THE TURNING POINT (IV)

• 11.1 Where can we get 30,000 tons of meat?
• 11.2 The world crisis of socialism
• 11.3 Bankruptcy

• NOTES & SOURCES
• click on superscript number [²⁵] to see note and source

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Judgement in Moscow

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The Polish crisis was simply the first, graphic expression of the general economic collapse of socialism, a portent of their common future.

In the final analysis, it was not Solidarity that caused the crisis. It was the incapacity of the system to provide Poland with the most basic goods and, as the Politburo would become ever more convinced, the incapacity of the entire socialist camp to meet the Poles’ needs, however temporarily. The Polish crisis merely exacerbated these problems by making them political. The question as to whether Poland would or would not remain under Soviet control could be crudely reduced to the success or failure of the USSR in providing Poland with enough oil, meat, grain, cotton and so on.

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11.1: Where can we get 30,000 tons of meat?

To begin with the situation greatly irritated the Soviet leaders and prompted friction between those responsible for the economy and those in charge of politics, security and ideology. The reason lay not in a difference in convictions or because some were more dogmatic than others. While there were those at the Politburo who talked of political necessity, after meeting with a delegation from Poland, others were talking of economic realities (26 March 1981*, Pb [¹]).

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26 MARCH 1981 (POLITBURO)

“ARKHIPOV. Regarding the economic situation in Poland, Comrade Jagielski [Polish deputy prime minister] informed us that the plan for 1981 will be some 20 percent lower than the plan for the preceding year, 1980. The Poles are having especially difficulties with coal production and their coal, as you know, is exported and is a means of earning hard currency. Instead of 180 million tons, as envisaged in the plan, they will at best produce 170 million tons. The production of meat is falling by 25 percent, and sugar by 1.5 times. Instead of 1.5 million tons of sugar, they’ll end up with 950,000 tons at the most.

Now it is being suggested in Poland that supplies of bread and flour must be rationed.

As concerns the financial situation, Poland’s debts, owed mainly to the capitalist countries, amount to 23 billion dollars, of which 9 billion were guaranteed by the States involved. The remaining credits were provided to the Poles by private banks. All told there are 400 banks involved. Our Polish friends faced a situation in which they must buy various goods abroad for roughly 9.5 billion dollars. All of this will be purchased on credit. Exports will only come to a total of 8.5 billion. Western countries are doing all they can to put off a decision on whether to provide new credits to Poland. The Poles need to pay off 1.5 billion dollars now. This is mainly interest on their previous debts. They’re asking us to give them 700 million dollars. Of course, we can’t possibly come up with such a sum. We are currently providing Poland, without delay, with oil, natural gas, iron ore, etc.

During our conversation, the Polish friends asked whether they should impose a moratorium on further credits or join the International Monetary Fund and request additional credits from Western countries. Of course, in either case it will be a concession to the Western countries and will not provide any kind of boost to the economy. The Poles themselves are divided on this matter. They’re asking us to give them additional cotton and artificial fibre and we have decided to make a certain increase in those supplies.

Gromyko expressed a certain frustration with “the Polish comrades” who emphasized how acute the problem was with imported goods, because they now had no way of paying for these goods, while failing to appreciate that every scrap of cotton, all the iron and oil they received came from the Soviet Union. Somehow, they considered that issue “a trifle”.

ARKHIPOV. We are supplying 13 million tons of oil to Poland at 90 roubles a ton. Bearing in mind that the world price for a ton is 170 roubles, we are subsidizing the Poles at 80 roubles for every ton. We could have sold all this oil for hard currency, and our earnings would have been enormous.”

The oil situation was getting worse and worse. It was the Soviet Union’s main source of hard currency, just as coal was for Poland. To help Poland out of its difficulties oil supplies had to be reduced to other East European countries. As Rusakov reported to the Politburo late in the year (29 October 1981*, Pb [²]) the reaction from Soviet allies was pained.

“RUSAKOV. During the negotiations, the leaders of the fraternal countries also raised economic issues. Chief among these was the reduction in supplies of energy sources, above all oil. Comrades Kadar, Gusak, and Zhivkov said that this would be difficult for them, but all of them reacted with understanding to our proposal and our request. They said they will find a way to cope with the situation and go along with what we proposed. To make it all quite clear, I asked each of the comrades the following question: Can I inform the Politburo that you agree with the point of view I expressed? The comrades replied, Yes, I could say that.

The conversation with Comrade Honecker turned out differently. He immediately said that such a reduction in the oil supply was unacceptable for the GDR. It would cause serious damage to the country’s economy and to the GDR as a whole. It would strike a heavy blow at the GDR’s economy, and they would find it very difficult to cope. He even declared that they could not accept it and requested a written response from Comrade Brezhnev to two letters they had sent. The issue proved to be very complex and essentially it was left unresolved. Comrade Honecker again referred to the fact that they are supplying us with bismuth and uranium, providing upkeep for the Group of [Soviet] Forces, and that matters are especially complicated for them because the Polish People’s Republic is not supplying the coal that we [East Germans] need. As a result, Honecker suggested, this would lead to a sharp decline in the living standards of the German population, and we [East Germans] don’t know how we should explain it. They will have to reconsider all their plans.

BREZHNEV. … As you know, we decided to reduce the supply of oil to our friends. All of them took it hard and Comrade Honecker, for example, as you can see, is awaiting a response to the letters he sent us. The others are not expecting a reply, but deep down, of course, they are hoping that we will somehow change our decision.

Perhaps at the next meeting with our friends it would be worthwhile to comment in some way on this issue and say we will be taking all measures needed to fulfil and over-fulfil the plan for oil, and hope to be successful. In that way, we could adjust the planned deliveries of energy supplies without letting them think, of course, that we are backing away from our decision. …

Other Politburo members echoed Brezhnev’s concern about oil supplies and the reaction in Eastern Europe, especially the GDR.

ARKHIPOV. We have further difficulties with fuel. Our miners will deliver 30 million fewer tons of coal. How can we make up that shortfall? The oil industry is not going to exceed its plan, which means we’ll have to make up for these 30 million tons in some other way. Moreover, we have a shortfall of 1.5 million tons of sugar and will have to buy it, and we also need to buy 800,000 tons of vegetable oil, which we cannot do without for the time being.

As concerns the response to Comrade Honecker, I think the recommendation offered by Comrade Rusakov is correct. We must confirm that we cannot change the decision that was conveyed to Comrade Honecker. Regarding the deliveries of uranium to which Comrade Honecker referred, it does not solve the problem because it makes up only 20 percent of the total quantity we use. Comrade Honecker also fails to consider the nuclear power plants we are building for the GDR. This is a big undertaking.

RUSAKOV. I want to add that the Poles are requesting us to maintain the level of oil and gas supplies delivered this year.

ARKHIPOV. We are negotiating with the Poles about this, and we believe we should base our economic relations with them on the principle of balancing our plans. Of course, that will lead to a significant reduction in the delivery of oil since they are not supplying us with coal and other goods. If everything goes well, however, we will set the deliveries at the same volume they are now.

BAIBAKOV. All the socialist countries are now trying to test us, and looking to the GDR, and watching to see how we treat the GDR. If Honecker succeeds in breaching our resolve, then they, too, will try the same. In any event, no one has yet given a written response. I recently spoke with officials from the state planning agencies of all the socialist countries. All of them want to preserve the overall quantity of oil deliveries as planned for coming years. Some propose that other energy sources be substituted for oil.

The problems did not end with oil, on which the entire Soviet empire depended. Nothing could be simpler, it might seem, than meat. The whole commotion had begun in Poland because of meat and a year after the trouble started it would have been possible to tighten belts and flood the country with meat. But no, there was no meat to be had. In that vast totalitarian empire, the words of the leaders were law – but, try as it might, it could not produce 30,000 tons of meat.

BREZHNEV. Did we send to Poland the meat we decided on, and did we tell Jaruzelski about it?

RUSAKOV. We told Jaruzelski and he named a figure of 30,000 tons.

ARKHIPOV. We shall be sending the meat to Poland from our State reserves.

BREZHNEV. Have there been any improvements in meat supplies to the Union fund from the republics since my telegram?

ARKHIPOV. So far, Leonid Ilych, there have been no improvements in the supplies of meat. Not enough time has passed yet, it is true. I’ve discussed the matter with all the republics, however, and can report that measures are being taken everywhere to permit fulfilment of the planned deliveries of meat to the State. Such measures have been drawn up in Estonia, Belorussia, and Kazakhstan. So far, the Ukrainians have not issued instructions to the regions.

CHERNENKO. But we distributed our telegram to all the regions in Ukraine.

ARKHIPOV. We’ll have further data on Monday, and then we’ll report where matters stand.

GORBACHOV. Leonid Ilych, your telegram played a big role. Above all, the republics and the regions are all now seriously considering measures to ensure that the plan is fulfilled. In any event, according to information from telephone conversations with the regional committees, and the Central Committees of the republican Communist Parties, this issue is being discussed everywhere. On 1 January [1982], we’ll provide a report on supplies of meat [to the State reserves].

BREZHNEV. Although we gave 30,000 tons of meat to Poland, I still think our meat will scarcely be of help to the Poles. In any event, it is still not clear what will happen with Poland in the future.”

For several months thereafter the Politburo would continue discussing those 30,000 tons of meat. Sometimes it seemed they would be collected and despatched; at other times, not. Telegrams flew back and forth, officials bustled here and there; the telephone wires hummed with the obscenities of the bosses. But no meat appeared. What is 30,000 tons of meat, you may say, compared to world revolution? Even at market prices in the West it is unlikely that it cost more than 30 million dollars. The whole of Poland would not disappear over such a trifle.

However, three days before martial law was declared, the head of Gosplan Baibakov, who had just returned from Warsaw, reported to the Politburo (10 December 1981*, Pb [³]):

“As you know, in accordance with a decision of the Politburo and at the request of the Polish comrades, we are providing them as aid 30,000 tons of meat. Of the 30,000 tons, 15,000 have already left the country. I should add that the produce, in this case meat, is being delivered [at the Polish end] in dirty, unsanitary rail wagons used to transport iron ore, and has a very unattractive appearance. When the produce is unloaded at Polish rail stations, blatant sabotage has been taking place. The Poles have been saying the rudest things about the Soviet Union and the Soviet people, and they are refusing to clean out the rail wagons, etc. One could not begin to list all the insults that have been directed against us.”

Jaruzelski’s new requests on the eve of martial law indeed looked, as Andropov put it, “insolent”. But wasn’t Poland worth it? Moscow would have given yet more without complaint if it only had something to give.

“BAIBAKOV. … It must be said that the list of goods that they include as assistance from us to the Polish People’s Republic is made up of 350 items worth some 1.4 billion roubles. This includes such goods as 2 million tons of grain, 25,000 tons of meat, 625,000 tons of iron ore, and many other goods. Bearing in mind what we were intending to give Poland in 1982, the requests made by the Polish comrades means that our total assistance to the Polish People’s Republic will be approximately 4.4 billion roubles.

The time is now approaching for Poland to pay for its credits from West European countries. To do so Poland needs at least 2.8 million hard-currency roubles. When I listened to the Polish comrades saying what they are requesting and what sum this assistance represented, I suggested that we establish our economic relations on a balanced basis. Moreover, I noted that Polish industry is not fulfilling its plan, and to a quite substantial extent. The coal industry, the country’s main source of hard currency, has been disrupted: the necessary measures are not being taken and the strikes continue. Now, when there are no strikes, the level of output remains at a very low level.

Or, for example, let’s say that the peasants have grown something, there are grain, meat products, vegetables, etc. But they aren’t giving any of it to the State; they’re just playing a waiting game. At the private markets trade is quite brisk and at very inflated prices.

I told the Polish comrades that if such a situation has arisen they must adopt more decisive measures. Perhaps they can introduce something like requisitioning of farm produce.

If we speak, for example, about grain reserves, then this year Poland has accumulated 2 million tons. The population is not going hungry. City dwellers drive to the markets and the villages, buying up all the food they need. And the food is there.

… Sensing this situation with their balance of payments, the Poles want to impose a moratorium on the payment of their debts to Western countries. If they declare a moratorium, all Polish vessels in the waters of other States or in harbour, and all other Polish property in the countries to which Poland owes debts, will be seized. For this reason, the Poles have given instructions to the captains of ships to refrain from entering ports and to stay in neutral waters. …

RUSAKOV. Comrade Baibakov has correctly described the situation regarding the Polish economy. What, then, should we be doing now? It seems to me that we should deliver to Poland the goods provided for under the economic agreements, but that these deliveries should not exceed the quantity of goods we delivered in the first quarter of last year.

BREZHNEV. And are we able to give this much now?

BAIBAKOV. Leonid Ilych, it can be given only by drawing on State reserves or at the expense of deliveries to the internal market.”

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How much, then, did the Polish crisis cost the Soviet Union?

It is not possible to add up all the costs but economic aid alone, including credits for the purchase of commodities and paying for Western loans, deferred payments and grants in aid, amounted to 2,934 billion dollars in 1980-1981. Every subsequent year, furthermore, would cost the Soviet regime much the same.

Four years later nothing had changed in Poland. The Politburo wracked its brains how to restore the leading role of the Polish United Workers Party and how to finally suppress “counter-revolution”. High-ranking Soviet delegations flew to Warsaw, where they gave valuable advice about “intensifying work among the masses”. Periodically Jaruzelski came on visits to Moscow, to ask for more aid. By 1984 even the most hardened member of the Politburo knew that the situation was hopeless. As one of them put it (25 April 1984 [⁴]): “We must bear in mind that Poland called itself a socialist country but was never socialist in the full meaning of the word.”

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11.2: The world crisis of socialism

It seems unlikely that any of the Soviet leaders, however, could firmly say what it meant, to be socialist “in the full meaning of the word”, and yet less, which of the fraternal countries was such a State. Any member of the Politburo could without thinking declare, like a parrot, what it meant in theoretical terms. The practical aspect confused all the theories. One can only hazard a guess at what moment in history successive Soviet leaders realised that the “model” they had created did not work.

Lenin, one may suppose, realised this by 1921 when it became clear that no world socialist revolution would take place. With certainty, it can be said that Stalin became convinced of this fact in 1941 when he saw his empire crumbling before the blows of the German army. Khrushchev, perhaps, never gave such matters a moment’s thought until he was dismissed; the enforced idleness of his later years greatly helped him to see reality. As far as Brezhnev, Andropov, Gromyko, Chernenko, Ustinov, Suslov and the others are concerned, the Polish crisis was for them what 1941 had been for Stalin.

In fact, the early 1980s uncovered how rotten the system was. There was Afghanistan, on the one hand, and Poland, on the other; there was the growing hostility of the West and the failure of the campaign for disarmament and, in the very centre, the stagnating economy, mass dissatisfaction, technical backwardness, and the indestructible corruption of the bureaucracy. Taken together these all showed that the system was in crisis. After Poland, the Soviet leaders began to look at their own country with different eyes (24 October 1980, St 233/8 [⁵]).

“As instructed the departments of the CPSU Central Committee have analysed information reaching the Central Committee about misunderstandings and conflicts between workers and the administration at various enterprises, which have led in several cases to stoppages and other negative manifestations.

“We consider it essential to report that the number of such negative manifestations has increased somewhat recently and this prompts grave concern. Analysis shows that the overwhelming majority of these incidents are directly linked to violations of the established procedure for adjusting norms and pay, to incorrect extra levies and late payment of wages, especially bonuses; and to poor conditions of work and an inattentive attitude to the complaints of workers.”

This was a malevolent symptom although the strikes did not become widespread. As a rule, it was a question of local conflicts involving one workshop or shift, and most often the conflict was provoked by quite barefaced infringements by factory managers of labour legislation. There were about 300 such incidents in 1979. Events in Poland, however, clearly affected the mood among workers in the Soviet Union.

“It cannot be ignored that refusals to work have become more frequent during the past weeks. In several places, moreover, this refusal to carry out work tasks has not been limited to the collective of a single shift but has spread to those that followed and involved a considerable number of employees.”

Naturally, the trade union representatives were scolded and told to defend their members better. Yet how could that help if the Soviet trade unions, the factory administration and local Party authorities had long ago grown into a single bureaucratic apparatus responsible, before all else, for meeting plan targets? Furthermore, the strikes were in themselves only the culmination of growing dissatisfaction, which was not related to the labour dispute in question. First and foremost, there was the constant shortage of the most basic goods. It was fine for the Poles to strike over shortages of meat – Soviet workers could only dream of meat, and, as Chernenko told the Central Committee, even bread was in short supply (17 February 1981, St 250/9 [⁶]): “… from several places there are letters from citizens which state, sometimes in a sharp fashion, that there are temporary disruptions in the supply of bread and related products, that the range of bread and other confectionery has been reduced, and that they are of low quality.” How could one not expect workers to go on strike, Chernenko quoted one letter, if “their mood is negatively affected by disruptions in the supply of bread and, sometimes, it is not delivered for four days. The children rarely see white bread or buns. There is no flour on sale.”

Of course, he blamed the negligent local bosses and the peasants who, supposedly, were buying up the available bread to feed their privately-owned animals. Even Chernenko began to understand, however, that something was wrong with the system if only because this was a universal phenomenon. They changed the local bosses and, in some places, they began to ration bread and sell it only in exchange for coupons, checking names against lists. This might prevent its use as cattle feed but the amount of bread did not increase. What was the explanation?

Chernenko quoted another letter of complaint (17 February 1981, St 250/9 [⁷]).

“The newspapers publish official reports that the regions have met their socialist obligations for grain sales to the State during the final year of the 10^th Five-Year Plan. Yet for a second day running it is impossible in our workers’ town to buy a loaf of bread. By 2-3 pm the shelves in the shops are bare. Unhealthy rumours are circulating as a result.”

It was a mystery. The plan targets were over-fulfilled and tens of millions of tons of grain were also being bought in Canada and the USA but there was no bread. Simple negligence and carelessness could not explain the problem, especially when bread was only one example among many [⁸].

“It should be noted that in addition to reports of disruption in the provision of bread and certain other items of mass consumption complaints are being received from various regions about disruption in the provision of salt and vinegar.”

The shortage of salt was even more mysterious than the disappearance of bread. There were lakes of salt in Russia and there was no need to grow it: it was gathered by excavators and loaded into train wagons. What could be simpler? The Central Committee paid special attention to the disappearance of salt but never got to the bottom of it all. The letters department of the Central Committee reported (17 February 1981*, St 250/10 [⁹]):

“Among the letters that the Party Central Committee receives from workers concerning the provision of food to the population, there are complaints with increasing frequency from certain parts of the country that it has become difficult to get hold of cooking salt, that few varieties are available and quality is low. A letter from Comrade X, in the town of Y, says: ‘Recently trade in our town has been in a constant fever. Moreover, it concerns items of everyday use. Not long ago there was no cooking salt on sale. This gives rise to every kind of incorrect suggestion.’

“’Salt is mined in our region,’ writes Comrade A from the town of B. ‘What then explains the long disruption in the supply of that food item? It’s reached the stage when the kids from the children’s home go from one apartment block to another begging for a pinch of salt. Naturally, these shortages affect our work and mood.’”

It is curious to note that the Central Committee did not learn about these problems from its own apparatus, nor from oversight agencies or even the omniscient KGB. It received the information from ordinary citizens. The infuriated Central Committee investigated, subjected the offending officials to “strict Party discipline” and even imprisoned some of them. Things did not improve. The local bosses simply began to keep a firmer grip, ensuring that complaints did not reach Moscow and those who complained persistently were shut away in psychiatric hospitals, put in prison or that their lives were made unbearable. The Party officials in charge of the economy, meanwhile, continued to report at every level that plan targets had been fulfilled and over-fulfilled. However hard the Central Committee struggled with the faking of such results it could not eliminate them. A special law was even added to the Criminal Code, providing three years’ imprisonment for such falsification. It made no difference. As a result, the Soviet leaders had no idea what the country was producing, in what quantities and of what quality…

By the early 1980s the corruption of the administrative apparatus had reached ominous proportions although the most severe punishments, including execution, had been in place since the time of Khrushchev. Now and again the most fantastic cases were uncovered. Entire branches of the economy were riddled with corruption and the scale of embezzlement reached hundreds of millions of roubles (4 January 1980, St 191/12 [¹⁰]). In the meantime, an extensive underground economy had come into being. There was a system of enterprises and lines of production that had no connection with the official State economy. The unquenchable private initiative always proved more flexible than the clumsy State machine (4 October 1980, St 231/9 [¹¹]). It was not often exposed, however. As a rule, the local Party authorities had a share in these activities and even the KGB could not trace all the links. Entire regions, and sometimes republics, were run by this new “mafia” as if they were separate fiefdoms (the best-known example was the “Uzbek affair”, which was later scandalously exposed). Often, however, the trail led back to Moscow, to Brezhnev’s entourage, and the case was kept secret. As time passed it became increasingly difficult for the Soviet leaders to fight corruption, since the only instrument at their disposal, the Party administration of the economy, was at the same time the main source of corruption. It was a vicious circle. This process would later do much more than ethnic conflicts to facilitate the disintegration of the USSR. The break-up of the Soviet Union was chiefly caused by the break-up of the Party apparatus and local “nationalism” was merely a screen for the regional authorities. This found confirmation in 1992 when almost all the new States to emerge from the old Soviet Union found themselves under the power of the local Party nomenklatura.

As for nationalism and “ethnic conflicts”, they were an everyday and familiar problem.

Neither through propaganda efforts to promote “friendship among the peoples” nor by repressive measures were they ever eliminated in the Soviet empire. By the 1980s the weakening control of Moscow over the local bureaucracy led to a marked intensification of this problem. As Andropov reported (30 December 1980*, St 243/8 [¹²]):

“Information received by the KGB shows that negative processes of a nationalist tendency have recently intensified among particular categories of the indigenous population of the Karachaevo-Cherkessk Autonomous Region [North Caucasus]. The number of crimes committed on this basis has increased. Among other causes, hostile elements from among persons of the older generation, who earlier engaged in armed struggle against the Soviet system, have influenced the character of these processes. Idealising the past and the outdated traditions and customs of their nation, they have been inciting in all possible ways a ‘grudge’ against the Soviet regime for its supposed ‘persecution of the Karachai’, and exploited to this end their deportation to Central Asia during the years of the Great Patriotic War [1941-1945]. …

 “Similar feelings are to be found among the young and these often are expressed in open hostility towards Russians. This forms the basis for audacious delinquent acts, of rape and gang battles, which at times threaten to develop into mass disturbances. In 1979 alone the law-enforcement agencies in the region recorded 33 rapes of women of Russian and other non-local nationalities; over nine months of the present years there were 22 similar crimes, and 36 assaults. These acts are quite often accompanied by cynical declarations and cries, ‘… All Russians will suffer the same!” “Beat the Russians!”, “Leave our land!”, and so on.

“[…] There are numerous confirmed cases when leaders of Karachai nationality try by all means to get rid of employees of another nationality and draw their staff from relatives or other people who are close to them. These conditions give rise to frequently encountered abuse of official status and other negative social phenomena, creating a sense of impunity.”

Of course, the Central Committee ordered “an improvement in the organisational-Party and educational work among the population”. What else could it do?

xxx

It was an astonishing system.

They found it easier to occupy a neighbouring country, to suppress a national uprising – or, on the contrary, to provoke a revolution on the other side of the globe – than supply their own population with salt. Millions of Western idiots set out to overthrow their own governments on secret orders from Moscow, but the Soviet regime could not control its own bureaucracy. After 70 years in power they still had not learned how to manage the economy. Their capacity extended no further than issuing orders, instructing others to “intensify”, “raise” and “widen”, and then voting unanimously in favour of their own decisions.

If all these “expedient” measures did not produce the desired effect then they would look for someone to blame and “severely punish” them. By a sharp increase in prices, for instance (11 June 1979*, St 162/67 [¹³]).

“The secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee is informing you that a decision has been taken to raise retail prices (on average), from 1 July 1979 on:

• “- items made of gold, by 50%;
• “- items made of silver, by 95%;
• “- items of natural fur, by 50%;
• “- carpets and carpet products, by 50%;
• “- automobiles for personal use, by 18%;
• “- imported furniture, by 30 %.

“Simultaneously the Council of Ministers in the Union Republics, the USSR Ministry of Trade, and ministries and departments which run public eating places are instructed to raise the level of surcharges in restaurants, cafes and other comparable enterprises during evening hours by an average of 100%, and raise prices for beer sold in restaurants, cafes and other public eating places on average by 45%.”

The CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet government had been forced to take these measures because of difficulties in balancing the growth in the population’s money income and the volume of goods and services of mass consumption. It was also essential to regulate the trade in goods in short supply and “intensify the battle with speculation and bribery”.

“As is well known, the demand for items made of gold and silver, for carpets, fur goods, cars and imported furniture is not being met despite earlier increases in prices. The trade in such goods leads to long queues, often with infringements of the rules of trade. Speculators and middlemen are using the situation to get rich and are bribing sales employees. In letters to the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers working people have sharply criticised these phenomena and asked that order be restored. The most effective way of resolving this problem is to increase the production and sale of goods in short supply. Considerable efforts are being made in that direction. For example, the production of carpets has risen from 30 to 67 cubic metres since 1970, or by 2.2 times. The sale of cars to population during the same period increased 9.5 times. However, the output of certain items is still not keeping up with demand and the market reserves for certain goods cannot be increased in the necessary quantities because of the shortage of hard currency (imported goods) or of natural resources (natural fur, items made of precious metals).

“Therefore, price rises must be used as an undesirable but necessary measure to bring trade under control. To lessen the effect on the vital interests of working people prices are being raised only on items that are not necessities. Furthermore, it is envisaged that old prices will be retained for gold disks used in filling teeth and, by way of compensation for these prices rises, to raise the subsidy on wedding rings (up to 70 roubles per person) for those getting married for the first time. In raising prices for items made of natural fur the retail prices will remain unchanged for fur items for children and for items made of rabbit fur and sheepskin (except for fur coats). […]

 “The announcement of price changes by the USSR State Committee for Price-Formation will be published in the press on 1 July 1979. Party committees should inform the Party’s activists in good time. They should keep a watch on the implementation of the measures to reconsider prices, and organise the necessary explanatory work among the population. If, as happened in the past, there occurs conjecture or rumours about extensive increase in retail prices these must be decisively halted. It is essential to provide directions to the activists and explain to the population that there will be no price rises apart from those made public in the statement by the State Committee for Prices.

“In view of the forthcoming changes in retail prices the CPSU Central Committee considers it essential, once again, to emphasis the exceptional importance of expanding in all possible ways the production of goods for mass consumption, securing the unconditional fulfilment of confirmed plans for their output and the increase in quality, the timely introduction of new capacity, the expansion of consumer service sector, and improvement in the organisation of trade.”

I don’t know what happened about the “expansion in all possible ways” of output. The forewarned “Party activists” rushed to buy up gold, fur goods, carpets and other goods in short supply. They immediately ensured that their own purchasing capacity was satisfied. Could it be otherwise?

Later, once the announcement was made, followed the entirely predictable speculation in gold disks for dental fillings and the remaking of fur coats for children into adult items. The Central Committee’s concern for the elderly, children and newly-weds is touching even. Yet surely they understood what unlimited possibilities their concern opened up for the abuse of power, and what favourable conditions were created for the black market?

This is only one, comparatively small, example of how incompatible a State run by the Party was with the economy.

*

11.3: Bankruptcy

So much has now been written about the Soviet economy that there is no need to discuss it here (I myself wrote on the subject previously in The USSR, from Utopia to Disaster [¹⁴]). At heart the problem was simple. Either the Party or the market would control economic processes. Since these principles were incompatible there was no third way. If people’s wellbeing depended on their efforts at work, the demand for what they produced, and their career depended on their abilities there was no place for the Party. The alternative was to make all three dependent on people’s loyalty to the Party and on the links they had with their bosses. Then no place remained for economic development.

Some people did not want to acknowledge this, though the collapse of the Soviet economy provided incontrovertible confirmation. Some talked about the “Chinese model”. There was no “Chinese model”, of course: what they were referring to was a period of disintegration in the Party’s rule in that country. Thousands of Party officials were being shot in China for corruption each year. How could it be otherwise? The greater the influence of the market in people’s lives, the less power the Party wielded. Corruption was the only possible way for the Party to participate in the economic life of the country, it was the market expression of the Party’s power. Therefore, knowing almost nothing about China, I could firmly predict that its Communist system would disappear just as it did in the USSR and its satellites.

The Western intellectual “elite”, meanwhile, had no desire to acknowledge that the crisis of the Soviet system in the 1980s was above all a crisis of socialism. On the contrary, the leftist intelligentsia even took heart and pro-socialist forces went on the offensive after the Soviet collapse. The “bad” Soviet model had hindered them, you see, by casting them in the shadow of its totalitarian crimes. The time had now come for the “good” model of socialism. There were no such alternative “models”, however, merely differing scenarios of economic disintegration. You could ruin your country quickly and radically: you could do it slowly and irreversibly: in between those two poles lay a spectrum of possibilities. The expression “socialist economy” was, in fact, a contradiction in terms. The basic idea of socialism was the “just distribution” of what is produced. It was not concerned with its creation. Any model of socialism, therefore, worked towards depletion – it would “distribute” for as long as there was something to distribute. When all the wealth accumulated by the centuries had been “distributed”, and all those capable of producing a profit had been ruined in one way or another, then the depletion of natural resources would begin, and foreign debts would mount until a point of total bankruptcy was reached.

The Soviet “model of socialism” was radical. It took the principle of “distribution” to its logical limit. The State imposed centralised planning of both supply and demand. It managed to survive so long simply because Russia was an amazingly wealthy country. After 75 years of the most fantastic pillaging of its resources it was still incalculably rich in oil, gas, coal, metals, diamonds, timber … and who knows what else. Even the most negligent ruler could rule the country without a care or a crisis: it required an “idea” to reduce Russia to a state of economic collapse. That profound idea was socialism. It did not so much exhaust as bankrupt Russia, leaving it terribly backward in its development. The more “justly” incomes were distributed and the less competition there was, the less intensive production became and the less need there was for modernisation. The economy that came into existence on such a principle was extensive. It only grew through expanding across space, gobbling up disproportionately enormous resources. As a result, it proved incapable of intensifying the exploitation of those resources. By the 1960s it was running short of labour; in the 1970s arable land was in short supply; by the 1980s there was not enough fuel, energy and oil although these were available within the country. The system even proved incapable of efficient plundering of its own natural wealth.

Add to this the fantastic military expenditure (post-Soviet Russian data indicate that half the economy was devoted to the needs of the military), the growing costs of empire and foreign policy escapades, and it becomes clear that the collapse of the Soviet empire was only a matter of time. Knowing how far the entire book‑keeping of the Soviet Union was based on falsified figures, it is not serious to quote official Soviet statistics. Even that source began to send alarm signals by the early 1980s. No matter how cleverly the administrative apparatus tried to disguise the facts, economic growth and labour productivity fell to 0% while investments even began to give a negative return (by 1978 one invested rouble gave a profit of only 83 kopecks [¹⁵]).

In the West, meanwhile, the 1980s were the years of rapid economic growth, of the “conservative revolution”. For the first time in the post-war period there appeared politicians of a sharply anti-socialist persuasion (Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher) who made the dismantling of socialism their programme. A reduction in taxes and expenditure in the State sector, privatisation of enterprises and of entire branches of industry that had once been nationalised by the socialists, the dismantling of the system of social welfare, strict monetarism – together this led to an intensification of production and a growth in the economy. After these reforms, moreover, other countries had to follow, whether they liked it or not. Otherwise they faced the threat of being left behind. During those years, we may note, it was not only the Soviet Union and its clients that went bankrupt: the same was true for all countries of a socialist orientation in Europe and the Third World. Even in countries where the socialists were in power they had to abandon their traditional policies and follow the example of the hated Thatcher.

It is curious that despite the furious, simply pathological hatred of the intelligentsia, people in the United States and the United Kingdom stubbornly voted for Reagan and Thatcher, although their reforms did not by any means proceed smoothly. Ordinary people understood that these changes were in their interests because they freed them from the power of the “distributive elite” and from the egalitarian efforts of the State. Socialism was an idea had come to an end. It no longer attracted even the unemployed.

The intelligentsia, correspondingly, also began to lose its dominant influence over the way people thought. Apart from a general change in mood and the discrediting of the intellectual elite this was in no small measure aided by the explosion in communication technology, especially the appearance of cable and satellite TV, and of private television and radio stations. If the Left elite could still exercise control over 3-4 television channels (especially those run by the State), the appearance of hundreds of commercial channels rendered impossible their ideological control over information. And where else did the strength of the intelligentsia lie, if not in its ability to manipulate public opinion?

Perhaps this sounds paradoxical but it cannot be disputed that the conservative revolution expanded democracy, giving the lower classes more freedom of choice and, therefore, greater power. Of course, there were negative aspects and costs. For example, a direct consequence of the commercialisation of life was the decline in culture and even its bankruptcy. This was sad, it cannot be denied, but those who were the transmitters of culture had no one to blame but themselves, they had been too deceitful and egotistic. This decline in culture and its transmitters was accompanied by a loss of power by its inevitable parasite – left-wing utopianism, the ersatz religion of the intelligentsia. It has not yet finally died. For the time being it is in its death-throes, and has degenerated into the most absurd forms, such as feminism or the ecology movement. It will still do a great deal of harm to people but it has no place in the 21^st century, just as no place remained for socialism at the end of the 20^th century. It seems that a period in our history, when the elite ruled, has come to an end. For the same has happened in the sphere of ideas, culture and information as happened in the economy: the dictatorship of the producer has been replaced by the dictatorship of the consumer.

These changes, it hardly needs saying, sounded a funeral bell for the Soviet leaders. Their clients went bankrupt, their like-minded allies lost their influence, and world development, as if deriding Marx, led to the crisis of socialism instead of the crisis of capitalism. Even technical progress changed from an ally into an enemy of their system. As if they had not had enough trouble jamming Western radio stations, there now appeared a serious threat of direct transmission of satellite television. The spread of video players created a new kind of “ideological diversion”, the smuggling of cassettes with Western films (19 April 1982, 782-A [¹⁶]). For the whole world the appearance of personal computers was a step forward – except in the Soviet Union where they presented the regime with a new headache. How could they halt the flood of information from the outside world? Halting the circulation of samizdat became even more difficult. It was impossible to stop progress. I remember heated discussions in the Soviet press, sometime in 1985-1986, as to whether Soviet man needed his own personal computer. The ideologists were against the idea; the military were in favour. Contemporary military equipment is all based on computer guidance, they argued, but if Western conscripts used them from childhood, that was not true of Soviet conscripts. The military won.

The threat of lagging behind in military terms arose in the 1980s a consequence of Reagan’s rearmament programmes and it was the main argument for the necessity of reform. Nothing else would have forced the Soviet leaders to have the courage to embark on reforms than the threat of losing the USSR’s status as a super-power and, therefore, their influence in the world. This threat principally arose thanks to the very nature of socialism: its economy could not match its global ambitions. By joining in an “arms race” with their wheezing economy they totally overreached themselves. Only when nothing else remained, and it was inevitable that they would perish, did they decide in desperation to “reform”. As I wrote in 1982 (“The Peace Movement and the Soviet Union”):

“Once you are riding a tiger, it is difficult to jump off. Any attempt at internal liberalization might prove fatal. If the central power were to weaken, the sheer amount of hatred accumulated within the population for these sixty-five years of the socialist experiment would be so dangerous, the results of any reform so unpredictable—and, above all, the power, the fabulous privileges, the very physical survival of the ruling clique would become so tenuous—that one would be mad to expect the Soviet leaders to play with liberal ideas. Only the imminent threat of total collapse might force them to introduce internal reforms.”

This fact is indisputable. Former Soviet leaders, those who worked in the apparatus of the Central Committee and KGB, leading economists and generals, openly acknowledge this now [¹⁷]. It will never be admitted by the Western establishment, however, for it would be much the same as political suicide for them to admit that the arms race which they hated and cursed led to the complete removal of the threat of world war, of global confrontation and of the very division of the world into two hostile camps.

The outcome has been paradoxical. Formerly information passing from West to East was blocked by all possible means. Today information from the East to the West is obstructed just as zealously. Russian books, articles and newspaper reports that confirm the above interpretation are not published in the West. Alexander Bessmertnykh, the last Soviet foreign minister, publicly stated that Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (“Star Wars”) hastened the end of the USSR. His comment, made in the United States at Princeton University, was not taken up by a single American newspaper [¹⁸].

Yet what a sensation there was, what cries of outrage in the American press, when the programme was proposed! The scientific establishment declared a boycott of any development of the programme and the few non-conformist scientists who did agree to take part were ostracised by their colleagues. Now there is silence. The “free” press does not say a word, the scientific community acts as though nothing had happened. The establishment remains the establishment and the non-conformists remain renegades. If there was any sense to the Nobel Peace Prize it should now be awarded to those who thought up the Strategic Defence Initiative and did not fear to participate in it. But no, Nobel-Prize winners are the “concerned” doctors whose entire merits lie in the fact that, under the direction of the wise CPSU Central Committee, they scared the population with the horrors of nuclear war.

SDI was merely the most graphic and well-known example of President Reagan’s policies in the early 1980s. Peter Schweizer’s Victory (1994) [¹⁹] allowed us a first glimpse of the strategic plans of those years and convinced us that the “arms race”, “Star wars” and the like were only part of an overall strategy that was quite consciously directed towards bankrupting the Soviet regime. There was also a campaign against Western financing for a Soviet gas pipeline to Europe; there was COCOM, the tightening of control over leaks of scientific and technical information to the East; there were financial measures to prevent the USSR obtaining Western credit. The same goal lay behind the massive aid to the Afghan mujahedeen, underground Solidarity in Poland, the Nicaraguan “Contras” and other anti-Communist movements throughout the world. Apart from its purely moral or political considerations, the Reagan Doctrine (as it was then called) was aimed at making the “cost of empire” too high for the USSR.

The arms race unleashed by the Reagan administration deliberately focused on weapons that required an ever-increasing level of technology, i.e. those areas where Soviet backwardness was especially woeful. SDI was simply the culmination of this process, its most graphic expression or symbol, if you like. No one could say with confidence whether the programme was possible from a purely technical point of view. Both sides, the USA and the Soviet Union, dug in their heels, however, understanding perfectly well that if the USA began this initiative then the USSR would have to join in this race which was beyond its strength.

Finally, the most important aspect of this undeclared economic war (at least, from my view) was American manipulation of the oil market through Saudi Arabia. Oil and natural gas were the economic foundation of the Soviet empire and its main source of hard currency. Problems with their production began in the USSR, evidently, by the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s the fall in output became very noticeable (20 April 1978 (Pb 101/VII)^ [²⁰]. The reasons were purely internal. There was insufficient investment in infrastructure and equipment while increased rates of extraction led to a drop in the output of Soviet oil fields, especially in Tyumen. The catastrophe, however, occurred in 1985-86, when a sharp fall in Soviet oil production coincided with a no less sharp fall in world oil prices. Within the space of a year the Soviet Union lost more than a third of its income in hard currency, a shock that a thoroughly healthy economy in a flourishing Western country would not have survived.

As the title of Schweizer’s book suggests this was no coincidence [²¹], but the result of the lengthy and determined efforts of the Reagan administration. In 1983, the US Treasury was already presenting a report to the US President which recommended that it secure a drop in world prices [²²]: a reduction in oil prices on international markets to 20 dollars a barrel could lessen the USA’s energy costs by 71.5 billion dollars a year. This would be net income for the American consumer and is the equivalent of 1% of existing gross national product.

A reduction in oil prices would lead either to a fall in demand (which is most unlikely) or to a fantastic rise in production. Bearing in mind this last circumstance, the report noted that if Saudi Arabia and other countries

“with available oil reserves should step up their production and increase world supplies … by approximately 2.7 to 5.4 million barrels a day and cause the world price to fall by almost 40%, the overall effect on the United States would be very beneficial.”

For Moscow, this would be devastating. The report noted

“Moscow’s heavy reliance on energy exports for hard currency. By Treasury Department calculations, every one dollar rise in the price of oil meant approximately $500 million to $1 billion extra in hard currency for the Kremlin. But the reverse was also true: dropping prices meant plunging incomes. And Moscow, unlike other producers, could not raise production to increase earnings.”

Throughout subsequent years it was the task of the Reagan administration to convince the Saudi Arabia ns to do just that – sharply increase production and lower the price to the necessary level. The intense lobbying of the Saudi royal family included such measures as strengthening their defence by selling them the latest military equipment (often even against the will of Congress); American guarantees of security; and economic privileges. The Saudis, it must be said, did not put up much of a resistance. Boosting production was in their interests. It filled their treasury, helped their friends and ruined their enemies – Iran, Libya and the USSR [²²].

“August 1985. The Soviet economy has been wounded to its very heart. … From the very first month of the Saudi surge the daily production of oil leap from less than a million barrels to almost six million.

“For the United States the expected drop in oil prices was an enormous blessing. For the Kremlin any drop in oil prices threatened to damage the economy. 1985, however, brought catastrophe. Soviet reserves of hard currency were reduced to a minimum. The State had to double its sales of gold to keep its hard-currency reserves at the required level. Energy resources were the main driving force of the Soviet machine for generating hard currency (they accounted for almost 80% of the total) and nothing else was more important for the health of the economy. … Almost immediately after Saudi oil production increased the price of oil on the world market sank with the rapidity of a stone tossed into a pond. In November 1985, a barrel of crude oil went for 30 dollars. Approximately five months later it already cost 12 dollars a barrel. In an instant Moscow lost more than 10 billion dollars, almost half of the earnings provided by oil.”

This blow, from which the Soviet economy never recovered, fell at the most awkward moment. The opening phase of Gorbachov’s “reforms”, what was termed acceleration [uskorenie], the intensification of production through purchases abroad and the introduction of new equipment, had counted on these oil revenues. Only such a massive programme of modernisation could help the Soviet leaders preserve the country’s super-power status, cope with the arms race and the growing costs of empire, and save the USSR from the “Polish disease”. In an instant, the economic collapse turned them into “reformers”, “liberals” and “democrats”. They had wanted something like the New Economic Policy of Lenin in 1921, Stalin’s alliance with the West in 1941, or Brezhnev’s détente in the 1970s. They urgently needed a breathing space in the Cold War otherwise they could not secure Western credits or technology. And they needed the help of their old allies – the left-wing establishment in the USA, the European “Mensheviks” – in order to achieve all this and, yet again, force the West to believe in the sudden metamorphosis of the Soviet regime.

The regime’s Western “friends” also desperately needed the regime’s “reforms” and the new “liberal image” of the USSR. However much they talked about “bad” and “good” models of socialism, the collapse of socialism in the East was a catastrophe for them, since it unmasked their treacherous role in humanity’s struggle for half a century against the threat of totalitarian slavery. Just as the crushing of Nazi Germany exposed the “peace-makers” and collaborationists of that era, the collapse of the Soviet Union destroyed all the cunning self-justification of its apologists and fellow-travellers, and all the “moderate” and “sensible” right-minded theories.

If it took only a most insignificant effort to defeat the regime, that meant there had been no need to “coexist” with evil. If the regime could be defeated without firing a single shot, that meant there had been no need for the “struggle for peace”, disarmament and “mutual understanding”. All it took to make the system crumble was to cast aside demagogy and begin to resist in earnest. If this was all true, then why was it not done twenty years earlier? How many countries could then have been saved from ruin, how many millions of human lives would have been spared, and how many misfortunes might have been avoided!

Those circles in the West which would have faced these unpleasant questions were not at all enraptured by the prospect. For them, as for the Soviet leaders, there was only one solution. The total collapse of the Communist regime could not be permitted to occur. How else can we explain the absurd events of the subsequent five years (1985-1990), when all could see that Communism was in its death throes and yet the entire world tried to extend its life? The apparent absurdity of the “Gorbomania” whipped up by the press, the mass euphoria about “glasnost and perestroika” and the billions of credits were by no means a matter of stupidity or naïveté but a thoroughly well-though-out campaign. As a result, something almost impossible was achieved. A criminal regime that had terrified the entire planet for more than half a century and had plunged entire nations in bloodbaths vanished without trace – but those who had served the regime, in the East and in the West, remained in power.

Without doubt, the regime was doomed. It did not survive the end of the 20^th century because its main idea was absurd, unnatural and “intellectual”. Nevertheless, it crumbled because of those who challenged it and refused to submit to its orders, whether in the hills of Afghanistan or in the US White House, whether on the docks in Gdansk or in the Vatican, in the jungles of Africa or Soviet prisons. It was thanks, in the final analysis, to ordinary people who rejected the rotten “elite” in the East and in the West.

Since they remained in power, however, this simple truth was not universally recognised. The archives were hidden away, the history was falsified. General Jaruzelski would pose as the saviour of the Fatherland, Soviet leaders who had supported terrorists received the Nobel Prize, and the war criminals who plunged Afghanistan into bloodshed would command the new Russia’s armies. Most of all, they would support the “Gorbachov Myth” of the “heroic reformers” of the Kremlin who had saved humanity from themselves. It was like the legend of good King Louis XVI who rid France of the monarchy…

CHAPTER 12: “REFORM?” …

*

NOTES & SOURCES

CHAPTER ELEVEN: “THE BEGINNING OF THE END”

An asterisk (*) and bold type indicate that a file in the Bukovsky Archives has been fully or partially translated into English. (The symbol ‘^’ means that the Russian originals of 2 documents cited in this chapter, see note 20, are not available online.)

The archival description of the various sources mentioned in the text and in these notes has been added, indicating their size and contents, and providing access to the original Russian text.

Click arrow below note to return to text.

JC, December 2024

*

1. 26 March 1981*, Pb – Politburo meeting. Arkhipov reports on the cost of supplying Poland with oil, gas, iron ore and the problems of the Polish economy [R 26 March 1981, Politburo, para 5]. 2 pp.
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2. 29 October 1981*, Pb – Politburo meeting. RUSAKOV’s report on his visit to the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary to discuss the situation in Poland; Politburo concern at JARUZELSKI’s inactivity. [R 29 October 1981, Politburo, para 2] total 6 pp.
   ↩︎
3. 10 December 1981*, Pb – Politburo meeting, three days before introduction of martial law in Poland. [R 10 December 1981, Politburo, para 1] total 11 pp.
   ↩︎
4. 25 April 1984 – Politburo. Information sent to leaders of East European countries with regard to JARUZELSKI’s visit. [R 25 Apr 84, Pb, paras 7 & 8] total 8 pp.
   
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   11.2: THE WORLD CRISIS OF SOCIALISM
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5. 24 October 1980, St 233/8 – Secretariat. About negative signs related to the low income of white- and blue-collar workers in the USSR [R 24 October 1980, St 233-8]. 12 pp.
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6. 17 February 1981, St 250/9, p. 4. See note 7.
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7. 17 February 1981 (St 250/9), pp. 4-5. – Secretariat. Letters from ordinary people to the government about shortages of bread; memo from CHERNENKO. [R 17 February 1981, St 250-9] total 19 pp.
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8. 17 February 1981 (St 250/9), p. 10. See note 7.
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9. 17 February 1981*, St 250/10 – Secretariat. Complaints by the population about shortages of cooking salt. [R 17 February 1981, St 250-10] total 8 pp.
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10. 4 January 1980, St 191/12 – Ministry of Internal Affairs report. About theft of wool during manufacturing and retail distribution. [R 4 January 1980, St 191/12] total 13 pp.
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11. 4 October 1980, St 231/9 – KGB about export of minerals. [R 4 October 1980 (2)] total 14 pp.
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12. 30 December 1980*, St 243/8 – Secretariat. Memo from ANDROPOV about anti-Russian propaganda in Karachaevo-Cherkessk region, North Caucasus [R 30 Dec 80, 7 pp] total 7 pp.
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13. 11 June 1979*, St 162/67 – Secretariat. Warning to First Secretaries of Party in Republics and Regions about price rises (from 18% to 95%) affecting cars, furs, gold, carpets, etc as of 1 July 1979. [R 11 June 1979, St 162-67] total 8 pp.
    
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    11.3: BANKRUPTCY
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14. Published in France (1990), Germany and Italy (1991), and in Mexico (1992), Bukovsky’s The USSR – from Utopia to Disaster has just been published in English (2024).
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15. Vladimir Yegorov, Out of a dead-end into the Unknown: Notes on Gorbachev’s perestroika, Q editions. ↩︎
16. 19 April 1982, 782-A – KGB to Secretariat. Widening spread of ideologically harmful foreign video films. [R 19 April 1982, 782-A] total 3 pp.
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17. Yevgeny Novikov and Patrick Bascio, Gorbachev and the Collapse of the Soviet Communist Party, Peter Lang: New York, 1994 (pp 66, 125-126).
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18. Alexander Bessmertnykh, “Retrospective on the End of the Cold War”, a conference held at Princeton University, 23 February 1993.
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19. Peter Schweizer, Victory. The Reagan administration’s secret strategy that hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union, Atlantic Monthly Press: New York, 1994.
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20. 20 April 1978 (Pb 101/VII)^ and 22 June 1979 (St 164/60)^: late 1970s fall in output of Soviet oil and natural gas.
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21. Schweizer (1994). The Saudi oil weapon: pp. 140 onwards. See note 19.
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22. Schweizer (1994), pp 141-142. See note 19.
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23. Schweizer (1994), pp 242-243. See note 19.
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Judgement in Moscow