There are 30 & nbsp; years, in the fall of 1991 & nbsp; year the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation & nbsp; opened a criminal case n ° 18/6220-91 “ On & nbsp; investigation into the financial and economic activities of the Central Committee & nbsp; KPSS ', which people have dubbed the search for' party gold. & # 39; & # 39;
Millions of dollars were in & nbsp; party offices
The impetus for opening the case was the discovery of millions of dollars in cash in the KPSS Central Committee building on Old Square. The search was carried out as part of the investigation into the August 1991 coup after the failure of the State Emergency Committee. In the & nbsp; offices of party officials, bundles of American banknotes were found, the receipt of which was not reflected in & nbsp; one of the & nbsp; official accounting documents. This is how investigators unexpectedly uncovered some of the ghost party's treasury. The cash register that no one has ever checked. The opening of a criminal case was the first and & nbsp; the only attempt to trace the financial flows of the Communist Party from the Soviet Union. As further investigation showed, this was about & nbsp; billion dollars, whose trail led to & nbsp; including beyond & nbsp; frontier.
& # 39; They wanted to hide the money until & nbsp; better times'
The investigation was entrusted to conduct Investigator of the prosecutor's office Sergei Aristov . In the 1990s, the weekly AiF managed to secure an exclusive interview with & nbsp; Sergey Alekseevich.
“ For the first time in & nbsp; throughout the history of the CPSU, a financial audit was appointed in the & nbsp; Administrative Department of the Central Committee & nbsp; PCUS, which showed that & nbsp; the Central Committee for quite a long time took decent amounts of currency from the state, putting them in & nbsp; on & nbsd & nbsp; & nbsp; own needs & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; said Aristov. & mdash; & nbsp; According to the & nbsp; surviving accounting documentation of the Central Committee & nbsp; KPSS for & nbsp; the period of & nbsp; 1964 to & nbsp; 1990, it is clear that 35 & nbsp; 973 billion & nbsp; 554 million rubles & nbsp; thousand & nbsp; thousand & nbsp; 67 & nbsp; kopecks. & Nbsp; for & nbsp; 1 & nbsp; US dollars, this amounted to 53 & nbsp; 700 billion & nbsp; million dollars) . For & nbsp; deduction of all Central Committee accumulation costs & nbsp; & mdash; the so-called means of the KPSS & nbsp; & mdash; amounted to about 7.5 & nbsp; billion rubles (over $ 11 billion), without & nbsp; count the many properties in the & nbsp; countries and & nbsp; abroad & nbsp ;. These funds were placed roughly equally in the central bank, commercial banks and specially created structures in the early 1990s. Thanks to the agents in & nbsp;, they were supposed to hide & nbsp; what is on the accounts of & nbsp ;, and & nbsp; hide the party money until & nbsp; better times. There were about 100 such organizations. & # 39; & # 39;
In modern terms, seal companies have been created. Among the & nbsp; banks that participated in the & nbsp; plan to withdraw funds, according to Aristov, the largest amounts were received by the commercial joint-stock bank for the development of the automobile industry Avtobank, the Union Bank of the USSR, the commercial bank of the young Finist-Bank, the intersectoral commercial bank. Stankinbank & # 39; & # 39;, the commercial bank of Moscow for the development of the social sphere & # 39; & # 39; Glavmosstroybank & # 39; & # 39 ;, the Communist Bank of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and & nbsp; others.
The treasurers of the Central Committee & nbsp; KPSS died one after & nbsp; another
The investigation established that the Central Committee of & nbsp; PCUS in the & nbsp; period of & nbsp; 1990 to & nbsp; in early 1991 actively replenished the party treasury in & nbsp; 1991 to hide these multibillion dollar funds from & nbsp; nationalization possible. The scheme of withdrawal of funds in & nbsp; all the details, with & nbsp; names and & nbsp; appearances, could only be known by a small circle of high-ranking people who, by & nbsp; strange coincidence, an after & nbsp; another left & nbsp; life in & nbsp; 1991-1992 & nbsp; years. Thus, on August 26 & nbsp; August 1991, the director of the central committee of & nbsp; PCUS Nikolai Kruchina committed suicide. He did it himself, or helped the chief treasurer of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, & mdash; about & nbsp; there is still debate. The only thing that cannot be denied is & mdash; Kruchina's death coincided with the & nbsp; discovery of dollars in cash and & nbsp; the start of an investigation into the & nbsp; & quot; golden party & quot ;.
A little over a month will go by, and & nbsp; in & nbsp; October 1991, Kruchina's predecessor as director of the Central Committee & nbsp; KPSS Georgy Pavlov will settle accounts with his life. These two people could & nbsp; say a lot about & nbsp; secret accounting. But & nbsp; and & nbsp; this death was not the last. In & nbsp; volume & nbsp; October 1991 & nbsp; year after & nbsp; Pavlov committed suicide Dmitry Lisovolik , head of the US sector of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Central Committee & nbsp; KPSS & nbsp; & mdash; the sector through which the financing of foreign communist parties was carried out. It was found that 2 & nbsp; million dollars of & nbsp; found in the & nbsp; Central Committee building & nbsp; PCUS were supposed to be sent to & nbsp; USA the leader of the American Communists Gus Salle . People would later call these party officials “ paratroopers. & # 39; & # 39;
Smuggling of dollars at the state level
As investigated established, the millions of dollars in cash found in the & nbsp; Central Committee & nbsp; CPSU were intended to help the Communists in & nbsp; other countries. As said in a & nbsp; interview with Attorney General of Russia Valentin Stepankov , who held this position in the years 1991-1993. , the volume of Soviet aid to communist parties and foreign workers amounted to more than $ 20 million per year. Thus, for the American Communist Party, 2 & nbsp; million dollars have been allocated in & nbsp; 1987 and & nbsp; 3 & nbsp; million dollars in & nbsp; 1988, for the French Communists & nbsp; & mdash; millions in & nbsp; 1987. Of course, it wasn't. formalized at the level of & nbsp ;. Dollars have been smuggled. With the help of couriers. Many of those who received these funds preferred not to issue receipts. About reports that millions were spent on & nbsp; it was also not & nbsp; The money is gone like in the Bermuda Triangle. It turned out that in & nbsp; USSR, where a person was threatened with a prison sentence for & nbsp; have bought or sold, say, 10 & nbsp; dollars, currency fraud for & nbsp; tens of millions were carried out fairly calmly.
The investigation worked out the version that the foreign communist parties, receiving millions from the USSR, were forced to transfer a certain percentage to secret accounts, to which a narrow circle of proxies had access. In modern parlance we were talking about & nbsp; rollbacks.
Within the CPSU itself, this spending millions has been presented as a strengthening and expansion of the influence of communist ideas in the capitalist countries. In & nbsp; practical & nbsp; as leader of the American Communist Party, Gus Hall ensured a luxurious life for himself and himself relatives, for example, his brother could afford to acquire and & nbsp; maintain expensive racehorses. The Belgian Communists built villas with USSR money and opened trading companies. But & nbsp; it was just a net of foreign currency. The wide river of dollars flowed along a different channel, where the so-called “friend companies” were used. In the & nbsp; basement of the Central Committee & nbsp; KPSS, shortly before the collapse of the country, a financial and economic scheme was created with & nbsp; the participation of foreign organizations to withdraw funds through them to & nbsp; foreign proxy accounts.
The price of the show & nbsp; & mdash; & Nbsp; 40 billion dollars?
To search for these secret foreign accounts of the CPSU in the spring of 1992, Russia made a contract with the famous detective agency Kroll with & nbsp; aimed at returning to the state budget large sums taken from the USSR on the eve of the 1991 coup.
And & nbsp; if the figure of & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; 11 & nbsp; billion dollars appeared in the interview with investigator Aristov, then the experts of & nbsp; Kroll argued that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, along with other state institutions, took $ 40 billion . This amount was comparable to a quarter of the budget of the whole USSR for the year 1990. However, a detailed investigation, which would have allowed to discover the winding paths of this money and to give a luck on their return to the Russian budget, was at a standstill. According to & nbsp; one of the versions of & nbsp ;, the investigation was sabotaged by influential people who had ties to the old party nomenclature. The CPSU has ceased to exist, but & nbsp; in & nbsp; the power remained & nbsp; those who were interested in keeping the secret of his & nbsp; “ black cash. & # 39; & # 39; ; year, in & nbsp; at one point it was classified, and & nbsp; five years later, in & nbsp; 1996 & nbsp; firm.