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 the locals political elites at that time there 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 from communist USSR bourgeois SSG: multi-party system, ban on the CPSU, dispersal of the Politburo, introduction of a market (literally capitalist) economy, and finally, the very replacement of the USSR with Gorbachev’s SSG.

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 leadership of Russia, 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.” IN Lately 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 look for 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 herself executive branch CIS countries are 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 entirely 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 are talking only about formalizing 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 an 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 sores and problems: the problem of poverty, and the problem of meager salaries of 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. There can be no unambiguous historical assessments here.

Except one. The USSR - as a complete dead end in the history of Human Civilization - should have collapsed for its own internal reasons 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 for human life and the human person. 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 a Civil Society (without which an effective economy is impossible) and to 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, defeated by us, having lost a third of the male population and burned to the ground, became a leading economic power FROM ZERO, and average salaries and pensions in this country defeated by us 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 the development of his well-being - any of the most powerful nuclear powers is weak, like 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 real Soviet people then he was monstrously tired of Gorbachev’s demagoguery - and was even more exhausted by the catastrophic crisis in the economy, empty shelves in stores, huge queues for everything vital and the introduction of a card system. YOU CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS - that's how it 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 combination of circumstances, chaos and chaos, a vacuum of power, as well as the separatism of Ukraine and other republics, do not explain the most important point: why did the RSFSR as the supposed “Soviet and Russian Empire” (as almost everyone in Russia now say) not take any steps against 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 “drag” 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 spat on this State Duma resolution, and in 1991 behind the scenes pushed the Supreme Council of the 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 Union, Russia lost 60 percent of oil equipment production capacity, 35-40 percent of oil refining capacity and 60 percent bandwidth seaports for oil cargo."

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.

In fact, in a broad historically 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 different points of view about these events are possible, and we will never find the “single historical truth”. 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.

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 reason for this malice- communists. 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 in equally criminal omission. 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 statesmen of such caliber, which in the entire history of Russia in best case scenario Will there be 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.” After all, from the position of post-knowledge, we know very well that there was no figure equal to Stalin after his death - we 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 rams.”

In fact, the clip of Stalin's people's commissars was a group completely talented people. Talented in their narrow fields of activity. But to manually control such a complex structure as the USSR, a universal statist like Stalin was required, who was able to adequately manage 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 for blaming anything on him - from “unprepared heirs” to forest fires in 2010.

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 total cutting of them former Motherland. 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 their adult lives they listened to exactly the opposite - about the criminal past, the bloody Stalin, repressions, the Gulag and the ineffective economy, stupid soviet people, etc., and they were especially drummed 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 the sad experience of 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 death 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.

V. DYMARSKY – Good evening, dear listeners. “Echo of Moscow” airs the weekly program “Hearing Test.” Tomorrow, December 25th, we will commemorate or mourn the events that happened 14 years ago. It was on December 25, 1991 that the Soviet Union actually ceased to exist. After M. S. Gorbachev resigned from his post as president, this is no longer existing country. This is the event we will discuss today with my guests, whom I will introduce to you right away. Sergei Filatov - President of the Foundation for Socio-Economic and Intellectual Programs, former manager administration of President Boris Yeltsin. Good evening, Sergey Alexandrovich.

S. FILATOV - Good evening.

V. DYMARSKY - Alexander Konovalov - President of the Institute strategic assessments, our famous political scientist. Good evening, Alexander Alexandrovich.

A. KONOVALOV - Good evening.

V. DYMARSKY – And Sergei Markov is also our famous political scientist, director of the Institute of Political Research. Sergey, good evening.

S. MARKOV - Hello.

V. DYMARSKY - Everyone made it in time, despite the traffic jams.

S. MARKOV - Moscow is buying gifts for the New Year.

V. DYMARSKY - And 14 years ago we made our gift for the New Year, when the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Today we will discuss this event. And now to the topic. And the first question is simple. President Putin once relatively recently this year called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. Do you agree with this assessment? Sergey Markov.

S. MARKOV – I think I misspoke a little. Of course, the most important disasters of the 20th century were World War I and World War II. Nazi regime...

V. DYMARSKY – Sergey, that’s not the question. Don't compare disasters. The point is, in general, was it a disaster?

S. MARKOV – It was not a disaster for most countries of the world. But a disaster for the people living inside the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had a lot of opportunities. Had a chance to modernize as a country as a whole. Apparently the Baltics would have broken away from it, perhaps Georgia, maybe someone else, but on the whole the backbone of the Soviet Union could and should have been preserved...

V. DYMARSKY – We’ll talk about this later.

S. MARKOV – And that’s why it’s a tragedy, of course. But for other countries this is not a tragedy. On the contrary, a lot of their problems were solved. That's why they're even happy about it.

V. DYMARSKY - Sergei Alexandrovich Filatov, do you also agree?

S. FILATOV - Yes, this is a natural tragedy, which, of course, will continue to hurt for a long time. Mainly because people don't understand the essence of what happened and why it happened. There are some cliches at work that give the illusion that all this could have been preserved and everything could have flourished in the form in which it was. This is wrong.

V. DYMARSKY - Markov just said that there was still an opportunity to save the Soviet Union. Do you think there was no...

S. FILATOV – In the situation we were in, there was no such possibility then. You know, when an avalanche comes from the mountains, it is almost impossible to stop it. And we lived during this period. If we had seriously thought about this problem earlier, reformed earlier, and modernized the country earlier, this probably would have been possible. But at that moment when everything fell apart, and this was exactly the year that you are celebrating today on your radio. On our radio. I think it was absolutely impossible then. By no means. Until the use of armed forces, this was impossible to maintain.

A. KONOVALOV - No, absolutely not. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that two other socialist federal countries collapsed almost together with the Soviet Union. These are Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. They broke up in different ways. But all three of them fell apart. Because in principle, of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union is a disaster. Because 25 million Russian people found themselves outside the borders of their country. Nobody asked them whether they wanted it or not. And there were a lot of reasons for personal tragedies, for everything. But, nevertheless, I repeat, this catastrophe is absolutely natural. The Soviet Union was doomed by the choice that was made in 1917. This country could not survive. The fantastic wealth we possessed helped us survive for so long.

V. DYMARSKY - Wait. In 1917 the regime changed. But the borders of the empire...

A. KONOVALOV - But the point is not in the borders, but in the fact that a certain political system was chosen. A certain system...

V. DYMARSKY – The system is totalitarian.

A. KONOVALOV - It is not totalitarian...

V. DYMARSKY – Which holds everything quite tightly in its hands.

A. KONOVALOV - In order for the Soviet Union to exist, only two things could serve as a frame and fastening material. These are the special services and Communist Party, a cell of which was in every aul, ulus and village. As soon as they were taken out, as soon as they weakened, this system was bound to crumble.

V. DYMARSKY - Sergey Markov. What then is your assumption based on that the Soviet Union could have been preserved?

A. KONOVALOV - I am Alexander Alexandrovich.

S. MARKOV - Sorry. You know, I try to call you all the time, but it’s a compliment. Because that's my father's name. So, I believe that this is an attempt by a number of political figures to shift responsibility for the collapse of the Soviet Union onto the communists, to the fact that in 1917 someone did something. They did a lot of bad things in 1917, but they certainly didn’t collapse the Soviet Union. You see. Other people ruined it, and they bear personal political responsibility.

V. DYMARSKY - By name, please.

S. MARKOV - Well, of course, Boris Yeltsin bears the main responsibility.

V. DYMARSKY - For the collapse of the Soviet Union.

S. MARKOV - Well, and many other politicians who acted... By the way, I also do not absolve myself of part of this responsibility. Because I then supported Boris Yeltsin during that period.

V. DYMARSKY - That is, Yeltsin and Markov are to blame.

S. MARKOV – Well, including. The fact is that I believe that the Soviet Union was such a federation; it was simply necessary to ensure a smoother transition from a federation held together by the rigid system of unity of the Communist Party to a federation prescribed legally. If normal legal agreements had been spelled out in time, then this major collapse would not have happened. And the peoples feel quite united. A marriage between a Russian and a Ukrainian girl is not considered interethnic. This is a single family of nations, people are used to it. They appreciated, they still appreciate. If you travel through the former Soviet republics, when you start talking to them, they literally cry because they want to live in this united family of nations. There was the will of the majority of the people, it was necessary to legally register this and reach the socio-economic level. Unfortunately, the Soviet elite of that time was unable to ensure modernization and the country collapsed at a sharp turning point.

V. DYMARSKY - The question then, did the country collapse at a sharp turning point or was it destroyed by Yeltsin?

S. MARKOV - Sorry, the country fell apart at a sharp turning point. It might not have collapsed if certain political decisions had been made. There were people who were trying to make the right political decisions. There were people who made wrong political decisions, there were people who were leaders who made wrong ones. It was Yeltsin.

V. DYMARSKY - Sergei Alexandrovich Filatov.

S. FILATOV - I think, Sergei Alexandrovich, here you have gathered everything together. In fact, there is a sequence of actions, and Yeltsin’s actions were the last in this sequence.

V. DYMARSKY - Not a cause, but a consequence.

S. FILATOV - Let's remember, the State Emergency Committee was on August 19. Starting on August 22, the republics of the Soviet Union began to immediately announce referendums and vote for secession from the Soviet Union, for freedom and independence. The last one was Ukraine. The only two states that did not do this were Belarus and Russia. Other…

S. MARKOV – Before this there was a Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation. In 1990. One of the most important political mistakes.

S. FILATOV – There was a declaration. This declaration was made only in order to have a legal basis in order to begin reform in Russia. Because the Brezhnev Constitution did not allow this.

S. MARKOV – There is no need for reforms that are ruining the country.

S. FILATOV - There was one point with which I agree and agree with you, where it was said that if the laws of the Soviet Union on the territory of Russia contradict Russian laws, they do not apply. They require confirmation by the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation. There really was such a point. But this war of laws has already begun.

V. DYMARSKY - Alexander Konovalov.

A. KONOVALOV - In my opinion, it’s quite pointless... Russia as a country has an exclusively female political character. Maybe the most feminine in the world. In our country, the election of a president or the attitude towards a leader is not an attitude towards a person who, using our tax money, must somehow meet the interests of the majority of the population. For us it’s always some kind of whirlwind romance. Remember how we were in love with Gorbachev. Remember how we later fell in love with Yeltsin, how we admired him on the tank. Remember, then we almost fell in love with Lukashenko. And further...

V. DYMARSKY - Now they are in love with Putin.

A. KONOVALOV - Well, probably.

S. FILATOV – Putin falls even more in love with his leaders, and then drives them away with sticks.

V. DYMARSKI J - This is a warning for all leaders.

A. KONOVALOV – That’s not the point. The fact is that one person cannot destroy a country. It's funny to even discuss this. In my opinion, a country that produced 17 times more combine harvesters than the United States and 16 times more tractors and could never harvest its crops and fill the bins of its homeland that had no bottom, this country was doomed because it did not could withstand competition. She dropped out, the competition simply destroyed her. You will remember how the Soviet Union collapsed. When stores only had jars of pickles...

S. MARKOV – People live much worse now than then.

V. DYMARSKY - I will object to you here, in this case it was the system, not the country. If the Soviet Union had been capitalist, well, the Soviet Union could not have been, but the capitalist market system, would it not have collapsed then?

A. KONOVALOV - Firstly, many empires are falling apart.

S. MARKOV – But many don’t fall apart.

S. FILATOV - If we had a good foreign market, probably not.

V. DYMARSKY - That is, you think that it was falling apart economically.

S. FILATOV – After all, in fact, what are the reasons for the collapse, the first is the economy. The economy was so destroyed that not only did people live poorly, people began to suspect each other, Ukrainians believed that we were living at their expense. The Russians believed that all Georgians steal, and so on. That is, the republics began to become so suspicious of each other that no one could explain in a normal way why there was such an economy at all. But everyone understood that something needed to be done. And many other reasons.

V. DYMARSKY – Political.

S. FILATOV – Political. We have emerged from such violent repressions that involved the destruction of people. Then psychiatric hospitals appeared, then deportation abroad appeared. Then there are blacklists, according to which one and the other cannot perform, go abroad, and so on. All people felt this. And when, of course, the spring began to release a little, it was a process that was impossible to stop.

A. KONOVALOV – It was necessary to be able to create a country in which the Russian Federation annually spent approximately 50 billion dollars on maintaining the unity of the Soviet Union. And not a single republic was grateful to her for this. Everyone believed that the Russians were oppressing them.

S. FILATOV – Just like now, by the way, with gas and...

S. MARKOV - This is not entirely true. I believe that Sergei Alexandrovich turned our discussion in the right direction. Still, the reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, I, for example, do not think that it is economics. The economy of the Soviet Union was better than what we still live in terms of living standards. You know, don't look at me with strange eyes. I keep saying. There are integral indicators of meat and fish consumption per person. We are still lower than the last years of Soviet power.

V. DYMARSKY - Dear Mr. Markov, we will definitely continue this discussion after “Ricochet”. So, here's our interactive survey. In your opinion, did the Soviet Union collapse from the inside or did it collapse from the outside?

RICOCHET

V. DYMARSKY - For now we will continue the conversation. So, Sergei Alexandrovich?

S. MARKOV - So I think that this is not economics. Because the economy has been worse for many years and remains worse in terms of the standard of living of the majority of the population. And our Russian capitalism, wild, barbaric and vile, has not yet deserved to be praised. But if we talk about the reasons, then the main reasons are, of course, political. This is the failure of the Soviet elite to ensure the modernization of the country; the majority of the population then said that they wanted more freedom, that they wanted to participate in the elections of their citizens.

V. DYMARSKY - They wanted democracy.

S. MARKOV - They wanted democracy, the market, they wanted normal capitalism. And it was necessary to provide, but there was no development strategy. Instead there was a squabble...

V. DYMARSKY - Student Ivan from Omsk writes: “Do you think the collapse of the Soviet Union was a redistribution of a huge power between separate groups elites to satisfy their goals." Was this present?

S. MARKOV – You know, elites always divide. That's not the point. It's about how they share. They divide so that there is normal development...

V. DYMARSKY - Okay, we will naturally continue our discussion after a short news release. And for now, dear listeners, I urge you to continue voting.

NEWS

V. DYMARSKY - We continue our program. In a very short voting time of just over two minutes, 4,521 people called ours. This is generally very a large number of calls. I thank you for such active participation in the program. And of the total number of callers, 65% believe that the Soviet Union collapsed from the inside and 35% that it collapsed from the outside. These are the numbers. Your comments, dear guests.

A. KONOVALOV - Well, firstly, I am very glad that a very serious majority still believes that this is our internal matter, and not the machinations of the CIA. Because many people still expressed this opinion. I believe that this can only be from an inferiority complex. But in our country, thank God, the KGB was no weaker than the CIA and, in the end, why didn’t they then gather the governors of some three states and dissolve the United States? They would not have organized such an operation. In fact, of course, the reasons are internal. But then the question arises, what are we discussing? Internal reasons are associated with the wrong actions of some individuals or with immanent ones inherent in the internal political and economic system of the country. I am convinced that what Yeltsin did, what Gorbachev did, could have influenced some details. The Soviet Union could have collapsed on the wrong day, on the wrong night, and along the wrong administrative boundaries, which laid a huge number of bombs, ticking bombs of future conflicts.

V. DYMARSKY - That is, the divorce could have happened differently.

A. KONOVALOV - In a different way. But the fact that it was inevitable, that this country could not exist with such an economic, political system and it could not be patched up or modernized in any way, I repeat, a state in which Estonians and Tajiks were forced to live together, for example, it can only exist in the presence of the KGB and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

S. MARKOV - Alexander Alexandrovich, but people with Silicon Valley, and live at the same time...

A. KONOVALOV - You are talking about intellectual potential, and I am talking about traditions.

S. MARKOV - You know how great interethnic diversity is in India. Colossal.

A. KONOVALOV - There is caste.

S. MARKOV – ...and caste is imposed. And they live together. And we could. Colleagues, the elite bears responsibility. Yes, I have objective reasons. But from an objective crisis, you can modernize the country, raise it to a new level, or you can ruin it. One elite chooses one path, the other chooses another. The collapse of the Soviet Union is also a question for our current elite, what choice will it make. It will ruin the country or raise it.

A. KONOVALOV - Regarding the latter, I absolutely agree with you. The elite is responsible and there are questions for the elite. But I believe that there are mechanisms that can be modernized. And in which there are rational grains, by developing which one can turn one ineffective machine into a more efficient one. But what the Soviet Union was was not a modernizable system.

S. MARKOV - How? The economy of the Russian Federation, we are modernizing the economy.

V. DYMARSKY – Just a second. I want to ask Sergei Aleksandrovich Filatov one question. You were closer to power than all of us put together then, were there other scenarios, options for this divorce?

S. FILATOV – We were actually in a state of anticipation. And I was present at the first meetings of the leaders of the CIS countries. And I must say that the situation was absolutely terrible. And, despite the fact that Yeltsin was elected chairman, in fact they did not give a word, because there were two ardent opponents of making any kind of superstructure at all...

V. DYMARSKY - This means when the CIS was formed.

S. FILATOV - Yes. It was December 30, 1991. And the categorical opponents were Ukraine, and Uzbekistan was a particularly strong opponent. Karimov. They didn’t even allow two people to become secretaries who could do any paperwork in this system. And this continued forever afterwards. And when Putin or someone said today that the CIS doesn’t really exist...

V. DYMARSKY – It wasn’t Putin who said this...

S. FILATOV - He also said that in fact, generally speaking, he does not exist. He really doesn't exist. Because I don’t remember that there were agreements that were signed by all the CIS countries. There are - three countries have signed, seven countries have signed, five countries and so on. This already suggests that this could not be a single community of states that could pose quite serious problems and goals. I think everything depended, of course, on prices and the possibilities of our external market, which we provided to these states.

V. DYMARSKY - That is, again, purely economic principles.

S. FILATOV – We are, after all, students of the Soviet Union. He also resolved all political issues through economics.

V. DYMARSKY - Well, not only through the economy.

A. KONOVALOV - Power structures.

S. FILATOV - Yes. We'll get to that now.

A. KONOVALOV – Deport ardent nationalists, and then come to an agreement with the rest.

S. FILATOV – I am very satisfied with these results, just like Alexander Alexandrovich. It is very important to me that the balance is different today. That there is no such sentiment, that someone once destroyed the Soviet Union.

V. DYMARSKY - He came and destroyed the Soviet Union. By the way, during...

S. FILATOV - Why - because today we have the opportunity, as a society, to analyze what actually happened. And this must be done. Because such a repetition can happen. The scenario is approximately close to the one that existed during the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the center again begins to monopolize everything and everyone and then at the same time...

V. DYMARSKY - Well, we don’t have the opportunity to hold a second vote, so let’s try to guess. If a question were asked to our listeners. And the restoration of the USSR is possible, perhaps under a different name.

S. MARKOV - Of course, the restoration of the Soviet Union is absolutely impossible. But if you asked the question: was it possible not to collapse the Soviet Union, given that Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, possibly Georgia would have left...

S. FILATOV – Turkestan.

V. DYMARSKY - Minus four, that’s already.

S. MARKOV - No, we all understand that this is not the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union is...

V. DYMARSKY – Russia, Ukraine.

S. MARKOV – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan. Here's the four actually. If we asked such a question, I am sure that the absolute majority would say, yes, it was possible to preserve the Soviet Union. In its new form, modernized, not socialist, capitalist. Another political system.

A. KONOVALOV - But this is not the preservation of the Soviet Union, this is the creation of a fundamentally new state with other actors...

S. MARKOV - Listen, Alexander Alexandrovich...

A. KONOVALOV - We have been with Belarus for 10 years already...

S. MARKOV - This is the preservation of our homeland - that is the main question.

V. DYMARSKY - Wait. What does preserving our homeland mean? Have we lost her? Homeland.

S. MARKOV – Preserving the unity of the country. To a huge extent - yes. We lost. We lost Crimea.

V. DYMARSKY - What do you mean, lost? In modern world…

S. MARKOV - I’ll explain what lost means. You can go there, but you cannot buy a car. You can't buy a dacha there. They won't let you in with your money. You will be forced to stand in line for an hour and a half to get a visa. At any moment, the group that has now seized power in Ukraine, the Yushchenko government, may take even more stringent measures against us.

V. DYMARSKY - Well, we are even tougher. We will still raise gas prices. It will be even tougher.

S. MARKOV – This means lost. And it’s even harder for Ukrainians. They cannot come to Moscow to work normally.

S. FILATOV – I think that our subsequent actions also turned out to be less competent than those before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In general, I may be saying sedition now, but unfortunately for us, at that time we did not have a leader of the country who could take upon himself not just responsibility, but take on this burden, the beginning of modernization, whom people would listen to. As happened in the USA, when Roosevelt, at the most critical moment, took control over himself and straightened out the situation in the country. Unfortunately, we have absolutely lost trust in each other among the top elite. And between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, between Yakovlev and Ligachev and so on. That is, absolutely in these conditions, or it was necessary to remove them all, and install a new elite, which was impossible to do, because there were no such forces that could do this. Or there should have been a person standing out among them who would have said: you know what, guys, enough is enough.

V. DYMARSKY – I’m taking everything into my own hands.

S. FILATOV - Yes. But this, unfortunately, did not happen...

S. MARKOV - These are wise words, I agree.

V. DYMARSKY - Let's return to the question. Alexander Alexandrovich reacts most calmly to everything. Tell me, is the restoration of the Soviet Union possible?

A. KONOVALOV - You know, the same banal phrase has been repeated many times on this matter. Under a different name, to paraphrase: the one who does not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union has no heart, and the one who thinks that it can be revived and restored has something wrong with his brain. This is really true. And of course, no restoration of the Soviet Union is possible. Many years ago sociological surveys were conducted. Then the problem of Sevastopol was very vigorously discussed. So you consider Sevastopol a Russian city. And you know, approximately 75% of respondents in Russia answered, of course, this Russian city. And then the question was asked like this: are you ready to send your children to fight in order to restore this very belonging - less than 10%. This is actually a very difficult question. Because Sevastopol was an imperial city, it was created by the empire and there was exactly as much Ukrainian blood there as Russian.

V. DYMARSKY - Let's turn a little to what our listeners are asking. Here Yuri writes to us, such a rudely tough, weighty question. “Why discuss a corpse, good or bad? Have a drink for five minutes, think about it, and then move on to current and future problems.” Should we return to the problem?

S. MARKOV - We have to go back. I'll say it briefly. We must understand and learn from the past. Understand the reasons own mistakes. If we don’t understand why we made a mistake, if you passed the exam with a D and then didn’t think about it, you will still pass it with a D and you will be expelled from the university.

V. DYMARSKY - I would say even more. I would have answered Yuri differently. What we must not forget is that Russia is also quite a multi-component education, and at least the lessons of a mini-USSR...

S. FILATOV – Russia is experiencing terrible overloads.

V. DYMARSKY - And therefore I think that that experience is important in order to preserve Russia as a single whole.

A. KONOVALOV - Absolutely right. I support you. Because Russia is now going through a critical period in its development. And although we seem to have nothing to worry about, huge gold and foreign exchange reserves, you will remember, when the Soviet Union collapsed, we had practically nothing in our treasury. We have a Stabilization Fund, we have oil prices and you can, as they say in the Russian fairy tale, reign lying on your side. But in reality this is not so. There is a feeling of anxiety, growing anxiety in the leadership. Because the absence is clearly felt...

S. FILATOV – And we are worried about the mistakes of the leadership.

A. KONOVALOV – There is clearly no strategy. What do we want to achieve, how, in what steps. We are very inconsistent in our policies, and in order not to simply repeat the experience of the Soviet Union, it must be studied.

V. DYMARSKY - But here, unfortunately, the message arrived without a signature. But, in my opinion, it is understandable as a human being. “Dear friends, while people are alive, former citizens USSR, it will be called a disaster. And then there will be only history, the same as the history of any empire.”

S. FILATOV – Yes, that’s probably true.

S. MARKOV – To some extent, that’s true. On the other hand, the example of the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, when Constantinople was captured by the Ottomans, is history, but at the same time we realize that it was a disaster.

S. FILATOV – I still want to return to the roots. The most important reason why we are having this conversation is to make an analysis. We can’t find the culprit; in the beginning, several years ago, we were just looking for the culprit. Who is to blame for the collapse? Not in this case. We need to look at what the regime was like, what the economy was like, what the political system was like. What were international relations like? What were the freedoms and human rights inside. In general, what was a person like inside this state? If all this bothered people and blew up the country, then we need to think about how it won’t happen again in this country. This should be the main leitmotif of our conversation.

V. DYMARSKY - But it’s interesting. Sergei Vladimirovich from Yekaterinburg writes: “For the Urals, the collapse of the USSR is not a disaster, but liberation. The Soviet state wildly exploited the Urals without giving it anything in return. We are tired of being the backbone of an ungrateful power.”

A. KONOVALOV - This, by the way, is a very interesting opinion, because the Urals are by no means the end of Russia. And now there are very serious trends to talk about whether Siberia should think about its own statehood.

V. DYMARSKY - Ural Republic...

A. KONOVALOV – And the Far East. And here we have colossal problems.

V. DYMARSKY - That is, people like Sergei Vladimirovich from Yekaterinburg can raise the same question not only in relation to the USSR, but also in relation to Russia.

S. MARKOV – Let’s not think that the truth belongs to every listener. This is Smerdyakovism. Like from Dostoevsky. This is hatred and contempt for one's own country.

V. DYMARSKY - Well, well.

S. MARKOV - Yes, this is my opinion. We have this ideology. There are a number of people who at any moment will call their country that it is ungrateful, black, bad, should be destroyed, and so on.

S. FILATOV - I don’t agree with this, I think that it was no coincidence that the comrade from Yekaterinburg wrote this letter. We had regions that were almost 90% militarized.

V. DYMARSKY - And the Urals.

S. FILATOV - And especially the Urals. So rich...

V. DYMARSKY - Udmurtia.

S. FILATOV - Udmurtia. Mordovia and so on. So saturated with this matter that people could really think that they were enslaved by the state. With very low wages, with these government orders they were, although they were guaranteed, maybe, but in reality this is far from similar...

A. KONOVALOV - There is another side to this problem. We have more than 140 million people in Russia today, about 20 live beyond the Urals. And in the Far East - 6 million. These are emptying... people are leaving from there.

V. DYMARSKY - This is another problem.

A. KONOVALOV - This is understandable.

S. MARKOV - They went there during the Soviet Union, but now they are leaving.

V. DYMARSKY - We didn’t go there...

A. KONOVALOV - They campaigned.

S. MARKOV - They were traveling, but they were attracted there.

V. DYMARSKY - They took me there, I would say.

S. MARKOV - Not under escort. You see. It’s just that back then there was a strategy for the development of this region, now there is no strategy. I agree with Alexander Alexandrovich. There is no strategy for solving the problem. And this lack of a development strategy was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. And therefore, the lack of a development strategy for Russia now may be one of the reasons for the large-scale political crisis in future.

S. FILATOV - Sergei Alexandrovich is approaching us...

V. DYMARSKY - Gradually.

A. KONOVALOV - Residents of Vladivostok, if you conduct an analysis among young people, how many of them have visited Moscow in their lives...

V. DYMARSKY - Alexander Alexandrovich, I can add, I just know some social research that was carried out in the Far East. The Far East as a region is now economically more connected with Japan and Southeast Asia than with Moscow.

A. KONOVALOV - That's exactly what I want to say. We are deploying them. This is ours public policy, may not be intentional. But these are its consequences.

S. MARKOV – In many ways, the 90s continue, the same trends of irresponsibility as the last Soviet ones...

S. FILATOV – Why irresponsibility, I don’t know. Please tell me whether it is better to bring bread from the Stavropol Territory and still buy it there in China.

V. DYMARSKY - That’s a good question from the pager...

S. MARKOV - You know, yes, bread can be brought from China. But schoolchildren must visit Moscow.

V. DYMARSKY - How can they visit?

S. FILATOV - I am generally against extremes in everything. Because if you close the borders completely, it is unreasonable, because the economy is the economy, it looks for where it is more profitable.

V. DYMARSKY - Mr. Markov, Mr. Markov. You have a question that you simply cannot answer. Direct question. Valery Borisovich asks you: “Mr. Markov, how many people are you ready to sacrifice for the integrity of the USSR?”

S. MARKOV – I generally think, you know, to answer the person directly.

V. DYMARSKY - Of course, just as the question was asked directly.

S. MARKOV - Experts are serious people, like statesmen, they never say: no one should be put to death. This is a child’s tear, this is the lot of writers, so to speak. Statesmen They calculate how many people will die under certain scenarios. I can say that if we preserved and modernized the Soviet Union, our country would have been much more populated, much richer, and fewer people would have died from diseases associated with hunger...

V. DYMARSKY - Sergey, can I ask one question...

S. MARKOV – Due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, a huge number of people died. There are numerous calculations...

S. FILATOV - But this could not be avoided.

S. MARKOV – It could have been avoided. It could have been avoided. It was not necessary to force the preservation of the Soviet Union by a soldier with a bayonet, but by modernization and the creation of a normal legal and political situation.

V. DYMARSKY - Sergey, Arina is writing to us on a pager. “Gentlemen, the economy of the USSR was falling apart before my eyes. I spent hours in GUM buying underwear and tights, and made an appointment in the evening to buy 200 grams of butter. With a salary of 100 rubles, boots cost 130-150 rubles. What are you talking about. I think from a consumer perspective we're doing much better." That's not the point. Sergey Alexandrovich Markov...

S. MARKOV – We cannot agree. There are objective figures.

V. DYMARSKY – What are the objective figures? Are you sure that we live worse now?

S. MARKOV – How many kilograms of meat and fish are consumed by a person. We are better in Moscow. I am better. Of course, and by a lot. But people in the Voronezh region...

V. DYMARSKY - Worse?

S. MARKOV - Worse.

V. DYMARSKY - They eat less...

S. MARKOV - Less meat...

V. DYMARSKY - Than under Soviet rule.

S. MARKOV - And look, Sochi, how the visit is there. How many people can go to the sea to relax during their vacation? Also an objective indicator. He fell several times. Consumption of meat and fish has fallen. Colleagues, I am for capitalism, for modernization. But not for the kind of capitalism in which the consumption of meat, fish, and vegetables decreases.

V. DYMARSKY - Well, okay.

S. MARKOV - This is wrong capitalism.

S. FILATOV - First, you will convince us that the numbers you are using are reliable.

V. DYMARSKY – And were the Soviet figures reliable? What are we comparing to?

S. MARKOV - This is UN data.

V. DYMARSKY - How do they know?

A. KONOVALOV – UN data is the same as the bins of the homeland. It was poured... and we bought more and more bread abroad.

S. MARKOV - Okay, believe the other numbers. Average life expectancy is now lower in Russia than it was in the Soviet Union.

A. KONOVALOV - Of course, because there is no medical care...

S. MARKOV – This is an integral indicator of the standard of living. Integral. He's lower...

THEY ALL SPEAK TOGETHER

V. DYMARSKY - Dear guests, listeners do not hear us when everyone speaks together, they simply do not hear us. I ask you, let's take turns.

S. MARKOV - Sorry.

V. DYMARSKY – Should Russia strive to restore its empire? Briefly and clearly.

S. MARKOV – It depends on what you mean by empire.

V. DYMARSKY – Zone of influence.

S. MARKOV - If we understand it as a national state, then, of course, Russia must maintain its nationality. And if by empire we mean integration with the fraternal peoples of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, then, of course.

V. DYMARSKY – Integration through gas.

S. MARKOV – Integration is not only through gas. Through the Russian language they want to speak.

S. FILATOV - Why do you always talk about our external affairs? Let's talk about internal ones. Here's the most important thing...

S. MARKOV – I’ll answer the question. If we talk about imprisoning peoples by force, this is not necessary.

S. FILATOV - The most important thing is to do everything so that a person takes a worthy place in our country in the Russian Federation. We must ensure that the constitutional task of the state is to ensure the right, freedom and normal life of a person, so that this is truly accepted by our state. This is the main task. If there is a person as the most important value in the state, and if everyone cares about this: legislators, the president, officials, and not vice versa, then we can talk about a great state that will be envied. About a great state that will be respected. Maybe they will be afraid if someone wants it. For example, I don’t want this.

A. KONOVALOV - There is no need to be afraid. Very simple answer. Russia's state structure, political system, and economic system must be such that we are an attractive model for our neighbors. Then the integration will take place on its own. There will be no need to close the valves. There will be no need to squeeze anyone’s throat, there will be no need to demand that they be friends only with us and with no one else.

V. DYMARSKY - I see.

S. MARKOV – That’s right, I’ll even say so. If you want Ukraine to be with us, it is not necessary to increase gas prices, but to eliminate the oligarchic regime within the country.

V. DYMARSKY – Within which country?

S. MARKOV – Ours. Create a normal market model. Fast the economic growth and Ukraine will integrate with us.

V. DYMARSKY - Dear guests, I thank you for this active, and I would say stormy, conversation, it was, in my opinion, quite interesting, at least useful. Perhaps it will need to be continued, since, as we said, this experience will still be useful to Russia. We received a huge number of messages on the pager, it was naturally impossible to read them all, but we read a few. Let’s not discuss this again sometime in a week or on a holiday...

S. MARKOV - Can you give me a second? Reasons for the failure of the reforms of the 90s.

V. DYMARSKY - Okay, we will also discuss this topic. I thank our guests. See you in a week on December 31st. Let's talk about more fun things, I hope for the New Year. In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you.

A. KONOVALOV - Happy New Year.

S. MARKOV – Happy upcoming holidays.

V. DYMARSKY - I still have time to do it, and you will do it now.

S. MARKOV - Yes, we wish everyone a Happy New Year, all the best and happiness.

V. DYMARSKY - See you in a week.

The collapse of the USSR: a pattern, an accident, a conspiracy?

The USSR is a great powerful power, where there is equality and unity, where there are no poor and rich, all people are equal. The huge country relied on the idea of ​​socialism. So why did the USSR collapse? Why did the seemingly ideal country fall apart?

The ideal political system was not so ideal. The main reason served as the country's economy, it was falling apart before our eyes. There were always huge queues where people stood for days. Shortages of goods generated dissatisfaction among citizens. The leaders did not care about producing the necessary products; heavy industry had prevailed in the country since the war; production technologies had long been outdated. The industry could not compete with other countries. The decline in oil prices as a result of its overproduction has shaken the country's already shaky economy. People did not want to work for the same, meager wages. The attitude towards work was of course at a very weak level. Another reason was the degradation of power. The administrative apparatus was old, and the new leadership was not an ardent supporter of socialism. People had no real choice of leaders of the country; only one candidate was nominated, already elected by the top of the government. Not an honest leadership that hid many facts, including the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The republics' exit from the Soviet Union dealt no small blow to the country's ideology. Drunkenness also served as a reason - people's absence from work worsened the situation of the country and affected the quality of goods. The collapse of Soviet ideology. The younger generation did not need socialism. Many looked to the West and wanted to live like them. The disclosure of many classified facts caused dissatisfaction with the country's government. The USA, the Cold War, the arms race and much more also took part directly in the collapse of the USSR.

Possible reasons for the collapse

· degradation of the power elites, a sharp aging of the top bureaucrats (the average age of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee was already 75 years by 1980), which led first to the Age of Funerals, and then to the rise of Gorbachev due to his relatively young age (54 years at the time of his election 5th General Secretary of the CPSU);

· the incompetence of the union leadership, the selfish desire of the leaders of the union republics to get rid of the control of the central authorities and use Gorbachev’s democratic reforms to destroy the foundations of the state and society;

· deep internal crises and conflicts, including national ones: Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Transnistrian conflict, Georgian-South Ossetian conflict, Georgian-Abkhazian conflict;

· strong inequality in the development of the republics of the USSR, including in terms of shortages of goods, as well as the possibility of building a shadow economy;

· unsuccessful attempts reforming Soviet system, which led to stagnation and then the collapse of the economy, which led to the collapse political system;

· crisis of confidence in the economic system: in the 1960-1970s, the main way to combat the inevitable shortage of goods in a planned economy consumer consumption a focus was placed on mass production, simplicity and low cost of materials; most enterprises worked in three shifts and produced similar products from low-quality materials. Quantitative plan was the only way to evaluate the efficiency of enterprises, quality control was minimized. The result of this was a decline in the quality of consumer goods produced in the USSR. The crisis of confidence in the quality of goods became a crisis of confidence in the entire economic system as a whole;

· a decline in world oil prices caused by overproduction, which shook the rather weak raw materials economy of the USSR;

· growing dissatisfaction of the population associated with periodic food shortages (especially during the era of stagnation and Perestroika) and other essential and durable goods (refrigerators, televisions, toilet paper, etc.), prohibitions and restrictions (on the size of the garden plot and etc.); a constant lag in living standards compared to developed Western countries and unsuccessful attempts to “catch up” with it;

· artificial closure of the country, which by the 80s had already become clear to the entire USSR, including the mandatory issuance of exit visas for traveling abroad (including to the countries of the socialist camp), bans on listening to enemy voices, and the suppression of a number of facts about problems within the USSR, as well as about the much higher standard of living in Western countries;

· Severe censorship in the press and on television. Lack of goods from capitalist countries on free sale with an ongoing and increasing shortage of goods;

· denial, and then sharp recognition of the problems of Soviet society - prostitution, drug addiction, alcoholism, criminalization of society and others. Active growth of the shadow economy;

· The Cold War, continuous financial assistance to the countries of the socialist camp, disproportionate development of the military-industrial complex to the detriment of other sectors of the country's economy;

· a number of man-made disasters (plane crashes, the Chernobyl accident, the crash of the Admiral Nakhimov, gas explosions, etc.) and the concealment of information about them;

· subversive activities of Western countries led by the United States, which was integral part“Cold War”, including through “agents of influence” within the leadership of the USSR - this assessment (with varying degrees of recognition of this factor as decisive) is expressed in some analyzes, in particular, by a number of former high-ranking leaders of the KGB of the USSR, as well as some communist movements .

The fall of the USSR ended the Cold War. Naturally, the victors in this war hastened to take credit for the collapse of their enemy, but for us it is much more important to analyze not the external, but the internal causes of this event. There was, of course, external pressure; the active and highly professional work of foreign intelligence services was of great importance. However, what happens inside is always decisive. The system could not have collapsed so quickly and painlessly if there had been no internal prerequisites for this. We have to admit that the collapse of the USSR was natural and inevitable.

Here two events should be distinguished: 1) the death of the USSR state as a union socialist republics; 2) the actual collapse of a single state entity and the emergence of independent states on the territory of the former USSR.

The second is due to the first. As long as the state declared socialism as its ideological basis, it was possible to unite rather heterogeneous elements. The economically and socially lagging Asian republics caught up, adapting to the voiced socialist ideals, while the Baltic republics, gravitating toward the West, were restrained in this endeavor, which was again justified by socialist ideology. Once socialism was dismantled, there was no platform left to realize geopolitical unity. The Asian republics have largely returned to their traditional way of life. The Baltic states have integrated into Europe. The Slavic republics, which retained the mentality developed by Orthodoxy, found themselves in search of their own path, in which the experience of community and conciliarity would be realized. The unified geopolitical structure was torn apart.

The fall of socialist statehood in the USSR was also predetermined. It is determined by the dialectics of the psychology of Soviet man. While the state was experiencing objective difficulties, people believed that solving public problems had a higher priority than solving their private problems. The socialist nature of the state made it possible to solve social problems quite effectively, and the existence of the USSR seemed justified. Once the main difficulties were overcome, a person's private life came to the fore.

This attitude was embedded in the original message of socialist ideology. Socialism was supposed to provide the common man good life. Accordingly, the main criterion by which the quality of government was assessed was the standard of living individual person. While objective difficulties made it possible to attribute this good life to a fairly distant future, the USSR was strong and socialism was attractive. When the time came to fulfill the promise, it turned out that the capitalist system was more suitable for realizing the concept of success in life. Having received a basic background of public goods of quite acceptable quality, and deciding that this is how it should be, the person wanted more. The principles of socialism, which binds a person to his social environment, began to be perceived as a hindrance, and capitalism, which encourages entrepreneurship and initiative, seemed more attractive. It was not possible to integrate the encouragement of entrepreneurship into socialism, and it could not have been possible, since the individualism required for this contradicted the emphasis on the importance of social values. As a result, the population preferred the possibility of individual well-being to the general, but smaller in the personal dimension, good.

I believe that the political system of the USSR has long been ineffective and has outlived its usefulness. And the fact that the country fell apart was a pattern and a confluence of certain circumstances.

The socialists tried to create a large, friendly and equal family. But as it turned out, not everyone wants to live in a stable and equal society, and in the end the USSR remained only on the pages of Russian history.

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………......3

Topic: “Collapse of the USSR”

2 The collapse of the USSR - a pattern or an accident………………………...21

3 Geopolitical position of Russia after the collapse of the USSR………………20

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….21

References…………………………………………………………………………………24

Topic: “The Formation of Christianity in Russia” ………………………………………………………25

Answers to control tasks……………………………………………………28

Introduction

The topic of the work is relevant because at this stage of development and political changes, taking place in the Russian Federation and neighboring states, successors of the former USSR, when the main characters of that period have already left the political scene, the interest in this period in Russian history has subsided somewhat, you can try to consider this time in the history of our state in order to find answers to those questions and problems that we have now.

The purpose of the work is a geopolitical analysis of the causes of the collapse of the USSR.

As for the sources, periodical literature of that time was used as the main ones, namely the newspapers “Moskovsky Komsomolets” and “Arguments and Facts”, some magazines - the international yearbook “Politics and Economics”, “Business People”, etc. The last two sources I trust a little more than newspapers, since these are serious publications. In addition, textbook sources are “History of the Soviet State by N. Werth” and “History of the Fatherland” ( school textbook) But these sources cannot be used as the main ones for the reason that they reflect a certain ideological position, and comments that are free of this shortcoming are important to us. This is why I prefer to rely mainly on magazines.

In order to understand the processes that took place in the USSR and led to its collapse, it is necessary to consider the features of the development of this state, the form of government in the USSR, the state regime, the form of the administrative-territorial structure, as well as some other problems of Soviet statehood.

"Collapse of the USSR"

1. The August 1991 events and their assessment.

August putsch- an attempt to forcibly remove M. S. Gorbachev from the post of President of the USSR and change his course, undertaken by the self-proclaimed State Committee for a State of Emergency (GKChP) - a group of conservative conspirators from the leadership of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR government on August 19, 1991, which led to radical changes in the political situation in the country. It was accompanied by the declaration of a state of emergency for 6 months, the deployment of troops to Moscow, the resubordination of local authorities to military commandants appointed by the State Emergency Committee, the introduction of strict censorship in the media and the banning of a number of them, the abolition of a number of constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens. The leadership of the RSFSR (President B.N. Yeltsin and the Supreme Council of the RSFSR) and some other republics (Moldavian SSR, Estonia), and subsequently also the legitimate leadership of the USSR (President and Supreme Council of the USSR) qualified the actions of the State Emergency Committee as a coup d'etat.

The goal of the putschists. The main goal of the putschists was, according to their official statements, to prevent the liquidation of the USSR, which, in their opinion, was to begin on August 20 during the first stage of signing a new union treaty, turning the USSR into a confederation - the Union of Sovereign States. On August 20, the agreement was to be signed by representatives of the RSFSR and Kazakhstan, and the remaining future components of the commonwealth during five meetings, until October 22.

Choosing the moment. Members of the Emergency Committee chose the moment when the President was away on vacation in Crimea and announced his temporary removal from power for health reasons.

GKChK forces. The State Emergency Committee relied on the forces of the KGB (Alpha), the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Dzerzhinsky Division) and the Ministry of Defense (Tula Airborne Division, Taman Division, Kantemirovskaya Division). In total, about 4 thousand military personnel, 362 tanks, 427 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles were brought into Moscow. Additional airborne units were transferred to the vicinity of Leningrad, Tallinn, Tbilisi, and Riga.

Commanded Airborne troops generals Pavel Grachev and his deputy Alexander Lebed. At the same time, Grachev maintained telephone contact with both Yazov and Yeltsin. However, the putschists did not have full control over your own strength; So, on the very first day, parts of the Taman division went over to the side of the defenders of the White House. From the tank of this division, Yeltsin delivered his famous message to the assembled supporters.

Information support for the putschists was provided by the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (for three days, news releases certainly included revelations of various acts of corruption and violations of the law committed within the framework of the “reformist course”), the State Emergency Committee also secured the support of the Central Committee of the CPSU, but these institutions were unable to have a noticeable impact on the situation in the capital , but for some reason the committee was unable or unwilling to mobilize that part of society that shared the views of the members of the State Emergency Committee.

Leader of the coup. Despite the fact that Yanaev was the nominal head of the conspirators, the real soul of the conspiracy, according to many analysts, was Kryuchkov

Opponents of the GKChK. The resistance of the State Emergency Committee was led by political leadership Russian Federation (President B.N. Yeltsin, Vice-President A.V. Rutskoy, Chairman of the Government I.S. Silaev, Acting Chairman of the Supreme Council R.I. Khasbulatov).

In an address to Russian citizens on August 19, Boris Yeltsin, characterizing the actions of the State Emergency Committee as a coup d’etat, said:

At the call of the Russian authorities, masses of Muscovites gathered at the House of Soviets of the Russian Federation (“White House”), among whom were representatives of various social groups - from supporters political organizations anti-Soviet orientation, student youth, intelligentsia to veterans of the Afghan war. Three died during the incident in the tunnel on Garden Ring were representatives of various professions - architect, driver and economist.

The former head of the Yukos company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, claims that in 1991 he “went to defend the White House”

Background.

· On July 29, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the President of Kazakhstan N.A. Nazarbayev met confidentially in Novo-Ogaryovo. They scheduled the signing of a new Union Treaty for August 20.

• On August 2, Gorbachev announced in a televised address that the signing of the Union Treaty was scheduled for August 20. On August 3, this appeal was published in the Pravda newspaper.
• On August 4, Gorbachev went to rest at his residence near the village of Foros in Crimea.
• August 17 - Kryuchkov, Pavlov, Yazov, Baklanov, Shenin and Gorbachev’s assistant Boldin meet at the “ABC” facility - the closed guest residence of the KGB at the address: Academician Vargi Street, possession 1. Decisions are made to introduce a state of emergency from August 19, to form the State Emergency Committee, to demand Gorbachev to sign the corresponding decrees or resign and transfer powers to Vice President Gennady Yanaev, Yeltsin to be detained at the Chkalovsky airfield upon arrival from Kazakhstan for a conversation with Yazov, then act further depending on the results of the negotiations.

• The beginning of the coup. On August 18 at 8 o’clock in the morning, Yazov informs his deputies Grachev and Kalinin about the upcoming introduction of a state of emergency.
• In the afternoon, Baklanov, Shenin, Boldin and General V.I. Varennikov travel on Yazov’s personal plane to Crimea to negotiate with Gorbachev in order to secure his consent to introduce a state of emergency. At about 5 p.m. they meet with Gorbachev. Gorbachev refuses to give them his consent.

The Emergency Committee agreed that the group would go to Crimea to see Gorbachev in order to persuade him to make a decision to introduce a state of emergency. ... Another purpose of our visit to Foros to see Gorbachev was to disrupt the signing of a new plan scheduled for August 20 Union Treaty, which, in our opinion, had no legal basis. On August 18, we met with him, where, as you know, we did not agree on anything.

- V. Varennikov, interview

• At the same time (at 16:32) all types of communications were turned off at the presidential dacha, including the channel that provided management of strategic nuclear forces THE USSR. In a later interview with Gorbachev, it is stated that a group of guests cut the communication lines only in his cabin, and the facility itself in Foros and the lines in other rooms worked properly. In addition, communications in Gorbachev’s cars, incl. control of strategic forces also worked.
• On August 19, at 4 a.m., the Sevastopol regiment of the USSR KGB troops blocked the presidential dacha in Foros. By order of the Chief of Staff of the USSR Air Defense Forces, Colonel-General Maltsev, two tractors blocked the runway on which the President's flight assets are located - a Tu-134 plane and a Mi-8 helicopter. In a later interview with Gorbachev, it is stated that in essence there was no blockade, because “About 4,000 people in the nearest units and units were directly subordinate to me, and these were mainly units of my personal security.”

Development of main events.

• At 6 o’clock in the morning, the USSR media announced the introduction of a state of emergency in the country and the inability of USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev to perform his functions “for health reasons” and the transfer of all power to the State Emergency Committee. At the same time to Moscow and others big cities Troops were brought in, political figures of the “democratic opposition” were put on the wanted list.
• At night, Alpha moved to Yeltsin’s dacha in Arkhangelskoye, but did not block the president and did not receive instructions to take any action against him. Meanwhile, Yeltsin urgently mobilized all his supporters in the upper echelon of power, the most prominent of whom were Ruslan Khasbulatov, Anatoly Sobchak, Gennady Burbulis, Mikhail Poltoranin, Sergei Shakhrai, Viktor Yaroshenko. The coalition compiled and faxed an appeal “To the Citizens of Russia.” B. N. Yeltsin signed a decree “On the illegality of the actions of the State Emergency Committee.” Echo of Moscow became the mouthpiece of opponents of the coup.
• Yeltsin's condemnation of the State Emergency Committee during a speech from a tank of the Taman division at the White House. Russian President B.N. Yeltsin arrives at the “White House” (Supreme Council of the RSFSR) at 9 o’clock and organizes a center of resistance to the actions of the State Emergency Committee. Resistance takes the form of rallies that gather in Moscow near the White House on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment and in Leningrad on St. Isaac's Square near the Mariinsky Palace. Barricades are being erected in Moscow and leaflets are being distributed. Directly near the White House there are armored vehicles of the Ryazan regiment of the Tula Airborne Division under the command of Major General Alexander Lebed and the Taman Division. At 12 o'clock, from a tank, Yeltsin addresses those gathered for the rally, where he names what happened coup d'etat. From among the protesters, unarmed militia groups are created under the command of deputy Konstantin Kobets. Afghan veterans and employees of the private security company Alex take an active part in the militia. Yeltsin is preparing space for retreat by sending emissaries to Paris and Sverdlovsk with the right to organize a government in exile.
• Evening press conference of the State Emergency Committee. V. Pavlov, who developed a hypertensive crisis, was absent from it. The members of the State Emergency Committee were noticeably nervous; The whole world went around the footage of G. Yanaev’s shaking hands. Journalist T. Malkina openly called what was happening a “coup,” the words of the members of the State Emergency Committee were more like excuses (G. Yanaev: “Gorbachev deserves all respect”).

• By order of the State Emergency Committee, preparations were made for the previously unplanned seizure of the building of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR by special forces of the KGB of the USSR. However, the generals responsible for preparing the assault began to doubt the feasibility. Alexander Lebed goes over to the side of the White House defenders. The commanders of Alpha and Vympel, Karpukhin and Beskov, ask Deputy Chairman of the KGB Ageev to cancel the operation. The assault was called off.
• In connection with the hospitalization of V. Pavlov, the temporary leadership of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was entrusted to V. Kh. Doguzhiev, who did not make any public statements during the putsch.
• For the first time in its modern history, Russia is creating its own Ministry of Defense. Konstantin Kobets is appointed Minister of Defense.

• On the night of August 21, tank units controlled by the State Emergency Committee carried out maneuvers in the area of ​​the White House (the building of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR). Supporters of Boris Yeltsin clash with a military column in the tunnel under New Arbat. (see Incident in the tunnel on the Garden Ring)
• Alpha Group refuses to storm the White House. At 5 o'clock in the morning Yazov gives the order to withdraw troops from Moscow. On the afternoon of August 21, a session of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR begins, chaired by Khasbulatov, which almost immediately accepts statements condemning the State Emergency Committee. Vice-President of the RSFSR Alexander Rutskoi and Prime Minister Ivan Silaev fly to Foros to see Gorbachev. Some members of the Emergency Committee fly to Crimea on another plane to negotiate with Gorbachev, but he refuses to accept them.

• Mikhail Gorbachev returns from Foros to Moscow together with Rutskoi and Silaev on a Tu-134 plane. Members of the State Emergency Committee were arrested.
• Moscow declared mourning for the victims. A mass rally was held on Krasnopresnenskaya embankment in Moscow, during which demonstrators carried out a huge banner of the Russian tricolor; At the rally, the President of the RSFSR announced that a decision had been made to make the white-azure-red banner the new state flag of Russia. (In honor of this event, in 1994 the date August 22 was chosen to celebrate State flag Russia.)
• The defenders of the White House are supported by rock groups (“Time Machine”, “Cruise”, “Shah”, “Metal Corrosion”, “Mongol Shuudan”), who are organizing the “Rock on the Barricades” concert on August 22.

Live, Yeltsin, in the presence of Gorbachev, signs a decree suspending the Communist Party of the RSFSR

Much later, in 2008, Gorbachev commented on the situation as follows:

One of the members of the State Emergency Committee, Marshal Yazov, about the lack of levers to control the situation:

Architect of the design and construction cooperative "Kommunar" Ilya Krichevsky

Afghan veteran, forklift driver Dmitry Komar

Economist of the Ikom joint venture Vladimir Usov

All three died on the night of August 21 during an incident in a tunnel on the Garden Ring. All three were posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Meaning. The August putsch was one of those events that marked the end of the power of the CPSU and the collapse of the USSR and, according to popular belief, gave impetus to democratic changes in Russia. Changes took place in Russia itself that contributed to the formation of its statehood, in particular, even during the events of August 20, 1991, it had its own Ministry of Defense.

On the other hand, supporters of preserving the Soviet Union argue that the country began to be in chaos due to the inconsistent policies of the then government.

2. Is the collapse of the USSR a pattern or an accident?

The reasons for the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of the Soviet Empire require an objective analysis, which in no case can be reduced to identifying external (hostile) and internal (subversive) influence, i.e. to a "conspiracy theory". The external pressure of the liberal-democratic West on the USSR was truly enormous, and the activities of “subversive elements” within the country were extremely effective and coordinated. But both of these factors became decisive only in a situation when the existence of the Soviet Empire entered a stage of internal crisis, which had deep and natural causes rooted in the very specifics of the Soviet system and the Soviet system. Without understanding these internal reasons for the collapse and their analysis, any attempts to restore the USSR (and especially to create a New Empire) will be futile and unpromising. Moreover, any purely inertial conservatism in this matter can only worsen the situation.

Let us identify several factors that led the Soviet Union to geopolitical and socio-economic collapse.

Firstly, at the ideological level, during the entire existence of the socialist regime, purely national, traditional, spiritual elements were never introduced into the general complex of communist ideology. Being largely national-communist de facto, it was never transformed into one de jure, which hindered the organic development of Russian-Soviet society, gave rise to double standards and ideological contradictions, and undermined clarity and awareness in the implementation of geopolitical and socio-political projects. Atheism, materialism, progressivism, "enlightenment ethics", etc. were deeply alien to Russian Bolshevism and the Russian people as a whole. In practice, these provisions borrowed from Marxism (by the way, and in Marxism itself, which are rather arbitrary elements of a kind of tribute to old-fashioned positivist humanism in the style of Feuerbach) were understood by Russian communists in the key of folk-mystical, sometimes unorthodox eschatological aspirations, and not as the rationalistic fruits of Western European culture. However, the ideology of National Bolshevism, which could find more adequate, more Russian terms for the new social -political system, was never formulated. Consequently, sooner or later the limitations and inadequacy of such an ideologically contradictory structure were bound to have a negative impact. This especially made itself felt in the late Soviet period, when senseless dogmatism and communist demagoguery finally crushed all ideological life in society. This “freezing” of the ruling ideology and the persistent refusal to introduce organic, national and natural components into it for the Russian people resulted in the collapse of the entire Soviet system. Responsibility for this lies not only with the “agents of influence” and “anti-Soviet”, but, first of all, with the central Soviet ideologists of both the “progressive” and “conservative” wings. The Soviet Empire was both ideologically and actually destroyed by the communists. To recreate it in the same form and with the same ideology is now not only impossible, but also pointless, since even hypothetically this will reproduce the same preconditions that have already led to the destruction of the state once.

Secondly, at the geopolitical and strategic level, the USSR was uncompetitive in the long term to resist the Atlanticist Western bloc. From a strategic point of view, land borders are much more vulnerable than sea borders, and at all levels (number of border troops, cost of military equipment, use and deployment of strategic weapons, etc.) After World War II, the USSR found itself in an unequal position compared with the capitalist bloc of the West, grouped around the United States. The USA had a gigantic island base (the American continent), completely controlled and surrounded on all sides by oceans and seas, which it was not possible to defend a lot of work. Plus, the United States controlled almost all coastal zones in the South and West of Eurasia, creating a gigantic threat to the USSR and at the same time remaining practically out of reach of potential destabilizing actions of the Soviet Union. The division of Europe into Eastern (Soviet) and Western (American) only complicated the geopolitical position of the USSR in the West, increasing the volume of land borders and placing it close to a strategic potential enemy, and in a situation of passive hostility of the European peoples themselves, who found themselves in the position of hostages in a geopolitical duel. the meaning of which was not obvious to them. The same thing happened in the southern direction in Asia and the Far East, where the USSR had immediate neighbors either controlled by the West (Pakistan, Afghanistan, pre-Khomeinist Iran) or rather hostile powers of a non-Soviet socialist orientation (China). In this situation, the USSR could acquire relative stability only in two cases: either by rapidly advancing to the oceans in the West (to the Atlantic) and in the South (to the Indian Ocean), or by creating neutral states in Europe and Asia. political blocs, not under the control of any of the superpowers. This concept (of neutral Germany) was tried to be proposed by Stalin, and after his death by Beria. USSR (together with Warsaw Pact), from a geopolitical point of view, was too big and too small at the same time. Maintaining the status quo was beneficial only to the United States and Atlanticism, since at the same time the military, industrial and strategic potential of the USSR was increasingly exhausted, and the power of the United States, a protected island, was increasing. Sooner or later, the Eastern Bloc was bound to collapse. Consequently, the reconstruction of the USSR and the Warsaw bloc is not only almost impossible, but also unnecessary, because even in the case of (almost incredible) success it will only lead to the revival of an obviously doomed geopolitical model.

Third, administrative structure The USSR was based on a secular, purely functional and quantitative understanding of intrastate division. Economic and bureaucratic centralism did not take into account either the regional, much less the ethnic and religious characteristics of the internal territories. The principle of leveling and purely economic structuralization of society led to the creation of such rigid systems that suppressed, and at best “preserved” forms of natural national life various peoples, including (and to a greater extent) the Russian people themselves. The territorial principle operated even when nominally we were talking about national republics, autonomies or districts. At the same time, the process of regional-ethnic leveling became more and more distinct as the entire Soviet political system “aged”, which towards its last stage was increasingly leaning towards the type of Soviet “nation-state” rather than the Empire. Nationalism, which largely contributed to the creation of the USSR in the early stages, in the end became a purely negative factor, as excessive centralization and unification began to give rise to natural protest and discontent. The atrophy of the imperial principle, the ossification of bureaucratic centralism, the desire for maximum rationalization and purely economic productivity gradually created from the USSR a political monster that has lost its life and is perceived as the forcefully imposed totalitarianism of the center. Some communist theses of literally understood "internationalism" are largely responsible for this. Consequently, this aspect of the Soviet model, which operates not with a specific ethnic group, culture, religion, but with abstract “population” and “territory,” should under no circumstances be revived. On the contrary, one should get rid of the consequences of such quantitative approach, whose echoes are so tragically reflected today in the issue of Chechnya, Crimea, Kazakhstan, the Karabakh conflict, Abkhazia, Transnistria, etc.

These four main aspects of the former Soviet model are the main factors in the collapse of Soviet statehood, and they are responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Empire. It is quite natural that with a hypothetical re-creation of the USSR, radical conclusions should be drawn in this regard and radically destroy those reasons that have already historically doomed a great nation to state disaster.

It is generally accepted that the collapse of the USSR was inevitable, and this point of view is held not only by those who considered it a “prison of nations”, or “the last of the endangered species - a relic” - a “multinational empire”, as an expert on problems of interethnic relations in the USSR put it M. Mandelbaum in the preface to the almanac of articles published by the American Council on Foreign Relations on the eve of the collapse of the USSR.*

3. Geopolitical position of Russia after the collapse of the USSR.

Russian foreign policy at the end of the 20th century. has become more defined, forward-looking and geopolitically sensitive. But serious problems remain related to the possibilities of its implementation. They are due to such circumstances as: the discrepancy between ideas in our country and abroad about the future of Russia, incl. about its positions in the world order; risks of new isolation of the country; the emergence of alternative geopolitical models that do not take into account or infringe upon the interests of our state.

To realistically assess the possibilities of Russian geopolitical projects embedded in the country’s foreign policy in the second half of the 1990s, it is necessary to once again analyze the features of the current situation. The geopolitical position of a state is determined not only by physical geography, but also by changes in the global geopolitical order and geo-economic processes. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia's geopolitical status declined. In the post-Soviet space, not excluding parts of the territory of the Russian Federation itself, external centers of power began to establish themselves. Disintegration processes have called into question Russia's geopolitical subjectivity.

The current geopolitical position of our country in the world can be viewed from two points of view. In the first case, Russia is assessed as the geographic center of the global system (heartland) and the integration core of Eurasia. The idea of ​​Russia as a kind of “bridge” between Europe and Asia is also widespread (this also has a philosophical justification: domestic thinkers, in particular N. Berdyaev, spoke of Russia as a “mediator” between the West and the East).

Modern Russia retains its geopolitical potential as the center of Eurasia, but with disabilities use, which leads to its transformation into a regional power with a tendency to further decline in geopolitical status. Economic weakness (according to IMEMO data for 1998, our country produces only 1.7% of world GDP), lack of state will and public consensus on development paths do not allow the implementation of the heartland model in its new interpretation: Russia as the integration core of Eurasia.

The geopolitical structure is changing qualitatively post-Soviet space, which loses its original “Russian-centrism”. CIS, which includes all former Soviet republics, except for the three Baltic ones, operates very ineffectively. The main factors restraining its collapse are the dependence of many post-Soviet states on Russian fuel raw materials, other economic considerations, and, to a lesser extent, cultural and historical ties. However, as a geopolitical and geo-economic center, Russia is clearly weak. Meanwhile, European countries are actively interacting with the post-Soviet republics, especially Germany and Turkey with its attempts to restore the unity of the Turkic world “from the Adriatic to the Great Chinese wall", China (Central Asia), the USA (Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia), etc. Uzbekistan and Ukraine are claiming the status of new regional powers, in which Western geostrategists see a natural counterbalance to Russia and its “imperial ambitions” regarding the territories of the former USSR (Brzezinski’s idea ).

Post-Soviet states are included in a number of geopolitical unions alternative to the CIS (European, Turkic, Islamic and other types of integration). Their role is underestimated in Russia, where there is still a strong belief that “they will not get away from us.” New regional cooperation systems are emerging on the borders of the Russian Federation. In some of them she takes part as much as she can - the Baltic, Black Sea, Caspian, Asia-Pacific systems, but in a number of cases the unification takes place without her presence. Countries are actively interacting Central Asia. Meetings of the “troika” (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan) and the “five” (the same plus Turkmenistan and Tajikistan) regularly take place here, formulating their special interests. As an alternative to the CIS in this region are considering their own Central Asian Union, Turkic integration (including Turkey) or the unification of Muslim countries within the framework of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. A characteristic event is the meeting in Dushanbe (December 1999) of the heads of government of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, dedicated to the development of the Central Asian Community in the 21st century.

An important geopolitical phenomenon is the consolidation of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan (the association is called GUAM); in 1999, Uzbekistan (from now on - GUUAM) joined the process. This bloc is intended as a geopolitical counterbalance Russian influence in the post-Soviet space. Ukraine is very active here, whose leaders have repeatedly exchanged visits with the heads of the countries that make up GUUAM. Official Kyiv, with the encouragement of the West, is trying to play the role of a geopolitical alternative to Moscow. In addition, the experience of recent years shows: in Eastern Europe, the ideas of a union of any configuration, but without Russia, are, as a rule, projects of an alliance against Russia, which means that the prospects for recreating the medieval Balto-Pontic belt (the “cordon sanitaire” along its western border) should cause our state has concerns.

Already being decided important task overcoming the CIS countries' transport dependence on Russia. For example, the Central Asian states are “cutting a window” to the Indian Ocean. The Tejen - Serakhs - Mashhad railway was built, connecting Turkmenistan with Iran, which gives the countries of the region access to this ocean (which in the future will also be useful for Russia, especially in the case of the construction of the North - South transport corridor along the relatively short route Kazakh Eraliev - Krasnovodsk - Kizil56 Atrek - Iran). Options for an alternative communication axis connecting Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan are being considered. The idea of ​​the Great Silk Road (GSR) has been revived, which almost completely removes the southern neighbors of the Russian Federation from its influence on communications. It is unlikely that Caspian (Azerbaijani) oil will be transited through Russia: oil pipelines leading to Georgia (Supsa) and Turkey (Ceyhan) are now considered promising. Only oil exports from Kazakhstan can go through the port of Novorossiysk. In addition, it is natural for Turkmenistan to introduce visas for Russians. Our country itself gave the reason for such actions, accusing Georgia and Azerbaijan of supporting Chechen separatists and by initiating the process of establishing a visa regime with these countries. In fact, this means their exit from the CIS.

As a result, the CIS participants “scatter”, reorienting themselves to other geopolitical centers. Only the Moscow-Minsk axis remains geopolitically stable: it strengthens the unity of Eurasia on a pro-Russian basis and prevents the creation of the Balto-Pontic belt. Russia is clearly on the path to losing its geopolitical role as the center of Eurasia. Based on this circumstance, many Western researchers already believe that the main global processes are determined by the relations between America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region (APR).

The geopolitical unity of the Russian Federation itself is in question; the National Republics are developing their external Relations, guided by ethnocultural criteria. In a number of them, Turkish influence increased, especially in the North Caucasus and the Volga-Ural region (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan). In republics with a Muslim population, the influence of Saudi Arabia and Iran is felt (to a lesser extent). Islamic countries even compete for such influence. The result of the geopolitical stratification of the Russian space was the actual “autarky” of Chechnya, and the North Caucasus as a whole became a risk zone within Russian borders.

Geopolitical problems are also associated with other regions of the Russian Federation. Thus, the Far East remains an abandoned outskirts of Russia and is forced to independently develop ties with China, Japan, etc. The exclave region is in a difficult situation. Kaliningrad region, at the same time maintaining the role of the country's western military outpost. In this problematic situation, pressure from neighboring countries claiming parts of Russian territory (Karelia, Pskov region, border with China, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands) is increasing.

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia's access to the sea was severely limited. The role of geopolitical “windows” is played by: in the Baltic Sea, St. Petersburg with the Leningrad region (it is clear that the Kaliningrad exclave does not count here); on the Black Sea - Krasnodar Territory (Novorossiysk) and Rostov region(attempts to revive Taganrog); in the Caspian - Astrakhan (Dagestan is excluded due to ethnopolitical problems); on the Pacific Ocean - Primorsky Krai and (much less) Khabarovsk region, Sakhalin and Kamchatka. It is important that the Baltic and Black Seas are classified as “closed”, because the straits are controlled by other powers (hence the minimal geopolitical significance of the Baltic and Black Sea fleets). The Sea of ​​Japan is also “closed”. Therefore, the Kola and Kamchatka peninsulas are of particular military strategic importance - the only territories of Russia that have access to the open spaces of the World Ocean: the Northern and Pacific fleets are based here, respectively [Kolosov and Treyvish 1992].

The role of our country in the quality of transit hub. Really functioning international communications now bypass Russia. Relations between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are mainly carried out by sea, bypassing its territory (sea transportation is quite cheap). Russian land communications are also not operational. But the GSR is being recreated in the form of a trans-Eurasian corridor connecting East Asia and Europe by land. Work begins on the implementation of the transport corridor project - "Europe - Caucasus - Central Asia" (TRACECA), which finds support both in China and Japan, and in the European Union (especially in Germany). The TRACECA project was approved in 1993 at a conference in Brussels (the leaders of eight states of Transcaucasia and Central Asia participated; later Mongolia, Ukraine and Moldova joined the program). And in September 1998, a meeting of the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria was held in Baku, where an agreement was adopted on the development of a transport corridor, transit and communications.

Thus, the trans-Eurasian corridor, due to geopolitical changes at the end of the 20th century. must bypass the largest state that considers itself the center of Eurasia - Russia. The most important highway of the future is supposed to be laid from China through Kazakhstan (Kyrgyzstan), Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia to Turkey and further to Europe (via Turkey and Bulgaria or through Ukraine, Moldova and Romania). Theoretically, its “northern” version is still possible from Europe through Belarus or Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan with access through Turkmenistan to Iran and the Indian Ocean, i.e. simpler in terms of the number of boundaries overcome. But the West today supports the option of bypassing our territory, preferring not to make its relations with the Asia-Pacific region dependent on unstable Russia (despite the fact that the internal political stability of a number of GSR countries is even more questionable). Russia is paying such a high price for the geopolitical disintegration of the USSR space with the loss of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, its “soft underbelly.”

True, there are vulnerabilities in the emerging belt of small states to the south and southwest of Russia's borders. Ethnopolitical instability is typical for XinjiangUyghur autonomous region China, bordering Central Asian countries. The location of the connection between the HSR and Chinese communications has not been determined. This is claimed by Kazakhstan, which is already connected to China in transport terms, and by Kyrgyzstan, which can be supported by Kazakhstan’s geopolitical rivals (in this case, it is necessary to build roads in the high mountainous regions of the Tien Shan, which the Chinese are ready for). A special position is occupied by Iran and Armenia, pushed aside from the GSR. They insist on using their land communications, but other participants in the project, for geopolitical reasons and with the support of the West, propose using a ferry from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan (bypassing Iran) and a road directly connecting Azerbaijan with Georgia (bypassing Armenia). Finally, communication between Georgia and Ukraine is planned to be carried out by sea, since land communications pass through semi-independent Abkhazia and Russia.

So, on the southern outskirts of the post-Soviet space and in South-Eastern Europe, a “new rimland” is being formed, covering the “Eurasian heartland” in a semi-ring. Russia turns out to be the remote northeastern corner of Eurasia, located on the sidelines trade routes. Existing communications, such as the Trans-Siberian Railway, are poorly used as a transit “bridge”; the prospects for their reconstruction are unclear (although Japan has shown interest in the reconstruction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, it is investing money in the reconstruction of the roads that make up the HSR). At the turn of the century, Russia poorly used its “triple” geopolitical potential: the integration core of Eurasia, a transit state and a developed economic center. In the meantime, we have to talk only about potential, prospects, opportunities, and not about decisions, actions and achievements.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we will summarize the results and draw appropriate conclusions.

Carrying out economic reforms with the subsequent abolition of the USSR and the gradual transition to the market, caused an abundant flow of contradictory discussions about the collapse of the so-called. Soviet Empire. But it should be noted that the collapse of the USSR was not the collapse of a classical empire. Let us note once again: the collapse of a unique multinational country did not occur for natural reasons, but mainly at the will of politicians pursuing their goals, contrary to the will of the majority of peoples living in the USSR in those years.

In 1978, Collins put forward several general points regarding territorial expansion and contraction of states. When, two years later, Collins, having formalized his principles and given them quantitative form, applied them to the Soviet Union, the conclusions he obtained completely contradicted the generally accepted point of view. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many American politicians and interest groups expressed alarm over the supposedly rampant Soviet military buildup that threatened the United States and its allies. Collins foresaw the onset of a period of instability in the USSR, partly due to the excessive military-imperial expansion of the Soviet power. In the long term, such instability could lead to the disintegration of the “Russian Empire”, incl. to the loss of control by the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe and to his own disintegration. He foresaw that the disintegration of the central power of the Russian state would be a precondition for the emergence of powerful ethnic separatist movements. The scientist noted that the formal mechanism for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union already exists in the form of 15 union republics with nominal autonomy and their own government institutions. This federal structure, while rendered meaningless under a strong central government, supports ethnic identities while at the same time providing an organizational framework that allows for the emergence of truly independent states once the power of the center is seriously weakened. Collins believed that the disintegration of the Soviet Union he predicted would most likely occur under the leadership of dissident communist politicians, and that these favorable structural opportunities would encourage some communist leaders to align themselves with regional ethnic groups.

Much of his analysis seems accurate and insightful today. The collapse of the USSR, however, was also predicted by other observers. But in contrast to their expectations that it would be the result of a war with China or the uprising of the Islamic republics of the USSR, Collins, for the most part, pointed to the true reasons for the collapse that occurred. The main drawback of the forecast was its timing. According to the scientist, the disintegration of the Soviet Union should have taken many decades.

Collins' analysis was carried out along three dimensions: a) the principles of this model as applied to the history of the Russian Empire over a long period of time; b) the applicability of the model to the collapse of the Soviet Union; c) its sources in Weber's social theory, as well as aspects of Weber's thinking that Collins may have missed. Collins lists five geopolitical principles that outline the factors that influence the expansion, contraction, or stability of national borders over time. long periods time. These principles concern mainly the ability of a state to wage war and control its population.

1. Advantage in size and resources. All other things being equal, large and resource-rich states win wars; therefore they expand, while smaller and poorer ones contract.

2. Advantage in location. States bordering militarily powerful countries in fewer directions, i.e. "peripheral" are in an advantageous position compared to states that have powerful neighbors on more directions, i.e. with "core" ones.

3. Fragmentation of core states. Core territories facing adversaries on multiple fronts tend to fragment over the long term into an ever-increasing number of small states.

4. Decisive wars and turning points.

5. Overexpansion and disintegration. Even “world” empires may be subject to weakening and long-term decline if they achieve excessive, from a military point of view, expansion.

So, more than 10 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Collins compiled a plausible scenario for the future collapse, based on the principles of geopolitics and ethnopolitical science. In its external characteristics, this scenario seemed to correspond to what actually happened.

Collins' opponents, in particular the political scientist G. Derlugyan, argue that nuclear weapons, despite their “symbolic significance,” lead to a deadlock “in interstate rivalry. Competition was imposed on the Soviet Union in non-military areas - economic, political, cultural and ideological production , where America's significant advantages left him no chance of victory." The USSR largely ensured its territorial security in the traditional sense (which is why Gorbachev could afford to take numerous unilateral initiatives in the field of arms limitation), but in the post-Stalin era, Soviet leaders and something more was required from Soviet society, and, first of all, concern for improving the level and quality of life associated with a change in the structure of the population (the growth of the urban population employed in industry).

Literature

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2. Butenko V. Where we are coming from and where we are going. Lenizdat, 1990.

3. Weber M. Selected works. M.: Progress, 1990.

4. Derlugyan G.M. 2000. The collapse of the Soviet system and its potential consequences: bankruptcy, segmentation, degeneration. - "Polis", No. 2, 3.

5. Collins R. 2000. Prediction in macrosociology: the case of the Soviet collapse. - "Time of the World", Almanac. Vol. 1: Historical macrosociology in the 20th century. Novosibirsk

6. International Yearbook: Politics and Economics, 1991

7. International Yearbook: Politics and Economics, 2001.

8. Sanderson S. Megahistory and its paradigms // Time of the World. Almanac. Issue 1. Historical macrosociology in the twentieth century / Ed. N.S. Rozova. Novosibirsk, 2000. P. 69.

9. Tikhonravov Yu.V. Geopolitics: Textbook. - M.: INFRA-M, 2000. -269 p.

10. Igor Kommersant-Bunin. Union republics: putsch as an indicator chemical composition// Kommersant, No. 34 dated August 26, 1991.

11. Olga Vasilyeva. “Republics during the coup” // In the collection “Putch. Chronicle troubled days" - Progress Publishing House, 1991.

12. Resolutions of the State Emergency Committee No. 1 and No. 2

13. B. N. Yeltsin. Biography. 1991-1995 // Website of the Yeltsin Foundation

THE FORMATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN Rus'

Following Kiev, Christianity gradually comes to other cities Kievan Rus: Chernigov, Novgorod, Rostov, Vladimir-Volynsky, Polotsk, Turov, Tmutarakan, where dioceses are created. Under Prince Vladimir, the vast majority of the Russian population accepted the Christian faith, and Kievan Rus became a Christian country.
Residents of the north and east of Rus' showed much greater resistance. The Novgorodians rebelled against Bishop Joachim, who was sent to the city, in 991. To conquer the Novgorodians it took military expedition Kievites, headed by Dobrynya and Putyata. Residents of Murom refused to allow Vladimir's son, Prince Gleb, into the city and declared their desire to preserve the religion of their ancestors. Similar conflicts arose in other cities of the Novgorod and Rostov lands. The reason for such a hostile attitude is the population’s commitment to traditional rituals; it was in these cities that elements of a religious pagan organization developed (regular and stable rituals, a separate group of priests - magi, magicians). In southern and western cities and rural areas, pagan beliefs existed more as superstitions than as formal religions. In rural areas, resistance to Christianity was not so active. Farmers and hunters who worshiped the spirits of rivers, forests, fields, and fire most often combined faith in these spirits with elements of Christianity.
Dual faith, which existed in villages for decades and even centuries, was only gradually overcome through the efforts of many, many generations of clergy. And now everything is still being overcome. It should be noted that elements of pagan consciousness are highly stable (in the form of various superstitions). So many of Vladimir’s orders, designed to strengthen the new faith, were imbued with a pagan spirit.
One of the problems after formal baptism was the education of subjects in the Christian spirit. This task was performed by foreign priests, mainly immigrants from Bulgaria, whose inhabitants adopted Christianity back in the 9th century. The Bulgarian Church had independence from the Patriarch of Constantinople, in particular, it could elect the head of the church. This circumstance played a big role in the development of the church in Rus'. Not trusting Byzantine Emperor, Vladimir decided to subordinate the Russian Church to the Bulgarian, and not the Greek, hierarchs. This order was maintained until 1037 and was convenient because Bulgaria used service books in the Slavic language, close to spoken Russian.
Vladimir's time cannot be considered a period of harmony between government and society. Historical meaning at this time was as follows:
Creating conditions for full-blooded cooperation of the tribes of the East European Plain with other Christian tribes and nationalities.
Rus' was recognized as a Christian state, which determined a higher level of relations with European countries and peoples.
The immediate consequence of the adoption of Christianity by Vladimir and its spread in the Russian land was, of course, the construction of churches. Vladimir immediately after baptism ordered churches to be built and placed in the places where the idols had previously stood: thus, the Church of St. Basil was erected on the hill where the idol of Perun and other gods stood. Vladimir ordered to build churches and assign priests to them in other cities as well, and to bring people to baptism in all cities and villages. Here two questions arise - in which cities and regions and to what extent was Christianity spread under Vladimir, and then - where did the clergy at the churches come from? There is news that the Metropolitan with bishops sent from Constantinople, with Dobrynya, Uncle Vladimirov, and with Anastas went to the north and baptized the people; Naturally, they first walked along the great waterway, up the Dnieper to the northern end of this route - Novgorod the Great. Many people were baptized here, a church was built for new Christians; but from the first time Christianity was not widespread among all the inhabitants; From Novgorod, in all likelihood, the preachers went by water to the east, to Rostov. This ended the work of the first Metropolitan Michael in 990; in 991 he died. It is easy to imagine how his death must have saddened Vladimir in his new position; the prince could hardly be consoled by other bishops and boyars; soon, however, a new metropolitan, Leon, was called from Constantinople; with the help of Bishop Joachim Korsunyan, who he installed in Novgorod, paganism was completely crushed here. Here is an interesting piece of news about this from the so-called Joachim Chronicle: “When they learned in Novgorod that Dobrynya was going to baptize, they gathered a veche and swore they would not let him into the city, not to give idols to be overthrown”; and exactly when Dobrynya arrived, the Novgorodians swept away the large bridge and came out against him with weapons; Dobrynya began to persuade them kind words, but they didn’t want to hear it, they took out two stone-shooting machines (vices) and placed them on the bridge; The chief among the priests, i.e., especially persuaded them not to submit. their wise men, a certain Bogomil, nicknamed the Nightingale for his eloquence.
The Russian Church, which developed in cooperation with the state, became a force that united residents of different lands into a cultural and political community.
The transfer of the traditions of monastic life to Russian soil gave originality to the Slavic colonization of the northern and eastern Slavs of the Kyiv state. Missionary activity in lands inhabited by Finnish-speaking and Turkic tribes not only drew these tribes into the orbit of Christian civilization, but also somewhat softened the painful processes of the formation of a multinational state. This state developed on the basis not of a national, but of a religious idea. It was not so much Russian as Orthodox.
When the people lost faith, the state collapsed. The state collapse of Rus' reflected the ongoing collapse of the ethnic system: although Russians still lived in all the principalities and they all remained Orthodox, the sense of ethnic unity between them was destroyed. The adoption of Christianity contributed to the widespread spread of literacy in Rus', the enjoyment of enlightenment, the emergence of rich literature translated from Greek, the emergence of its own Russian literature, and the development of church architecture and icon painting.
Since the Christianization of ancient Russian society was an ideological action undertaken by the grand ducal authorities in order to illuminate feudal relations, the introduction of Kievan Rus to Christianity stimulated the socio-cultural development of our ancestors not directly, but indirectly. The development of the process of Christianization of some types of socio-cultural activities was accompanied by simultaneous opposition to others. For example, while encouraging painting (frescoes and icons were needed for religious purposes), the newly established church condemned sculpture (sculpture in Orthodox church there is no room). Cultivating a cappella singing, which accompanies Orthodox worship, she condemned instrumental music, which had no liturgical use. Folk theater (buffoonery) was persecuted, oral folk art was condemned, and monuments of pre-Christian Slavic culture were exterminated as “pagan heritage.”
Regarding the adoption of Christianity Ancient Rus' Only one thing can be said unequivocally: it became a new round in the development of social relations of the Eastern Slavs.

Answers to test tasks.

Exercise 1.

1.What were the names in Rus' of the participants in military predatory campaigns, immigrants from Northern Europe, the founders of the Old Russian state? Varangians.

2. The upper class of feudal lords in Rus' in the 9th–13th centuries Boyars .

3. People's Assembly in Rus' in the 9th–12th centuries. Veche.

4. Type of land ownership in Russia, family estate, inherited. Patrimony .

5. Armed detachments under the prince in Ancient Rus', who participated

in campaigns, management and personal farming. Squad.

6. The Council under the Prince in the Old Russian State was subsequently a permanent estate-representative body under the Grand Duke. Boyar Duma .

a) under an agreement b) took out a loan c) as a result of military actions Answer B.

8.What was the name of the collection of tribute by the ancient Russian prince and his retinue from free community members? Polyudye.

9. Conditional ownership in Russia at the end of the 15th – beginning of the 18th centuries. Estate.

10. Unofficial government under Ivan the Terrible in 40–50. XVI century The chosen one is glad.

11. The highest class representative body in Russia, created by Ivan the Terrible in 1549. Zemsky Sobor.

12.What were the central ones called? government bodies management in Russia? XVI V. - Boyar Duma, XVII V. - Senate, XIX V. - State Council.

13. The system of maintaining officials in Rus' at the expense of local population. Feeding .

14. Form of peasant dependence: attachment to the land and subordination to the administrative and judicial power of the feudal lords. Serfdom .

15.What is the name of the policy of forced centralization, without sufficient political and economic prerequisites, with the aim of strengthening the personal power of the king? Oprichnina .

16.What was the name of the systemic crisis of the Russian state at the end of the 16th century? early XVII centuries? Time of Troubles .

17. The process of transition from a traditional feudal society to a new industrial one. Modernization .

18. A type of state power characteristic of Russia in the 18th – early 20th centuries, when all legislative, executive, and judicial power was concentrated in the hands of the monarch. Monarchy .

19. List the main directions of Russian social thought of the 19th century. a) those who advocated the development of Russia along the Western European path - Westernism, b) defending the original path of development of Russia- Slavophiles .

20. Name the main political and ideological trends of the 30-50s. XIX century Conservatism, liberalism, radicalism.

21.List the basic principles of the “theory of official nationality.” Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality.

22.List the main trends revolutionary populism: rebellious, propagandistic, conspiratorial .

23. Radical revolution, deep qualitative change in the development of society, the transition from an outdated socio-economic system to a more progressive one. Revolution.

24. A form of government in which the highest government belongs to an elected representative body, characteristic of Soviet period development. Republic.

25.What was the name of the form of power of the working class in alliance with the poor peasantry, established as a result of the socialist revolution. Dictatorship of the proletariat.

26.What was the name economic policy Soviet power?

a) from 1918 to 1921 - policy of war communism,b) from 1921 to 1929. - new economic policy (NEP).

27.The transition of private enterprises and sectors of the economy into state ownership, the policy of the Bolsheviks in the first years of Soviet power. Nationalization.

28. The process of creating large-scale machine production, the introduction of machine technology into all sectors of the economy. Industrialization .

29. Transformation of small individual farms into large public farms. Collectivization.

30. A model of the socio-political structure of society, characterized by the complete subordination of a person to political power, comprehensive control of the state over society. Totalitarianism.

31. Conventional name for the period in the history of the Soviet state from the mid-50s to the mid-60s. Thaw.

32. What is the name of the period of international relations from the second half of the 40s to the beginning of the 90s? The twentieth century, characterized by the confrontation between two world socio-economic systems. Cold War era.

Task 2

2.a)2, b)4, c)5, d)3, e)1

6.1d), 2e), 3c), 4b). 5a).

7.a), b), d), g).

8.c) 1547, i)1549, g), 1550, a)1551, h)1555, d)1555, b)1555-1556, f)1565, e)1613.

10.b), e), f), g).

11. 1-e), 2-d), 3-a), 4-c), 5-b).

a) 1714 - Peter 1 founded the Academy of Sciences and the library,

c) 1721 - declared Russia an Empire.

d) 1708 - provincial reform, 1719 - founded 12 colleges

e) 1711 - wedding of Peter and Catherine 1.

f) 1712 - St. Petersburg is the capital.

g) 1718 - established the Admiralty Board.

h) 1722 - approved the law on the procedure for civil service in Russian Empire and a report card in the authorities.

13.b), d), g), c), a, f).

14.a), b), d), f).

15.a), b), d).

16.a), d), f), i).

18. d), i), a), f), c), h), e), b), g)

19. c), i), k).

20. b), d), e), g)

22. c), d), b), g), a), e), h), f)

24. VTsIK - All-Russian Central Executive Committee

RSDLP - Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

GOELRO - abbreviation for State Commission for Electrification of Russia

VKP(b) - All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions

Red Army - Workers' and Peasants' Red Army

CPSU - Communist Party of the Soviet Union

State Emergency Committee - State Committee on the state of emergency in the USSR

25. a), b), d), g)

27. a-2; b-2; at 3; g-1; d-1; e-4; f-4; z-2; u-1; k-4; l-1; m-4

Election of B. N. Yeltsin as President of the Russian Federation

Decree of the President of the Russian Federation “On the phased con-

constitutional reform and dissolution of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation

First war in Chechnya – 1994

Task 3.

Horizontally: 6 Impeachment; 3Christianity; 5. Entente; 7Unia; 9 Formation; 11 Uprising; 13 Dictatorship; 15 Heretic; 17 Trekhpolye; 19 pacification; 21 Civilization; 23 Strike; 25 Label; 27 Empire; 29 Perestroika; 31 Historiography; 33 Occupation; 35 Methodology; 37NATO; 39 Serf; 41 Reformation; 43 Kamenev; 47 feudal lord; 49 Renaissance; 51 defaults; 53 Nevsky; 55 Nationalization; 57Donskoy; 59 Senate; 61Monk; 63 Veche; 65 Romantics; 67batch; 69 World; 71 Rear; 73 Absolutism; 75 Ermak; 77 Repression; 79 Decree; 81 Opposition; 83 Five-Year Plan; 85 subjectivity; 87 Prince.

Vertically: 2 Theory; 4 Cathedral; 6 Industrialization; 8 Manufactory; 10 Gorbachev; 12 Tips; 14 Destiny; 16Intervention; 18 Communism; 20 Crimean; 22 Rotation; 24 Polis; 26 Khrushchev; 28 war; 30 Abroad; 32 Strike; 34 History; 36 Kurchatov; 38 Periodization; 40 Castro; 42 Thaw; 44 Gilyarovsky; 48 Volok; 50 True; 52 Covenant; 54 Yanaev; 56Oprichnina; 58 Revolution; 62 Stolypin; 64 Salavat; 66 Vyatichi; 68 Smerd; 70Community; 72 Atheism; 74 Orthodoxy; 76 Stagnation; 78 System; 79 Duma; 81 Terror; 82 Chronicle; 84 Tiun; 86 Life; 88 Plenum; 90 Hitler.