The last Soviet trade minister, formed in consumer cooperatives
In 1987, he reported declining sugar reserves to the government, putting figures to the consumer crisis.
Kondrat Terekh was a Soviet economic administrator who rose from village-cooperative bookkeeper to become the last Minister of Trade of the USSR (1986–91) during perestroika. Bearing responsibility for all-Union consumer distribution until the planned economy's collapse, he stood at the front line of a consumer crisis of rationing and shortages.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1952–1954Senior accountant in a rural consumer cooperative
- 1954–1958Served in the Soviet Navy
- 1959–1963Director of Vileyka city food trade
- 1967–1977Minsk regional trade chief and First Deputy Chairman of Belkoopsoyuz
- 1977–1984Chairman of Belkoopsoyuz
- 1984–1986Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Byelorussian SSR
- 1986–1991Minister of Trade of the USSR
- 1992–President of a foreign-economic association
Related historical events
Minister of Trade and the collapse of the consumer market
Appointed USSR Minister of Trade on 26 December 1986 on Nikolai Ryzhkov's initiative, Terekh at once confronted a severe imbalance in commodity resources. Consumer-goods output fell far short of the swollen money supply, and some republics, notably Ukraine, stopped shipping meat and dairy products to Moscow, Leningrad and the military. Hundreds of thousands besieged the capital's grocery stores daily; drawing on lessons honed in Belarusian consumer cooperatives, he began with a comprehensive programme to improve Moscow's trade.
The crisis deepened with the anti-alcohol campaign. Mikhail Solomentsev, chairman of the Party Control Committee, threatened by telephone to strip his party card if liquor sales exceeded the previous year by a single litre. But felling thousands of hectares of prized vineyards and closing distilleries triggered mass home-brewing and a sugar shortage. When Terekh pointed to the loss of tens of billions of rubles in budget revenue, Solomentsev replied that it was none of his concern; Ryzhkov stood by him, promising to intercede first.
The situation slid out of control and ration coupons and food cards were introduced locally. Requests poured in from every republic, the army and major industrial centres, while reserves were meagre; one week's petitions sometimes exceeded the ministry's entire annual reserve. A 1987 eye operation was, by his own account, caused by illness traceable to the Chernobyl disaster.
The turning point was an emergency Politburo session on commodity resources. Gosplan deputy chairman Anatoly Yefimov was dismissed on the spot, and Terekh, allotted ten minutes, spoke for forty, itemising the causes behind empty markets and bare shelves. Gorbachev did not interrupt him once, and when Terekh asked that his resignation be accepted since no one had sought the post, the request was ignored. In August 1991 he was on holiday in Greece during the putsch; on his return he found a government effectively sidelined, and on 26 November of that year he was dismissed along with the last Soviet cabinet.
After leaving office he founded a foreign-economic association and prospered as an entrepreneur in market-economy Russia, surviving the 1998 default that wiped out savings. He later served as deputy chairman and head of the council of elders of the federal national-cultural autonomy of Belarusians of Russia.