Among the Soviet leaders of the second half of the twentieth century, the figure of Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin (1904 - 1980) stands apart. As prime minister (then his post was called “Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR”), he led the economy of the Soviet Union for 15 years. Over the years, the USSR has become a powerful power with the second economy in the world. It is possible to list the achievements in the form of millions of tons and square meters for a very long time, but the main result of the economic achievements of the 1960s - 1980s is precisely the place of the then Soviet Union in the world.
Kosygin could not boast of origin (the son of a turner and a housewife) or education (the Potrebkooperatsii technical school and the 1935 Textile Institute), but he was well-read, had an excellent memory and broad outlook. No one would have guessed in a personal meeting that Alexei Nikolaevich had not actually received the education required for a high-ranking statesman. However, in about the same years, Stalin got along with an unfinished seminary and somehow managed ...
At Alexei Nikolaevich, colleagues noted the exceptional competence in official matters. He did not gather meetings in order to listen to experts and reduce their opinion to a single one. Kosygin always worked out any issue himself, and gathered specialists to concretize ways of solving and adjusting plans.
1. The first serious promotion of the then 34-year-old AN Kosygin was not without a curiosity. Having received a call to Moscow, the chairman of the Leningrad City Executive Committee (1938 - 1939) on the morning of January 3, 1939 boarded a Moscow train. Let's not forget that 1939 has just begun. Lavrenty Beria only in November replaced Nikolai Yezhov as the People's Commissar of the NKVD and had not yet had time to deal with the bone-breakers from the central office. Kosygin's neighbor in the compartment turned out to be the famous actor Nikolai Cherkasov, who had just played in the films "Peter the First" and "Alexander Nevsky". Cherkasov, who had time to read the morning newspapers, congratulated Kosygin on his high appointment. Alexei Nikolaevich was somewhat taken aback, since he did not know the reasons for the call to Moscow. It turned out that the decree on his appointment as People's Commissar of the USSR Textile Industry was signed on January 2 and has already been published in the press. In this post, Kosygin worked until April 1940.
2. Kosygin, although formally, due to his participation in the overthrow of Khrushchev, and could be considered a member of Brezhnev's team, was not very suitable for the Brezhnev company in character and lifestyle. He did not like noisy parties, feasts and other amusements, and in everyday life he was modest to the point of asceticism. Almost no one was visiting him, just as he hardly went to anyone. He rested in a sanatorium in Kislovodsk. The sanatorium, of course, was for the members of the Central Committee, but nothing more. The guards kept aloof, while the head of the Council of Ministers himself walked along the same path, which was called "Kosygin". Kosygin traveled to Crimea a couple of times, but the security regime there was stricter, and the pavilion with the “turntable” telephone stood right on the beach, what kind of rest ...
3. At the funeral of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser A. Kosygin represented the Soviet state. And he took this trip as a business trip - all the time he tried to probe the political soil of Egypt. He also wanted to get information from any sources about the successor (then not yet guaranteed) of Nasser Anwar Sadat. Seeing that the assessments of the embassy workers and intelligence officers - they characterized Sadat as a proud, posturing, cruel and two-faced person - are confirmed, Kosygin agreed with their opinion. Just before the departure, he remembered that he needed to bring souvenirs to his loved ones, and asked the translator to buy something at the airport. The purchases were in the amount of 20 Egyptian pounds.
4. Kosygin was close to the leaders who were shot and convicted under the so-called. The “Leningrad case” (in reality, there were several cases, as well as trials). Relatives recalled that for several months Alexei Nikolaevich left for work, as if forever. Nevertheless, everything worked out, although there were testimonies against Kosygin, and he did not have high intercessors.
5. All meetings and business meetings A. Kosygin conducted in a dry, businesslike, in some ways even harsh manner. All funny or emotional cases with his participation can be counted on the fingers of one hand. But sometimes Alexei Nikolaevich still allowed himself to brighten up the business tone of the meetings. Once at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, a plan for the construction of cultural and economic facilities proposed by the Ministry of Culture for the next year was considered. By that time, the building of the Great Moscow Circus had been under construction for several years, but it was far from completion. Kosygin found out that in order to complete the construction of the circus, one needs a million rubles and a year of work, but this million is not allocated in Moscow. The Minister of Culture Yekaterina Furtseva spoke at the meeting. Holding her hands to her chest, she asked for a million for the circus. Because of her nasty character, Furtseva was not particularly popular in the Soviet elite, so her performance did not make an impression. Unexpectedly, Kosygin took the floor, proposing to allocate the necessary amount to the only woman minister among the audience. It is clear that the decision was quickly agreed upon. To Furtseva's credit, she kept her word - exactly a year later, the largest circus in Europe received the first spectators.
6. Much has been written about Kosygin's reforms, and almost nothing has been written about the reasons that made the reforms necessary. Rather, they write, but about the consequences of these reasons: a slowdown in economic growth, a shortage of goods and products, etc. Sometimes they mention in passing about "overcoming the consequences of the personality cult." This does not explain anything - there was a bad cult, overcame its consequences, everything should only get better. And suddenly reforms are needed. The little box explaining the default opens simply. The overwhelming majority of writers, publicists and economists are the descendants of those who were rehabilitated by Khrushchev. For this they are grateful to Nikita Sergeevich for more than half a century. If they scold me sometimes, it’s loving: he invented this corn, but he called the artists bad words. But in fact, Khrushchev completely destroyed a very significant non-state sector of the Soviet economy. Moreover, he destroyed it clean - from peasant cows to artels that produced radios and televisions. According to various estimates, the private sector accounted for 6 to 17% of the USSR's GDP. Moreover, these were percentages, overwhelmingly falling directly into the house or on the consumer's table. Artels and cooperatives produced almost half of Soviet furniture, all children's toys, two-thirds of metal utensils, and about a third of knitted clothes. After the dispersal of the artels, these products disappeared, so there was a shortage of goods, and imbalances arose in the industry. That is why the Kosygin reforms were needed - it was not a striving for perfection, but a step from the brink of an abyss.
7. Even before his resignation from the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers, but already being seriously ill, A. Kosygin discussed with the chairman of the board of the USSR Centrosoyuz the prospects for the development of cooperation. According to Kosygin's plan, cooperative enterprises could provide up to 40% of retail turnover in the country and occupy about the same niche in the service sector. The ultimate goal, of course, was not to expand the cooperative sector, but to improve the quality of goods and services. Before perestroika fanfare was even more than five years old.
8. In principle, not the smartest idea of conferring the USSR Quality Mark on goods initially extended to food products. A special commission of several dozen people awarded the Quality Mark, and a part of this commission was visiting - it worked directly at the enterprises, knocking collectives out of their working rhythm. The directors murmured dully, but did not dare to go against the “party line”. Until at one of the meetings with Kosygin, the long-term director of the Krasny Oktyabr confectionery factory Anna Grinenko did not directly call the venture with the Quality Mark for products nonsense. Kosygin was surprised and tried to argue, but just a day later his assistant called Grinenko and said that the assignment of the Quality Mark to food products had been canceled.
9. Since A. Kosygin was loaded on the principle of “whoever is lucky, we carry it,” then in 1945 he had to prepare a decree on the territorial division of the liberated from the Japanese occupation of South Sakhalin. I had to study documents, historical evidence, even look through fiction. The commission headed by Kosygin chose names for 14 cities and districts and 6 cities of regional subordination. The decree was adopted, the cities and districts were renamed, and the Sakhalin residents in the late 1960s, during the working trip of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, reminded Alexei Nikolaevich that he was the “godfather” of their city or district.
10. In 1948, Alexey Nikolaevich from February 16 to December 28 worked as the Minister of Finance of the USSR. The short term of work was explained simply - Kosygin counted state money. Most of the leaders had not yet got rid of the "military" methods of economic management - during the war years they paid little attention to money, they were printed as needed. In the postwar years, and even after the monetary reform, it was necessary to learn how to work in a different way. The leaders believed that Kosygin was pinching money for personal reasons. JV Stalin even received a signal about embezzlement at the ministry and Gokhran. The inspection was headed by Lev Mehlis. This man knew how to find flaws everywhere, which, coupled with a callous and meticulous character, made him a scarecrow for a leader of any rank. In the Ministry of Finance, Mehlis did not find any shortcomings, but in Gokhran there was a shortage of 140 grams of gold. “Ferocious” Mehlis invited chemists to the warehouse. The examination showed that insignificant (millionths of a percent) losses were made during the evacuation of gold to Sverdlovsk and its delivery back. Nevertheless, despite the positive results of the audit, Kosygin was removed from the Ministry of Finance and appointed Minister of Light Industry.
11. Kosygin's shuttle diplomacy allowed the representatives of Pakistan M. Ayub Khan and India L B. Shastri to sign a peace declaration in Tashkent that ended the bloody conflict. According to the 1966 Tashkent Declaration, the parties that started the war over the disputed territories of Kashmir in 1965 agreed to withdraw troops and resume diplomatic, trade and cultural ties. Both the Indian and Pakistani leaders highly appreciated Kosygin's readiness for shuttle diplomacy - the head of the Soviet government did not hesitate to visit them from residence to residence. This policy was crowned with success. Unfortunately, the second head of the government of independent India, LB Shastri, was seriously ill and died in Tashkent a few days after the signing of the declaration. Nevertheless, after the Tashkent talks, peace in Kashmir remained for 8 years.
12. The monetary policy of Alexei Kosygin during his entire tenure as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (1964-1980), as they would say now, was determined by a simple formula - the growth of labor productivity should, at least by a small amount, exceed the growth of average wages. He himself experienced strong disappointment in his own steps to reform the economy when he saw that the heads of enterprises, having received excess profits, unreasonably raised salaries. He believed that such an increase should follow exclusively an increase in labor productivity. In 1972, the Soviet Union suffered a serious crop failure. Some heads of ministries and the State Planning Commission decided that in the obviously difficult 1973 it would be possible to raise wages by the same amount with a 1% increase in labor productivity. However, Kosygin refused to endorse the draft plan until the salary increase was reduced to 0.8%.
13. Alexei Kosygin was the only representative of the highest echelons of power in the Soviet Union who strongly opposed the project to transfer part of the flow of Siberian rivers to Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Kosygin believed that the damage caused by the transfer of huge amounts of water to a distance of up to 2,500 km would far exceed the possible economic benefits.
14. Jermen Gvishiani, husband of A. Kosygin's daughter, recalled that, according to his father-in-law, before the Great Patriotic War I. Stalin repeatedly criticized Soviet military leaders in the eyes, considering them unprepared for a big war. Kosygin said that Stalin, in a very derisive manner, called on the marshals to prepare not for pursuing the enemy, who was fleeing at full speed to his territory, but for heavy battles. in which you may have to lose part of the army and even the territory of the USSR. From the events that followed, it is clear how seriously the military leaders took Stalin's words. But the civilian specialists, who were led, including by Kosygin, were able to prepare for the war. In its first days, a significant part of the economic potential of the USSR was evacuated to the east. Alexey Nikolaevich's group evacuated more than 1,500 industrial enterprises during these terrible days.
15. Due to Khrushchev's inertia, representatives of the USSR for many years visited almost all third world countries in alphabetical order, assuring their leadership of their friendship. In the early 1970s, Kosygin also had to make one such trip to Morocco. In honor of the distinguished guests, King Faisal hosted a reception in his most fashionable palace, located on the ocean coast. The Soviet prime minister, who considered himself a good swimmer, gladly plunged into the waters of the Atlantic. The security guards who accompanied the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on this trip remembered for a long time the day when they had to catch A. Kosygin out of the water - it turned out that in order to get out of the ocean surf, a certain skill was needed.
16. In 1973, German Chancellor Willy Brandt presented the USSR leadership with three Mercedes cars of various models. L. Brezhnev ordered to drive the model he liked to the garage of the General Secretary. Theoretically, the other two cars were intended for Kosygin and Nikolai Podgorny, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, at that time he was considered the head of state, “President of the USSR”. At the initiative of Kosygin, both cars were transferred to the “national economy”. One of Aleksey Nikolayevich's drivers later recalled that KGB operatives went on assignments in "Mercedes".
17. Alexey Nikolaevich lived with his wife Klavdia Andreevna (1908 - 1967) for 40 years. His wife died on May 1, at about the same minutes as Kosygin, standing on the platform of the Mausoleum, welcoming the festive demonstration of workers. Alas, sometimes political considerations are above the most reverent love. Kosygin survived Klavdia Ivanovna by 23 years, and all these years he kept the memory of her in his heart.
18. In business communication, Kosygin never stooped not only to rudeness, but even to referring to “you”. So he called only a few really close people and work assistants. One of his assistants recalls that Kosygin called him “you” for a long time, although he was the youngest among his colleagues. Only some time later, after completing several serious assignments, Alexey Nikolaevich began to call the new assistant to "you". Nevertheless, if necessary, Kosygin could be very tough. Once, during a meeting of oil workers, a dean from the leaders of the Tomsk region, reporting on the map about the presence of "fountains" - promising wells - by mistake instead of the Tomsk region climbed into Novosibirsk. They never saw him again in serious leadership positions.
nineteen.Nikolai Baybakov, who had known Kosygin since pre-war times, who worked as deputy to Alexei Nikolaevich and chairman of the State Planning Commission, believes that Kosygin's health problems began in 1976. While riding a boat, Alexei Nikolaevich suddenly lost consciousness. The boat capsized and he sank. Of course, Kosygin was quickly taken out of the water and given first aid, but he had to stay in the hospital for more than two months. After this incident, Kosygin somehow faded, and in the Politburo his affairs were getting worse and worse, and this in no way contributed to an improvement in his health.
20. Kosygin strongly objected to the military operation in Afghanistan. Accustomed to counting every penny of the state, he proposed to supply Afghanistan with anything and in any quantities, but in no case should troops be sent. Alas, his voice was lonely, and by 1978, the influence of Alexei Nikolaevich on other members of the Politburo was reduced to a minimum.
