Nikolai Ryzhkov
Gorbachev’s loyal lieutenant in the Politburo, who pushed for perestroika but crashed the economy
NIKOLAI RYZHKOV, who has died aged 94, was Mikhail Gorbachev’s second-incommand, who bore a large portion of the blame for the economic collapse that led to the break-up of the Soviet Union; in 1991, when he stood against Boris Yeltsin in the new Russia’s first presidential election, he was soundly defeated.
When Gorbachev took power in 1985, Ryzhkov became one of his most loyal lieutenants in the Politburo; as the Soviet premier, he was one of the chief architects of perestroika, but he found himself trying to maintain the centre of the political ground in the Kremlin, warding off grumpy conservative hardliners on the one hand and angry radical reformers on the other.
When he began to oversee the transfer of enterprises from the military economy to the civil economy, Ryzhkov faced an acute problem in the shortage of hard currency – in direct contrast to the halcyon days of the mid-brezhnev era, when petro-dollars had poured into the Soviet exchequer, making it almost painless to import foreign technology and food.
On top of this, the failure of the harvest to come up to expectations until 1990 under Gorbachev meant that valuable resources had to be devoted to importing huge quantities of grain and other foodstuffs.
Ryzhkov lamented the fact that so much of the harvest was lost between field and table. He was aware that storage, packaging and transport of agricultural produce were largely to blame, but it was difficult to find a quick solution since each of these stages was under a different ministry.
Even when a record harvest of more than 230 million tons of grain was recorded in 1990, at least 40 per cent was lost. The distribution system broke down and the black market flourished.
Another formidable problem for Ryzhkov was the declining influence of the central Soviet government and the rise of Republican governments, first and foremost that of the Russian Federation. The determination of the Baltic states and Georgia to leave the union meant increased economic tension and dislocation.
Meanwhile, inflation rocketed. Poor budgetary discipline in the 1980s led to deficits which were only publicly acknowledged for the first time in the budget of 1989.
But in August 1990, when the economist Stanislav Shatalin presented his radical 500 Days Programme, dedicated to the country’s rapid conversion to a market economy, Ryzhkov was sceptical. By October that year he had convinced Gorbachev that it would lead to social unrest and economic ruin.
Gorbachev duly abandoned Shatalin and tried to find a compromise between the radicals and the more cautious approach to reform urged by Ryzhkov, who proposed a limited measure of free-market liberalisation in harness with the heavy government regulation that had always characterised the Soviet system. The result was an economic crisis in which the country had to beg for food and medical aid.
Having presided over the most fundamental attempt at economic reform in Russia since the late 1920s, Ryzhkov had to admit that he had all but lost control over a chronically mismanaged and corrupt economy, and could offer scant response to his critics’ predictions of catastrophe. “Money,” he ruefully concluded, “just does not work in our country.”
As food queues lengthened and street protests began in Moscow and spread out across the country, Gorbachev returned to the ambitious 500-day plan. By then it was too late, however, and with rebellion brewing in the Soviet satellites demands for Ryzhkov’s resignation grew louder.
He was defiant in parliament: “If I have to leave, so should everyone else,” he shouted. “We’ve all contributed to the collapse, the bloodshed, the economic chaos. We’re all responsible. Why should I be the only scapegoat?”
The matter was settled when Ryzhkov suffered a heart attack in December 1990. In his absence the Supreme Soviet dissolved the Council of Ministers which he chaired and replaced it with a Cabinet of Ministers and the new post of prime minister, a job which went to Ryzhkov’s former finance minister Valentin Pavlov.
Though his political career seemed over, in 1991 Ryzhkov stood for the Communist Party in the first election for president of the Russian Federation; he gained just under 17 per cent of the vote and lost heavily to Boris Yeltsin, who stood as an independent. In December that year the Soviet Union was formally dissolved. Gorbachev was gone, and so was Nikolai Ryzhkov.
Of Russian stock, Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov was born on September 28 1929 in the village of Dyliivka in the east of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine, near the present-day frontline of the Russian invasion. He joined the Communist Party in 1956 and graduated from the Urals Polytechnical Institute in 1959.
He began working at a heavy machine plant in Sverdlovsk as a foreman. He later became a section head of welding, and by 1970 was the plant’s director.
After a stint as general director of the Uralmash Production Association (a key military industrial enterprise), he went to Moscow in 1975 as deputy minister of heavy transport machine building. From then he rose swiftly through the central party ranks.
In 1979 he was elected a deputy on the Council of Nationalities in the Supreme Soviet, and when Yuri Andropov became General Secretary of the Communist Party in November 1982 Ryzhkov was made head of the Economics Department.
He was one of a group of younger men with expertise and drive selected by Andropov to play leading roles in the renovation of the Soviet economy, and in 1985 he became a deputy in the Russian Federation Supreme Soviet.
Gorbachev’s advancement to the post of General Secretary in March 1985 marked another promotion for Ryzhkov, who was granted swift election to full membership of the Politburo. In November 1985 he succeeded Nikolai Tikhonov, the 80-year-old Brezhnevite, as leader of the Council of Ministers, effectively prime minister.
He became a popular figure thanks to his handling of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986, when he ordered the evacuation of a large contaminated area – although it later transpired that the 19-mile radius was too small – and even more so two years later, when he co-ordinated relief efforts and comforted surivivors in the aftermath of the earthquake in Armenia that killed 25,000.
Following his defeat to Yeltsin in the 1991 presidential election he led a Leftist faction called the People’s Patriotic Union of Russia but had little traction in national affairs. Latterly, he was under sanctions from the West for supporting the invasion of his native Ukraine.
Nikolai Ryzhkov was married to Lyudmila Sergeyevna Ryzhkova; they had a daughter.
Nikolai Ryzhkov, born September 28 1929, died February 28 2024