The last treasurer who guarded the party coffers through perestroika
At the 28th Party Congress on July 9, 1990, Kruchina disclosed from the podium that the CPSU Central Committee held a reserve of 4.9 billion rubles — the only moment in party history when its finances were laid bare before the delegates.
Born in rural Altai and trained as an agronomist, Kruchina rose through the Komsomol and party agricultural apparatus. As First Secretary of the Tselinograd Oblast Committee (1965–1978), he directed the Kazakh virgin lands campaign and became a Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1983, with Gorbachev's backing, he became Administrator of Affairs of the CPSU Central Committee: the party's chief treasurer, overseeing its property, foreign aid, and the 'party gold.' At the 28th Party Congress in 1990, glasnost forced him to reveal a party reserve of 4.9 billion rubles. Days after the failed August 1991 coup, he fell to his death from his Moscow apartment; similar fatal falls of his predecessor Pavlov and official Lisovolik made him central to the mystery of the party's missing billions.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1952–1959First Secretary of Novocherkassk, Kamensk and Smolensk Komsomol committees
- 1959–1962Head of Rural Youth Department, Komsomol Central Committee
- 1962–1963Instructor, Agricultural Department, CPSU Central Committee
- 1963–1965Secretary, Tselinny Krai Committee, CP Kazakhstan
- 1965–1978First Secretary, Tselinograd Oblast Committee, CP Kazakhstan
- 1978–1983First Deputy Head, Agricultural Department, CPSU Central Committee
- 1983–1991Administrator of Affairs, CPSU Central Committee (party finances and property)
Related historical events
Accounting for the party treasury at the 28th Congress, 1990
At the eleventh session of the 28th Party Congress on 9 July 1990, glasnost forced Kruchina to lay the party's finances before the delegates for the first time. Answering more than seventy questions in place of the Secretariat, he reported that the Central Committee apparatus numbered 2,352 people (1,322 responsible officials and 1,020 technical staff), with average official salaries of 406 rubles overall, 533 for responsible officials and 240 for technical staff. He then disclosed that "in the form of an insurance fund, insurance reserves, we hold on the accounts of the Central Committee about 4 billion 900 million rubles." He denied that the CPSU held deposits or property in banks abroad, said the only source of hard currency was membership dues paid by communists working overseas (7,497,000 rubles a year on average), and put the annual hard-currency allocation at about 32 million investment rubles. The exchange made plain that only the Politburo had approved the budget and the accounts, so neither the party membership nor the congress had ever controlled the party cashbox. Delegates pressed him on state dachas and the privileges of Politburo members, on the contents of the "other expenses" line, and on the exchange rate used for currency purchases; Yuri Boldyrev asked for debate time on the budget, but the hall shouted him down with calls of "enough." A year later, after Kruchina's death, this first public accounting became part of the dispute over the vanished party funds.