How did people live after the Great Patriotic War? Difficulties in the post-war life of the country How people lived in the post-war period

The Great Patriotic War, which became a difficult test and shock for the Soviet people, for a long time changed the entire way of life and the course of life of the majority of the country's population. Huge difficulties and material hardships were perceived as temporarily inevitable problems as a consequence of the war.

The post-war years began with the pathos of restoration and hopes for change. The main thing is that the war was behind us, people were happy that they survived, everything else, including living conditions, was not so important.

All the difficulties of everyday life fell mainly on the shoulders of women. Among the ruins of destroyed cities, they planted vegetable gardens, removed rubble and cleared places for new construction, at the same time raised children and provided for their families. People lived in the hope that very soon a new, freer and more secure life would come, that is why the Soviet society of those years was called the “society of hopes”.

"Second bread"

The main reality of everyday life of that time, trailing like a train from the war era, was the constant lack of food, a half-starved existence. The most important thing was missing - bread. Potatoes became the "second bread", its consumption doubled, it saved, first of all, the villagers from hunger.

Cakes were baked from grated raw potatoes, rolled in flour or breadcrumbs. They even used frozen potatoes, which were left in the field for the winter. It was taken out of the ground, the peel was removed, and a little flour, herbs, salt (if there was one) were added to this starchy mass and cakes were fried. Here is what the collective farmer Nikiforova from the village of Chernushki wrote in December 1948:

“The food is potato, sometimes with milk. In the village of Kopytova, bread is baked like this: they will wipe off a bucket of potatoes, put a handful of flour for gluing. This bread is almost without protein, which is necessary for the body. It is imperative to establish a minimum amount of bread that must be left intact, at least 300 grams of flour per person per day. Potatoes are a deceptive food, more flavorful than nourishing. "

People of the post-war generation still remember how they waited for spring, when the first grass appears: you can cook empty sorrel and nettle cabbage soup. They also ate "pestysh" - shoots of young field horsetail, "pillars" - sorrel peduncles. Even vegetable peelings were pounded in a mortar, then boiled and used for food.

Here is an excerpt from an anonymous letter to JV Stalin dated February 24, 1947: “Collective farmers mainly eat potatoes, and many do not even have potatoes, they eat food waste and hope for spring, when the green grass grows, then they will eat grass. But there are still some who will have dried potato peels and pumpkin rinds, who will dare and cook tortillas that pigs would not eat on a good farm. Preschool children do not know the color and taste of sugar, sweets, biscuits and other confectionery products, and eat on a par with grown-up potatoes and grass. "

A real boon for the villagers was the ripening of berries and mushrooms in the summer, which were collected mainly by teenagers for their families.

One workday (the unit of labor accounting on a collective farm) earned by a collective farmer brought him less food than the average citizen received on a food card. The collective farmer had to work and save all the money for a whole year so that he could buy the cheapest suit.

Empty cabbage soup and porridge

Things were no better in the cities. The country lived in an acute deficit, and in 1946-1947. the country was gripped by a real food crisis. In ordinary stores, food was often absent, they looked wretched, often cardboard dummies of food were displayed in the windows.

Prices on collective farm markets were high: for example, 1 kg of bread cost 150 rubles, which was more than a week's wages. They stood in queues for flour for several days, wrote the queue number on their hand with a chemical pencil, and arranged roll calls in the morning and in the evening.

At the same time, commercial stores began to open, where even delicacies and sweets were sold, but they were "beyond the means" of ordinary workers. This is how the American J. Steinbeck, who visited Moscow in 1947, described such a commercial store: “Grocery stores in Moscow are very large, like restaurants, they are divided into two types: those in which products can be purchased by cards, and commercial stores , also run by the state, where you can buy almost basic food, but at very high prices. Canned food is piled up in mountains, champagne and Georgian wines are in pyramids. We've seen products that might be American. There were jars of crabs with Japanese brands on them. There were German products. And here were the luxurious products of the Soviet Union: large cans of caviar, mountains of sausages from Ukraine, cheeses, fish and even game. And various smoked meats. But they were all delicacies. For a simple Russian, the main thing was how much bread cost and how much it was given, as well as the prices of cabbage and potatoes. "

Regular supplies and commercial trade services could not relieve people of food difficulties. Most of the townspeople lived from hand to mouth.

Bread and once a month two bottles (0.5 liters) of vodka were given on ration cards. People took her to suburban villages and exchanged for potatoes. The dream of a man of that time was sauerkraut with potatoes and bread and porridge (mainly pearl barley, millet and oats). Soviet people at that time practically did not see sugar and real tea, not to mention confectionery. Instead of sugar, they used slices of boiled beets, which were dried in the oven. They also drank carrot tea (made from dried carrots).

The letters of the workers of the post-war period testify to the same thing: the inhabitants of the cities were content with empty cabbage soup and porridge with an acute shortage of bread. Here is what they wrote in 1945-1946: “If it were not for bread, I would have ended its existence. I live on the same water. In the dining room, except for rotten cabbage and the same fish, you see nothing, portions are given such that you eat and you won't notice whether you had dinner or not ”(worker of the metallurgical plant IG Savenkov);

“The food has become worse than during the war - a bowl of gourd and two tablespoons of oatmeal porridge, and that for a day for an adult” (worker of the automobile plant M. Pugin).

Monetary reform and card abolition

After war time was marked by two major events in the country, which could not but affect daily life people: monetary reform and the abolition of cards in 1947

There were two points of view on the abolition of cards. Some believed that this would lead to a flourishing of speculative trade and an aggravation of the food crisis. Others believed that abolishing rationing and allowing commercial trade in bread and cereals would stabilize the food problem.

The card system has been canceled. The queues in stores continued to stand, despite the significant increase in prices. The price for 1 kg of black bread increased from 1 rub. up to 3 rubles. 40 kopecks, 1 kg of sugar - from 5 rubles. up to 15 rubles. 50 kopecks. To survive in these conditions, people began to sell things acquired before the war.

The markets were in the hands of speculators who sold essential commodities: bread, sugar, butter, matches and soap. They were supplied by "dishonest" workers of warehouses, bases, shops, canteens, who were in charge of food and supplies. In order to suppress speculation, the Council of Ministers of the USSR in December 1947 issued a decree “On the norms for the sale of industrial and food products in one hand. "

They let go into some hands: bread - 2 kg, cereals and pasta - 1 kg, meat and meat products - 1 kg, sausages and smoked meats - 0.5 kg, sour cream - 0.5 kg, milk - 1 liter, sugar - 0.5 kg, cotton fabrics - 6 m, threads on spools - 1 piece, stockings or socks - 2 pairs, leather, textile or rubber shoes - 1 pair, household soap - 1 piece, matches - 2 boxes, kerosene - 2 liters.

The meaning of the monetary reform was explained in his memoirs by the then Minister of Finance A.G. Zverev: “Since December 16, 1947, new money was put into circulation and they began to exchange cash for it, with the exception of a bargaining chip, within a week (in remote areas - within two weeks) at a ratio of 1 to 10. Deposits and current accounts in savings banks were revalued at a ratio of 1 for 1 to 3 thousand rubles, 2 for 3 from 3 thousand to 10 thousand rubles, 1 for 2 over 10 thousand rubles, 4 for 5 for cooperatives and collective farms. All ordinary old bonds, except for the loans of 1947, were exchanged for bonds of the new loan at 1 for 3 of the previous ones, and the 3% winning bonds - at the rate of 1 for 5. "

The monetary reform was carried out at the expense of the people. The money "in the box" suddenly depreciated, the tiny savings of the population were seized. If we consider that 15% of savings were kept in savings banks, and 85% in hands, it is clear who suffered from the reform. In addition, the reform did not affect the wages of workers and employees, which were kept at the same level.

The difficulties of returning to a peaceful life were complicated not only by the huge human and material losses that the war brought to our country, but also by the difficult tasks of economic recovery. After all, 1710 cities and urban-type settlements were destroyed, 7 thousand villages and villages were destroyed, 31850 factories and factories, 1135 mines, 65 thousand km were blown up and put out of action. railway tracks. The sown area decreased by 36.8 million hectares. The country has lost about a third of its wealth.

The war claimed nearly 27 million human lives and this is its most tragic outcome. 2.6 million people became disabled. The population decreased by 34.4 million people and amounted to 162.4 million people by the end of 1945. The decline in the workforce, lack of adequate food and housing led to a decrease in the level of labor productivity in comparison with the pre-war period.

The country began to restore the economy during the war years. In 1943, a special party and government decree was adopted "On urgent measures to restore farms in areas liberated from the German occupation." By the end of the war, through the colossal efforts of the Soviet people, it was possible to restore industrial production by a third of the level of 1940. However, after the end of the war, it became the central task of restoring the country.

Economic discussions began 1945-1946.

The government instructed the State Planning Committee to prepare a draft of the fourth five-year plan. Suggestions were made for a certain softening of pressure in the management of the economy, for the reorganization of collective farms. A draft of a new Constitution was prepared. He allowed the existence of small private farms of peasants and handicraftsmen, based on personal labor and excluding the exploitation of other people's labor. During the discussion of this project, ideas were sounded about the need to provide more rights to regions and people's commissariats.

Calls for the liquidation of collective farms were heard more and more often "from below". They talked about their inefficiency, reminded that the relative easing of government pressure on manufacturers during the war years had a positive result. Direct analogies were drawn with the new economic policy introduced after the civil war, when the economic revival began with the revival of the private sector, the decentralization of management and the development of light industry.

However, in these discussions, the point of view of Stalin, who declared at the beginning of 1946 that he would continue the course taken before the war to complete the construction of socialism and build communism, won out. It was about returning to the pre-war model of over-centralization in planning and managing the economy, and at the same time to the contradictions between the sectors of the economy that developed in the 1930s.

The struggle of the people for the revival of the economy became a heroic page in the post-war history of our country. Western experts believed that the restoration of the destroyed economic base would take at least 25 years. However, the recovery period in industry was less than 5 years.

The revival of industry took place in very difficult conditions. First post-war years the labor of Soviet people differed little from labor in wartime. The constant shortage of food, the most difficult working and living conditions, a high mortality rate, were explained to the population by the fact that the long-awaited peace had just come and life was about to get better.

Some wartime restrictions were lifted: the 8-hour working day and annual leave were reintroduced, and forced overtime was abolished. In 1947, a monetary reform was carried out and the rationing system was abolished, and uniform prices for food and industrial goods were established. They were taller than the pre-war ones. As before the war, from one to one and a half monthly salaries per year were spent on buying bonds. compulsory loan... Many working families still lived in dugouts and barracks, and sometimes worked in the open air or in unheated premises, using old equipment.

The restoration took place in the conditions of a sharp increase in the displacement of the population caused by the demobilization of the army, the repatriation of Soviet citizens, and the return of refugees from the eastern regions. Considerable funds were spent on supporting the allied states.

The huge losses in the war caused a shortage of manpower. The turnover of personnel increased: people were looking for more favorable working conditions.

As before, acute problems were to be resolved by increasing the transfer of funds from the countryside to the city and by developing the labor activity of the workers. One of the most famous initiatives of those years was the movement of "high-speed workers", initiated by the Leningrad turner GS Bortkevich, who performed a 13-day production rate on a lathe in February 1948 in one shift. The movement became massive. At some enterprises, attempts were made to introduce cost accounting. But to consolidate these new phenomena, no material measures were taken; on the contrary, with an increase in labor productivity, prices decreased.

There is a tendency towards a wider use of scientific and technical developments in production. However, it manifested itself mainly at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex (MIC), where the process of developing nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, missile systems, new models of tank and aviation equipment was underway.

In addition to the military-industrial complex, preference was also given to mechanical engineering, metallurgy, and the fuel energy industry, the development of which took 88% of all capital investments in industry. As before, the light and food industries did not meet the minimum needs of the population.

In total, over the years of the 4th five-year plan (1946-1950), 6,200 large enterprises were restored and rebuilt. In 1950, industrial production exceeded pre-war indicators by 73% (and in the new union republics - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Moldova - by 2-3 times). True, this also included reparations and products of joint Soviet-German enterprises.

The people became the main creator of these successes. With his incredible efforts and sacrifices, seemingly impossible economic results were achieved. At the same time, the possibilities of a super-centralized economic model, the traditional policy of redistributing funds from the light and food industries, agriculture and social sphere in favor of heavy industry. Reparations received from Germany (4.3 billion dollars) also rendered significant assistance, which provided up to half of the volume of industrial equipment installed in those years. The labor of nearly 9 million Soviet prisoners and about 2 million German and Japanese prisoners of war also contributed to the post-war reconstruction.

Weakened from the war, the country's agriculture, whose output in 1945 did not exceed 60% of the pre-war level.

A difficult situation developed not only in cities, in industry, but also in the countryside, in agriculture. The collective farm village, in addition to material hardships, experienced an acute shortage of people. The drought of 1946, which engulfed most of the European territory of Russia, became a real disaster for the village. Almost everything was confiscated from the collective farmers for requisitioning. The villagers were doomed to starvation. In the famine-stricken regions of the RSFSR, Ukraine, and Moldova, due to flight to other places and an increase in mortality, the population decreased by 5-6 million people. Alarming signals about hunger, dystrophy, mortality came from the RSFSR, Ukraine, Moldova. The collective farmers demanded to dissolve the collective farms. They motivated this question by the fact that "there is no strength to live like this any longer." In his letter to P.M. Malenkov, for example, a student of the Smolensk Military-Political School N.M. Menshikov wrote: “... life on the collective farms (Bryansk and Smolensk regions) is really unbearably bad. For example, on the Novaya Zhizn collective farm (Bryansk oblast), almost half of the collective farmers have not had bread for 2-3 months, and some do not have potatoes either. The situation is not the best in half of the other collective farms in the region ... "

The state, buying agricultural products at fixed prices, compensated collective farms for only a fifth of the costs of milk production, 10th for grain, and 20th for meat. The collective farmers received practically nothing. They were saved by their subsidiary farming. But the state also dealt a blow to him: in favor of the collective farms in 1946-1949. cut 10.6 million hectares of land from peasant household plots, and taxes on income from sales in the market were significantly increased. Moreover, only peasants were allowed to trade on the market, whose collective farms carried out state supplies. Each peasant farm is obliged to surrender meat, milk, eggs, wool to the state as a tax on land. In 1948, collective farmers were "recommended" to sell small livestock to the state (which was allowed by the charter), which caused the mass slaughter of pigs, sheep, goats (up to 2 million heads) throughout the country.

The monetary reform of 1947 hit hardest on the peasantry, who kept their savings at home.

The pre-war Roma remained, restricting the freedom of movement of collective farmers: they were actually deprived of their passports, they were not paid for the days when they did not work due to illness, and they were not paid old-age pensions.

By the end of the 4th five-year plan, the poor economic situation of the collective farms demanded their reform. However, the authorities saw its essence not in material incentives, but in the next restructuring. It was recommended to develop a brigade form of work instead of a link. This caused the discontent of the peasants and the disorganization of agricultural work. The ensuing enlargement of collective farms led to a further reduction in peasant holdings.

Nevertheless, with the help of coercive measures and at the cost of tremendous efforts of the peasantry in the early 50s. managed to bring the country's agriculture to the pre-war level of production. However, the deprivation of the peasants' still remaining incentives to work brought the country's agriculture to a crisis and forced the government to take emergency measures to supply food to the cities and the army. A course was taken to "tighten the screws" in the economy. This step was theoretically substantiated in Stalin's work "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" (1952). In it, he defended the idea of ​​the predominant development of heavy industry, the acceleration of the complete nationalization of property and forms of organization of labor in agriculture, and opposed any attempts to revive market relations.

“It is necessary ... through gradual transitions ... to raise collective farm property to the level of public property, and to replace commodity production ... with a system of product exchange, so that the central government ... could cover all the products of social production in the interests of society ... transition to the formula "to each according to his needs", leaving in force such economic factors as collective farm property, commodity circulation, etc. "

It was also said in Stalin's article that under socialism the growing needs of the population will always outstrip the possibilities of production. This position explained to the population the dominance of the deficit economy and justified its existence.

Outstanding achievements in industry, science and technology have become a reality thanks to the tireless work and dedication of millions of Soviet people. However, the return of the USSR to the pre-war model of economic development caused a deterioration in a number of economic indicators in the post-war period.

The war changed the social and political atmosphere that developed in the USSR in the 1930s; broke the "iron curtain" with which the country was fenced off from the rest of the world "hostile" to it. Participants in the European campaign of the Red Army (and there were almost 10 million people), numerous repatriates (up to 5.5 million) saw with their own eyes the world they knew only from propaganda materials that exposed its vices. The differences were so great that they could not help but sow doubts among many about the correctness of the usual assessments. The victory in the war gave rise to hopes among the peasants for the dissolution of collective farms, among the intelligentsia - for weakening the policy of dictatorship, among the population of the union republics (especially in the Baltic States, Western Ukraine and Belarus) - for a change in national policy. Even in the sphere of the nomenclature renewed during the war years, an understanding of the inevitable and necessary changes was ripening.

What was our society after the end of the war, which had to solve the very difficult tasks of restoring the national economy and completing the construction of socialism?

Post-war Soviet society was predominantly female. This created serious problems, not only demographic, but also psychological, which grew into a problem of personal disorder, female loneliness. The post-war "fatherlessness" and the child homelessness and crime it engenders come from the same source. And yet, despite all the losses and hardships, it was thanks to the feminine principle that the post-war society turned out to be surprisingly viable.

A society that emerged from war differs from a society in a "normal" state, not only in its demographic structure, but also in its social composition. Its appearance is determined not by traditional categories of the population (urban and rural residents, factory workers and employees, youth and pensioners, etc.), but by societies born of war.

The face of the post-war period was, first of all, a "man in a tunic". In total, 8.5 million people were demobilized from the army. The problem of the transition from war to peace was most concerned with the front-line soldiers. Demobilization, which was so dreamed of at the front, the joy of returning home, and at home they were in for disorder, material deprivation, additional psychological difficulties associated with switching to new tasks of a peaceful society. And although the war united all generations, it was especially difficult, first of all, for the youngest (born in 1924-1927), i.e. those who went to the front from school, not having time to get a profession, to acquire a stable life status. Their only business was war, their only skill was the ability to hold weapons and fight.

Often, especially in journalism, the front-line soldiers were called "neo-Decembrists", meaning the potential for freedom that the victors carried in themselves. But in the first years after the war, not all of them were able to realize themselves as an active force of social change. This largely depended on the specific conditions of the post-war years.

First, the very nature of the war of national liberation, just presupposes the unity of society and power. In solving a common national task - confronting the enemy. But in a peaceful life, a complex of "disappointed hopes" is formed.

Secondly, it is necessary to take into account the factor of psychological overstrain of people who have spent four years in the trenches and need psychological relief. People tired of war naturally strived for creation, for peace.

After the war, a period of "healing of wounds" - both physical and mental, inevitably begins - a difficult, painful period of returning to a peaceful life, in which even ordinary everyday problems (home, family, lost for many during the war) sometimes become insoluble.

Here is how one of the front-line soldiers V. Kondratyev spoke about the painful: “Everyone somehow wanted to improve their lives. After all, one had to live. Someone got married. Someone joined the party. I had to adapt to this life. We didn’t know any other options ”.

Thirdly, the perception of the surrounding order as a given, which forms a generally loyal attitude towards the regime, in itself did not mean that all front-line soldiers, without exception, viewed this order as ideal or, in any case, just.

"We did not accept much in the system, but we could not even imagine any other" - such an unexpected confession could be heard from the front-line soldiers. It reflects the characteristic contradiction of the post-war years, splitting the consciousness of people with a sense of the injustice of what is happening and the hopelessness of attempts to change this order.

Such sentiments were characteristic not only of the front-line soldiers (first of all, for the repatriates). There were attempts to isolate the repatriated, despite official statements from the authorities.

Among the population evacuated to the eastern regions of the country, the process of re-evacuation began in wartime. With the end of the war, this aspiration became widespread, however, it was not always feasible. Violent travel bans caused dissatisfaction.

“The workers gave all their strength to defeat the enemy and wanted to return to their homelands,” said one of the letters, “but now it turned out that they deceived us, they took us out of Leningrad, and they want to leave us in Siberia. If only this happens, then we, all workers, must say that our government has betrayed us and our labor! "

So after the war, desires collided with reality.

“In the spring of 1945, people are not without reason. - considered themselves to be giants, ”the writer E. Kazakevich shared his impressions. With this mood, the front-line soldiers entered a peaceful life, leaving, as it seemed to them then, beyond the threshold of the war, the most terrible and difficult. However, the reality turned out to be more complicated, not at all what it had seen from the trench.

“In the army, we often talked about what would happen after the war, - recalled the journalist B. Galin, - how we will live the next day after the victory, - and the closer the end of the war was, the more we thought about it, and a lot of it painted in a rainbow light. We did not always imagine the size of the destruction, the scale of work that would have to be done to heal the wounds inflicted by the Germans. " “Life after the war seemed like a holiday, for the beginning of which only one thing is needed - the last shot,” K. Simonov seemed to continue this thought.

"Normal life", where you can "just live" without being exposed to every minute danger, in wartime was seen as a gift of fate.

"Life is a holiday", life is a fairy tale "veterans entered a peaceful life, leaving, as it seemed to them then, beyond the threshold of the war, the most terrible and difficult. long did not mean - with the help of this image, a special concept of post-war life was also modeled in the mass consciousness - without contradictions, without tension. There was hope. And such a life existed, but only in movies and books.

The hope for the best and the optimism it fueled set the pace for the beginning of post-war life. They did not lose heart, the war was over. There was the joy of work, victory, the spirit of competition in striving for the best. Despite the fact that they often had to put up with difficult material and living conditions, they worked selflessly, restoring the destruction of the economy. So, after the end of the war, not only the front-line soldiers who returned home, but also those who survived all the difficulties in the rear last war Soviet people lived with the hope of changing the socio-political atmosphere for the better. The special conditions of the war forced people to think creatively, to act independently, to take responsibility. But hopes for changes in the socio-political situation were very far from reality.

In 1946, several notable events took place, which in one way or another disturbed the public atmosphere. Contrary to the fairly widespread belief that at that time public opinion was extremely tacit, actual evidence suggests that this statement is far from completely true.

At the end of 1945 - beginning of 1946, a campaign was held for the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which took place in February 1946. As one would expect, at official meetings people mostly spoke out “For” the elections, supporting the policy of the party and its leaders. On the ballot papers one could find toasts in honor of Stalin and other members of the government. But along with this, there were absolutely opposite judgments.

People said: "It won't be our way anyway, they write what they vote for"; “The essence is reduced to a simple“ formality - the design of a prearranged candidate ”... and so on. It was "stick democracy", it was impossible to evade the elections. The inability to express openly one's point of view, without fearing the authorities' sanctions, gave rise to apathy, and at the same time subjective alienation from the authorities. People expressed doubts about the expediency and timeliness of the elections, which cost a lot, while thousands of people were on the verge of starvation.

The destabilization of the general economic situation was a strong catalyst for the growth of discontent. The scale of speculation in bread has grown. In the queues for bread, there were more frank conversations: “Now we need to steal more, otherwise you will not live”, “Husbands and sons were killed, and instead of relief they raised prices for us”; "Now life has become more difficult than during the war."

Attention is drawn to the modestness of the desires of people who require only the establishment of a living wage. Dreams of the war years that after the war "there will be a lot of everything" will come happy life, began to devalue rather quickly. All the difficulties of the post-war years were explained by the consequences of the war. People were already beginning to think that the end of peaceful life had come, and war was approaching again. In the minds of people, for a long time to come, the war will be perceived as the cause of all post-war hardships. People saw the reason for the rise in prices in the fall of 1946 in the approach of a new war.

However, despite the presence of very decisive moods, at that time they did not prevail: the craving for a peaceful life turned out to be too strong, too serious fatigue from the struggle, in any form. In addition, most people continued to trust the country's leadership, to believe that it was acting in the name of the people's good. It can be said that the policy of the upper circles of the first post-war years was based solely on the credit of confidence on the part of the people.

In 1946, the commission for the preparation of the draft of the new Constitution of the USSR finished its work. In accordance with the new Constitution, direct and secret elections of people's judges and assessors were held for the first time. But all power remained in the hands of the party leadership. In October 1952: the XIX Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) took place, which decided to rename the party to the CPSU. At the same time, the political regime became tougher, a new wave of repressions was growing.

The GULAG system reached its climax precisely in the post-war years. To the prisoners of the mid-30s. millions of new "enemies of the people" were added. One of the first blows fell on prisoners of war, many of whom, after being freed from Nazi captivity, were sent to the camps. There were also exiled "alien elements" from the Baltic republics, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.

In 1948, special regime camps were created for those convicted of "anti-Soviet activities" and "counter-revolutionary acts", which used especially sophisticated methods of influencing prisoners. Not wanting to put up with their position, political prisoners in a number of camps revolted; sometimes under political slogans.

The possibilities of transforming the regime towards any kind of liberalization were very limited due to the extreme conservatism of ideological principles, thanks to the stability of which the protective line had an unconditional priority. The theoretical basis of the "hard" course in the field of ideology can be considered the decision of the Central Office of the CPSU (b) "On the magazines" Zvezda "and" Leningrad ", adopted in August 1946, which, although it concerned the field of artistic creativity, was actually directed against public dissent as such. However, the matter was not limited only to "theory". In March 1947, at the suggestion of A. A. Zhdanov, a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "On courts of honor in the ministries of the USSR and central departments" was adopted, according to which special elective bodies were created "to combat misdemeanors that undermine the honor and dignity of a Soviet worker. ". One of the most notorious cases that went through the "court of honor" was the case of Professors N. G. Klyuchevaya and G. I. Roskin (June 1947), the authors of the scientific work "Ways of Biotherapy for Cancer", who were accused of antipatriotism and cooperation with foreign companies. For such a "sin" in 1947. they still received a public reprimand, but already in this preventive campaign, the main approaches of the future struggle against cosmopolitanism were guessed.

However, all these measures at that time had not yet had time to take shape in another campaign against "enemies of the people." The leadership "hesitated" supporters of the most extreme measures, "hawks", as a rule, did not receive support.

Since the path of progressive changes of a political nature was blocked, the most constructive post-war ideas concerned not politics, but the sphere of economics.

D. Volkogonov in his work “I. V. Stalin ". Political portrait writes about recent years I. V. Stalin:

“Stalin's whole life is shrouded in an almost impenetrable veil, like a shroud. He constantly watched all his associates. It was impossible to be mistaken neither in word nor in deed: “The comrades-in-arms of the“ leader ”knew well about this.

Beria regularly reported on the results of observations of the dictator's entourage. Stalin, in turn, followed Beria, but this information was not complete. The content of the reports was oral, and therefore secret.

In the arsenal of Stalin and Beria, there was always a version of a possible "conspiracy", "assassination", "terrorist attack" at the ready.

A closed society begins with leadership. “Only the smallest part of his personal life was given over to the light of publicity. In the country there were thousands, millions, portraits, busts of a mysterious man whom the people idolized, adored, but did not know at all. Stalin knew how to keep in secret the strength of his power and his personality, betraying to the public only what was intended for exultation and admiration. Everything else was covered with an invisible shroud. "

Thousands of "miners" (convicts) worked at hundreds, thousands of enterprises in the country under the protection of an escort. Stalin believed that all unworthy titles of "new man" had to undergo a lengthy re-education in the camps. As is clear from the documents, it was Stalin who initiated the transformation of prisoners into a permanent source of powerless and cheap labor. This is confirmed by official documents.

February 21, 1948, when the new round repression, the "Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR" was published, in which "the orders of the authorities were read:

"1. To oblige the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs of all those serving sentences in special camps and prisons for spies, saboteurs, terrorists, Trotskyists, rightists, leftists, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, nationalists, White émigrés and other persons posing a danger due to their anti-Soviet connections and hostile activities, after the expiration of the terms of punishment should be sent, by appointment of the Ministry of State Security, into exile to settlements under the supervision of the bodies of the Ministry of State Security in the Kolyma regions in the Far East, in the regions of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Novosibirsk Region, located 50 kilometers north of the Trans-Siberian Railway, in the Kazakh SSR ... "

At the same time, the draft Constitution, sustained in general within the framework of the pre-war political doctrine, contained a number of positive provisions: there were ideas about the need to decentralize economic life, grant large economic rights in the localities and directly to the people's commissariats. There were suggestions about the liquidation of special wartime courts (first of all, the so-called "liner courts" in transport), as well as military tribunals. And although such proposals were classified by the editorial committee as inexpedient (reason: excessive detailing of the project), their nomination can be considered quite symptomatic.

Ideas similar in direction were expressed during the discussion of the draft Party Program, work on which was completed in 1947. These ideas were concentrated in proposals to expand internal party democracy, to free the party from the functions of economic management, to develop principles of personnel rotation, etc. Since neither the draft Constitution, neither the draft program of the CPSU (b) was published and their discussion was conducted in a relatively narrow circle of responsible workers, the appearance in this environment of ideas that were quite liberal at that time testifies to the new sentiments of some of the Soviet leaders. In many ways, these were really new people who came to their posts before the war, during the war, or a year or two after the victory.

The situation was aggravated by open armed resistance to "tightening the screws" Soviet power in the annexed on the eve of the war the Baltic republics and the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. The anti-government guerrilla movement has drawn tens of thousands of fighters into its orbit, both convinced nationalists, relying on the support of Western intelligence services, and ordinary people who have suffered a lot from the new regime, who have lost their homes, property, and relatives. The insurgency in these areas was ended only in the early 1950s.

Stalin's policy in the second half of the 1940s, starting in 1948, was based on the elimination of the symptoms of political instability and growing social tension. The Stalinist leadership took action in two directions. One of them included measures that, to one degree or another, were adequate to the expectations of the people and aimed at enhancing social and political life in the country, developing science and culture.

In September 1945, the state of emergency was lifted and the State Defense Committee was abolished. In March 1946 the Council of Ministers. Stalin said that victory in the war meant, in essence, the end of the transitional state, and therefore it was time to put an end to the concepts of "people's commissar" and "commissariat." At the same time, the number of ministries and departments grew, and the number of their staff grew. In 1946, elections were held to local councils, the Supreme Soviets of the republics, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as a result of which the deputy corps, which had not changed during the war years, was renewed. In the early 1950s, sessions of the Soviets began to be convened, and the number of standing commissions increased. In accordance with the Constitution, direct and secret elections of people's judges and assessors were held for the first time. But all power remained in the hands of the party leadership. Stalin pondered how Volkogonov DA writes about this: “The people live in poverty. For example, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reports that in a number of regions, especially in the east, people are still starving and clothes are bad. " But according to Stalin's deep conviction, as Volkogonov asserts, “the provision of people above a certain minimum only corrupts them. And there is no way to give more; it is necessary to strengthen the defense, develop heavy industry. The country must be strong. And for this, you will have to tighten your belt in the future. "

People did not see that in conditions of the strictest shortage of goods, the policy of lowering prices played a very limited role in increasing welfare at extremely low wages. By the beginning of the 50s, the standard of living, real wages barely exceeded the level of 1913.

"Long experiments, abruptly" mixed "in a terrible war, have given little to the people in terms of a real rise in living standards."

But, despite the skepticism of some people, the majority continued to trust the country's leadership. Therefore, difficulties, even the food crisis of 1946, were most often perceived as inevitable and someday surmountable. It can definitely be argued that the policy of the upper circles of the first post-war years was based on the credit of trust on the part of the people, which was quite high after the war. But if the use of this loan allowed the leadership to stabilize the post-war situation over time and, in general, to ensure the country's transition from a state of war to a state of peace, then, on the other hand, the people's confidence in the top leadership made it possible for Stalin and his leadership to delay the decision of vital reforms, and subsequently, in fact, block the tendency of democratic renewal of society.

The possibilities of transforming the regime towards any kind of liberalization were very limited due to the extreme conservatism of ideological principles, thanks to the stability of which the protective line had an unconditional priority. The theoretical basis of the "cruel" course in the sphere of ideology can be considered the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted in August 1946 "On the magazines" Zvezda and "Leningrad", which, although it concerned the region, is directed against public dissent as such. The matter was not limited to "theory". In March 1947, at the suggestion of A. A. Zhdanov, a resolution was adopted by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On Courts of Honor in USSR Ministries and Central Departments," which was discussed earlier. These were already the preconditions for the approaching mass repressions of 1948.

As you know, the beginning of the repressions fell primarily on those who were serving their sentences for the "crime" of the war and the first post-war years.

By this time, the path of progressive changes of a political nature was already blocked, narrowing to possible amendments to liberalization. The most constructive ideas that appeared in the first post-war years concerned the economic sphere. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) received more than one letter with interesting, sometimes innovative thoughts on this matter. Among them there is a noteworthy document of 1946 - the manuscript "Post-war domestic economy" by S. D. Alexander (a non-partisan, who worked as an accountant at one of the enterprises of the Moscow region. The essence of his proposals was reduced to the foundations of a new economic model, built on the principles of the market and partial denationalization of the economy The ideas of SD Alexander had to share the fate of other radical projects: they were classified as “harmful” and written off to the “archive.” The center remained firmly committed to the previous course.

The idea of ​​some kind of "dark forces" that "deceive Stalin" created a special psychological background, which, arising from the contradictions of the Stalinist regime, in fact, its denial, at the same time was used to strengthen this regime, to stabilize it. The removal of Stalin from the brackets of criticism was saved not only by the name of the leader, but also by the regime itself, animated by this name. This was the reality: for millions of contemporaries, Stalin acted as the last hope, the most reliable support. It seemed, if not for Stalin, life would collapse. And the more difficult the situation inside the country became, the more the special role of the Leader was strengthened. Attention is drawn to the fact that among the questions asked by people at lectures during 1948-1950, one of the first places is those related to concern for the health of "Comrade Stalin" (in 1949 he turned 70 years).

1948 put an end to the post-war hesitation of the leadership regarding the choice of "soft" or "hard" course. The political regime has become tougher. And a new round of repression began.

The GULAG system reached its climax precisely in the post-war years. In 1948, special regime camps were created for those convicted of "anti-Soviet activities" and "counter-revolutionary acts." Along with the political prisoners in the camps after the war, there were many other people. Thus, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 2, 1948, the local authorities were granted the right to evict to remote areas persons "maliciously evading work in agriculture." Fearing the increased popularity of the military during the war, Stalin authorized the arrest of A.A.Novikov, air marshal, generals P.N.Ponedelin, N.K. The commander himself was accused of putting together a group of disgruntled generals and officers, of ingratitude and disrespect for Stalin.

Repression also affected some of the party functionaries, especially those who strove for independence and greater independence from the central government. Many party and state leaders were arrested who were nominated by AA Zhdanov, a member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), who had died in 1948, from among the leaders of Leningrad. The total number of those arrested in the "Leningrad case" was about 2 thousand people. After some time, 200 of them were put on trial and shot, including the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia M. Rodionov, a member of the Politburo and Chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR N.A.Voznesensky, secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) A.A.Kuznetsov.

The "Leningrad affair", reflecting the struggle within the top leadership, should have become a stern warning to everyone who at least in some way thought differently than the "leader of the peoples."

The last of the trials that were being prepared was the "Doctors' Plot" (1953), accused of improper treatment of the top leadership, which resulted in the death of the poison of prominent figures. In total, the victims of repression in 1948-1953. became 6.5 million people.

So, JV Stalin became the general secretary even under Lenin. During the 20-30-40s, he strove to achieve complete autocracy, and thanks to a number of circumstances within the socio-political life of the USSR, he achieved success. But the rule of Stalinism, i.e. the omnipotence of one person - I. V. Stalin was not inevitable. The deep intertwining of objective and subjective factors in the activities of the CPSU led to the emergence, approval and the most harmful manifestations of the omnipotence and crimes of Stalinism. By objective reality we mean the multi-structured nature of pre-revolutionary Russia, the enclave of its development, the bizarre interweaving of the remnants of feudalism and capitalism, the weakness and fragility of democratic traditions, and the unbeaten paths of movement towards socialism.

Subjective aspects are associated not only with the personality of Stalin himself, but also with the factor of the social composition of the ruling party, which included in the early 1920s the so-called thin layer of the old Bolshevik guard, largely exterminated by Stalin, the rest of it for the most part moved to the position of Stalinism. Undoubtedly, Stalin's entourage, whose members became accomplices in his actions, also belongs to the subjective factor.



Have Great Victory there was also a Great Price. The war claimed 27 million lives. The economy of the country, especially on the territory subjected to occupation, was thoroughly undermined: 1,710 cities and townships, more than 70 thousand villages and villages, about 32 thousand industrial enterprises, 65 thousand kilometers of railways, 75 million people were completely or partially destroyed. The concentration of efforts on military production, necessary to achieve victory, led to a significant depletion of the population's resources and to a decrease in the production of consumer goods. During the war, the already insignificant housing construction fell sharply, while the country's housing stock was partially destroyed. Later, unfavorable economic and social factors came into play: low wages, an acute housing crisis, the involvement of an increasing number of women in production, and so on.

After the war, the birth rate began to decline. In the 50s, it was 25 (per 1000), and before the war 31. In 1971-1972, per 1000 women aged 15-49, there were half the number of children born per year than in 1938-1939. ... In the first post-war years, the working-age population of the USSR was also significantly lower than the pre-war period. There is information at the beginning of 1950 in the USSR there were 178.5 million people, that is, 15.6 million less than in 1930 - 194.1 million people. In the 60s, there was an even greater decline.

The drop in the birth rate in the first post-war years was associated with the death of whole age groups men. The death of a significant part of the country's male population during the war created a difficult, often catastrophic situation for millions of families. A large category of widows of families and single mothers has emerged. The woman was given double responsibilities: material support for the family and taking care of the family itself and the upbringing of children. Although the state took over, especially in large industrial centers, part of the care of children, creating a network of nurseries and kindergartens, they were not enough. The institute of "grandmothers" saved to some extent.

The difficulties of the first post-war years were compounded by the enormous damage suffered by agriculture during the war. The invaders ruined 98 thousand collective farms and 1,876 state farms, took and slaughtered many millions of livestock, almost completely deprived the rural areas of the occupied areas of draft power. In the agrarian regions, the number of able-bodied workers has decreased by almost one third. The depletion of human resources in the countryside was also the result of the natural process of urban growth. The village lost an average of 2 million people per year. The difficult living conditions in the villages forced young people to leave for the cities. Some of the demobilized soldiers settled in the cities after the war and did not want to return to agriculture.

During the war, in many regions of the country, significant areas of land belonging to collective farms were transferred to enterprises and cities, or illegally seized by them. In other areas, land has become an object of purchase and sale. Back in 1939, a decree was issued by the Central Committee of the VK1Ts (6) and the Council of People's Commissars on measures to combat the squandering of collective farm lands. By the beginning of 1947, more than 2,255,000 cases of land appropriation or use were discovered, a total of 4.7 million hectares. Between 1947 and May 1949, an additional 5.9 million hectares of collective farm lands were used. The higher authorities, starting from the local and ending with the republican, brazenly robbed collective farms, taking from them, under various pretexts, actually natural quitrent.

The debts of various organizations to collective farms amounted to 383 million rubles by September 1946.

In the Akmola region, the Kazakh SGR was taken from collective farms by the authorities in 1949, 1,500 head of cattle, 3 thousand centners of grain and products worth about 2 million rubles. The thieves, among whom were leading party and Soviet workers, were not brought to justice.

The squandering of collective farm lands and goods belonging to collective farms caused great indignation among collective farmers. For example, at the general meetings of collective farmers in the Tyumen region (Siberia), dedicated to the decree of September 19, 1946, 90 thousand collective farmers took part, and the activity was unusual: 11 thousand collective farmers spoke. In the Kemerovo Region, 367 collective farm chairmen, 2,250 board members and 502 chairmen of the previous revision commissions were nominated at meetings to elect new boards. However, the new composition of the boards could not achieve any significant change: the state policy remained the same. Therefore, there was no way out of the impasse.

After the end of the war, the production of tractors, agricultural machines and implements quickly improved. But despite the improvement in the supply of agriculture with machines and tractors, the strengthening of the material and technical base of state farms and machine and tractor stations, the situation in agriculture remained catastrophic. The state continued to invest extremely insignificant funds in agriculture - in the post-war five-year plan, only 16% of all appropriations for the national economy.

In 1946, only 76% of the sown area was sown compared to 1940. Due to drought and other turmoil, the 1946 harvest was even lower than in the paramilitary 1945. “In fact, in terms of grain production, the country for a long period was at the level that pre-revolutionary Russia had,” Khrushchev admitted. In 1910-1914 the gross grain harvest was 4380 million poods, in 1949-1953 - 4942 million poods. The grain yield was lower than the yield of 1913, despite mechanization, fertilization, etc.

Grain yield

1913 - 8.2 centners per hectare

1925-1926 - 8.5 centners per hectare

1926-1932 - 7.5 centners per hectare

1933-1937 - 7.1 centners per hectare

1949-1953 - 7.7 centners per hectare

Accordingly, there was less agricultural products per capita. Taking the precollectivization period 1928-1929 as 100, production in 1913 was 90.3, in 1930-1932 - 86.8, in 1938-1940 - 90.0, in 1950-1953 - 94.0. As can be seen from the table, the grain problem has become aggravated, despite a decrease in grain exports (from 1913 to 1938 by 4.5 times), a decrease in the number of livestock and, consequently, the consumption of grain. The number of horses decreased from 1928 to 1935 by 25 million heads, which provided savings of more than 10 million tons of grain 10-15% of the gross grain harvest of that time.

In 1916, there were 58.38 million cattle on the territory of Russia, on January 1, 1941, its number decreased to 54.51 million, and in 1951 there were 57.09 million heads, that is, it was still below the level 1916 of the year. The number of cows exceeded the 1916 level only in 1955. On the whole, according to official data, from 1940 to 1952 gross agricultural output increased (in comparable prices) by only 10%!

The plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in February 1947 demanded an even greater centralization of agricultural production, effectively depriving the collective farms of the right to decide not just what, but what to sow. Political departments were restored at the machine and tractor stations - propaganda was supposed to replace food for the completely starving and impoverished collective farmers. The collective farms were obliged, in addition to fulfilling state supplies, to fill up the seed stocks, to set aside part of the harvest in an indivisible fund, and only after that give the collective farmers money for workdays. Government supplies were still planned from the center, crop prospects were determined by eye, and actual harvests were often well below planned. The first commandment of collective farmers “first give it to the state” had to be fulfilled in any way. Local party and Soviet organizations often forced more successful collective farms to pay with grain and other products for their impoverished neighbors, which ultimately led to the impoverishment of both. The collective farmers fed mainly on products grown on their dwarf household plots. But in order to export their products to the market, they needed a special certificate confirming that they had paid off the obligatory government supplies. Otherwise, they were considered deserters and speculators, subject to fines and even imprisonment. Taxes on personal plots of collective farmers increased. Collective farmers were required to provide products in kind, which they often did not produce. Therefore, they were forced to purchase these products at market prices and hand them over to the state free of charge. The Russian village did not know such a terrible state even during the Tatar yoke.

In 1947, a significant part of the European territory of the country suffered from famine. It arose after a severe drought that engulfed the main agricultural granaries of the European part of the USSR: a significant part of Ukraine, Moldova, the Lower Volga region, central regions of Russia, Crimea. In previous years, the state cleaned up the harvest at the expense of state supplies, sometimes not even leaving the seed fund. Crop failure occurred in a number of areas subjected to German occupation, that is, many times robbed by both strangers and their own. As a result, there were no food supplies to cope with the hard times. The Soviet state demanded more and more millions of poods of grain from the cleanly robbed peasants. For example, in 1946, the year of the most severe drought, Ukrainian collective farmers owed the state 400 million poods (7.2 million tons) of grain. This figure, and most of the other planned targets, was arbitrarily set and did not correlate in any way with the actual possibilities of Ukrainian agriculture.

Desperate peasants sent letters to the Ukrainian government in Kiev and the allied government in Moscow, begging them to come to their aid and save them from starvation. Khrushchev, who at that time was the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) U, after long and painful hesitation (he was afraid of being accused of sabotage and losing his place), nevertheless sent a letter to Stalin, in which he asked for permission to temporarily introduce a rationing system and save food for supply of the agricultural population. Stalin, in a return telegram, rudely rejected the request of the Ukrainian government. Now the Ukrainian peasants were expected to starve and die. The people began to die in thousands. Cases of cannibalism have appeared. Khrushchev quotes in his memoirs a letter to him from the secretary of the Odessa Regional Party Committee A.I. Kirichenko, who visited one of the collective farms in the winter of 1946-1947. Here is what he reported: “I saw a terrible scene. The woman put the corpse of her own child on the table and cut it into pieces. "Can you imagine that? The woman went mad with hunger and cut her own children to pieces! Hunger raged in Ukraine."

However, Stalin and his closest aides did not want to reckon with the facts. The merciless Kaganovich was sent to Ukraine as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) U, and Khrushchev temporarily fell out of favor, was transferred to the post of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine. But no amount of displacement could save the situation: the famine continued, and it claimed about a million lives.

In 1952, government prices for grain, meat and pork shipments were lower than in 1940. The prices paid for potatoes were lower than transportation costs. Collective farms were paid an average of 8 rubles 63 kopecks per centner of grain. State farms received 29 rubles 70 kopecks per centner.

In order to buy a kilogram of oil, the collective farmer had to work ... 60 workdays, and to acquire a very modest suit, he needed an annual salary.

Most of the collective and state farms of the country at the beginning of the 50s collected extremely low yields. Even in such fertile regions of Russia as the Central Black Earth Region, the Volga Region and Kazakhstan, yields remained extremely low, for the center endlessly prescribed them what to sow and how to sow. The point, however, was not only stupid orders from above and insufficient material and technical base. Over the years, the peasants have been squeezed out of love for their work, for the land. Once upon a time the land rewarded for the labor expended, for their dedication to their peasant business, sometimes generously, sometimes scarcely. Now this incentive, which has received the official name "incentive of material interest" has disappeared. Work on the land turned into free or marginal forced labor.

Many collective farmers were starving, others were systematically malnourished. Rescued household plots. The situation was especially difficult in the European part of the USSR. The situation was much better in Central Asia, where there were high procurement prices for cotton, the main agricultural crop, and in the south, which specialized in vegetable growing, fruit production and winemaking.

In 1950, the consolidation of collective farms began. Their number dropped from 237 thousand to 93 thousand in 1953. The enlargement of collective farms could contribute to their economic strengthening. However, insufficient capital investment, mandatory supplies and low procurement prices, the lack of a sufficient number of trained specialists and machine operators and, finally, the restrictions imposed by the state on the private household plots of collective farmers deprived them of the incentive to work, destroyed hopes of breaking out of the grip of want. 33 million collective farmers, who fed the country's 200 million population with their hard work, remained, after the prisoners, the poorest, the most offended stratum of Soviet society.

Let us now see what was the situation of the working class and other urban strata of the population at that time.

As you know, one of the first acts of the Provisional Government after the February Revolution was the introduction of an 8-hour working day. Before that, the workers of Russia worked 10, and sometimes even 12 hours a day. As for the collective farmers, their working day, as in the pre-revolutionary years, remained irregular. In 1940 they returned to 8 o'clock.

According to official Soviet statistics, the average wage of a Soviet worker increased more than 11 times between the beginning of industrialization (1928) and the end of the Stalin era (1954). But this does not give an idea of ​​the real wages. Soviet sources give fantastic calculations that have nothing to do with reality. Western researchers have calculated that during this period, the cost of living, according to the most conservative estimates, increased in the period 1928-1954 by 9-10 times. However, the worker in the Soviet Union has, in addition to the official wages received on his hands, additional, in the form of social services provided to him by the state. It returns to workers in the form of free medical care, education and other part of the earnings alienated by the state.

According to the calculations of the largest American expert on the Soviet economy, Janet Chapman, additional increases in the wages of workers and employees, taking into account the changes in prices, after 1927 were: in 1928 - 15%; in 1937 - 22.1%; in 194O - 20.7%; in 1948 - 29.6%; in 1952 - 22.2%; 1954 - 21.5%. The cost of living in the same years rose as follows, taking 1928 as 100:

It can be seen from this table that the growth in the wages of Soviet workers and employees was lower than the growth in the cost of living. For example, by 1948 wages in monetary terms has doubled since 1937, but the cost of living has risen more than threefold. The fall in real wages was also associated with an increase in loan subscriptions and taxation. The significant increase in real wages by 1952 was still below the 1928 level, although it exceeded the level of real wages in the pre-war 1937 and 1940.

In order to get a correct idea of ​​the position of the Soviet worker in comparison with his foreign counterparts, let us compare how much food could be bought for 1 hour of work expended. Taking the initial data on the hourly wages of the Soviet worker as 100, we get the following comparative table:

The picture is striking: in one and the same time spent, an English worker in 1952 could purchase more than 3.5 times more products, and an American worker 5.6 more products than a Soviet worker.

Soviet people, especially the older generations, have a deeply rooted opinion that, they say, under Stalin, prices were reduced annually, and under Khrushchev and after him, prices were constantly growing.There is even some nostalgia for Stalin's times.

The secret of lowering prices is extremely simple - it is based, first, on the huge rise in prices after the start of collectivization. Indeed, if we take the prices of 1937 as 100, then it turns out that the yen for baked rye bread increased from 1928 to 1937 by 10.5 times, and by 1952 almost 19 times. Prices for first grade beef increased from 1928 to 1937 by 15.7 times, and by 1952 - by 17 times: for pork, respectively, by 10.5 and 20.5 times. By 1952, the price of herring increased almost 15 times. The cost of sugar rose 6 times by 1937, and 15 times by 1952. The price of sunflower oil rose 28 times from 1928 to 1937, and 34 times from 1928 to 1952. Egg prices increased from 1928 to 1937 by 11.3 times, and by 1952 by 19.3 times. And finally, prices for potatoes rose 5 times from 1928 to 1937, and in 1952 they were 11 times higher than the price of 1928.

All these data are taken from Soviet price tags for different years.

Having raised prices once by 1500-2500 percent, then it was already quite easy to arrange a trick with annual price reductions. Secondly, the decline in prices was due to the robbery of collective farmers, that is, extremely low state delivery and purchase prices. Back in 1953, the procurement prices for potatoes in the Moscow and Leningrad regions were equal to ... 2.5 - 3 kopecks per kilogram. Finally, the majority of the population did not feel the difference in prices at all, since the state supply was very poor; in many regions, meat, fats and other products had not been brought to stores for years.

This is the "secret" of the annual price cut during the Stalinist era.

A worker in the USSR, 25 years after the revolution, continued to eat worse than a Western worker.

The housing crisis has worsened. Compared to the pre-revolutionary times, when the problem of housing in densely populated cities was not easy (1913 - 7 square meters per person), in the post-revolutionary years, especially during the period of collectivization, the housing problem became unusually aggravated. Masses of villagers flooded into the cities, seeking refuge from hunger or in search of work. Civilian housing construction in Stalin's time was unusually limited. Responsible workers of the party and state apparatus received apartments in cities. In Moscow, for example, in the early 1930s, a huge residential complex was built on Bersenevskaya embankment - the Government House with large comfortable apartments. A few hundred meters from the Government House there is another residential complex - a former almshouse, turned into communal apartments, where for 20 - 30 people there was one kitchen and I-2 toilets.

Before the revolution, most of the workers lived in barracks near enterprises; after the revolution, the barracks were called dormitories. Large enterprises built new dormitories for their workers, apartments for the engineering and technical and administrative apparatus, but it was still impossible to solve the housing problem, since the lion's share of the appropriations was spent on the development of industry, the military industry, and the energy system.

Housing conditions for the overwhelming majority of the urban population worsened during the years of Stalin's rule every year: the rate of population growth significantly exceeded the rate of civil housing construction.

In 1928, the living space per 1 city dweller was 5.8 square meters. meters, in 1932 4.9 sq. meters, in 1937 - 4.6 sq. meters.

The plan of the 1st five-year plan provided for the construction of new 62.5 million square meters. meters of living space, while only 23.5 million square meters were built. meters. According to the 2nd five-year plan, it was planned to build 72.5 million square meters. meters, it was built 2.8 times less than 26.8 million square meters. meters.

In 1940, the living area per 1 city dweller was 4.5 square meters. meters.

Two years after Stalin's death, when mass housing construction began, there were 5.1 sq. meters. In order to understand how crowded people lived, it should be mentioned that even the official Soviet housing norm is 9 square meters. meters per person (in Czechoslovakia - 17 square meters. meters). Many families huddled in an area of ​​6 square meters. meters. They did not live in families, but in clans - two or three generations in one room.

The family of a cleaning lady of a large Moscow enterprise in the 13th century A-voy lived in a dormitory in a room with an area of ​​20 square meters. meters. The cleaning lady herself was the widow of the commandant of the border outpost who died at the beginning of the German-Soviet war. There were only seven stationary beds in the room. The other six people - adults and children - were laid out on the floor for the night. Sexual relations took place almost in plain sight, they got used to it and did not pay attention. For 15 years, three families living in the room had unsuccessfully sought resettlement. They were resettled only in the early 60s.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of residents of the Soviet Union lived in such conditions in the post-war period. This was the legacy of the Stalinist era.

from pravdoiskatel77

I receive about a hundred letters every day. Among the reviews, criticism, words of gratitude and information, you, dear

readers, send me your articles. Some of them deserve immediate publication, others a careful study.

Today I offer you one of these materials. The topic covered in it is very important. Professor Valery Antonovich Torgashev decided to remember what the USSR of his childhood was like.

Post-war Stalinist Soviet Union. I assure you, if you did not live in that era, you will read a lot of new information. Prices, salaries of that time, incentive systems. Stalin's price cuts, the size of the scholarship of the time, and much more.

And if you lived then - remember the time when your childhood was happy ...

“Dear Nikolai Viktorovich! I follow your speeches with interest, because in many respects our positions, both in history and in modern times, coincide.

In one of your speeches, you rightly noted that the post-war period of our history is practically not reflected in historical research. And this period was completely unique in the history of the USSR. Without exception, all the negative features of the socialist system and the USSR, in particular, appeared only after 1956, and the USSR after 1960 was absolutely different from the country that was before. However, the pre-war USSR also differed significantly from the post-war one. In the USSR, which I remember well, the planned economy was effectively combined with the market economy, and there were more private bakeries than state bakeries. The shops had an abundance of a variety of industrial and food products, most of which were produced by the private sector, and there was no concept of scarcity. Every year from 1946 to 1953. the life of the population improved markedly. The average Soviet family in 1955 fared better than the average American family in the same year and better than the modern American family of 4 with an annual income of $ 94,000. O modern Russia and there is no need to say. I am sending you material based on my personal recollections, on the stories of my acquaintances who were older than me at that time, as well as on secret studies of family budgets that the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR carried out until 1959. I would be very grateful to you if you could convey this material to your wide audience, if you find it interesting. I got the impression that no one else remembers this time except me. "

Respectfully yours, Valery Antonovich Torgashev, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor.

Remembering the USSR

It is believed that 3 revolutions took place in Russia in the twentieth century: in February and October 1917 and in 1991. The year 1993 is also sometimes referred to. As a result of the February revolution, the political system changed within a few days. As a result of the October Revolution, both the political and economic system of the country changed, but the process of these changes lasted for several months. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, but no changes in the political or economic system took place this year. The political system changed in 1989, when the CPSU lost power both in fact and formally due to the abolition of the corresponding article of the Constitution. The economic system of the USSR changed back in 1987, when a non-state sector of the economy appeared in the form of cooperatives. Thus, the revolution did not take place in 1991, in 1987 and, unlike the revolutions of 1917, the people who were in power at that time carried it out.

In addition to the above revolutions, there was one more, about which not a single line has been written so far. In the course of this revolution, fundamental changes took place in both the political and economic systems of the country. These changes led to a significant deterioration in the material situation of almost all segments of the population, a decrease in the production of agricultural and industrial goods, a reduction in the range of these goods and a decrease in their quality, and an increase in prices. We are talking about the revolution of 1956-1960, carried out by NS Khrushchev. The political component of this revolution was that after a fifteen-year break, power was returned to the party apparatus at all levels, from the party committees of enterprises to the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1959-1960, the non-state sector of the economy was liquidated (industrial cooperatives and farmers' household plots), which ensured the production of a significant part of industrial goods (clothing, footwear, furniture, dishes, toys, etc.), food (vegetables, livestock and poultry products, fish products), as well as household services. In 1957, the State Planning Committee and the branch ministries (except for defense) were liquidated. Thus, instead of an effective combination of planned and market economies, neither one nor the other has become. In 1965, after Khrushchev was removed from power, the State Planning Commission and the ministries were restored, but with significantly curtailed rights.

In 1956, the system of material and moral incentives for increasing production efficiency was completely eliminated, introduced back in 1939 in all sectors of the national economy and ensuring in the post-war period the growth of labor productivity and national income is significantly higher than in other countries, including the United States, solely due to own financial and material resources. As a result of the elimination of this system, equalization in wages appeared, and interest in the end result of labor and the quality of products disappeared. The uniqueness of the Khrushchev revolution was that the changes lasted for several years and passed completely unnoticed by the population.

The standard of living of the population of the USSR in the post-war period increased annually and reached its maximum in the year of Stalin's death in 1953. In 1956, the incomes of people employed in production and science declined as a result of the elimination of payments that stimulate labor efficiency. In 1959, the income of collective farmers was sharply reduced in connection with the cuts in personal plots and restrictions on the maintenance of livestock in private ownership. Prices for products sold in the markets are going up 2-3 times. Since 1960, the era of a total shortage of industrial and food products began. It was in this year that the Berezka foreign exchange shops and special distributors for the nomenclature, which were not previously necessary, were opened. In 1962, state prices for basic foodstuffs increased by about 1.5 times. In general, the life of the population dropped to the level of the late forties.

Until 1960, the USSR held a leading position in the world in such areas as health care, education, science and innovative industries (nuclear industry, rocketry, electronics, computers, automated production). If we take the economy as a whole, then the USSR was second only to the United States, but significantly ahead of any other countries. At the same time, the USSR until 1960 was actively catching up with the United States and just as actively moving ahead of other countries. After 1960, economic growth rates have been steadily declining, leading positions in the world are being lost.

In the materials offered below, I will try to describe in detail how ordinary people lived in the USSR in the 50s of the last century. Based on my own memories, stories of people with whom life has confronted me, as well as on some documents of that time that are available on the Internet, I will try to show how far from reality modern ideas about the very recent the past of a great country.

Oh, it's good to live in a Soviet country!

Immediately after the end of the war, the life of the population of the USSR began to improve dramatically. In 1946, the wages of workers and engineering and technical workers (ITR) working at enterprises and construction sites in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East were increased by 20%. In the same year, the official salaries of people with higher and secondary specialized education (engineers and technicians, workers in science, education and medicine) increased by 20%. The importance of academic degrees and titles is rising. The salary of a professor, doctor of sciences is increased from 1600 to 5000 rubles, an associate professor, a candidate of sciences - from 1200 to 3200 rubles, a rector of a university from 2500 to 8000 rubles. In research institutes, the academic degree of a candidate of sciences began to add 1,000 rubles to the official salary, and a doctor of sciences - 2,500 rubles. At the same time, the salary of the union minister was 5,000 rubles, and the secretary of the district party committee was 1,500 rubles. Stalin, as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, had a salary of 10 thousand rubles. Scientists in the USSR at that time also had additional incomes, sometimes several times higher than their salaries. Therefore, they were the richest and at the same time the most respected part of Soviet society.

In December 1947, an event occurs that, in terms of its emotional impact on people, was commensurate with the end of the war. As it was said in the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks No. 4004 of December 14, 1947 "... from December 16, 1947, the rationing system for the supply of food and industrial goods was canceled, high prices for commercial trade were canceled, and uniform reduced state retail prices for food and manufactured goods were introduced ...".

The rationing system, which made it possible to save many people from starvation during the war, caused severe psychological discomfort after the war. The range of food rations sold by ration cards was extremely poor. For example, in bakeries there were only 2 types of rye and wheat bread, which were sold by weight in accordance with the rate specified in the cut-off coupon. The choice of other food products was also limited. At the same time, there was such an abundance of products in commercial stores that any modern supermarket could envy. But the prices in these stores were out of reach for the majority of the population, and the products were purchased there only for the festive table. After the abolition of the card system, all this abundance turned out to be in ordinary grocery stores at quite reasonable prices. For example, the price of cakes, which were previously sold only in commercial shops, dropped from 30 to 3 rubles. Market prices for food fell more than 3 times. Before the abolition of the rationing system, manufactured goods were sold under special orders, the presence of which did not yet mean the availability of the corresponding goods. After the abolition of the cards, a certain deficit of industrial goods remained for some time, but as far as I remember, in 1951 this deficit was no longer in Leningrad.

On March 1, 1949 - 1951, further price reductions occurred, an average of 20% per year. Each drop was perceived as a national holiday. When prices did not fall again on March 1, 1952, people felt disappointed. However, on April 1 of the same year, the price reduction did take place. The last price reduction took place after Stalin's death on April 1, 1953. During the post-war period, prices for food and the most popular industrial goods fell on average by more than 2 times. So, for the eight post-war years, the life of the Soviet people has noticeably improved annually. In the entire known history of mankind, no country has seen similar precedents.

The standard of living of the population of the USSR in the mid-50s can be assessed by studying the materials of studies of the budgets of families of workers, employees and collective farmers, which were carried out by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of the USSR from 1935 to 1958 (these materials, which in the USSR were classified as "secret" , published on istmat.info). The budgets were studied in families belonging to 9 population groups: collective farmers, state farm workers, industrial workers, industrial engineers, industrial employees, primary school teachers, secondary school teachers, doctors and nurses. The richest part of the population, which included workers in the defense industry, design organizations, scientific institutions, university professors, workers of artels and the military, unfortunately, did not come to the attention of the CSB.

Of the above study groups, the highest income was received by doctors. Each member of their families had 800 rubles of monthly income. Of the urban population, industrial employees had the lowest income - 525 rubles a month for each family member. Have rural population per capita monthly income was 350 rubles. At the same time, if the workers of state farms had this income in explicit monetary form, then the collective farmers received it when calculating the cost of their own products consumed in the family at state prices.

All groups of the population, including the rural population, consumed food at approximately the same level of 200-210 rubles per month per family member. Only in the families of doctors did the cost of a grocery basket reach 250 rubles due to the higher consumption of butter, meat products, eggs, fish and fruit while reducing bread and potatoes. The villagers consumed the most bread, potatoes, eggs and milk, but significantly less butter, fish, sugar and confectionery. It should be noted that the amount of 200 rubles spent on food was not directly related to family income or a limited choice of food, but was determined by family traditions. In my family, consisting in 1955 of four people, including two schoolchildren, the monthly income per person was 1200 rubles. The choice of products in the Leningrad grocery stores was much wider than in modern supermarkets. Nevertheless, our family's expenses for food, including school lunches and lunches in departmental canteens with parents, did not exceed 800 rubles a month.

The food in the departmental canteens was very cheap. Lunch in the student canteen, including soup with meat, a second with meat and compote or tea with a pie, cost about 2 rubles. Free bread was always on the tables. Therefore, on the days before the grant of the scholarship, some students living on their own bought tea for 20 kopecks and ate bread with mustard and tea. By the way, salt, pepper and mustard were also always on the tables. The scholarship at the institute where I studied since 1955 was 290 rubles (with excellent grades - 390 rubles). 40 rubles from nonresident students went to pay for the hostel. The remaining 250 rubles (7,500 modern rubles) were quite enough for a normal student life in a big city. At the same time, as a rule, nonresident students did not receive help from home and did not earn extra money in their free time.

A few words about the Leningrad gastronomes of that time. The fish department was the most diverse. Several varieties of red and black caviar were displayed in large bowls. A full range of hot and cold smoked white fish, red fish from chum salmon to salmon, smoked eels and pickled lampreys, herring in cans and barrels. Live fish from rivers and inland waters were delivered immediately after the catch in special tank trucks with the inscription “fish”. There was no frozen fish. It appeared only in the early 60s. There were a lot of canned fish, of which I remember gobies in a tomato, the ubiquitous crabs for 4 rubles a can and a favorite product of students living in a hostel - cod liver. Beef and lamb were divided into four categories with different prices, depending on the part of the carcass. In the department of semi-finished products, splints, entrecotes, schnitzels and escalopes were presented. The variety of sausages was much wider than now, and I still remember their taste. Now only in Finland you can try sausage reminiscent of the Soviet one from those times. It should be said that the taste of cooked sausages changed already in the early 60s, when Khrushchev prescribed soy to be added to sausages. This prescription was ignored only in the Baltic republics, where even in the 70s it was possible to buy a normal doctor's sausage. Bananas, pineapples, mangoes, pomegranates, oranges were sold in large grocery stores or specialized stores all year round. Our family bought ordinary vegetables and fruits from the market, where a small increase in price paid off with a higher quality and more choice.

This is how the shelves of ordinary Soviet grocery stores looked in 1953. After 1960, this was no longer the case.

The poster below is from the pre-war era, but cans of crabs were in all Soviet stores in the 1950s.

The above-mentioned materials from the CSO provide data on the consumption of workers' foodstuffs in families in various regions of the RSFSR. Out of two dozen product names, only two positions have a significant spread (over 20%) from the average consumption level. Butter, with an average consumption level in the country in the amount of 5.5 kg per year per person, was consumed in Leningrad in the amount of 10.8 kg, in Moscow - 8.7 kg, and in the Bryansk region - 1.7 kg, in Lipetsk - 2.2 kg. In all other regions of the RSFSR, the per capita consumption of butter in workers' families was over 3 kg. A similar picture is for sausage. The average level is 13 kg. In Moscow - 28.7 kg, in Leningrad - 24.4 kg, in the Lipetsk region - 4.4 kg, in Bryansk - 4.7 kg, in other regions - more than 7 kg. At the same time, the income in the families of workers in Moscow and Leningrad did not differ from the average income in the country and amounted to 7,000 rubles per year per family member. In 1957 I visited the Volga cities: Rybinsk, Kostroma, Yaroslavl. The range of food products was lower than in Leningrad, but butter and sausage were also on the shelves, and the variety of fish products, please, was even higher than in Leningrad. Thus, the population of the USSR, at least from 1950 to 1959, was fully provided with food.

The food situation has deteriorated dramatically since 1960. True, in Leningrad this was not very noticeable. I can only remember the disappearance from the sale of imported fruits, canned corn and, which was more significant for the population, flour. When flour appeared in any store, huge queues lined up, and no more than two kilograms were sold per person. These were the first stages that I saw in Leningrad since the end of the 40s. In smaller cities, according to the stories of my relatives and friends, in addition to flour, the following disappeared from sale: butter, meat, sausage, fish (except for a small set of canned food), eggs, cereals and pasta. The assortment of bakery products has sharply decreased. I myself saw empty shelves in grocery stores in Smolensk in 1964.

I can only judge the life of the rural population by a few fragmentary impressions (not counting the budget studies of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR). In 1951, 1956 and 1962, I took a summer vacation on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. In the first case, I went with my parents, and then on my own. At that time, trains had long stops at stations and even small halt stations. In the 50s, local residents went to the trains with a variety of products, including: boiled, fried and smoked chickens, boiled eggs, homemade sausages, hot pies with various fillings, including fish, meat, liver, mushrooms. In 1962, only a hot pot with pickled cucumbers was taken out of food for the trains.

In the summer of 1957, I was part of a student concert brigade organized by the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Komsomol. On a small wooden barge we sailed down the Volga and gave concerts in coastal villages. There were few entertainments in the villages at that time, and therefore practically all residents came to our concerts in local clubs. They did not differ from the urban population either in clothes or in facial expressions. And the dinners we were treated to after the concert testified that there were no problems with food even in small villages.

In the early 80s, I was treated in a sanatorium located in the Pskov region. One day I went to a nearby village to taste the village milk. The talkative old woman I met quickly dispelled my hopes. She said that after Khrushchev's 1959 ban on keeping livestock and cutting back plots, the village was completely impoverished, and the previous years were recalled as the golden age. Since then, meat has completely disappeared from the diet of the villagers, and milk is only occasionally given out from the collective farm for small children. And before that there was enough meat both for personal consumption and for sale on the collective farm market, which provided the main income of the peasant family, and not at all collective farm earnings. I would like to note that according to the statistics of the Central Statistical Office of the USSR in 1956, every rural resident of the RSFSR consumed more than 300 liters of milk per year, while urban residents consumed 80-90 liters. After 1959, the CSO ceased its secret budget research.

The provision of the population with industrial goods in the mid-50s was quite high. For example, in working families, more than 3 pairs of shoes were purchased for each person every year. The quality and variety of consumer goods exclusively of domestic production (clothes, shoes, dishes, toys, furniture and other household goods) was much higher than in subsequent years. The fact is that the bulk of these goods were produced not by state enterprises, but by artels. Moreover, the products of the artels were sold in ordinary state stores. As soon as new fashion trends emerged, they were instantly tracked, and within a few months fashion items appeared in abundance on store shelves. For example, in the mid-50s, a youth fashion emerged for shoes with thick white rubber soles in imitation of the extremely popular rock and roll singer Elvis Presley in those years. These domestic-made shoes I quietly bought in an ordinary department store in the fall of 1955, along with another fashionable item - a tie with a bright color picture. The only commodity that could not always be bought was popular records. However, in 1955 I had records bought in a regular store, almost all popular American jazz musicians and singers at that time, such as Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Louis Arm-strong, Ella Fitzgerald, Glen Miller. Only Elvis Presley's records, illegally copied on used X-ray film (as they said at the time, “on the bones”) had to be bought from hands. I don't remember any imported goods at that time. Both clothing and footwear were produced in small batches and differed in a wide variety of models. In addition, the manufacture of clothing and footwear according to individual orders was widespread in numerous sewing and knitwear ateliers, in shoe workshops that were part of the fishing cooperation. There were many tailors and shoemakers working individually. The most popular goods at that time were fabrics. I still have n-nude names for such popular fabrics at that time as drape, cheviot, boston, crepe de shine.

From 1956 to 1960, the process of liquidation of industrial cooperation took place. Most of the artels became state-owned enterprises, while the rest were closed or became illegal. Individual patent production was also prohibited. The production of practically all consumer goods has sharply decreased, both in terms of volume and in terms of assortment. It was then that imported consumer goods, which immediately become scarce, despite the higher price with a limited assortment.

I can illustrate the life of the population of the USSR in 1955 using the example of my family. The family consisted of 4 people. Father, 50 years old, head of the design institute department. Mother, 45 years old, geological engineer of Lenmetrostroy. Son, 18 years old, high school graduate. Son, 10 years old, schoolboy. The family's income consisted of three parts: the official salary (2,200 rubles for the father and 1,400 rubles for the mother), a quarterly bonus for fulfilling the plan, usually 60% of the salary, and a separate bonus for extra work. Whether my mother received such an award, I do not know, but my father received it about once a year, and in 1955 this award was 6,000 rubles. In other years, it was about the same size. I remember my father, having received this award, laid out many hundred-ruble bills on the dining table in the form of solitaire cards, and then we had a gala dinner. On average, our family's monthly income was 4,800 rubles, or 1,200 rubles per person.

550 rubles were deducted from this amount for taxes, party and trade union dues. 800 rubles were spent on food. 150 rubles were spent on housing and utilities (water, heating, electricity, gas, telephone). 500 rubles were spent on clothing, footwear, transport, entertainment. Thus, the regular monthly expenses of our family of 4 were 2,000 rubles. Unspent money remained 2,800 rubles per month or 33,600 rubles (one million modern rubles) per year.

Our family's income was closer to the average than to the top. So the higher incomes were for workers in the private sector (artels), who accounted for more than 5% of the urban population. The officers of the army, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security had high salaries. For example, an ordinary army lieutenant, a platoon commander, had a monthly income of 2600-3600 rubles, depending on the place and the specifics of the service. At the same time, the income of the military was not taxed. To illustrate the income of workers in the defense industry, I will cite just an example of a young family I know very well who worked in the experimental design bureau of the Ministry of Aviation Industry. Husband, 25 years old, senior engineer with a salary of 1400 rubles and a monthly income, taking into account various bonuses and travel allowances of 2500 rubles. Wife, 24 years old, senior technician with a salary of 900 rubles and a monthly income of 1500 rubles. In general, the monthly income of a family of two was 4000 rubles. There were about 15 thousand rubles of unspent money left a year. I believe that a significant part of urban families had the opportunity to save 5-10 thousand rubles annually (150-300 thousand modern rubles).

Cars should be distinguished from expensive goods. The range of cars was small, but there were no problems with their purchase. In Leningrad, in the large department store "Apraksin Dvor" there was a car showroom. I remember that in 1955 cars were put up there for free sale: Moskvich-400 for 9,000 rubles (economy class), Pobeda for 16,000 rubles (business class) and ZIM (later Chaika) for 40,000 rubles (executive class). Our family savings were enough to purchase any of the above vehicles, including ZIM. And the Moskvich car was generally available to the majority of the population. However, there was no real demand for cars. At the time, cars were seen as expensive toys that posed a lot of problems to maintain and maintain. My uncle had a Moskvich car, which he drove out of town only a few times a year. My uncle bought this car back in 1949 only because he could arrange a garage in the courtyard of his house in the premises of the former stables. At work, my father was offered to buy a decommissioned American Willys, a military SUV of that time, for only 1,500 rubles. My father refused the car, as there was nowhere to keep it.

For the Soviet people of the post-war period, it was characteristic of the desire to have as much money as possible. They remembered well that during the war years, money could save lives. In the most difficult period of the life of besieged Leningrad, a market functioned where any food could be bought or exchanged for things. My father's Lenin Grad notes, dated December 1941, indicated the following prices and clothing equivalents in this market: 1 kg of flour = 500 rubles = felt boots, 2 kg of flour = kA-ra-kule fur coat, 3 kg of flour = gold watch. However, a similar situation with foodstuffs was not only in Leningrad. In the winter of 1941-1942, small provincial cities, where there was no war industry, were not supplied with food at all. The population of these cities survived only by exchanging household goods for food with the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. At that time, my mother worked as a primary school teacher in the ancient Russian city of Belozersk, in her homeland. As she later said, by February 1942, more than half of her students had died of starvation. My mother and I survived only because in our house since pre-revolutionary times there were quite a few things that were valued in the village. But my mother's grandmother also starved to death in February 1942, as she left her food for her granddaughter and four-year-old great-grandson. My only vivid memory of that time is a New Year's gift from my mother. It was a piece of brown bread, lightly sprinkled with granulated sugar, which my mother called pi-rh-ny. I tried a real cake only in December 1947, when I suddenly became rich Buratino. In my children's piggy bank there were more than 20 rubles of small change, and my-no-you remained even after the monetary reform. Only from February 1944, when, after lifting the blockade, we returned to Leningrad, did I stop experiencing a continuous feeling of hunger. By the mid-60s, the memory of the horrors of war was smoothed out, a new generation entered life, which did not seek to save money in reserve, and cars, which by that time had risen in price by 3 times, became a deficit, like many other goods. ... :

After the cessation of 15 years of experiments to create new aesthetics and new forms of living in the USSR, an atmosphere of conservative traditionalism was established in the USSR from the beginning of the 1930s for more than two decades. At first it was "Stalinist classicism", which after the war grew into "Stalinist Empire", with heavy, monumental forms, the motives of which were often taken even from ancient Roman architecture. All this is very clearly manifested not only in architecture, but also in the interior of living quarters.
Many people imagine what the apartments of the 50s were like from films or from their own memories (grandmothers and grandfathers often retained such interiors until the end of the century).
First of all, this is chic oak furniture, designed to serve several generations.

"In a new apartment" (photo from the magazine "Soviet Union" 1954):

Oh, this buffet is very familiar to me! Although the picture is clearly not an ordinary apartment, such buffets were owned by many ordinary Soviet families, including my grandparents.
Those who were richer were stuffed with collectible porcelain from the Leningrad factory (which now has no price).
In the main room, the lampshade is often cheerful, the luxurious chandelier in the picture gives out the rather high social status of the owners.

The second photo shows the apartment of the representative of the Soviet elite - the Nobel Prize laureate academician N.N. Semyonov, 1957:

A high resolution
In such families, they have already tried to reproduce the atmosphere of a pre-revolutionary living room with a piano.
On the floor - lacquered oak parquet, carpet.
On the left, the edge of the TV seems to be visible.

"Grandfather", 1954:

Very characteristic lampshade and lace tablecloth on the round table.

In a new house on Borovskoe highway, 1955:

A high resolution
1955th was a turning point, since it was in this year that the decree on industrial housing construction was adopted, which marked the beginning of the era of Khrushchev. But in 1955, more "small houses" were built with the latest hints of the quality factor and architectural aesthetics of "Stalin".
In this new apartment, the interiors are still pre-Khrushchev, with high ceilings and solid furniture. Pay attention to the love for round (sliding) tables, which then for some reason will become a rarity in our country.
A bookcase in a place of honor is also a very typical feature of the Soviet home interior, after all, "the most reading country in the world." Was.

For some reason, the nickel-plated bed is adjacent to a round table, which has a place in the living room.

The interiors in a new apartment in a Stalinist skyscraper in the picture by the same Naum Granovsky, 1950s:

For contrast, a photo of D. Baltermants from 1951:

Lenin in the red corner instead of an icon in a peasant hut.

In the late 1950s, a new era will begin. Millions of people will begin to move into their individual, albeit very tiny, Khrushchov apartments. There will be completely different furniture.

Briefly described events 1945 -1953 years give an idea of ​​the life of the country during this period. Start 1945 year was the end of the Great Patriotic War, the battles were fought outside the Soviet Union. In May 1945 year ended the war started by fascist Germany. With the end of hostilities, the Allies decided to mark out the occupation zones on the territory of the defeated country. Due to the fact that Germany, upon surrendering, handed over its entire military and merchant fleet to the United States and Great Britain, the Soviet Union raised the question of transferring at least a third of the German fleet to it. The contradictions between the allies, pushed aside for the period of hostilities with a common enemy, are becoming more acute.

Transition to peaceful construction.

The end of the war put before the government the issues of solving economic, diplomatic, political, military-political problems. The enormous destruction caused by the war required great efforts to rebuild the country. Already May 26, 1945 the decree on restructuring of industry in a peaceful manner, having conditioned the beginning of the release of peaceful products, re-equipping military factories, while it was indicated that the capacity must be kept ready to resume the production of weapons if necessary. Already with June 1, 1945 years for the workers of the People's Commissariat of Defense were restored weekends and vacations... July began demobilization, new military districts began to be organized.

The beginning of the cold war.

But the battles have not stopped yet, fulfilling the allied agreement The Soviet Union declares war on Japan, which ends with its surrender in September 1945.
After the end of the war began reforming the army and special services... US use of the atomic bomb during the war with Japan encourages the Soviet Union to create nuclear weapons... Industrial centers and research institutions are being created to develop this direction.
Since the beginning of 1946 The United States is tightening its rhetoric of communication with the USSR, Great Britain joins it, since these states have always fought against a strong state on the continent. From this period begin cold war countdown.
After the end of the war it began "Battle" for Antarctica: Americans sent a military squadron to Antarctica, the Soviet Union sent its fleet to this region. There is no exact information about how the events took place to date, but the US flotilla returned incomplete. Later, according to an international convention, it was established that Antarctica does not belong to any state.

The development of the country in the post-war period.

Post-war changes affected all spheres of life: the war tax was abolished, the nuclear industry was created, the construction of new lines began railroad, pressure structures on hydraulic structures, a number of pulp and paper enterprises on the Karelian Isthmus, aluminum plants.
Already in May 1946 year, a decree was issued on the creation of a rocket industry, design bureaus were created.
At the same time, there are changes in the management of the country and the army. A decree was adopted on the training and retraining of leading Party and Soviet workers. The government was structured according to the party-nomenclature scheme. The need for the safety of state property caused decrees on criminal liability for theft and strengthening the protection of personal property of citizens.
The construction of a peaceful life is going on with difficulty, there are not enough materials, labor resource during the war was greatly reduced. However, in 1947 year aircraft construction marked by the test of the SU-12 aircraft. Military spending forced the state to issue a large amount of money, at the same time, the output of consumer goods dropped sharply. Financial problems had to be solved, and for this in December 1947, a financial reform was carried out. At the same time, the card system was canceled.
The post-war period was not without struggle at all levels of life. The infamous session of the All-Union Agricultural Academy of Sciences of the USSR 1948 years, for many years closed the development of genetic science, laboratories and research on hereditary diseases were closed.

The state of internal affairs in the USSR.

V 1949 year was started "Leningradskoe Delo", significantly thinning the leadership of the Leningrad region. Officially, nowhere and never was it reported what the crime of the leading workers of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU was, nevertheless, this was reflected in the destruction of the Museum of the Heroic Defense of Leningrad, the unique exposition of which was destroyed.
Imposed by the West The Soviet Union the arms race, led to the creation of the atomic bomb, which was tested in August 1949 years in the region of Semipalatinsk.
The financial system was strengthened. Decree 1950 year settlement in international transactions between the CMEA countries was transferred to a gold basis, independent of the dollar. The development of science, culture, improvement of economic indicators show that the development of the country in the post-war period was stable. Completed in May 1952, the construction of the Volga-Don Canal, provided the possibility of irrigation of dry lands, obtaining electricity for agricultural and industrial areas.
The course of government taken by Stalin after the war is total bureaucratization. New organizations were created to monitor the implementation of decisions and instructions.
Restoring the country, the people were in poverty, starving, but Stalin believed that the construction of socialism is impossible without great sacrifices, hence little attention to the needs of the people. By the end 1952 of the year the company for the enlargement of collective farms was completed, MTSs were created, capable of serving these collective farms.
In March 1953, Stalin I.V. died... The period of development of the state has ended, which has absorbed both the heroic times of victory over fascist Germany, industrialization, the restoration of the country after the terrible war years, and the dark pages of repression, neglect of the needs of the people.