The Bashkir-born financial technocrat who ran Gosbank through the Kosygin reform
Stripped of his party card and placed under criminal investigation for the sole offence of going hunting with an 'enemy of the people,' he was cleared only when the Bashkir Central Executive Committee itself intervened.
Born into a working-class Ufa family, he began working at eleven and entered state service as a Bashkir tax agent in 1923, staying in finance for life. After the Leningrad Financial-Economic Institute and heading Ufa finance departments, he became RSFSR Deputy Finance Commissar in 1940, RSFSR Finance Commissar the next year, and postwar served as Deputy and First Deputy USSR Minister of Finance under Zverev and Garbuzov. Appointed Gosbank Chairman in August 1963, he executed the credit and settlement side of Kosygin's 1965 reform (profit indicators, sovkhoz khozraschet, guaranteed kolkhoz pay (1966)) and created Gosbank RSFSR. In 1937 he was briefly accused of ties to an 'enemy of the people' because the two had gone hunting together, but the Bashkir Central Executive Committee intervened to reinstate him.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1915–1919Bookbinder's apprentice, pharmacy warehouse worker
- 1919–1923Red Army service, sawmill worker, factory committee instructor
- 1923–1931Tax agent, department head, deputy head, financial inspection chief at Bashkir Finance Commissariat, collegium member
- 1931–1934Studies at Leningrad Financial-Economic Institute, economics and finance
- 1934–1939Head of Ufa City Finance Dept. → Senior Inspector, Bashkir Finance Commissariat
- 1939–1940Head of Kalinin Oblast Finance Department
- 1940–1941Deputy Finance Commissar, RSFSR
- 1941–1945Finance Commissar, RSFSR
- 1945–1960Deputy Minister of Finance, USSR · collegium member
- 1960–1963First Deputy Minister of Finance, USSR
- 1963–1969Gosbank Chairman — 1965 reform credit/settlement execution, sovkhoz khozraschet, guaranteed kolkhoz pay, established Gosbank RSFSR
- 1966–1969Member, Central Auditing Commission, CPSU
Related historical events
Gosbank's credit and settlement policy during the 1965 reform
During Poskonov's chairmanship, Gosbank linked bank credit more closely to the organization of production and circulation in the run-up to the 1965 economic reform. A draft report to the Central Committee dated 21 December 1965 recorded that industrial output grew 1.8-fold between 1959 and 1965, while the corresponding volume of bank credit nearly doubled. In enterprises' working-capital structure, excluding collective farms, bank loans rose from 42.2 percent in 1959 to 45.9 percent in 1965; the share of enterprises' own and equivalent working capital fell from 39.3 to 37.9 percent, and accounts payable from 16.1 to 13.7 percent. The report said that expanding loans tied to the turnover of materials and settlement credit helped limit extra-plan redistribution of working capital and concentrate nonpayments where they arose.
On the settlement side of the reform, Gosbank sought to support the fulfillment of sales and accumulation plans and khozraschet based on greater enterprise autonomy, while strengthening responsibility for timely payments. The draft forecast that cashless settlement turnover in 1965 would be about 28 percent higher than in 1962, and recorded an increase in offsets among mutual claims from 41.1 to 44.3 percent of accounted payment turnover. Offsetting matched mutual claims and debts between enterprises, reducing cash transfers. The bank developed payments by orders, cheques, and scheduled payments, as well as direct settlements between suppliers and buyers. Short-term credit authorized by the 4 October 1965 decision was intended to let buyers facing temporary financial difficulties pay suppliers. The report expected these measures to reduce chains of nonpayment, while noting that some overdue debts owed by poorly performing enterprises to one another could instead become overdue debts to banks. Gosbank's stated credit policy thus combined financing for production and circulation with enforcement of plan performance and payment discipline.