USSR Finance Minister Zverev at his dacha. Iron People's Commissar of Stalin. Stalin's monetary reform

Arseny Grigorievich Zverev

Zverev Arseny Grigorievich (03/2/1900–07/27/1969), economist and statesman, Doctor of Economics (1959). In 1913–19, a worker at the Vysokovskaya Manufactory factory in Moscow province. and at the Trekhgornaya manufactory in Moscow. In 1933 he graduated from the Moscow Financial and Economic Institute. In 1937 deputy People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR. In 1938–46, People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR. From 1946 to Feb. 1948 and from Dec. 1948 to 1960 Minister of Finance of the USSR. Since 1963, professor at the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Finance and Economics.

Materials used from the site Great Encyclopedia of the Russian People - http://www.rusinst.ru

Official certificate

Zverev Arseny Grigorievich (19.02 (02.03).1900-27.07.1969), party member since 1919, member of the Central Committee in 1939-1961, candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee 16.10.52-06.03.53. Born in the village. Tikhomirovo, Vysokovsky district, Moscow region. Russian. In 1933 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Finance and Economics, Doctor of Economic Sciences (since 1959). Since 1919 in the Red Army. Since 1923 in financial work. In 1936-1937 Chairman of the district executive committee, in 1937 first secretary of the district party committee in Moscow. In 1937-1938 and in February-December 1948, deputy. People's Commissar ("Minister") of Finance of the USSR. From 1938 to February 1948 and from December 1948 to 1960 People's Commissar (Minister) of Finance of the USSR. Retired since 1960. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 1-2 and 4-5 convocations. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

The country's largest financier

Zverev Arseny Grigorievich (18.2.1900, village of Tikhomirovo, Klin district, Moscow province - 27.7.1969), statesman, Doctor of Economics (1959). The son of a peasant. He received his education at the Central Courses of the People's Commissariat of Finance (1925), at the Moscow Institute of Finance and Economics (1933). From 1913 he worked at a textile factory, from 1917 - at the Trekhgornaya Manufactory. In 1919 he joined the RCP(b) and the Red Army. In 1922-1924 and 1925-1929 he worked in the Klin district, an employee of the district committee of the RCP (b), sales agent, financial agent, head. department, in June - August 1929 before. executive committee of the county council. Since 1932 he worked in local financial authorities. 3.’s career took shape during the mass arrests of party and economic personnel, when the need arose to attract young specialists. In 1936 before. Molotov District Executive Committee, in 1937 1st Secretary of the Molotov District Committee of the RCP(b) (Moscow). In 1937-50 and 1954-1962 deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From September 1937, Deputy People's Commissar, and from January 19, 1938, People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR. In 1939-1961 member of the Central Committee of the party. He managed public finances during the Great Patriotic War, providing the necessary funds for organizing military production. Under him, the issue of government internal loans was established, which were forcibly distributed among the population (sometimes a large part of the salary was spent on them). He organized the sale of “Narkomfin goods” (for example, white rolls and bagels) at increased prices, and local leaders were required to unconditionally ensure their sale in the declared volumes. 16.2.1948 transferred to the position of deputy. Minister of Finance of the USSR, but on December 28 of the same year he again headed the ministry. In October 1952 he became a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. After the death of I.V. Stalin, as the country's largest financier, retained his posts, although he lost his membership in the Presidium of the Central Committee. Retired on May 16, 1960.

Materials used from the book: Zalessky K.A. Stalin's Empire. Biographical encyclopedic dictionary. Moscow, Veche, 2000

Read further:

Report of the People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR Zverev A.G. on the state budget of the USSR for 1939 and the execution of the state budget of the USSR for 1937. May 26, 1939 (Third session of the Supreme Council. Joint meetings of the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities).

Closing speech of the People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR A. G. Zverev. May 28, 1939 (Third session of the Council of the Union).

Closing speech of the People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR A. G. Zverev. May 29, 1939 (Third session of the Council of Nationalities).

Essays:

Finances of the USSR for 40 years of Soviet power//Finance and socialist construction. M., 1957;

Economic development and finance in the seven-year plan (1959–1965). M., 1959;

Problems of pricing and finance. M., 1966;

National income and finance of the USSR. 2nd ed. M., 1970.

Arseny Grigorievich Zverev was one of I.V.’s closest associates. Stalin in the 1930s - early 1950s. He served as People's Commissar and then Minister of Finance of the USSR and carried out the famous monetary, "Stalinist" reform in the country, and did a lot for the development of the economy of the Soviet Union.

In his book, the materials of which formed the basis of this article, A.G. Zverev talks about his meetings with Stalin and how the most important issues in managing the country’s finances were resolved. According to Zverev, I.V. Stalin had an excellent understanding of financial problems and pursued highly effective economic policies, which is proven by numerous examples.

We will devote this article to Zverev himself and some of his recipes for organizing the economic life of our country.

Briefly about Zverev

Arseny Grigorievich Zverev has come a long way. He began working as a textile worker at the Vysokovskaya manufactory; he wrote about this period of life during tsarist times in his book “Stalin and Money” as follows:

You work ten hours and wander, staggering from fatigue, to the hostel. In a cramped closet with a low ceiling, dirty walls and smoked windows, older comrades or peers lie on hard bunks, muttering in their sleep. Some are playing cards, others are swearing in a drunken argument. Their lives are broken, their dreams are crushed. What do they see other than dull, exhausting and monotonous work? Who enlightens them? Who cares about them? Pull the veins out of yourself, enrich the owners! And no one is stopping you from leaving your work records in the tavern...

A very eloquent description of the pre-revolutionary state of society, very close to us, isn’t it?

Arseny Grigorievich Zverev

After the February revolution, Zverev moved to Moscow and actively participated in the life of the workers of the Prokhorov Trekhgornaya manufactory, where he gained his first experience in political activity. Then, when the October Socialist Revolution broke out, many plants and factories were nationalized. In 1918, Arseny Grigorievich Zverev joined the party and asked to go to the front, but in 1920 he was sent to Orenburg to enter the cavalry school. He writes about the most difficult days of the outbreak of the civil war:

The most difficult memories associated with the hungry spring of 1921. Every day trains packed with people pass through the station. It is from the starving Center and the Volga region that they go to Tashkent - the “city of grain”. Some, having climbed out of the car for water, remain lying near the railway, not having the strength to rise from the ground. The bagmen are screaming. Children are crying. Here are several people, with shaking fingers, rolling cigarettes, with cabbage and nettle tops instead of tobacco, from leaflets issued by the provincial health department “On the methods of using surrogate bread.” To the side, typhoid people's lice-strewn dresses are being burned on fires. Kazakh families slowly wander towards the embankment. They gathered near the Caravanserai in the hope of help. But not everyone was able to help: the city workers themselves are on meager rations.

No other political party, no other government in the world could have withstood what our country experienced in the terrible years of 1921-1922. Only the Communist Party, only Soviet power was able to raise the state from ruins, put people on their feet, and open up before them the horizons of a new life won in the days of the socialist revolution, foreign military intervention and civil war!

Since 1925, Zverev worked as the head of the Klin district financial department, in whose position he encountered problems that are still relevant today:

While studying the regional taxation system, I very quickly came across the attempts of many private owners to hide the true size of their income and deceive government agencies. First of all, this concerned resellers, speculators, brokers and other “intermediaries” of the trading world.

In the spring of 1930, he became the head of the Bryansk district financial department, and already in 1932 he became the head of the Bauman district financial department of Moscow, this is how he described his work there:

What did the daily life of the zavrayfo consist of? There was no standard. Day to day never happened. A note that survived from 1934, which I compiled as a memo while sitting one day in the office of the chairman of the district executive committee, D.S. Korotchenko, may give some idea of ​​the individual details of the daily turnover. He received the workers, listened to their demands, complaints, requests and wishes, and every time he drew my attention to them when it came to upcoming expenses. During the few hours of the meeting, I wrote down so many questions that I am still amazed how we managed to accomplish all this in a short time. I will list just a few of them. Increase the number of tram cars arriving at the factory gates; build another school in Syromyatniki; open courses for admission to workers' faculty; pave Khludov passage; build a kitchen factory; organize a laundry at one of the factories; clean the Yauza from dirt; green Olkhovskaya Street; launch an additional electric train on the Nizhny Novgorod Railway; open a grocery store on Chistye Prudy; introduce children's screenings at the cinema on Spartakovskaya; open a children's playground on Pokrovsky Square; to supply the button factory dormitory with a film mobile... There were not one such day, but dozens.

After meeting with I.V. Stalin refused the offer to head the State Bank, because he did not consider himself competent enough for this job. However, from September 1937, Zverev was appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR, and in January 1938 - February 1948 he became People's Commissar (from March 1946 - Minister) of Finance of the USSR.

After the war, on the instructions of I.V. Stalin, Zverev developed a project for financial reform and implemented it in the shortest possible time, which allowed the USSR, the first of the countries participating in World War II, to abandon the card system for distributing products and goods to the population, and then constantly reduce prices for them. This continued until Stalin's death, after which many of the achievements of the previous period were lost; A.G. was soon retired. Zverev.

The circumstances of his departure are still shrouded in mystery. Most likely, the reason for the resignation was A.G.’s disagreement. Zverev with Khrushchev’s financial policy, in particular with the monetary reform of 1961.

Writer and publicist Yu.I. Mukhin writes about it this way:

In 1961, the first price rise occurred. The day before, in 1960, Finance Minister A.G. was retired. Zverev. There were rumors that he tried to shoot Khrushchev, and such rumors convince us that Zverev’s departure was not without conflict.

Khrushchev could not decide to openly raise prices in conditions when the people clearly remembered that under Stalin prices did not rise, but fell annually. The official goal of the reform was to save the penny; they say, a penny cannot buy anything, so the ruble must be denominated - its denomination must be reduced by 10 times.

In reality, Khrushchev carried out the denomination only for the purpose of covering up price increases. If meat cost 11 rubles, and after the price increase it should have cost 19 rubles, then this would immediately catch the eye, but if denomination is carried out at the same time, then the price of meat is 1 ruble. 90 kopecks At first it’s confusing - it seems like the price has dropped. From that moment on, an imbalance arose between state stores and the black market, where it became more profitable for traders to sell goods, and from that moment on, goods from stores began to disappear.

Zverev had a conflict with Khrushchev precisely over this reform. Thus, Khrushchev (or his hands) began the plunder of the country, giving a signal to all corrupt officials.

In his book, Arseny Zverev talks about his life path - from a simple working guy to a minister - and proves that this was only possible in a Soviet country, where every citizen had broad prospects for realizing his best abilities.

We will present several recipes that this outstanding economist of the “Stalin” era used in his work.

Economic recipes from Zverev

On the role of the state bank

The change on a national scale was also helped by new principles for building a credit system. Since 1927, the State Bank began to manage it from beginning to end. Industry banks turned into bodies of long-term credit, and the State Bank - short-term. This separation of functions, along with increased control over the use of loans, ran into an obstacle in the form of the availability of commercial bill credit. Therefore, within two years, other forms of payments and lending were introduced: check circulation, intra-system settlements, direct lending without taking into account bills.

How to build factories?

The ability not to spray products is a special science. Let’s say we need to build seven new enterprises in seven years. How to do it better? One plant can be built annually; as soon as he starts a task, take on the next one. You can build all seven at once. Then, by the end of the seventh year, they will begin to produce all the products at the same time. The construction plan will be carried out in both cases. What, however, will happen in another year? During this eighth year, seven factories will produce seven annual production programs. If you go the first route, then one plant will have time to produce seven annual programs, the second - six, the third - five, the fourth - four, the fifth - three, the sixth - two, the seventh - one program. There are 28 programs in total. The winnings are 4 times. The annual profit will allow the state to take some part from it and invest it in new construction. Smart investments are the crux of the matter. Thus, in 1968, every ruble invested in the economy brought the Soviet Union 15 kopecks of profit. Money spent on construction that is not completed is dead and does not generate income. Moreover, they “freeze” subsequent expenses. Let's say we invested 1 million rubles in the construction of the first year, another million the next year, etc. If we build for seven years, then 7 million were temporarily frozen. This is why it is so important to speed up the pace of construction. Time is money!

About financial reserves

The Five-Year Plan must provide for the speed of advancement of entire parts of the national economy. Naturally, the errors and imbalances made in the annual plan will increase over five years and overlap each other.

This means that it is useful to have so-called “deflection reserves”. If they are present, the wind will not break the tree; it may bend, but it will stand. If they are not there, strong roots will protect the tree only until a very strong hurricane, and then not far from a windbreak.

Consequently, without financial reserves it is difficult to ensure the successful implementation of socialist plans. Reserves - cash, grain, raw materials - are another permanent item on the agenda at meetings of the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. And in order to optimize the national economy, we tried to use both administrative and economic methods of solving problems. We did not have computers like today's electronic counting machines. Therefore, they did this: the governing body gave lower-level tasks not only in the form of planned figures, but also reported prices for both production resources and products. In addition, they tried to use “feedback”, controlling the balance between production and demand. The role of individual enterprises thereby increased.

About the research and development cycle and its financing

An unpleasant discovery for me was the fact that scientific ideas, while they were being researched and developed, consumed a lot of time, and therefore money. Gradually I got used to it, but at first I just gasped: it took three years to develop the design of the machines; it took a year to create a prototype; they tested it for a year, reworked it and “finished it”: they spent a year preparing technical documentation; for another year we moved on to mastering the serial production of such machines. Total - seven years. Well, if we were talking about a complex technological process, when semi-industrial installations were required to develop it, even seven years might not be enough. Of course, simple machines were created much faster. And yet, the cycle of complete implementation of a major scientific and technical idea took, on average, up to ten years. The consolation was that we were ahead of many foreign countries, because world practice then showed an average cycle of 12 years.

This is where the advantage of the socialist planned economy was revealed, which made it possible to concentrate funds in areas and directions needed by society, despite someone’s purely personal will. By the way, there is a huge reserve of progress here: if you reduce the time for implementing ideas by several years, this will immediately give the country an increase in national income by billions of rubles.

Another way to quickly get a return on investment is to temporarily slow down some construction projects if there is an excessively large number of them. Mothballing some, and at this expense speeding up the construction of other enterprises and starting to receive products from them, is a good solution to the problem, but, alas, also limited by specific conditions. If, for example, in 1938-1941 we had not built many large facilities at once in different parts of the country, we would not have had the necessary production reserve after the start of the Great Patriotic War, and then the defense industry could have experienced a breakthrough.

Conclusion

The main difference between Zverev and modern economists was that people for him were not just another economic resource, but the main beneficiaries of the development of the entire economy. Having gone from a factory worker to the Minister of Finance of the USSR, Zverev did not lose this quality - humanity and concern for people, although he had to make difficult decisions in the interests of the state, but even then he understood that the state was created for the working people and by the working people themselves.

Our current economists, unfortunately, think more about numbers and indicators than about why they work at all and why they are called to their positions. But the result of such a policy turns out to be worthless.

In the second part of the material, we will try to evaluate the results of Zverev’s most difficult case in his high post - the monetary reform of 1947 and analyze the possibilities of using this invaluable and unprecedented experience in modern conditions.

Materials:

A.G. Zverev "Stalin and money"

The most closed people. From Lenin to Gorbachev: Encyclopedia of biographies Zenkovich Nikolai Alexandrovich

ZVEREV Arseniy Grigorievich

ZVEREV Arseniy Grigorievich

(02/18/1900 - 07/27/1969). Candidate member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee from October 16, 1952 to March 5, 1953. Member of the Party Central Committee in 1939 - 1961. Member of the CPSU since 1919

Born in the village of Tikhomirovo (now Klinsky district, Moscow region) in a working-class family. Russian. From 1913 he worked at a textile factory, and from 1917 at the Trekhgornaya Manufactory. In 1919 he volunteered for the Red Army and took part in the Civil War. He was an ordinary Red Army soldier, then a platoon commander of a cavalry regiment. From 1923 to 1929 at party and Soviet work in the Klin district. He was the head of the propaganda department of the county committee of the RSDLP (b), sales agent, financial agent, deputy head, head of the county financial department, and was elected chairman of the executive committee of the county council. In 1925 he graduated from the Central Courses of the People's Commissariat of Finance. In 1929, head of the tax department of the regional financial department in Smolensk, in 1930, head of the district financial department in Bryansk. In 1933 he graduated from the Moscow Financial and Economic Institute. He worked in Moscow as head of the district financial department, chairman of the Molotov district executive committee. In 1937, first secretary of the Molotov district committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Moscow. In September of the same year, he was nominated by V. M. Molotov as Deputy People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR as a party worker who had a financial education. From January 19, 1938 to 1960, People's Commissar (Minister) of Finance of the USSR, in February - December 1948 he was Deputy, First Deputy Minister. According to V. M. Molotov, the nomination took place as follows: “I asked: give me certificates about workers, party members, reliable ones, who graduated from a financial institute. They gave me a list. I settled on Zverev. He was summoned to Stalin for negotiations. He came with a terrible flu, with a fever, and bundled up. In its type it is a little like Sobakevich, such a bear” (Chuev F.I. Molotov. M., 1999. P. 356). M.A. Sholokhov called him “our iron people’s commissar of finance.” He was inexhaustible in his search for objects to tax, including fruit trees, which led to massive cutting down of orchards. Justifying his actions, V. M. Molotov said: “He is ridiculed for the fact that he imposed taxes on everyone. And from whom to take it? The bourgeoisie

Zverev A., Tunimanov V. Leo Tolstoy

DEAR ARSENY 1So, in another month. But I understood that no month was required, that Korney Ivanovich was simply “preparing me”, that Ulrich had probably already told him everything with complete certainty: “Bronstein died.” Well, yes, as I thought: he died of inflammation

ZVEREV Grigory Aleksandrovich Colonel of the Red Army Major General of the Armed Forces of the Konrr Born on March 15, 1900 in Alchevsk, Donetsk province. Russian. From the workers. He graduated from a two-year city school. Member of the Communist Party since 1926 (ticket No. 0464518). In the Red Army since 1919. In 1922 he graduated from the 44th Yekaterinoslav Infantry

Zverev Alexey Matveevich. Nabokov

“Always yours, Sergei Zverev” At some point, the radio stopped talking about my victories altogether. There were a lot of them, and they directly told me that if I had not taken up something or failed miserably somewhere, then it would have been news. My regular Grand Prix have stopped

ZVEREV SERGEY ANATOLIEVICH (born in 1965 or 1967) He is undoubtedly talented, and talented in everything. World-famous top stylist, makeup artist and leading hair and clothing designer, absolute European champion and world champion in hairdressing, four-time winner

Zverev Grigory Aleksandrovich Colonel of the Red Army. Major General of the Armed Forces of the KONR. Born on March 15, 1900 in Alchevsk, Donetsk province. Russian. In 1919 he joined the Red Army. In 1926 he joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). He was the commander of the 190th Infantry Division. In captivity since August 11, 1941. In June 1943

The Great October Socialist Revolution not only opened a new era in the history of mankind as a whole, but also created a special type of person - a Soviet citizen, infinitely devoted to Marxist-Leninist ideas and the cause of the Communist Party. This is exactly what Arseny Grigorievich Zverev was like. His memoirs clearly and vividly show the path he took from a young textile worker at the Vysokovskaya manufactory to a statesman of a socialist power, a prominent theorist and a major practical economist, who headed the USSR Ministry of Finance for over two decades.

I was lucky enough to work under the leadership of A.G. Zverev for many years. We first met in 1930. This was a time when the issue of personnel was acute in the country. The country needed thousands of highly educated specialists. Solving this problem, the party sent many communists to study at the expense of the “party thousand”. Arseny Grigorievich Zverev also came to the Moscow Financial and Economic Institute on a Bolshevik ticket.

I taught political economy there. Zverev quickly stood out among his classmates. Practical work had an impact, which helped him master the course of academic disciplines. Attentive to his comrades, sociable, student Zverev was soon elected secretary of the university party organization, and then a member of the Baumansky district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In his memoirs, Arseny Grigorievich talks in detail about this period of his life. Intense study, extensive social work, lectures and reports in factories and factories - this is how all the students lived without exception, including the author of this book. If you managed to sleep for six hours, he writes, then such a day was considered good and easy. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that under these conditions we somehow managed to carry out our plans, almost without stumbling. Nevertheless, this is a fact! Our children and grandchildren sometimes complain about being overly busy. Honestly, if any of us had had the capabilities of the current generation then, we would have considered ourselves lucky. Subsequently, for many years, I had the opportunity to witness the intense activity carried out by A.G. Zverev as People's Commissar, and then as Minister of Finance of the country.

For more than twenty years he was a member of the CPSU Central Committee and was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The years of the creation of socialism, the Great Patriotic War, then the restoration of the national economy and the elimination of the damage caused to our country by Hitler's Germany. A time filled to the limit with historical events. The talent of Arseny Grigorievich, an extraordinary organizer and leader, unfolded to its full extent. The Notes clearly show how the complex economic problems facing the USSR were solved.

Not the least role in this matter belonged to financial workers. Extensive practical experience and deep economic knowledge, constant and close contact with the team, and reliance on the communists gave A.G. Zverev the opportunity to find the right answer to the most difficult questions raised by life. During my years of work at the Ministry of Finance (consultant to the People's Commissar, head of the monetary circulation department, deputy minister of finance), I often had to observe when people present at meetings made contradictory proposals. But the minister usually acted very calmly and quickly found a way out of difficult economic situations. And if he was convinced of the correctness of the decision, he then firmly and steadfastly defended it in any instance.

The initial period of the Great Patriotic War is especially memorable in this regard. Colossal funds had to be found and immediately mobilized for defense needs. Under the leadership of A.G. Zverev, the financial system was quickly and clearly rebuilt on a military basis, and throughout the war, the front and rear were uninterruptedly provided with monetary and material resources.

In everything, A.G. Zverev was distinguished by his deep adherence to principles. He unwaveringly stood guard over the socialist ruble and put state interests above all else. As an innovative economist, he conducted extensive research and teaching work in the field of socialist finance. Already in the last years of his life, Arseny Grigorievich defended his doctoral dissertation, became a professor at the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Finance and Economics and a member of the Higher Attestation Commission. He authored the monographs “National Income and Finance of the USSR”, “Problems of Pricing and Finance”, “Economic Development and Finance in the Seven-Year Plan” "and many other works. All these works are permeated with the idea of ​​​​the struggle for a full-blooded, all-encompassing and revenue-generating state budget. The author of the Notes considered this the first commandment of every Soviet financier.

The reader will find in the book a lot of valuable materials about the specific activities of a financial worker on a district, regional and national scale. The stories about the author’s meetings with prominent political figures in our country are also of great interest. The reader will find numerous facts in the book on the history of our Motherland. The author himself was an active participant in important events in the life of the Soviet Union, and his story about them is very interesting.

I would like to end my word about the author of this book with its final lines. The author writes: “Bequeathing Soviet Russia’s march into communism, V.I. Lenin said in his last public speech: “Before, a communist said: “I give my life,” and it seemed very simple to him... Now, before us, communists, stands absolutely another task. We must now calculate everything, and each of you must learn to be calculating.” Lenin's words fully retain all their meaning to this day. Learning to be prudent is not so easy. But without this there is no progress. So that the shining heights of communism do not remain a dream, they must be achieved. And the road lies through the highly productive, planned, taken into account and wisely used labor of the human collective.” The bright and great life of A. G. Zverev, traced in the “Notes of the Minister,” is of significant interest to both the older generation and young people.

Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences K. N. PLOTNIKOV

West of Klin. - Weaving everyday life. - Me and the prophet Jonah. - Vysokovskaya factory. - Vladykin and others. - “It’s too early for you to go on strike!”

If you have ever traveled from Moscow to the city of Kalinin through Klin, then you will have noticed that the hills of the Dmitrov ridge give way to a swampy plain under Klin. This is the right bank of the Upper Volga. Even at the beginning of this century, there were almost continuous forests here, interspersed with clearings and scanty arable land. The rivers Malaya Sestra, Yauza (not to be confused with the Moscow river of the same name), and Vyaz flow towards the Volga and its large tributaries. To the west of Klin, on the old highway to Rzhev, are the villages of Vysokovsk, Nekrasino, Petrovskoye, Paveltsevo... This region is my homeland. Here I was born in 1900 into a poor family of a worker and a peasant woman. I was sixth, followed by seven more brothers and sisters.

The Klin district of the Moscow province has long supplied workers for the textile industry. From all the villages closest to the highway - Troitskaya, Smetanina, Negodyaeva, Teterina and others - men and women flocked to the village of Nekrasino, looking for food for themselves and their families. There was a spinning and weaving factory nearby. Its first owner was “his brother” - the merchant G. Kataev, who came from a peasant background. Becoming an entrepreneur, he quickly profited from the sweat and tears of his fellow countrymen. Twelve years later the factory burned down. But a year later he built a new building, a stone one. The cheapness of labor and the high demand for fabrics attracted the capital of a number of rich people here. The largest manufacturers of the Moscow province and several foreigners formed the joint-stock “Partnership of the Vysokovskaya Manufactory”.

We hear the phrase so often - victory came at too high a price (one for all - we won’t stand up for the price) - that we don’t even think about its meaning. In our minds, the price is 27 million human lives. However, any war has a price in the literal sense of the word.

2 trillion 569 billion rubles - exactly how much the Great Patriotic War cost the Soviet economy; the number is huge, but accurate, verified by Stalin’s financiers.