On the Issues

April 2007

The Soviet Collapse: Grain and Oil

By Yegor Gaidar
Yegor Gaidar is director of the Institute for Economies in Transition in Moscow. Between 1991 and 1994,
he was acting prime minister of Russia, minister of economy, and first deputy prime minister. Between
1993 and 2003, Gaidar was a founder and a co-chairman of the Russia’s Choice and the Union of Rightist
Forces Parties, and a deputy of the State Duma. His most recent book, Gibel’ Imperii: Uroki dlya
sovremennoi Rossii [The Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia], was published in 2006.
The English translation of the book will be published by the Brookings Institution Press on July 30, 2007.

In the summer of 2002, after the Russian govern- usurpers initiated disastrous reforms. At least 80
ment introduced the flat income tax, completed percent of Russians are convinced of this flawed
fiscal reforms, created the Stabilization Fund, and interpretation of history.
introduced land reform in Russia, I had a premo- Historically, such myths have a dangerous
nition that the window of opportunity for further precedent—namely, Germany between World
reforms would be closing for a number of years. I War I and World War II. Then, the legend went
was correct in my prediction. that Germany was never defeated in the war, but
As a result, I decided to turn to more academic “stabbed in the back” by the Jews and the Social-
pursuits. The title of my latest book, which I would ists. To some degree, the responsible party was the
like to discuss today, can be translated as The Col- democratic German government, as it was unpre-
lapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia.1 It pared to publish materials about what really hap-
relates the story of the last few years of the Soviet pened before and after World War I.
Union. But when I wrote about the collapse of the Similarly, access to documents about the
Soviet Union, I also had in mind dilemmas of con- Soviet collapse is becoming increasingly restricted,
temporary Russia. but we were still able to make public a number of
There were several factors which pushed me to them that can properly explain what happened to
write this book. The first was the rise in oil prices, our country.
which in real terms have started to approach the To be frank, I never thought that the book—
level of the late Brezhnev period. The second was half of which is tables, graphs, or official materials
the disturbing tendency to mythologize the late of the Soviet government—could be a bestseller
Soviet period in current Russian society and in my country. Yet it is, a fact which provides a
popular culture. These myths include the belief glimmer of hope.
that, despite its problems, the Soviet Union was a
dynamically developing world superpower until The Story of Grain
Research assistant Igor Khrestin compiled this text
from the transcript and the video recording of the In a simplified way, the story of the collapse of
lecture delivered by Yegor Gaidar at AEI on Novem- the Soviet Union could be told as a story about
ber 13, 2006, and translated the conclusion of this
article from Russian. The text was edited by resident grain and oil. As for the grain, the turning point
scholar Leon Aron and augmented by Mr. Gaidar. that decided the fate of the Soviet Union began

1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 202 .862.5800 www.aei.org
 -2-
FIGURE 1 the collection of grain. Mean-
COMPARISON BETWEEN USSR IN 1930 AND CHINA IN 1980, while, we are experiencing
BY GDP PER CAPITA AND BY LEVEL OF URBANIZATION a radical increase of urban popu-
lation. How can we resolve this
1600 problem?”
1400
20 Once again, a serious discus-

Urban population, %
sion ensued among Soviet leaders
GDP per capita, $*

1200
15 in the early 1950s, resulting in
1000
two positions. The first position
800
10 was to attempt to improve the
600 situation in the agricultural
400 5 regions outside of the fertile
200 “black soil belt” in southern Rus-
0 0 sia. The other position was to
USSR, 1930 China, 1980 USSR, 1930 China, 1980 resolve the problem by utilizing
the socialist planning system:
NOTES: All figures are taken in part from Yegor Gaidar, Gibel’ imperii: Uroki dlya sovremennoi Rossii [The large projects and a concentration
Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia] (Moscow: Rossiyskaya Politicheskaya Entsiklopedia, of resources. Naturally, doubts lin-
2006), and presented at a lecture by Gaidar at the American Enterprise Institute on November 13, 2006.
More information and all figures can be located in full at www.aei.org/event1420/. gered about whether this strategy
* In international dollars of 1990 (Geary-Khamis dollars) would cause even higher fluctua-
tions in long-term production.
with the economic debate of 1928–29, when the dis- But these considerations were ignored and, tacti-
cussion centered on what would later be called the cally, the strategy of dramatically expanding the land
“Chinese path” of development. (By several important under cultivation yielded temporary success. Between
economic and social indicators, the Soviet Union of the mid-1950s and the early 1960s, the amount of the
that period and China in the late 1970s took similar grain produced by the Soviet Union increased signifi-
approaches to reform. See figure 1.) At the time, the cantly. The problem was the limited amount of suitable
head of the Soviet government, Aleksei Rykov, and land and the continuing growth of the population in
the chief ideologist of the Communist Party, Nikolai large cities. Thus, already in the late 1960s, the short-
Bukharin, earnestly defended the idea of a path which comings of this plan were evident.
included preserving private agriculture and the market, In 1963, Nikita Khrushchev sent a letter to the leaders
and ensuring financial stability—but holding onto the of the Socialist bloc, informing them that the Soviet
party’s political control. Union would no longer be able to supply them with grain.
The Soviet leadership ultimately chose another path. That year, the Soviet state bought 12 million tons of
The solution preferred by Joseph Stalin was the expropria- grain—and spent one third of the country’s gold reserves
tion of peasants’ property, forced collectivization, and to do so. Khrushchev commented: “Soviet power cannot
extraction of grain. Judging from the available documents, tolerate any more the shame that we had to endure.”2
the essence of this decision was relatively simple. Bukharin Therefore, in the 1960s, state production of grain sta-
and Rykov essentially told Stalin: “In a peasant country, it bilized and, regardless of attempts by the Soviet leader-
is impossible to extract grain by force. There will be civil ship, remained fixed at 65 million tons per year until the
war.” Stalin answered, “I will do it nonetheless.” late 1980s (see figure 2). The cities, however, continued
The result of the disastrous agriculture policy imple- to grow. What policy could succeed if a country had no
mented between the late 1920s and the early 1950s was increase in grain production and an 80 million–person
the sharpest fall of productivity experienced by a major increase in its urban population?
country in the twentieth century. The key problem The picture was bleak. Russia, which before World
confronting the Soviet Union was well-expressed in War I was the biggest grain exporter—significantly larger
the letter sent by Nikita Khrushchev to his colleagues than the United States and Canada—started to be the
in the leadership of the party. The letter fundamentally biggest world importer of grain, more so than Japan and
stated: “In the last fifteen years, we have not increased China combined.
 -3-
FIGURE 2 clearly at another meeting of the Soviet
PROCUREMENT OF GRAIN IN THE USSR leadership: “No one will take our machin-
ery production. That is why we are export-
70 ing mainly raw materials.”4
Procurement of grain in the USSR

60
The Story of Oil
50

40 The Soviet economy thus hinged on

its ability to produce and export raw
30
commodities—namely, oil and gas. The
20 Soviet leadership was extremely fortunate:
at almost exactly the time when serious
10
problems with the import of grain emerged,
0 rich oil fields were discovered in the Tyu-
1966–69 1980–85 1986–90
men region of Western Siberia.
Already in 1970, Western Siberia was
considered a large oil region by interna-
FIGURE 3 tional standards. During the next twelve
AVERAGE OUTPUT OF NEW OIL WELLS BEING PUT IN OPERATION years, the Soviet Union increased oil pro-
IN THE USSR duction there twelvefold. There was
intensive debate among the Soviet leader-
2000 ship about how to best exploit the West-
1800 ern Siberian oil. The oil industry experts
1600 warned the CPSU leadership and govern-
1400 ment State Planning Committee that it
1200 would be impossible to increase the pro-
1000 duction at such a rapid pace in the future
800 without facing serious technical problems.
g

600 Yet the Soviet leadership told the oil

400 ministry there was no other choice. The
200 Soviet premier, Aleksey Kosygin, used to
0 call the chief of the Tyumenneftegaz, Vik-
1975 1980 1985 1988 1989 1990
tor Muravlenko, and explain the despera-
tion of the situation: “Dai tri milliona ton
sverkh plana. S khlebushkom sovsem plokho”
Soviet imports had to be paid for in hard currency. [Please give three million tons above the planning level.
Mikhail Gorbachev was quite frank in one of the meet- The situation with the bread is awful].
ings of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(CPSU): “We are buying [the grain] because we cannot The “Spanish” Curse
survive without it.”3 There were, of course, examples of
nations, such as Japan, that also massively imported grain By 1975, the Soviet Union began having serious prob-
and other agricultural products. Unlike the Soviet Union, lems with the output of new oil wells: much higher
however, these nations were able to export products from investment was needed for the current operations to get
their machine-building and processing industries. the same output (see figure 3). But the Soviet Union
Why could the Soviet Union not pursue the same was fortunate to get unusually high oil prices starting in
policy? Because “socialist industrialization” had resulted the mid-1970s.
in the Soviet industry being unable to sell any processed The oil market is peculiar because of the varying
(value-added) products. Nikolai Ryzhkov, chairman of levels of elasticity of the demand and supply in both the
the USSR Council of Ministers, expressed the sentiment short and the long terms. The fluctuations of prices are
 -4-
FIGURE 4
DYNAMICS OF PRICES OF CRUDE OIL IN LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE (1880–2004)

80

70
Mean annual price
in real terms
60
Price, USD per barrel

50
Mean historic price
40 ($19.41 per barrel)

30

20

10

0
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

NOTE: All prices are pegged to the constant 2004 level.

enormous (see figure 4). There is a very well-known eco- stopped binge drinking. Resolution: nominate Mr. Zasi-
nomic concept of external shocks. In the United States, adko as a minister to Ukraine.”
the world’s largest economy, the biggest external shock While intellectual capacity was not the strongest
during the last fifty years was in 1974, when oil prices quality of the Soviet leadership, they still understood the
quadrupled and terms of trade worsened by 15 percent. need to manipulate the oil market. Excerpts from Polit-
For the Soviet Union, skyrocketing oil prices had a buro materials indicate that the head of the Committee
much more substantial effect on GDP, which could be for State Security (KGB), Yury Andropov, facilitated
measured in hundreds of percentage points. Thus began contacts between the KGB and the Arab terrorists, who
the collapse of the Soviet empire. sought assistance for terrorist attacks on oil fields in
Imperial ambitions based on such unstable resources order to keep energy prices high.5 The general resolution
were not exclusive to the Soviet Union. The “resource was that the Soviet Union should support the Arab ter-
curse” was well-analyzed by the School of Salamanca rorists in this battle.6
in the experience of Spain of the sixteenth and seven- Yet one of the Soviet leadership’s biggest blunders
teenth centuries. The influence of the inflows of gold was to spend a significant amount of additional oil rev-
and the silver from America to Spain are comparable to enues to start the war in Afghanistan. The war radically
the impact of oil and gas revenues to the Soviet Union changed the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. In
(see figure 5). The Spanish empire, without losing a 1974, Saudi Arabia decided to impose an embargo on oil
single battle on the ground for fifty years, managed to supplies to the United States. But in 1979 the Saudis
lose all of its possessions in Europe outside of the Pyre- became interested in American protection because they
nees, including Portugal, and came very close to losing understood that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was
Aragon and Catalonia as well. In 1989, also without a first step toward—or at least an attempt to gain—
losing on the battlefield for fifty years, the Soviet Union control over the Middle Eastern oil fields.
lost control over Eastern Europe. The timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can
In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet leadership, be traced to September 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh
however, was not intellectually prepared to heed lessons Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia,
from the School of Salamanca. The shortest quotation declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil
about the intellectual capacity of the Soviet leadership policy radically. The Saudis stopped protecting oil prices,
came from the Politburo minutes: “Mr. Zasiadko has and Saudi Arabia quickly regained its share in the world
 -5-
FIGURE 5
INFLOW OF GOLD TO SPAIN IN 16TH–18TH CENTURIES, AND THE INFLOW TO THE USSR
OF FOREIGN CURRENCY FROM OIL EXPORTS IN 1970S–1980S

35 30

1982 1983

Oil exports to capitalist countries, $ milion

30 1980
1984 LossLoss
of control overover
of control 25
Gold inflow to Spain, million peso

1981 Eastern Europe

1979
25
20

1985
20
1977 1978 1987 15
1976 1988
15 1989

1975 1986
10
10 1974
1973
5
5 1971 Loss of control over Portugal, risk of
1972
losing control over Aragon and Catalonia

0 0
1521– 1531– 1541– 1551– 1561– 1571– 1581– 1591– 1601– 1611– 1621– 1631– 1641–
1525 1535 1545 1555 1565 1575 1585 1595 1605 1615 1625 1635 1645

Inflow of gold to Spain (left-hand axis)

The USSR’s income from oil exports to developed capitalist countries (right-hand axis)

market. During the next six months, oil production in Third, implement radical cuts in the military-industrial
Saudi Arabia increased fourfold, while oil prices col- complex. With this option, however, the Soviet leader-
lapsed by approximately the same amount in real terms. ship risked serious conflict with regional and industrial
As a result, the Soviet Union lost approximately $20 elites, since a large number of Soviet cities depended
billion per year, money without which the country sim- solely on the military-industrial complex. This choice
ply could not survive. The Soviet leadership was con- was also never seriously considered.
fronted with a difficult decision on how to adjust. There Unable to realize any of the above solutions, the
were three options—or a combination of three options— Soviet leadership decided to adopt a policy of effectively
available to the Soviet leadership. disregarding the problem in hopes that it would somehow
First, dissolve the Eastern European empire and effec- wither away. Instead of implementing actual reforms, the
tively stop barter trade in oil and gas with the Socialist Soviet Union started to borrow money from abroad while
bloc countries, and start charging hard currency for the its international credit rating was still strong. It borrowed
hydrocarbons. This choice, however, involved convincing heavily from 1985 to 1988, but in 1989 the Soviet
the Soviet leadership in 1985 to negate completely the economy stalled completely.
results of World War II. In reality, the leader who pro-
posed this idea at the CPSU Central Committee meeting The Search for Loans
at that time risked losing his position as general secretary.
Second, drastically reduce Soviet food imports by The money was suddenly gone. The Soviet Union tried
$20 billion, the amount the Soviet Union lost when to create a consortium of 300 banks to provide a large
oil prices collapsed. But in practical terms, this option loan for the Soviet Union in 1989, but was informed
meant the introduction of food rationing at rates simi- that only five of them would participate and, as a result,
lar to those used during World War II. The Soviet lead- the loan would be twenty times smaller than needed.
ership understood the consequences: the Soviet system The Soviet Union then received a final warning from
would not survive for even one month. This idea was the Deutsche Bank and from its international partners
never seriously discussed. that the funds would never come from commercial
 -6-
sources. Instead, if the Soviet Union FIGURE 6
urgently needed the money, it would have STATE DEBT TO FOREIGN SUPPLIERS
to start negotiations directly with Western
governments about so-called politically 3500

State debt, million “hard-currency” roubles

motivated credits. 3000
In 1985 the idea that the Soviet Union
2500
would begin bargaining for money in
exchange for political concessions would 2000

have sounded absolutely preposterous to 1500

the Soviet leadership. In 1989 it became
1000
a reality, and Gorbachev understood the
need for at least $100 billion from the 500

West to prop up the oil-dependent

0
Soviet economy. According to chairman 1 June 1990 1 September 1990 1 October 1990
of the State Planning Committee Yury
Maslyukov:

We understand that the only source of hard cur- The Crash

rency is, of course, the source of oil. . . . If we do not
make all the necessary decisions now, next year When the situation in the Soviet Union is examined
may turn out to be beyond our worst nightmares. . . . from financial and hard currency perspectives, Gor-
As for the socialist countries, they may all end up bachev’s policies at the time are much easier to compre-
in a most critical situation. All this will lead us to hend (see figure 6). Government-to-government loans
a veritable collapse, and not only us, but our whole were bound to come with a number of rigid conditions.
system.7 For instance, if the Soviet military crushed Solidarity
Party demonstrations in Warsaw, the Soviet Union would
Ryzhkov commented at the same meeting: not have received the desperately needed $100 billion
from the West. The Socialist bloc was stable when the
The Vneshekonombank’s [Soviet Foreign Trade Soviet Union had the prerogative to use as much force
Bank] guarantees are needed, but it cannot provide as necessary to reestablish control, as previously demon-
them. . . . If there is no oil, there will be no national strated in Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. But in
economy.8 1989 the Polish elites understood that Soviet tanks would
not be used to defend the communist government.
It is fascinating to hear now the opinion that Eduard The only option left for the Soviet elites was to begin
Shevardnadze, then foreign minister, “betrayed” the immediate negotiations about the conditions of surren-
interest of the Soviet Union—especially when docu- der. Gorbachev did not have to inform President George
ments that were prepared for him at the time are avail- H. W. Bush at the Malta Summit in 1989 that the threat
able. In reality, a number of Soviet agencies urged him to of force to support the communist regimes in Eastern
secure at any cost these “politically motivated credits.” 9 Europe would not be employed. This was already evident
In the meantime, the Soviet Union started to have at the time. Six weeks after the talks, no communist
severe food shortages, and grain deliveries were not regime in Eastern Europe remained.
being made to large cities. One of Gorbachev’s closest Of course, the West was still careful about directly
associates, Anatoly Cherniayev, described the situation supporting independence movements inside the Soviet
in Moscow in March 1991: Union. When the Lithuanian authorities approached
the American embassy in Moscow to ask whether the
If [the grain] cannot be obtained somewhere, United States would lend support to the independence
famine may come by June. . . . Moscow has prob- of Lithuania, the immediate response was negative.
ably never seen anything like that throughout its When the Soviet Union tried to use force to reestablish
history—even in its hungriest years.10 control in Baltic states in January 1991, however, the
 -7-
reaction from the West—including from the United comparable in real terms to those at the beginning of the
States—was fairly straightforward: “Do as you wish, this 1980s, the idea that “high oil revenues are forever” has
is your country. You can choose any solution, but please gained an even wider acceptance.
forget about the $100 billion credit.” Of course, the Russian government has taken into
What were Gorbachev’s options at the time? He account some lessons from the experience of the Soviet
could not easily dissolve the Soviet empire; the conserv- collapse and has been conducting a careful policy during
ative elements inside the Soviet leadership were strongly the current period of high oil prices. The administration
against this notion. Yet he could not prevent the dissolu- has accumulated a considerable reserve of foreign cur-
tion of the empire without a massive use of force. But if rency, “sterilized” a significant portion of oil revenues in
force was employed, the Soviet state would not get the the Stabilization Fund, and approached budgetary spend-
necessary funds from the West, without which Gor- ing with great care. Nevertheless, the temptation to take
bachev had no chance of staying in power. and immediately divide these revenues is great. Those
This conundrum was the source of Gorbachev’s who argue on every television channel or newspaper
dilemma, forcing him to strike a deal with both the mili- about how to better spend these relatively modest funds,
tary and Boris Yeltsin. Hardliners from the KGB and which would only be enough for maintaining stability
the army who perceived that Gorbachev was simply too for two to three years if oil prices decline, should read
weak of a leader staged a coup in August 1991 under the again the documents that demonstrate how a seemingly
banner of the State Committee for a State of Emergency stable superpower disintegrated in only a few short years.
(GKChP). One more lesson that is relevant for Russian politics
Within three days it was clear, however, that the plot today is that authoritarian regimes, although displaying a
had failed because its leaders did not know how to deal façade of strength, are fragile in crisis. In conditions of
with the situation. Even if they found one division able relative stability, society is prepared to tolerate the lack
to crush all the people who demonstrated against the of real elections. People are prepared to come to terms
GKChP, would the grain appear? Where would they with this situation as an inevitable and habitual evil. But
find the food necessary to feed the larger cities? Would they will do so only until the country encounters a seri-
the West rapidly give the $100 billion? Their case, like ous challenge, requiring decisive and tough measures in
the Soviet state itself, was entirely lost. order to adapt to unfavorable conditions.
On August 22, 1991, the story of the Soviet Union In this latter case, it becomes evident that the “con-
came to an end. A state that does not control its borders tract” between authoritarian rulers and their subjects—
or military forces and has no revenue simply cannot which secures stability by people’s tolerance of the
exist. The document which effectively concluded the authorities and the authorities’ noninterference in peo-
history of the Soviet Union was a letter from the ple’s affairs—will need to be reexamined. Such reevalu-
Vneshekonombank in November 1991 to the Soviet ation undermines the regime. The rulers, who for the
leadership, informing them that the Soviet state had not longest time have insisted that their rule is the best,
a cent in its coffers.11 find it hard to ask for and get broad societal support in
a moment of crisis. In this situation, the society has a
* * * habit of answering, “For many years, we were told that
we are led to a ‘brighter future,’ but now you would like
What lessons can we learn from the Soviet collapse and us to tighten our belts. Instead, tighten your belts—
apply to the current situation in Russia? First, we must or leave.”
remember that Russia today is an oil-dependent economy. Russia does not need new upheavals. During the
No one can accurately predict the fluctuations of oil course of the twentieth century it saw enough of them.
prices. The collapse of the Soviet Union should serve In this regard, the understanding by the elites and soci-
as a lesson to those who construct policy based on the ety that a real democracy is not an ideological dogma or
assumption that oil prices will remain perpetually high. something imposed by the West, but rather an important
It would seem that in our country, which has lived precondition for the stable development of the country,
through the collapse of the late 1980s and early 1990s, will finally give Russia the hope of escaping crises and
this fact would be evident. But as soon as the prices went cataclysms. This realization is vitally important for Russia’s
up again at the beginning of 2000 and in 2004 became development in the next decades.
 -8-
Notes Leonid Brezhnev. “O peredache V. Haddadu partii inostrannogo
oruzhiya i boepripasov k nemu” [Regarding the Handover of a
1. Yegor Gaidar, Gibel’ Imperii: Uroki dlya sovremennoi Rossii Consignment of Foreign-Made Weapons and Ammunition to
[The Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia] V. Haddad]. May 16, 1975. No.1218-A/OV. www.2nt1.com/
(Moscow: Rossiyskaya Politicheskaya Entsiklopedia, 2006), archive/pdfs/terr-wd/plo75d.pdf.
available at www.iet.ru/publication.php?folder-id=44&publica- 7. Stenogram from the meeting at the office of the chairman
tion-id=8912. of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Nikolai Ryzhkov. “O
2. “Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist postavke dlya gosudarstva nefti, gazovogo kondensata i neftepro-
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). 1954–1964: Unofficial duktov v 1991 godu.” [Regarding the Deliveries for the State of
Protocol Notes of Proceedings. Stenograms. Directives”. 2nd ed., Oil, Gas Condensate, and Oil Products in 1991]. State Archive
v.1. p. 778. of the Russian Federation. fond [record group] 5446, opis’ [series]
3. “Stenogram of the CPSU Central Committee Plenum, 162, delo [file] 379, list [page] 131–137, 143–149.
January 27–28, 1987”. The Russian State Archive of Contem- 8. Ibid.
porary History (RGANI), fond [record group] 2, opis’ [series] 5, 9. “Pamyatnaya zapiska dlya besedy E. Shevardnadze s G.
delo [file] 45, list [page] 3. Kolem” [Memorandum for the Discussion between Eduard She-
4. Nikolai Ryzhkov, Desyat’ let velikih potryaseniy [Ten Years vardnadze and Helmut Kohl]. State Archive of the Russian Fed-
That Shook the World] (Moscow: Kniga. Prosveshchenie. eration fond [record group] 5446, opis’ [series] 162, delo [file]
Miloserdie, 1995), 229. 1464, list [page] 83–84.
5. A note from Yury Andropov, the head of the Committee 10. Anatoly Chernyaev, Dnevnik pomoshchnika Prezidenta
for State Security (KGB), to the general secretary of the Central SSSR [The Diary of an Assistant to the President of the USSR],
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Moscow: TERRA, Respublika 1997), 124–26.
Leonid Brezhnev. “O konspirativnoy vstreche rezinenta KGB v 11. A note from A. P. Nosko, deputy head of the
Livane c V. Haddadom” [Regarding the Conspiratorial Meeting Vneshekonombank [Foreign Economic Bank of the USSR] to
of a KGB Resident in Lebanon with V. Haddad.] April 23, the State Committee for Operative Management of the USSR
1974. No. 1071-A/OV. www.2nt1.com/archive/pdfs/terr-wd/ National Economy. “Ob ischepanii likvidnykh valyutnykh
plo75a.pdf. resursov” [Regarding the Exhaustion of Liquid Hard Currency
6. A note from Yury Andropov, the head of the Committee Resources]. 26 November 1991. State Archive of the Russian
for State Security (KGB), to the general secretary of the Central Federation. fond [record group] 5446, opis’ [series] 163, delo [file]
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1504, list [page] 11–12.

2007-09 #21440