The Gosbank chairman who carried out the 1961 redenomination and, witnesses say, threw his hat at Khrushchev
Accounts of his 1963 removal conflict. Colleagues say he telephoned Khrushchev while drunk and was cursed at; a bodyguard places the confrontation face to face on a dacha walk, where he threw his hat.
Born in 1909 to a peasant family in Loparika, Vologda Governorate. After seven-year school he worked as a bookkeeper in 1923–1929, then as a club manager and village soviet chairman in 1929–1930, graduated from the Leningrad Financial-Economic Institute in 1936 and joined the party in 1937. From 1940 he headed Gosbank central directorates, becoming Deputy Minister of Finance in 1953 and Chairman of the State Bank in 1958, where he led the 1959 reorganization and the 1961 10:1 monetary reform. He lost the chairmanship in 1963 after a clash with Khrushchev but suffered no repression, continuing in the RSFSR Finance Ministry, where he headed state revenues and then industrial financing.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1923–1936Bookkeeper, club manager, village soviet chairman, then graduates Leningrad Financial-Economic Institute
- 1936–1939Senior inspector, deputy manager, then manager of the Leningrad oblast and city Communal Bank
- 1939–1940Head of the Leningrad city finance department
- 1940–1953Heads Gosbank board directorates, edits Money and Credit, board member and Deputy Chairman
- 1950–1955Chairman of the Board, Bank for Foreign Trade of the USSR (Vneshtorgbank)
- 1953–1958Deputy Minister of Finance of the USSR and member of the Finance Ministry collegium
- 1958–1963Chairman of the Board of Gosbank USSR (1959 banking reorganization, 1961 10:1 monetary reform)
- 1963–1969Chairman of the Council of Vneshtorgbank, head of the RSFSR Finance Ministry state revenues administration
- 1966–1976Head of the RSFSR Finance Ministry industrial financing administration, collegium member from August 1969
- 1976Dies 25 December in Moscow
The 1961 Monetary Reform
The defining undertaking of Korovushkin's Gosbank chairmanship was the 1961 monetary reform. On 4 May 1960 the USSR Council of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 470 providing for a 10:1 redenomination, announced by Nikita Khrushchev at the Supreme Soviet the following day. Finance Minister Arseny Zverev, who opposed the reform and feared simultaneous denomination and price rises, left office on 16 May 1960; his successor Vasily Garbuzov and Korovushkin then led implementation.
From 1 January 1961, 1947-model notes and pre-1961 coins were exchanged over three months at 10:1 for new banknotes of 1, 3, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 rubles and new coins, with wages, pensions, savings, prices and tariffs recalculated at the same ratio. The much smaller new notes earned the popular nickname 'Khrushchev's candy wrappers.' The official rate was adjusted not tenfold but by 4.44, to 90 kopecks per US dollar, devaluing the ruble's external value, while its gold content changed from 0.222168 g to 0.987412 g. After the exchange, Korovushkin and Garbuzov proposed that the measures be officially named 'the monetary reform of 1961'; the Central Committee rejected the proposal.
Assessments by the Ministry of Finance and Gosplan in 1961-1962 found the new ruble undervalued by roughly 2.25 times relative to imported goods, with its purchasing power over imports falling by the same factor, and unregulated market prices moved by about 4.5 rather than 10 times, producing a more than twofold real increase in prices. Nevertheless, the decimal currency system simplified accounting and circulation, and the smaller notes and new coins lowered the cost of producing paper money.
Korovushkin's chairmanship also spanned the reorganization of the banking system in 1959-1963. In April 1959 the specialized long-term credit banks were consolidated: Selkhozbank, Tsekombank and the local communal banks ceased, their functions passing to Gosbank and to Stroybank, created on the basis of Prombank. Stroybank was separated from the USSR Ministry of Finance in 1961, and in 1963 Gosbank took over the State Labor Savings Banks system from the Ministry of Finance.