaged 15,7 billion rubles, and in 1988-1990 already 66,7 billion. In 1991, in the first half of the year alone, the monetary income of the population increased by 95 billion rubles.
Funds were siphoned off from capital investments, investments in the future, into simple consumption. The future of the country and the people was "betrayed". "Perestroika" took on the character of a feast during the plague.
This happened with simultaneous inflation and reduction of commodity stocks, which were exported abroad at an accelerated pace. As a result, this led to the collapse of the consumer market - shortages, empty shelves, which the USSR is reproached for. It was necessary to introduce coupons for vodka, sugar and other goods. Imports increased sharply, again enriching traders and countries of the capitalist system.
Until 1989, the Union had a stable positive balance in foreign trade. In 1987, the excess of exports over imports was 7,4 billion rubles, and in 1990, there was a negative balance of 10 billion.
The authorities tried to delay the collapse by further destroying the system: a state budget deficit, growing domestic debt, and selling foreign exchange reserves. The treasury deficit was 1985 billion rubles in 13,9; 1990 billion in 41,4; 9 billion for the first 1991 months of 89. The situation in the RSFSR was even worse: there was no budget deficit until 1989; in 1990 it was already 29 billion rubles, and in 1991 it was 109 billion.
The growth of the deficit was facilitated by the anti-alcohol campaign launched in May 1985. The essence of which was: "started for health, but ended for the dead." The reduction in vodka sales and budget revenues from it were completely offset by its production in the "shadow economy." This dealt a powerful blow to the state treasury and strengthened the position of organized crime, which began the process of merging with rotten representatives of the local administration and the party nomenklatura.
A powerful sector of the "shadow" and "black" (criminal) economy is taking shape, and organized crime is gaining strength. Including the "alcohol mafia", which has effectively privatized the alcohol trade, having withdrawn tens of billions of rubles (at that time still quite substantial) from the budget for its own benefit.
The internal debt of the USSR is growing rapidly: in 1985 – 142 billion rubles; in 1989 – 399 billion (more than 41% of GNP); in 1990 – 566 billion (more than 56% of GNP); for 9 months of 1991 – 890 billion. The gold reserves, which before perestroika amounted to 2 thousand tons, decreased to 1991 tons in 200. The external debt, which was virtually non-existent in 1985, amounted to about 1991 billion dollars in 120.
The wealth of the great power was rapidly stolen, plundered, eaten up, squandered, and transferred to the West and the East.
In 1989, specialized banks (Promstroibank, Agroprombank, etc.) were transferred to business accounting, and in 1990 they began to transform into commercial ones. The nomenklatura and its entourage received the right to engage in highly profitable banking activities.
Thus, the effective Soviet financial system was destroyed, and its transfer to commercial (capitalist) rails began. All this was carried out in the interests of a part of the party-state apparatus, criminal layers associated with the "shadow economy", and a part of the intelligentsia infected with liberal, Western and cosmopolitan ideology.
The common people experienced uncontrolled price increases, a shortage of basic consumer goods, a decline in real incomes, the collapse of the national economy, and the prospect of the collapse of the USSR and turmoil (civil war). The state is losing the ability to fulfill its obligations to its citizens, in particular pensioners. The state has also been driven into bondage to foreign powers (external debt).
Queue for cigarettes, August 25, 1990.
Information