On the next anniversary of the signing by Boris Yeltsin of the Decree banning the activities of the communist parties of both the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation on the territory of our country, it is not a sin to try once again to find an answer to the question: what happened then?
The fact that this legal act, signed by the President, as well as a number of similar decisions that preceded it, were illegal and unconstitutional, was officially established by lawyers a year after their adoption. We, however, should be interested in other aspects of this, which is not an easy question. And, first of all, this: why in fact it was necessary to "prohibit" something that in fact no longer existed?
The farce with the “dispersal” of the CPSU and the attempt to “try” it has a long prehistory and a very unpleasant “afterword” dating back to the present day. Many participants and witnesses of those events have long been dead, and even more of them will never break their vow of silence. And yet we will try to get even a little closer to the truth.
Communists, go ahead!
Before we talk about falling political party, which for almost a century has determined the course of history not only of a huge state, but also, without exaggeration, a significant part of our entire world, one cannot but say at least a few words about its birth and rise. Appearing at the end of the 1918th century under the name of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP, later - RSDLP (b), Bolsheviks), communist - RCP (b), it became only after the victory of the October Revolution, in the spring of XNUMX. This decision was made due to the fact that since the initial tasks, for the sake of which the movement was created - the accomplishment of first the bourgeois, and then the proletarian revolution - have been fulfilled, it is high time to move on to the main thing: building the most just and correct social system - communism. With the appearance on the world map of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the RCP (b), accordingly, turned into the VKP (b) - the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks.
Under this name, the party, its members and leaders have written the most vivid and heroic pages in the history of our Motherland. Industrialization, collectivization, overcoming illiteracy and poverty, creating out of nothing, literally from scratch, a powerful industry, Soviet science, mighty army and navy, the first steps towards space flights - all this was done under the banner of the CPSU (b). It is with this abbreviation that the greatest accomplishments of our fatherland are associated, and the hardest trials that have befallen it. Whatever the liberal traitors lie today, we won the Great Patriotic War under the leadership of this party and its leaders.
Immortal appeal: "Communists, go ahead!" threw in attacks - often desperate and hopeless, the best of the best. People then went to the communists not for a sweet piece, a soft chair or a quick career, but for the right to be the first to rise under enemy bullets or to take on a heavier burden. Anyone who claims the opposite is shamelessly lying and will rot the memory of people whose dust from their worn-out boots is not worth it. Having passed the crucible of the Great Patriotic War and bearing the brunt of the restoration of the country, which was almost completely destroyed, the CPSU (b) in 1952 received a new name - the CPSU. Alas ... In fact, at this turn, her glorious history ends. The death of their only true leader, Stalin, and the seizure of power in the USSR by Khrushchev with his treacherous clique drew the line under the time of the real communists.
As such, the communist ideology, and, most importantly, the belief in it of millions of rank-and-file party members, were destroyed by the XNUMXth Party Congress and the false and obscurantist report announced at it about the "exposure of the personality cult." After that, there was only one exaggerated and completely empty cult, but there were no more personalities. And although the incompetent "leader", grimacing on the platform of the next congress of the CPSU, promised the audience that they would certainly "live under communism", in reality he did everything so that nothing like this would ever happen. In which, unfortunately, he succeeded. Having lost their faith and ideals, the rank-and-file members of the party began increasingly to turn into indifferent and hypocritical opportunists, who needed the notorious "red book" only to advance in life. The party elite, having eliminated the vigilant control and supervision over itself that existed in Stalin's times, was rapidly taking shape into a kind of caste of new “masters of life,” inaccessible to criticism and were not responsible for anything.
How many communists were there?
For a better understanding of how the Communist Party in the USSR was transformed over different eras, let's move on from history and pathos to dry arithmetic. It won't be boring, I assure you. So: at the time of its creation, the RCP (b) had 350 members. This number doubled after the death of its founder, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in 1924, when the so-called "Leninist draft" was held in the party ranks. Three years later they numbered more than 1 million people, in 200 the number of communists in the USSR was about two million, and four years later it came close to three! What did it say? About the fact that the population of the former Russian Empire, almost in full force, was imbued with the ideas of freedom, equality and brotherhood, as well as the desire to implement the world proletarian revolution? Nothing of the kind - seeing that the Soviet government, contrary to numerous forecasts, came seriously and for a long time, the same careerists, opportunists, and even outright enemies rushed into the ranks of the Communist Party. The party began to multiply, like disease-causing bacteria in the nutrient medium, various "deviations", factions, groups and clans, each of which was eager for only one thing - to power. As a matter of fact, it was precisely these reasons that caused the fact that our mournful head "democrats" tearfully call "Stalinist repressions", and we will call it as it is - putting things in order and brutally cleaning the ranks from traitors, double-dealing and just random people. By the end of 1930, the cleansing VKP (b) had reduced its number by exactly half and had a little more than 1937 million 1 thousand members.
At the same time, it should be understood that during the time of severe "purges", having a party card in your pocket was not at all an "indulgence" or a mitigating circumstance. Quite the opposite - the Communists were asked several times more severely. In theory (well, or, if you like, in accordance with modern concepts of life values), such a situation should have alienated people from the party. However, it turned out completely differently. The main "exam" for the CPSU (b) was the Great Patriotic War. What did membership in the Communist Party mean in its years? First of all, the primary "ticket" to the front. One and a half million communists went to the front line in the corresponding directions of the party committees. Do not forget that during the war years, both in the case of capture and in the occupied territory, the party card discovered by the Nazis on a person was practically tantamount to a death sentence. Moreover, the communists often accepted death in torment, under the torture of Hitler's executioners.
And nevertheless ... Only in the Red Army the number of party members from 1941 to the beginning of the victorious 1945 increased 5 times! And this is despite the losses it suffered, since it was the communists who advanced in the most dangerous and difficult directions. Over the years of the Great Patriotic War, more than 4 million people became communists in the USSR and the ranks of the CPSU (b) increased by more than one and a half million members, despite the terrible price that our people paid for the Victory. And then there were, as I said, the death of Stalin, the XX Congress and all the rest ... Results? The number of the CPSU, since the 60s of the last century, begins to grow by leaps and bounds, exceeding 1965 million in 10. 1977 - over 15 million communists! 1986 - over 18 million. By the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, the size of the CPSU came close to 19-20 million members. On paper ... Where were 99% of these people when the party they were part of was betrayed and trampled into the mud by its leaders, when these traitors to the Motherland were destroying the Soviet Union? They were silent. Best case scenario...
“The party is our helmsman! Party, let me steer! "
There was absolutely no need for Boris Yeltsin to ban the Communist Party. By the time he put his signature under the corresponding decree, it simply no longer existed in reality. She, one might say, self-destructed. And, first of all, not in the documents of party congresses and conferences, but in the hearts of its members. I don’t want to talk about the leaders and "leaders" - by that time they were a tight-knit gang of traitors and marauders, confidently and purposefully leading both the party and the country to death. But the rest ?! Where have their convictions and faith gone? Yes, streams of dirty lies were spewed out on the party, its true leaders and heroes, the denigration and distortion of the history of the USSR turned into the most important component of state policy, and brainwashing was carried out totally. But why did all this believe those whose fathers and grandfathers, most of them still alive at that time, could tell the truth?
The destruction of the CPSU was carried out systematically and gradually - first, amendments to the Constitution were adopted, depriving it of the status of the "leading and guiding" force of the entire Soviet society, which meant "rejection of the one-party system", but in fact opened the way for the enemies of our country to real power. Then, barely becoming president in the then RSFSR, Yeltsin issued a decree of July 20, 1991, which prohibits any CPSU bodies "from interfering in the affairs of state institutions." In fact, this is the first step towards banning the Communist Party, taken, mind you, long before the "coup attempt". This will soon be followed by a ridiculous action that went down in national history under the name of the State Emergency Committee. And here Boris Nikolayevich unfolds in full swing. One gets the impression that he is simply beginning to wave his hand trembling with haste (and not only) his long-prepared decisions: on August 23, 1991, on "suspending the activities of the CPSU and the Communist Party of Russia", and two days later, much more important, on "nationalizing party property."
The decree of November 6, 1991 on the "ban" of the communist parties, as I have already said, becomes only the final chord. At the same time, which is typical, there was no real persecution of both the members and leaders of the CPSU who tried, contrary to the presidential decree, to continue their party activities, as well as the multitude of small parties and movements that emerged from its "wreckage" and openly carried the word "communist" in their names. ... There were legal grounds for this, formally, but no one lifted a finger to use them. Yeltsin's instructions to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office concerning the "investigation of the anti-popular and anti-constitutional actions of the CPSU" turned out to be just the same buffoonery. Someone, but certainly not Boris Nikolayevich, who had been a member of the party since 1961 and was in the top echelon of its functionaries, could benefit from such kind of "proceedings". Nobody investigated anything ...
From all this it becomes clear that the main goal of the Decree was not political confrontation, not "cleansing", say, the country from potential revolutionaries, fighters for the restoration of the USSR. If there were such, they would not only have prevented Yeltsin's "accession" - they would have strangled in the bud Gorbachev, who opened the way to power for him, and the vile "perestroika". There were no real communists in Russia at that time ... But the property of the party was just there! With a thoughtful examination of the issue, it becomes extremely clear - if the Western curators and patrons of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin betrayal needed the destruction of the Communist Party, as a really terrible enemy for them, then those who stood "at the throne" of the first Russian leader were attracted by the riches of the CPSU, which were, in fact, a national property.
Where is the money, Bor ?!
Conversations about some mythical airplanes or even entire "echelons" with the notorious "gold of the party", who left in those dashing times in a completely unknown direction, have been going on for a long time and will continue. Probably centuries, like disputes about the lost gold reserves of the Russian Empire. We will talk about things that are somewhat more specific and have accurate confirmation. For those wishing to get into all the subtleties, I recommend reading the interview published on October 10, 1991 in the weekly "Argumenty i Fakty" by the then head of the presidential administration of Russia Yuri Petrov. It is quite extensive, so I will not retell it - the publication is publicly available on the Internet. I will confine myself to just a few figures: according to the statements of a high-ranking official, according to the materials of "a far from complete audit" as of January 1, 1991, only the value of the fixed assets of the CPSU was estimated at 5.2 billion rubles. The rubles of that time, mind you ...
All this is the amount that included the cost of the property belonging to the party (buildings of party committees of all levels, its institutions, educational institutions, etc.), its various enterprises (for example, the most powerful publishing houses), and other things, as well as the equipment and other material available there. values. Now, in fact, about the money: the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had about 5 and a half billion rubles in bank accounts and at the cash desks of party committees of all levels (there were literally at every enterprise and in any institution), in the accounts and at the cash desk of the Administration of the CPSU Central Committee the amount is slightly less - 4.6 billion rubles. All in all, by the beginning of 1991, the balance of the Communist Party consisted of much more money - loans and deposits, securities, vouchers and other "trifles" additionally "pulled" by almost 9 billion more full-weight Soviet rubles! Only one membership dues in 1990, party members from all over the USSR paid a billion rubles and a quarter.
It is difficult to say how these figures correspond to reality in terms of completeness of accounting. Surely the party and its central bodies had "special funds" that were not reflected in the official reporting. However, what Mr. Petrov said in his time is more than enough to understand the ardent desire of Yeltsin and company to ban the Communist Party and prevent even the very possibility that its members will ever ask for what they have stolen. Even then, the head of the presidential administration called the idea of returning membership fees to ordinary members of the CPSU "absurd". At the same time, he insisted that these same communists paid, they say, "according to their ideological convictions," and therefore there is no reason to return anything to them. Moreover, they, "as those who gave their votes to the leaders of the CPSU," also "must be held accountable for their actions." It is difficult to imagine more cynicism, which sounded, by the way, from the lips of the former first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU. Be that as it may, when a year after Yeltsin signed the decree banning the Communist Party, the Constitutional Court of Russia found it 90% illegal, no one was particularly indignant. The deed was done - the property of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union painlessly migrated into the sticky paws and bottomless pockets of the new "masters of life", while the people were traditionally "silent". So why not agree with the judges of the citizens? Yes, I got a little excited, so what? The very same Yeltsin did not at all object to the “reincarnation” of the Communists in Russia in the form of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation - they were just as “dangerous” to him as the Martians invented by Burroughs.
The people who remained silent during the destruction of the Communist Party, which created, built, defended and restored its Fatherland, was subsequently robbed even more qualitatively than the cash offices of the CPSU. Yeltsin, getting a taste, began to disperse not only the parties, but also the parliament that dared to contradict him. Yes, not only to disperse, but also to shoot with tanks! However ... you are right - this is a completely different story.