Memory. Nikolai Shmelev

On June 18, 1936, economist Nikolai Shmelev was born.

Personal business

Nikolai Petrovich Shmelev (1936 - 2014) was born in Moscow. His father was a geodezist engineer and a cartographer who traveled all over Russia. After graduation, Nikolai Shmelev entered the Faculty of Economics of Moscow University. He graduated from the University with honors in 1958 and continued scientific activities at the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His scientific interests lay about the field of problems of economic growth, the development of the world economy, and economic reforms. Then he married Julia Khrushcheva. The couple broke up in 1962.

The scientific activity of Nikolai Shmelev continued at the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Institute of the USA and Canada of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The article “Advance and Debts” (1987), where the methods of economic management in the USSR, were criticized, brought him wide fame. During the years of perestroika, Nikolai Shmelev became People's Deputy of the USSR and a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (until 1991). After the collapse of the USSR, he was part of the Presidential Council for three years. In 1993, he was part of the Constitutional meeting, which developed the variant of the text of the Russian Constitution (the so-called “presidential project” created because of the disagreement of Boris Yeltsin with an option proposed by the Constitutional Commission of the Congress of People's Deputies). As a result, the text prepared by the Constitutional meeting formed the basis of the version of the Constitution, which was submitted to a popular vote in October 1993.

In 1994 he was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 2000-a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the separation of global problems and international relations. In 1999, Nikolai Shmelev headed the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was the author and co -author of more than 70 monographs and more than 200 scientific articles in the world economy and economics of Russia. He became the initiator, a supervisor, responsible editor and one of the authors of the collective monograph "Europe yesterday, today, tomorrow." Nikolai Shmelev died in Moscow on January 6, 2012.

What is famous

Nikolai Shmelev became a public celebrity after the appearance of the New World in the June issue in 1987, the article “Advance and Debts”. She was written at the suggestion of the executive secretary of the magazine Anatoly Shot “Write something about the economy”. The articles were based on analytical materials that Nikolai Shmelev prepared for Mikhail Gorbachev. Many contemporaries recalled that it was this article that made them look in a new way at the situation in the country. The article by Shmelev caused a stormy discussion.

In the 2000s, Shmelev consistently criticized how economic reforms in Russia were embodied: “It turned out that people in a large part were bastards, starting with those who reformed after the 91st year, and ending with those who rushed to share the skin of an advanced bear.”

What you need to know about

In addition to economic work, Nikolai Shmelev wrote art prose. His first story “Tin Soldiers” was published in 1961 in the magazine “Moscow”. After that, he did not print works of art for more than twenty years. But from the late 1980s were printed), the novel “Sylvester”, the novel “Pashkov House”, “The performance in honor of the Mr. The First Minister”, “Crazy Greta” and other works. Nikolai Shmelev also owns the book of memoirs “Curriculum Vitae”. In 2007, the collected works of Nikolai Shmelev in four volumes were published. Nikolai Shmelev was a member of the Union of Writers of Moscow, the Russian Pan Center, the Union of Journalists of Russia.

Direct speech

Who will pushing all our economic personnel from top to bottom that the time of administrative methods of economic management is passing, that the economy has its own laws, which is as impermissible and scary as the laws of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, that the modern leader should know these laws and build their business decisions in accordance with them, and not contrary to them? Indeed, not in administrative and not in technical categories, his activities will be evaluated in a steady approaching future, but primarily in the categories of profits and losses of the team he headed.
Who will destroy the faith of our economic personnel in the omnipotence of the order, pressure, power methods for solving both business and human problems? “Self -designing socialism” is inconceivable if the order does not replace the material and moral interests, collegiality, economic, and not administrative coordination of issues and problems both vertically and horizontally. The indigenous vice of our current structure of economic management is the complete irresponsibility of the highest floors of the pyramid, the absence of any drive belts of “feedback”, hidden from prying eyes and, as a rule, are not associated with the results of the work of enterprises and organizations of the form of promotion, which are in contradiction with the very ideology of the self -assembly.

From the article "Advance and debts"

After a long sitting after the fence, we were delighted and created the so -called export -oriented economy, which entirely depends on the external market. Basically, they pressed what went with a bang: oil, gas, metal, but those key issues on which the viability of the economic system depends, were not resolved. The economy of such a huge country as ours should primarily focus on the domestic market, domestic consumer and domestic income. This is not only a gas pipe, although it is also important. After the 17th, we had to create heavy industry, but we slipped, albeit a monstrous price. But all over the world, the movement began naturally: first the food industry, light, household appliances, housing construction. This is the foundation. And then already at the top you can attach a “tsatsk” - nanotechnology. I agree that the future is behind her, but she has not yet grown organically, it is imposed on it. Imagine the Eiffel Tower built in the swamp! Put at least four supports in the corners, before mounting the upper floors, otherwise the structure will be cooked.

From an interview with Nikolai Shmelev (2009)

I saw Stalin traveled. I saw how Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev traveled. But such as the current ones ride, no, I have never seen this. And the one who, for example, at least once, as I, stood (and repeatedly) in the dead, bumper to the bumper eight to six -kilometer traffic jam from Usov to MKAD along the Assumption Highway, half an hour, or even an hour, when with the same howl and whistle, with flashing lights, with the same megaphone, the president or premiere or premiere or premiere, or premiere, or premiere, or premiere, or premiere or premiere or premiere Whether someone else, - I repeat, who at least once experienced this, he is sure, will very much agree with me that our rulers have no “limit of dreams” and, probably, will never be.

From the memoirs of Nikolai Shmelev

5 facts about Nikolai Shmelev

• Nikolai Shmelev was born that night when Maxim Gorky died.
• Often Nikolai Shmelev is called the son -in -law of Nikita Khrushchev. This is not quite accurate. The wife of Shmelev, Julia Khrushcheva, was the daughter of Leonid Khrushchev, son of Nikita Sergeyevich. But her father died in 1943, when Julia was three years old, and Nikita Khrushchev raised his granddaughter in his family as a daughter. She learned about her father only at 16.
• After the divorce, Nikolai Shmelev could not go abroad for 20 years.
• Nikolai Shmelev became one of the heroes of the play by Igor Irteniev.
• He was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor", the Order of Honor (1996) and the Order of Friendship (2007).

Materials about Nikolai Shmelev

Article about Nikolai Shmelev on Russian Wikipedia

Biography on the website of the Institute of European RAS

Selected works of Nikolai Shmelev

Publications of Nikolai Shmelev in the "Journal Hall"