“The case of Perm medical commission”: corruption practices in the Urals in the first half of the 1930s

The paper considers the daily life and management practice of party and economic leaders of the city of Perm of the Ural (Sverdlovsk) region in the first half of the 1930s. The facts of illegal spending of financial and material resources for personal purposes are analyzed on the basis of documents of party control bodies from the Center of Documentation of public organizations of the Sverdlovsk region. According to the documents, the source of luxurious life of the local party nomenclature, in addition to budgetary funds, was financial resources of enterprises, organizations and institutions. The key city officials and their “inner circle” lived in fairly comfortable conditions, even in hungry times they held banquets and parties and wore expensive clothes. The author came to conclusion that corruption activity of economic and party leaders ran contrary to the image of a communist proclaimed by the Soviet propaganda, with the declared ideas of equality and justice. Therefore, such actions caused not only significant economic damage, but also inflicted irreparable reputation damage and discredited the Soviet system of government as a whole.