Prehistory
(history of the formation of the power elite in Russia and the Urals until 1985)
Summary
Since the development of the Urals by the Russians in the 16th century, the region, rich in natural resources, has played a significant role in the formation of the Russian elite from Muscovite Rus to the Russian Federation. The pioneers of the development of the Ural lands by the Russians were the Stroganov family of merchants, which at that time was the richest family in Moscow Russia. Initially, the main income in the Urals was brought by furs, and as the number of fur-bearing animals decreased, the development of iron-making and copper-smelting industries began to come out on top. Since then and up to the present time, metallurgical production has remained the basis of the economy of the Middle Urals. Representatives of the highest aristocratic circles were appointed managers of the Urals and Western Siberia, which testified to the importance of these lands for Russia. The administrative center of the current Sverdlovsk region, the city of Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk), gained a dominant position over neighboring regional centers in the twentieth century, when large machine-building enterprises (in particular, Uralmashzavod) began to be built in the city and the region. Mechanical engineering has become the second most important branch of the economy of the Middle Urals after metallurgy.
By the middle of the twentieth century, the Sverdlovsk region was in the top five regions of the RSFSR in terms of industrial potential, which determined the high importance of the regional elite, which served as a supplier of personnel for the central administrative apparatus.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the continuity of power in the Urals, as well as in the rest of Russia, was broken. This moment can be considered the starting point for the formation of a new elite of Soviet Russia, including the modern elite of the Russian Federation, since in 1991 the continuity of the elites as a whole was preserved.
After the October Revolution, the former bureaucratic apparatus and a significant layer of the intelligentsia declared a boycott of the Bolsheviks, which determined the shortage of qualified personnel for the administrative apparatus. The recruitment of new bureaucratic cadres began among the illiterate workers and peasants. Among educated people, the appeal of the new government met with support primarily from the Jews, as a result of which the presence of Jews in the ranks of the new government was disproportio-nately high in the number of Jews in the country. Moreover, this imbalance increased significantly at the top of the power pyramid. During the disintegration of the USSR and the construction of a market economy in the Russian Federation, Jews again played a great role, which necessitates a detailed examination of the Jewish question in Russia from the point of view of the formation of elites.
From the 17th to the 19th century, Jews assumed a great importance, if not a leading role, in world finance and, through it, in industry. Jews began to play an important role in international trade, interstate relations and foreign intelligence agencies of the largest states. In Western Europe and the United States, influential Jewish families intermarried with aristocratic families and wealthy bourgeois, forming a new ruling class. This process practically did not affect the Russian Empire, where the ruling aristocracy interacted with the Jews and often depended on them, but avoided kinship with the Jews. Throughout world history, Jews have often played a large role in the collapse of ruling regimes. They also played a significant role in the growth of revolutionary sentiments in Russia in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In this respect, the events in Russia differed little from what happened in Europe, but there were two qualitative differences. First, in the course of the growth of revolutionary sentiments in Russia, anti-Semitic propaganda played a significant role, increasing the explosiveness of the situation in the country, complicating the state's foreign policy and limiting its financial security. Secondly, only in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 there was an almost complete change of elites without any continuity, which ensured the loss of state control and economic devastation in the country.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the state apparatus was headed predominantly by national minorities, primarily Jews. The Jews played a key role in the foreign relations of Soviet Russia with the rest of the world, thanks to the traditional interstate relations of Jews with each other through family kinship and the diaspora. Historically, London was the Jewish center of interstate relations. The Northern Sea Route to London and the countries that lay along this route (Finland and Sweden) acquired special significance for Soviet Russia - a conditional "Soviet transnational corporation" began to form here, which was formed by employees of foreign intelligence, trade missions, diplomats, workers of the Comintern. It was Jewish ties that probably allowed Soviet Russia not to find itself in isolation among the capitalist states, to receive economic and technological support from ideologically alien countries.
In the 30s of the twentieth century, national minorities, including Jews, are losing their leading positions in the state apparatus. Joseph Stalin became the authoritarian leader of the country, relying on the Russians who gained the weight of the apparatus, emerged from the working-peasant environment, who learned a lot from the Jews in eliminating political competitors by any means and were charged with a fair amount of anti-Semitism, although the state officially opposed anti-Semitic policies.
After World War II, anti-Semitism almost officially became a state policy, which turns the USSR into an evil empire in the eyes of the international community, since Jews have a great influence on the major media. Jews are again becoming the most active opposition to the ruling regime, as it was before the collapse of the Russian Empire.
Meanwhile, a scientific and technological revolution is taking place in the world thanks to the introduction of computers. The proletariat as the base class of industrial society is being replaced by the intelligentsia as the basis of post-industrial society. In the 70s, the USSR finally opened the borders for the emigration of Jews, the largest economic project of cooperation between the USSR and the capitalist countries was being implemented - the construction of an automobile plant in Togliatti. In the course of the implementation of this project, a liberal wing is being formed among Soviet economists, which in the 80s and 90s will implement the restructuring of the planned economy into a liberal market one. The most successful businessmen of the new economy, even those who made their main capital from trading in natural resources, will initially grow up in the microelectronics and programming sectors. Many of the most successful politicians have also been associated with this area.
In the 70s, people associated with the remnants of the "Soviet transnational corporation", in particular, Yuri Andropov, will get to the top of the nomenklatura pyramid. These people and their henchmen will give impetus to the liberalization of the domestic economy, and subsequently politics, undermining the foundations of the nomenclature itself. The subsequent collapse of the USSR, which caused the political weakness of the central government and the disorganization of the economy, allowed the formation of a new class of political and economic elite, focused on active interaction with foreign (transnational) subjects of political and economic influence. This new elite has absorbed a part of the party nomenklatura that has managed to adapt to the new political realities, specialists in foreign relations (foreign intelligence, foreign trade, diplomats) and the authorities of the criminal world, who have partially assumed regulatory functions in the face of a weak state apparatus.
More details
I. The role of Jews in international relations of European countries (XVII-XIX centuries).
1. Troubles in Europe. Court Jews. Finance, trade, diplomacy.
2. Formation of the European financial aristocracy. Rothschilds.
3. Morgan and Rockefellers in the United States. Council on Foreign Relations. FRS.
II. The Role of the Jews in the 1917 Revolution
1. Emancipation. Nihilism. Internationalism. Terrorism.
2. Anti-Semitism as a weapon of political provocation. "Red Counts" Ignatievs.
3. February and October revolution. Revolutionaries' connections with Germany, Great Britain and the United States.
III. Formation of foreign economic, diplomatic and intelligence activities of Soviet Russia in the first half of the XX century. Comintern.
1. Russia-Finland-Sweden - “corridor to Europe”. The formation of the Comintern. "Soviet transnational corporation."
2. Great Britain - the center of financial transactions of the Comintern.
3. India - a springboard for the "Soviet transnational corporation."
4. Stalin against “rootless cosmopolitans”. The nomenclature is the new Russian bureaucracy. Cominform instead of the Comintern.
5. Again, anti-Semitism.
IV. Informatization as a basis for building new relations between the USSR and the West.
1. Computer simulation.
2. AvtoVAZ: USSR-Italy-UK-USA. "Cradle" of Gaidar and Berezovsky.
3. "Jews-adventurers" rush to the aid of the "anti-Semitic USSR". Marc Rich and the Ruben's brothers.
4. Computers are the gold of Restructuring. Siemens and Olivetti.
V. Yeltsin's Phenomenon: Destroyer-Builder and Populist - Conspiracy or Historical Pattern?
I. The role of Jews in international relations of European countries (XVII-XIX centuries).
1. Troubles in Europe. Court Jews. Finance, trade, diplomacy.
In medieval Christian Europe, Jews of the Jewish faith had a separate position relative to the rest of the population. They were constrained in their rights by Christian rulers, but at the same time, their faith allowed them to engage in activities that were impermissible for Christians, in particular, usury. However, Christian Europe knew exceptions to this rule, for example, the Knightly Order of the Templars, which ended up having a bad ending. For thousands of years, Jews lived in close-knit diasporas scattered all over the world, which, on the one hand, gave support to the loners on the part of the collective, and on the other hand, allowed the secular and spiritual rulers (kagals and rabbis) to tightly control the main Jewish mass, protecting them from various diabolical temptations, for example, from secular education.
A special position was occupied by court Jews - Jews in the service of the rulers of states. They were free from most Jewish restrictions, while enjoying all the Jewish advan-tages at the same time. Court Jews began to acquire great importance in the financial system of European countries in the 17th century during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The changed nature of wars required significant funds for their conduct. Money began to play a key role in military victory. The protracted nature of the Thirty Years War led to inflation in European countries embroiled in conflicts. The Jews at the court lent money to wage wars, and also acted as suppliers of the armies of the belligerent states. During this period, the rulers of a number of countries commissioned court Jews to organize state mints, which gives court Jews direct access to state finances. In principle, nothing prevented the most Christian sovereign from giving a damn about his duty as a Jew, whose ancestors crucified the son of God, which sometimes happened. But the credit rating of such a sovereign could plummet and the impossibility of obtaining a loan from another Jew in the future put an end to the state's fighting efficiency.
In the second half of the 17th century, with the development of absolutism, noble monarchs spent the people's wealth not so much on war as on luxury goods. At the same time, they managed to get into debt to Jewish usurers no less successfully than their warlike ancestors did. The Jews were of particular importance at the courts of the German, Scandinavian states and Poland.
The presence of diasporas in different countries, as well as proximity to the rulers of these states, gave Jews an advantage in international trade, financial transactions, and diplomatic negotiations, as a result of which Jews began to often act as mediators in international relations of European countries. This position provided wide access to all kinds of information, which added a competitive edge to influential Jewish clans. It cannot be said that this position of the Jews was something exceptional in European history. The merchants of the Italian city-states have long combined their trade activities with diplomatic and intelligence activities. The long arms of the Catholic orders of chivalry and monasticism stretched far beyond the borders of Christian Europe. For example, Jesuit monks served as intermediaries in relations between the Chinese imperial court and the diplomatic mission of Muscovite Russia. For some reason, the Chinese considered it beneath their dignity to communicate directly with the Russians, but the Jesuits, for some unknown reason, were much more respected. Nevertheless, the Jewish clans managed to stand on a par with such powerful international organizations as the Jesuit Order or the Roman Catholic Church in general, and the development of capitalism in Europe gave advantages to Jews whose religion and customs were largely capitalist.
The participation of Jews in the diplomatic relations of Muscovite Rus has been celebrated since the end of the 15th century. In the 16th-17th centuries, court Jews began to play a significant role in Russian finances.
2. Formation of the European financial aristocracy. Rothschilds.
Trying to strengthen their position, court Jews begin to enter into inter-dynastic marriages, as a result of which a cohesive group is formed that protects the interests of its members, exerting a significant influence on the politics of European states. In the second half of the 17th century, the Oppenheimer and Wertheimer, who operated at the Austrian imperial court, are mentioned among the most famous Jewish families. In the second half of the 18th century, the Rothschild dynasty came to the fore.
The founder of the Rothschild dynasty, Mayer Amschel Bauer, after training at the Oppenheimer bank, founded his bank in Frankfurt am Main. With the mediation of one of his noble clients, Mayer Amschel received access to the princely house of Hesse-Kassel, after a while he became the personal banker of the prince - one of the richest and most noble German princes. Mayer Amschel's sons continued his business by opening branches of the ancestral bank in London, Paris, Vienna and Naples. Formally independent from each other, the banks had a common communication system that allows them to receive operational information about political and financial events throughout Europe. During the Napoleonic wars, the banking houses of the Rothschilds successfully sponsored all the belligerent parties, as a result of which it was not the victory of any of the belligerents that mattered to them, but the conflict of these parties itself, which made it possible to make a profit. The Rothschilds managed to achieve the highest official social status in Great Britain. In the 19th century, London became the financial and largely political capital of the world.
3. Morgan and Rockefellers in the United States. Council on Foreign Relations. FRS.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a significant increase in the economic power of the United States, which, during the First World War, began to develop into an increase in the political influence of the United States on European politics. At the beginning of the 20th century, the process of integration of groups of the political and eco-nomic elite of the United States begins by pooling capitals and entering into inter-dynastic marriages:
- American "tribal aristocracy" (descendants of influential families who arrived in the American continent in the 17th century);
- the nouveau riche - wealthy industrialists who made their fortune in the 19th and early 20th centuries (Rockefeller, Morgan, Ford);
- Jewish financial clans of predominantly British and Germanic origin.
As a result of the agreements reached between these influential groups, such organizations were created as the Council on Foreign Relations, which began to exert a significant influence on international politics, and the Federal Reserve System, which regulated the finances of the United States, and subsequently began to exert a great influence on the world financial system.
Of interest is the study of the origins of the US elite by Anthony Sutton, who notes the emergence of similar secret societies in the 19th century, first in Bavaria ("Illuminati"), then in Great Britain at Oxford University (the Rothschilds played the leading role), and then in the USA at Yale University (leading played by the American "tribal aristocracy"). The secret society in Bavaria was exposed by the police as a result of a coincidence and destroyed, in the UK and the United States, these societies continue to operate to this day, serving as suppliers of the highest political and economic elite of the United States.
II. The Role of the Jews in the 1917 Revolution
1. Emancipation. Nihilism. Internationalism. Terrorism.
After the partition of Poland at the end of the 18th century and the annexation of Lithuania, Podolia and Volhynia with almost a million Jewish population to Russia, the number of Jews living in the territory of the Russian Empire amounted to more than half of all Jews in the world. From that moment on, the government of the Russian Empire made significant efforts to assimilate the Jewish population. In the second half of the 19th century, the right to receive a secular education was actively used as a method of assimilation, which met with resistance from the ruling elite of Jewry. Jews living in closed communities scattered around the world did not feel like citizens of Poland, Lithuania or Russia. They were a separate people, regardless of the territory of which state and in the neighborhood with which peoples they lived at the moment. A sense of one's own identity was given by belonging to the family, the confession of Judaism and certain occupations (trade, craft, usury). The receipt of a secular education by such people, which almost always caused exclusion from the community and a break with religious traditions, often gave rise to cosmopolitan nihilism of the most destructive nature. At the same time, unlike the Russian intelligentsia, the conflict between fathers and children in Jewish families usually did not occur and rebel children received material support from completely traditional fathers, which increased the chances of getting an education. As a result, the Jews gained wide representation in the student environment, professing aggressive rebellious internationalism, to which the slogan “we will destroy the whole world to the core” was the best fit.
2. Anti-Semitism as a weapon of political provocation. "Red Counts" Ignatiev's.
The isolated position of the Jews often aroused anti-Semitic sentiments both in the ruling circles and among the people, especially in places of mass residence of Jews. The tsarist government limited the rights of Jews who did not want to accept Orthodoxy. Ordinary people accused the Jews of usury and the drinking of peasants (a significant part of the wine industry was in the hands of Jews). Revolutionary tendencies among nihilistic Jewish youth fueled anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitic reaction reinforced revolutionary sentiments. The opinion spread that the Jewish pogroms were provoked by the tsarist secret police, although there is information that the pogroms could have been initiated by revolutionary organizations that "rocked" the situation in the country. Ultimately, anti-Semitism began to be attributed in general to the policy of the tsarist government, which caused a negative reaction from both the Russian intelligentsia and world public opinion with the active participation of prominent representatives of the Jewish diaspora, including the bigwigs of the financial world. As a result, the Russian Empire found itself financially constrained during the war with both Japan and Germany.
Evidence of the provocative policy of the tsarist government, it seems, was not received, although there were enough provocateurs who became famous on both sides. The most famous, of course, is the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist Azef (Jew), who secretly worked for the tsarist secret police. In this regard, it is interesting to consider the history of the famous Ignatiev family, which, by the way, is related to the Stroganovs and Demidovs, who laid the foundation for the industrial Urals.
Infantry General Pavel Nikolayevich Ignatiev, the first representative of the Ignatiev family, promoted to the rank of count, headed the cabinet of ministers of the Russian Em-pire in 1872-1879 during the reforms of Alexander II. His son is also a general from infantry Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev, who did not serve in the ranks for a single day, but was mainly engaged in diplomatic activities, in 1881 he assumed the post of Minister of Internal Affairs in a very turbulent time. After the assassination of Alexander II, Jewish po-groms broke out in the southern provinces (primarily in Ukraine). The liberal Loris-Melikov was replaced by General Ignatiev, who took vigorous measures to end the pogroms, which, however, did little to help and the pogroms continued in 1882. Some Jewish public figures accused the tsarist administration of organizing the pogroms, including Ignatiev personally, despite the fact that he was appointed minister after the pogroms began. It is argued that N.P. Ignatiev openly expressed anti-Semitic views even before his ap-pointment as Minister of Internal Affairs. The following words are attributed to him: “... in St. Petersburg there is a powerful Polish-Jewish group in whose hands are banks, the legal profession, a significant part of the press and other societies. business ... Every honest voice of Russian. life is drowned out by Polish-Jewish cries, repeating that the Russian. demands should be rejected as backward and unenlightened. " There were sus-picions of organizing pogroms and revolutionary organizations, a number of whose leaders believed that pogroms would be a useful exercise in revolutionary activity for the people and after the Jews would begin to smash the ruling classes. It is noted that pogrom sentiments spread along the railways, which indicates the activity of agitation brigades. Ignatiev, in a note to the tsar, pointed out that pogrom sentiments were supported by the people because of the exploitative economic activity of the close-knit Jewish population, which does not lead to an increase in the productive forces of the state. As a result, in 1881, the Pale of Settlement for Jews was introduced in 15 provinces. The radical measures proposed by Ignatiev (banning the sale of alcoholic beverages by Jews, eviction from the countryside) were rejected. In 1882, only significantly softened measures were adopted: Jews who lived in cities were prohibited from moving to settlements in the countryside and acquiring real estate there, the percentage of Jews entering a number of higher educational institutions was limited (due to the fact that among revolutionary-minded students there was a large proportion of Jews). Ignatiev's last proposal to the tsar was the convocation of an All-Russian Zemsky Sobor as a parliamentary body. This proposal was rejected by Alexander III, and NP Ignatiev was dismissed from public service.
The image of a completely patriotic statesman is emerging, who, to the best of his ability, fought both the negative Jewish influence on Russian life and the pogrom anti-Semitic sentiments that brought the revolutionary situation in the country closer. This image is generally characteristic of the most famous representatives of the Ignatiev family, who played an important role in both Russian domestic and international politics from the seventies of the XIX century to the revolution of 1917, that is, just at the time of the growth of revolutionary sentiments. However, some facts of the biography of representatives of the Ignatiev family do not fit into this rosy picture. For example, the fact that the greatest increase in pogrom anti-Semitic sentiments was noted in the Kiev province, the governor-general of which were three representatives of the Ignatiev family from 1889 to 1917.
The younger brother of N.P. Ignatiev, Alexei Pavlovich, began military service in the guards cavalry (cavalry guards), whose officers formed part of the vicious circle of the highest Petersburg world. According to the recollections of the son of A.P. Ignatiev (Alexei Alekseevich), in the early 1870s, a specialist stove-maker from the Jewish cantonists, Oshansky, was sent to the regiment of cavalry guards, who, allegedly, was the only one who could cope with the incredibly smoking regimental furnaces. According to A.A. Ignatiev, it was only after Oshansky's death that it became known that he was the head of the Petersburg Jewish community. At the funeral of Oshansky, all the bloom of the Jewish St. Petersburg financial and commercial society, as well as the old cavalry guards, who were part of the ruling elite of the Russian Empire, gathered. According to A.A. Ignatiev, these two worlds rarely intersected with each other. A.P. Ignatiev, who by that time had long left military service and was a member of the State Council, the highest administrative body of the Empire, considered it his duty to attend the funeral of the old sergeant-stove-maker. At the same time, A.P. Ignatiev was harassed in newspapers with predominantly Jewish influence ("Birzhevye Vedomosti"). Rumors spread about him as the chairman of the secret aristocratic organization "Star Chamber" planning a coup d'etat. According to the memoirs of A.A. Ignatiev, his father really planned a coup, being an ardent supporter of autocracy as a form of government, but a very low opinion of the ruling Romanov dynasty. In 1906, A.P. Ignatiev was killed by a member of the fighting squad of the Social Revolutionaries under circumstances that made Ignatiev's relatives suspect of organizing or at least connivance with this murder the tsarist secret police, acting on the orders of some circles at court, and perhaps themselves members of the ruling family.
In general, from the memoirs of A.A. Ignatiev, it follows that in the highest aristocratic circles at the beginning of the twentieth century, only the lazy did not plan a coup d'etat. It is not surprising that the tsarist secret police under these conditions did not so much fight against revolutionary organizations as used these organizations in the interests of various court groups fighting for power with each other.
The sons of A.P. Ignatiev, Alexei and Pavel, played a significant role in the First World War. A.A. Ignatiev was a Russian military agent in Paris and was responsible for purchasing weapons from France for the needs of the Russian army. P.A. Ignatiev was in charge of all Russian military intelligence on the German front. The memoirs of the Ignatiev brothers, despite the desire of their authors to expose their activities in the most favorable light, draw attention to the blatant unprofessionalism of both of them, which is not surprising, given the fact that each of them was in charge of an extremely important business, having no experience in this type of activity.
The Russian financial agent in Paris was Artur Rafalovich, a Jew by nationality, which did not prevent him from conflicting with the most influential Jewish court financier in Russia, Baron Gunzburg, who provided financial services to Alexander II himself. Rafalovich had close ties with French and Italian banks, which was of value to the Russian government. Rafalovich was officially engaged in Russian loans in France, having, according to A.A. Ignatiev, from this unofficial income. At the same time, the loans were in the nature of a financial pyramid. Ignatiev himself claims that he involuntarily had to deal with this shady businessman, while Ignatiev's ill-wishers suspect that Ignatiev himself profited a lot from Rafalovich's financial scams.
Likewise, "unwittingly" Ignatiev had to buy most of the weapons from the largest military-industrial French concern Schneider-Creusot, although Ignatiev himself admitted that many orders Schneider did not fulfill himself, but ordered from third-party firms, acting only as an intermediary, that now with government orders is a clear sign of corruption. At the same time, during the war, a monopoly on foreign trade was introduced in Russia, which excluded the supply of weapons otherwise than through military agents. After the revolution in Russia, the leaders of Schneider offered Ignatiev to join the board of the company in order to maintain ties with Russia and develop business with Great Britain and the United States. It is unclear from Ignatiev's memoirs how the former Russian officer could have strengthened the ties of this one of the world's largest military-industrial companies with the United Kingdom and the United States. Here either Ignatiev's excessively exaggerated ideas about himself, or Ignatiev had some hidden connections in the world financial and industrial elite.
As a Russian military agent in France, Ignatiev became a member of the jockey club, the entrance to which was open to an extremely limited circle of the French elite, and foreigners were practically not accepted into it. However, one of the founders of the club was a Russian - a representative of the Demidov family. Many offspring of noble aristocratic families in France were married to the daughters of wealthy Jews, and Jewish industrialists and financiers married the daughters of aristocrats, which led to the inter-penetration of capital and aristocracy, forming a new ruling elite. It was noted above that similar processes took place in the United States. In Russia, Jewish businessmen and aristocrats represented different worlds, which, in the end, may have served as one of the reasons for the collapse of the ruling regime.
The Rothschild family is mentioned several times in the memoirs of A.A. Ignatiev. An account in the name of the Russian military agent Ignatiev for the purchase of arms in France was opened at the Bank de France, which was founded by the French Rothschilds and had autonomy, at the same time, playing the role of the state bank of France. In order to receive the plenipotentiary representative of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian troops in France, Ignatiev wished to requisition the Rothschild castle, which, apparently, was done by the French authorities. Finally, Ignatiev had to interact with a member of the Rothschild family, Georges Mandel, who was the personal secretary of the chairman of the Council of Ministers of France, Clemenceau. From the memoirs of Ignatiev it follows that Mandel's attitude to Ignatiev was not very favorable. Although, Ignatiev's estimates are not always to be trusted. For example, in connection with one financial scandal, he claims that Prince Golitsyn was a certain unattainable figure for him, with whom he could have no business, despite the fact that his own aunt (wife of N.P. Ignatiev) was Princess Golitsyn.
After the October Revolution of 1917, A.A. Ignatiev was one of the few Russian military agents in foreign countries whose powers were not terminated by the Bolshevik government. After it became clear that the Red Army was winning the civil war, A.A. Ignatiev transferred funds to Soviet Russia in French banks, which he disposed of on behalf of the Russian Empire. As a result, the white emigration recognized him as a traitor, and members of his family defiantly broke off relations with him. Subsequently, Colonel of the Tsarist Army A.A. Ignatiev, who received the rank of Major General from the Provisional Government, was promoted to Lieutenant General of the Red Army.
The brother of A.A. Ignatiev (Pavel), after being wounded in 1915 from the position of assistant chief of staff, was sent to the intelligence service to engage in counterintel-ligence work. To Ignatiev's remark that he did not know this kind of work and would not be able to be useful, his future boss, General Dieterichs, said that "it is not so difficult" (ac-cording to PA Ignatiev's memoirs). After a short time, in the same 1915, Ignatiev was appointed acting head of the intelligence bureau against Germany, Austria and Turkey. Since the end of 1915, P.A. Ignatiev has been in Paris, where he organizes an intelligence service in the interests of the Russian army. At the same time, as mentioned above, in Paris, his brother A.A. Ignatiev serves as a Russian military agent and in some cases provides diplomatic cover for the activities of P.A. Ignatiev.
According to the memoirs of P.A. Ignatiev, the most important information about the movements of enemy troops was received by his intelligence service from some secret Italian organization. Moreover, Ignatiev himself did not imagine (in his words) what kind of organization it was, what kind of people are part of this organization and what their goals are. Indicates only that this organization was a trading enterprise with a developed branch network and military discipline of employees, whose disobedience to the authorities was punishable by death. P.A. Ignatiev writes that at that time in Italy there were numerous secret societies pursuing both political goals and economic (enrichment), which used trade enterprises to cover their activities. And although P.A. Ignatiev writes that he was not aware of the activities of this organization, perhaps this is not the whole truth. There is information that Ignatiev's cousin was the Duchess of Sasso-Ruffo (daughter of Prince Meshchersky and Countess Stroganova), who married Duke Fabrizio di Sasso-Ruffo (an Italian diplomat in Russia). This duchess helped A.A. Ignatiev in the selection of people. Subsequently, her daughter Marusya married the Russian naval attaché in Italy, Baron Wrangel, and P.A. Ignatiev lived in the apartments rented by Marusya in Paris. Another daughter of the Duchess of Sasso-Ruffo married a member of the imperial family of the Romanovs, Andrei Alexandrovich. It should be noted that the Duke of Sasso Ruffo was a knight of the Order of Malta (the Order of St. John of Jerusalem), and his son-in-law Andrei Alexandrovich Romanov became the protector of this order. The Order of Malta has close ties with the Romanov imperial family since the end of the 18th century, when Emperor Paul I became the first Russian protector of the order. Soon after that, Paul I expressed a desire that all officers of the Russian regiment of cavalry guards were knights of Malta. The command, however, did not come true: the Vatican did not recognize the Orthodox monarch as the head of the Order of Malta, and it is doubtful that Orthodox Russian officers could become knights of the Catholic order. A few years later, as a result of a palace coup, Paul I was killed and the close cooperation of the Russian imperial house with the Order of Malta is curtailed, but, apparently, not completely. Let us recall that the father and son Alexei Pavlovich and Alexei Alexeevich Ignatiev served in the regiment of cavalry guards, which, according to Paul I, were supposed to be knights of Malta. After the collapse of the USSR, some sources published information that some Russian politicians who made a great contribution to the restructuring and collapse of the USSR were allegedly knights of the Order of Malta or were acting under its supervision.
According to information attributed to the French military attaché in Petrograd, in February 1918, the Council of People's Commissars confirmed the powers of P.A. Ignatiev as the head of the Russian intelligence service in France. If you believe this information, then Soviet Russia received not one "red count" (as A.A. Ignatiev was called), but as many as two. The fact that the “reddening” affected not one representative of the Ignatiev family, but two at once, suggests the role of the entire Ignatiev family in the revolutionary events in Russia. This question is still open. It is only clear that the official version of Soviet historiography about the "enlightenment" of AA Ignatiev personally is most likely untenable.
The emigrated representatives of the Ignatiev family occupied a fairly high position in the political and economic elite of Canada in the second half of the twentieth century. One of the Ignatievs (Aleksey) headed the mines department of the Ministry of the Fuel Industry of Canada, the other (George) was the Canadian representative to NATO and the UN. George's son Mikhail Ignatiev (Michael Ignatieff) was elected leader of the opposition Liberal Party of Canada in 2009, briefly becoming the second most influential politician in Canada. It should be noted that the USSR ambassador to Canada was Alexander Yakovlev, who later received the nickname "the architect of Rebuilding", being the main ideologist of Gorbachev's perestroika. It was not possible to find information about Yakovlev's contacts with Georgy Ignatiev, although there is no reason to doubt that they were - Yakovlev and Ignatiev were simply obliged to interact within the framework of their diplomatic duties. So it is possible that the role of members of the Ignatiev family in the development of revolutionary sentiments in Russia is not limited to the beginning of the twentieth century.
3. February and October revolution. Revolutionaries' connections with Germany, Great Britain and the United States.
During the 1905-1907 revolution, Nicholas II presented the people with a manifesto, in accordance with which the rights of national minorities were significantly expanded. It was not mentioned directly, but first of all the manifesto concerned the Jews. As a result of the February Revolution of 1917, Jews as a people received everything they could dream of within the framework of Russia, first of all, complete freedom of economic activity. However, what suited the bulk of the Jews, apparently, did not suit the active minority, which was the driving force of the revolution. Formally, power was in the hands of the Provisional Government, headed by Prince Lvov. Real power was possessed by the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, in which the leading role was played mainly by Jews, Latvians, Poles and Caucasians. It was this organization that initiated "Order No. 1", which undermined the power of officers in the army, which, in fact, destroyed the Russian army, which remained the last support of the ruling regime.
After the February coup, the leaders of the Bolshevik revolutionary movement returned from emigration to Russia. They are assisted in this by Germany, which is in a state of war with Russia and hoped to weaken the enemy, thanks to internal strife. In the course of 1917, there is a flow of Jews from other revolutionary organizations into the ranks of the Bolsheviks. One of these "political migrants" was Leon Trotsky (Bronstein), who joined the Bolshevik party from the Mensheviks. Researchers have documented that Trotsky received funding from German Jews in the United States, from whom the financial elite of the United States at the time was largely formed. It was Trotsky who served as the main driving force of the October Revolution. Congresses of the leading members of the Comintern, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, were held in London. If Germany's interest in supporting the revolutionary movement in Russia is quite unambiguous, then the motives of Great Britain and the United States are a subject for debate. The most likely version seems to be that this support was provided by certain groups of the elite of Great Britain and the United States, which are part of international groups that did not particularly care about the national interests of Great Britain, the United States, and even more so Russia. Their actions were conditioned by the desire for profit, which, in the end, was successfully carried out, despite the fact (and perhaps due to the fact) that Russia eventually became the main geopolitical rival of the North Atlantic alliance of Great Britain and the United States, and this rivalry put under the question of the survival of mankind on the planet in the conditions of the nuclear arms race.
At a meeting of the members of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) in October 1917, who decided to carry out a coup, 6 of the 12 members of the Central Committee were Jews. The first "Politburo" was elected, in which 4 out of 7 people were Jews.
The question remains how a handful of Bolsheviks, albeit (presumably) with the support of a part of the world financial elite, managed to seize and retain power in Russia. Despite the fact that in Russia there were enough secret organizations that planned to seize power and had for this no less financial and human resources than the Bolsheviks.
III. Formation of foreign economic, diplomatic and intelligence activities of Soviet Russia in the first half of the XX century. Comintern.
1. Russia-Finland-Sweden - “corridor to Europe”. The formation of the Comintern. "Soviet transnational corporation."
After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks faced massive sabotage by government officials. The intelligentsia, waiting for changes, did not accept such a radical-minded government and declared a boycott to it. The Bolsheviks, of course, began to recruit new leading cadres from the workers and peasants, for the sake of whom everything was actually started (at least in theory). But the poorly educated, and more often completely illiterate proletarians were not ready for leadership work. More or less qualified workers were needed, and those were found among the broad strata of the Jewish intelligentsia, which led to the massive arrival of Jews in the bodies of state power in Soviet Russia.
As mentioned earlier, the presence of Jewish diasporas scattered throughout the world made it easier for Jews to communicate internationally. Therefore, it is not surprising that Jews received a particularly wide representation in the foreign economic, diplomatic and intelligence agencies of power, which often acted hand in hand.
The most important geographical direction for external relations was the Baltic direction. It was through the Baltic countries that a transport corridor was built through which the goods necessary for the new republic were supplied. And the country, in which the industry was almost completely destroyed, needed everything. In exchange for part of the gold reserves left over from the Russian Empire, as well as various raw materials, Soviet Russia received a variety of goods, including axes and scythes. The Baltic direction was important due to the access to the sea, through which the transportation of goods, primarily from the UK and the USA, was provided. In addition, the Scandinavian countries (mainly Sweden) remained neutral, which made it possible to secretly export goods from Germany during the ongoing world war, without particularly irritating the Entente countries. Through Sweden, illegal financial transactions were carried out, in particular, the sale of Russian gold to American banks, which was prohibited by the governments of the United States and Great Britain, which at that time did not recognize Soviet power. Sweden did not have a common border with Russia and relations with it were carried out through the territory of Finland, which, due to this, acquired particular importance for the bodies responsible for the external relations of Soviet Russia. In addition, even before the revolution, the Bolsheviks had strong positions in Finland - the Finnish population, striving for independence from the Russian Empire, provided assistance to revolutionary organizations.
In parallel with the functioning of legal diplomatic and trade missions, an intelligence network (both military and political intelligence) was deployed, as well as a network of communist party organizations - the Comintern, the main source of funding for which is funds coming from Soviet Russia. Despite the plight of the population in Russia, signif-icant funds from the sale of gold and resources go to finance the branches of the Comintern for the implementation of the plans of the world communist revolution. However, the idealistic plans to build a paradise for all people on earth did not prevent the leaders of the Comintern from thinking about their own loved ones. So, according to the memoirs of the Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Trade Solomon, at the expense of the Comintern, food was purchased for the chairman of the executive committee of the Comintern, Zinoviev (Apfelbaum), who was uncomfortable in hungry Petrograd without pineapples and hazel grouses. Apparently, using the same funds, Zinoviev's wife bought precious stones, which she then secretly exported abroad. One of the symbols of corruption in the new Soviet Russia could have been Stalin's protege in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade, Gukovsky.
As a result, a network of communist cells is being formed around the world, which serves as a support for the trade and intelligence activities of the Soviet government. Perhaps it would not be a great exaggeration to say that a kind of transnational corporation was built. This designation is all the more true because, if at first the creation of the branches of the network was financed mainly from the Center (Soviet Russia), then later financing from Russia is reduced, and the branches are moving to self-sufficiency in the form of commercial enterprises scattered around the world. Jews have been particularly successful in organizing independent commercial enterprises that serve as cover and financial sources for intelligence agencies due to their inherent entrepreneurial abilities and family ties abroad.
2. Great Britain - the center of financial transactions of the Comintern.
In the early 1920s, Great Britain was the first of the world powers to recognize Soviet power. After that, Great Britain became the main trading partner of Soviet Russia. The Arkos joint-stock company was opened in London, the main shareholder of which was Leonid Krasin, People's Commissar for Foreign Trade. Under him, Nikolai Klyshko was a secretary, who had great influence on Krasin and, most likely, controlled his actions from the Cheka. Klyshko headed the party cell of Soviet citizens in London, and was also an agent of the Comintern. Thus, Klyshko personified an exemplary employee of the Soviet "transnational corporation", combining the duties of a security officer, foreign trade and an agent of the Comintern. According to personal data, Klyshko is Russian, according to other sources - Pole. He was born in the city of Vilno (now Vilnius) - the capital of Li-thuania. The city of Vilna was one of the centers of concentration of Jews in Russia and, not surprisingly, one of the centers of the revolutionary movement. Nikolai Klyshko called his son David, which is not typical for either a Russian or a Pole. Before the revolution, due to the persecution of the tsarist authorities for participating in revolutionary activities, Klyshko emigrated to Great Britain, where he worked as an engineer for the Vickers company (one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world). It is worth noting that at the origins of the Vickers company at that time was a man with an unclear origin and an adapted Russian surname Zakharoff - either a Greek born in Constantinople, or Russian, or a Jew from Odessa. Before the revolution in London, Nikolai Klyshko helped the future commissar of foreign affairs Litvinov to carry out contacts between Bolshevik or-ganizations around the world. After becoming secretary in Arcos, Klyshko was responsible for financing the branches of the Comintern, sending large sums to the branches of this organization in France, India and other countries. In 1937, Nikolai Klyshko, like many of his colleagues in the Cheka and the party, was sentenced to death. However, there is information that the sentence was allegedly not carried out, and Klyshko disappeared only for official historiography. The veracity of this information is highly questionable.
3. India is an important springboard for the "Soviet transnational corporation."
According to some researchers, in India, the foreign affairs agencies of the USSR have achieved the greatest success. The prerequisites for this success were probably laid down in the first half of the 20th century. At this time, India was still a British colony, but it was already actively fighting for independence. As Britain lost control of its colony, Jews gained more and more influence in India, which was reflected in official British politics. For example, from 1921 to 1926, Isaacs Rufus was Viceroy of India, who, upon returning from India to Great Britain, was awarded the title of Marquis - he became the first Jew to receive such a high title.
Researchers of the Jewish question in India note that in the 18th century a community of Baghdad Jews settled in India, who in the 19th-20th centuries played a leading role in the country's economy and state apparatus. The Jewish community was in close contact with the British colonial administration, which is why, after India's declaration of independence in 1947, the influence of the Jews on the Indian economy is significantly weakening. However, during the period under consideration, Jewish influence is great and this may be the reason for the successful activities of Soviet Jews in India. Subsequently, India will become a base for Soviet foreign intelligence operations against other countries. The need to finance Indian politicians determined the wide commercial representation of the Soviets in India, and it is not known how many commercial enterprises in modern India were created with Comintern money and operate under the control of the heirs of the "Soviet transnational corporation." It is possible that the Ruben's brothers who came from this kind of enterprises organized the TransWorldGroup company, which for some time was almost a monopoly in the trade of Russian metal on the London Metal Exchange.
4. Stalin against “rootless cosmopolitans”. The nomenclature is the new Russian bureaucracy. Cominform instead of the Comintern.
In the second half of the 1920s, it becomes clear that the world communist revolution is not a matter of the near future. Even in Germany, where, in fact, the revolution took place, in the end it was not the "dictatorship of the proletariat" that won, but the "dictatorship of small shopkeepers", which degenerated into Nazism. At the top of Soviet Russia, a bickering for power is in full swing, which did not appear suddenly, but began in revolutionary circles long before 1917. Gradually, Stalin (Dzhugashvili) eliminates his political opponents, who from the very revolution was at the top of the political Olympus, but now the collegial rule is being replaced by the dictatorship of one person. The reasons for Stalin's success were both his personal qualities (irrepressible desire for power, organizational skills) and a timely political strategy - the transition from internationalism to nationalism bordering on chauvinism.
In the second half of the 1920s - early 1930s, the "guards of the Leninist draft" (illiterate workers and peasants who came to government bodies after the revolution) finally gained experience in leadership work and began to claim power in the country. This new layer of the Russian bureaucracy possessed quite pronounced anti-Semitic sentiments, which was caused by the behavior of not the best representatives of the Jewish people, who took many command posts in the government and dragged their relatives to higher positions. White émigré propaganda, which claimed that "Jewish-Bolsheviks" had come to power in Soviet Russia, also played a role in the growth of anti-Semitic sentiments.
Stalin himself most likely was not an anti-Semite. Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev became targets of Stalin's attack not because they were Jews. They stood between Stalin and the fullness of his power in the country. It just so happened that there were too many Jews on the political Olympus, and its cleansing gave the impression of an anti-Semitic campaign. At the same time, Jews remained at the top of the power pyramid, whom Stalin probably did not regard as political opponents due to personal loyalty or for some other reason. It's funny that the Georgian Stalin inscribed on his banner the slogan of Russian chauvinism and under this slogan he fought not only against Jewish nationalism, but also against other nationalisms, including Georgian, which could threaten his personal power. However, perhaps this is not irony, but a pattern that a Georgian tried to become the most Russian among Russians, since chauvinism does not correspond to the true Russian spirit. It is possible that the international messianic ideology of Bolshevism received support precisely in Russia due to the corresponding tendencies of the national spirit, which found expression in the literary works of Russian classics of the 19th century. However, the policy of the Bolshevik leaders, which perverted these highly spiritual impulses, led to disillusionment with the internationally oriented ideology, paving the way for the struggle against "cosmopolitanism" as unscrupulous in terms of the means of achieving power for the Russians as before them were the Jews.
Not only the political leaders of the state were subjected to repression. The revolution began to devour its children at all levels of government. The secret services were also severely defeated: both intelligence (both military and political) and counterintelligence. The Jewish, Polish and Latvian clans in the special services are practically being cut out by the roots. Along with them, of course, Russian employees are also repressed, but of particular importance is the destruction of national clans, which possessed special, not only corporate solidarity, and therefore threatened the fullness of the Master's power.
With the destruction of the intelligence elite, connections with foreign agents are lost, which was additionally facilitated by a reduction in funding from the Center, including through the Comintern. The question arises, what happened to the "Soviet transnational corporation": whether it survived or disintegrated, switched to self-sufficiency, becoming independent, or sold to some other Center, and was there any loyalty to Moscow at all or the "corporation" only pretended that obeys Moscow? Unfortunately, there is little information yet to answer this question.
In Russia, meanwhile, the process of forming a new class of the Russian bureaucracy, which later became known as the "nomenclature", is in full swing. Marriages between high-ranking officials form new ruling dynasties. Many members of this ruling class were married to Jewish women in the early 1920s, which strengthened their position in the elite at the time. A typical representative of this nomenclature is Vyacheslav Molotov (Scriabin). In 1921, Molotov married a Jewish woman, Polina (Pearl) Karpovskaya. Presumably, due to a coincidence, Karpovskaya became the best friend of Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who was in close contact with influential Soviet Jews, including Trotsky. One of the Karpovskaya brothers lived in the United States and was a major American businessman (Sam Karp). Karpovskaya received an assignment from Stalin to organize, through her brother, lobbying in American industrial circles for the construction of battleships for the USSR. After the death of Stalin's wife, Karpovskaya becomes the first among the Kremlin's wives, having the right to be present in the male company of party bosses at various cultural events. Until 1939, Molotov headed the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, that is, he was the head of government. In 1939, in order to appease Hitler, Stalin appointed Molotov as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in place of the Jew Litvinov. The fact that Molotov is married to a Jew is not advertised.
In 1943, the Comintern was disbanded, and in 1947 the Cominformburo (information bureau of communist and workers' parties) was created in its place. In the same 1947, the Committee of Information was created to guide the foreign intelligence activities of the USSR, which included information and intelligence structures of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and foreign political and military intelligence. Molotov became the head of the Committee.
During the Great Patriotic War, Karpovskaya actively participates in the activities of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, whose goal is to create an image of the USSR in the West as a defender of Jews in the fight against Nazism and to attract funding from the West for this topic. The organization achieves this goal, but at the same time tries to play a prominent role in politics, claiming the same importance that similar Jewish lobbying organizations in the United States had. Stalin could not tolerate this, and the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was defeated, and its leaders were repressed, including Karpovskaya. In 1949, Molotov, by order of Stalin, divorced Karpovskaya and left the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.
After the end of World War II, Stalin supported the creation of the State of Israel by supplying weapons to Jewish terrorists and providing diplomatic support to the UN. Appar-ently, it was assumed that Israel would become a springboard for the advancement of Soviet interests in the Middle East. However, in 1948, relations with Israel began to cool down due to Israel's obvious curtsies towards the United States due to the fact that the United States, unlike the USSR, began to provide significant financial assistance to Israel and allowed American Jews to move to Israel. Inside the USSR, the growth of self-awareness of the Jewish people in connection with the formation of their own state causes wariness, turning into paranoia, which in turn gives rise to a new wave of repression. For the first time in the history of Soviet Russia, anti-Semitism is almost officially becoming a state policy. Jews are restricted from accessing government bodies and leading positions in the economy, science, culture and education. After Stalin's death, anti-Semitic policies, albeit in a softened form, persist. This had a negative impact on public opinion in Western countries, and also began to form an active internal opposition to the ruling regime.
IV. Informatization as a basis for building new relations between the USSR and the West.
At the end of the 1950s, the first electronic computers appeared in the world. The era of informatization has begun. “Knowledge is power,” said the philosopher Francis Bacon, although it would be more correct to translate this phrase as “knowledge is the power”. New means for processing information (computers) have led to a new quality of organization of management processes, first in the economy, and then in politics. The use of automated control systems made it possible to significantly increase labor productivity, and the use of computer modeling methods made it possible (within certain limits with a certain degree of reliability) to predict the development of such complex systems as the country's economy or the ecological situation on the planet.
One of the factors that convinced the Soviet leadership of the need for economic reforms in the 60s was the result of forecasting the development of the Soviet economy based on computer modeling data. Whether this forecast corresponded to reality or not is difficult to say, but the magic of numbers had its effect, and the first deputy chairman of the Soviet government, Alexei Kosygin, proposed a reform plan, which he began to implement after Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
2. AvtoVAZ: USSR-Italy-UK-USA. "Cradle" of Gaidar and Berezovsky.
In the 1960s, the largest commercial agreement between the USSR and the West was concluded. The Italian company "FIAT" undertook to build the largest automobile plant in the USSR. The FIAT company had commercial ties with both the Russian Empire and the Stalinist USSR. Deepening these ties turned out to be necessary in the face of deteriorating political relations with the United States. It is assumed that the choice in favor of Italy was made due to the significant role played by the Communist Party in the country. The owner of the company, however, was the aristocratic Agnelli family, who intermarried with the heirs of the royal dynasty of the Bourbons, but at one time the leader of the Italian Communist Party, through his intercession, saved the head of the FIAT company Vittorio Valetta from prosecution for cooperation with the Nazis. So ideological differences turned out to be much less significant than commercial interests.
In general, the choice of Italy because of the frozen relations with the United States was quite hypocritical. All parties understood that in reality, FIAT remained afloat after World War II only thanks to the Marshall Plan and the financing of the American Chase Manhattan Bank. According to researcher Anthony Sutton, this bank was the main force that facilitated the export of technology from the United States to Soviet Russia since the early 1920s. The very agreement on the construction of a plant in the USSR, allegedly approved by Valletta in the US State Department, financed the construction of the plant by the Chase Manhattan Bank, and equipment was supplied to FIAT from American plants. Thus, Italy acted only as a mediator between the USSR and the United States, in order to fool the brains of American congressmen who got involved in politics.
Negotiations on the creation of an automobile plant began after Kosygin's visit to Italy's Turin in 1962. Over the next few years, negotiations were conducted from the Soviet side - Deputy Chairman of the State Committee on Science and Technology of the USSR Jermen Gvishiani (Kosygin's son-in-law and the son of an NKVD general), and from the Italian side - Aurelio Peccei, a member of the administrative board of FIAT (vice-President of the computer manufacturer Olivetti). Foundations of the Agnelli families (owners of FIAT) and Olivetti (owners of the company of the same name) financed the development of the neoliberal direction in economic scientific theory. In 1968, on the initiative of Peccei, an organization of prominent European scientists and representatives of the business world "Club of Rome" was created, which aimed to study and develop recommendations for resolving global world problems. In 1972, in Austria, with the participation of Peccei and Gvishiani, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) was created, the founders of which were the USA and the USSR. It is alleged that the main role in this organization was played by Lord Solly Zuckerman, a British statesman and scientist, married to the granddaughter of the above-mentioned most titled Jew of Great Britain, Rufus Isaacs, who was Viceroy of India and received the title of Marquis of Reading. In the 2000s, another Marquise of Reading was president of the World Jewish Congress, headquartered in London.
In 1976, in the USSR, under the leadership of Gvishiani, the All-Union Scientific Research Institute for System Research (AUSRISR) was created as a branch of IIASA. The future reformers of the Soviet economy and leading figures of the new Russian economy Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Pyotr Aven, Stanislav Shatalin, Yevgeny Yasin, Sergei Glazyev, and Alexander Shokhin worked at IIASA and AUSRISR as researchers.
Since 1973, at AvtoVAZ, projects for the implementation of computer-aided design systems and software have been directed by Boris Berezovsky, a specialist from the In-stitute of Control Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Institute for Control Problems dealt with the collection and processing of information using computers. With the beginning of market reforms in the late 1980s, Berezovsky, thanks to his connections with the general director of AvtoVAZ Kadannikov, establishes at AvtoVAZ the Soviet-Swiss joint venture LogoVAZ, which first supplies software to AvtoVAZ, and subsequently sells VAZ cars with an impressive deferred payment. the time when the ruble depreciates almost daily. In the first half of the 1990s, LogoVAZ was headed by former employees of IIASA and AUSRISR Roman Sheinin and Yuliy Dubov. In the 1990s, Berezovsky himself became one of the most influential Russian businessmen, having received the nickname "the godfather of the Kremlin."
3. "Jews-adventurers" rush to the aid of the "anti-Semitic USSR". Marc Rich and the Ruben's brothers.
After Israel's victory in the Six Day War in 1967, the movement of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel intensified. In the same year, Yuri Andropov (a Jew on the mother's side) became the head of the KGB. Andropov's party career began in the Karelo-Finnish SSR, the territory of which was of particular importance for the formation of the "Soviet international corporation." Andropov was supported by one of the top leaders of the Comintern, Otto Kuusinen. The role of the Comintern in the formation of this "corporation" has already been discussed above. The events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 intensified internal opposition to the regime and ensured the growth of negative sentiment in Western public opinion. In 1968, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the KGB of the USSR sent a joint letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU signed by Gromyko and Andropov with a proposal to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate from the country. Since 1969, certain categories of Jews have been allowed to emigrate from the USSR to reunite with their families in Israel. In the early 1970s, the West actively began to put pressure on the Soviet leadership to support Jews seeking to leave the USSR. To this end, in 1974, the US Congress adopted the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, limiting trade relations between the United States and the USSR.
Not all American businessmen were in solidarity with the policy of the economic blockade of the USSR, especially if the violation of this blockade promised large profits. One of these "friends of the USSR" was an American businessman of Jewish origin Marc Rich (Reich)). Having gained experience in the Philipp Brothers trading company, Marc Rich set out on an independent voyage in 1973-1974, organizing his own private company in Switzerland, which trades raw materials all over the world. Rich has been cooperating with the USSR since the early 1980s, importing sugar, grain, alumina and equipment into the country in exchange for oil and aluminum, despite the US embargo on the USSR over the war in Afghanistan. In 1983, a US court indicted Rich on tax evasion and violation of the oil embargo on Iran. As a result, Rich became persona non grata in the United States, which did not stop him from building one of the largest private companies in the world (Marc Rich AG). There is information that, despite a criminal record, Rich's company Clarendon, Ltd in the 1980s supplied Soviet non-ferrous metals to the US Treasury Department for the production of coins. Theories are being expressed that swindlers like Marc Rich are playing the role of a safety cushion between respectable large multinationals and odious third world regimes. The restrictive sanctions imposed on trade with political outcasts significantly increase the benefits of crooks who seem to be outside the law, but at the same time have access to the world market. In 1994, Marc Rich sold the company to his partners, as a result of which the "odious" Marc Rich AG was transformed into the "respectable" Glencore International AG, which, however, continues to profess Rich's principle of "big fish is caught in troubled waters" and cooperates with objectionable official Western diplomacy regimes around the world. In 2001, outgoing US President Bill Clinton pardoned Rich at the request of Israeli officials and leaders of Jewish communities in the United States and Europe, as well as, possibly out of gratitude for donations from Rich's ex-wife to the Democratic Party and valuable gifts personally to the Clinton family. Howev-er, some leaders of the Jewish communities in the United States called Rich's pardon a moral insult to all Jews.
In 1977, according to the World Bank, Marc Rich finances the operation of Trans World Metals, which is organized in the UK by Indian Jews Simon and David Reuben. In the early 1990s, the companies of Rich and Reuben , in partnership with the Chernoi's brothers (Jews from Uzbekistan), organized work with metallurgical enterprises in Russia and other countries of the former USSR on tolling schemes, as a result of which the enterprises received minimal profits, and the budgets of the countries a minimum of tax revenues. Al-most all profits were transferred to foreign offshore zones. Rich and Reuben's companies had solid support in the state apparatus. In Russia, their activities were lobbied by First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, and in Great Britain - by the former British Foreign Secretary and Chairman of the Social Democratic Party Lord Owen. In the 1990s, the Chernoi's brothers, in alliance with the Reuben's , control the supply of metals from the largest metallurgical enterprises in the Sverdlovsk region (Nizhniy Tagil metallurgical plant and Uralelectromed plant).
In the mid-1990s, Glencore will seem to be at enmity with the Chernoi's brothers, however, the Chernoi's brothers themselves will quarrel with each other. In general, the "great zamyatnya" in the best traditions of medieval civil strife, when a brother for a brother is the worst enemy. But Glencore в 2000-х годах значительно окрепнут. В адрес Glencore's position in the 2000s will strengthen significantly. Most of the products of Norilsk Nickel, Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, Kuzbassrazrezugol, and Russian Copper Company were supplied to Glencore (often through intermediaries). In 2007, Glencore became a shareholder of the merged company RUSAL and signed a long-term contract for the purchase of about a third of the company's products. In 2012, the state oil company Rosneft agreed to supply oil to Glencore and Vitol in the amount of about $ 50 billion over 5 years from 2013, which will amount to 7% of the company's oil production. As a result, Glencore will become one of the largest buyers of Russian oil. It is assumed that this agreement was a condition for the provision of credit funds by a pool of the world's largest banks "Rosneft" for the purchase of the oil company "TNK-BP". It is worth noting that since the early 2000s, the Glencore company has been headed by the son of a Jew who emigrated from Lithuania, Ivan Glasenberg. It has already been noted above that Lithuania, which was part of the Russian Empire, was characterized by a high level of the Jewish population, and the Lithuanian revolutionary circles, where Jews played a significant role, made a great contribution to the accomplishment of the October Revolution in Russia.
4. Computers are the gold of Restructuring. Siemens and Olivetti.
During the Restructuring period, private entrepreneurship began to develop in the USSR in the form of cooperatives and joint ventures with the participation of foreign capital. One of the most lucrative activities was the import of Western computers. Many Russian oligarchs made capital on this, and some of the people involved in this activity entered the country's top political elite.
This includes the President of the Russian Federation since 2000, Vladimir Putin. During the Rebuilding period, Putin worked in the Dresden KGB station in the GDR. Dres-den was the location of the largest in Eastern Europe enterprise for the production of computers - the Robotron plant, which cooperated with the corporations Siemens (Siemens, Germany) and IBEm (IBM, USA). Supervising the Robotron plant was the primary responsibility of the KGB's Dresden station. Computers manufactured by "Robotron" were massively supplied to the USSR. In Sverdlovsk, by 1987 , most schools were equipped with these computers. In terms of computer equipment, Sverdlovsk occupied one of the first places in the country, which became the basis for holding the I All-Union Olympiad in Informatics in 1987 in Sverdlovsk. After the unification of the FRG and the GDR into a single Germany, the Robotron plant became part of the Siemens corporation. In the early 1990s, the official representative of Siemens in the Sverdlovsk region was Foratec, which is closely associated with one of the leaders of the Sverdlovsk railway, Alexander Misharin, who in 2009 became the governor of the Sverdlovsk region.
In the late 1980s, Rudolf Gugniak, Deputy Minister of Ferrous Metallurgy of the USSR, was in charge of computerizing the ferrous metallurgy industry. The main supplier of computers was the Italian company Olivetti, the role of which (together with the FIAT company) in the formation of the liberal wing among Soviet economists was mentioned above. Gugnyak's daughter married a representative of the Italian-Swiss firm Sitco AG, which in 1989 formed a joint venture "InterUral" in the Sverdlovsk region and "TSK Steel" in Kazakhstan. JV InterUral exported metal from the Nizhniy Tagil and Novolipetsk metallurgical plants, and TSK Steel - from the Karaganda metallurgical plant. The newspapers of the early 1990s published information that the son-in-law of the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin , the son of the head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation Yuri Petrov and the daughter of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region Eduard Rossel worked at the InterUral joint venture. Oleg Soskovets, who later became the Minister of Metallurgy of the USSR, and even later became the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government and lobbied for the interests of the Chernoi's brothers, was in charge of the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant during the period of work with TSK Steel..
V. The Boris Yeltsin Phenomenon: Destroyer-Builder and Populist - Conspiracy or Historical Pattern?
Summarizing the above, we can say that international organizations, primarily with Jewish participation, played an important role in the formation of the political and economic elite of Russia in the twentieth century. It is unlikely that the nature of the influence of these organizations on the Russian elite is of a direct nature, that is, it is unlikely that high-ranking leaders of the Russian state receive direct instructions from these organizations. Most likely, the influence is indirect by creating a favorable treatment for those in power, whose policies are consistent with the goals of these organizations, and "tightening the screws" for those who intentionally or accidentally contradict these goals. Stalin used to pursue approximately the same policy, preferring not to give direct instructions to his subordinates, thereby avoiding responsibility for mistakes. Instead, the “Great Leader and Teacher” expected subordinates to show initiative, encouraging and promoting those who guessed the Master's plans or depriving their support of those who acted contrary to these plans.
Undoubtedly, a global conspiracy of political and economic elites in various forms exists, but the question is how much it affects changes in the political and economic situa-tion in the world and in Russia, in particular. Is there a center of this world conspiracy, a kind of world politburo? Maybe. Is it monolithic? Unlikely. Even under the Stalinist dicta-torship, at the top of the Soviet political Olympus, there were several clans that were at enmity with each other, and Stalin had to play on the contradictions between these clans and take into account their interests. At the same time, the Soviet leadership was rallied by an external threat, while for the world politburo, such a rallying factor can only be an alien invasion or a global threat of the death of humanity, which, it seems, is not being observed in the near future. Thus, the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Second World War, the collapse of the USSR - all these are events that became possible due to the influence of various factors and interested groups, and did not occur exclusively according to the scenario of some world government. Nevertheless, one cannot un-derestimate the role of influence on the initiation of these events by individual organized groups of the world political and economic elite, among which persons of Jewish national-ity play a particularly important role. Recognition of the importance of this role does not cast a shadow on the Jewish people as a whole and does not remove responsibility for the listed historical events from other peoples, primarily from the Russian. Studying the factors of the formation of these elite groups and their influence on politics and the economy can help in organizing the group interaction of citizens who do not currently have a significant impact on politics and the economy, in order to balance political and economic processes in the interests of the majority, not the minority.
Now, from this point of view, let us consider the factors that determined the rise to power of Boris Yeltsin in Russia during the transition period from a planned to a market economy. Yeltsin began his career in the construction industry, which provided a fairly convenient launching pad for a political career. Yeltsin's career was not very favorable for his origin: his grandfather was a kulak, his father spent two years in the camps for "anti-Soviet propaganda." The KGB usually did not admit people of this origin to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but an exception was made for Yeltsin , which is sometimes interpreted as the fact that the KGB decided to use Yeltsin as its agent in the party apparatus, holding on to an “alien social origin” so that it would not try to be arbitrary. Yeltsin was extremely ambitious in his career plan, rigidly organized the work of his subordinates and at any cost was ready to please his superiors, on which his further advancement depended on the career ladder. These qualities allowed him to take the first steps up the career ladder, despite his low professional qualities and a difficult character. However, there were many owners of such qualities in the CPSU, and something else was needed for Yeltsin to rise above the crowd of his own kind.
In 1971, Yakov Ryabov , who oversaw the construction sector in the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the CPSU and who moved Yeltsin up the career ladder, became the first secretary of the regional committee. Yeltsin at that time headed the construction department of the Sverdlovsk regional committee. Ryabov suggested that Yeltsin find himself a good deputy. In the same year, a group of Sverdlovsk builders under the leadership of Yeltsin went to construction sites in Finland. The group included Oleg Lobov, chief engineer of the Uralpromstroyyniproekt institute. Yeltsin's biographers note that Yeltsin usually had a hard time getting along with people, but Lobov was an exception. It is believed that Lobov made a very good impression on Yeltsin during his trip to Finland. Perhaps this is an accidental coincidence, but it was already said above that Finland was of particular importance for Soviet foreign intelligence. At this time, the chief of the KGB of the USSR was Yuri Andropov, who was nominated to power by the Finn Otto Kuusinen, who was once a member of the top leadership of the Comin-tern. As a semi-fantastic hypothesis, it can be assumed that in Finland Yeltsin and Lobov met someone who blessed Yeltsin for further career growth with the support of Lobov.
In 1975, thanks to the next call of the Sverdlovsk cadres to the central office, Yeltsin took the vacant position of the secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee for indus-trial development. And in 1976, Yeltsin became the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee, on the recommendation of Ryabov, who had gone on promotion. However, despite Ryabov's recommendation, it remains a mystery why a simple secretary of Yeltsin was appointed first secretary, bypassing comrades higher in the party hierarchy.
In 1977, Yeltsin received a call from the chairman of the KGB, Andropov, about the demolition of the Ipatiev mansion in Sverdlovsk, in which the imperial Romanov family was shot. The Politburo resolution on the demolition of the Ipatiev mansion was adopted back in 1975 at the suggestion of the KGB. However, the former secretary Ryabov was in no hurry to implement this decision partly because of the negative reaction of local art critics, partly because of the attention to the mansion of foreign guests, and partly be-cause this issue was not of particular importance to him. Yeltsin , on the other hand, decided to curry favor with Andropov and either on his own initiative, or having received an order from Moscow, demolished the building, trying to minimize the negative reaction of public opinion. It is assumed that it was then that the head of the KGB Andropov, who later became the head of state, noticed the executive party apparatus Yeltsin.
In 1983, Andropov, who became general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in 1982, gave the task to Yegor Ligachev, head of the CPSU Central Committee de-partment for organizational and party work (the "personnel department" of the CPSU), to take a closer look at Yeltsin, which he did, having traveled to Sverdlovsk in January 1984 ... However, in 1984 Andropov dies, his place is taken by Chernenko, at which the renewal of the personnel of the party apparatus is suspended. Yeltsin received the long-awaited promotion only in 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. On the recommendation of Ligachev, in April 1985, Yeltsin was assigned to head the construction department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, two months later he became the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU on construction issues, and in December 1985 he headed the Moscow city committee of the CPSU. It is assumed that Yeltsin was assigned to head the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, so that he, in his cha-racteristic authoritarian-performing style, cleared out the personnel that interfered with Gorbachev from the Moscow Party organization, which Yeltsin successfully executed.
By nature, Yeltsin was not inclined to be loyal to any person. He could break into a cake in front of a superior boss, but when over time he became on a par with the same person, a conflict often developed due to the exorbitant career ambitions of Yeltsin, who was in awe of the authorities and sought to occupy the highest possible position in the power hierarchy in order to revere him. Similar situations took place in Sverdlovsk and Moscow. Apparently, a similar situation developed between Yeltsin and Ligachev, to whom Yeltsin owed his transfer to Moscow. As head of the Moscow City Party Committee, Yeltsin considered it beneath his dignity to obey Ligachev, which laid the foundation for a conflict that became the basis for the fall of Yeltsin's influence in the CPSU and a favorable condition for Yeltsin'srise when the influence of the CPSU itself in the country began to decline.
Yeltsin's famous speech at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1987, where he criticized Ligachev and hinted at the emergence of Gorbachev's "personality cult", and especially his behavior after this Plenum indicates that Yeltsin was not a rebel, but a nomenklatura who was trying to catch new trends. First of all, in the head of the secretary general, so that, once in a trend, to rise to the top of the party hierarchy. However, he did not guess right and with his speech put an end to his career in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which shocked him to the core. Despite "active repentance", Yeltsin was removed from the post of head of the Moscow city party committee, and in 1988 he was relieved of his duties as a candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, but remained a member of the CPSU Central Committee.
It is interesting that in 1988 Yeltsin Yeltsin was a delegate to the 19th All-Union Party Conference not from Sverdlovsk or Moscow, but from Karelia. It is assumed that this was done at the direction of Ligachev so that Yeltsin could not represent the numerous party cell of Uralmashzavod. But the choice of Karelia again makes one remember that it was in the Karelo-Finnish SSR that Yuri Andropov began his party career. At the party conference, Yeltsin criticized both Ligachev and the entire Politburo as a whole, also attacking party privileges.
It is worth noting that the second condition for Yeltsin's rise was his charisma, ability to communicate with the public and a penchant for PR-actions, which was manifested even during his work in Sverdlovsk. These qualities were uncharacteristic for the overwhelming majority of party bosses, since they were not a condition of survival in the internal party struggle. But in the second half of the 1980s, the rules of the game gradually changed, and party apparatchiks who did not have the necessary abilities, in the conditions of public politics, died out like dinosaurs. Yeltsin's popularity has become his main advantage since 1989, when people's deputies begin to be elected under the new rules. In 1990, Yeltsin headed the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR against the will of the Kremlin, and in 1991, Yeltsin was elected president of the RSFSR. The collapse of the USSR deprives Gorbachev of all powers, and henceforth Yeltsin occupies the highest level in the Russian power hierarchy, which was probably Yeltsin's main goal in life.
Answering the question in the title of the chapter, let us suggest that the Yeltsinphenomenon, which led to the collapse of the USSR, was partly the result of a conspiracy that acted as an instrument of historical law. Perhaps the collapse of the USSR was historically driven by the automation of management processes, which began in the 1940s. Automation presupposes a qualitative enhancement of the importance of management processes in production. The labor of a living person ceases to be the main factor of production, which was the fundamental thesis of Marxism. Accordingly, the proletarian ceases to be the advanced class of society - an industrial society begins to turn into a post-industrial one. Information becomes the main production factor. In this re-gard, it is symbolic that in 1943 the Communist International was disbanded, and in its place in 1947 the Communist Bureau (Information Bureau of Communist and Workers' Parties) was created. Of course, in a post-industrial society, industrial production remains, just as in an industrial society, agricultural production remains. Moreover, both in industrial and agrarian societies there are people of mental labor, but the emphasis of influence on social development in industrial society is shifting from peasants to workers (the dictatorship of the proletariat as the basis of the socialist revolution), and in post-industrial society - from workers to the intelligentsia. It is no coincidence that in 1967, immediately after being appointed chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Andropov created the Fifth Directorate of the KGB, which was engaged in ideological counterintelligence and worked primarily with the intelligentsia. The transition from an industrial society to a post-industrial one makes new demands on the organization of society. The command-administrative system capable of mobilizing the industrial economy loses to the liberal one in the formation of high-quality intellectual resources. Therefore, Andropov, and then Gorbachev, could not confine themselves to reforming only the economy, but were forced to carry out political liberalization as well. In addition, the leaders of the USSR were forced to open the "iron curtain", because the exchange of knowledge is one of the most essential factors in the production of an intellectual product. The technological backwardness of tsarist Russia, and later the USSR, was primarily due to insufficient technological exchange between Russia and the Western countries, which in turn was due to cultural characteristics. Muscovite Russia was viewed by the West as an alien entity due to the fact that Russia was Orthodox and the West was Catholic. In the twentieth century, the division was carried out along the line of communism-capitalism. However, it is possible that the reason for the insufficiently close ties between Russia and the West is due to even deeper reasons.
The main conclusion
International organizations have exerted and will continue to exert a significant influence on the politics and economy of Russia due to the advantages that international elites have over national ones. International elites carry out interaction between national elites, due to which international elites largely directly or indirectly shape the foreign policy of national states, and given that the world economy is highly specialized, international relations have a very strong impact on the economy of national states. The strongest direct influence international elites have on the financial sector. Attempts by national elites to take over foreign relations (diplomacy, intelligence, foreign economic relations) are doomed to failure, partly because the international elites will initially be in a more advantageous position due to the already formed international relations, and, in part, because members of the national elite, those who are professionally engaged in foreign relations, willingly or unwillingly, will be assimilated by the international elites. Primitive PR measures, from a series of restrictions for officials to have business, accounts or real estate abroad, will have no effect, except that this foreign business and property will go into the shadows.
Of the more constructive measures, the following can be proposed. First, national elites will have to negotiate and cooperate with international elites. World history shows that attempts to completely eliminate the influence of international elites on the politics and economy of nation states lead to political isolation and economic decline of these states. Secondly, more effective ways of organizing national political elites and civil society are needed than those that are practiced now. International elites get the opportunity to act to the detriment of the interests of the national state in the event that the internal forces of this state are disunited and cannot effectively interact. To develop more effective ways of organizing interaction between members of civil society, it may be useful to consider how international elites are organized, how they influence the formation of national political elites, and how national political elites are now being formed. The main task set by the developers of this site at the moment is to consider in detail how political elites are formed in the Sverdlovsk region.
Date of information update: 2013