How Chernomyrdin refused to form Gazprom and why the Union collapsed
The candidate for the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, together with the Allied Minister of Finance and other high-ranking officials, decide to get involved in the theft of corn from the state farm field, where they are being held by horse patrols. Viktor Chernomyrdin receives an offer to become the first boss of the Gazprom Group, he is seriously offended by this and has long refused. The deputy head of one of the allied departments with obscene insults throws himself at the Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR and forcibly throws him on the bus. What are these fantasies from a new novel by a fashion writer like Pelevin? No, these are the real facts from the sensational memoirs of the last Minister of Economy of the USSR and five minutes later the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union Vladimir Shcherbakov.
Losers and Winners: Evolutionary Economic Strategy , whose supporter was Shcherbakov, proved unsolicited. Yeltsin and Gaidar began to reform Russia.
When Mikhail Gorbachev sought replacements for USSR Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov in the late 1990s, who “burned out at work”, the youngest member of the then government, 41-year-old chairman of the State Labor Committee Vladimir Shcherbakov, gave an offer for rejection from those who were not accepted. government, if I propose it? ” To answer the President's question with a polite but firm refusal – “I am probably the only one who cannot lead the Cabinet of Ministers!” – Only very non-standard personalities can. But Vladimir Shcherbakov has always refused to “fit in on a common scale.”
“I was not attracted to politics, I even left the work of the Komsomol quickly when I realized it was not 'mine'. He fled Moscow to the Togliatti factory and, in fact, told Komsomol Central Committee Secretary Boris Pastukhov that I was divorcing my wife and for moral reasons I could not work on the Central Committee. I deceived a decent man, whom everyone respected and treated me well, “wrote Vladimir Shcherbakov, who is still happily married. However, politics still caught up with our hero and catapulted into the very heart of the Allied power of the era of perestroika disintegration and the disintegration of the USSR. This autumn, Vladimir Shcherbakov, in collaboration with the famous Russian economic historian Nikolai Krotov, is preparing to publish a book of his memoirs in a small edition. With the permission of the authors, I present with my comments some of the most interesting excerpts from this work, which is extremely important for understanding our history.
Foreplay to Disintegration
A few months after his transformation in July 1989 into the youngest member of the trade union government, Vladimir Shcherbakov, along with other ministers, embarked on his first mission to the Komi Republic. The convoy was accompanied on the road by a traffic policeman with flashing lights. The delegation also included the then Prime Minister Nikolai Ryžkov.
“We were on a LiAZ bus, followed by several local leaders' cars and a lot of press cars. It was already cold in this region with a large snow cover and the road was a snow groove similar to a bobsled track with snow walls about one and a half to two meters high. Suddenly a strong blizzard started and we stopped seeing anything, including a traffic police car in front of us. I had to stop. The bus quickly covered with snow. At first, we didn't take what happened seriously, but when someone felt compelled to go “in the air” and we couldn't open the snowy door, there was no time for jokes. After the door had piled up, it was only possible to open it, behind them was a thick wall of snow. It turned out that we were just covered in snow, we were completely “buried” alive! LiAZ had an upper hatch, they also tried to open it, it turned out that there was also a large layer of snow at the top. Walled up! The weather in Moscow in those days was not bad and it was quite warm, Ryzhkov said: “For one day. In the morning, there, in the evening, back.
Vladimir Shcherbakov today.
The task was set immediately – not to freeze. Emergency reserves were set aside for its implementation – I and the Minister of the Coal Industry Mikhail Shchadov had a bottle of vodka in our case, the Minister of the Railways of the USSR Nikolai Konarev was the most experienced and pulled out two bottles. The rest of the ministers, as they were immediately called “freelancers from electricians and financiers,” had no supplies. The Minister of Forestry got it: “Well, you're from the foresters. Who's going to the woods without a bottle? ” Who is in thin boots is not sweet at all! cause medical alcohol.
In the end, we were lucky, the general's radio signal was picked up at the border post. There were several APCs at the time. Armored personnel carriers have been sent to our wanted list. And so we had the feeling that APC had passed on the roof of our bus. Apparently the army heard it too. Ryzhkov left in his first combat vehicle with his guards. When someone wanted to rock the ship and leave the bus with him, the bodyguards resolutely stopped him and became a wall at the hatch (and that was the only way out), defending themselves from the rest of the “violin” (suitcases with folding machine guns). Everything was immediately clear to everyone. ”
Going on a trip to a region with a very harsh climate (we are talking about the Komi Republic) “in a bright season and in shoes with a thin sole” – why is this not a symbol of the “economic reforms” of the Gorbachev period? Of course, some economic reforms were absolutely necessary or even inevitable. For example, the situation Vladimir Shcherbakov faced when he embarked on an inspection trip to Uzbekistan shortly after his transfer to the State Labor Committee in 1985: “In Nukus, a planned and permanently unprofitable shoe factory, there was a nurse. . I began to find out what was wrong with why it was planned to be unprofitable, and I found the following: the factory made a batch of shoes, sent it to a trading base, included a column of commodity products, and got paid for it. Not only from the store, but from the budget, because the losses were already included in the plan and are paid from the treasury. The following month, the base returned the entire dose as 100% defective. The shoes were re-registered at the factory and, allegedly eliminating the marriage, were sent back to base. The round was spinning, money from the budget came regularly and everyone was happy. ”
Naturally, an economic model in which it was considered “normal” could not survive. However, ill-considered and unprepared attempts to correct the “bad old” with a guarantee lead to the fact that “advanced and new” prove to be even more terrible and destructive than “mossy and old”. For example, the situation Vladimir Shcherbakov faced when he set out in 1989 to address the causes of the miners' strikes in the Donbas: They just rotted over the years. The management has decided to replace them. A young, very energetic Komsomol employee was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee. He began to show “heroic results”: without getting limits for new pipes, he organized the excavations of all the main hot water pipes without getting new ones. Throughout the winter, people heated apartments and private houses, water for washing and washing as much as possible. In addition, as on purpose in the winter, strong hail fell and the slate on most of the houses was broken. They promised to deliver a new one, but they did not. In an effort to speed up the renovation, this guy gave the order to remove the slate from the municipal housing. As a result, Vladimir Shcherbakov reassessed his stance on what previously seemed to him to be “senseless conservatism.” The young minister concluded that the country's entire leadership, regardless of age, had To be held hostage to their “limited life experiences.” “Limited” or, conversely, too “rich” life experiences? -align: center; “>
Shcherbakov had to persuade Viktor Chernomyrdin for a long time to agree to become Gazprom's first boss.
Two Chernobyls
May 1, 1986 began for the head of the department of the State Labor Committee of the USSR Vladimir Shcherbakov quite traditionally – by participating in special events on Red Square. On the contrary, the continuation of the “celebrations” proved to be very unusual: “For the first time, I received a ticket to the second podium. I admire the spectacle, suddenly two strong young men in civilian clothes come to me. To make sure I'm Shcherbakov, they offer to go with them. To the question “where?” – they answer briefly: “He will explain it to you!” One stands in front of me, the other behind me, in such a group we go to the Spasskaya Tower. There is only one thought in my head: “What did I prove to be taken straight from Red Square?” However, they did not take me to the guardhouse, but turned to the Council of Ministers building. And I soon found myself in the office of Deputy Prime Minister Boris Shcherbina. A meeting has taken place. I tried to understand what was going on, and I soon guessed that there was an explosion somewhere in Ukraine and the group was preparing there. When I realized that they had decided to involve me, I felt better: “So they will not be arrested! Anyway, not now! “
We were there in the evening. Shcherbina took us by bus to the shore of Pripyat, we stopped in front of the still burning station. They all went out and Boris Evdokimovich began giving instructions. Everyone listened humbly to him. At that moment, two peasants arrive and start shouting at the Deputy Prime Minister and a group of Soviet ministers. This is the first time I've seen it. “One of the” attackers “was Yuri Israel, then head of the USSR State Hydrometeorology and Environmental Control Committee. The construction of medium-sized machines of the USSR, the country's chief nuclear engineer at the time, Yuri Antonyevich not only shouted at us, but also took them all back to the bus. groove.
Why did the two top officials, but still not the top, dare to show such outrageous disrespect to their superiors? Because the authorities did not realize: giving instructions in the fresh air in the background of a burning nuclear power plant is a sophisticated, but at the same time very effective method of suicide. Unfortunately, even the assault did not help save the lives of the members of the government commission: “We all lived in an empty school. There were boxes of alcohol in the corners of the classroom. For some reason, it was believed that every hour or two it was necessary to rinse the throat and nose with vodka and treat her armpits and all other parts of the body where there were lymph nodes, and then drink a glass of Cahors. You can imagine the state we were in the whole time. But these measures have helped few. In a short time, funerary alleys of members of Chernobyl government commissions were formed in the Novodevichy and Troekurovsky cemeteries. I visit regularly. Today (2021) of the composition of our commission are alive – Lev Dmitrievich Ryabev (man of steel) and me. I couldn't drink anything for five years after these missions, and I still can't stand the Cahors. “
This is a lack of life experience. And here is an equally dramatic story of what his excess leads to: “Once a disabled man from Kaluga came to see me. He barely walks, barely sees … He told his story: in the late 1950s he served in the army and allegedly participated in exercises in the Tote forests, accompanied by an atomic explosion (according to him, the exercise was commanded by Marshal Zhukov, whom he personally saw). He received strong radiation, as a result of which he completely lost his life functions, although no commission acknowledges this. He receives a regular pension and there is no money for medicine. 200-300 such people still live, they keep in touch with each other. They had just withdrawn money and sent it to the young truth minister. “We don't have much life left.” To hell with her, with her pension. It is a pity that we die as disabled people who fell under the tram. And we gave our lives for the homeland. We want our grandchildren to know and appreciate it. Even without raising pensions. “To be honest, I was taken aback at first and didn't believe it because I've been in military training several times in these Toky forests and I've never seen or heard anything like it.
I went to consult (Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR Council of Ministers for Social Affairs) Alexandra Biryukova. She replied that she had known about these rumors for a long time. I checked it many times and made sure it was nonsense. She suggested that I forget … But something intrigued me, and I wrote a request to the Department of Defense. The negative answer came in secret mail, which scared me even more. Then another 50-60 wounded were found in the same conditions through the victim. In short, I went to the Minister of Defense, Marshal Dmitry Jazov, to find out if there were any exercises. Turns out they exist!
As a result of long negotiations, an appeal to the CPSU Central Committee, it was possible to create a new category of pensioners and the disabled – “personal pensioners of special risk units”. They compared them in terms of benefits to the disabled from the Patriotic War. And then I learned that Alexandra Biryuk's husband had been dying for several years, because he had also taken part in these exercises and received strong radiation. He couldn't go to the bathroom alone at home, but she still told me that she checked everything in person! I could only say that I do not have permission to discuss this topic – that is all. But she deliberately misled me, deceived me! She deceived, I'm sure, not out of bad intentions, but out of fear. Fear of the punishing power of the state, which has not disappeared from Alexandra Biryuk's life, even when the common man became a member of the state's top leadership. “
In the process of developing Gorbachev's reforms, this overwhelming fear slowly began to disappear. Sometimes the process of liberating people took on comic forms. For example, in the summer of 1988, a group of developers in the economic part of these reforms got into trouble: , Chairman of the State Committee for Commissions of the Soviet Union Valentin Pavlov, former head of the economic department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and now Minister of Finance of the USSR Boris Gostev and seems to be the then director of the Institute of Economics Academician Leonid Abalkin. One afternoon we walked with a sense of duty, and when we sailed on the Moscow River in the evening, we saw a corn field on the other side of the river, a collective farm that attracted our eyes. All the boys felt young, and everyone wanted so much to pluck a few ears of corn that without thinking they set sail on two ships, as it soon turned out to be an adventure.
With Ronald Reagan: if Shcherbakov agreed with the leadership of the Soviet government, there could have been many more similar photos.
At first everything went well, as boys we stuffed corn in the chest, had fun and were about to return when the JZD patrol noticed us. And two guards on horses and whips captured two of our friends – Valentina Pavlova and Boris Gostev. After leaving the coast, we began negotiations and tried to solve the problem peacefully. During the negotiations, a ransom price was set for the hostages. We quickly reached the sanatorium and returned with three or four bottles of vodka – as the locals of the two Soviet ministers appreciated. He made an honorable exchange. And they were all consumed with irrepressible laughter – they imagined what would happen if the kolkhoz members called a police platoon and they began to draw up a protocol for a “gang” led by a candidate for politburo membership! At the same time, we will explain to them that we were looking for ways to turn our economy into market dormitories tonight! ”
And here is an equally comic episode. Vladimir Shcherbakov, following instructions from the leadership, persuades USSR Gas Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to transform his ministry into Gazprom: “After hearing me, he asked indignantly:” Do you want to remove me from the post? Don't you understand what you're doing ?! Drifting all kinds of fantasies! “Victor said with great life experience.” Yes, I know you, you will take everything from me immediately! I was convinced that the freedom he would get would allow him to make his own decisions. “Yes, even the first turntable and KV communication will be interrupted at the same time, and the decree will not be issued yet!” – said the incredibly experienced minister, knowing that the special communications were based on a “closed” resolution by a very narrow circle of the country's top officials and the chairman of Gazprom, at least not yet on this list.
“Viktor, I swear, I will write directly in the resolution that all the conditions of the material and technical security of the president (let's say not the chairman, but the president) of the group remain at the level of the USSR minister, everyone will need you right away! You have resources and money in your hands !! A dream, not a job !!! “- I convinced Chernomyrdin.” Will I have a government car with special signals and an off-road vehicle? Or should I spend half a day in traffic jams in Moscow and queues to check documents? Asked the future landlord in disbelief. ” you can buy as many cars as you need, even the whole fleet! “-” No, you leave me Racek! “- Victor Stepanovich negotiated. – And my whole family is connected to the medical center on Michurinsky Prospect, will we stay connected to it? Or will you need to see a doctor with the help of doctors? “
But the time for jokes ended quickly. After Boris Yeltsin was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in 1990, an alternative center emerged in the country. And what methods, according to Vladimir Shcherbakov, started the second center: “My good friend and scientific supervisor of the doctoral dissertation Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov, former mayor of Moscow, when we both became retired politicians, confirmed what I knew earlier from the reports Ministry of Railways, State Statistics Committee and the KGB: about 5,000 (!) echelons with food were stopped in front of Moscow. They blocked all roads almost to the country's border. The railway was stopped to prevent the unloading of these cars. This was allegedly a decision of “democratic Russia”. But who would just listen to the leaders of the opposition movement? Where were the KGB, police, prosecutors, party and Soviet authorities? Everyone reported the situation, but nothing was done to restore order. As I understand it, all the participants had to pay a lot for such a decision. And then the question sacramental question arises: “Where does the money come from, Zine?”
It was a strong blow to government authority and the Union Center. We couldn't survive after him. The only thing the USSR Council of Ministers was able to answer was that the fines for idle carriages were increased fivefold. But is this the answer? “This is how the USSR first understood atomic Chernobyl and then economic and political Chernobyl.
Reflections on the parallel universe
“Could perestroika have had a different result, could we really restore the system without destroying the earth?” – Vladimir Shcherbakov asks a question and answers himself: “I think they could.” There is absolutely nothing original about such self-digging. But Shcherbakov's very spacious and convincing analysis of what we failed in the Gorbachev era is original: “Any reform, especially one that changes the basis and ideology of the current system, is always very painful for the country. There will certainly be dissatisfaction and sabotage. A strong, strong and cohesive team of experienced managers is needed to implement the reform. Such a team and reform can be successful under two conditions and the necessary conditions. First, there is a strong branched state power (legislative, judicial, executive) that ensures the implementation of adopted laws and decisions. Second, the final political, economic and social objectives of the reform, the concept and the action plan to achieve them should be clearly defined.
As none of these issues were not only resolved, but clearly discussed, it turned out that everything depended on the decision of the “principal”. The “chief”, as it turned out, did not understand 90% of the questions. And he was surrounded by the exact same assistants. It was paramount for them to present to the leader what he liked and in the form he liked best. ”There is a deadline in aviation. The term is purely technical, has no emotional connotation, and means unsystematic, unpredictable and uncontrollable changes of direction to the right or left in the same horizontal plane. But what Vladimir Shcherbakov described in his memoirs are not stories from the past, but warnings. Hunting should not become the mainstream of our policy. The USSR has not survived. Russia will not survive either.