REX news agency publishes an article in two parts by historian Boris Rozhin (Crimea, Sevastopol) as part of the story “20 years without the USSR.”
7. The USSR collapsedand communists. Lenin and Stalin built who knows what, and then their heirsthey destroyed it themselves.
There is a classic attempt here to shift responsibility from the killer to the victim.
The statement itself postulates that the USSR was destroyed due to malicious intent. And the communists are to blame for this evil intent. They say that the entire heritage of our ancestors was wasted. In fact, everything is very transparent here. The Soviet elite of the mid-80s can be divided into those who wanted the collapse of the USSR and those who advocated its preservation. Those who wanted and worked for the collapse of the USSR were anti-communists, because together with the USSR they sought to destroy communism “in a single country.” In this they were helped by both anti-communist public groups and the generally anti-communist West. It was within the framework of their will and actions that the murder was carried out. That’s why the USSR was destroyed by anti-communists (of course, not without the help of other factors).
What is the fault of the “communists”, read those who wanted to preserve the country? After all, they had solid resources and public support expressed in the 1991 referendum. First of all, “in criminal negligence leading to the death of a person.” Having failed to provide adequate resistance to the anti-communists who were destroying the country, the elite groups that advocated the preservation of the USSR showed criminal inaction. This is their main historical fault. And the same share of responsibility lies with the pro-Soviet silent majority, which was criminally inactive at the moment when the anti-communists were killing the country. Moreover, what should be indicated separately, not only the communists, who constituted only a significant, but still percentage of the entire population of the country, were inactive. Those who did not have a party card were also inactive, but also silently watched as the USSR was killed. Therefore, the responsibility of communists and non-communists who were silent when the country was being killed is equal. Those people who dared to speak out during the period of collapse were rare - some were members of the party, others were not. But neither one nor the other can provide a complete alibi for their group - the silent majority of party and non-party members who voted for the preservation of the USSR showed equally criminal inaction. Therefore, for the most part, this pro-Soviet party and non-party majority, representatives who were already more than 18 years old during the Perestroika period, bears one degree or another of responsibility for not resisting the death of the country.
The responsibility of the killer and the one who did not stop him (although he could) are different, but, nevertheless, it exists. Therefore, of course, we must understand that without this “non-resistance” it would have been much more difficult for anti-communists to destroy the country. There are no calls to repentance here. Understanding this point is necessary so that the next time at a critical moment for the country, the silent majority does not just as passively watch the killer do his job.
8. The USSR collapsed because Stalin did not leave worthy heirs
This moment is especially funny, if only because Stalin did not leave any heirs at all, if only due to the circumstances of his death. Nevertheless, this stamp is often found, and what is especially interesting, among anti-communists. The logic here is simple - they say, okay, even if the “bloody tyrant” was an “effective manager, but he died, and there was no one to replace him. This is very revealing historical ignorance, since this thesis postulates the idea that statesmen of Stalin’s caliber appear at the behest of human will. Stalin worked not with those whom he could imagine in his dreams, but with those who were at his disposal. When such “guilt” is attributed to Stalin, stretching into decades into the future, one can only ask who Stalin should have made a “worthy heir.” Which store sells it? statesmen of such a caliber that in the entire history of Russia there are, at best, 5-6 people? Who is the “magic correct successor” whom Stalin did not appoint? Beria? Well, so after his death he actually ruled the country, although he was killed. Is Stalin to blame for the murder of Beria? Or maybe Beria is to blame for allowing himself to be killed?
I wish I could find out the name of this very “worthy heir.” Indeed, from the position of post-knowledge, we know perfectly well that the figures equal to Stalin after his death there was none - I would like to hear alternative personalities. But there are none. Someone will say - yeah, that’s where you got caught - around Stalin there were only mediocrities and after his death there were also only mediocrities and will even quote something about “a lion leading the sheep.”
In fact, the circle of Stalin's people's commissars was a group of quite talented people. Talented in their narrow fields of activity. But for manual control this complex structure how the USSR needed a universal statesman, like Stalin, who was able to adequately govern the country in the multidimensional space of tasks and functions facing him. Everyone who came after Stalin did it worse. And not even because they were untalented - they simply did not possess all the qualities that Stalin had, and therefore ruled the country worse than Stalin in some respects. Therefore, claims to Stalin - “Damned one, where is the good heir?” are essentially a claim – “Bloody Stalin, why didn’t you find another bloody Stalin for us?” And you can’t undermine it - Stalin after Stalin, according to the logic of things, would definitely be no worse. In this regard, claims against the “successor of Stalin” are reminiscent of the current search in modern Russia for a “new Stalin.” It’s true that it is not clear, if in the USSR for 38 years after Stalin’s death they did not find a figure equal to him, then why should we expect such a figure literally right now? Is Stalin also to blame? To say that Stalin is responsible for what happened in the country after his death is ridiculous. Stalin was in demand until his death as a leader. After his death - from those who ruled the country after him. From Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov, Brezhnev and others. But as we know, Stalin is the most convenient historical character in order to attribute anything to him - from “unprepared heirs” to forest fires in 2010 year.
9. In 1991, a natural revenge of the “white” losers in the Civil War took place.”.
Despite its obvious ahistorical nature, this thesis can often be found in discussions. With him, in principle, everything is very transparent - the opponents of the Bolsheviks, known as “whites,” were defeated in the Civil War and were either destroyed or expelled from the country. By the time the USSR collapsed, all that remained of them were pitiful scraps of mossy old men. What was the revenge? Were the losers able to return to their homeland? In fact, no—the vast majority died abroad. Were those who returned able to restore their pre-revolutionary privileges? No. Have they returned to power? No. Did you get the property back? No. What's the revenge, brothers? The fact that, sitting abroad, they gloated over the destruction of their homeland? Eco has fallen asleep in his old age.
In reality, who is in power now? They come from the CPSU, the KGB, the Komsomol, that is, products of the very system that drove the “whites” out of the country. Therefore, there is no revenge of the “whites” in nature. Those “whites” lost a long time ago, and those “reds” won a long time ago, and that Civil War ended long ago, no matter how the current “white sectarians” raged about its results.
In 1991, it was not the “whites” of the Revolution who won. The degenerated anti-communist partyocracy and the West won, and together they plundered the destroyed country. The role of the “whites” is, at most, wedding generals, at the festival of the total cutting of their former homeland. Therefore, the current “white revanchists” are very funny in their naive belief in the “great white revenge”, since during the entire period of the struggle of the West with the USSR, they obediently trudged along in the train of the army, which set as its goal the destruction of their homeland. As a result, the country was destroyed (without any serious participation of the “whites”), but it was not the “whites” who came to power. This is the “Great White Revenge”. Of course, there will be cries about the coat of arms and other pre-revolutionary symbols as visual evidence of “victory,” but we can just as well say that the Soviet anthem testifies to the “revenge of the Reds.”
10. The reasons are not important, the USSR was destroyed and that’s good.
This thesis is purely ideological in nature, but at the same time it is one of the most frequently encountered. The anti-communist and anti-Soviet genesis of this thesis is obvious. From the point of view of such people, the USSR was an absolute all-encompassing evil and therefore had to be destroyed. And it was destroyed, how and why it was done is not important. The main message is that the USSR has been destroyed, receive it and sign it. Of course, there is no analysis or reflection here, not even close - a purely ideological work on the cremation of the body. Why is such work being carried out and further attempts are being made to convince the population that the destruction of their country is good?
First of all, because the silent pro-Soviet majority has not gone away. It turned out to be a stranger at the post-Soviet “celebration of life.” Of course, there is a certain pattern in this - you have to pay for your silence during the murder of your own Motherland - in blood, shame, humiliation. This point is partially realized. But at the same time, sympathies for the Soviet system have not gone away, and for the current state of affairs, these sympathies pose a certain threat, since this very silent pro-Soviet majority is, in fact, a nutritional base for groups whose goal is the revival of the country/empire /union based on Soviet experience. Shame is shame, but you can’t always feel sorry for yourself and engage in self-flagellation? In recent years, certain progress has been made towards the self-organization of this very silent majority, therefore, from the point of view of those who rejoice at the death of the USSR, further work is required to demoralize and atomize the pro-Soviet majority, which is still silent, but at a certain moment may, unlike in 1991, and speak out. In this regard, it is worth stating that the discussion on the topic of whether it is good or bad that the USSR collapsed is not only and not so much a discussion about the past and history. This is, first of all, a discussion about the present and the future, about the choice of development path.
From the point of view of modern Westernizers, the Soviet experience and Soviet history should be sealed in the past and labeled “criminal.” Therefore, when you see that the discussion is moving into this plane, you must understand that active ideological work is underway aimed at preventing the current ideological course from being changed.
The current wave of sympathy for the USSR, expressed in the idealization of Brezhnev’s times or the glorification of Stalin, poses a danger to the pro-Western course, first of all, because from the past, which should be sealed, ideals incompatible with our ideological reality penetrate into our everyday life. A conflict arises between current ideals and the seemingly destroyed Soviet ones, the bearers of which are beginning to become the youth, which in the future creates a certain threat. And, of course, some would like young people to really believe that the reasons for the collapse of the USSR are not important. The dominant point of view should be the emotionally charged assessment “USSR = evil.” Therefore, a meaningful discussion with such characters is not possible in principle, since people simply do their job. Such characters can be clearly seen, say, in the program “Historical Process”, where the position of “The USSR is absolute evil” is very clearly revealed in the speeches of Svanidze and company.
But what is especially pleasing is that every year the percentage of young people who seek to understand the reasons for the death of the USSR is growing. They grew up after the death of the country and their interest is their own reflection, young people who were not involved either directly or indirectly in the death of the country.
Their interest can no longer be attributed to the stupid Soviet agitprop, all conscious life they listened to exactly the opposite - about the criminal past, the bloody Stalin, repressions, the Gulag and an ineffective economy, stupid Soviets, etc., and they were especially hammered into it that “the USSR is evil.” But as practice shows, this thesis is less and less satisfying to young people, who are looking in the past, albeit often idealized, for answers and ways on which to build the future. After all, who else but the youth thinks about how and where the country is moving - they have to live in it. Not finding answers in the bleak present, they look for them in the recent past.
And while interest in society, and primarily among young people, in the country’s development paths will continue, huge sympathy for the Soviet experience is objectively inevitable, since in the foreseeable past the USSR is the closest and most understandable example of how to make the country better, but with taking into account sad experience the collapse of the country, so as not to repeat the mistakes made in Soviet times. Therefore, attempts to divert public discourse from analyzing the complex of reasons that led to the death of the USSR will inevitably fail. The best way to describe this process is to quote Lincoln: “ You can deceive some of the peoplefor a while, and all the people for a while, but you cannot deceive all the people all the time.it's time».
The times when it was possible to deceive the entire people all the time are gradually ending. And therefore, a comprehensive study of the causes of the death of the USSR is extremely important. First of all, for our future.
Conclusion
In general, we can talk about this topic for a long time, which once again shows the complexity of such a historical problem as the “collapse of the USSR.” I don't pretend to cover all aspects - that would require a slightly different investment of time and effort. 10 theses are what, 20 years later, seem important to me in the public discourse about the causes of the death of the Soviet Union.
Despite the fact that 20 years have passed since the death of the country, complete reflection has not occurred in society. All sorts of mythologies, both Soviet and anti-Soviet, are swarming in our heads; a comprehensive, detailed analysis of the causes of the death of the USSR has not yet been made, which means that society still lacks a clear understanding of how and why the Soviet Union died. This misunderstanding poses a certain threat, since the technologies that were used to destroy it are quite applicable to modern Russia. Moreover, they are already being used against her. Therefore, the main point in the permanent discussions around the causes of the death of the USSR is to seek an understanding of how to prevent a repetition of the destruction of our state; otherwise, after a certain number of years, our descendants will argue why the Russian Federation collapsed and who is to blame for it.
Meanwhile, the strongest catalyst for the collapse was the political events that occurred from August 18 to August 21, 1991 in the Soviet Union, which were assessed by officials and government bodies in the USSR as a conspiracy, a coup, an unconstitutional seizure of power, and a putsch.
It would seem that many participants in the events wrote their memoirs, documents were posted, historians and journalists published many texts, filmed documentaries about this, but there is still no consensus in the mass consciousness about these events. However, materials trial over the organizers of the nomenklatura seizure of control and are now classified.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Vladimir Peskov said that “President Putin still believes that this was a disaster for those peoples who lived under the roof of one union state. It was a catastrophe that set us back significantly in our development" (see Peskov spoke about Putin’s attitude to the collapse of the USSR / Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 12/21/2016).
The qualification of the August events as a demonstrative nomenclature takeover of control is not new in Soviet-Russian history. Let us recall that the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev was removed by the nomenklatura in 1964 due to “health reasons,” although he was healthy. Such an interpretation is not included in the typologies of coups d'etat proposed by political scientists and needs to be comprehended. The paradox is that, like the Yeltsin period, the current political regime in Russia can also be qualified as a nomenclature takeover of control, despite the formal election, the Constitution of the Russian Federation and other attributes consonant with democracy. Public policy, which began to grow in the 80s and 90s, was again replaced by behind-the-scenes fighting in the 2000s. It has long been known that everything key decisions in Russia are adopted by an unconstitutional body - the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, and not by the relevant institutions authorized for this - legislative, judicial and executive authorities. This is where the formation takes place. propaganda campaigns in key media.
Nomenklatura is the name for a privileged managerial layer of a special kind formed in the USSR (One of those who drew attention to the nomenklatura as the monopolistic ruling class of the Soviet Union was M.S. Voslensky in the book “Nomenklatura. The Ruling Class of the Soviet Union” (published in German language in 1980, published in the USSR in 1991). This composition included not only those who occupied specific positions in government, but also, for example, history teachers in schools and teachers of scientific communism in higher educational institutions, secretaries Union of Writers and other creative associations, since ideological work was no less important than issues of defense or production. Distinctive features of the Soviet nomenklatura: repressiveness, categorical and militarized consciousness; ahistoricality; lack of critical thinking; suppression of initiative in oneself and others; servility to superiors and the mindset of guessing what he should like (in this regard, the mass production of fictitious and demonstrative products); labeling anyone who disagrees with the declared political course as an enemy; boundless conceit; the use of Soviet ideological clichés; collective commitment, not responsibility (if a decision is made to scold someone, then no one should remain on the sidelines, everyone should take part in this).
In the narrow sense of the word, nomenclature is a list of positions, approval for which took place through the relevant body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. However, there was still an unspoken procedure for approving candidates for important positions through the state security agencies (VChK-OGPU-NKVD-KGB) - this work is now carried out by the presidential administration. Those. in fact, the leading role of the Communist Party was proclaimed, but in reality the centers of power led to the special services, which used this situation to their benefit and to the detriment of the country, as the events of August 1991 showed.
The nomenclature is not only appointed, but also released after consideration by the party (Komsomol) bodies. In addition to the list of positions that were included in the list for consideration by the relevant party body, the practice of considering misconduct in relation to other non-nomenklatura persons was widespread. For example, in most cases, expulsion from the Komsomol could lead to expulsion from a higher educational institution.
In addition, it is important to take into account that for the events described, not some specific type of economy was built, but a militarized economy of a special type, which was no longer manageable and was falling apart before our eyes.
Without understanding such things, it is difficult to understand both the events of August 1991, the collapse of the USSR, and the current situation in the Russian Federation. In addition, there is Great chance repetitions of the forceful nomenklatura takeover of control in modern Russia, since the features of the Soviet nomenklatura are steadily reproduced not only by the current ruling group, but also by the so-called “systemic opposition” represented by the Communist Party, “liberal democrats”, “A Just Russia”.
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The collapse of the USSR was an accident or a pattern
Introduction
Chapter 1. Prerequisites and causes of disintegration processes in the USSR on the eve of the collapse
1.1 Reasons for disintegration in the USSR
1.2 The process of collapse of the Soviet state (autumn 1990 - winter 1991). Characteristics of stages
Chapter 2. “Regularities” and “accidents” in the process of the collapse of the USSR
2.1 Contradictory reasons for the collapse of the USSR
2.2 Historical background collapse of the USSR
Conclusion
List of used literature
Introduction
soviet union collapse disintegration
The collapse of the USSR, the disintegration of a multinational empire, which for three hundred years played one of the key roles on the Eurasian continent - one of the most significant events in world history of the 20th century. This is perhaps the only assessment that is accepted by the majority of historians and politicians without controversy or reasoning.
Consideration of the problem of the causes of the collapse of the USSR is far from this consensus opinion, since this process has quite multifaceted trends in its development. The possibility and feasibility of preventing these contradictions is practically impossible at the present time, since the polarization of society continues into those who negatively assess the collapse of the USSR and those who see in its disintegration the path to progress, the birth new Russia. Scientific analysis the process of collapse of the Soviet state is associated with various subjective political and ideological positions of researchers.
In this work, an attempt is made to summarize the main views on the causes and prerequisites for the collapse of the USSR, on the issues of a natural or random element in the issue of disunity of the USSR.
Purpose of the study: to consider the main trends and causes of the collapse of the USSR, to highlight the elements of accidents and patterns of this process.
To achieve this goal, the following tasks are put forward: to consider the causes of disintegration in the USSR; highlight the process of collapse of the Soviet state (autumn 1990 - winter 1991). Characteristics of the stages; determine the contradiction in the reasons for the collapse of the USSR; consider the historical background of the collapse of the USSR.
When writing the work, materials from Russian researchers were used - M. Zuev Zuev M.N. National history: In 2 books. - M.: Onyx 21st century, 2010 - Book. 2: Russia in the XX - early XXI centuries. - 672 s. , Sh. Munchaeva, V. Ustinova Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Russian history. - M.: Norma; Infra-M, 2012. - 758 p. and etc.; classic works of foreign authors (N. Wert Wert N. History of the Soviet State. 1900-1991. - M.: Ves mir, 2009. - 544 pp., J. Hosking Hosking J. History of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). - Smolensk : Rusich, 2010. - 496 pp.).
Chapter 1. Prerequisites and causes of disintegration processes in the USSR on the eve of the collapse
1.1 Reasons for disintegration in the USSR
The reasons for the collapse of the USSR are multifaceted. They can be considered in various aspects- political, national, international, economic. Let's try to dwell on each of them.
It should be noted that one of the main prerequisites for the disintegration of the Soviet state lies in the very nature of the country. The USSR was created in 1922 as a federal state. However, over time, it increasingly turned into an essentially unitary state, controlled from the center and leveling the differences between the republics and subjects of federal relations Vert N. Decree. slave. - P. 537. .
The first conflict on ethnic grounds occurred back in 1986 in Alma-Ata. In 1988, hostilities began between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory populated predominantly by Armenians, but which was part of the AzSSR. In April 1989, mass demonstrations took place in Tbilisi for several days. The main demands of the demonstrators were democratic reforms and independence of Georgia. The Abkhaz population spoke in favor of revising the status of the Abkhaz ASSR and separating it from the Georgian SSR. World History: Cold War. Collapse of the USSR. Modern world / V.V. Adamczyk (ed. coll.). - M.: AST, 2012. - P. 376. .
The growth of centrifugal tendencies in the USSR had very serious reasons, but the Soviet leadership, as in its other political actions, showed a complete inability to cope with them. The refusal to consider national contradictions as a serious problem in fact only further confused the issue and, rather, contributed to the aggravation of the struggle rather than vice versa.
Thus, the growing confrontation between the union center and the republics became not only a struggle for reforms, but also a struggle between the central and local elites for power. The result of these processes was the so-called “parade of sovereignties” Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Decree. slave. - P. 692. .
On June 12, 1990, the First Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia. It legislated the priority of republican laws over union ones. B.N. Yeltsin became the first president of the Russian Federation, A.V. became the vice-president. Rutskoy Modern international relations / Moscow State University. Institute of International Relations / A.V. Torkunov (ed.). - M.: ROSSPEN, 2010. - P. 459. .
By the fall of 1990, it was already obvious that after five and a half years of perestroika, the Soviet Union had entered a new stage in its history and from the point of view domestic policy, and in developing relations with the whole world. A genuine revolution of minds took place, making it impossible to return to the previous state. However, and this was a grave danger for the future of the experiment undertaken by Gorbachev and his team to modernize the country, none of the three key problems that arose after 1985 were resolved:
1) the problem of political pluralism, an organic component of any process of democratization;
2) the problem of creating a market economy.
Although it should be noted that on July 20, 1990, the main provisions of the adopted Russian government The program, dubbed the “500 Day Trust Mandate” and providing for the privatization of state property and freeing prices, were published in the press. This “Yeltsin plan” was presented as an alternative program to the more cautious plan that was being prepared for the entire Soviet Union by the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, Ryzhkov. However, this program turned out to be stillborn;
3) the problem of the federal agreement Hosking J. Decree. slave. - P. 490. .
One of the important prerequisites that played a role in the collapse of the USSR was the economic factor. The moribund planned economy demonstrated rapidly growing rates of inflation (in the last years of the USSR, prices rose quite quickly), a gulf between the cash and non-cash rubles, destructive for any economy, bursting at the seams planned system and the severance of economic ties with the union republics.
The processes of the collapse of the Soviet state took place against the backdrop of democratic transformations in the countries of Eastern Europe, the result of which was a fall in them in 1989-1990. communist regimes.
Thus, by 1991, a rigid knot of contradictions had formed in the USSR in the political, national, economic spheres. The impossibility of resolving the problems facing the country as a whole predetermined the fate of the Soviet state.
1.2 The process of collapse of the Soviet state (autumn 1990 - winter 1991). Characteristics of stages
From the point of view of political analysis, the year from the autumn of 1990 to the winter of 1991, which, according to the French researcher N. Werth, is key in the process of the collapse of the USSR, is divided into three stages. Werth N. Decree. slave. - P. 537. :
1) the period before the signing on April 23, 1991 by Gorbachev, representing the union center, and the leaders of nine republics (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan) of the document known as the “9+1 Statement”, which declared the principles of the new union treaty.
2) the period from the end of April 1991, marked by a kind of “truce,” seemed to be established in the relations between Yeltsin and Gorbachev, who were mutually concerned about the decline in the authority of any state power. Gorbachev played a more subtle political game, ceasing to systematically resort, as was evident during the January events in Vilnius, to using conservative forces to create a “counterweight” to Yeltsin. Meanwhile, the political and economic situation in the country deteriorated so much that in August an attempt by conservative forces to carry out a coup d'état became possible. - P. 538. ;
The period after the failure of the putsch on August 19-21, when the defeat inflicted on the conservative camp catastrophically accelerated the collapse of the Union, led to the abolition of previous government structures, including the KGB, the suspension of activities and the subsequent ban of the CPSU. In less than four months, a new and very unstable geopolitical formation arose in the place of the former USSR - the CIS.
Moving on to a more detailed consideration of these periods, we note that the first open conflict between supporters of Gorbachev and Yeltsin erupted in October 1990 during a discussion alternative projects economic reform. On October 11, speaking at the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Gorbachev expressed support for the option presented by the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Ryzhkov. This plan, which ultimately provided for a transition to “real” prices, freeing wages, increasing the independence of enterprises, and social protection of the unemployed, the appearance of which its implementation would inevitably cause, was immediately criticized by the authors of a competing project known as the “Program 500” days”, which received the support of Yeltsin and the majority of Russian parliamentarians Zuev M.N. Decree. slave. - P. 625. . G. Yavlinsky, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, and then B. Yeltsin spoke in the Russian parliament on October 17 against a “return to the administrative-command system.” The “500 days program,” approved by the people’s deputies of the RSFSR several weeks earlier, Yeltsin said, was torpedoed by the first measures taken in accordance with the presidential plan. The mutually exclusive nature of the two programs was beyond doubt. Yeltsin's supporters refused any kind of compromise, convinced that the president's plan would soon fail.
On November 23, the republics were presented with the next version of the draft new union treaty Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Decree. slave. - P. 721. . All republics took part in its discussion, with the exception of the Baltic and Georgia. Although references to socialism disappeared from the draft and the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” gave way to the “Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics,” the influence of the center was felt in every article and this version of the treaty J. Hosking. History of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). - Smolensk: Rusich, 2010. - P. 488. .
At the same time, already at the time of presentation, this project belonged to the past: three days earlier, on November 20, a bilateral agreement was concluded between Russia and Ukraine, according to which the two republics recognized each other’s sovereignty and the need for economic cooperation without the participation of the center on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. Two days later, a similar agreement was signed between Russia and Kazakhstan. These agreements, said Boris Yeltsin, create a model of the new Union and the core around which it will be formed.
On January 12, during the operation of the Soviet Army to seize the Lithuanian television building in Vilnius, 16 people were killed. This action, enthusiastically greeted by the Lithuanian National Salvation Committee, created from opponents of the independence of the republic, the military, conservatives, and part of the press, led to a final split in the intelligentsia, which until then had mostly supported Gorbachev.
The events in Vilnius, repeated a few days later in Riga, sharply aggravated the conflict between reformers and conservatives. On January 22, B. Yeltsin strongly condemned the use of force in the Baltic republics. On January 26, the Union government announced the introduction of joint police and military patrols of the streets of large cities from February 1 under the pretext of intensifying the fight against rising crime. On January 24, 1991, he announced the withdrawal of fifty- and hundred-ruble banknotes from circulation on the pretext of fighting the “shadow economy.” The immediate and, in fact, the only tangible result of this operation was the indignation and growth of discontent among the population World History: The Cold War. The collapse of the USSR... - P. 366. .
On February 21, in the midst of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations sweeping Moscow, Leningrad and other major cities, Yeltsin, in a televised speech, demanded Gorbachev’s resignation and the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In response, Gorbachev accused the “so-called democrats” of “seeking to destabilize the country” ahead of the all-Union referendum on the issue of preserving the USSR, scheduled for March 17.
The demands of the reformers received strong support from the leading organizations of the independent labor movement that arose during the summer strikes of 1989, primarily in the coal basins of Donbass, Kuzbass and Vorkuta Vert N. Decree. slave. - P. 539. . In 1991, miners began a strike on March 1, now demanding not only an increase in wages in connection with the announced increase in retail prices after April 2, but also the resignation of Gorbachev, the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the nationalization of the property of the CPSU, a real multi-party system, the departition of enterprises and organizations . In essence, the process of departitionization had already been going on since the fall, when at hundreds of enterprises workers and strike committees removed party committees and official trade union bodies from business and occupied their premises. Once again, as in 1917, the incapacity of official structures became obvious, and the “power vacuum” fully manifested itself, primarily in the localities.
Chaos in public administration increased even more after the referendum on March 17. According to the results of the referendum, 80% of Russians supported holding general elections of their own president, and only about 50% of Muscovites and Leningraders and 40% of Kiev residents expressed a desire to preserve the Union in the proposed form. History of State and Law of Russia... - P. 239. .
The ambiguous results of the referendum were quickly overshadowed by the increase in prices (from 2 to 5 times), which horrified the population, which caused all the more indignation because wages were increased by an average of only 20-30%. The most massive strikes of labor collectives took place in Minsk, clearly showing how much the self-awareness of the working class grew and radicalized after the summer of 1989: not limiting itself to economic demands, the workers opposed the socio-political system as a whole, putting forward slogans for the resignation of Gorbachev and the entire union government, the abolition all privileges, abolition of the KGB, full restoration of private ownership of land, holding free elections on the basis of a multi-party system, departitioning enterprises and transferring them under the jurisdiction of the republics. In April, the number of strikers exceeded one million.
Under these conditions, among conservatives the idea of organizing a conspiracy both against the new model of the Union and against reforms in general arose. On the morning of August 19, TASS transmitted a message about the creation of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP), which included 8 people, including Vice-President of the USSR Yanaev, Prime Minister Pavlov, KGB Chairman Kryuchkov, Minister of Defense Yazov, Minister of Internal Affairs dot Pugo Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Decree. slave. - M.: Norma; Infra-M, 2012. - P. 728. . Stating that USSR President Gorbachev, who was on vacation in Crimea, “is unable to fulfill his duties due to health reasons,” the State Emergency Committee announced its intention to restore order in the country and prevent the collapse of the Union. The State Emergency Committee declared a state of emergency in certain regions of the country. Power structures that, in the opinion of the State Emergency Committee, acted contrary to the Constitution of the USSR were disbanded. The activities of opposition parties and movements were suspended, rallies and demonstrations were prohibited. Flocked to Moscow military equipment and troops. In Resolution No. 1, the State Emergency Committee promised to increase wages, give all workers 15 acres of land, and provide everyone with housing. State of emergency was set for six months, censorship was introduced.
However, having met popular resistance led by RSFSR President Yeltsin, the putsch failed. Indecision and split in the troops, the confusion of the putschists, who fell into prostration in the face of an unexpected reaction from Muscovites (as well as Leningraders, residents of other major cities), tens and then hundreds of thousands of whom spontaneously gathered in front of the building of the Russian parliament, which became a stronghold of resistance to the newly-minted junta, the hesitation of the troops brought into Moscow in front of unarmed people opposing them, the support of Yeltsin by the majority of governments around the world and international public opinion - in their totality, all these factors determined that in less than three days the attempt coup d'etat Zuev M.N. was liquidated. Decree. slave. - P. 590. .
On the evening of August 21, Gorbachev returned to Moscow, but by this time Yeltsin, who emerged as the main winner from this test, in the words of one French politician, “won the shoulder straps of the head of state.” Ibid. - P. 592. .
The failure of the coup attempt, which demonstrated the incredible growth of public consciousness and political maturity of the masses, sharply accelerated the collapse of the USSR, led to Gorbachev’s loss of influence and power, and the abolition of previous institutions central government. In the days that followed the failure of the coup, eight republics declared their independence, and the three Baltic republics, having already achieved their recognition by the international community, were recognized by the Soviet Union on September 6 World History: Cold War. The collapse of the USSR... - P. 362. .
M. Gorbachev, despite his newly confirmed commitment to communist ideals, resigned his post as General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and dissolved the Central Committee. The activities of the CPSU were suspended, and a few weeks later they were completely banned by Yeltsin. Due to the removal of a number of important functions and departments from the competence of the KGB, this organization was greatly reduced. There was a complete renewal of the political establishment (from media leaders to members of the government), which included reformers and Yeltsin’s associates, who immediately consolidated the new position with a number of parliamentary resolutions. Gorbachev, wanting to preserve the center and thereby his post, proposed a new - but too reminiscent of the past - version of the union treaty. However, the political positions of the President of the USSR were already too weakened by the putsch.
Chapter 2. “Regularities” and “accidents” in the process of the collapse of the USSR
2.1 Contradictory reasons for the collapse of the USSR
The process of holding a referendum on the preservation of the USSR (March 1991) and the subsequent collapse of the country during the Belovezh Accords (December 1991) can be considered one event of a contradictory nature. The majority of the population said “yes” at the same time to both the preservation of the “big country” and its disintegration, approving the national-state independence of their republics. There is still no agreement among experts about what this phenomenon means. But it is obvious that the factors that determined the “lifetime” of the USSR were complex nature. Some of them can still be named.
Our century has witnessed the transformation of many government entities. It's not just about empires. A number of federal states collapsed, and in some others elements of confederal relations were introduced. A difficult fate also befell individual unitary state units (the collapse of Pakistan, the division of the Republic of Cyprus, the formation of the Palestinian Authority within Israel, the federalization of Belgium, the introduction of a system of relations close to a federal one in Spain and Great Britain).
Ethno-territorial separatism is very noticeable in global political processes. Along with this, opposite trends are also expressed - towards regional integration. The most striking example here is the formation of the European Union, but a similar direction of political processes is also typical for other regions of the world. It can be stated that for now geopolitical processes are akin to tectonic ones: they are observed, but not controlled. The region cannot be considered unique either Northern Eurasia, where over the course of a century two sociopolitical systems have changed: the Russian Empire and the USSR, and now there is a third (CIS).
In the 20th century, the world experienced two revolutions in technology: heavy industrialization (around World War II) and the computer revolution (begun in the 1950s and 1960s). Radical changes also took place in the field of politics: the introduction of universal suffrage, a radical reorganization of public administration (the creation of a “rule of law state”), and the emergence of a “welfare state.” These changes were global in nature, but their leaders were countries Western Europe and North America, where “primary modernization” - the industrial revolution - began earlier. The leaders were followed by other countries that began “secondary” industrial modernization from other countries. starting positions. Russia was among them. The states living in the “catch-up development” mode were faced with the task of covering in the shortest period of time a path that took the West many decades to achieve. One of the options for “secondary modernization,” as many historians and sociologists admit, was the “socialist path of development.” “Secondary” modernization often gives rise to a special type of society called “mobilization”. As a result, in order to achieve socially significant goals, society was forced to pay a higher “price”, regardless of costs, including human casualties.
The peculiarity of the Soviet Union was that here technological modernization was not synchronized with changes in political structure. If at the stage of heavy industrialization (the creation of production of means of production, communication systems operating on the basis of an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, etc.) the imbalance between the technological and political foundations of society did not manifest itself so clearly, then the scientific and technological (computer) revolution of the second half of the 20th century V. in countries of this type could not be implemented without a radical transformation of their political organization. The archaic political system itself came into conflict with the development needs of the country and its peoples. The victim of this conflict was the state, which carried out accelerated modernization in a “mobilization” mode and failed to carry out “demobilization” at the right historical moment.
The costs of “catch-up development” and increasing global unevenness were complemented by the intrastate sociocultural distance between the peoples and regions of the USSR. In Soviet times, it was never possible to level out the level of socio-economic and socio-cultural development of ethnic groups and regions of the country. Thus, fertile soil was created for the ideology of nationalism. Its spread in the 19th and especially in the 20th centuries. has acquired an avalanche-like character, determined by modernization processes. Although the right to self-determination was central to the Bolshevik national program and enabled the creation of the USSR, few of the country's peoples were in control in the 1920s. at the level of development that presupposes the desire for national-state independence. But later the socio-economic development of the USSR led to the growth of nationalism among numerous peoples countries. We are talking about the emergence of a national political, managerial, creative elite that accumulates the values of a given people. Nationalism developed in a particularly crisis form among peoples who had not gone through all stages of the modernization process. The very state structure of the USSR left room for the implementation of this ideology.
2.2 Historical background for the collapse of the USSR
The Russian Empire was a unitary state, although it included a number of self-governing territories. During the revolution and civil war Federalist ideas allowed the Bolsheviks to “gather” lands and peoples and recreate Russian statehood. In the early 1920s. The USSR was created. The new Union of four countries (Russian and Transcaucasian Federations, Ukraine and Belarus) took shape as a confederation. Each state had the right to secede from the Union. Subsequently, Ukraine and Belarus even became members of the UN, and this is one of the signs of state sovereignty. At the same time, trends of unitarianism also developed. Their carrier was the Communist Party. Already at the XII Congress of the RCP (b) (1923), the thesis about its dictatorship was adopted, which was established as a constitutional norm. The party performed the functions of a unitary state. Elements of confederalism, federalism and unitarism coexisted in the state structure of the Soviet Union until recently.
Of course, Unitarianism dominated. But he was strong as long as the power of the Communist Party remained. With its weakening (second half of the 1980s), confederal and federal sentiments revived. Separatist movements emerged. In conditions of commodity shortages, domestic customs began to be introduced. The emergence of “buyer's calling cards” highlighted the collapse of the unified financial system. The Belovezhskaya agreements of December 1991 only legally formalized the collapse of a single state.
In the works of the late 1980s. our research team consistently insisted on the reorganization of the USSR, taking into account both the peculiarities of the state structure (the combination of elements of confederation, federation and unitarianism), and the integration experience of the Western European community. A gradual transition to a type of regional integration was proposed. Perhaps, by choosing this vector of development, it would be possible to already have in Northern Eurasia a political system of a more civilized and, most importantly, promising type than the CIS.
The policy of the Government of M.S. Gorbachev was multidirectional. On the one hand, the core that held together both the political and economic system USSR (party leadership, state dominance in the economy, hierarchy of subordination of territories, etc.). Instead, a new durable structure was not created. The 1991 referendum, according to the plan, was supposed to strengthen the legitimacy of the central government and formally and legally suppress separatist sentiments. But could it have legal consequences? The referendum procedure requires that the issue be clearly understood and not subject to multiple interpretations. In reality, the referendum invited people to simultaneously speak out on several issues, artificially combined into one phrase. The legal consequences of such a vote would be negligible. At the same time, the “Novo-Ogarevo process” was underway, during which lower-level autonomous entities acquired a new “patron” in the person of the central government. As experience has shown, this policy turned out to be a failure.
We must not forget about the personal factor, which ultimately decided the fate of the USSR. We are talking not only about disagreements in the CPSU Central Committee, which led to an attempted coup in August 1991. (It is known that it was then that the Baltic republics declared their independence, and soon Ukraine.) The confrontation between the leadership of the USSR and the RSFSR, which became the last the drop that destroyed the Soviet Union. Thus, we do not consider the collapse of the USSR to be either a random or inevitable event, but interpret it as a manifestation of social patterns that are not fully realized.
Conclusion
Analysis of the material presented in the work allows us to come to the following conclusions and generalizations.
The reasons for the collapse of the USSR lie on various planes - political, economic and spiritual. Exhausting opportunities for extensive development; a sharp drop in economic growth rates; the undivided dominance of the command-administrative system of economic management; further centralization in economic management; crisis of the system of non-economic coercion, lack of real economic incentives for workers; huge costs for the military-industrial complex; The economy of the USSR could no longer withstand competition with the West - all this is determined by the economic crisis.
The crisis of the political system was associated with the complete dominance of the CPSU and Marxist-Leninist ideology in the socio-political life; the determining role of the party leadership in making almost all decisions; intensifying repression against dissidents; increased bureaucratization in public administration; deepening crisis in interethnic relations.
In the spiritual sphere, comprehensive ideological control over culture and education was established; wide use double morality and double standards of behavior; increasing the gap between word and deed; avoidance of an objective analysis of the state of affairs in society; another round of rehabilitation of Stalinism; the growth of mass skepticism, political apathy, and cynicism; a catastrophic decline in the authority of management at all levels.
The pattern of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nature of the predetermination of the collapse of the Soviet Union, is also exaggerated by many researchers. Rather, a group of people who wanted to come to power determined the fate of the USSR; there was a banal change from one political group to another, without taking into account the opinion of the majority of the population.
Thus, the collapse of the USSR was not a natural phenomenon, but rather an accidental one, since a country of such a scale needed at least another 10-20 years before it naturally came to naught. The main reason for the collapse is therefore insolvency political forces The Soviet Union to continue its policy.
List of used literature
1. Vert N. History of the Soviet State. 1900-1991. - M.: The whole world, 2009. - 544 p.
2. World history: Cold War. Collapse of the USSR. Modern world / V.V. Adamczyk (ed. coll.). - M.: AST, 2012. - 400 p.
3. Gurina N. Russians want to return back to the USSR // RBC daily. 2011. March 30. URL: http://www.rbcdaily.ru/2011/03/30/focus/562949979962338 (access date: 06/17/2011).
4. Ten years later, Russians mourn the USSR. URL: http://www.inosmi.ru/untitled/20011211/142450.html (access date: 06/17/2011).
5. Treaty on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. December 30, 1922 // Failed anniversary: Why didn’t the USSR celebrate its 70th anniversary? M., 2009. pp. 22-27.
6. Documents on the creation of the CIS // Diplomatic Bulletin. - 1992. - No. 1. - January 15. - P. 7-26.
7. Zuev M.N. Domestic history: In 2 books. - M.: Onyx 21st century, 2010 - Book. 2: Russia in the XX - early XXI centuries. - 672 s.
8. History of state and law in Russia / Ed. Yu.P. Titova. - M.: Prospekt, 1997.
9. History of the creation of the CIS // Club of the CIS and Baltic countries MGIMO // http://www.sng.nso-mgimo.ru/sng_sozdanie.shtml
11. Lobanov D.V. Seven samurai of the USSR. They fought for their homeland! M., 2012.
12. Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Russian history. - M.: Norma; Infra-M, 2010. - 758 p.
13. Naumov N.V. International aspects of the collapse of the USSR // Elections in Russia: Scientific Journal // http://www.vybory.ru/nauka/0100/naumov.php3
14. Parkhomenko S. Gennady Burbulis: Political role - “killer” // Nezavisimaya Gazeta. 1992. January 29. S. 2.
15. Prazauskas A. A. Could the “Indestructible Union” be eternal? // Free thought. 1992. No. 8.
16. Pribylovsky V., Tochkin G. Who abolished the USSR and how? // New daily newspaper. 1994. December 21. S. 6.; The union could have been saved. P. 507.
17. Rubtsov N. Train // Rubtsov N. Russia, Rus'! Take care of yourself... M., 1992. P. 109.
18. Modern international relations / Moscow State. Institute of International Relations / A.V. Torkunov (ed.). - M.: ROSSPEN, 2000. - 584 p.
19. Agreement on the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. December 8, 1991 // The Union could have been saved. White paper. 2nd ed. M., 2010. pp. 451-455.
20. Turgunbekov J. International political status of the CIS (To the 7th anniversary of the creation of the CIS) // Scientific and educational magazine “Polysphere” // http://polysphere.freenet.kg/no1/PSF1A07.htm.
21. Hosking J. History of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). - Smolensk: Rusich, 2010. - 496 p.
22. Tsipko A. If the collapse of the state is the price to pay for getting rid of communism, then it is prohibitively expensive // Me and the World. 1992. No. 1.
23. Shishkov Yu. Collapse of an empire: Politicians’ mistake or inevitability? // Science and life. 1992. No. 8.
24. Shutov A.D. On the ruins great power, or The Agony of Power. M., 2004. P. 43.
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REASONS FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR
Yeltsin's press secretary P. Voshchanov called the reason for the collapse of the USSR as follows:
“Everything is much more complicated. You remember how in 1991 everyone was already talking about the transition to a market economy. But what is a market? New property relations and new owners. The struggle between the center and local political elites at that time was a struggle over who would play first fiddle in the historical division. This is the main thing in the tragedy that occurred.”
Everything is true here except the word “tragedy”. Gorbachev created a bourgeois USSR out of the communist USSR: a multi-party system, a ban on the CPSU, the dispersal of the Politburo, the introduction of a market (literally capitalist) economy, and finally, the very replacement of the USSR with Gorbachev’s USSR.
Gorbachev thought he could govern such a new bourgeois country. But Gorbachev knew history poorly: as soon as tsarist Russia collapsed as a result of the bourgeois February revolution of 1917, its national bourgeois subjects (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and the Caucasus countries) immediately demanded national independence, since without it the bourgeois system itself is impossible in principle.
Therefore, the USG - in fact the Union of Capitalist States - was obviously a chimera of Gorbachev: under state capitalism, the national elite rules. No one will share billions of dollars with the Center. As a result, Gorbachev repeated once again the history of Tsarist Russia. As soon as he introduced capitalism, he immediately lost power over everything.
Whether Gorbachev understood this or not, he never said. But the fact is that he read the so-called “Burbulis memorandum” - named after the politician who replaced Gorbachev in his office, who is credited with authorship. This is supposedly a secret text from Yeltsin’s advisers, which Gorbachev received long before the collapse of the USSR. There are two important points in the document.
1. “Before the August events, the Russian leadership, opposing the old totalitarian regime, could rely on the support of the leaders of the overwhelming majority of the union republics, who were striving to strengthen their own political positions. The liquidation of the old center invariably brings to the fore the objective contradictions of the interests of Russia and other republics. For the latter, maintaining the existing resource flows and financial and economic relations during the transition period means a unique opportunity to reconstruct the economy at the expense of Russia. For the RSFSR, already experiencing a serious crisis, this is a serious additional burden on economic structures, undermining the possibility of its economic revival.”
2. “Objectively, Russia does not need an economic center standing above it, engaged in the redistribution of its resources. However, many other republics are interested in such a center. Having established control over property on their territory, they seek, through allied bodies, to redistribute the property and resources of Russia in their favor. Since such a center can only exist with the support of the republics, it will objectively, regardless of its personnel composition, pursue policies that are contrary to the interests of Russia.”
The position is clear and absolutely correct: the format of state capitalism does not fit into outdated union relations. For example, today Russia, having received hundreds of billions of dollars from oil speculation (selling it at exorbitant prices), would have to distribute most of the profits to the republics of Central Asia, where almost as many people live as in Russia itself, although these countries have nothing to do with Russian oil reserves have.
Gorbachev’s exclusion from the Constitution of the USSR-USG and the Constitutions of the republics for the Novo-Ogarevo agreements of the people’s socialist ownership of the means of production (and the country’s subsoil) meant that from now on Latvians and Tajiks have no rights to the diamonds of Yakutia and the oil of Siberia. This is the END of the USSR. The division of previously national property and the national subsoil of the USSR into national apartments INEVITABLY leads to the disintegration of the country into national apartments. This is an axiom. For we in the USSR were united by our common all-Union national property. As soon as she was gone, there was no more common ground. This is the same as dissolving a collective farm, distributing tractors and cows as family property to the villagers - and then waiting from heaven again for some kind of “integration” of the villagers.
And the most important thing is that only Russia is so rich in all sorts of resources, and there are many neighbors of Russia who want to have them either for free or at bargain prices. But today Russia is already a well-worn mess, and its neighbors cannot easily be deceived, and in Russia itself there is such an abyss of problems that thinking about neighbors without solving them is simply bad for one’s own people.
In general, just as we have gone to national apartments, we will remain in them for the foreseeable future. In full accordance with the teachings of Karl Marx. After all, Marxism does not provide for the reconstruction of the USSR from countries that have been capitalist for almost 20 years and are not going to get rid of their capitalism, because they live better that way. And the most important proof of this is the fact that our bourgeois CIS countries are or were ruled in these two decades by former members of the Politburo, the CPSU Central Committee and simply members of the CPSU, and even former Komsomol functionaries. None of them in the CIS ever hinted at returning the people to their socialist ownership of the means of production, returning the CPSU to power and returning the Politburo as the governing body of the country. That is, the top, former members of the Politburo and first secretaries of the republics completely agree with the state of affairs where they became presidents. That's the main thing for them.
What about the party? What about the idea? Everything is forgotten. Which once again proves the rottenness of our USSR. Who would have thought that the leaders of the CPSU from the Asian republics would suddenly become OPENLY AND WITHOUT HIDING, having received the presidency, the main capitalists in their homeland, and their relatives would become the owners of factories, television channels, hotels, and oil wells? This metamorphosis was obvious in advance; we were simply too confident in our ideals of youth. Isn’t it crazy that the son of a member of the CPSU Central Committee or the USSR Politburo is a dollar millionaire? And this is the NORM today for almost all southern CIS countries.
WHO NEEDS A CONSPIRACY THEORY?
Why is the history of the collapse of the USSR not presented honestly in a lot of articles and films - but instead monstrously distorted? Why were the main aspects missed - the Ukrainian referendum, the issue of eliminating socialism in the USSR, Gorbachev’s proposals to give republican status to the autonomies? Why is everything reduced only to the “Belovezhskaya conspirators” and to the “machinations of the West”? That is, to Conspiracy Theory.
In my opinion, there are several reasons for this. I'll name the main ones.
1. The national elites of the CIS countries (former members of the CPSU Central Committee and the Politburo, members of the party apparatus and the Komsomol, the corps of directors, etc.) with the collapse of the USSR became the owners of the very property that was “public” in the USSR. And the collapse of the USSR hides a completely different secret - one that is truly within the framework of Conspiracy Theory: the topic of privatization. That is, the topic of dividing the people's socialist property (and such sharing with the people is mandatory if the country abandons socialism).
Few people know that it was not Chubais who invented vouchers, but the Gorbachev administration was the first to prepare the introduction of vouchers in the planned GCC. It is difficult to judge what would have come of this, but, apparently, it would have been the same as with Chubais’s vouchers, because the Russian privatization program largely repeated the one that was developed for the SSG by Gorbachev’s team and was proposed for signing and implementation in the Novosibirsk package. Ogarevo agreements.
In fact, the privatization program was drawn up by those who then controlled the property of the USSR - and was drawn up so that they would become its main owners.
However, similar privatization in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the GDR was fair: all the socialist property of the people was counted and assessed - and divided by the number of residents of the country. As a result, the share of each family turned out to be quite large: with vouchers, the family became the owner of a small store or a significant shareholder in a large enterprise, and in the mid-1990s the share of “income from privatized property” in the income of families in these countries averaged from 20 to 40% and higher. In Russia, as you know, Chubais’ voucher was sold for a bottle of vodka. That is, all the socialist property of the RSFSR, created over 70 years of labor of Russians into the “collective piggy bank of a large collective farm,” was reduced to 150 million bottles of vodka.
The population of the CIS countries was deceived: in some countries, a handful of people (former party nomenklatura and directors) became the owner of nation-wide factories and resources; in other countries, state capitalism (that is, the bureaucracy) became their owner. So, in order to hide this blatant theft of public property from their people, the new owners are doing their best to hide this issue from consideration. And that is why the collapse of the USSR is viewed selectively only as an administrative collapse of the country, avoiding discussion of the topic of the collapse of the socialist formation - because this issue is directly related to the question of HOW our national property was divided. And therefore, the new owners are extremely interested in hiding the history of their dishonest appropriation of this property and blaming everything on the “Belovezhskaya conspirators,” or, even better, on the CIA or the West. Like, “as long as it’s away from us.”
2. The collapse of the USSR was a blow to the mentality of those who thought in “imperial terms.” Recently in Russia the idea of “Empire” has become very popular, and the USSR is already associated with “historical Russia” and the “Russian Empire”, and in such myths the collapse of the USSR is mistakenly presented as the “collapse of Russia”. It is clear that such an interpretation of the events of 1991 does not seek real facts and reasons, but simply requires a mythical “anti-Russian conspiracy.”
4. Populist leaders of the CIS countries (such as Zhirinovsky and his LDPR party) capitalize on the nostalgia of the marginal part of the population for the USSR - and therefore are also extremely interested in talking about the collapse of the USSR as a “conspiracy of our enemies.”
5. Any executive power of the CIS countries itself is always interested in preserving “Soviet traditions,” because in the USSR there was no Civil Society capable of controlling it. The Soviet people have always been very easy to manage - like an obedient herd. Hence the cult of the USSR, the praise of the USSR, the celebration of Soviet holidays and especially military ones - with the simultaneous denunciation of Gorbachev’s Perestroika and all its democratic achievements. Within the framework of this demagoguery, the chaos of the mid-1990s is blamed on Perestroika, and not at all on the rule of the new owners who took their socialist property from the people into their own private or state-capitalist one. In such a context, a truthful account of the history of the collapse of the USSR is simply impossible.
This specificity is fully reflected in the work of the CIS structures, where our friendly desire for integration is always stated (as if to recreate the USSR), but in reality we're talking about only about the formalization of our post-Soviet relations. For the real, and not in words, reconstruction of the USSR is a return to the socialist ownership of the people in the means of production and mineral resources, which, when implemented, removes all obstacles to the unification of countries. That is, complete deprivatization. And without the transfer of property and mineral resources to the people, the restoration of the USSR is in principle impossible.
There is only another option - when during unification there is no need to break the property system, transferring it from private to national, and especially international with the united republics. This option was proposed by Putin: in order for the peoples of other CIS countries to become, like in the USSR, also involved in Russia’s resources, they should become part of it simply as new provinces - because Russia no longer intends to consider its resources “all-Union”.
Life, as we see, shows that no revival of the USSR is possible in principle, since Russia and its structures (Gazprom in the first place) do not intend to share with the “brotherly peoples”. Unless the neighbors completely renounce all their statehood, which, however, does not in any way make them co-owners of Russian resources. For no “USSR” is being revived (that is, the national socialist ownership of all republics for all means of production and mineral resources).
It must be admitted that Yeltsin's advisers were right. Russia, according to Putin's definition, is energy country, its main source of income is the sale of energy resources. If Russia continued to share these incomes with the CIS countries, being in some kind of allied relations with them, then they would really solve their problems of state building (with the obvious prospect of future independence) at the expense of Russia. In this regard, the “divorce of the republics” was most beneficial to Russia itself. Those huge incomes that Russia shared with other republics have now become only its income - and today they allow us to solve many of the country’s accumulated ailments and problems: the problem of poverty, and the problem of meager salaries for doctors and teachers, and bad roads, and much, much more. .
And, of course, Yeltsin’s refusal of Gorbachev’s plan to dismember the RSFSR into autonomous states was also fateful for Russia. The demonization of all previous rulers of the country, which has been a tradition since the times of the USSR, also seems unfair. Brezhnev, accused of creating a “period of stagnation,” nevertheless removed the execution of dissidents from our lives. Gorbachev, who was responsible for the collapse of the USSR, nevertheless created the beginnings of Civil Society and democracy with his Perestroika. Yeltsin, creating a class of oligarchs through unfair privatization, was also convinced that he was serving the good of Russia by ridding it of communism and cannibalistic communist ideas. Single digit historical estimates it can't be here.
Except one. The USSR - as a complete dead end in the history of Human Civilization - should have, in its own way, internal reasons break up back in the 1940s. It was saved only by the victory over Nazism in World War II, which immeasurably strengthened the USSR’s position in the world and veiled the problems of the system in the eyes of the population. In the same way, today North Korea is “developing its last resources” from the fact of victory in the war with the United States. This cannot go on forever.
I don't see any difference between Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. And if someone talks about the collapse of the USSR as a “tragedy,” then he equally calls the expulsion of Pol Pot from Kampuchea, who in three years destroyed a third of the country’s population, a “tragedy.”
What does the collapse of the USSR mean to all of us: the administrative collapse of the country - or the expulsion of radical communist cockroaches from our brains? Here's the question.
In my opinion, the second is an order of magnitude more important historically for us than the first. Therefore, the collapse of communism and with it the USSR is the greatest good and happiness for us, it is our return to universal human values, to respect human life and human personality. Even if the USSR disintegrates at least a hundred times to achieve this goal, it’s not a pity. For we are finally gaining a NORMAL state.
And when homo impericus lament that “the collapse of the USSR is a great tragedy,” then with this approach the collapse of the Third Reich is also seen by homo impericus as “the greatest tragedy of the century.” In fact, the post-war Germans (on whose de-fascistization and de-imperialization the United States spent enormous amounts of money) today consciously consider the collapse of the Third Reich to be their good. The rejection of imperial ideas allowed Germany to create and Civil society(without which an effective economy is impossible), and concentrate the energy of the masses on the improvement of their country - instead of diverting it to “external conquests” and militarization. As a result, Germany was defeated by us, losing a third male population and burned to the ground, it became a leading economic power FROM ZERO, and average salaries and pensions in this country we defeated are orders of magnitude higher than those of us, the WINNERS.
The paradox lies in the fact that the rejection of imperial ideas and the desire to “rule over one’s neighbors and the world” leads to the concentration of the nation’s efforts and public funds on the improvement of one’s country. What gives clear results in improving the quality of life in the country - and it becomes, as in anti-imperial Germany or Japan, just an OBJECT OF NATIONAL PRIDE. The country is becoming GREAT in its weight in world politics - but GREAT not because of its imperialism, but because it was able to improve itself remarkably - and thereby created its weight in the international arena.
Somewhere from the second half of the twentieth century, the greatness of a country began to be determined not by the power of its armed forces and the number of atomic missiles, but by the size of average salaries and pensions - and the degree of individual freedom in the State. From the point of view of ancient ideas from the Age of Empires, the USSR was quite strong as an Empire, because it had an incredible number of tanks and nuclear warheads. Why did it break up?
Alas, it turned out that the strength of the country no longer depends on the degree of its militarization. The so-called “human factor” has become the main one: a person has ceased to be a “cog in the system”, without respect for his personality and without developing his well-being - any most powerful nuclear power weak as a colossus with feet of clay.
Supporters of Conspiracy Theories see one or another “malicious” in the “forces that destroyed the USSR”, while placing the people of the USSR themselves outside the process of History. This, of course, is a huge misconception: to see in the Soviet people only an obedient and brainless herd, in love with the USSR. In reality, the Soviet people were then terribly tired of Gorbachev’s demagoguery - and were even more exhausted by the catastrophic crisis in the economy, empty store shelves, huge queues for everything vital and the introduction of a card system. YOU CAN’T LIVE THIS WAY - that was the main idea of that era, common to everyone’s understanding.
In search of a better future, the exhausted Soviet people abandoned the USSR.
SO WHO DESTROYED THE USSR?
Let's return to this main question, which, in my opinion, has its own answer.
A coincidence of circumstances, chaos and chaos, a power vacuum, as well as the separatism of Ukraine and other republics, do not explain the most important moment: Why didn’t the RSFSR, as the supposed “Soviet and Russian Empire” (as almost everyone in Russia now says), take any steps against the collapse of the USSR? That's the question!
Gorbachev retrospectively finds that “the President of Russia and his entourage actually sacrificed the Union to their passionate desire to reign in the Kremlin,” and cites an episode about which one of the deputies of the Supreme Soviet of Russia, who was in the past among Yeltsin’s supporters, told him:
“After returning from Minsk in December 1991, the President of Russia gathered a group of deputies close to him in order to enlist support for the ratification of the Minsk agreements. He was asked how legal they were from a legal point of view. Unexpectedly, the president launched into a forty-minute discussion, with inspiration telling how he managed to “dump” Gorbachev before his trip to Minsk, convincing him that he would pursue one goal there, while in fact he was going to do the exact opposite. “It was necessary to turn Gorbachev out of the game,” Yeltsin added.” This attempt to shift their measure of historical responsibility onto Yeltsin alone is typical of all Gorbachev’s memoirs, just as the communists of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation stubbornly do not want to remember that it was they who unanimously voted for the collapse of the USSR. According to Gorbachev, the communists also had a hand in the collapse of the USSR, who almost unanimously voted for the Belovezhskaya Accords and for Russia’s secession from the USSR.
Nikolai Zenkovich in the book “Secrets of the Passing Century” cited above writes:
“Why did the communists vote so unanimously in favor? Many did this, probably reluctantly. The general mood was expressed by pilot-cosmonaut V.I. Sevastyanov, who was a member of the “Fatherland” faction, said with relief: “Thank God, the Gorbachev era is over.” They voted not against the USSR, as deputies repent today, but against the incompetent center led by Gorbachev. And to get rid of him, they liquidated the state.”
Yes, there was a coincidence. But a mistake is always EASY TO CORRECT! And they tried to correct it - on March 15, 1996, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a resolution to repeal the resolution of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR of December 12, 1991, which denounced the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR.
And what? Nothing. It turned out that another MOST POWERFUL FORCE in Russia itself was extremely interested in the collapse of the USSR, which in 1996 did not care about this State Duma resolution, and in 1991 behind the scenes pushed The Supreme Council RSFSR to denounce the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR.
As always and in all cases, and in the history of the collapse of the USSR, we must ask the obligatory main question - who benefits most from this? The answer to it will name the main organizer of the EVENT. Moreover, as we will see, the collapse of the USSR itself is directly related to the collapse of socialism in the USSR.
In his book, Zenkovich devoted two chapters to the collapse of the USSR, but did not name the main organizers of the collapse. And in only one sentence on page 571 he gives a “guide” to answer the main question (without realizing the essence of the topic here):
“Having retained 90 percent of all oil production of the former Soviet Union, Russia lost 60 percent of its oil equipment production capacity, 35-40 percent of its oil refining capacity and 60 percent of its sea ports’ oil cargo capacity.”
What does the phrase “Having retained 90 percent of all oil production of the former Union” mean? It really means that in the USSR and Gorbachev’s JIT project this “preservation” was not provided for, oil was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Center (as were gas, diamonds from Yakutia and other resources). And Yeltsin, with the collapse of the USSR, did not “SAVE” at all, but for the first time TOOK this “90 percent of all oil production of the former Union” from the USSR-SSG to Russia.
My version of the retrospective of events is this. When Gorbachev’s team proposed to the republics the creation of the SSG within the framework of the Novo-Ogarevo agreements with the renunciation of socialism, with the privatization of socialist ownership of the means of production and mineral resources and with its division through privatization vouchers, the RSFSR began to think about this prospect.
The results of the reflections are in the Burbulis Memorandum cited above, but it is only a reflection of the generally extremely acute problem of PROPERTY, which arose during the transition of the USSR from socialism to capitalism.
Gorbachev’s project of all-Union privatization already took into account the desires of the party-director nomenklatura to take possession of this national property, and it was precisely this kind of privatization that took place in the CIS countries and in the Russian Federation after the collapse of Gorbachev’s country. Apparently, it is incorrect to call Russian vouchers “Chubais vouchers,” since they were invented for the USSR-SSG by Gorbachev. It was absolutely clear that the main profitable “product” of the USSR was energy resources.
In Gorbachev's JIT project, privatization was supposed to be UNION-wide: that is, Gazprom shares were to be divided between the republics, and the Russian 90 percent of all USSR oil production was to be shared with the Balts, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Moldovans, Asian and Caucasian republics - of which there were more than the Russians themselves.
The injustice is obvious: Russia produces 90% of the USSR's oil, which is the main source of income for the USSR country, but for some reason, during the privatization of the USSR-SSG, it must give it equally to the ownership of other republics. The directorial corps of the energy-extracting industries of the RSFSR, in discussing the planned privatization and in anticipation of becoming millionaires, inundated the government of the RSFSR with their letters, and on their basis the “Burbulis Memorandum” was formulated.
As a result, the question was how, during the privatization of the USSR, the party-director corps of the RSFSR could snatch MORE. And much MORE would come out in the situation when the RSFSR became a state independent of its neighbors - pretenders-freeloaders on Russian oil and gas.
And now almost 20 years have passed since the collapse of the USSR, and we see: Russia’s main income is the sale of energy resources, from which it is getting immensely rich with the global rise in prices for them. The country's leadership defines the concept of Russia as an "energy power", the main governing force of the Russian Federation is Gazprom, and Russia's billionaires are people of the party-director corps who were at the origins of the privatization of Russia's mineral resources. Instead of Gorbachev’s “dividing the subsoil of Russia between the republics,” we see that the Russian Federation sells energy resources to the republics at world prices, and suppresses attempts to be indignant, although these “indignations” are largely caused by the project of Gorbachev’s SSG rejected by the RSFSR, where the subsoil of Russia became equally privatized by all subjects THE USSR.
Strictly speaking, in a broad historical sense, the question is not who destroyed the USSR (if this was an accident and a temporary mistake), but who HAS been preventing Russia from reunifying into the Union for almost 20 years. The main obstacle to this is Gazprom and other energy companies of the Russian Federation, and personally their shareholders, dollar millionaires and billionaires. At the same time, their participation in the collapse of the USSR was the most important thing.
I repeat that the re-creation of the USSR is again the unification of the subsoil of our countries into common socialist use. Russia’s former “brothers” in the USSR do not have any such “special subsoil”, except for Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, and also Kazakhstan. It is clear that these four republics of the ex-USSR absolutely do not want to make their mineral resources again “common property” with their neighbors.
Of course, neither Yeltsin nor Putin, for the idea of “recreating the USSR,” could no longer offer the CIS countries again common ownership of the mineral resources and energy production enterprises of the Russian Federation, since they belong to private owners and shareholders in the Russian Federation. I believe that the question “who destroyed the USSR?” and the question “who doesn’t need the USSR today?” - this is the same question, because all those who do not need the USSR today are equally involved in those events when the collapse of the USSR was carried out. Because they became owners at that time.
But in any case, it should be recognized that the very epoch-making nature of the collapse of the USSR is so historically global that it is possible different points view about these events, and never the only historical truth"We won't find it. Which gives full scope to a variety of conspiracy theories - no matter how absurd they may sound. Some grain of truth, perhaps, lies in each such version of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - an odious state that went down in History with Yuri Gagarin, and the Holodomor in Ukraine, and massive illegal repressions of its population, and the victory over Hitler, and the adoption of the law on the execution of 12-year-old children for a handful of “kidnapped” rotting ears of corn from a harvested field. Like everyone else in life, there was everything: the darkest, most terrible, and something that you can be proud of forever. In any case, the USSR is something lived and experienced, and again we will never enter “this river” for the second time.
Krupa Tatyana Albertovna, candidate social sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian History and Archival Science, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok [email protected] Okhonko Olga Ivanovna, candidate historical sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian History and Archival Science, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok
The collapse of the USSR in the context of random and natural factors
Abstract. The article examines the random and natural factors of the collapse of the USSR. The role and place of the United States in the destruction of the USSR is assessed. The impact of internal political factors on the collapse of the USSR is analyzed. A complex of internal and foreign policy consequences of the collapse of the USSR is given. Key words: domestic political, foreign policy, natural, perestroika, putsch, collapse, union treaty, accidental, USSR, factors.
This topic is addressed due to memorable dates: 90 years since the formation of the USSR and 21 years since its collapse. The collapse of a huge state that existed on the territory of Europe and Asia had a lot of obvious and hidden reasons , as well as a complex of negative consequences. The purpose of this article is to try to understand the domestic and foreign policy factors of the collapse of the USSR, to determine whether these factors were natural or random. In theoretical terms, the problem remains not fully studied. The lack of archival materials and the presence of closed sources causes ambiguity and understatement; discrepancies in assessments of this catastrophe raise many questions. When studying this problem, the points of view of not only Russian historians and politicians were analyzed, but also the positions of foreign leaders who had a direct influence on the events taking place. In the content of this article, a book called “WorldTransformed” is analyzed, its authors are George W. Bush (senior) and his security adviser B .Scowcroft.The book provides answers to important questions of history and modern times - how the conditions were created for the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Warfare, which led to serious consequences in the balance of power in the world. From a number of factors that influenced the collapse of the USSR, the role of the United States cannot be excluded, which understood the real threat contained in the military potential Soviet Union. This is confirmed by the facts reflected in the above-mentioned book, written in 1998. It assesses the role and place of George W. Bush in the history of the United States and in world history. It is emphasized that the George W. Bush administration has achieved the fulfillment of the national goal that many Americans strived for - the liberation of Eastern Europe and the destruction of the mortal threat to the United States. The USSR, having a huge stockpile of nuclear missile weapons, theoretically posed a threat to the military-political structures of the United States. The perestroika started in the Soviet Union and the new foreign policy course of M. Gobachev suited the United States. M. Gorbachev's reforms made it possible to strengthen the position of the United States in Eastern Europe. G. Bush and B. Scowcroft note that, having begun to implement perestroika, “Gorbachev set in motion forces whose consequences were unpredictable - they were unknown even to himself.” Largely unexpected for the United States were the numerous concessions made by M. Gorbachev in relations with the countries of the former “socialist camp” that were members of the Warsaw Department. In this book, George Bush writes that “Gorbachev does not understand the actual situation in Eastern Europe. It appears he was trying to cultivate “little Gorbachevs” who would win public support.” Obviously, he hoped for a multiplier effect from perestroika, which would be extended to all countries of Eastern Europe. However, the process of the collapse of the ATS was irreversible, American plans The internal affairs explosions were carried out from within, thereby, as they believe in the United States, the split in Europe was put to an end. In such a context, a conclusion arises about the formation of random factors that played a certain role in the collapse of the USSR; they did not prevent the process of collapse, did not delay it, but, on the contrary, accelerated it. Analyzing their impression of the collapse of communist regimes in Europe, the authors of the book exclaim: “Even in their dreams they could not have dreamed that throughout their lives they would see this: Europe is united and free.” The loss of control over Eastern Europe had a huge impact negative consequence for the Soviet Union. In particular, the GDR was a “prize” for the USSR after the end of World War II, a reliable military ally and an important economic partner. The loss of the GDR meant the end of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev's foreign policy position caused a negative reaction among Soviet politicians, military, diplomats and in broad circles of the USSR public. Gorbachev gave up one position after another. He made concessions to American pressure on many foreign policy issues, and this was disastrous for the USSR. For many years, throughout the “ cold war“Plans were being developed in the United States to destroy the Soviet Union. For this purpose, huge amounts of money were spent, nuclear arsenals were created, radio stations were financed in third countries, etc. When Perestroika and glasnost began, the USSR became more open to the world. In conditions of worsening economic difficulties and changes, which made it possible to talk about everything out loud, it would be strange if the United States suddenly abruptly abandoned the idea of destroying the USSR and did not take advantage of the opportunities that opened up before them. It turns out that the United States had a better handle on the situation in the USSR than in the Union itself. Unfortunately, Gorbachev largely did not understand the seriousness of the danger that threatened the Soviet Union. By 1991, an internal political crisis was rapidly developing in Moscow. The American side was informed about the impending putsch by the State Emergency Committee. The US Ambassador to the USSR J. Matlock was notified of the upcoming putsch by the mayor of Moscow G. Kh. Popov. US politicians in their memoirs about the collapse of the USSR note that the American side immediately informed M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin about the impending putsch.Nov Russian literature To this day, the coup is presented as an emergency situation and history textbooks state this. In this context, it becomes clear why Gorbachev stated that he would never tell the whole truth about the August events.
When the State Emergency Committee arose on August 19, 1991, George W. Bush was the first of the leaders of Western states to support Yeltsin. As Gorbachev's real power diminished, the US President's attitude towards the two rival leaders gradually changed towards Yeltsin. The Americans had good opportunity watch from the side internal political struggle in the USSR, especially since B. Yeltsin kept G. Bush informed of all the details related to the State Emergency Committee. On August 21, B. Yeltsin had a conversation with G. Bush, in which he congratulated the US President on the fact that in our country “Democracy has won a great victory, thank you very much for providing us with colossal assistance.” This act of B. Yeltsin can be regarded as a betrayal of the Soviet Union. Even George Bush refused to comment on what was done. B. Yeltsin expected congratulations, and G. Bush simply replied that he understood him and felt “a little awkward.” B. Yeltsin was confident that the country was now freed from “the global center that commanded us for more than seventy years.” He launched a frontal attack on the USSR and openly “took away the Union brick by brick in order to then transfer most of the rights of the Union to Russia.” Much of what has been analyzed suggests that given the crisis situation in the USSR on the eve of its collapse (economic crisis, political crisis, party crisis, etc.), this process was initiated artificially both from within and from without. The impact of the information factor on the collapse of the USSR cannot be ruled out. Glasnost as a structural element of perestroika played a decisive role; it consisted in weakening censorship and removing the numerous information barriers that existed in Soviet society. The people were in a state of shock and bewilderment for a long period; it was difficult to understand “who is who.” Everything was put into action information media, after all, glasnost, democratization, swept the USSR, everyone reveled in it, not understanding what was really happening. Discussions were launched about the horrors of the Soviet system; they were aimed primarily at the ideological destruction of the foundations of Soviet society, the press was inundated with negative information, where the image of a terrible homeland and wonderful abroad clearly emerged. Performances on the street and publications in the press, the meaning of many cultural works had a certain informational component: criticism of Soviet political and ideological system and the Soviet Union in general. Such the same direction of action various factors could only be explained by leadership from a single center. In other words, an information attack was carried out on our country, and it produced devastating results. Signs of ideological collapse began to appear throughout the country. The leadership of the USSR did not accept effective measures In order to stop this destructive process, it was split. Many researchers characterize the actions of M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin as a policy of “purposeful inaction.” On the eve of the collapse of the USSR, tension grew in the union republics. The positions of M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin on the issue of the fate of the republics were completely different. M. Gorbachev was a supporter of a gradual transition to their independence. B. Yeltsin spoke about the right of the union republics to secede from the USSR, as a result of which we can conclude that he “hit the backbone of the Soviet state, shaking its political structure to the core.” When the union republics declared sovereignty in 1991, the question was raised about the continued existence of the Soviet Union and its transformation into a democratic federal state. In the same year, a resolution was adopted “On the general concept of the union treaty and the procedure for its conclusion.” But at the beginning of the preparation of the new union treaty, the extreme aggravation of relations between the leadership of the USSR and Russia played a role. In April-May 1991, negotiations between M. Gorbachev and the leaders of nine union republics on the issue of a new union treaty took place in Novo-Ogarevo (the residence of the President of the USSR near Moscow). Doctor of Historical Sciences Z.A. Stankevich emphasized that by the spring of 1990, “the tendency towards “chaotic decentralization of economic, political and socio-cultural life in the USSR” had intensified.” It became obvious that a radical renewal of the Union was necessary on the basis of a new union treaty. At the fifth (last) Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, it was proposed to prepare an agreement on the Union of Sovereign States, in which each of the republics “would independently determine the form of its participation in the Union.” On November 6, 1991, the President of the USSR sent to the State Council a draft Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States (USS), a union democratic state exercising state power. Until December 1991, the agonizing process of saving the Union in some form continued, but the situation became more and more uncontrollable every day.
Ukraine pointedly distanced itself from even participating in the preliminary discussion of the union treaty. In mid-November in NovoOgarevo, only 7 participants remained at the negotiating table: Russia, Belarus and five Central Asian republics. On December 1, in a referendum in Ukraine, 90.3% of participants voted for its independence. The United States immediately declared its readiness to establish diplomatic relations with it, and Boris Yeltsin was the first to recognize the independence of Ukraine. Thus, the Union Treaty, before it was born, died. Events were coming to a close. The USSR locomotive approached the crash site in the little-known Belarusian village of Vaskuli, in the wilds of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where back in the days of N. Khrushchev a hunting lodge was built for the rest of former party officials: here it was easier to keep their plans secret. The main characters B. Yeltsin, L. Kravchuk, S. Shushkevich were in fear. They understood that their actions were not entirely legal and even to some extent criminal. On December 25, 1991, M. Gorbachev made a statement on television: “Due to the current situation with the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I am ceasing my activities as President of the USSR.” At 19:38 on December 25, 1991, the red flag of the USSR was replaced over the Kremlin tricolor Russian. Of course, one can assume that the Soviet Union has outlived its usefulness, and Gorbachev has become a brake on the path of reform, but in this situation it would be legal at the negotiating table for all leaders of the republics to officially declare the abolition of the treaty on the creation of the USSR of December 30, 1922. The Belovezh Treaty was illegal and criminal, because three people did not have the legal authority to decide the fate of the entire state.
To ratify the Belovezhskaya Agreement, it was necessary to convene the highest body of state power - the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR, since the agreement affected the state structure of the republic and entailed changes to the constitution. In April 1992, the Fifth Congress of People's Deputies three times refused to ratify the agreement and exclude references to the constitution and laws of the USSR from the text of the Constitution of the RSFSR, which would subsequently become one of the reasons for the confrontation between the Congress of People's Deputies and President Yeltsin, which would subsequently lead to the tragic events of October 1993. Thus, despite the fact that the de facto USSR ceased to exist, the Constitution of the USSR of 1977 de jure continued to be in force on the territory of Russia until December 25, 1993, when the Constitution of the Russian Federation, adopted by popular vote, came into force, which did not contain any mention of the Constitution and laws USSR.21 years after the collapse of the USSR, an interview with ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Pyotr Kravchenko appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda under the heading “It is not true that the document on the CIS was waved without looking by the half-drunk B. Yeltsin, L. Kravchuk and S. Shushkevich.” He claims that the document is based on the Russian-Ukrainian and Belarusian-Russian agreements on friendship and cooperation of 1990, i.e. “from bilateral documents we made a multilateral one, which allowed us to create the Commonwealth of Independent States.” Disputes over assessing the significance of the Belovezhskaya Agreement continue to this day. The Belovezhskaya Agreement became one of the episodes of the accusation against Boris Yeltsin. A special commission of the State Duma stated that B. Yeltsin, having signed the Belovezhskaya Agreement, committed a gross violation of Article 7476 of the USSR Constitution and committed these actions contrary to the will of the peoples of the RSFSR about the need to preserve the USSR, expressed during the popular vote (referendum) held on March 17, 1991. The commission also accused Boris Yeltsin of treason by preparing and organizing a conspiracy to unconstitutionally seize union power, abolish the then existing union institutions of power, and illegally change the constitutional status of the RSFSR. In search of an answer to the question: “was the collapse of the USSR the result of objective processes or the result of the destructive actions of specific historical individuals and forces?”, one should proceed only from analysis specific facts and the circumstances of that time. And the most important argument in this dispute should be the position of the peoples of the USSR, it is the people who are the bearer of sovereignty, the will of the people is supreme authority in the country. But this did not play a decisive role, although it should be taken into account that the referendum on the preservation of the USSR was held late. And the main thing, in our opinion, was that the will of the people did not correspond to the personal interests of the group of then politicians led by Boris Yeltsin. They were not stopped even by the fact that these separatist actions contradicted the Constitution and were not approved by the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR - supreme body state power. The RSFSR did not have legal force insofar as it related to the termination of the existence of the USSR. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the USSR did not experience major shocks, but in the 1990s of the twentieth century it experienced events that, in their consequences for the population, can be compared with a real war. This is what current President Vladimir Putin thinks. Vast territories were lost, the population decreased, industry fell into decay, long years devastation reigned. To summarize, it should be noted that in the problems of the collapse of the USSR, the patterns or accidents of this fact, it is too early to draw any deep conclusions. Many questions remain unclear to this day. Needed archival materials, documents of that period and their truthful, objective interpretation. Our convictions do not exclude serious economic, political, ideological and many other factors that undermined the power of a great power. But at the same time, we believe that the collapse of the USSR is a consequence of gross miscalculations and mistakes of politicians, the action of destructive centrifugal forces that made Belovezhskaya Pushcha a symbol of irresponsibility and voluntarism in politics. Particular responsibility for this deed falls on two leaders - the President of the USSR - M. Gorbachev and the President Russian Federation - B. Yeltsin, who in 1996 stated that he regretted signing the Belovezhskaya Agreement. M. Gorbachev also admitted his mistakes, but no one has yet told the whole truth about what he did. Historical analysis of previous eras shows that our country is for period of more than a thousand years of history was facing the threat of collapse and during the period feudal fragmentation in the 13th century, and during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century, and during the years of great social upheaval in 1917-1922. External and internal enemies tried to destroy the state through non-recognition, blockade, famine, and destructive wars. They did not succeed, since there were always forces within the state that opposed this threat. The greatness of Russia at all times rested on the spiritual potential of the nation.
V. Putin called the collapse of the USSR the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. And he emphasized that in order to survive in an era of upheaval, it is precisely “spiritual bonds” and the unity of the people that are needed. In general, one can note the domestic and foreign policy consequences of the collapse of the USSR. Foreign policy ones include: the loss of control over the countries of Eastern Europe, the collapse of the Warsaw Department, the unification of Germany, the formation of a number of independent states in place of the former USSR. Among the internal political factors, three groups can be distinguished: territorial, demographic, economic, internal political and social. Territorial factors include a decrease in the territory of the Russian Federation compared to the territory of the USSR by 24% (from 22.4 to 17 million km²), while the territory of Russia has remained virtually unchanged compared to the territory of the RSFSR. TO demographic factors includes a decrease in population by 49% (from 290 to 148 million people). Streams of refugees and internally displaced persons were formed, not only of the Russian-speaking population of the republics of the former USSR, but also of many other ethnic groups of the huge disintegrated country, the regions of their exit: Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Northern Caucasus.K economic factors include: the collapse of the ruble zone, the decline in production, the depreciation of the ruble, the destruction of economic relationships between enterprises. TO political factors include: the cessation of the existence of unified Armed Forces USSR, there was a massive reduction in the military. The termination of the legal powers of the USSR and the lack of a legislative framework in the newly created Russian Federation led to a “war of laws,” which resulted in the tragic events of October 1993. Significant changes occurred in the social structure of Soviet society. New social strata appeared, including “poor working people”, homeless people, street children and many others who were unable to adapt and adapt to other living conditions within the new state. There was a deep stratification of society, at one pole - oligarchs, officials, high-ranking entrepreneurs; on the other are low-income and low-income citizens of Russia. Was the collapse of the USSR a historical inevitability, a coincidence or a betrayal of leading Soviet politicians led by M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin? Questions that are usually classified as debatable problems of history. In any case, it is too early to put an end to this issue, especially considering the dire consequences of the collapse of the USSR.
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Krupa Tatiana, PhD in sociology, assistant professor of Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok [email protected] Okhonko Olga, PhD in history, assistant professor of Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok Disintegration of USSR in context casual and natural factors.Abstract. In the article are considered casual and natural factors of the disintegration of the USSR. The role and place USA are Valued in destruction USSR. The influence of domestic political factors is analyzed on the decay of the USSR. Happens to the complex inwardly and outward politicalconsequence wreckages USSR.Keywords: inside political,outward political, natural, realignment, putsch, disintegration, union agreement, casual, USSR, factors.