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 by malicious intent. And the communists are to blame for this evil intent. They say that the entire heritage of our ancestors was wasted. In fact, everything is very transparent here. Soviet elite The mid-80s can be divided into those who wanted the collapse of the USSR and those who advocated its preservation. Those who wanted and worked for the collapse of the USSR were anti-communists, because together with the USSR they sought to destroy communism “in a single country.” In this they were helped by both anti-communist public groups and the generally anti-communist West. It was within the framework of their will and actions that the murder was carried out. That’s why the USSR was destroyed by anti-communists (of course, not without the help of other factors).
What is the fault of the “communists”, read those who wanted to preserve the country? After all, they had solid resources and public support expressed in the 1991 referendum. First of all, “in criminal negligence leading to the death of a person.” Having failed to provide adequate resistance to the anti-communists who were destroying the country, the elite groups that advocated the preservation of the USSR showed criminal inaction. This is their main historical fault. And the same share of responsibility lies with the pro-Soviet silent majority, which was criminally inactive at the moment when the anti-communists were killing the country. Moreover, what should be indicated separately, not only the communists, who constituted only a significant, but still percentage of the entire population of the country, were inactive. Those who did not have a party card were also inactive, but also silently watched as the USSR was killed. Therefore, the responsibility of communists and non-communists who were silent when the country was being killed is equal. Those people who dared to speak out during the period of collapse were rare - some were members of the party, others were not. But neither one nor the other can provide a complete alibi for their group - the silent majority of party and non-party members who voted for the preservation of the USSR showed equally criminal inaction. Therefore, for the most part, this pro-Soviet party and non-party majority, representatives who were already more than 18 years old during the Perestroika period, bears one degree or another of responsibility for not resisting the death of the country.
The responsibility of the killer and the one who did not stop him (although he could) are different, but, nevertheless, it exists. Therefore, of course, we must understand that without this “non-resistance” it would have been much more difficult for anti-communists to destroy the country. There are no calls to repentance here. Understanding this point is necessary so that the next time at a critical moment for the country, the silent majority does not just as passively watch the killer do his job.
8. The USSR collapsed because Stalin did not leave worthy heirs
This moment is especially funny, if only because Stalin did not leave any heirs at all, if only due to the circumstances of his death. Nevertheless, this stamp is often found, and what is especially interesting, among anti-communists. The logic here is simple - they say, okay, even if the “bloody tyrant” was an “effective manager, but he died, and there was no one to replace him. This is very revealing historical ignorance, since this thesis postulates the idea that statesmen of Stalin's caliber appear at the behest of human will. Stalin worked not with those whom he could imagine in his dreams, but with those who were at his disposal. When such “guilt” is attributed to Stalin, stretching into decades into the future, one can only ask who Stalin should have made a “worthy heir.” What store sells statesmen of this caliber, of whom there are at best 5-6 in the entire history of Russia? Who is the “magic correct successor” whom Stalin did not appoint? Beria? Well, so after his death he actually ruled the country, although he was killed. Is Stalin to blame for the murder of Beria? Or maybe Beria is to blame for allowing himself to be killed?
I wish I could find out the name of this very “worthy heir.” Indeed, from the position of post-knowledge, we know perfectly well that the figures equal to Stalin after his death there was none - I would like to hear alternative personalities. But there are none. Someone will say - yeah, that’s where you got caught - around Stalin there were only mediocrities and after his death there were also only mediocrities and will even quote something about “a lion leading the 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 for manual control such complex structure how the USSR needed a universal statesman, like Stalin, who was able to adequately govern the country in the multidimensional space of tasks and functions facing him. Everyone who came after Stalin did it worse. And not even because they were untalented - they simply did not possess all the qualities that Stalin had, and therefore ruled the country worse than Stalin in some respects. Therefore, claims to Stalin - “Damned one, where is the good heir?” are essentially a claim – “Bloody Stalin, why didn’t you find another bloody Stalin for us?” And you can’t undermine it - Stalin after Stalin, according to the logic of things, would definitely be no worse. In this regard, claims against the “successor of Stalin” are reminiscent of the current search in modern Russia for a “new Stalin.” It’s true that it is not clear, if in the USSR for 38 years after Stalin’s death they did not find a figure equal to him, then why should we expect such a figure literally right now? Is Stalin also to blame? To say that Stalin is responsible for what happened in the country after his death is ridiculous. Stalin was in demand until his death as a leader. After his death - from those who ruled the country after him. From Beria, Khrushchev, Malenkov, Brezhnev and others. But as we know, Stalin is the most convenient historical character for blaming him for anything - from “unprepared heirs” to forest fires in 2010 year.
9. In 1991, a natural revenge of the “white” losers in the Civil War took place.”.
Despite its obvious ahistorical nature, this thesis can often be found in discussions. With him, in principle, everything is very transparent - the opponents of the Bolsheviks, known as “whites,” were defeated in the Civil War and were either destroyed or expelled from the country. By the time the USSR collapsed, all that remained of them were pitiful scraps of mossy old men. What was the revenge? Were the losers able to return to their homeland? In fact, no—the vast majority died abroad. Were those who returned able to restore their pre-revolutionary privileges? No. Have they returned to power? No. Did you get the property back? No. What's the revenge, brothers? The fact that, sitting abroad, they gloated over the destruction of their homeland? Eco has fallen asleep in his old age.
In reality, who is in power now? They come from the CPSU, the KGB, the Komsomol, that is, products of the very system that drove the “whites” out of the country. Therefore, there is no revenge of the “whites” in nature. Those “whites” lost a long time ago, and those “reds” won a long time ago, and that Civil War ended long ago, no matter how the current “white sectarians” raged about its results.
In 1991, it was not the “whites” of the Revolution who won. The degenerated anti-communist partyocracy and the West won, and together they plundered the destroyed country. The role of the “whites” is, at most, wedding generals, at the festival of 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 last years, certain progress towards self-organization of this very silent majority is taking place, therefore, from the point of view of those who rejoice at the death of the USSR, it is required further work by demoralization and atomization of the pro-Soviet majority, which is still silent, but at a certain moment may, unlike 1991, 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 must be sealed in the past and must bear the stamp of “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 sad experience collapse of the country, so as not to repeat the mistakes made in Soviet time. 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, that once again shows the complexity of such a historical problem as the “collapse of the USSR.” I don't pretend to cover all aspects - that would require a slightly different investment of time and effort. 10 theses are what, 20 years later, seem important to me in the public discourse about the causes of the death of the Soviet Union.
Despite the fact that 20 years have passed since the death of the country, complete reflection has not occurred in society. Heads are swarming various kinds mythology, both Soviet and anti-Soviet, a comprehensive detailed analysis of the causes of the death of the USSR has not yet been made, which means it is still absent from society clear understanding how and why he died Soviet Union. 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.
"The topic of the collapse of the Soviet Union is one of the most controversial and most mysterious for ordinary people. If you ask a person who does not have more or less deep knowledge in the field of economics and politics, it is unlikely that he will be able to clearly answer this question. Most of the people with whom I have had the opportunity to talk on this topic either openly admit that they do not know, or suggest various fantastic scenarios not supported by any factual material - redistribution of power at the top, the machinations of Americans and dissidents, and other “conspiracy theories.”
Here we immediately come to the second version of the collapse of the Union, indicated in the topic - malicious intent. Of course, the Empire had many internal and external enemies, but I could not find any factual material to talk about the machinations of the enemies. And in various articles and books that talk about the death of the USSR, there are also no serious facts - only speculation of varying degrees of fantasticality. It is also difficult to imagine how, in reality, someone could deliberately harm a country that was already rapidly collapsing. Perhaps some actions of the then leaders of the Soviet Union pushed the country towards collapse, but they were not its cause, but only accelerated the inevitable process. In addition, an analysis of the reforms of the late USSR suggests that the people who made decisions were mistaken absolutely sincerely, and the mistakes were most likely due to the lack of economic knowledge among the members of the Politburo (most of whom came from the village with the appropriate level of education) and their excess faith in communism, the power of a planned economy and the sinfulness of market mechanisms.
At the same time, there are more than enough facts indicating the pattern of the country’s collapse. Let's start with the fact that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics carried decay already in its very name. It fell apart precisely because it was SOCIALIST. After all, what is socialism essentially? This is an artificial equalization of the incomes of all elements of society. However, even from the physics course we know that in order for work to be done, a potential difference is needed - energy flows from points with higher potentials to points with lower ones. When there is no potential difference, no work is done, and thermal death of the system occurs. And society lives by the same laws. In it, the difference in potential is ensured by a shortage of resources, the competition for which is driving force society.
Society in the Soviet Union was organized, to put it simply, according to the principle of “take away and divide,” formulated by Sharikov in “The Heart of a Dog.” The goal of the distribution machine of the USSR was an approximately equal distribution of goods among all members of society, that is, an almost zero difference in wealth, and therefore almost zero energy in society. In such a society, it makes no sense to create or produce anything beyond measure (unless, of course, the party orders it under pain of execution) - they will take it away anyway. By the way, this is precisely why civilization developed so slowly under feudalism - it was unprofitable for peasants to increase production, because the surplus was taken away by the landowner, and the feudal lords themselves had no incentive to somehow improve productivity and work in general - they were fed by serfs
Lesson on Russian history, grade 11.
Topic: “The collapse of the USSR: a pattern or an accident.”
Target:
To contribute to the formation of students’ ideas about the socio-political processes and events that led to the collapse of the USSR, about the main trends in the socio-political development of Russia in the early 1990s;
To promote the development of analytical thinking, the ability to work with historical sources, express your point of view and argue for it;
To promote a sense of responsibility for one’s deeds and actions.
Tasks:
Continue to develop students’ understanding of the mutual influence of the country’s development trends;
Develop independence in students creative activity, initiative, as stable personality traits, the ability to creatively solve problems that arise in life.
Develop the ability to study, acquire and deepen or expand knowledge, work with books, multimedia aids, master skills and abilities and creatively apply them in practice;
Planned results
Students will learn about:
-
causes of interethnic conflicts inyears of perestroika;
- objective prerequisites for the formation of national movements to leave the USSR;
- historical significance adoption of the Declaration onstate sovereignty of Russia;
- the origins and manifestations of the constitutional crisis inTHE USSR;
- attempts of the Soviet leadership to preserve a multinational state and the reasons for the failure of these attempts;
- the circumstances of the termination of the existence of the USSR.
Dates and events:
June 12, 1990 - adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia
March 17, 1991 - all-Union referendum on the preservation of the USSR; All-Russian referendum on the introduction of the post of President of the RSFSR
December 25, 1991 - dissolution of the USSR
Names:
M. S. Gorbachev, N. I. Ryzhkov, B. N. Yeltsin, A. A. Sobchak, R. I. Khasbulatov, A. V. Rutskoy, G. I. Naev.
Basic concepts and terms :
Perestroika – the last period in the history of the USSR, associated with an attempt to renew socialism in the USSR in 1985 – 1991; policy of reforming the USSR.
Publicity – open discussion public policy; the opportunity to openly tell the truth about our history and modernity.
Pluralism – plurality of opinions, views.
Putsch - a coup d'état involving a small group of conspirators.
"Parade of Sovereignties" - proclamation of declarations of state sovereignty by the republics of the USSR in 1990–1991.
Democratization – the process of consistent approval or renewal of the principles of democracy.
Multi-party system – the presence in society, along with the ruling parties (party), of a legal opposition, in the role of which other parties act.
Constitutional state – a state in which the rule of law is recognized in all spheres public life. An integral element of democracy.
Form : combined lesson
Used techniques and methods:
Case method;
Reception of "cluster";
Mind map;
- Mnemonics;
- « Brainstorm»;
POPS – formula;
Decision tree;
Reception"P" - "M" - "I".
Methods :
Verbal – explanation of new material, conversation;
Visual – thematic presentation “The collapse of the USSR: a pattern or an accident »;
Practical – cards – tasks with additional material.
Problem – tasks with a problem situation.
Lesson equipment:
textbook (A.A. Levandovsky, Yu.A. Shchetinov History of Russia XX - beginningXXIcenturies, 11th grade);
worksheet notebook;
a political map of the World;
portraits of political figures
computer;
interactive board;
documentary newsreel “Address of M.S. Gorbachev on August 22, 1991.
Lesson plan:
I. Organizational moment.
II. Formation of motivation and determination of lesson goals.
III. Organization of work to explain the basic concepts necessary to study the topic (frontal)
IV. Learning new material.
V. Primary consolidation of new material.
VI. Summing up the lesson.
VII. Homework.
VIII. Reflection.
Chronological warm-up.
Plan:Plan:
1. Reasons for the collapse of the USSR
2. Novo-Ogarevsky process
4. Bialowieza Agreement
7. Consequences of the collapse of the USSR
Introduction
The collapse of the USSR, formalized by the Belovezhskaya Agreement between the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus B.N. Yeltsin, L.M. Kravchuk and S.S. Shushkevich on December 8, 1991, is one of the most significant events in world historyXXV. This is perhaps the only assessment that is accepted by most historians and politicians. All other issues related to the analysis of the causes and significance of the collapse of the USSR remain the subject of heated debate.
Goal setting: today in class we will try to find out the reasons for the collapse of the USSR and its consequences.
Functions of the teacher: description " problem field", posing a problematic question.
Contents of the stage:
Problematic question: was there a collapse of the USSR? historical inevitability? In order to find out the answer to this question, it is necessary to understand whether the country has collapsed or collapsed?
Who doesn't regretdisintegration The Soviet Union, it has no heart; whoever wants to recreate it in its former form has no head.
Back then everyone wanted regime change - what ended up happening wasfell apart a country.
Both terms are used in works devoted to this period and are used in television programs and radio broadcasts. There are two points of view: the first is that the collapse of the USSR is a natural result of historical development; second, specific politicians who “destroyed the USSR” are to blame for the collapse of the country.
Reasons for the Collapse of the USSR
1. The struggle for power between centers and regions.
2. Exacerbation of interethnic conflicts.
3. Adoption of the RSFSR Declaration of State Sovereignty.
4. Weakening of state structures and decline in prestige communist party
The main mistake Gorbachev's activities became inconsistent in carrying out economic reforms in the USSR, which led to a sharp deepening of the crisis in the country, as well as a decrease in the standard of living of citizens.
B.N. Yeltsin - after being expelled from the government, the CPSU focused its reformist political activities on previously insignificant government agencies RSFSR, promoted Russian sovereignty, persistently fought
for the removal of USSR President Gorbachev from the political arena, was key figure in negotiations between republican leaders on the end of the USSR.
Novoogaryovsky process
On March 17, 1991, an all-Union referendum was held on the issue of preserving the USSR, which sounded in the following way: “Do you consider it necessary to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of people of any nationality will be fully guaranteed.” Of those who took part in the vote, 148.6 million people. (80% of those who had the right to vote), 113.5 million people spoke in favor of preserving the Union. (76.4%).
(at the same time with ) was held
First took place 1991 of the year .
In the summer of 1991, B.N. Yeltsin was elected president of the RSFSR. He suggested that the republics take as much sovereignty as they can swallow.”
After the referendumM. Gorbachev gathered representatives of the republics in Novo-Ogarevo and, having agreed with all the conditions and requirements, was able to prepare a draft Union Treaty.
The final version of the “Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States” was published in the newspaper “Pravda” on August 15, 1991.
On August 20, 1991, the publication and discussion of his project led to a split in society.
“August putsch” 1991 August 18-19 - attempted coup d'état (putsch) in the USSR
In order to disrupt the signing of this agreement and maintain their powers of power, part of the top party and state leadership tried to seize power.
On August 18, several “security officials” came to M.S., who was vacationing in Foros in Crimea. Gorbachev and offered him to sign a decree introducing a state of emergency in the country, but was refused. Returning to Moscow, they announced that Gorbachev could not serve as President of the USSR “for health reasons” and his powers were transferred to Vice President G.I. Yanaev.
In August 1991, a group of party functionaries announced the temporary removal of Gorbachev from power and declared a state of emergency in the country. Events of August 1991 –a coup attempt that brought the country to the brink of civil war.
The coup was led by the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP) consisting of: acting. O. President of the USSR G.I. Yanaev, Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov, Prime Minister of the USSR V.S. Pavlov, USSR Minister of Defense D.T. Yazov et al.The main task The State Emergency Committee saw the coup in the restoration in the USSR of the order that existed before 1985, i.e. in the elimination of the multi-party system, commercial structures, in the destruction of the sprouts of democracy.
August 19, 1991, after the announcement of the creation and Gorbachev's isolation in in front of the White House, called the actions of the State Emergency Committee coup d'etat, then promulgated a number of decrees on the non-recognition of the actions of the State Emergency Committee. On August 23, Yeltsin signed a decree on the cessation of activities .
But the coup failed. The population of the country basically refused to support the State Emergency Committee, and the army did not want to use force against the citizens of their state. On August 22, the putsch was defeated, and members of the State Emergency Committee were arrested.
The putsch lasted only a few days and was defeated, but this does not diminish its significance. It was in August 1991 that a new phase of historical development began: Russia took a step from a socialist state to a democratic one.
Results of the coup:
1. Failure of the coup.
2. By the decree of the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin on the termination of the activities of the CPSU from June 12, 1991.
3. Collapse of the USSR.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR.
WHAT WE RECEIVED:
Destruction of the totalitarian system
Really working political rights and freedom
Elimination of the arms race and military confrontation between powers
Access to currency.
Democracy in Russian, or something similar to democracy.
Market economy.
Devaluation.
Inflation.
A semi-sober president.
Legal multi-party system.
Federation (but only on paper).
Open robbery of the population (all sorts of pyramids, etc.)
A myriad of adventurers.
A huge number of criminal groups.
MEGA Social mobility.
Free travel abroad.
CAMBER
THE USSR.
WHAT WE LOST:
Confidence in the future.
Deterioration of the socio-economic situation of the overwhelming majority of the population
Salary.
Strong ruble.
Stable economy.
THE USSR.
Former republics.
ATS.
Comecon.
Free education, medicine, housing, as well as various kinds of vouchers.
Bottom line
On December 25, 1991, M.S. Gorbachev, President of the USSR, resigned. The USSR ceased to exist. In the same day The Supreme Council Russia established a new official name of the state instead of the RSFSR - the Russian Federation."
In conclusion, I want to say that there were troubled times in the history of Russia,
and times feudal fragmentation,
There were revolutions and misfortunes of other kinds.
But everything was ground by the indomitable will of the multi-tribal people
live in one mighty centralized state,
where the highest court would create law and justice
Krupa Tatyana Albertovna, candidate social sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian History and Archival Science of the Far Eastern Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education federal university", Vladivostok [email protected] Okhonko Olga Ivanovna, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian History and Archival Science, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok
The collapse of the USSR in the context of random and natural factors
Abstract. The article examines the random and natural factors of the collapse of the USSR. The role and place of the United States in the destruction of the USSR is assessed. The impact of internal political factors on the collapse of the USSR is analyzed. A complex of internal and foreign policy consequences of the collapse of the USSR is given. Key words: domestic political, foreign policy, natural, perestroika, putsch, collapse, union treaty, accidental, USSR, factors.
This topic is addressed due to memorable dates: 90 years since the formation of the USSR and 21 years since its collapse. The collapse of a huge state that existed on the territory of Europe and Asia had a lot of obvious and hidden reasons, as well as a complex of negative consequences. The purpose of this article is to try to understand the internal political and foreign policy factors collapse of the USSR, determine whether these factors were natural or random. In theoretical terms, the problem remains not fully studied. The lack of archival materials and the presence of closed sources causes ambiguity and understatement; discrepancies in assessments of this catastrophe raise many questions. When studying this problem, the points of view not only Russian historians and politicians, but also the positions of foreign leaders who had a direct influence on the events taking place. The content of this article analyzes a book called “WorldTransformed”, its authors are George W. Bush (senior) and his security adviser B. Scowcroft. The book provides answers to important questions about the history of modern times - how they were conditions were created for the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw War, which led to serious consequences in the balance of power in the world. From a number of factors that influenced the collapse of the USSR, one cannot exclude the role of the United States, which understood the real threat contained in the military potential of the Soviet Union. This is confirmed by the facts reflected in the above-mentioned book, written in 1998. It assesses the role and place of George W. Bush in the history of the United States and in world history. It is emphasized that the George W. Bush administration has achieved the fulfillment of the national goal that many Americans strived for - liberation of Eastern Europe and eliminating a deadly threat to the United States. The USSR, having a huge stockpile of nuclear missile weapons, theoretically posed a threat to the military-political structures of the United States. The perestroika started in the Soviet Union and the new foreign policy course of M. Gobachev suited the United States. M. Gorbachev's reforms made it possible to strengthen the position of the United States in Eastern Europe. G. Bush and B. Scowcroft note that, having begun to implement perestroika, “Gorbachev set in motion forces whose consequences were unpredictable - they were unknown even to himself.” Largely unexpected for the United States were the numerous concessions made by M. Gorbachev in relations with the countries of the former “socialist camp” that were members of the Warsaw Department. In this book, George Bush writes that “Gorbachev does not understand the actual situation in Eastern Europe. It appears he was trying to cultivate “little Gorbachevs” who would win public support.” Obviously, he hoped for a multiplier effect from perestroika, which would be extended to all countries of Eastern Europe. However, the process of the collapse of the ATS was irreversible, American plans explosions of internal affairs bodies were carried out, thereby, as they believe in the United States, the split in Europe was put to an end. In such a context, the conclusion suggests itself about the formation of random factors, which played a certain role in the collapse of the USSR, they did not prevent the process of collapse, did not delay, but, on the contrary, accelerated it. Analyzing their impression of the collapse of communist regimes in Europe, the authors of the book exclaim: “Even in my dreams I could not have dreamed that during my life they will see this: Europe is united and free.” Losing control of Eastern Europe had enormous negative consequences for the Soviet Union. In particular, the GDR was a “prize” for the USSR after the end of World War II, a reliable military ally and an important economic partner. The loss of the GDR meant the end of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev's foreign policy position caused a negative reaction among Soviet politicians, military officers, diplomats and in broad circles of the USSR public. Gorbachev gave up one position after another. He made concessions to American pressure on many foreign policy issues, and this was disastrous for the USSR. For many years, throughout the Cold War, plans were developed in the United States to destroy the Soviet Union. For this purpose, huge amounts of money were spent, nuclear arsenals were created, radio stations were financed in third countries, etc. When Perestroika and glasnost began, the USSR became more open to the world. In conditions of worsening economic difficulties and changes, which made it possible to talk about everything out loud, it would be strange if the United States suddenly abruptly abandoned the idea of destroying the USSR and did not take advantage of the opportunities that opened up before them. It turns out that the United States had a better handle on the situation in the USSR than in the Union itself. Unfortunately, Gorbachev largely did not understand the seriousness of the danger that threatened the Soviet Union. By 1991, an internal political crisis was rapidly developing in Moscow. The American side was informed about the impending putsch by the State Emergency Committee. The US Ambassador to the USSR J. Matlock was notified of the upcoming putsch by the mayor of Moscow G. Kh. Popov. US politicians in their memoirs about the collapse of the USSR note that the American side immediately informed M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin about the impending putsch.Nov Russian literature To this day, the coup is presented as an emergency situation and history textbooks state this. In this context, it becomes clear why Gorbachev stated that he would never tell the whole truth about the August events.
When the State Emergency Committee arose on August 19, 1991, George W. Bush was the first of the leaders of Western states to support Yeltsin. As Gorbachev's real power diminished, the US President's attitude towards the two rival leaders gradually changed towards Yeltsin. The Americans had good opportunity watch from the side internal political struggle in the USSR, especially since B. Yeltsin kept G. Bush informed of all the details related to the State Emergency Committee. On August 21, B. Yeltsin had a conversation with G. Bush, in which he congratulated the US President on the fact that in our country “Democracy has won greatest victory“Thank you very much for providing us with tremendous assistance.” This act of B. Yeltsin can be regarded as a betrayal of the Soviet Union. Even George Bush refused to comment on what was done. B. Yeltsin expected congratulations, and G. Bush simply replied that he understood him and felt “a little awkward.” B. Yeltsin was confident that the country was now freed from “the global center that commanded us for more than seventy years.” He launched a frontal attack on the USSR and openly “took away the Union brick by brick in order to then transfer most of the rights of the Union to Russia.” Much of what has been analyzed suggests that given the crisis situation in the USSR on the eve of the collapse ( economic crisis, political, party, etc.) this process was initiated both internally and externally artificially. The impact of the information factor on the collapse of the USSR cannot be ruled out. Glasnost as a structural element of perestroika played its part decisive role, it consisted in weakening censorship and removing the numerous information barriers that existed in Soviet society. People a long period I was in a state of shock, dumbfounded, it was difficult to understand “who is who.” All information means were put into use, because glasnost, democratization swept the USSR, everyone reveled in it, not understanding what was really happening. Discussions about horrors were launched Soviet system; they were aimed primarily at the ideological destruction of the foundations of Soviet society, the press was inundated with negative information, where the image of a terrible homeland and wonderful abroad clearly emerged. Performances on the street and publications in the press, the meaning of many cultural works had a certain informational component: criticism of Soviet political and ideological system and the Soviet Union in general. Such a similar direction of action of various factors could only be explained by leadership from a single center. In other words, an information attack was carried out on our country, and it produced devastating results. Signs of ideological collapse began to appear throughout the country. The leadership of the USSR did not take effective measures to stop this destructive process, it was split. Many researchers characterize the actions of M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin as a policy of “purposeful inaction.” On the eve of the collapse of the USSR, tension grew in the union republics. The positions of M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin on the issue of the fate of the republics were completely different. M. Gorbachev was a supporter of a gradual transition to their independence. B. Yeltsin spoke about the right of the union republics to secede from the USSR, as a result of which we can conclude that he “hit the backbone of Soviet state, shaking its political structure to its core." When the union republics declared sovereignty in 1991, the question was raised about the continued existence of the Soviet Union and its transformation into a democratic federal state. In the same year, a resolution was adopted “On the general concept of the union treaty and the procedure for its conclusion.” But at the beginning of the preparation of the new union treaty, the extreme aggravation of relations between the leadership of the USSR and Russia played a role. In April-May 1991, negotiations between M. Gorbachev and the leaders of nine union republics on the issue of a new union treaty took place in Novo-Ogarevo (the residence of the President of the USSR near Moscow). Doctor of Historical Sciences Z.A. Stankevich emphasized that by the spring of 1990, “the tendency towards “chaotic decentralization of economic, political and socio-cultural life in the USSR” had intensified.” It became obvious that a radical renewal of the Union was necessary on the basis of a new union treaty. At the fifth (last) congress people's deputies The USSR was asked to prepare an agreement on the Union of Sovereign States, in which each of the republics “would independently determine the form of its participation in the Union.” On November 6, 1991, the President of the USSR sent to the State Council a draft Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States (USS) Democratic state exercising state power. Until December 1991, the agonizing process of saving the Union in some form continued, but the situation became more and more uncontrollable every day.
Ukraine pointedly distanced itself from even participating in the preliminary discussion of the union treaty. In mid-November in NovoOgarevo, only 7 participants remained at the negotiating table: Russia, Belarus and five Central Asian republics. On December 1, in a referendum in Ukraine, 90.3% of participants voted for its independence. The United States immediately declared its readiness to establish with it diplomatic relations, and B. Yeltsin was the first to recognize the independence of Ukraine. Thus, Union Treaty, before he was born, he died. Events were coming to a close. The USSR locomotive approached the crash site in the little-known Belarusian village of Vaskuli, in the wilds of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where back in the days of N. Khrushchev a hunting lodge was built for the rest of former party officials: here it was easier to keep their plans secret. Main characters B. Yeltsin, L. Kravchuk, S. Shushkevich were in fear. They understood that their actions were not entirely legal and even to some extent criminal. On December 25, 1991, M. Gorbachev made a statement on television: “Due to the current situation with the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I am ceasing my activities as President of the USSR.” At 19:38 on December 25, 1991, the red flag of the USSR was replaced over the Kremlin tricolor Russian. Of course, one can assume that the Soviet Union has outlived its usefulness, and Gorbachev has become a brake on the path of reform, but in this situation it would be legal at the negotiating table for all leaders of the republics to officially declare the abolition of the treaty on the creation of the USSR of December 30, 1922. The Belovezh Treaty was illegal and criminal, because three people did not have the legal authority to decide the fate of the entire state.
To ratify the Belovezhskaya Agreement, it was necessary to convene the highest body of state power - the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR, since the agreement affected government structure republic and entailed changes to the constitution. In April 1992, the Fifth Congress of People's Deputies three times refused to ratify the agreement and exclude references to the constitution and laws of the USSR from the text of the Constitution of the RSFSR, which would subsequently become one of the reasons for the confrontation between the Congress of People's Deputies and President Yeltsin, which would later lead to the tragic events of October 1993. Thus, despite the fact that the de facto USSR ceased to exist, the Constitution of the USSR of 1977 de jure continued to operate on the territory of Russia until December 25, 1993, when the Constitution adopted by popular vote came into force Russian Federation, which did not contain any mention of the Constitution and laws of the USSR. 21 years after the collapse of the USSR, an interview with ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Pyotr Kravchenko appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda under the heading “It is not true that the document on the CIS was waved without looking by the half-drunk B. Yeltsin, L. Kravchuk and S. Shushkevich.” He claims that the document is based on the Russian-Ukrainian and Belarusian-Russian agreements on friendship and cooperation of 1990, i.e. “from bilateral documents we made a multilateral one, which allowed us to create the Commonwealth of Independent States.” Disputes over assessing the significance of the Belovezhskaya Agreement continue to this day. The Belovezhskaya Agreement became one of the episodes of the accusation against Boris Yeltsin. A special commission of the State Duma stated that B. Yeltsin, having signed the Belovezhskaya Agreement, committed a gross violation of Article 7476 of the USSR Constitution and committed these actions contrary to the will of the peoples of the RSFSR about the need to preserve the USSR, expressed during the popular vote (referendum) held on March 17, 1991. The commission also accused Boris Yeltsin of treason by preparing and organizing a conspiracy to unconstitutionally seize union power, abolish the then existing union institutions of power, and illegally change the constitutional status of the RSFSR. In search of an answer to the question: “was the collapse of the USSR the result of objective processes or the result of the destructive actions of specific historical figures and forces?” should be based only on an analysis of the specific facts and circumstances of that time. And the most important argument in this dispute should be the position of the peoples of the USSR, it is the people who are the bearer of sovereignty, the will of the people is supreme authority in the country. But this did not play a decisive role, although it should be taken into account that the referendum on the preservation of the USSR was held late. And the main thing, in our opinion, was that the will of the people did not correspond to the personal interests of the group of then politicians led by Boris Yeltsin. They were not stopped even by the fact that these separatist actions contradicted the Constitution and were not approved by the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR, the highest body of state power. The RSFSR did not have legal force in the part related to the cessation of the existence of the USSR. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the USSR did not know any major shocks, but in the 1990s of the twentieth century it experienced events that, in their consequences for the population, can be compared with a real war. This is what current President Vladimir Putin thinks. Lost huge territories, the population decreased, industry declined, and devastation reigned for many years. To summarize, it should be noted that it is too early to draw any deep conclusions regarding the problems of the collapse of the USSR, the patterns or accidents of this fact. Many questions remain unclear to this day. Needed archival materials, documents of that period and their truthful, objective interpretation. Our beliefs do not exclude serious economic, political, ideological and many other factors that undermined the power great power. But at the same time, we believe that the collapse of the USSR is a consequence of gross miscalculations and mistakes of politicians, the actions of destructive centrifugal forces that made Belovezhskaya Pushcha a symbol of irresponsibility and voluntarism in politics. Particular responsibility for the deed falls on two leaders - the President of the USSR - M. Gorbachev and the President of the Russian Federation - B. Yeltsin, who in 1996 stated that he regretted signing the Belovezhsky Agreement. M. Gorbachev also admitted his mistakes , but no one has yet told the whole truth about what was done. Historical analysis of previous eras shows that our country, over a period of more than a thousand years of history, faced the threat of collapse both during the period of feudal fragmentation in the 13th century, and during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century, and during the years of great social upheaval in 1917-1922. External and internal enemies tried to destroy the state through non-recognition, blockade, famine, and destructive wars. They did not succeed, since there were always forces within the state that opposed this threat. The greatness of Russia at all times rested on the spiritual potential of the nation.
V. Putin called the collapse of the USSR the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. And he emphasized that in order to survive in an era of upheaval, it is precisely “spiritual bonds” and the unity of the people that are needed. In general, one can note the domestic and foreign policy consequences of the collapse of the USSR. Foreign policy ones include: the loss of control over the countries of Eastern Europe, the collapse of the Warsaw Department, the unification of Germany, the formation of a number of independent states in place of the former USSR. Among the internal political factors, three groups can be distinguished: territorial, demographic, economic, internal political and social. TO territorial factors refers to a decrease in the territory of the Russian Federation compared to the territory of the USSR by 24% (from 22.4 to 17 million km²), while the territory of Russia has remained virtually unchanged compared to the territory of the RSFSR. TO demographic factors includes a decrease in population by 49% (from 290 to 148 million people). Streams of refugees and internally displaced persons were formed, not only of the Russian-speaking population of the republics of the former USSR, but also of many other ethnic groups of the huge disintegrated country, the regions of their exit: Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Northern Caucasus.K economic factors include: the collapse of the ruble zone, the decline in production, the depreciation of the ruble, the destruction of economic relationships between enterprises. Political factors include: the cessation of the existence of the unified Armed Forces of the USSR, there was a massive reduction in the military. The termination of the legal powers of the USSR and the lack of a legislative framework in the newly created Russian Federation led to a “war of laws,” which resulted in the tragic events of October 1993. Significant changes occurred in the social structure of Soviet society. New social strata appeared, including “poor working people”, homeless people, street children and many others who were unable to adapt and adapt to other living conditions within the new state. There was a deep stratification of society, at one pole - oligarchs, officials, high-ranking entrepreneurs; on the other are low-income and low-income citizens of Russia. Was the collapse of the USSR a historical inevitability, a coincidence or a betrayal of leading Soviet politicians led by M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin? Questions that are usually classified as debatable problems of history. In any case, it is too early to put an end to this issue, especially considering dire consequences collapse of the USSR.
1.Bush G., Scowcroft B.A. World Transformed. NewYork–Toronto, 1998.590 p. Quote by: Ivanov R.F. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. American version // Historiography and source studies. 2000. No. 5. P. 167174.2. Ivanov R.F. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. American version // Historiography and source studies. 2000. No. 5. P. 167174.3. Matlock J. Death of an Empire: the American Ambassador’s view of the split of the Soviet Union. M.: Rudomino, 2003. 321 p. 4. Fortunatov V.V. Domestic history for humanitarian universities. M., 2008.345 p. 5. Reports of the US Ambassador to Moscow J. Matlock // New and recent history. 1996. No. 1. P. 5668.6. Stankevich Z.A. Historical and legal aspects of the collapse of the USSR: Abstract of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Legal Sciences. M., 2002.52 p. 7. Alekseev V.V., Nefedov S.A. The death of the Soviet Union in the context of the history of socialism // Social sciences and modernity. 2002. No. 6. P. 6687.8. Zlatopolsky D.L. The destruction of the USSR: reflection on the problem. M., 1992.291 p. 9. Shakhnovich T. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Pyotr Kravchenko: “It is not true that the document on the CIS was waved without looking by the half-drunk Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich...” // Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 8, 2012 No. 185.С.8.10. Isakov V.B. Dismemberment: who and how destroyed the Soviet Union: a chronicle. Documents. M., 1998.344 p. 11. Kostikov V. Confused generation // Arguments and facts. No. 49.2012. P. 6.12. Yasin E.G. Who ruined our wonderful Union? // Knowledge is Power. 2001. No. 4. P. 7687.
Krupa Tatiana, PhD in sociology, assistant professor of Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok [email protected] Okhonko Olga, PhD in history, assistant professor of Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok Disintegration of USSR in context casual and natural factors.Abstract. In the article are considered casual and natural factors of the disintegration of the USSR. The role and place USA are Valued in destruction USSR. The influence of domestic political factors is analyzed on the decay of the USSR. Happens to the complex inwardly and outward politicalconsequence wreckages USSR.Keywords: inside political,outward political, natural, realignment, putsch, disintegration, union agreement, casual, USSR, factors.
REASONS FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR
Yeltsin's press secretary P. Voshchanov called the reason for the collapse of the USSR as follows:
“Everything is much more complicated. You remember how in 1991 everyone was already talking about the transition to a market economy. But what is a market? New property relations and new owners. The struggle between the center and local political elites at that time was a struggle over who would play first fiddle in the historical division. This is the main thing in the tragedy that occurred.”
Everything is true here except the word “tragedy”. Gorbachev created a bourgeois USSR out of the communist USSR: a multi-party system, a ban on the CPSU, the dispersal of the Politburo, the introduction of a market (literally capitalist) economy, and finally, the very replacement of the USSR with Gorbachev’s USSR.
Gorbachev thought he could govern such a new bourgeois country. But Gorbachev knew history poorly: as soon as tsarist Russia, as a result of bourgeois February revolution collapsed in 1917, then immediately its national bourgeois subjects (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and the Caucasus countries) demanded national independence, since without it the bourgeois system itself is in principle impossible.
Therefore, the USG - in fact the Union of Capitalist States - was obviously a chimera of Gorbachev: under state capitalism, the national elite rules. No one will share billions of dollars with the Center. As a result, Gorbachev repeated once again the history of Tsarist Russia. As soon as he introduced capitalism, he immediately lost power over everything.
Whether Gorbachev understood this or not, he never said. But the fact is that he read the so-called “Burbulis memorandum” - named after the politician who replaced Gorbachev in his office, who is credited with authorship. This is supposedly a secret text from Yeltsin’s advisers, which Gorbachev received long before the collapse of the USSR. There are two important points in the document.
1. “Before the August events, the Russian leadership, opposing the old totalitarian regime, could rely on the support of the leaders of the overwhelming majority of the union republics, who were striving to strengthen their own political positions. The liquidation of the old center invariably brings to the fore the objective contradictions of the interests of Russia and other republics. For the latter, maintaining existing resource flows and financial and economic relations during the transition period means unique opportunity reconstruct the economy at Russia's expense. 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 most profits to be distributed 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.
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 governed in these two decades former members Politburo, Central Committee of the CPSU 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’ vouchers, because Russian program privatization largely repeated the one that was developed for the GCC by Gorbachev’s team and was proposed for signing and implementation in the Novo-Ogarevo agreements package.
In fact, the privatization program was drawn up by those who then controlled the property of the USSR - and was drawn up so that they would become its main owners.
However, similar privatization in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the GDR was fair: all the socialist property of the people was counted and assessed - and divided by the number of residents of the country. As a result, the share of each family turned out to be quite large: with vouchers, the family became the owner of a small store or a significant shareholder in a large enterprise, and in the mid-1990s the share of “income from privatized property” in the income of families in these countries averaged from 20 to 40% and higher. In Russia, as you know, Chubais’ voucher was sold for a bottle of vodka. That is, all the socialist property of the RSFSR, created over 70 years of labor of Russians into the “collective piggy bank of a large collective farm,” was reduced to 150 million bottles of vodka.
The population of the CIS countries was deceived: in some countries, a handful of people (former party nomenklatura and directors) became the owner of nation-wide factories and resources; in other countries, state capitalism (that is, the bureaucracy) became their owner. So, in order to hide this blatant theft of public property from their people, the new owners are doing their best to hide this issue from consideration. And that is why the collapse of the USSR is viewed selectively only as an administrative collapse of the country, avoiding discussion of the topic of the collapse of the socialist formation - because this issue is directly related to the question of HOW our national property was divided. And therefore, the new owners are extremely interested in hiding the history of their dishonest appropriation of this property and blaming everything on the “Belovezhskaya conspirators,” or, even better, on the CIA or the West. Like, “as long as it’s away from us.”
2. The collapse of the USSR was a blow to the mentality of those who thought in “imperial terms.” Recently in Russia the idea of “Empire” has become very popular, and the USSR is already associated with “historical Russia” and the “Russian Empire”, and in such myths the collapse of the USSR is mistakenly presented as the “collapse of Russia”. It is clear that such an interpretation of the events of 1991 does not seek real facts and reasons, but simply requires a mythical “anti-Russian conspiracy.”
4. Populist leaders of the CIS countries (such as Zhirinovsky and his LDPR party) capitalize on the nostalgia of the marginal part of the population for the USSR - and therefore are also extremely interested in talking about the collapse of the USSR as a “conspiracy of our enemies.”
5. Any herself executive branch The 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 " fraternal 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 ailments and problems: the problem of poverty, and the problem of meager salaries for doctors and teachers, and bad roads, and much, much more. .
And, of course, Yeltsin’s refusal of Gorbachev’s plan to dismember the RSFSR into autonomous states was also fateful for Russia. The demonization of all previous rulers of the country, which has been a tradition since the times of the USSR, also seems unfair. Brezhnev, accused of creating a “period of stagnation,” nevertheless removed the execution of dissidents from our lives. Gorbachev, who was responsible for the collapse of the USSR, nevertheless created the beginnings of Civil Society and democracy with his Perestroika. Yeltsin, creating a class of oligarchs through unfair privatization, was also convinced that he was serving the good of Russia by ridding it of communism and cannibalistic communist ideas. There can be no unambiguous historical assessments here.
Except one. The USSR is like a complete dead end in history Human Civilization- had to in his own way internal reasons break up back in the 1940s. It was saved only by the victory over Nazism in World War II, which immeasurably strengthened the USSR’s position in the world and veiled the problems of the system in the eyes of the population. Exactly the same 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 human personality. Even if the USSR disintegrates at least a hundred times to achieve this goal, it’s not a pity. For we are finally gaining a NORMAL state.
And when homo impericus lament that “the collapse of the USSR is a great tragedy,” then with this approach the collapse of the Third Reich is also seen by homo impericus as “the greatest tragedy of the century.” In fact, the post-war Germans (on whose de-fascistization and de-imperialization the United States spent enormous amounts of money) today consciously consider the collapse of the Third Reich to be their good. The rejection of imperial ideas allowed Germany to create and Civil society(without which an effective economy is impossible), and concentrate the energy of the masses on the improvement of their country - instead of diverting it to “external conquests” and militarization. As a result, Germany was defeated by us, losing a third male population and burned to the ground, it became a leading economic power FROM ZERO, and average salaries and pensions in this country we defeated are orders of magnitude higher than those of us, the WINNERS.
The paradox lies in the fact that the rejection of imperial ideas and the desire to “rule over one’s neighbors and the world” leads to the concentration of the nation’s efforts and public funds on the improvement of one’s country. What gives clear results in improving the quality of life in the country - and it becomes, as in anti-imperial Germany or Japan, just an OBJECT OF NATIONAL PRIDE. The country is becoming GREAT in its weight in world politics - but GREAT not because of its imperialism, but because it was able to improve itself remarkably - and thereby created its weight in the international arena.
Somewhere from the second half of the twentieth century, the greatness of a country began to be determined not by the power of its armed forces and the number of atomic missiles, but by the size of average salaries and pensions - and the degree of individual freedom in the State. From the point of view of ancient ideas from the Age of Empires, the USSR was quite strong as an Empire, because it had an incredible number of tanks and nuclear warheads. Why did it break up?
Alas, it turned out that the strength of the country no longer depends on the degree of its militarization. So-called " human factor“became the main thing: a person 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 I 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 card system. YOU CAN’T LIVE THIS WAY - that was the main idea of that era, common to everyone’s understanding.
In search of a better future, the exhausted Soviet people abandoned the USSR.
SO WHO DESTROYED THE USSR?
Let's return to this main question, which, in my opinion, has its own answer.
A 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 “dump” Gorbachev before his trip to Minsk, convincing him that he would pursue one goal there, while in fact he was going to do the exact opposite. “It was necessary to turn Gorbachev out of the game,” Yeltsin added.” This attempt to shift their measure of historical responsibility onto Yeltsin alone is typical of all Gorbachev’s memoirs, just as the communists of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation stubbornly do not want to remember that it was they who unanimously voted for the collapse of the USSR. According to Gorbachev, the communists also had a hand in the collapse of the USSR, who almost unanimously voted for the Belovezhskaya Accords and for Russia’s secession from the USSR.
Nikolai Zenkovich in the book “Secrets of the Passing Century” cited above writes:
“Why did the communists vote so unanimously in favor? Many did this, probably reluctantly. The general mood was expressed by pilot-cosmonaut V.I. Sevastyanov, who was a member of the “Fatherland” faction, said with relief: “Thank God, the Gorbachev era is over.” They voted not against the USSR, as deputies repent today, but against the incompetent center led by Gorbachev. And to get rid of him, they liquidated the state.”
Yes, there was a coincidence. But a mistake is always EASY TO CORRECT! And they tried to correct it - on March 15, 1996, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a resolution to repeal the resolution of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR of December 12, 1991, which denounced the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR.
And what? Nothing. It turned out that another MOST POWERFUL FORCE in Russia itself was extremely interested in the collapse of the USSR, which in 1996 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 a mandatory 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 former Union, Russia lost 60 percent of its oil equipment production capacity, 35-40 percent of its 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” quoted above, but it is only a reflection of the generally extremely acute problem 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 would become a state independent of its neighbors - freeloading pretenders Russian oil and gas.
And now almost 20 years have passed since the collapse of the USSR, and we see: Russia’s main income is the sale of energy resources, from which it is getting immensely rich with the global rise in prices for them. The country's leadership defines the concept of Russia as an "energy power", the main governing force of the Russian Federation is Gazprom, and Russia's billionaires are people of the party-director corps who were at the origins of the privatization of Russia's mineral resources. Instead of Gorbachev’s “dividing the subsoil of Russia between the republics,” we see that the Russian Federation sells energy resources to the republics at world prices, and suppresses attempts to be indignant, although these “indignations” are largely caused by the project of Gorbachev’s SSG rejected by the RSFSR, where the subsoil of Russia became equally privatized by all subjects THE USSR.
Strictly speaking, in a broad historical sense, the question is not who destroyed the USSR (if this was an accident and a temporary mistake), but who HAS been preventing Russia from reunifying into the Union for almost 20 years. The main obstacle to this is Gazprom and other energy companies of the Russian Federation, and personally their shareholders, dollar millionaires and billionaires. At the same time, their participation in the collapse of the USSR was the most important thing.
I repeat that the re-creation of the USSR is again the unification of the subsoil of our countries into common socialist use. Russia’s former “brothers” in the USSR do not have any such “special subsoil”, except for Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, and also Kazakhstan. It is clear that these four republics of the ex-USSR absolutely do not want to make their mineral resources again “common property” with their neighbors.
Of course, neither Yeltsin nor Putin, for the idea of “recreating the USSR,” could no longer offer the CIS countries again common ownership of the mineral resources and energy production enterprises of the Russian Federation, since they belong to private owners and shareholders in the Russian Federation. I believe that the question “who destroyed the USSR?” and the question “who doesn’t need the USSR today?” - this is the same question, because all those who do not need the USSR today are equally involved in those events when the collapse of the USSR was carried out. Because they became owners at that time.
But in any case, it should be recognized that the very epoch-making nature of the collapse of the USSR is so historically global that different points of view about these events are possible, and never “the only one” historical truth"We won't find it. Which gives full scope to a variety of conspiracy theories - no matter how absurd they may sound. Some grain of truth, perhaps, lies in each such version of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - an odious state that went down in History with Yuri Gagarin, and the Holodomor in Ukraine, and massive illegal repressions of its population, and the victory over Hitler, and the adoption of the law on the execution of 12-year-old children for a handful of “kidnapped” rotting ears of corn from a harvested field. Like everyone else in life, there was everything: the darkest, most terrible, and something that you can be proud of forever. In any case, the USSR is something lived and experienced, and again we will never enter “this river” for the second time.