Gorbachev. Instead of an Obituary

 





Aleksandr Dudchak

    … Foreigners began to buy up Russia for next to nothing

Gorbachev was never the naive advocate of “change” that he pretended to be.

He openly declared: /“The goal of my life was the destruction of
communism, which is an unbearable dictatorship over the people… I could
do this most successfully by performing the highest (state)
functions. Therefore, my wife Raisa recommended that I constantly strive
for the highest positions. And when I personally got acquainted with the
West, my decision became irrevocable. I had to eliminate the entire
leadership of the CPSU and the USSR. I also had to remove the leadership
in all the socialist countries… for such purposes, I found like-minded
people. First of all, it was Yakovlev and Shevardnadze, who have great
merits for the overthrow of communism…”/

/“You can safely celebrate Christmas. The USSR no longer exists”/ – this
famous phrase of Gorbachev was addressed to the American president. In
response, Bush assured Gorbachev of his sincere gratitude.

Starting in 1985, Gorbachev systematically created the structures of the
“shadow” party economy both in the USSR and abroad by adopting and
implementing various decisions of the party and the government. To
fulfil the tasks assigned to him, Gorbachev personally determined the
list of authorised representatives from among the members of the Central
Committee of the CPSU, the Main Directorate of the Central Committee of
the CPSU, the leadership of the KGB, the Ministry of Finance and the
Central Bank.

As if to solve the issue of urgent reforms of the USSR economy under the
leadership of Gorbachev, a new law on state-owned enterprises was
adopted in January 1988. According to it, the state was exempted from
liability for the obligations of the enterprise. The enterprise also did
not meet the obligations of the state. This law brought chaos and
disorganisation to the economic activities of enterprises. At the same
time, while maintaining a planned economy, the centralised distribution
of funds was maintained. Ministries were still required to provide
businesses with everything they needed, and businesses, under the new
law, could dispose of this property at their discretion.

The country’s economy became a one-way street. Enterprises were given
the opportunity to gradually move away from state orders and develop
according to their own plan, independently solving regular issues, as
well as regarding the ways of selling goods and pricing. But the lack of
market infrastructure and intermediary organisations made this path very
difficult. Despite the clause in the bankruptcy law, state subsidies did
not allow organisations to be completely liquidated, thereby
strengthening the vicious circle: inappropriate distribution of funds,
“laundering” of the state budget, and mismanagement of the country.

In May 1988, under pressure from Gorbachev, the Supreme Soviet of the
USSR adopted the Law “On Cooperation”. Behind the general phrases of
numerous articles of this law, their true essence was hidden:
enterprises were allowed to create cooperatives with the right to use
centralised state resources. But, unlike workshops, and even unlike the
enterprises themselves, these cooperatives could, according to the law,
independently conduct export operations, create commercial banks, and
create their own firms abroad. At the same time, the proceeds in foreign
currency were not subject to withdrawal. In the period from 1988 to the
beginning of 1989, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted
decisions that abolished the state monopoly on foreign economic
activity, prohibited customs from detaining the cargo of cooperatives,
and allowed them to leave the proceeds abroad.

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Using his administrative resources, Gorbachev first released enterprises
from their obligations to the country, then transferred their assets to
the hands of cooperatives and opened wide the borders of the USSR.

In a matter of weeks, cooperatives were registered at most state-owned
enterprises, owned by relatives of directors, secretaries of regional
committees and members of the CPSU Central Committee. While public funds
still provided resources for the production of products to factories and
plants, now the directors themselves had the right to dispose of these
products. They began to direct these resources to the ownership of
“family” cooperatives, and they sent them abroad. Cement and metal,
petroleum products and gas, cotton, lumber and mineral fertilisers,
rubber and leather – everything that the state sent to enterprises for
processing and saturating the domestic market was sent by railway trains
abroad through the “green zones” on our borders. Cooperative managers
and officials began to accumulate capital in personal accounts abroad.

According to Gorbachev’s plan, at hour “X”, these funds were legally
imported back into the country through their banks to buy up their own
enterprises.

*/In 1988-1989, cooperatives formed “by the decision of the party”
exported half of the consumer goods produced in the country and the
available assets from the USSR./* The domestic market collapsed, and
there was a shortage of industrial and food products in the country. By
order of Gorbachev and Ryzhkov, the Soviet Union’s gold reserves were
used to buy food abroad. Gold flowed abroad for the purchase of
“foreign” food. Often, under the guise of foreign goods, domestic
products purchased on the domestic market were imported. In the ports of
Leningrad, Riga or Tallinn, ships were loaded with cheap feed grain,
skirted Europe by sea and arrived in Odessa with “imported” food wheat
for the USSR at a price of $120 per ton. In 1989 alone, 2,750 kg of gold
was exported from Magadan to buy corn seeds from the United States and
Canada. The route of transportation of gold ran through Tatarstan, and
then it was sent to Israel along with diamonds worth $28 million.

On February 13, 1990, Gorbachev issued a directive “On the need to
consider certain legal aspects of the party’s life in connection with
the results of the February (1990) plenum of the CPSU Central
Committee”. This directive refers to the need to move to a multi-party
system in the USSR and the possibility of withdrawing from the party its
property, primarily buildings provided to party committees, other
organisations and institutions of the CPSU: publishing houses, printing
houses, rest homes, sanatoriums and other social facilities, vehicles, etc.

A top secret order of Gorbachev and Ryzhkov established a special
procedure for the dollar exchange rate for employees of the Central
Committee of the CPSU. The top officials were allowed to exchange 1 US
dollar at the rate of 62 kopecks, and all other citizens of the country
were allowed to exchange 6 rubles 26 kopecks for 1 dollar. Members of
the Central Committee of the CPSU and nomenklatura officials were
allowed to obtain loans from banks, buy up foreign currency and export
it abroad, opening personal accounts in foreign banks.

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All this happened when Soviet workers, scientists, military personnel,
and officials were no longer paid wages. Mass unemployment began,
strikes and rallies began, food and manufactured goods disappeared,
economic and financial ties between enterprises were disrupted,
republican communist parties moved to “national sovereignty”, popular
fronts were created.

The leaders of the Union republics, looking at what was happening in
Moscow, began to conduct an anti-Russian campaign. There were national
confrontations in the Caucasus, the Baltic states, and Central Asia. The
first shots were fired in Transnistria. Russian refugees flooded from
the republics to Russia, where they were not needed by anyone. All the
mass media broadcast appeals to “Russian people” to help their
compatriots who were in unprecedented trouble. They reported the numbers
of accounts to which they were asked to transfer money, “who can do as
much as they can”. No one had any money, and the workers’ salaries were
not paid for several months… Mass rallies of workers in various branches
of the national economy, related to non-payment of wages and poor
existence, have become commonplace. Within a short time, 166 mines –
about 180,000 people – went on strike.

On March 13, 1990, not without the participation of Gorbachev, article 6
of the Constitution of the country, which secured the CPSU a political
monopoly in the USSR, was repealed. The CPSU lost its political
hegemony, but its elite under Gorbachev’s leadership, with its capital,
had already become a separate caste. The country began complete “rampant
democracy” in the form of the financial introduction of the US dollar
into the economy of the USSR, which led to the complete collapse of the
financial system of the USSR.

Through the owner of a news channel, Maxwell, billions of dollars went
from the USSR to the West. He sold Soviet rubles for foreign currency in
the West, and there these funds were deposited in private accounts.

To sell the Soviet ruble to the West, Gorbachev, in collusion with
Maxwell, with the help of the Minister of Finance of the USSR Pavlov and
the manager of the State Bank of the USSR Gerashchenko, attracted the
Swiss financier Schmidt from the firm “Burogemeinschaft”, who was
engaged in mediation. The Swiss flew to Moscow and held talks with
Pavlov and Gerashchenko.

They agreed to withdraw 280 billion rubles from the USSR and sell
it. Schmidt was an experienced financier and had a clear understanding
of the state of money circulation in the Soviet Union (in the USSR at
that time there were only 139 billion rubles in cash circulation). After
receiving Pavlov’s offer to sell 280 billion rubles, Schmidt asked him a
question: “Are you going to withdraw this money from
circulation?” “Partially,” the USSR Finance Minister replied. And then
he clarified: “But don’t think we’re idiots. We are rich. Don’t worry
about us! We’ll print it again.”

The deal was prepared by Gerashchenko and Pavlov in advance, by secret
order of Gorbachev. Pavlov, Gerashchenko and Schmidt came to an
agreement on making a deal to sell 280 billion rubles to the West and
agreed to act in four stages, namely:

  * the first stage – in December 1990 – 100 billion rubles are exported
    from the USSR and sold for $5.5 billion;
  * the second stage – in January 1991 – 25 billion rubles;
  * the third stage – in May 1991 – 15 billion rubles; the money of the
    second and third stages is sold for $2 billion;
  * the fourth stage – in July 1991 – 140 billion rubles are sold for
    $4.5 billion.

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In total, $12 billion was received for 280 billion rubles. The deal was
completed on the eve of the August 1991 coup.

The sale of Soviet money was personally led by the former Ministers of
Finance of the USSR V. Pavlov and V. Orlov. So, V. Pavlov arrived in
Switzerland incognito at the end of 1990 (with a fake passport). At the
same time, he had no contact either with the Soviet embassy in Bern or
with the Swiss authorities. In Zurich, Pavlov held secret meetings with
Schmidt and the heads of Swiss, German, French and British banks, and at
the end of January 1991, the new Minister of Finance, V. Orlov, also
traveled to Switzerland on forged documents, where he met and talked
with representatives of US financial circles and Europe. In addition to
the question of the mechanisms for transferring funds to the West, Orlov
said that Gorbachev and his government would like to sell a significant
amount of gold, diamonds and platinum, but are afraid that due to
information leaks, prices for them on the world market may fall.

At the conclusion of this transaction, according to witnesses, Pavlov
told Schmidt: “Those who sent you know the account numbers to which you
need to transfer this money. At the last stage, Mr. Orlov will
personally oversee the transaction.” According to the agreement, the
specified amounts in ruble equivalent were exported from the USSR to
Switzerland. */Schmidt, as he himself said, bought the Soviet Union for
only $12 billion./*

The theft of the Soviet money supply led the country to complete
collapse. The damage to the state was incalculable: 360 billion rubles
of labour savings of the people of the USSR, which lay in savings banks,
were devalued, and the country’s financial system completely collapsed.

This deal eventually led to the complete collapse of the USSR. The
Gorbachev clan devalued the Soviet ruble to an infinitely low level,
then for a penny to buy up the giants of our industry and the largest
raw materials deposits. Back in 1985-1987, one US dollar in
international settlements cost 0.6 rubles, in 1990 – already 3.6 rubles,
and in 1991 the cost of one dollar reached 18 rubles. After the collapse
of the USSR, the Yeltsin group’s seizure of power in the country and the
West’s dumping of Soviet rubles bought from the Gorbachev group, the
currency ratio in 1992 fell to the level of one dollar per 1000
rubles. If in 1985-1987 the cost of our oil refinery was 500 million
rubles, that is, $790 million at the exchange rate of that time, then in
1992 it was only $500,000. Foreigners began to buy up Russia for a penny…

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Em
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31/8/2022