16.12.2011 13:54 Comrade Saakhov
Was the collapse of the USSR a historical necessity and inevitability, a coincidence or a betrayal of the leadership of the CPSU led by M. Gorbachev? Questions that are usually classified as the cursed problems of the universe. The reasons for the death of powerful states are never completely clear, as evidenced by the variety of versions of the decline of the Roman Empire or the Mayan civilization, explained experts from the Forex Academy and exchange trading Masterforex-V, and after 20 years there are different versions of the collapse of the country, for millions of people who lost money overnight their great Motherland, which they were proud of, took an oath and respected.
Who is to blame for the collapse of the Soviet empire? What was accidental and what was natural in this most important event of the twentieth century?
Conspiracy theory or 1st (conspiracy) version of the collapse of the USSR
“Churchill came up with all this in 1918,” says the famous song by Vladimir Vysotsky. We are talking about the theory of a “world conspiracy” against the USSR, popular at all times, behind which Britain stood in 1918, and the United States of America in the 80s of “perestroika”. This version is the most popular... in the United States itself: the wisdom and insight of its politicians, intelligence services, and Sovietologists, as a result of many years of subversive activities, gave such a stunning effect. What is not a reason for new funding in modern conditions, when the number of enemies around the United States is growing year after year? Evgeniy Olkhovsky, head of the Canadian community of traders at the Masterforex-V Academy, explained. That's why:
– US statesmen themselves have more than once taken credit for the liquidation of the USSR. For example, George Bush Sr. congratulated the CIA on the collapse of the Soviet Union, Secretary of State John Baker, who during the 1992 election campaign more than once boasted of his contribution to this matter;
- CIA chief William Casey, according to American researcher Peter Schweitzer, wisely undermined the economic foundations of the USSR by agreeing with the Saudi sheikhs to increase oil production and drop its price from $30 per barrel to $12, depriving the USSR of tens of billions of dollars in foreign exchange earnings per year;
– with the beginning of perestroika, the United States tried in every possible way to revive and maintain separatist sentiments in the Soviet republics;
- as a result, according to the famous English historian Arnold Toynbee, “modern America is comparable to a very large dog in a very small room - it just wags its tail, and there are chairs lying around.”
But the result of this activity should have been the weakening of the USSR, and not its collapse. As retired KGB lieutenant general Nikolai Leonov writes, in one of the secret CIA documents of that time, a copy of which he saw personally, the ultimate goal was declared to be the separation of the Baltic states and Right-Bank Ukraine from the USSR. This was the ultimate dream of Washington, and only in the long term.
Everything was much more complicated. Setting the task of weakening the USSR as enemy No. 1, the United States simultaneously feared chaos in a huge country, moreover, stuffed with nuclear weapons. Therefore, while advocating the independence of the Baltic states, the Americans at the same time supported Gorbachev’s idea of creating a renewed federation from the remaining republics. For example, the same Bush Sr., during a visit to Kyiv on August 1, 1991, in a speech before the Supreme Council of Ukraine, three weeks before the actual collapse of the USSR, almost agitated for Ukrainians to remain part of the “renewed Union”: “ Freedom and independence are not the same thing. Americans will not support those who seek freedom to replace distant tyranny with local despotism.” This speech was “forgotten” by both Ukrainian national democrats and Sovietologists from the United States. Who enjoys remembering their own misconceptions and mistakes?
That is, Western pressure was one of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR, but far from being the main and determining factor.. Let us admit that only a weak state can be destroyed from the outside. After all, when citizens are satisfied with their lives, no matter what foreign intelligence services do, they will not be able to destabilize the situation in the country. The collapse of the USSR was caused by internal contradictions, and not by external pressure. As the same General Nikolai Leonov said: “The West really wanted to destroy the Union, but we did all the “dirty work” ourselves.”
2nd version of interpersonal contradictions between leaders Yeltsin and Gorbachev
Rationale: the collapse of the country was the result of an elementary struggle for power in the highest echelon of political leadership - between Gorbachev and Yeltsin. By strictly personalizing the blame, they thereby acknowledge the accidental nature of what happened:
– they say, if Yuri Andropov had healthy kidneys, there would not have been a collapse of the USSR(in 1993, the American magazine The National Interest published an article “Andropov’s Kidneys” as the reason for the collapse of the USSR);
– confession of betrayal by Gorbachev himself. Gorbachev himself, at a seminar at the American University in Turkey in 1999, reinforced such beliefs by declaring that his life's goal was “the destruction of communism, the intolerable dictatorship over people. I was fully supported by my wife, who understood the need for this even earlier than I did. That is why my wife kept pushing me to consistently occupy a higher and higher position in the country.”. Well, why not the “fifth column”?;
- The United States also indirectly confirms Gorbachev’s treacherous role in the collapse of the USSR, details in the article by “The Exchange Leader” “The Times”: who is trying to celebrate Gorbachev’s 80th birthday and why?
– Shushkevich: if Yeltsin and Gorbachev had not hated each other, the union would have remained. But, they say, their exaggerated conceit, great pride and little restraint ultimately buried him. As Stanislav Shushkevich would write later, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha they were solving a specific problem, namely, how to seat Yeltsin in the Kremlin.
* Gorbachev - “Prince of Darkness”, under this title the Ukrainian poet and writer Boris Oleinik published a book dedicated to Gorbachev, who is said to be nothing less than “a traitor of all times and peoples,” moreover, the deputy of the devil on earth (they say, wherever his foot goes, disasters inevitably arose there - unrest in Tiananmen Square, the end of the existence of the GDR, unrest in Romania and the death of Ceausescu, etc.).
As they joke on the World Wide Web, when asked “should Gorbachev and Yeltsin be punished” for the collapse of the USSR?, 10% answered that it was not necessary, since they had done a lot of good things, and the rest said that it was not necessary, since such punishment had not yet been invented. That is, Yeltsin and Gorbachev are solely to blame for everything. If it weren’t for them, we would still live peacefully and peacefully today.
Are the people to blame, and not just Gorbachev and Yeltsin? "Every people deserves the government they have". As American political scientist John Naisbitt wrote, “In times of crisis, some nations choose Lincoln and Roosevelt. In the intervals – these, whatever you call them.” We choose “these, what do you call them” all the time: in a crisis, and in the intervals between crises, and on the rise, and in a new crisis.
Version 3: the collapse of the USSR is a natural result of the national liberation movement of the 15 republics of the former USSR
This version is supported by national democratic movements in almost all 15 independent CIS and Baltic states. Thanks to them and only them, who led people to demonstrations in the late 80s, this empire collapsed. Let's show it using Ukraine as an example.
How do local supporters of the patriotic version of the collapse usually illustrate this very national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people:
- the emergence of the first opposition organization - Rukh, forgetting to add that its first name was “Rukh for Perestroika”, and one of its main demands was the creation of a “renewed USSR”;
– a human chain from Kyiv to Lviv on the day of the so-called “evil”, the chain turned out, however, to be too thin and not supported by the majority of citizens of Ukraine;
– hanging blue and yellow flags, then still unofficial, various rallies;
- a student hunger strike, which later received the lyrical name of “revolution on granite.” About 50 students, almost entirely from Lviv and Kyiv, went on a hunger strike and put forward demands for the nationalization of the property of the Communist Party of Ukraine, re-election of parliament on the basis of a multi-party system, non-signing of a new Union Treaty, military service of Ukrainians in Ukraine and the resignation of the Masol government;
– miners’ strikes in the Donbass, but they were social in nature and the Donbass never demanded the collapse of the USSR.
Well, in general, by and large, that’s all. Could these actions have caused the collapse of the most powerful empire in the world? Analysts from the community of Ukrainian traders at the Masterforex-V Academy asked a rhetorical question. National problems in the USSR, of course, existed and were quite serious, but there was no powerful national liberation movement that would overthrow everything in its path. There was nothing like the long-term and violent Palestinian intifada, the protracted bloody confrontation in Northern Ireland, or the multimillion-dollar acts of civil disobedience in India in the USSR.
So, the collapse did not occur as a result of a powerful national liberation movement. This is also evidenced by the results of the March referendum (1991) on the preservation of the USSR, when more than 76% of those participating in it supported the preservation of a single state (the leadership of six republics refused to participate in it - the three Baltic ones, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia). But after 9 months the USSR collapsed. So there is some truth in the patriotic version, namely: these and other events brought the idea of independence into the mass consciousness.
4th version: like in a nightmare one superimposed on another
Every serviceman knows: a company of soldiers does not have the right to walk across a bridge at a formation pace (no matter how ultra-modern it may be) so that the amplitude of the bridge’s vibration does not coincide with the formation pace. Otherwise, the bridge may collapse.
Each of the above versions (from the subversive activities of the United States to the internal desire of Gorbachev to destroy communist ideals, and Yeltsin to take his place in the Kremlin, Kravchuk - in Kyiv, with the emerging national democratic movement) could give such a self-destructive effect only if all these factors coincided “a dilapidated bridge”, which no one had repaired or maintained in technical condition for a long time, hoping for a Russian “maybe”, unlike China, which managed to preserve both the political system and the integrity of the state.
Supporters of this version are convinced that the collapse of the USSR occurred as a result of a systemic, complex and multi-level crisis that has been constantly developing for decades. The system simply lost the ability to adequately respond to surrounding phenomena, which resulted in a whole series of crises, in which it became possible to use the subjective factor (see versions 1-3):
Political crisis, that is, the weakening of central power, the decline of its authority, its desacralization. The process was not overnight, it went in parallel with economic restructuring and democratization, but in 1990 it accelerated sharply. In historical literature, this period was called the “parade of sovereignties”:
– the first multi-party elections in the USSR in a number of republics brought nationalists to power, the communists were actually removed from their leadership (Baltic, Georgia);
– On June 12, 1990, Yeltsin, intriguing against Gorbachev, played the card of Russian independence. The “Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Russian Federation” was adopted, following the example of which other republics acquired similar declarations (Ukraine - July 16).
The “parade of sovereignties” was followed by a “war of laws”:
– the republics declared their Constitutions and laws superior to those of the union, that is, the erosion of a single political space began,
- they declared the right to unilaterally dispose of local resources, economic wars began between the republics, ersatz currencies were introduced - coupons, coupons, business cards, that is, a single economic space began to creep apart,
– refusal to serve in the Soviet Army, creation of their own national guards, etc. As a result, by the fall of 1991, the USSR began to quickly turn into a loose confederation.
Destruction of the spiritual and ideological values of the Soviet people due to the massive supply of “perestroika literature”, which managed to convince the masses in 5-7 years that they had been walking along a road leading to a dead end for 70 years, socialism has no future, the entire history of the USSR is the mistakes and crimes of the communist regime.
"Paralysis of power" has set in. American scholar Henry Tajfel noted that an ethnic minority can tolerate much as long as it is convinced that government power is stable or legitimate, or both. In this sense, the point of no return was the August putsch, which put an end to both stability and the legitimacy of the central government. In the very first days after the coup, the unilateral declaration of independence acquired an avalanche-like character - within 15 days, 7 republics declared their sovereignty. That’s when the last three pillars of the USSR collapsed - the allied power structures, the army and the CPSU. On August 23, Yeltsin signs a decree “On the suspension of the activities of the Communist Party of the RSFSR”, the next day Gorbachev resigns as Secretary General, and the CPSU Central Committee decides to dissolve itself.
The weakening of central power led to the strengthening of republican leaders. Before this, even Kravchuk in Ukraine only dreamed of his own “national guard” and a renewed USSR. Now the national elite felt that the central government was weak and unable to protect their interests, and that it was no longer dangerous to snatch as much power as possible from the weakened center. Thus, for many, independence simply fell from the sky, in fact it was granted by a favorable combination of circumstances. Even Ukrainian nationalists admit this: “Ukraine was created by God, who did it through the hands of our enemies.”
Economic crisis. Economic difficulties weaken any state, but in themselves do not cause its collapse. Otherwise, let us ask ourselves why the same USA did not collapse into the Great Depression? However, in ethno-federations this connection is more complex and strong. In 1991, the country found itself in a state of economic crisis. And since the Soviet economy was distributive, in conditions of general deficit, many republics decided that they were putting much more into the common “pot” than they were receiving from it, that they were simply being eaten up. It is no coincidence that one of the popular slogans of the Ukrainian rallies in 1990 was “Who’s taking my lard”? The last all-Union Prime Minister Pavlov once even compiled a summary table of mutual claims of 15 Union republics; it turned out that each of them “reasonably” argued that it was being “robbed” by others. Hence the understandable desire of the republics to isolate themselves, to preserve and protect what they have, to stop the outflow of resources and the influx of problems (inflation, migration, shortages).
Ideological crisis, the collapse of the ideals of socialism and internationalism. But nature does not tolerate emptiness. The place of previous values was taken by the national idea, nationalism. Why nationalism? Let us not forget that the federal international state split into national republics. One should also take into account the pendulum nature of mass consciousness, that is, disappointment in the idea of communism forced us to turn to the past; the more illusory the future, the more attractive the past. And finally, ethnic identity is simple and effective, since it does not require any additional effort from a person, but at the same time clearly divides the world into “us” and “strangers.”
Ethno-national crisis. We are talking about the national-territorial principle of state structure, which was murderous for the USSR, which became a “time bomb” that exploded in 1991. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, federal states built on Soviet principles, collapsed in a similar way. In this regard, Zhores Medvedev believes that the Stalinist project of the USSR, rejected by Lenin, would better ensure the “mixing of peoples” according to the American type. The fact is that in the USSR, the subjects of the federation were not just territories, as in the USA, and not even territories with ethnic specifics (Switzerland), but the ethnic communities themselves. Ethnicity was nationalized, the republics received almost all the attributes of independent states:
– borders that had symbolic meaning acquired national status over time;
– the right to secede from the USSR, which was not the case in any federation in the world, even if at first and solely for propaganda purposes;
- authorities;
– the national elite, raised in the best universities of the country according to national quotas (as they said then “don’t be born happy, but born local”);
- its great writer, poet, composer, Academy of Sciences, film studio, Institutes of language, literature, history, etc.
And over time, administrative units began to be perceived as the fatherland, and quite strong national feelings and state consciousness were formed among the titular ethnic group. Thus, regional identity quickly developed into ethnonational identity. And all organizational forms for leaving the federation were already ready.
– old elite, local party nomenklatura, in that difficult situation, sought to retain the slipping power and increase it. As a result, it did not save the CPSU in any of the 15 states that gained independence, but, on the contrary, destroyed the Union. For example, the declaration of independence of Ukraine on August 24, 1991 would have been impossible without the communists, who had more than half the votes in parliament (group “239”). This decision was made just a day after Yeltsin’s decree banning the Communist Party of the RSFSR. That is, the communists of Ukraine turned out to be interested in the collapse of the USSR, because in those conditions only this allowed them to retain power in their hands, of course, under new flags, slogans and ideology, having managed to jump on the nationalist train in time, quickly change their colors and disassociate themselves from the past. If you succeed, you will no longer be reminded of your long party past or your many years of work in the CPSU. This is exactly what Kravchuk did, who in Soviet times held the post of secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee for ideology, suddenly remembering how as a boy during the war years... he fed and helped the UPA soldiers fight against the system. Why did Kravchuk join the CPSU, if from his youth the UPA soldiers were his idols - let’s leave the question to the first President of Ukraine rhetorical;
– the new elite, ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs suddenly received a pass to power. There is a brilliant and cynical definition of revolution: a revolution means thousands of new vacancies. How many of them then made simply dizzying careers, what is called “from rags to riches” (for example, the chairman of the collective farm, Pavel Lazarenko, who a few years later became the prime minister of independent Ukraine).
– why didn’t the population protest against the collapse of the Union? With starvation wages, empty store shelves, hatred of Gorbachev, ideological brainwashing by the dead end of socialism, American supermarket windows on television and much more, the people were prepared to choose anything that could change their lives. As a result: on December 1, 1991, the independence of Ukraine was supported by more than 90% of those participating in the referendum. The approximate ratio of conscious and unconscious supporters of independence is also known - the former then amounted to no more than a third. Otherwise, why, while voting for independence, Ukrainians at the same time elected Leonid Kravchuk (62%), a former ideologist of the fight against this very independence, as the first president of Ukraine, and not the symbol of this fight - Vyacheslav Chernovol (23%).
So the USSR probably could have been saved, but there was no one, unlike China. As for the last president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, who is preparing for his anniversary, it would be appropriate to recall the wise saying of the ancients: “success testifies to what you can do, and failures testify to what you are worth.” Having talked about how they consciously, already with the late Raisa Maksimovna, planned the collapse of communism in the USSR, Gorbachev himself signed the verdict pronounced orally by 90% of the citizens of the former USSR: they use traitors, but they despise them and do not erect monuments to them
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Twenty-five years ago in Viskuli, the then leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine stated that the Soviet Union “as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality ceases to exist.” How did it happen that literally with one stroke of the pen several people “buried” an entire country? Historians, apparently, have yet to solve this one of the greatest mysteries of the last century. But was the collapse of the USSR inevitable and what lessons should we learn from this event? Director of the Center for Sociological and Political Research of BSU David Rotman, head of the analytical center “Strategy” Leonid Zaiko, professor of the Faculty of Economics of BSU Valery Bainev and research director of the “Liberal Club” Evgeniy Preygerman discuss this.
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David Rothman. |
Leonid Zaiko. |
Valery Baynev. |
Evgeny Preygerman. |
Valery Baynev: Unfortunately, the collapse of the USSR was inevitable. Figuratively it looks like this. Imagine that a hundred years ago the whole world, including us, rode on creaking wooden carts. And suddenly we were given a spaceship from above - powerful, strong, swift. We saddled him and rushed upward, performing such miracles that the world was simply amazed. In a matter of years, we reached second place in the world. The American Ambassador to the USSR Joseph Davis in 1937 expressed his impressions of Soviet industrialization as follows: “The Soviets managed to do as much in seven years as America did in 40, starting in the 80s of the last century.” Unfortunately, people are divided into two categories: some dream of the stars, others bake lentil soup. When we had inspired dreamers at the helm of the starship, we succeeded in everything: creating, designing, launching factories. During the Great Patriotic War, it was the dreamers who volunteered to go to the front, were the first to attack and, alas, died. The gluttons did not take risks, trying to settle down closer to the kitchen or warehouse, but it was better to sit in the rear. It was they who survived and gradually came to power in the USSR. As a result, the starship was smashed to pieces, and its remains were sold for scrap.
In other words, losing to us in a fair competition, the collective West, through the hands of Hitler, meanly inflicted an insidious wound on the USSR, and the Cold War completed the job. As a result, we were objectively unable to control the starship. That great gift of fate that history gave us and which Europe came to much later than us, we mediocrely exchanged for coppers.
Leonid Zaiko: By 1991, none of my colleagues, including foreign ones, predicted the collapse of the USSR. But back in the 1980s, I built such a series in my lectures. 1956 The world socialist system is facing an internal crisis. Not unknown events happened in Hungary. 12 years later everything happened again in Czechoslovakia. Add another 12 years and we get protests in Poland. Then I wrote 1992 on the board and put a question mark: who is next? The USSR was next. What happened in 1991 had to happen. Because the system itself was genetically flawed, was closed, did not allow alternatives, and did not develop.
V.B.: How come it didn’t develop? The short post-war period was the only one in the history of Slavic civilization when we challenged the primacy of the West in scientific, technical, and intellectual progress. It was in the USSR that the first artificial satellite and lunar rover were created, a man was launched into space, spacecraft landed on Venus and Mars, the first nuclear icebreaker, the first nuclear power plant, the world's first laser, the largest hydroelectric power plants, and the first synthetic rubber appeared. We were at the forefront of progress.
L.Z.: At the same time, the country produced 29 times less toilet paper than in Germany or France.
David Rothman: Let's not forget that the Cold War was at its height. And the international situation was aggravated not by the USSR, but by those states that, for various reasons, feared the growing strength and power of the Soviet Union. We were forced to respond to these challenges in order not to fall behind and not lose. Unfortunately, the countries of Western Europe and the United States were in closer relationship with each other politically, economically and militarily. We could not withstand this competition, which immediately affected the economy and weakened our potential, including in the field of public administration. The authorities were not ready to adequately respond to many processes that, thanks to destructive information leaks, began to influence society in different republics.
Evgeniy Preygerman: You cannot always live in mobilization and emergency conditions. In the problem of the predetermination of the collapse of the USSR, I see at least several layers. First the revolution, then the civil war, heroic labor feats, the Great Patriotic War. When society entered the phase of stable peaceful life, it turned out that the existing system of economic management in the context of other world processes was simply uncompetitive. This was manifested in the lack of full-fledged incentives for creative creation.
A layer of national-territorial problems immediately came to light. For a long time they were able to be contained and smoothed out by pumping in monetary resources. But when they ended, the negative phenomena poured out, and it was no longer possible to stop this flow.
“SB”: Or maybe the main problem is ideology? In 1917, the task was to feed the hungry, teach everyone to read and write and build a bright future; in 1941, it was necessary to defeat fascism at any cost and restore destroyed cities and villages, then they plowed up virgin lands and explored space. There was always some kind of goal. With the beginning of perestroika, democratization and glasnost, the country turned into a clear ideological impasse. People saw the real abundance in the West and wondered: was this the right road?
L.Z.: There has always been lobbying in science and the economy of the USSR, which, against the backdrop of huge investments in the military-industrial complex and heavy industry, did not allow the development of genetics, computer science, and electronics. The systemic error was the lack of a critical approach to reality and making decisions based on scientific evidence. We are clearly late with economic democracy. Even with the arrival of Andropov, it was necessary to begin to introduce the principles of a multi-structure economy. Any freedom begins with a feeling of inner freedom. Instead, the political elite of the USSR decided to convert their power from political to economic, taking over yachts and villas on the Cote d'Azur.
E.P.: In fact, the fact that the processes of democratization in society were launched without actually creating conditions for economic freedom is one of the main lessons of that period. Due to the fact that the system could not provide the opportunity for free choice, the degree of boiling water in society constantly increased. Systemic problems accumulated, and this naturally led to an internal explosion.
V.B.: Abraham Lincoln also said that a sheep and a wolf understand freedom differently. The ability to cast a ballot and say what you want is a superficial understanding of democracy. True democracy begins with respect for fundamental human rights: life, work, self-development, security, health, education, confidence in the future. I'll give you the facts. The population of the USSR over 74 years grew by 153 million people, growing by an average of 2.1 million per year. If Belarus in 1926 had less than 5 million people, then by 1991 there were already 10 million of us (an average increase of 70 thousand people per year). That is, people wanted to live in the USSR, voting for it with the most precious thing they have - their lives. With the collapse of the superpower, the nation seemed to be deprived of its vital strength, its spiritual core, and the demographic curve went sharply downward.
Even when crises were raging all over the world, factories were closing, adding to the army of unemployed, new industries were opening, free and accessible medicine and education were preserved. There was a time when we were the ones who moved the pieces on the great chessboard of history. Now, in the morning, everyone runs to their tablets and televisions to find out how much a barrel of oil costs, how much a dollar costs, and who won in America: Trump or Clinton. From being subjects, creators of history, we have become its passive objects.
“SB”: In a referendum in March 1991, the majority of citizens voted to preserve the Union. Moreover, in Belarus this percentage was higher than the Union average. Was it possible to preserve the Union and adapt it to the new reality?
L.Z.: Alas, the internal dynamics of society were such that the USSR absolutely did not fit into the country that is called socialist. Yes, in 1990 life in Belarus was somewhat better than in other Soviet republics. 117 kilograms of meat per capita were produced at a reasonable rate of 57 kilograms. Light industry worked well. In the world system of socialism, the GDR was such a leader, and in the USSR it was us. But there were other facts when, for example, people threatened not to go to the polls until the authorities connected the telephone. They lifted the city committee and the district committee to their ears and connected the device. This is how they lived and were proud of space flights. The entire economic system required adjustment along the lines of the Czech Republic and Poland. But Mikhail Suslov, the main ideologist of the country, and his entire team were scholastics. I remember that at a department meeting my colleague was reprimanded “for trying to start a discussion about developed socialism.” Such a society should have closed.
E.P.: Not a single social phenomenon can be interpreted unambiguously. It is probably useful to borrow and develop much from the experience of the USSR. On the other hand, for many decades in a row, the two largest world systems were in a state of ideological, economic, and military competition. And the fact that the USSR could not withstand this competition must be critically and objectively comprehended.
“SB”: And how did such comprehension affect public opinion?
D.R.: Immediately after the events in Viskuli on December 9-10, we conducted sociological research in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to determine whether citizens approved of the Belovezhskaya agreements. In Belarus, 69.3 percent were in favor, 9.2 percent were against, and 21.5 percent were undecided. There were similar figures in Russia and Ukraine. But the most interesting thing happened later. Exactly a year later, in December 1992, the public perception of the agreements in Viskuli changed dramatically, and only 32.2 percent of respondents supported them, while 43.4 percent were against them. The rest found it difficult to answer.
This means that the first assessment was made without sufficient understanding of what happened, on a wave of emotions, euphoria and trust in the authorities. Like, here it is, freedom and independence, now we’ll live. But after a year, most realized that something was wrong here. Economic ties began to collapse, prices rose, and it became more difficult to communicate with relatives and friends in other republics.
In 2001, they conducted the same survey for the third time and... returned to 1991. 60.4 percent approved of the collapse of the USSR and only 21.8 expressed regret about it. This was the time when independent states had already taken shape, when people began to experience national identity and saw prospects in the economy, although life was not yet the most wonderful.
In December 2011, 71.1 percent of citizens were in favor of an independent Belarus and the preservation of sovereignty. Only 7.4 percent did not approve of the agreement in Viskuli. This is direct evidence of the growth of national self-awareness and patriotism, the understanding that it is impossible and not necessary to restore the USSR. Yes, we have lost a powerful, great state that everyone took into account. But, on the other hand, we have acquired independence and sovereignty. In many countries, the formation and development of statehood took place very rapidly and ambiguously, as evidenced by revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and problems in Moldova. Even today, attempts are obvious from both the West and the East to influence these and other states. But it is extremely difficult to change or recreate something in them without the personal desire of the people of these countries. You cannot put pressure on them, impose something on them and demand. We must treat each other in a friendly manner, remembering that we once lived together as one family.
V.B.: The main thing that we inherited from the USSR is the gene of collectivism, the attitude and ability to work together for a common result - the prosperity of Belarus. As a result, our country acts as a small but unified transnational corporation. And quite successful. Our per capita supply of natural resources is 72 times lower than in Russia, which is considered the “natural storehouse of the world.” And in terms of quality of life, as measured by the UN using the Human Development Index, we are higher.
We inherited from the USSR a powerful industrial base, thanks to which (BelAZ, Belarus, MAZ) we are known today all over the world. Thanks to the collectivism gene, Belarus has avoided civil conflicts. Today our country is a stronghold of morality and true freedom, understood as respect for the fundamental rights of all citizens, and not just oligarchs. And I see this as the key to our future success.
D.E. Sorokin
For Russia, the transition to the 21st century. coincided with a geopolitical catastrophe - the collapse of the state. Discussions about the causes of this collapse and the possibilities of preventing it are apparently destined for a long life. However, it seems that at the heart of the system-wide crisis that struck Russia at the end of the 20th century was a “failure” in the functioning of its economic system.
In this regard, the question inevitably arises: are there not some deep-seated (fundamental) reasons behind the subjective actions that led to a severe economic crisis, but which, by definition, could have been prevented (prevented, changed), which led to the fact that the economy, possessing colossal natural resource, production, scientific, technical, military, human, etc. potential and therefore turning the USSR into the second (after the USA) superpower, essentially self-destructed? The author wanted to express his point of view on this issue.
1. Model of administrative-command, or mobilization, economy
The economic system in question was created at the turn of the 20-30s of the twentieth century. Of course, throughout its functioning it changed its forms, but its essential features remained practically unchanged. It was a system built on the principle of a single factory operating according to a single plan, where each enterprise played the role of one of the “shops” of such a factory, which, in essence, turned it into a monopolist. 1
Accordingly, the mechanism for regulating such a system required building a rigid management vertical, where each hierarchical level of management had unlimited power in relation to the managed object. Such a system was inevitably based on non-economic methods of stimulating the activities of management objects - be it individuals or entire teams - which served as the basis for giving it the name “command-administrative” Although, of course, this is not entirely correct, since methods were used to a lesser extent moral stimulation, including those based on the enthusiasm of people, many of whom considered themselves the creators of a new history of mankind. Economic incentives were also used, primarily in the field of material incentives. But the main ones remained command and administrative levers.
Nowadays, the reasons why this system was created are not important: the theoretical and ideological views of its creators, their personal qualities, multiplied by the struggle for power, the specific historical conditions that developed in Russia and in the world at that time, etc. Apparently , both played a role, and the third. What is important now is the very fact of creating such a system, which existed for 60 years, during which the country turned into a powerful industrial power, carried out a cultural revolution, created systems of mass health care and social protection for the population for the first time in the world, eliminated unemployment, bore the brunt of World War II and finally became the second superpower. It is clear that all this would have been impossible to achieve if the created economic system had not ensured the creation of an appropriate resource base.
Of course, from a moral and ethical point of view, one cannot but agree with the fairness of the harsh assessments of those forms, methods, mechanisms, including political ones, that led to colossal irreversible human losses that were used to achieve these results. However, we must not forget that socio-economic progress, at least until the second half of the 20th century, both in Russia and in the world, was carried out on the same basis. Consider the history of colonial conquest, land enclosure and anti-vagrancy laws in England during the formation of the capitalist system, directed against its own citizens, the destruction of the indigenous population in North America and slave labor on its cotton plantations. Peter's industrialization in Russia was carried out in a similar way. Another question is that, due to a number of historical reasons, Russia went through the corresponding stages of its development at a time when the countries of Europe and America had already completed them, which allowed the so-called civilized world to condemn the mechanisms used here, forgetting about their own history.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Russian economic system was unable to respond to the challenges of modern times and disappeared from the historical stage. To answer the question whether there were objective grounds for this, let’s take a closer look at the history of the functioning of the created economic system.
The departure of the USSR from the historical stage was part of the inevitable process of collapse of colonial empires. The sooner Russian authorities and society get rid of imperial consciousness, the better for them
Exactly 25 years ago, tanks took to the streets of Moscow, with which a group of people calling themselves the State Emergency Committee tried to prevent the “dissolution” of the USSR and the obvious decline in the country’s controllability. In the preceding months, President Mikhail Gorbachev practically agreed with the heads of the union republics on a draft of a new treaty - which turned this “union of states” more like a confederation, but allowed for the possibility of its further consolidation. The unexpected performance of the putschists put an end to this process and showed: unlike Russia, which was then ready to follow the path of further democratization and reform the union, the central authorities dream of returning to the previous structure. The failure of the Emergency Committee accelerated the process of disintegration - although, in my opinion, it in itself was natural and inevitable.
European way
“The Soviet Union,” asserted Vladimir Putin, “is Russia, but it was called differently.” This famous statement by the president points to the continuity of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire - but, recognizing this, one cannot help but go further and note the following point: the USSR was, no matter how you look at it, a colonial empire that survived much longer than its allotted century . Only on this basis can one understand both the logic of its collapse and possible threats to modern Russia.
Although we like to repeat that Russia is not Europe, Russian history almost exactly repeats European history on the issue that interests us. Following the Spaniards and Portuguese, who headed overseas, Russian Europeans stepped beyond the Urals, founding the main cities of Siberia in the same years in which the main cities of New England were founded. Russia made Siberia its colony to the same extent as Britain, the eastern part of what is now the United States, and France, Canada and Louisiana, became its colonies. The conquered peoples found themselves in the minority, and their lands to the Pacific Ocean were settled by Russians, just as in America - by Europeans. In the 19th century, a new wave of European expansion began, this time directed to the South; At this time, the European powers still had the opportunity to seize territories, but they could no longer colonize them (provide a majority for the population that came from the metropolis). Russia was “on trend” here too, having conquered Central Asia and completed the annexation of the Caucasus at a time when Britain, France and Germany were dividing up Africa and South Asia. As a result, a very special type of empire was formed over most of Eurasia.
Its peculiarity consisted in two points. On the one hand, it was concentrated within one continent (with the exception of Alaska), while in Europe colonies and military-controlled territories (colonies and possessions) were located overseas. On the other hand, military seizures of new possessions in the South happened in Russia in conditions when its settler colony (Siberia) remained part of the empire, while the European powers began expansion to the South mainly after their settler colonies became independent states (USA and South American countries). However, despite these significant features, Russia and the CCCP remained colonial empires and developed according to their internal laws.
In this very statement, I note, there is nothing derogatory. The British built more railways in India than in Great Britain itself, and the export of capital from the metropolises to the territories they controlled at the beginning of the twentieth century reached 6-7% of GDP per year - so one should not consider that the “development” of Central Asia in the Soviet era does not fit into the “colonial” logic. But therefore, in order to survive, the Soviet Union needed to perform a miracle - namely, to ensure that the territories once subjugated by force by the metropolis abandoned their natural desire for decolonization.
Fighter against colonialism
The irony of history, however, is that the USSR developed an ideology completely opposite to this goal. Its founders preached the right of nations to self-determination, and in its mature state the Soviet Union became a center of gravity for the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia, angrily condemning the practice of colonialism. Having largely launched the process of fragmenting empires (although their most far-sighted leaders - for example, in Britain - themselves understood that maintaining the empire was counterproductive), the USSR unwittingly put itself in the same row, foolishly hoping that this cup would pass.
Unfortunately or fortunately, the historical process turned out to be quite monolinear. In democratic countries, the collapse of empires took place 20-40 years earlier than in ours - and I would even say that the more democratic the country was, the earlier it happened. Britain, Holland, France, Belgium, semi-fascist Portugal came to the end of the list - the USSR (and Yugoslavia) turned out to be even less democratic and lasted a little longer. However, such an end in itself should not have been surprising. History does not know democratic empires - it does not even know democratic states that survived within the borders of former empires: and therefore, with or without a putsch, with or without communists, the Soviet Union was doomed.
The idea of a “union of fraternal peoples” has been a lie throughout its history. It is enough to look at Vereshchagin’s paintings to imagine how humane the Russian conquest of Central Asia was. One can recall the fate of the national intelligentsia during the Stalinist period. Finally, it is worth comprehending the historical paths, ethnic and national characteristics of the peoples of Transcaucasia or Central Asia in order to understand that they had no more in common with Russia than the Dutch had with the inhabitants of Batavia, the French with the Algerians and Vietnamese, and the Spanish -tsev - with the Indians of Brazil or the population of the Philippines. Yes, the empire survived two world wars, but this is nothing unusual - just remember how many colonial troops fought on the fronts of the First World War in Europe. And even the relatively close interaction of the political and intellectual elites of the metropolis and dependent territories was nowhere unusual.
Thus, the collapse of the Soviet Union was an inevitable consequence of the departure from Soviet authoritarianism. Centrifugal forces were determined by the same considerations as in Africa and Asia several decades earlier: the revival of national consciousness on the periphery and political maneuvers of the leaders of potentially independent states, who perceived sovereignty as a basis for enrichment and the realization of the thirst for power (and in most cases - both). At the same time, in the metropolis there was not even a shadow of a desire to preserve the previous system, since it sought to create its own identity through the denial of imperialism.
It is worth noting that the consequences of decolonization were generally similar to those noted in European empires. Just a quarter of a century later, the metropolis emerges as the most successful of the parts of the former empire; the wealth gap between the center and the periphery has grown significantly compared to imperial times; finally, in the large cities of the former metropolis we see today no less people from the Soviet colonial periphery than on the streets of Paris - residents of the former French, and London - British overseas possessions. Actually, all this gives a comprehensive answer to the question of what the collapse of the USSR was - it was, although this may greatly disappoint someone, a banal decolonization with fairly predictable consequences.
Don't regret the past
What advice can you give to Russians celebrating the 25th anniversary of independence from both the former empire and former conquered territories? I think, first of all, three things.
Firstly, the collapsed empires were never restored - and the nations that survived them turned out to be more successful the faster they managed to get rid of imperial complexes and find their new place in the world, new partners and - most importantly - new goals, different from those left in the past. Actually, it is precisely all this that modern Russia lacks, since, having ceased to be the Soviet Union, it - in the person of both the population and the elite - continues to conceptualize itself as an empire, from which only memories remain. This imperial consciousness must go - the sooner the better.
Secondly, you need to understand that metropolises must find their future in interaction with their own kind (or in relatively independent existence). The “integration” of France with Algeria, Cameroon and Laos, Great Britain with Pakistan and Zimbabwe, and Portugal with Angola or Mozambique may seem like crazy nonsense to any European today. There is no more rationality in Russian attempts to “reintegrate” the post-Soviet space and “Asianize” Russia through its rapprochement with its former Central Asian possessions. No “Eurasianism” justifies such a statement of the problem.
Thirdly, Russia must reconsider its attitude towards the main settlement colony, the Trans-Urals, and realize that its preservation as part of the now unified country lies, perhaps, its only historical advantage over European nations. Modern Russia is something reminiscent of Portugal with Brazil as part of it, or Great Britain still ruling the USA and Canada. Economically, the role of Siberia in Russia (in its exports, budget, etc.) is comparable to what Brazil would play now if it were part of Portobraz. And we need to appreciate this unity created over centuries, raising the role of regions in the political and economic life of Russia.
MINISTRY OF EDUCAMENT
Moscow State Mining University
Department of History and Sociology
Creative essay
Death of the USSR, collapse, collapse
Soviet society socialism Belovezhsky
Performed:
student of group ASP-B-11
Kovalevskaya Darina Evgenievna
Checked:
Ph.D., Associate Professor
Bokarev Vladimir Valentinovich
Moscow, 2011
I was born in 1991, in the year of the demographic crisis, in the year of the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the year of the emergence of Russia, which now, 20 years later, has become for me the Russia of “today.” I know a lot about the Soviet Union first-hand, from people of the older generation, from my grandparents. From parents, from friends. I talked a lot about the USSR with my mother. She told me how she lived, an ordinary schoolgirl, what she ate, what she played, what color the notebook sheets were and what “chewing gum” was at that time.
I did not like my first acquaintance with the Soviet Union. For me, a girl with a keen sense of justice and maximalist views on life, my mother’s life caused intense indignation. I didn’t understand why she calmly walked home when she was kicked out of school for not wearing a tie or not ironing her skirt, why she sat for hours on the windowsill, waiting for the lady from the butcher shop across the street to look out of the fire exit door of the store and wave her hand. Thus, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of the Soviet Union is deficit. Lack of food and clothing. Freedom deficit.
On the other hand, almost every person was confident in the future. The worker was not afraid of being fired, or of being unable to pay rent. Everyone knew that he had a gram of butter and a loaf of bread allotted to him, that sooner or later he would receive a state apartment, and in the summer he would go to a sanatorium. There was a specific life scenario that Soviet people had to follow.
People fussed about their everyday life and small problems, but the general tension, general indignation and general thirst for freedom grew more and more, faith in a wonderful future became increasingly thinner.
The main symbol of those years was the anthem of the USSR, words aimed at awakening patriotism and glorifying the country. Let's remember the first lines:
The indestructible union of free republics
Great Rus' united forever.
Long live the one created by the will of the peoples,
United, mighty Soviet Union!
And from the very first words one can find inconsistencies with the realities of Soviet life. Created by the “will of the people,” but not all republics voluntarily became part of the USSR; let us at least remember the annexation of the Baltic republics and the western part of Ukraine. The unity of the Union is also questionable, because throughout almost the entire history of the Union there were republics that wanted to secede, whose desire was cruelly suppressed, while the rest were simply profitable to exist on feed.
The Soviet Union really gave its citizens the belief that they lived in a Great Country that took care of its citizens and would never, under any circumstances, offend them. But at what cost!
Playing one of the leading roles in world politics, the USSR spent enormous sums on supporting and establishing friendly communist regimes around the world, thereby creating a counterbalance to the actions of the United States and its friendly NATO bloc. All this required incredible strength and resources. A widely deployed propaganda system within the country and abroad contributed to the implementation of these plans. The planned economy, put on a war footing, provided the country's leadership with steely, reinforced arguments for creating the image of a Great State.
And at this time, the people of the “Great State” went to equally empty stores in the same gray clothes. The main slogan is “let’s fulfill the plan set by the government for this five-year period.” How does it differ from the slogan of the war years? Everything for the front, everything for victory. Victory over whom? A mythical external enemy invented by propagandists? The situation was significantly aggravated by the wealth stratification of the population, which contradicts the fundamental idea of socialism. Over time, the elite began to live a petty bourgeois life, which could not but awaken among the people the desire to improve their financial situation and their living conditions. It also could not help but cast doubt on the country’s political ideology.
Many are beginning to realize that apparent equality is not actually such. A massive feeling of injustice and ideas of struggle against the system arise. As a result, a general spirit of rebellion begins to emerge in the country, quietly at first. Petty industrial thefts are flourishing, people try to get everything “through connections”, through acquaintances. Soviet civilization is gradually losing its foundation, losing public support and ceasing to be legitimate.
It is now known that in the USSR, spontaneous protests directed against the ruling regime repeatedly broke out. For example, on July 3 and 4, 1962, an uprising took place in Novocherkassk, Rostov region. 4 thousand workers of the electric locomotive plant staged a protest demonstration in connection with the increase in prices for meat and butter. The protesters were dispersed with the help of troops. Then 23 people died and 70 were injured. 132 instigators were brought to criminal responsibility.
Back to the topic of this essay, what happened in 1991? Death, decay or collapse? Three words that have a similar meaning in essence, but are completely different in meaning and emotional connotation. I believe that the “death” began long before the announcement of the demise of the USSR, then in 1991 the “disintegration” occurred, and the “collapse” is something from which we still cannot recover.
So why did the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapse?
First I would like to talk about the economy. In my opinion, the idea of a planned system in itself is not bad. If the surplus of each person, which he spends on his own pleasures, actually goes nowhere, is used to improve production technologies, the state will develop, which should be followed by an increase in the standard of living in general. Only in the Soviet Union did the idea of human needs and, accordingly, planning differ greatly from reality. This can be seen even in the banal - if for every hundred people a shoe factory produced one hundred boots, it was believed that everyone would have a pair of boots. But, for some reason, no one foresaw that most people have the same foot size, and only some have very large or very small ones. This mistake alone resulted in a shortage of shoes among the majority of the population. And this picture was observed with all goods.
Today, demand creates supply, and competitive firms strive to satisfy supply by producing products of better quality or more affordable products. At the same time, supply did not depend on demand, production was state monopolized, so no one sought to improve the quality of the product. A small assembly line worker sewing a button on his pants did not strive to do it better, or to exceed the plan, because he knew that his wages would remain the same, and for exceeding the plan they could be assigned a new one that corresponded to his capabilities. The director of the enterprise did not strive for quality, because his product was the only one and people would still buy it. The opposite situation was in military and space production. Models of a new rocket or machine gun were approved on a competitive basis, so designers sought to make their inventions better, lighter, and more functional. Maximum funds were invested in further development; no new funds were invested in the production of consumer goods. As a result, the Soviet Union was first on the world stage in terms of armament, and far behind in terms of the welfare of its citizens.
There was also the influence of “From Outside”. Mass demonstrations that took place throughout the country in the late 1980s were aimed mainly at destroying the ideological foundations of Soviet society. These demonstrations were anti-communist and anti-Soviet and, most importantly, brought their destructive results. Freedom of speech, launched by Gorbachev, turned into active discussion of the Soviet system from abroad, and the image of a terrible Motherland and a wonderful foreign country appeared in the press. Reports and information “from there” had all the features of advertising materials.
Both speeches on the streets and publications in the press clearly had a powerful organizer with finances, since, firstly, they were planned and, secondly, they had the same informational focus: criticism of the Soviet political and ideological system and the Soviet Union in general, the creation of a negative image of our country and a positive image of “abroad”. This identical direction of action of various factors can only be explained by leadership from a single center. In other words, an information attack was carried out on the USSR. And this attack yielded results: the composition of the internal environment and culture was changed, and signs of a collapsing country began to appear throughout the country.
But the main reason for the collapse, as I believe, came not from below, and not “from outside,” but from the top of the Soviet government itself. It was from above that the betrayal of the basic ideas of socialism took place. Changes began under Khrushchev. The degenerate elite looked for their own benefit in everything. In the last years of the Union, there was a struggle for power between different parties, but the liberals were unable to achieve any changes, and the communists lost the main support of the people. Against the backdrop of the decline of ideology and “diversity of power,” they started talking about independence and the union republics, who were forced into the Union or were dissatisfied with their position, declared independence and created independent national states, the first were the Baltic republics.
The real danger of an uncontrolled collapse of the USSR, threatening unpredictable consequences, forced the center and the republics to look for a path to compromises and agreements. The idea of concluding a new union treaty was put forward by the Baltic popular fronts back in 1988. But until mid-1989 it did not find support. Awareness of its importance came only after the “parade of sovereignties” changed the Union beyond recognition.
And the apotheosis, in my opinion, was the Belovezhskaya Agreement, the decision of which took place in dubious circumstances...
What are the results of the collapse?
In the global understanding of this issue, Russia has certainly taken a leap back. In fact, a new state has been created, and it is forced to start building the economy anew. On the other hand, the Iron Curtain opened, and the opportunity arose to purchase high-quality or inexpensive goods. They say that the import of goods did not allow domestic enterprises to develop, but people simply chose what was best for them. And if the enterprises never rose, it means they simply could not withstand this competition.
As for the changes in the life of each person individually, I will not be able to evaluate them objectively, for me the result was a free society and a mixed economy, the right of each person to his own opinion. In the first post-Soviet era, many cried about the death of the USSR, feared for the future, and someone’s life did not change much. And some began to move actively, started their own business and took advantage of new opportunities.
Of course, today there is no such confidence in the future, but who prevents a person from being confident in himself and not in the state? Today the whole world is open to man. He can choose where to live and what to do.
Tags: Death of the USSR, collapse, collapse Essay History