Despite the fact that the USSR suffered very heavy losses during the war years, it entered the international arena not only not weakened, but became even stronger than before. In 1946-1948. in the states of Eastern Europe and Asia, communist governments came to power, heading for the construction of socialism on the Soviet model.

However, the leading Western powers pursued a power policy towards the USSR and the socialist states. One of the main deterrents was atomic weapon, which the United States enjoyed a monopoly on. Therefore, the creation atomic bomb became one of the main goals of the USSR. This work was headed by the physicist I. V. Kurchatov. The Institute of Atomic Energy and the Institute nuclear issues Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1948, the first atomic reactor was launched, and in 1949, the first atomic bomb was tested at the test site near Semipalatinsk. In the work on it, the USSR was secretly assisted by individual Western scientists. Thus, a second nuclear power appeared in the world, the US monopoly on nuclear weapons ended. Since that time, the confrontation between the US and the USSR has largely determined the international situation.

Economic recovery.

Material losses in the war were very high. The USSR lost a third of its national wealth in the war. Agriculture was in deep crisis. The majority of the population was in distress, its supply was carried out using a rationing system.

In 1946, the Law on the five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy was adopted. It was necessary to accelerate technological progress, to strengthen the country's defense power. Postwar five-year plan marked by large construction projects (hydroelectric power station, state district power station) and the development of road transport construction. The technical re-equipment of the industry of the Soviet Union was facilitated by the export of equipment from German and Japanese enterprises. The highest rates of development were achieved in such sectors as ferrous metallurgy, oil and coal mining, construction of machines and machine tools.

After the war, the countryside found itself in a more difficult position than the city. In the collective farms, tough measures were taken to procure bread. If earlier the collective farmers gave only part of the grain "to the common barn", now they were often forced to give all the grain. The discontent in the village grew. The sown area has been greatly reduced. Due to the depreciation of equipment and the lack of labor, field work was carried out late, which negatively affected the harvest.

The main features of post-war life.

A significant part of the housing stock was destroyed. The problem of labor resources was acute: immediately after the war, many demobilized people returned to the city, but the enterprises still lacked workers. We had to recruit workers in the countryside, among the students of vocational schools.

Even before the war, decrees were adopted, and after it continued to operate, according to which workers were forbidden, under pain of criminal punishment, to leave enterprises without permission.

To stabilize the financial system in 1947, the Soviet government carried out a monetary reform. Old money was exchanged for new money at a ratio of 10:1. After the exchange, the amount of money the population had sharply decreased. At the same time, the government has reduced the prices of consumer products many times. The card system was abolished, food and industrial goods appeared on open sale at retail prices. In most cases, these prices were higher than rations, but significantly lower than commercial ones. The abolition of cards has improved the situation of the urban population.

One of the main features of post-war life was the legalization of the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church. In July 1948, the church celebrated the 500th anniversary of self-government, and in honor of this, a meeting of representatives of local Orthodox churches was held in Moscow.

power after the war.

With the transition to peaceful construction, structural changes took place in the government. In September 1945, the GKO was abolished. On March 15, 1946, the Council of People's Commissars and People's Commissariats were renamed into the Council of Ministers and ministries.

In March 1946, the Bureau of the Council of Ministers was created, the chairman of which was L. P. Beria . He was also instructed to supervise the work of the internal affairs and state security agencies. Pretty strong positions in the leadership held A.A. Zhdanov, who combined the duties of a member of the Politburo, Orgburo and party secretary, but in 1948 he died. At the same time, the positions G.M. Malenkova, who had previously held a very modest position in the governing bodies.

Changes in party structures were reflected in the program of the 19th Party Congress. At this congress, the party received a new na-sha and ne - instead of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), they began to call it Communist Party Council and Union (CPSU).

USSR in the 50s - early 60s. 20th century

Changes after the death of Stalin and the XX Congress of the CPSU.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953. The closest associates of the leader proclaimed a course towards the establishment of collective leadership, but in reality a struggle for leadership developed between them. Minister of the Interior Marshal L.P. Beria initiated an amnesty for prisoners whose term was no more than five years. He put his supporters at the head of several republics. Beria also proposed to soften the policy towards collective farms and advocated detente of international tension, improvement of relations with Western countries.

However, in the summer of 1953, other members of the top party leadership, with the support of the military, organized a conspiracy and overthrew Beria. He was shot. The fight didn't end there. Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov were gradually removed from power, G.K. Zhukov was removed from the post of Minister of Defense. Almost all of this was done on the initiative N.S. Khrushchev, who since 1958 began to combine party and state posts.

In February 1956, the XX Congress of the CPSU was held, on the agenda of which were an analysis of the international and domestic situation, summing up the results of the fifth five-year plan. At the congress, the question of exposing Stalin's personality cult was raised. The report "On the cult of personality and its consequences" was made by N.S. Khrushchev. He talked about Stalin's numerous violations of Lenin's policy, about "illegal methods of investigation" and purges that killed many innocent people. They talked about Stalin's mistakes as a statesman (for example, a miscalculation in determining the date of the start of the Great Patriotic War). Khrushchev's report after the congress was read throughout the country at party and Komsomol meetings. Its content shocked the Soviet people, many began to doubt the correctness of the path that the country had been following since October revolution .

The process of de-Stalinization of society took place gradually. At Khrushchev's initiative, cultural figures were given the opportunity to create their own works without total control of censorship and strict party dictates. This policy was called the "thaw" after the name of the then popular novel by the writer I. Ehrenburg.

During the "thaw" period, significant changes took place in culture. Works of literature and art have become more profound and sincere.

Reforms in the field of economy. The development of the national economy.

Reforms carried out in the 50s - early 60s. 20th century were controversial. At one time, Stalin outlined the economic frontiers that the country was to reach in the near future. Under Khrushchev, the USSR reached these milestones, but in the changed conditions, their achievement did not have such a significant effect.

The strengthening of the national economy of the USSR began with changes in the raw sector. It was decided to set acceptable prices for agricultural products, to change the tax policy so that the collective farmers were materially interested in selling their products. In the future, it was planned to increase the cash income of collective farms, pensions, and soften the passport regime.

In 1954, at the initiative of Khrushchev, development of virgin lands. Later, they began to reorganize the economic structure of the collective farmers. Khrushchev suggested building urban-type buildings for rural residents and taking other measures to improve their life. Relaxation in the passport regime opened the floodgates for the migration of the rural population to the city. Various programs were adopted to improve the efficiency of agriculture, and Khrushchev often saw a panacea in the cultivation of any one crop. The most famous was his attempt to turn corn into the “queen of the fields”. The desire to grow it, regardless of the climate, caused damage to agriculture, but among the people Khrushchev received the nickname "maize".

50s 20th century characterized by great success in the industry. The production of heavy industry has grown especially. great attention was given to those industries that ensured the development of technology. Of paramount importance was the program of continuous electrification of the country. New hydroelectric power plants and state district power plants were put into operation.

The impressive success of the economy aroused the confidence of the leadership headed by Khrushchev in the possibility of even greater acceleration of the pace of the country's development. The thesis was put forward about the complete and final construction of socialism in the USSR, and in the early 60s. 20th century headed for construction communism , that is, a society where every person can satisfy all his needs. According to the XXII Congress of the CPSU adopted in 1962 new program the party was supposed to complete the construction of communism by 1980. However, the serious economic difficulties that began at the same time clearly demonstrated to the citizens of the USSR the utopianism and adventurism of Khrushchev's ideas.

Difficulties in the development of industry were largely due to the ill-conceived reorganizations of the last years of Khrushchev's rule. Thus, most of the central industrial ministries were liquidated, and the leadership of the economy passed into the hands of economic councils, created in certain regions of the country. This innovation led to a rupture of ties between regions, which hindered the introduction of new technologies.

Social sphere.

The government has taken a number of measures to improve the welfare of the people. A law on state pensions was introduced. In secondary and higher educational institutions, tuition fees have been abolished. Heavy industry workers were transferred to a reduced working day without reducing wages. The population received various financial benefits. The material incomes of the working people have grown. Simultaneously with the increase in wages, prices were reduced for consumer goods: certain types of fabrics, clothes, goods for children, watches, medicines, etc.

Many public funds were also created, which paid various preferential benefits. Due to these funds, many were able to study at school or university. The working day was reduced to 6-7 hours, and on pre-holiday and holidays the working day was even shorter. Work week shortened by 2 hours. On October 1, 1962, all taxes on the wages of workers and employees were abolished. From the end of the 50s. 20th century began selling durable goods on credit.

Undoubted success in social sphere in the early 60s. 20th century were accompanied by negative phenomena, especially painful for the population: essential products, including bread, disappeared from store shelves. There were several demonstrations of workers, the most famous of which was a demonstration in Novocherkassk, during the suppression of which the troops used weapons, which led to many casualties.

Foreign policy of the USSR in 1953-1964.

Foreign policy was characterized by the struggle to strengthen the position of the USSR and international security.

The settlement of the Austrian question was of great international importance. In 1955, at the initiative of the USSR, the State Treaty with Austria was signed in Vienna. Diplomatic relations were also established with Germany and Japan.

Soviet diplomacy actively sought to establish the most diverse ties with all states. The Hungarian uprising of 1956 was a severe test, which was suppressed Soviet troops. Almost simultaneously with the Hungarian events in 1956, arose Suez Crisis .

On August 5, 1963, an agreement between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain on the ban on nuclear tests on land, in air and water was signed in Moscow.

Relations with most of the socialist countries had long been streamlined - they clearly obeyed the instructions of Moscow. In May 1953, the USSR restored relations with Yugoslavia. A Soviet-Yugoslav declaration was signed, which proclaimed the principle of the indivisibility of the world, non-interference in internal affairs, and so on.

The main foreign policy theses of the CPSU were criticized by the Chinese Communists. They also challenged the political assessment of Stalin's activities. In 1963-1965. The PRC laid claim to a number of border territories of the USSR, and an open struggle broke out between the two powers.

The USSR actively cooperated with the countries of Asia and Africa, which won independence. Moscow helped developing countries create a national economy. In February 1955, a Soviet-Indian agreement was signed on the construction of a metallurgical plant in India with the help of the USSR. The USSR provided assistance to the United Arab Republic, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Syria and other countries of Asia and Africa.

USSR in the second half of the 60s - early 80s. 20th century

The overthrow of N. S. Khrushchev and the search for a political course.

Development of science, technology and education.

The number of scientific institutions and scientists increased in the USSR. Each union republic had its own Academy of Sciences, which was subordinate to a whole system of scientific institutions. Significant progress has been made in the development of science. October 4, 1957 was the launch of the world's first artificial satellite Earth, then spacecraft reached the moon. On April 12, 1961, the first manned flight into space took place. The first ascent of the space CSM became Yu.L. Gagarin.

New and more powerful power plants were built. Aircraft construction, nuclear physics, astrophysics and other sciences were successfully developed. Many cities created scientific centers. For example, in 1957 Akademgorodok was built near Novosibirsk.

After the war, the number of schools dropped dramatically, one of the tasks of the government was to create new secondary schools. educational institutions. The increase in the number of high school graduates has led to an increase in the number of university students.

In 1954, co-education of boys and girls was restored in schools. The tuition fees for high school students and students were also abolished. Students began to pay scholarships. In 1958, compulsory eight-year education was introduced, and the ten-year school was transferred to 11-year education. Soon, work in production was included in the curricula of schools.

Spiritual life and culture of "developed socialism".

The ideologists of the CPSU sought to quickly forget Khrushchev's idea of ​​building communism by 1980. This idea was replaced by the slogan of "developed socialism". It was believed that under "developed socialism" nations and nationalities were drawing closer together, a single community had formed - the Soviet people. They talked about the rapid development of the country's productive forces, about blurring the lines between town and countryside, about the distribution of wealth on the principles of "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work." Finally, the transformation of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat into a nationwide state of workers, peasants and the people's intelligentsia was proclaimed, between which the lines are also continuously blurred.

In the 60-70s. 20th century culture has ceased to be synonymous with ideology, its uniformity has been lost. The ideological component of culture receded into the background, giving way to simplicity and sincerity. Works created in the provinces - in Irkutsk, Kursk, Voronezh, Omsk, etc., gained popularity. Culture was given a special status.

Nevertheless, ideological tendencies in culture were still very strong. Militant atheism played a negative role. The persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church intensified. Temples were closed in the country, priests were deposed and defrocked. Militant atheists created special organizations to preach atheism.

The victory in the Second World War promised the USSR significant changes. Citizens were also waiting for these changes, many of whom, during the liberation of Europe, saw bourgeois life, from which they had previously been fenced off by the iron curtain. Residents of the USSR after the great patriotic war expected that the changes would affect the economy, agriculture, national politics and much more. At the same time, the overwhelming majority were loyal to the authorities, since the victory in the war was considered the merit of Stalin.

In September 1945, the state of emergency was lifted in the USSR, and the Defense Committee was also announced to be disbanded.

In the post-war years, mass repressions began in the USSR. First of all, they touched those who visited German captivity. In addition, repressions were directed against the peoples of the Baltic states, western Ukraine and Belarus, whose population most actively opposed the Soviet regime. In such a cruel way, order was restored in the country.

As in the pre-war years, the repressions of the Soviet government affected the military. This time it was due to the fact that Stalin was afraid of the popularity of the high military command, which enjoyed popular love. By order of Stalin, the following were arrested: A.A. Novikov (Aviation Marshal of the USSR), Generals N.K. Kristallov and P.N. Monday. In addition, some officers who served under the command of Marshal G.K. were arrested. Zhukov.

In general, the repressions of the post-war years affected almost every class of the country. In total, during the period from 1948 to 1953, approximately 6.5 million people were arrested and shot in the country.

In October 1952, the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place, at which it was decided to rename the party into the CPSU.

The USSR after the Great Patriotic War radically changed its foreign policy. The victory of the USSR in the Second World War led to the aggravation of relations between the USSR and the USA. As a result of this exacerbation, cold war. Soviet power, in the post-war years, increased its influence on the world stage. Many countries of the world, especially those that were liberated by the Red Army from fascism, began to be controlled by the communists.

The United States and Britain were seriously worried that the growth of the influence of the USSR could lead to a decrease in their influence on world politics. As a result, it was decided to create a military bloc, the function of which would be to counteract the USSR. This bloc was called "NATO" and was formed in 1949. The Americans could no longer delay the creation of NATO, since in the same year the Soviet Union successfully tested the first atomic bomb. As a result, both sides were nuclear powers. The Cold War continued until Stalin's death on March 5, 1953. The main result of the post-war years was the understanding by the parties that issues must be resolved peacefully, since the Cold War, with the stubbornness of the parties, can develop into an armed one.

Russian history. XX century Bokhanov Alexander Nikolaevich

§ 4. Life after the war: expectations and reality

“In the spring of forty-five people - not without reason - considered themselves giants,” E. Kazakevich shared his feelings. With this mood, the front-line soldiers entered civilian life, leaving - as it seemed to them then - beyond the threshold of war the most terrible and difficult. However, the reality turned out to be more complicated, not at all the same as it was seen from the trench. “In the army, we often talked about what would happen after the war,” recalled journalist B. Galin, “how we would live the next day after the victory, and the closer the end of the war was, the more we thought about it, and a lot to us painted in rainbow colors. We did not always imagine the size of the destruction, the scale of the work that would have to be carried out in order to heal the wounds inflicted by the Germans. “Life after the war seemed like a holiday, for the beginning of which only one thing is needed - the last shot,” K. Simonov continued this thought, as it were. It was difficult to expect other ideas from people who had been under the psychological pressure of an emergency military situation for four years, which often consisted of non-standard situations. It is quite clear that "a normal life, where you can "just live" without being exposed to every minute danger, in war time seen as a gift of fate. The war in the minds of people - front-line soldiers and those who were in the rear, brought a reassessment of the pre-war period, to a certain extent idealizing it. Having experienced the hardships of the war years, people - often subconsciously - also corrected the memory of the past peacetime, preserving the good and forgetting the bad. The desire to return the lost prompted the simplest answer to the question "how to live after the war?" - "as before the war."

“Life is a holiday”, “life is a fairy tale” - with the help of this image, a special concept of post-war life was also modeled in the mass consciousness - without contradictions, without tension, the development of which was actually only one factor - hope. And such a life existed, but only in movies and books. An interesting fact: during the war and in the first post-war years, there was an increase in demand for literature of the adventure genre and even fairy tales in libraries. On the one hand, this interest is explained by the change in the age composition of those working and using libraries; during the war, teenagers came to production (at individual enterprises they accounted for 50 to 70% of employees). After the war, the readership of the library of adventures was replenished by young front-line soldiers, whose intellectual growth was interrupted by the war and, because of this, after the front, returned to the youthful circle of reading. But there is another side to this issue: the growth of interest in this kind of literature and cinema was a kind of reaction to the rejection of the cruel reality that the war brought with it. We needed compensation for psychological overload. Therefore, even in the war one could observe, for example, veteran M. Abdulin testifies, “a terrible thirst for everything that is not connected with the war. I liked the simple film with dancing and fun, the arrival of artists at the front, humor. The thirst for peace, reinforced by the belief that life after the war would quickly change for the better, persisted for three to five post-victory years.

The film "Kuban Cossacks" - the most popular of all post-war films - was a huge success with the audience. Now he is being sharply and in many respects justly criticized for inconsistency with reality. But criticism sometimes forgets that the film "Kuban Cossacks" has its own truth, that this fairy tale film carries very serious mental information that conveys the spirit of that time. Journalist T. Arkhangelskaya recalls an interview with one of the participants in the filming of the film; she told how hungry these well-dressed guys and girls were, who cheerfully looked at models of fruits on the screen, an abundance of papier-mâché, and then added: “We believed that it would be so and that there would be a lot of everything - both bicycles, and what you want. And we really needed everything to be smart and to sing songs.

Hope for the best and the optimism that it nourished set the rhythm of the beginning of post-war life, creating a special - post-victory - social atmosphere. “My entire generation, with the exception of perhaps some, experienced ... difficulties,” the famous builder V.P. recalled at that time. Serikov. - But they didn't lose heart. The main thing is that the war was over ... There was the joy of work, victory, the spirit of competition. The emotional upsurge of the people, the desire to bring a truly peaceful life closer with their work made it possible to quickly solve the main tasks of restoration. However, this attitude, despite its enormous creative power, also carried a different kind of tendency: a psychological attitude towards a relatively painless transition to peace (“The hardest is behind!”), The perception of this process as generally consistent, the further, the more came into conflict with reality, which was in no hurry to turn into a "life-tale".

Conducted in 1945-1946. inspection trips of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recorded a number of "abnormalities" in the material and living conditions of people's lives, primarily residents of industrial cities and workers' settlements. In December 1945, a group of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks conducted such an inspection of the enterprises of the coal industry of the Shchekino region Tula region. The survey results were very disappointing. The living conditions of the workers were deemed "very difficult", with repatriated and mobilized workers living particularly poorly. Many of them did not have underwear, and if they did, they were old and dirty. The workers did not receive soap for months, the dormitories were very crowded and overcrowded, the workers slept on wooden trestle beds or two-tiered bunks (for these trestle beds the administration deducted 48 rubles from the workers' monthly earnings, which was a tenth of it). Workers received 1200 g of bread per day, but despite the sufficiency of the norm, bread was Bad quality: there was not enough oil and therefore bread forms were smeared with oil products.

Numerous signals from the field testified that the facts of this kind are not isolated. Groups of workers from Penza and Kuznetsk addressed letters to V.M. Molotov, M.I. Kalinin, A.I. Mikoyan, which contained complaints about the difficult material and living conditions, the lack of most of the necessary products and goods. According to these letters, a brigade of the People's Commissariat left Moscow, which, based on the results of the check, recognized the complaints of the workers as justified. In Nizhny Lomov, Penza Oblast, workers at Plant No. 255 opposed the delay in bread cards, while workers at the plywood factory and the match factory complained about long delays in wages. Difficult working conditions after the end of the war remained at the reconstructed enterprises: they had to work in the open air, and, if it was winter, knee-deep in snow. The premises were often not lit or heated. In winter, the situation was aggravated by the fact that people often had nothing to wear. For this reason, for example, the secretaries of a number of regional committees of Siberia turned to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with an unprecedented request: to allow them not to hold a demonstration of workers on November 7, 1946, motivating their request by the fact that "the population is not adequately provided with clothing."

A difficult situation developed after the war in the countryside as well. If the city did not suffer so much from a lack of workers (there the main problem was to organize the work and life of existing workers), then the collective farm village, in addition to material deprivation, experienced an acute shortage of people. By the end of 1945, the entire available population of collective farms (including those who returned after demobilization) decreased by 15% compared with 1940, and the number of able-bodied people - by 32.5%. The number of able-bodied men decreased especially noticeably (out of 16.9 million in 1940, by the beginning of 1946, 6.5 million remained). Compared with the pre-war period, the level of material security of collective farmers also decreased: if in 1940, on average, about 20% of grain and more than 40% of the cash income of collective farms were allocated for distribution according to workdays, then in 1945 these indicators decreased, respectively, to 14 and 29%. Payment in a number of farms looked purely symbolic, which means that collective farmers, as before the war, often worked "for sticks." A real disaster for the countryside was the drought of 1946, which engulfed most of the European territory of Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova. The government took advantage of the drought to apply drastic surplus measures, forcing collective farms and state farms to hand over 52% of their crops to the state, that is, more than during the war years. Seed and food grains were confiscated, including those intended for distribution on workdays. The grain collected in this way was sent to the cities, the villagers in the areas affected by crop failure were doomed to mass starvation. Accurate data on the number of victims of the famine of 1946-1947. no, since medical statistics carefully concealed the true cause of the increased mortality during this time (for example, other diagnoses were made instead of dystrophy). Infant mortality was especially high. In the famine-stricken regions of the RSFSR, Ukraine, and Moldavia, whose population numbered approximately 20 million people, in 1947, compared with 1946, due to flight to other places and an increase in mortality, there was a decrease in 5-6 million people, from According to some estimates, the victims of famine and related epidemics amounted to about 1 million people, mostly the rural population. The consequences were not slow to affect the mood of the collective farmers.

“Throughout 1945-1946. I came across very closely, studied the life of a number of collective farmers in the Bryansk and Smolensk regions. What I saw made me turn to you, as to the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, - this is how I began my letter addressed to G.M. Malenkov, a student of the Smolensk Military-Political School N.M. Menshikov. - As a communist, it pains me to listen to such a question from collective farmers: “Do you know if the collective farms will soon be dissolved?” As a rule, they motivate their question by the fact that “there is no strength to live like this anymore.” Indeed, life on some collective farms is unbearably bad. So, in the collective farm New life” (Bryansk, region) almost half of the collective farmers have not had bread for 2–3 months, and some do not even have potatoes. The situation is no better in half of the other collective farms in the region. This is not unique to this area."

“A study of the state of affairs on the ground shows,” a similar signal was sent from Moldova, “that famine covers an increasing number of the rural population ... An unusually high increase in mortality, even compared with 1945, when there was a typhus epidemic. The main cause of high mortality is dystrophy. The peasants of most regions of Moldova eat various poor-quality surrogates, as well as the corpses of dead animals. Behind recent times there are cases of cannibalism… Emigrant moods are spreading among the population.”

In 1946, several notable events took place that in one way or another disturbed the public atmosphere. Contrary to the fairly common belief that at that time public opinion was exceptionally silent, the actual evidence suggests that this assertion is not entirely true. At the end of 1945 - beginning of 1946 there was a campaign for elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which took place in February 1946. As expected, at official meetings, people mostly spoke "for" the elections, unconditionally supporting the policy of the party and its leaders . As before, on the ballots on election day one could find toasts in honor of Stalin and other members of the government. But along with this there were judgments of a completely opposite kind.

Contrary to official propaganda emphasizing the democratic nature of the elections, people said something else: “The state is wasting money on elections, it will no matter who it wants”; “All the same, it won’t be our way, they will vote for whatever they write”; “We have too much money and energy spent on preparing for the elections to the Supreme Council, and the essence is reduced to a simple formality - the registration of a pre-selected candidate”; “The upcoming elections will not give us anything, but if they were held, as in other countries, then it would be a different matter”; “Only one candidate is included on the ballot, this is a violation of democracy, since if you want to vote for another, the one indicated on the ballot will still be elected.”

Rumors spread among the people about the elections, and very different ones. For example, in Voronezh there was talk: voter lists are being checked in order to identify those who are not working to be sent to collective farms. People closed their apartments and left their homes in order not to be included in these lists. At the same time, there were special sanctions for election evasion; in the statements of some people one can read a direct condemnation of this kind of “stick democracy”: “Elections are conducted incorrectly, one candidate is given per electoral district, and the ballot is controlled in some special way. In case of unwillingness to vote for a certain candidate, it is impossible to cross it out, this will be known to the NKVD and sent where it should be ”; “There is no freedom of speech in our country, if I say anything today about the shortcomings in the work of Soviet organs, then tomorrow they will put me in jail.”

The inability to express one's point of view openly without fear of sanctions from the authorities gave rise to apathy, and with it subjective alienation from the authorities: “Whoever needs it, let him choose and study these laws (meaning the laws on elections. - E. Z.), but we are already tired of all this, they will choose without us”; “I am not going to choose and I will not. I did not see anything good from this government. The Communists appointed themselves, let them choose."

During the discussion and conversations, people expressed doubts about the expediency and timeliness of holding elections, which spent a lot of money, while thousands of people were on the verge of hunger: . No one benefits from it”; “What to do with idleness, they would better feed the people, but you can’t feed them with elections”; “They choose well, but they don’t give bread on the collective farms.”

A strong catalyst for the growth of discontent was the destabilization of the general economic situation, primarily the situation in the consumer market, which has been going on since the war, but at the same time has post-war causes. The consequences of the drought in 1946 limited the volume of the marketable mass of grain. However, the already difficult situation with food was exacerbated by the increase in ration prices carried out in September 1946, that is, the prices of goods distributed by cards. At the same time, the contingent of the population covered by the rationing system was declining: the number of supplied population living in rural areas was reduced from 27 million to 4 million, in cities and workers' settlements 3.5 million non-working adult dependents were removed from bread rations and 500 thousand cards were destroyed by streamlining the card system and eliminating abuses. The total consumption of bread for rations was reduced by 30%.

As a result of such measures, not only the possibility of guaranteed supply of basic food products (primarily bread) was reduced, but also the possibility of acquiring food products on the market, where prices quickly went up (especially for bread, potatoes, vegetables). The scale of grain speculation increased. In a number of places it came to an open expression of protest. The most painful news of the increase in ration prices was met by low-paid workers and large families, women who lost their husbands at the front: “Food is expensive, and a family of five. The family does not have enough money. They waited, it would be better, and now there are difficulties again, but when will we survive them? “How to survive difficulties when there is not enough money to buy bread?”; “The products will either have to be abandoned, or redeemed for some other means, there is nothing to think about buying clothes”; “Before, it was hard for me, but I had hope for food cards with low prices, now the last hope is gone and I will have to starve.”

Even more frank were the conversations in the lines for bread: “Now you need to steal more, otherwise you won’t live”; “A new comedy - the salary was increased by 100 rubles, and food prices were increased three times. They did it in such a way that it was beneficial not for the workers, but for the government”; “Husbands and sons were killed, and instead of relief, prices were raised for us”; “With the end of the war, they expected an improvement in the situation and waited for improvement; now it has become more difficult to live than during the war years.”

Attention is drawn to the unpretentiousness of the desires of people who require only the establishment of a living wage and nothing more. The dreams of the war years that after the war “there will be a lot of everything”, a happy life will come, began to land rather quickly, devalue, and the set of benefits included in the “limit of dreams” became so scarce that a salary that makes it possible to feed a family and a room in a communal apartment were already considered a gift of fate. But the myth of “fairy tale life”, which lives in everyday consciousness and, by the way, is supported by the major tone of all official propaganda, presenting any difficulties as “temporary”, often interfered with an adequate understanding of cause-and-effect relationships in the chain of events that excite people. Therefore, finding no apparent reasons to explain "temporary" difficulties that would fall under the category of objective ones, people looked for them in the usual emergency circumstances. The choice here was not too wide, all the difficulties of the post-war period were explained by the consequences of the war. It is not surprising that the complication of the situation inside the country was also associated in the mass consciousness with the war factor - now the future one. Questions were often raised at the meetings: “Will there be a war?”, “Is the price increase caused by the difficult international situation?”. Some spoke more categorically: “The end of peaceful life has come, a war is approaching, and prices have increased. They hide it from us, but we figure it out. Before a war, prices always go up.” As for the rumors, here the popular fantasy knew no bounds at all: “America broke the peace treaty with Russia, there will soon be a war. They say that trains with the wounded have already been delivered to the city of Simferopol”; “I heard that the war is already going on in China and Greece, where America and England have intervened. If not today or tomorrow, the Soviet Union will also be attacked.”

The war in the minds of the people will be perceived for a long time as the main measure of the difficulties of life, and the sentence “if only there was no war” will serve as a reliable justification for all the hardships of the post-war period, for which, apart from it, there were no longer any reasonable explanations. After the world crossed the line of the Cold War, these sentiments only intensified; they could keep under wraps, but at the slightest danger or a hint of danger they immediately made themselves felt. For example, already in 1950, during the war in Korea, panic among the inhabitants of Primorsky Krai intensified, who considered that since there was a war nearby, it means that it would not pass the borders of the USSR. As a result, essential goods (matches, salt, soap, kerosene, etc.) began to disappear from stores: the population created long-term "military" stocks.

Some saw the reason for the increase in ration prices in the fall of 1946 as the approach of a new war, others considered such a decision unfair in relation to the results of the past war, in relation to front-line soldiers and their families who had gone through a difficult time and had right to something more than a half-starved existence. In many statements on this subject, it is easy to notice the feeling of offended dignity of the winners, and the bitter irony of deceived hopes: “Life is becoming more beautiful, more fun. The salary was increased by one hundred rubles, and 600 were taken away. We fought, the winners! ”; “Well, here we are. This is called taking care of the material needs of the working people in the Fourth Stalinist Five-Year Plan. Now we understand why meetings are not held on this issue. There will be riots, uprisings, and the workers will say: “What did you fight for?”.

However, despite the presence of very decisive moods, at that time they did not become predominant: the craving for peaceful life turned out to be too strong, the fatigue from the struggle, in any form, was too serious, the desire to get rid of extremeness and associated with her harsh actions. In addition, despite the skepticism of some people, the majority continued to trust the leadership of the country, to believe that it was acting in the name of the people's good. Therefore, the difficulties, including those brought with it by the food crisis of 1946, were most often, judging by the reviews, perceived by contemporaries as inevitable and someday surmountable. Quite typical were statements like the following: "Although it will be difficult to live as a low-paid worker, our government and the party have never done anything bad for the working class"; “We emerged victorious from a war that ended a year ago. The war brought great destruction and life cannot immediately enter into a normal framework. Our task is to understand the ongoing activities of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and support it”; “We believe that the party and the government have well thought out this event in order to quickly eliminate temporary difficulties. We believed the party when, under its leadership, we fought for Soviet power, we still believe that the ongoing event is temporary…”

Attention is drawn to the motivation of negative and "approving" sentiments: the former are based on the real state of affairs, while the latter come solely from faith in the justice of the leadership, which "never did anything bad for the working class." It can be definitely asserted that the policy of the leaders of the first post-war years was built solely on the credibility of the people, which after the war was quite high. On the one hand, the use of this loan allowed the leadership to stabilize the post-war situation over time and, on the whole, to ensure the transition of the country from a state of war to a state of peace. But on the other hand, the trust of the people in the top leadership made it possible for the latter to delay the decision of vital reforms, and subsequently actually block the trend of democratic renewal of society.

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The Great Patriotic War ended with a victory, which the Soviet people achieved for four years. Men fought on the fronts, women worked on collective farms, at military factories - in a word, they provided rear. However, the euphoria caused by the long-awaited victory was replaced by a sense of hopelessness. Continuous hard work, hunger, Stalinist repressions, renewed with renewed vigor - these phenomena overshadowed the post-war years.

In the history of the USSR, the term "cold war" is found. Used in relation to the period of military, ideological and economic confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. It begins in 1946, that is, in the post-war years. The USSR emerged victorious from World War II, but, unlike the United States, it faced long way recovery.

Construction

According to the plan of the fourth five-year plan, the implementation of which began in the USSR in the postwar years, it was necessary, first of all, to restore the cities destroyed by the fascist troops. More than 1.5 thousand suffered in four years settlements. Young people quickly received various construction specialties. However, there was not enough manpower - the war claimed the lives of more than 25 million Soviet citizens.

To restore normal working hours, overtime work was canceled. Annual paid holidays were introduced. The working day now lasted eight hours. Peaceful construction in the USSR in the postwar years was headed by the Council of Ministers.

Industry

Plants and factories destroyed during the Second World War were actively restored in the post-war years. In the USSR, by the end of the forties, old enterprises began to work. New ones were also built. The post-war period in the USSR is 1945-1953, that is, it begins after the end of the Second World War. Ends with the death of Stalin.

The recovery of industry after the war proceeded rapidly, partly due to the high working capacity of the Soviet people. The citizens of the USSR were convinced that they had a great life, much better than the Americans living in the conditions of decaying capitalism. This was facilitated by the Iron Curtain, which isolated the country culturally and ideologically from the whole world for forty years.

They worked hard, but their life did not get easier. In the USSR in 1945-1953 there was a rapid development of three industries: rocket, radar, nuclear. Most of the resources were spent on the construction of enterprises that belonged to these areas.

Agriculture

The first post-war years were terrible for the inhabitants. In 1946, the country was gripped by famine caused by destruction and drought. A particularly difficult situation was observed in the Ukraine, in Moldova, in the right-bank regions of the lower Volga region and in the North Caucasus. New collective farms were created throughout the country.

In order to strengthen the spirit of Soviet citizens, directors, commissioned by officials, shot a huge number of films telling about the happy life of collective farmers. These films enjoyed wide popularity, they were watched with admiration even by those who knew what a collective farm really was.

In the villages, people worked from dawn to dawn, while living in poverty. That is why later, in the fifties, young people left the villages, went to the cities, where life was at least a little easier.

Standard of living

In the post-war years, people suffered from hunger. In 1947, but most of the goods remained in short supply. The hunger has returned. The prices of rations were raised. Nevertheless, over the course of five years, starting in 1948, products gradually became cheaper. This somewhat improved the standard of living of Soviet citizens. In 1952, the price of bread was 39% lower than in 1947, and that of milk was 70%.

The availability of essential goods did not make life much easier ordinary people, but, being under the Iron Curtain, most of them easily believed in the illusory idea of ​​the best country in the world.

Until 1955, Soviet citizens were convinced that they owed Stalin their victory in the Great Patriotic War. But this situation was not observed throughout. In those regions that were annexed to the Soviet Union after the war, far fewer conscious citizens lived, for example, in the Baltic states and in Western Ukraine, where anti-Soviet organizations appeared in the 40s.

Friendly states

After the end of the war in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the GDR, the communists came to power. The USSR developed diplomatic relations with these states. At the same time, the conflict with the West escalated.

According to the 1945 treaty, Transcarpathia was transferred to the USSR. The Soviet-Polish border has changed. Many former citizens of other states, such as Poland, lived on the territory after the end of the war. The Soviet Union concluded an agreement on the exchange of population with this country. Poles living in the USSR now had the opportunity to return to their homeland. Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians could leave Poland. It is noteworthy that in the late forties only about 500 thousand people returned to the USSR. In Poland - twice as much.

criminal situation

In the postwar years in the USSR, law enforcement agencies launched a serious fight against banditry. 1946 saw the peak of crime. About 30,000 armed robberies were recorded this year.

To combat rampant crime, new employees, as a rule, former front-line soldiers, were accepted into the ranks of the police. It was not so easy to restore peace to Soviet citizens, especially in Ukraine and the Baltic states, where the criminal situation was the most depressing. In the Stalin years, a fierce struggle was waged not only against "enemies of the people", but also against ordinary robbers. From January 1945 to December 1946, more than three and a half thousand bandit organizations were liquidated.

Repression

Back in the early twenties, many representatives of the intelligentsia left the country. They knew about the fate of those who did not have time to escape from Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, at the end of the forties, some accepted the offer to return to their homeland. Russian nobles were returning home. But to another country. Many were sent immediately upon their return to the Stalinist camps.

In the post-war years, it reached its apogee. Wreckers, dissidents and other "enemies of the people" were placed in the camps. Sad was the fate of the soldiers and officers who found themselves surrounded during the war years. At best, they spent several years in the camps, until which they debunked the cult of Stalin. But many were shot. In addition, the conditions in the camps were such that only the young and healthy could endure them.

In the post-war years, Marshal Georgy Zhukov became one of the most respected people in the country. His popularity annoyed Stalin. However, he did not dare to put the national hero behind bars. Zhukov was known not only in the USSR, but also abroad. The leader knew how to create uncomfortable conditions in other ways. In 1946, the "Aviator Case" was fabricated. Zhukov was removed from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces and sent to Odessa. Several generals close to the marshal were arrested.

culture

In 1946, the fight against Western influence began. It was expressed in the popularization of domestic culture and the ban on everything foreign. Soviet writers, artists, directors were persecuted.

In the forties, as already mentioned, a huge number of war films were shot. These films were heavily censored. The characters were created according to a template, the plot was built according to a clear scheme. The music was also under strict control. Only compositions praising Stalin and a happy Soviet life. This did not have the best effect on the development of national culture.

The science

The development of genetics began in the thirties. In the postwar period, this science was in exile. Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet biologist and agronomist, became the main participant in the attack on geneticists. In August 1948, academicians who made a significant contribution to the development of domestic science lost the opportunity to engage in research activities.

The Great Patriotic War, which became a severe trial and shock for the Soviet people, turned the whole way of life and the course of life of the majority of the country's population for a long time. Huge difficulties and material deprivations were perceived as temporarily inevitable problems, as a consequence of the war.

The post-war years began with the pathos of restoration, hopes for change. The main thing is that the war was over, people were glad that they were alive, everything else, including living conditions, was not so important.

All the difficulties of everyday life mainly fell on the shoulders of women. Among the ruins of the destroyed cities, they planted vegetable gardens, removed rubble and cleared places for new construction, while raising children and providing for their families. People lived in the hope that a new, freer and more prosperous life would come very soon, which is why the Soviet society of those years is called the “society of hopes”.

"Second Bread"

The main reality of everyday life of that time, trailing from the military era, was a constant lack of food, a half-starved existence. The most important thing was missing - bread. The "second bread" was the potato, its consumption doubled, it saved, first of all, the villagers from starvation.

Cakes were baked from grated raw potatoes, rolled in flour or breadcrumbs. They even used frozen potatoes that remained in the field for the winter. It was taken out of the ground, the peel was removed, and a little flour, herbs, salt (if any) were added to this starchy mass, and cakes were fried. Here is what the collective farmer Nikiforova from the village of Chernushki wrote in December 1948:

“The food is potato, sometimes with milk. In the village of Kopytova bread is baked like this: they will wipe off a bucket of potatoes, put a handful of flour for gluing. This bread is almost without the protein necessary for the body. It is absolutely necessary to establish a minimum amount of bread that must be left untouched, at least 300 grams of flour per person per day. Potatoes are a deceptive food, more flavorful than satiating.”

People of the post-war generation still remember how they waited for spring, when the first grass appeared: you can cook empty cabbage soup from sorrel and nettle. They also ate "pimples" - shoots of a young field horsetail, "columns" - sorrel flower stalks. Even vegetable peelings were crushed in a mortar, and then boiled and used as food.

Here is a fragment from an anonymous letter to I.V. Stalin dated February 24, 1947: “The collective farmers mainly eat potatoes, and many do not even have potatoes, they eat food waste and hope for spring, when green grass grows, then they will eat grass. But there are still some left with dried potato peels and pumpkin peels, which will grind and make cakes that in a good household would not be eaten by pigs. Children preschool age they do not know the color and taste of sugar, sweets, cookies and other confectionery products, but eat on a par with adult potatoes and grass.

The real boon for the villagers was the ripening in summer period berries and mushrooms, which were collected mainly by teenagers for their families.

One workday (a unit of labor accounting on a collective farm), earned by a collective farmer, brought him less food than the average city dweller received on a food card. The collective farmer had to work and save all the money for a whole year so that he could buy the cheapest suit.

Empty cabbage soup and porridge

Things were no better in the cities. The country lived in conditions of acute shortage, and in 1946-1947. The country was in the grip of a real food crisis. In ordinary stores, food was often missing, they looked wretched, often cardboard models of products were displayed in the windows.

Prices in the collective farm markets were high: for example, 1 kg of bread cost 150 rubles, which was more than a week's salary. They stood in queues for flour for several days, the queue number was written on the hand with an indelible pencil, in the morning and in the evening they held a roll call.

At the same time, commercial stores began to open, where even delicacies and sweets were sold, but they were “not affordable” for ordinary workers. Here is how the American J. Steinbeck, who visited Moscow in 1947, described such a commercial store: , also state-run where you can buy almost simple food, but at very high prices. Canned goods are stacked in mountains, champagne and Georgian wines are pyramids. We have seen products that could be American. There were jars of crabs with Japanese trademarks on them. There were German products. And here were the luxurious products of the Soviet Union: large jars of caviar, mountains of sausages from Ukraine, cheeses, fish and even game. And various smoked meats. But they were all delicacies. For a simple Russian, the main thing was how much bread costs and how much they give, as well as the prices for cabbage and potatoes.

The rationed supply and services of commercial trade could not save people from food difficulties. Most of the townspeople lived from hand to mouth.

The cards gave bread and once a month two bottles (0.5 liters each) of vodka. Her people were taken to suburban villages and exchanged for potatoes. The dream of a person of that time was sauerkraut with potatoes and bread and porridge (mainly barley, millet and oats). Soviet people at that time practically did not see sugar and real tea, not to mention confectionery. Instead of sugar, slices of boiled beets were used, which were dried in an oven. They also drank carrot tea (from dried carrots).

The letters of the post-war workers testify to the same thing: the inhabitants of the cities were content with empty cabbage soup and porridge in the face of an acute shortage of bread. Here is what they wrote in 1945-1946: “If it were not for bread, it would have ended its existence. I live on the same water. In the canteen, except for rotten cabbage and the same kind of fish, you don’t see anything, portions are given such that you eat and you don’t notice whether you dined or not ”(worker of the metallurgical plant I.G. Savenkov);

“Feding has become worse than in the war - a bowl of gruel and two tablespoons of oatmeal, and this is a day for an adult” (worker of the automobile plant M. Pugin).

Monetary reform and the abolition of cards

The post-war period was marked by two major events in a country that could not help but influence everyday life people: monetary reform and the abolition of cards in 1947

There were two points of view on the abolition of cards. Some believed that this would lead to the flourishing of speculative trade and the aggravation of the food crisis. Others believed that the abolition of ration cards and the allowing of the commercial trade in bread and cereals would stabilize the food problem.

The card system was abolished. Queues in stores continued to stand, despite a significant increase in prices. The price for 1 kg of black bread has increased from 1 rub. up to 3 rubles 40 kopecks, 1 kg of sugar - from 5 rubles. up to 15 rubles 50 kop. In order to survive in these conditions, people began to sell things acquired before the war.

The markets were in the hands of speculators who sold essential commodities such as bread, sugar, butter, matches, and soap. They were supplied by "dishonest" employees of warehouses, bases, shops, canteens, who were in charge of food and supplies. In order to stop speculation, the Council of Ministers of the USSR in December 1947 issued a resolution "On the norms for the sale of industrial and food products in one hand."

In one hand they released: bread - 2 kg, cereals and pasta - 1 kg, meat and meat products - 1 kg, sausages and smoked meats - 0.5 kg, sour cream - 0.5 kg, milk - 1 l, sugar - 0.5 kg, cotton fabrics - 6 m, threads on spools - 1 pc., stockings or socks - 2 pairs, leather, textile or rubber shoes - 1 pair, laundry soap - 1 piece, matches - 2 boxes, kerosene - 2 liters.

The meaning of the monetary reform was explained in his memoirs by the then Minister of Finance A.G. Zverev: “From December 16, 1947, new money was put into circulation and they began to exchange cash for them, with the exception of a bargaining chip, within a week (in remote areas - within two weeks) at a ratio of 1 to 10. Deposits and current accounts in savings banks were revalued according to the ratio 1 for 1 to 3 thousand rubles, 2 for 3 from 3 thousand to 10 thousand rubles, 1 for 2 over 10 thousand rubles, 4 for 5 for cooperatives and collective farms. All ordinary old bonds, except for the 1947 loans, were exchanged for new loan bonds at 1 for 3 old ones, and 3 percent winning bonds - at the rate of 1 for 5.

Monetary reform was carried out at the expense of the people. Money "in a jug" suddenly depreciated, the population's tiny savings were withdrawn. If we take into account that 15% of savings were kept in savings banks, and 85% - on hand, then it is clear who suffered from the reform. In addition, the reform did not affect the wages of workers and employees, which remained the same.