The business and moral image of the party officials of the "second echelon" of the Bashkir ASSR in the era of "Khrushchev's reformism"

Khaziev Rustem ORCID: 0000-0002-8754-7791 Doctor of History Professor; Institute of History and Public Administration; Ufa University of Science and Technology 450076, Russia, Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa, Karl Marx str., 3/1, office 512 khazievra@mail.ru

Vagapov Rodion Rafaelevich ORCID: 0000-0003-2573-605X Assistant; Institute of History and Public Administration; Ufa University of Science and Technology 450076, Russia, Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa, Karl Marx str., 3/1, office 512 vagapov.rodion@mail.ru

An archaeographic analysis of the array of documents of the Bashkir Regional Committee of the CPSU of the era of "Khrushchev reformism", which became available to scientists in the second decade of the XXI century, suggests that on the regional periphery, the party managers of the "Khrushchev set" began to tacitly assert certain cultural practices of the "capitalist society", mercilessly criticized officially. The period of the "Khrushchev thaw" caused an obvious change in the party's worldview in the form of a gradual oblivion of the ascetic ideal of life propagandized for decades. The departure from Stalin's "belt-tightening" marked the beginning of the establishment in the CPSU of the value ideas of party management individuality and personal self-expression as a means of achieving effective results in a party position.

In many ways, this aspiration was a predetermined, undeclared incentive to take advantage of the advantages that a party position gave in order to arrange a comfortable or even luxurious life "in the Soviet way." This trend manifested itself against the background of the fact that millions of ordinary Soviet citizens could not provide themselves with the benefits that the party officials had in the conditions of a socialist deficit economy by "hard work".

The era of "Khrushchev's reformism", which caused the correction of Stalinist-type socialism, was the object of close attention of a number of modern domestic researchers [1-3; 16]. However, along with the study of various kinds of socio-political and managerial innovations that manifested themselves in 1953-1954, changes in the style of business behavior and the moral image of party officials on the periphery remained out of the focus of researchers, among which cases of various kinds of "indiscipline", including financial and economic, became more frequent.

The formation of consumer sentiments in the party environment in the form of a "desire for profit" ^{[17, p. 53]} was clearly manifested in a systematic "violation of financial discipline". First of all, this was expressed in embezzlement and embezzlement of party funds. The decline of Stalinism became a kind of signal for the activation of the activities of the party nomenclature of the "second echelon", which began to extract "financial benefits" using its official position. The justification of their actions was determined by the party officials and the objective reality that, with the growing consumption level of Soviet citizens by the mid-1950s, the wages of party workers continued to remain low ^{[5, p. 16; 6, p. 1571]}.

Literally a year after Stalin's death, a scandal broke out in the Bashkir regional Committee of the CPSU in 1954: during a "flying audit" "large embezzlement" was discovered, in which the secretary of the Buzdyak district committee of the CPSU, the head of the sector of the Stalinist district committee of Ufa and other party workers of the district-city party organizations of the CPSU were accused ^{[9, l. 123, 124]}. In 1955, 18 cases of appropriation of funds by the party nomenclature of the lower level (Alsheevsky district committee of the CPSU, Pokrovsky district committee of the CPSU and other district committees of the party) became public. "Egregious cases" were not given a go. Unlike the communist leaders of state authorities and communist business executives, who were sometimes bitterly criticized in specialized satirical publications ^[4], the financial "misconduct" of party workers, as a rule, was resolved out of court.

For the Bashkir regional Committee of the CPSU, it was extremely important to "not let go" of negative information in the Central Committee of the CPSU, which, in the conditions of N. S. Khrushchev's recruitment of a "new team" in the regions, could give the Center a weighty reason to make personnel rotation among the republican party apparatus. Therefore, those who were guilty quickly enough, under threat of losing their positions, "extinguished embezzlement" ^{[9, l. 123, 124]}, which at the bureau of the Bashobkom were qualified as a violation of local financial and budgetary discipline ^{[13, l. 45]}.

It is likely that high-profile cases of fraud with the "finances of the party" forced those who "put their hand into the "party treasury" to be especially careful or the identified offenses were promptly resolved without their documentary fixation. Therefore, until 1959, no more cases of "embezzlement" surfaced. However, in 1959, a large embezzlement was again revealed in the Karaidel district committee of the CPSU. The Bashkir regional party committee sharply criticized the first secretary of the district committee and at the same time members of the audit commission of the district party organization for the unprecedented embezzlement of "party money" in the amount of 8,896 rubles ^{[11, L. 98]}. This amount was correlated with more than half of the cost of an executive class car as a "Victory" ^{[18, p. 61]}. Obvious violations of the misuse of party budget funds were found in the Republic of Kazakhstan of the CPSU of Ilishevsky, Makarovsky, Krasnokamsky, Kiginsky, Birsky, Khaibullinsky districts. The withdrawal of money from the party budget was so obvious that plausible cover schemes were not even thought out on the ground to hide what they had done. The district committees obviously hoped that everything would get away with it, since such offenses were not made public and all information finally settled in the regional committee of the CPSU, which was extremely unprofitable to inform the Central Committee of the CPSU about the revealed financial forgeries.

Undoubtedly, the party officials from the Bashkobkom reacted to such cases when, during financial audits, it was found that money from the party budget was shamelessly written off under the articles "postal and telegraphic expenses" and "maintenance of transport", for which the provision of fiscal documents confirming the expenses incurred was not required ^{[11, l. 98]}. In the actions of the responsible persons of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a double tactic of behavior was traced. First of all, at the regional level, party officials hedged themselves in case of a possible scandal if a signal, most often anonymous, came to the Central Committee of the CPSU. Therefore, it was mandatory for the first secretaries of the district committees of the Party of the Republic to be personally censured, alternating with criticism of the structural unit of the Bashobkom. A typical formulation was that on the ground "they do not follow the instructions of the Regional Committee of the CPSU, allowing violations in the management of the party economy, which is also facilitated by the financial sector of the Regional Committee of the CPSU, which does not persist in strengthening financial discipline" ^{[10, L. 92]}.

At the same time, all efforts were made to promptly resolve the issue of returning illegally spent funds to the party budget. The guilty party workers of the "second echelon" were quite satisfied with this requirement, since it allowed them to avoid party penalties, not to mention criminal liability. There were always "switchmen" for the registration offices, which, as a rule, were cashiers, i.e. not managers, but auxiliary technical workers of the district committees of the CPSU ^{[9, l. 124; 11, l. 98]}.

Due to various circumstances, the policy of double standards implemented by the republican party apparatus – "we don't give up our own" – involuntarily provoked the grassroots party structures to various financial tricks. The most common form of receiving an "additional allowance" was an arbitrary change in the size of salary "rates", as well as "incorrect registration in favor of the recipient" of reimbursable travel expenses. So, in the Blagoveshchensk district committee of the CPSU, a full-time propagandist was paid 17% less of the base salary, the unpaid part of which was transferred to the released secretary of the party organization of the collective farm. Stalin. An off-the-books system for issuing "solid allowances" to salaries, carried out under the article "for travel expenses", was introduced in the districts ^{[11, l. 99]}. The free handling of the party budget led to significant "overpayments", some of which were discovered as a result of random inspections, but most often on complaints ^{[11, l. 100]}.

In conditions of shortage of goods, food and services, the visible increase in the material well-being of some "district party leaders" caused negative sentiments among ordinary communists. The popular thesis that the authorities "fatten at our expense when it is impossible to buy anything properly" led to an increase in the number of party deviators who refused to pay membership fees. As of July 1, 1955, overdue contributions from CPSU members amounted to 22.2 thousand rubles in the BASSR, and the number of communists who did not pay membership fees increased to 2,652 people and amounted to 3% of the total composition of the regional party organization of the republic ^{[8, l. 21]}. In particular, in the party organization of the Kugarchinsky district, the "delay" in membership fees increased from January 1, 1955 to June 1, 1955 from 3% to 11.2%, Belokataysky district — from 2.7% to 11.1%, Alsheevsky district — from 0.8% to 6% ^{[8, l. 21]}.

The tendency in the republic to appoint a high regional committee patron to party management positions of a regional scale "his own person", often ignoring his "low" moral and business qualities, led to outright financial abuses. Individual party appointees began to "master" a certain part of the party budget funds according to gray schemes, which were problematic for the auditors to identify. As a rule, this shady practice took place among the party members of the "second echelon", since the use of the party budget for personal purposes among the commanding party staff of the republican scale was mainly promptly prevented. In cases where unsightly shady misconduct was nevertheless discovered, they were qualified as unintentional "financial mistakes" and were immediately corrected ^{[13, l. 45]}

Compared with the period of Stalinism, a clear change in the era of "Khrushchev reformism" in the managerial style of party workers, when "night vigils" in the workplace were canceled well after midnight, overtime storming, diversity in clothing, etc., gave rise to a negative trend – a banquet feast of the party apparatus. As a rule, the responders relieved the stress of "stressful party work" most often in the form of collective drinking of alcoholic beverages "on the road" or right at the workplace.

The commission of the Bashkir regional Committee of the CPSU, checking "on the spot" an anonymous letter stating that the first secretary of the Kugarchinsky district committee of the CPSU "constantly gets drunk", verified the authenticity of the "signaled facts". It was established that in February 1954, the head of the party organization of the Kugarchinsky district, together with the deputy chairman of the executive committee of the district council, participated in a "group drinking party" on the Kurt-Yelga farm. At the banquet, the district party leader drank such an amount of alcohol that he was in a state of complete insanity and was not transportable to return to the district center ^{[7, l. 18]}.

On March 7, 1954, the secretary of the Kugarchinsky district committee of the CPSU, arriving at the village council of the village of Verkhnyaya Maika, began to celebrate International Women's Day in advance in the company of responsible employees of the district. On March 8, 1954, the "group drinking" continued at the board of the collective farm "New Life" in the village of Umetbaevo. The degree of intoxication of the first secretary of the district committee turned out to be so strong that on March 9 he was clearly not in proper working condition, therefore, "drunk" he held a brigade meeting of collective farmers. After the meeting, a collective evening with alcohol was organized again in honor of the last holiday and the arrival of the "distinguished guest". During the feast, the secretary of the district committee lost control of himself and behaved unworthily towards women ^{[7, l. 19]}

In June 1954, the next visit of the secretary of the district committee to the collective farm named after S. M. Budyonny took place. Instead of discussing the accumulated organizational issues, at the initiative of the secretary of the district committee, a collective fishing was organized with the participation of the district prosecutor, the chairman of the collective farm, the secretary of the local party organization and the workers of the medical center. The picnic on the river turned into a drunken party and again ended in a high-profile incident, about which information quickly spread, "casting a shadow" on "honest communists". This "egregious trick", which could not be hidden, was skillfully used by the regional Communist party agents as a preventive measure of intimidation, potential violators of "party and state discipline". On July 9, 1954, the bureau of the Bashkir regional Committee of the CPSU dismissed the first secretary of the Kugarchinsky district committee of the CPSU, declaring him a strict reprimand with entry into the registration card for drunkenness, drunkenness at work and in public places ^{[7, l. 20]}.

In the autumn of 1958, an emergency occurred in Sterlitamak with an instructor of the industrial and transport department of the city committee, who "drunkenly" fought in public transport with a disabled man, his wife and obscenely insulted police officers. Due to the fact that the case received a public response in the city, it was not possible to "hush up" it. On October 16, 1958, four days after the incident, an urgent meeting of the party bureau was held, followed by a party meeting of the Sterlitamak City Committee of the CPSU, at which the case of the "stumbled comrade" was considered. For non-partisan behavior, the instructor of the city committee was reprimanded with entry in the registration card ^{[14, l. 35-37]}. Five months later, on February 18, 1959, the party penalty was lifted due to the fact that the party official "learned for himself the lesson learned at the party meeting, stopped drinking alcohol and directed his vital energy into a positive channel of professional activity" ^{[15, L. 5]}.

The party themis acted quite loyally towards the commanding party staff of the "second echelon". At closed meetings of the bureau of the Regional Committee, district or city committees of the party, the perpetrator, who committed "immoral offenses compromising the honor of a communist," was given an edifying study in a narrow circle of "responders." As a rule, party officials were not subjected to the harshest punishment – they were not excluded from the ranks of the CPSU, which in fact meant not only the collapse of their careers, but also exclusion from nomenklatura-privileged life. In cases where it was not possible to hide from the central party organizations information about the misconduct "revealed" in the party and administrative and economic apparatus of the Bashkir ASSR, which "cast a shadow" on the "healthy forces" of the regional detachment of party officials, they were explained as single excesses caused by the understaffing of the party apparatus in the field ^{[12, l. 116]}.

Summing up, it is important to note that the reorganization of the activities of the party apparatus during the Khrushchev thaw was characterized by the fact that in the management of the CPSU, the process of eroding the once stoic principles of moral and business behavior of communist managers, characteristic of Stalin's time of "rigid party discipline and modesty in everyday life," was gradually gaining momentum. The new trend observed among the party officials of the "Khrushchev set" — industrial and moral emancipation, which did not entail the irreversibility of severe punishment, was one of the manifestations of the complex institutional process of the era of "Khrushchev reformism". We are talking about a change in the value paradigm in the form of the refusal of party officials from rigid stoicism and orientation towards satisfying their personal interests. Of course, the party organs in the era of Khrushchev's reforms were intolerant of any negative facts discrediting the "crystal clear" reputation of the CPSU. However, they could no longer use administrative methods to neutralize the consequences generated by limited intraparty liberalization, which caused a mental reset among some party officials. The party nomenclature, imbued in the conditions of the "Khrushchev thaw" with the realization that the time of the GULAG was finally gone, began to put individual well-being above the fanfare of the idea of "selfless service to the cause of socialism."