After my first month of work, I discovered something new about the financial support provided to the regional leadership. The head of the financial sector brought my salary to my office, placed a statement on the table, and pointed to a column for me to sign. When I looked, I was stunned to see it: 1,800 rubles. That was three hundred rubles less than I had received at the City Committee and nearly half of what I earned in my last year as deputy director of the plant. I thought, Wow… How am I going to support my family with such a small amount? After all, the rent for the four-room apartment they assigned me was an average of four hundred rubles per month. Nevertheless, I silently signed for my meager salary.
Then the financier pulled an envelope from a folder.
“This is your monthly allowance.”
The envelope read: “4,000 rubles.”
“What kind of allowance is this? Is it related to the move?”
“Didn’t Ivan Pavlovich explain? This allowance is additional salary. It’s tax-exempt. You’ll receive the relocation allowance separately.”
He then produced another envelope and placed a prepared receipt in front of me.
“Here’s your legal allowance: a month’s salary for you and a quarter month’s salary for each of your family’s member.”
When I brought home this stack of money, totaling about ten thousand rubles, Klava exclaimed,
“Mummy! What am I going to do with so much money?!”
“That’s your decision. Buy whatever you think we need. You’ve been complaining that we’re short on essentials.”
However, it turned out that, given the prices at that time, it wasn’t a lot of money, and my wife quickly found ways to spend it. She replaced our metal beds with wooden ones, passing the old ones down to the children. She purchased a table and six chairs and ordered a suit made for me from fabric that cost 450 rubles per meter. She also dressed the children in new coats and boots. And that was it. It felt like a significant amount at the time. When our neighbors—two secretaries from the regional committee and the chairman of the regional executive committee—came to visit, some drank tea from glasses while others used mismatched cups.
“Don’t you have any proper tea utensils?” one of the ladies asked, frowning.
“We got shortchanged during the move,” Klava replied. “Next time, you’ll drink tea from a new set.”
Indeed, her next big purchase was a tea set, which we still have, nearly intact.
This is how the mystery of the “envelopes” was revealed to me. I had heard whispers about them but never sought to understand their meaning. Later, I learned that the first secretary and the chairman of the regional executive committee each received seven thousand rubles “in envelopes,” while department heads of the regional committee and the regional executive committee also received additional cash payments. The rest of the staff received no bonuses. In Kiev, I would discover that there were similar “envelopes” in the republican bodies, often in larger amounts within the Union, and that the “investments” in them were even heftier.
All Union and republican ministers, their deputies, and deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR also received “envelopes.” Employees at the highest levels of nomenclature also enjoyed state dachas, but this privilege was limited to a select few. Six months later, on the initiative of N. S. Khrushchev, “envelopes” were abolished. Speaking at one of the extended plenums of the Central Committee, Nikita Sergeevich described this system, established by Stalin, as nothing more than bribery for senior officials: “So they would know from whose hands they were being fed and be more obedient.” I believe he made the right decision.
With the elimination of “envelopes,” my taxable salary was 4,000 rubles (after the currency exchange, 400 rubles), which was lower than the salary of a director at a large factory (5,000 rubles) and half the salary of the head of a well-performing mine. Shortly after the move, my wife began working as a teacher at the metallurgical technical school. Our family was considered relatively well-off at that time. However, taking into account the need to provide at least some support to relatives, combined with expenses for clothes, shoes, basic household items, and rent, there was hardly any money left for savings. Acquiring a “Pobeda” car, which cost 18,000 rubles at the time, remained a distant dream, even though many people already owned one. As an auto mechanic who had obtained his license in 1935, I certainly held on to that dream. Unfortunately, more pressing expenses consumed our salaries, and my driving license remained unexchanged. I must admit, however, that during business trips, I occasionally took the wheel of a company car for a few dozen kilometers, much to the obvious displeasure of my disciplined chauffeur, who had driven thousands of kilometers along frontline roads.
Oleksandr Liashko (1916-2002) was a prominent politician and statesman of the Ukrainian SSR. He began his career as an engineer in 1945 and later served as the secretary of both the Kramatorsk City Committee and the Donetsk Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. He eventually rose to the position of second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and later became the head of the government of the Ukrainian SSR from 1972 to 1987. After a distinguished career and with a deep understanding of the system, Liashko began writing his memoirs upon retiring in 1987, which he published as a trilogy in 1997. Drawing from a variety of sources, his memoirs, despite being written years after the events described and reflecting his communist beliefs, are noted for their reliability and balanced assessments.
This excerpt focuses on the financial support and material situation of Liashko’s family in the mid-1950s, particularly following his transfer from the role of first secretary of the Kramatorsk City Committee to the position of secretary of the Donetsk Oblast Committee in 1954.
Liashko’s memoirs are notably candid compared to those of other high-ranking officials of the time. He acknowledges a certain secrecy surrounding these financial privileges, referred to as “envelopes,” of which he had only previously “heard whispers.” He does not shy away from expressing his wife’s delight at these payments, describing the family’s financial situation as “well off.” However, despite the substantial financial privileges, Liashko claims that the money was insufficient to meet all their immediate needs. These needs included not only basic necessities such as children’s clothing and shoes and suits for himself and his wife but also status items, such as a tea set, the absence of which surprised the wife of another high-ranking official.