What was Stalin’s real salary and what did he spend it on?
It has long been a popular belief that after Stalin died, he left only one pipe, a tunic, worn-out boots and three rubles in money. Like, his salary was small, he didn’t spend it on anything, and he didn’t need anything at all. But was this really the case, and what was Stalin’s salary in general?
Let’s start with the background. When the Bolsheviks first came to power, their leader, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, set his own salary at 500 rubles. In terms of our money, it is about a little more than 100,000 rubles. Compared with the salaries of modern officials, these are pennies. It is also worth noting that Lenin first of all established a certain ban on income among party members. And it acted on any income from the publication of books and the writing of various articles. That is, according to Lenin’s instructions, all works written by communists were to be provided to the people free of charge. Quite a good initiative, in my opinion. Lenin himself did not buy up any real estate and expensive cars, considering it an unnecessary luxury.
The situation was quite different with Stalin’s followers. When Khrushchev came to power, he set himself a salary of 1,000 rubles. According to various estimates, it is more than 300 thousand for our money. The amount is already substantial, to be honest. Nor did he suffer from modesty in terms of purchases. He personally owned an apartment in the capital and a dacha in the Moscow region. Four luxury cars of prestigious foreign brands were also registered to him. Some historians write that he gave away his foreign cars to those in need, but, to be honest, it is hard to believe in this. Judge for yourself, why would a person buy expensive foreign cars and then distribute them to the poor? And what about Stalin?
Very little is actually known about Stalin’s income. For the first time, the public learned how much Stalin really received after this picture of his party membership card was published, which also spelled out his monthly earnings.
As we can see, Stalin’s income was 10,000 rubles, from which 300 rubles were deducted as a membership fee. Yes, on the one hand, the amount is significant, but do not forget that the rubles were a little different then, and the situation in the country was different. This is not to say that these were the millions that modern oligarchs are tossing around. And besides, the man was in charge of the largest country in the world, why should he get little? But that’s not what we’re talking about right now. Let’s move on, in more detail about income and expenses.
In fact, he did not always have a salary of 10,000 rubles. Until 1935 it was 235 rubles, and then, until 1944, it was 2300 rubles. But during the war, he gave his salary to the “Stalin Prize” to scientists and cultural figures, who then transferred it to the construction of tanks, planes and other things. The amount indicated in the party card was already accrued to him in 1952, when the country, despite the devastating war, was already practically restored, and in general prospered in many senses. A logical question arises – how much was it compared to today’s money, because it may seem that 10,000 is a lot? Take, for example, products. A dozen eggs then cost 8 rubles, now – from 80. For 10,000 rubles it was possible to buy a car, but only one and only a Soviet one. If you don’t take into account inflation and other exchange rates, it turns out to be a little more than 100 thousand rubles. This figure is not finite, but it is close to the truth.
Stalin, unlike Lenin, returned to party workers the permission to earn money from their scientific works, which, by the way, he himself wrote. Logically, he received money for them. But when this is mentioned, they do not say that all these incomes, as well as the additional salary of the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, were included in the 10,000 rubles. This is his total monthly earnings for everything. Whether this is a lot or a little, you can judge by how much scientists, for example, received – their salaries were also in the region of 10,000 rubles.
With the income more or less sorted out, let’s now turn to the expenses to understand the overall picture. As can be judged from absolutely all the photographs of Stalin, he wore a tunic all the time. You won’t see him in expensive fur coats or suits, everything is quite simple – a jacket, boots, a cap. Stalin was very undemanding in terms of clothes, so he practically did not spend money on them. As his daughter Svetlana later said, in terms of clothing, he adhered to puritanical views and did not like luxury at all. By the way, he also held puritanical views regarding perfume, which he could not stand, so he never used it himself. He believed that a person should have its natural smell. The absence of such attributes can also be judged by the inventory of personal belongings that remained after his death.
As you can see, it’s not just a pipe and boots. But there are no expensive costumes here either, everything is simple and in minimal quantities. It’s the same story with three rubles. In fact, various sources mention 30,000 rubles on his passbook, which was divided among relatives. There were no expensive cars left after him either, because he used state-owned cars all the time, there was no need to buy his own. The only thing that bothered Stalin about the car was its safety, not the cost.
There were also no many apartments left after Stalin, he used only official dachas. He spent most of his time at the so-called “Near Dacha” in the suburbs of Moscow. It was there that his family lived most of the time. During the Great Patriotic War, Stalin himself also spent a lot of time there. In total, there were about twenty Stalin’s dachas in the country, most of which he did not use at all, other party officials of lower rank periodically stayed there. The only thing that interested Stalin in real estate was, as in cars, security. As an example, I will cite Stalin’s dacha in Abkhazia. All the chairs in the country house were made in such a way that when you sat in them, you were below the level of the window and could not be shot at from the sea. Also, the dacha had a steep cliff on one side, and a steep wall on the other, which was specially cut into the rock before construction. In general, there were a lot of nuances. As for the dachas themselves, as you understand, after his death they passed into state use, because they were not his personal ones.
Stalin’s children were also not particularly glamorous, they did not travel abroad. Moreover, all of them are participants of the Great Patriotic War. They didn’t go to the Emirates or Europe, they all lived in the USSR, they didn’t have luxury apartments and cars. So where did Stalin spend his money then, if he had nothing to spend it on, he already had everything? Basically, the “Stalin Prizes” are the only officially confirmed item of his expenses. As his daughter Svetlana recalled, his salary was always brought to him in a package, and only he knows where he put it. There were rumors about overseas accounts, but no one ever found them. They talked about some kind of secret safe. But even if he did, all his valuables were taken away by people who had access to him, and they were not members of his family. What is the result? Stalin was an ordinary man who did not show off, did not buy limousines and apartments, gave away his salary for bonuses, and himself walked around in a tunic and boots. Perhaps that is why I was able to build one of the strongest economies in the world, because I did not spend money on myself, but thought about something completely different…