Why the collapse of the USSR was inevitable. Essay: collapse of the USSR

Examples demonstrating the inefficiency of the Soviet economy are well known. In the USSR, the consumption of raw materials and energy per unit of final product was 1.6 and 2.1 higher, respectively, than in the USA. Average construction period industrial enterprise in the USSR it exceeded 10 years, in the USA - less than 2. In 1980, per unit of final product, the USSR spent 1.8 times more steel than the United States, 2.3 times more cement, 7.6 times more mineral fertilizers, and 1.5 times more forest products. The USSR produced 16 times more grain harvesters than the United States, while harvesting much less grain and making itself dependent on imported grain.

Attempts to increase the efficiency of the Soviet economy through administrative methods were unsuccessful. Strengthening the role of the lower echelons of management does not increase the efficiency of the socialist system and does not solve the problems caused by the lack of market instruments. The shortage of labor, caused by a persistent excess of jobs compared to the available labor resources, led to a decrease in labor efficiency. The inability within the existing system to compensate for the reduction in the influx of labor with capital investments is one of the main factors in the collapse of the Soviet economy. These problems are real, but they are extended over time, difficulties grow over decades.

The rate of economic growth was declining, but this did not pose a threat to the existing economic and political institutions. This is how he assessed the state of the Soviet economy Member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee V. Medvedev:“The Eighth Five-Year Plan (1966–1971) was perhaps the last successful period of the country’s socio-economic development. The pace of economic development, under the influence of the economic reform of the 60s and more or less favorable foreign economic factors, turned out to be even slightly higher than in previous years. Subsequently, economic development began to rapidly and steadily deteriorate. For the time being, the economic situation was supported by high world prices for fuel, energy and raw materials. Only one sector of the economy was constantly in a flourishing state - the military-industrial complex. The country was languishing under the yoke of the unbearable burden of military expenditures.”

The transition from the usual shortages of the late 70s and early 80s to the real crisis of food supply in the late 80s, the inability of the authorities to ensure the fulfillment of obligations to allocate resources even within the framework of rationed distribution, was the most important economic reason for the loss of public confidence in the regime and its collapse.

In the 30s - early 50s, the basis for the stability of the communist regime was public fear of power. It was generated by massive repressions that paralyzed the ability of people, even in a narrow domestic circle, to express dissatisfaction with what was happening in the country, not to mention participation in protests. In the 60s, fear of mass repression became a thing of the past. The rejection of state terror, to which the political elite was pushed by its own interests, eventually affects the behavior of the population. The regime is taken for granted, but does not inspire panic. A new contract between government and society is replacing it. Its essence is clear: you, the government, promise us, the people, that you will not cancel the introduced social programs, even when they are more expensive, you guarantee the stability of retail prices for the most important goods. For this, society is ready to tolerate you (the authorities) and take you for granted.

What happens when such a contract is violated was shown by the events of 1962 in Novocherkassk, which followed the decision to increase retail prices for key goods. Riots broke out in Novocherkassk, in which thousands of people took part. The soldiers fraternized with the people. Since the Novocherkassk events, the fear of the Soviet leadership that soldiers would refuse to shoot at the people and join those protesting against the regime was the most important factor that the leadership was forced to take into account. Mass unrest that followed price increases in Poland in 1970, 1976 and 1980 convinced the Soviet leadership that this step could not be taken under any circumstances.

The political leadership of the USSR finds itself in a trap: it is impossible to increase agricultural production at the rate necessary to meet growing demand. Bringing demand for them into line with supply without raising prices - also, the decision to increase prices is a violation of the implicit contract between the authorities and the people. The gap between growing purchase prices for agricultural products and retail prices is increasing. In addition, the forced increase in the share Agriculture in the volume of capital investments limited the possibility of developing high-tech industries.

The authorities, by increasing the flow of resources allocated to the villages, tried to compensate for the long-term consequences of the damage caused to agriculture by the agrarian policy of the late 20s - early 50s. The results of decisions made at the turn of 1920–1930 created problems that would be key for the USSR for decades to come.

Meanwhile, the process of urbanization continues, the share of the population meeting their food needs through private farming is declining. The supply of the urban population in a socialist economy depends on state procurement of agricultural products. The role of mechanisms that include market elements - the collective farm market, consumer cooperation - is limited.

In subsequent years, it becomes clear that grain purchases abroad are a natural result of an agricultural crisis that is insurmountable within the framework of the chosen model of economic management. By the mid-1980s, every third ton of bread products was produced from imported grain. The production of livestock products was based on grain imports. The USSR was forced to enter into long-term agreements on grain supplies, committing to annually purchase at least 9 million tons from the USA, 5 million from Canada, 4 million from Argentina, and 1.5 million from China. Imports of grain and other types of food products, the consumption of which is increasing in the Soviet Union, fluctuates from year to year depending on weather conditions, but in long term growing steadily.

In 1981–1985 under the influence of growing difficulties in supplying the population with food, the share of machinery and equipment in USSR imports from capitalist countries is reduced from 26% to 20%, the share of food and industrial consumer goods increases to 44%. The USSR supplied metals to the markets of developed capitalist countries, but at the same time imported high-quality metallurgical products. This was the case in many other industries.

When the country faced an urgent need to finance food imports in the early 1960s, state leaders could have hoped that it could be provided through exports of manufactured products. But this possibility was not even seriously considered. The management knew very well that the vast majority of civil engineering products were uncompetitive on the world market. You can supply military equipment to vassal regimes, but there is no point in waiting for it to be paid in convertible currency.

The country's leadership understood the threat posed by the dependence of food supplies on countries considered as potential enemies. But both the agrarian crisis and the lack of competitiveness of the domestic mechanical engineering industry were a given. The Soviet leadership could do little to solve the problems that had accumulated over decades.

Oil fields in Western Siberia, discovered in the 60s, made it possible to temporarily solve the food problem. The foreign trade balance, balance of payments, food supply to the population, and the preservation of political stability were increasingly determined by what the weather would be like on virgin lands and how the situation would develop in oil production. As a basis for the economic and political stability of a world superpower, this is not much.

The preservation of the stability of the Soviet economy in the 70s was also facilitated by the unprecedented increase in world oil prices in 1973–1974. and the price jump in 1979–1981 tt. The flow of foreign exchange resources from the sale of oil made it possible to stop the growing crisis in the food supply of cities, increase purchases of equipment and consumer goods, provided the financial basis for increasing the arms race, achieving nuclear parity with the United States, and made it possible to begin the implementation of such foreign policy adventures as the war in Afghanistan.

Against the backdrop of high oil prices, the USSR, however, in 1979–1981. faces the problem of financing the current account deficit. The reason, as usual, was agrarian problems: three years of low harvests, a forced increase in grain imports. However, oil prices, while remaining high, stop growing. Against this background, the shortage of consumer goods in the country is increasing, money emission is growing, and prices on the collective farm market are rising. Since the mid-70s, approximately half of the increase in trade turnover has been achieved through deterioration in quality and higher prices. All this is happening against the backdrop of growth economic crime and corruption.

In 1981–84 The USSR government has one tool at its disposal to manage the growing difficulties in foreign trade - increasing oil supplies. They rise from 93.1 million tons in 1975 to 130 million tons in 1983.

The invasion of Afghanistan, perceived by the Gulf states and, primarily, Saudi Arabia, as a potential threat, became one of the factors in the radical change in their attitude towards the United States. Potential military support from a superpower turned out to be in demand. America needed lower oil prices.

Reagan signed a directive on national security in which the task was set to damage the Soviet economy. Of course, the goal was to weaken the USSR in economic and political terms. No one in the American leadership during these years dreamed of destroying it using the economic vulnerability of the USSR.

In 1985, an increase in the costs of commissioning new wells and maintaining production at existing ones led to a drop in oil production in the USSR by 12 million tons. At the same time, a slow decline in the real cost of oil, which began in 1981–1984, after the decision of the Saudi Arabia to increase production by more than three times, is replaced by a collapse in prices unprecedented in the history of the industry. In 1985–1986 prices for resources on which the budget depended Soviet Union, its foreign trade balance, the stability of the consumer market, the ability to purchase tens of millions of tons of grain per year, the ability to service external debt, finance the army and the military-industrial complex, fell several times.

This was not the reason for the collapse of the socialist system. It was predetermined by the basic characteristics of the Soviet economic and political system: The institutions formed in the late 20s and early 30s were too rigid and did not allow the country to adapt to the challenges of global development at the end of the 20th century. The legacy of socialist industrialization, the abnormal defense load, the severe crisis in agriculture, and the uncompetitiveness of manufacturing industries made the collapse of the regime inevitable.

Collapse of the Soviet Union was an incredible surprise for the American authorities, if not a shock. The fact that the CIA did not see signs of the approaching crisis and collapse of the USSR was considered by critics of this organization to be the most important failure in its work. Hence the defensive reaction of many Sovietologists - if we made a mistake, then we could not help but do it; it was impossible to predict the economic crisis in the USSR. The idea of ​​the subjective nature of the causes of what happened, its conditioning by mistakes made by the Soviet leadership after 1985, has become widespread among this group of specialists. This point of view is close to those who consider what happened to be the result of international intrigue. In Russia, it is represented in the publications of authors who believe in the existence of a global conspiracy against Russia. We must also take into account the existence in Russia of a long-standing tradition of attributing its own problems to foreign machinations.

The widely held view in Russia of the demonic omnipotence of the CIA is a mirror reflection of the prevailing belief in Washington that the CIA demonstrated complete incompetence in everything related to developments in the USSR in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The arms race played a role in the collapse of the USSR. If a country, which has an economy approximately four times smaller than the United States, maintains military parity with the latter, and even with its allies, and at the same time finances the maintenance of a group of 40 divisions in order to control the situation on the Chinese border, then at the level of common sense it is not difficult understand: all this is expensive. The scale of military spending hampered the development of the civilian sector of the USSR economy. However, evidence that, faced with intensified military competition with the United States in the early 1980s, the Soviet Union began to rapidly increase military spending is unconvincing.

A characteristic feature of the Soviet military-industrial complex is inertia. The volume of weapons production was determined not by military needs, but by what production capacities were created. If it is technologically possible to increase output, there has always been a way to justify the need for this. To the question of G. Shakhnazarov, Assistant General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M. Gorbachev: “Why is it necessary to produce so many weapons?”, Chief of the General Staff S. Akhromeev replied: “Because at the cost of enormous sacrifices, we created first-class factories, no worse than those of the Americans. Are you going to order them to stop working and produce pots?”

So the USSR in the 1970s produced 20 times more tanks than the USA. For example, the main argument in favor of continuing the production of tanks, on a scale unprecedented in peacetime conditions, was the belief that the United States had more possibilities increase their production in war conditions. General Staff analysts argued that the losses of Soviet troops in tanks in the first months of the war could be extremely high. Hence the conclusion: we need to release as many of them as possible in peacetime. But the main factor in discussing this problem in the USSR was not military considerations, but the fact that tank factories had been built and people were working at them. They must produce products. The same applies to other types military equipment. As documents show, no one in the Soviet leadership was eager to engage in a mortal battle with world imperialism during these years. All this hampered the development of civilian manufacturing industries.

Much depended on the country's leadership, but not everything. An analysis of the situation in which the Soviet Union found itself by the mid-80s allows us to conclude: against the backdrop of new realities (primarily a sharp decline in world oil prices), attempts to continue the policy of the previous decades, the essence of which was to mothball the existing economic and political system and not change anything in it. It took the country's leadership more than three years to even superficially understand what was happening to the Soviet economy. In a crisis, this period is too long. To take the measures necessary to manage the crisis meant creating a threat not only to current leadership USSR, but also for the entire communist regime. Rejection of them made the collapse of the socialist economy and the Soviet empire inevitable.

By this time, Soviet citizens, who did not have the opportunity to buy goods in demand, had accumulated forced savings. As of January 1, 1986, the excess cash in circulation amounted to 29 billion rubles. For 1971–1980 the excess money in circulation increased by 15 billion rubles in 1981–1987. – by 16 billion rubles. Even having decided to carry out a large-scale price increase, the Soviet leadership would have been forced to reckon with the risk that the shortage of basic consumer goods would persist. The deposition of funds from the population increased every year. At the same time, society did not understand the logic of what was happening then and does not understand it now.

The current situation - the choice between increasing retail prices or reducing capital investment and military spending - put the Soviet leadership in front of a difficult dilemma - to decide on a conflict with the population or with the party and economic elite. Refusal to make a decision on this key issue increased the risk of coming into conflict with both society and the elite.

A serious movement towards the market, even a socialist one, combined with the preservation of the power of the Communist Party, presupposes a transition to prices that balance supply and demand. Without them, market mechanisms work poorly at best, and more often do not work at all.

The first sign of the authorities’ desire to move in the direction of liberalization economic activity, in its own way to repeat the path that China embarked on at the end of the 70s, was the Law “On Individual Labor Activity”, adopted on November 19, 1986. In 1987, under the influence of the Chinese experience, individual farming activities were legalized. But these decisions did not have a noticeable impact on economic processes. The difference between three generations of Soviet citizens who lived outside the market economy and one generation in China had an impact. The skills of running your own farm, not controlled by the state, were almost lost. In China in 1979, the first signs of the authorities’ readiness to allow, at least in limited forms, the independent economic activities of peasants and to dissolve communes, were supported by a mass popular movement. However, nothing like this happened in the USSR.

In 1988, the Law “On Cooperation in the USSR” was adopted, opening the way for expansion of the private sector in the Soviet economy. Resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On the expansion of foreign economic activity of the Komsomol” and “On assistance economic activity Komsomol" opened up opportunities for organizations controlled by people from the Komsomol elite to have access to commercial activities, including foreign economic activities. The creation in an unprecedentedly short period of time of more than a thousand commercial banks, for which there are no qualified personnel, in the absence of traditions of banking supervision, makes them an instrument for cashing out money and removing enterprise funds from control.

Those who took part in the development of key political and economic decisions during this period were aware of the need for immediate liberalization of the economy and the introduction of market mechanisms. However, inconsistent liberalization measures have failed to address the key challenges facing the country.

Meanwhile, the decline in oil production continues - due to the increasing deterioration of mining and geological conditions and the depletion of reserves of the most highly productive fields in the industry, the production capacity of almost 100 million tons of oil is lost annually. Well production rates decreased by more than half. New deposits were more complex. Their development required significantly higher costs per ton of oil produced.

At that time, the leaders of the USSR saw the only feasible solution - attracting large-scale Western government loans to compensate for the reduced resources. Deputy Minister of Foreign Economic Relations A. Kachanov - First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR L. Voronin (October 1990): “Providing loans from the majority Western countries is linked to the speedy adoption in the Soviet Union of a real program for the transition to a market economy and the signing of a union treaty with a clear distribution of the competence of the central government and the union republics. Until these measures are implemented, the West will apparently show restraint in providing new loans to the USSR. Now the Western side is harshly raising the issue of payment by Soviet organizations for the supply of goods by Western firms under already executed contracts.”

There is no choice - the risk of collapse of the Soviet economic and political system forces us to reach agreements with the West on the terms of providing financial assistance to the collapsing economy of the USSR.

Only knowing the severity of the economic problems that the Soviet Union faced by 1988 can one understand Gorbachev’s initiative on arms reduction, formulated by him in December 1988 ., the consent of the Soviet leadership to an asymmetrical reduction of troops in Europe, to the conclusion of an agreement on intermediate-range missiles on terms almost identical to those proposed by NATO.

Meanwhile, the political and economic situation in Eastern European countries is changing rapidly. The use of force to maintain political control in the Eastern European part of the empire has to be forgotten. Any steps in this direction put an end to hopes of receiving large-scale economic assistance from the West.

Since the end of 1988, when society and the political elite of Eastern European countries realized that the use of military force by the Soviet Union in the conditions of the USSR's economic dependence on Western states was impossible, the collapse of the Eastern European part of the empire was only a matter of form and time.

As usually happens in history, the processes of the collapse of empires, once they begin, proceed faster than one can imagine. Back in September 1989, the CPSU Central Committee was confident that the Polish leadership would not raise the question of secession in the near future. Warsaw Pact. Soon there was no point in raising this question - the Warsaw Pact was no more.

The leadership of the USSR receives clear signals: if you want economic assistance, respect human rights, do not abuse force. But what do such advice mean for a political-economic system, the basis of whose stability has always been the readiness for the unlimited use of violence against its own people? They are equivalent to a demand for its liquidation.

As is usually the case in authoritarian multinational states, liberalization of the regime and democratization first of all lead to the political mobilization of forces ready to exploit national feelings. The risks associated with interethnic conflicts in a multi-ethnic country with a totalitarian regime, appearing at the first signs of its liberalization, were clearly demonstrated by the events of 1986 in Alma-Ata. There were student unrest under national slogans. About 10 thousand people took part in them. Students protested against the appointment of a Russian, G. Kolbin, as the first Secretary of the Central Committee of Kazakhstan. The Soviet leadership, not yet feeling bound by any restrictions on the use of force, quickly suppressed them. After the riots, the Union Center shows the first signs of weakness: the decision to appoint Kolbin was canceled, and Kazakh N. Nazarbayev was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan.

By the summer of 1988, strong nationally oriented movements were being formed in the Baltic states, Armenia, and Georgia. A series of increasingly bloody clashes on ethnic grounds, pogroms, sometimes turning into hostilities begins. It is impossible to preserve an empire without using force. The economic catastrophe that will follow when it turns out that the path to Western money is closed, entails a guaranteed loss of power, not only by the leader, but by the entire communist elite.

In 1989–1990 The Union leadership is increasingly losing control over the situation in the country. Increasing economic difficulties, growing shortages in the consumer market, expanding the range of rationed goods undermine the foundations of the legitimacy of the government and provide mass support for anti-communist agitation.

Action and political will are needed. There is none of them. The country's economy has approached the point beyond which disaster begins. The degree of uncontrollability of the economy has reached catastrophic proportions.

If not the political leaders of the West themselves, then their economic advisers were well aware that the structural problems of the Soviet economy could not be solved unless a serious program of financial stabilization and liberalization of the economy was implemented. Otherwise, having spent the funds received, the country will again face the same problems.

A dialogue begins between the leadership of the USSR and Western leaders. Its essence from the Soviet side is that we need money urgently, otherwise a catastrophe awaits us; from the Western side, develop a clear program of action that will allow us to lead the country out of the crisis, then we can discuss issues of financial support.

Chaos, ethnic conflicts in a collapsing territory crammed with nuclear weapons world superpower, no one needs. The fact that Western leaders wanted to preserve the USSR can be clearly seen from the tone of George W. Bush’s speech in Kyiv on August 1, 1991. He is trying to convince the Ukrainian authorities and society not to leave the Union: “Freedom and independence are not the same thing. Americans will not help those who would abuse their freedom by replacing the old tyranny with local despotism. And also to those who are inclined to welcome suicidal nationalism, the basis of which is ethnic hatred.”

The European Parliament in December 1990 adopts resolutions on the provision of food and medical assistance to the Soviet Union and undertakes to provide urgent food aid to the Soviet Union as soon as possible.

The last hope for stabilizing the situation is the G7 meeting in the summer of 1991. M. Gorbachev asks to be invited there. E. Primakov, who came to London ahead of Gorbachev's visit, spoke on British television about the threats associated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and chaos if the West does not provide economic assistance. But there was no need to discuss this issue. The Soviet leadership never decided what it was going to do to stabilize the economic situation, even if it received financial resources. Under such conditions, a meaningful conversation in London was impossible.

Gorbachev himself described the situation best, when he said at the Session of the Union Parliament: “The matter smells of kerosene.”

By the spring of 1991, it became obvious to Gorbachev that it was impossible to preserve the empire by force. During negotiations in Novo-Ogarevo on July 30, 1991, M. Gorbachev made a key concession to the leaders of the republics, essentially drawing a line under the history of the USSR as a single state. In essence, it was a decision to dissolve the empire, giving hope for its transformation into a soft confederation.

On June 17, M. Gorbachev signed and on June 18 sent to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Supreme Soviets of the republics a draft agreement “On the Union of Sovereign States.” On June 29–30, at a meeting between M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin and N. Nazarbayev, the final decision was made to sign the agreement by the heads of the union republics on August 20, 1991.

On the eve of the signing of the treaty formalizing the peaceful, orderly dissolution of the empire, the State Emergency Committee decided to do what, in their opinion, the president does not dare to do due to weakness of character - to use force to maintain central power. Over the course of three days, it becomes clear that the problem is not with Gorbachev, but with an already changed country. On August 19-21, 1991, what the authorities had feared for decades became a reality - the army refused to shoot at the people. In a developed urbanized society, it is difficult to find commanders who are ready to give the order to crush fellow citizens with tanks, as well as soldiers who will carry out such orders. The officers, who had learned well from the experience of the late 1980s that they would have to answer, did everything possible to avoid being extreme. It only took three days for the socio-political system of a superpower, the core of which was the ability and willingness to use violence against its own people on an unlimited scale, to cease to exist.

The putsch turned out to be stupid because the people stopped being stupid. An important precedent was created - for the first time in 73 years, citizens were able to force a heavily armed state to capitulate. Instead of the inertia of fear public life began to be determined by the inertia of fearlessness. Even if the coup organizers were able to retain power, this would not change the economic situation of the country, and its contours by this time were strictly defined.

The country was weeks away from bankruptcy and the cessation of payments on external debts - and even then with a complete stop in payments for import supplies. There was no need to think about large Western loans if the State Emergency Committee was successful. The new authorities would have to make a decision to further reduce food purchases, dump livestock, reduce imports of other food products, and shut down factories due to a lack of imported components. A successful coup would cause the inevitable collapse of the Union, because the republics would not want to go under such power.

After the coup of August 19–21, 1991, the death of the empire actually took place. Of course, the Soviet authorities could endlessly refer to the referendum held on March 17 on the issue of preserving the USSR, prove that the referendum held in Ukraine on December 1, which was attended by 84% of the republic’s residents, and 90.3% of them spoke in favor of the independence of the second largest union Republic, contrary to Union legislation. All this had nothing to do with the real political process. When empires collapse, their fate is not decided by plebiscites. The All-Union referendum on the preservation of the USSR was a meaningless response by the citizens of the USSR to a meaningless question. In the fall of 1991, the question was no longer about the possibility of maintaining a unified state, but about how to get out of political and economic chaos, and at the same time avoid civil war.

The threat that developments in the post-Soviet space would follow the Yugoslav scenario was real. On August 26, 1991, the press secretary of the President of the RSFSR P. Voshchanov warned about the possibility of revising the borders of Russia and those republics (excluding Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) that would not sign the Union Treaty. The statement implied claims to Northern Kazakhstan, Crimea and part of Left Bank Ukraine. On August 27 and 28, 1991, Moscow Mayor G. Popov presented even broader territorial claims to Ukraine. They extended not only to Crimea and part of the Left Bank, but also to the Odessa region and Transnistria.

Nuclear weapons, which set the limits of possible action during the Cold War, also proved to be a limiting factor during the collapse of the USSR. The leadership of the states gaining independence in the post-Soviet space turned out to be mature enough to understand: when it comes to borders, no matter how arbitrary and unfair they may be, we are talking about war. The agreements reached in Belarus on December 8 and confirmed on December 21 in Almaty paved the way for the signing of an agreement on strategic forces (December 30, 1991). It recorded the obligations of the participating states to promote the elimination of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Ukraine was ready to transfer strategic weapons to Russia after receiving compensation and security guarantees from the United States and Russia. The corresponding agreement was signed on January 14, 1994 in Moscow. On February 3, the Ukrainian parliament ratified it. The withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine to Russia and the destruction of launch silos were completed by June 1, 1996. During this period, nuclear warheads were withdrawn to Russia and launch silos were blown up on the territory of Kazakhstan. In the Republic of Belarus, the withdrawal of nuclear weapons began in 1992, and by the end of the year the overwhelming majority of nuclear weapons were transferred to Russia.

On December 25, 1991, after the abdication of M. Gorbachev, the independence of the former republics of the Soviet Union becomes not only a political, but also a legal fact.

Based on materials from Yegor Gaidar’s book “The Death of an Empire”

In these August days, we traditionally hear from the lips of various anti-Soviet and anti-communists words about the supposed “inevitability” of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here, in addition to outright lies and hatred of the Soviet past and socialism in general, we are faced with a deliberate confusion of concepts. It’s one thing, if we talk specifically about the situation that developed after Yeltsin’s coup on August 21-23, 1991 and the frank permanent connivance of the “democrats” on the part of the still President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev - then, perhaps, the great country really was doomed. But this was already the end of the tragic process that began with the breakthrough of the traitor Gorbachev to supreme power in the party and country in the spring of 1985. But is there any reason to assert that the Soviet Union was supposedly “doomed” even before the start of the disastrous “perestroika”?

WE WILL NOT dwell here on the frankly delusional fabrications of the remaining few “democrats” of the Yeltsin-Gaidar type regarding some supposedly “growing ethnic contradictions” in Soviet society in the 1970s - early 1980s. Suffice it to remember that in any living, developing organism - be it a person or a society - certain contradictions are inevitable. Another thing is that if we compare individual conflicts that arose in Soviet times on national grounds at the everyday level with those that are now literally multiplying before our eyes in the “developed” West, then Soviet contradictions will have to be examined under a microscope! Moreover, no sane person would talk about any kind of “increase” - of course, before Gorbachev’s team came to power.

In general, it is very appropriate here to recall the more than indicative results of the all-Russian Levada Center survey conducted in December last year in connection with the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR and the signing of the criminal Belovezhskaya Accords, published in the official Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Of particular interest are the answers to the question about the main reasons for the collapse of the USSR.

So, the first three places - with a large gap from the rest - were taken by the following answer options: “it was an irresponsible and unfounded conspiracy between Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich”, “it was a conspiracy of foreign forces hostile to the USSR”, “population’s dissatisfaction with the leadership of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev and his entourage." As we see, all three main reasons named by the Russians, albeit not entirely fully and systematically, but, as V.I. Lenin, from a political point of view, absolutely correctly reflect the opinion of the majority of the people about the absence of any “inevitability” of the collapse of the Union.

It is especially noteworthy that only in sixth place is the option “complete exhaustion of communist ideology.” But we constantly hear on state television channels and from the mouths of high-ranking figures of the “party in power” the exact opposite - that is, exactly the same “exhaustion” that allegedly gripped the entire society and even the majority of members of the CPSU. Some time ago, the leader himself “noted” himself in this field. United Russia"- Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who stated at one of the meetings with United Russia activists that by the 1980s, “nobody (meaning members of the Communist Party - O.Ch.) believed in anything." Well, if at the department of Professor A. Sobchak at Leningrad University people gathered, to put it mildly, insincere, then this is not at all a reason to attribute such a quality to the entire Soviet people... Moreover, as we see, even today’s Russians clearly spoke out in favor of the fact that in itself a great ideology - in contrast to the main ideologists of Gorbachev’s Central Committee themselves! - has not exhausted itself at all. And therefore, despite the existing individual difficulties, the activities of certain individuals who discredited the party, on this side there were no objective grounds for the collapse of the USSR by March 1985.

And now - about the economy. The incantations about the “scientific and technological lag” of the USSR have already set people on edge. But what about the indisputable fact that by the beginning of the 1980s, for example, the Soviet machine tool industry was at the world level - both in terms of organization of production and in terms of the quality of products? This is what a Cambridge University professor and director of the Center writes in the magazine “Free Economy” scientific research development problems of Cambridge Peter Nolan: “In the early 1990s, I was in Moscow at the Red Proletary plant.” The most complex world-class equipment, advanced systems with numerical program control (emphasis mine - O.Ch.) were installed there.”

Please note: the most important detail: one of the leading Moscow enterprises still had world-class equipment by the beginning of the 1990s, and yet it was installed just before the destructive processes of “perestroika”! Or, perhaps, for the gentlemen “democrats” in company with the “United Russia” members, the certificate from the University of Cambridge, in front of which they usually stand at attention, suddenly became unauthoritative?.. By the way, it would not be a bad idea to remember that only “Red” Proletarian" produced several thousand of the most advanced machines every month from its conveyors various systems, some of which were exported to 32 countries. Not crude oil and gas, mind you!.. For comparison: as Professor Yakov Mirkin from Russian Academy Sciences, today all of Russia produces no more than 350 metal-cutting machines per month. Should I say something here or not?

Or maybe remind the “reformers” whose scientific discoveries underlie the actions of all mobile phones, all kinds of smartphones, iPhones and iPads that they themselves, their wives and children use? So, these discoveries were made in the 1960s and 1970s by outstanding Soviet physicists, Nobel laureates Zhores Alferov - now alive and Vitaly Ginzburg - now deceased. Yes, the Soviet Union during the leadership of L.I. Brezhnev did not have the strength and opportunity to fully use these brilliant discoveries, but perhaps today’s, all “advanced” and “democratic” Russia is using them? Organized their production? But no, all these, as they say, fashionable gadgets, Russia, as well as almost the rest of the world, buys from China, led by the Communist Party! So it’s up to someone, but not today’s “democrats,” to broadcast something about “Soviet technical and technological backwardness.”

And finally, another example concerning a subject that has become almost a symbol of life for today’s generations - the Internet. Professor of Communication Technologies at Tusla University (USA) Benjamin Peters testifies: “In the 60s of the 20th century, Soviet and American scientists almost simultaneously took important steps towards development computer technology. Moreover, the USSR often overtook the USA (emphasis added - O.Ch.).”

In his book, “How to Avoid Networking a Country: The Complicated History of the Soviet Internet,” published in the United States, Professor Peters writes: “So, at the end of 1969, the ARPANET computer network (the progenitor of the Internet) was launched in the United States. And in the USSR, the idea of ​​connecting computers with a single network was first expressed by the Soviet scientist Anatoly Kitov back in 1959, and the first developments in this area appeared in 1962, when academician Viktor Glushkov presented the project of the National Automated System for Accounting and Information Processing (OGAS), which was intended for automated control the entire economy of the USSR (emphasis added – O.Ch.).”

“First proposed in 1962,” Professor Peters further writes, “OGAS was intended to become a national computer network remote access in real time, created on the basis of existing telephone networks and their predecessors. The ambitious idea envisaged covering most of Eurasia - every factory, every enterprise of the Soviet planned economy was such a “ nervous system"(emphasis added - O.Ch.)."

Yes, unfortunately, such brilliant proposals were not, as they say, put into production on time: they were in the way and insufficient - compared to the times of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin - the intellectual level of the post-Stalin leadership, which Pravda repeatedly wrote about, and the exorbitant burden of military expenditures necessary to confront the United States and its allies on a global scale. But there were such proposals and discoveries, which indicated highest level scientific and technological development of the USSR. The problems mentioned were, in principle, solvable, and none of them made the collapse of the Soviet Union “inevitable,” no matter how today’s anti-Sovietists in company with Russophobes fluttered about this topic.

16.12.2011 13:54 Comrade Saakhov

Was the collapse of the USSR a historical necessity and inevitability, a coincidence or a betrayal of the leadership of the CPSU led by M. Gorbachev? Questions that are usually classified as the cursed problems of the universe. The reasons for the death of powerful states are never completely clear, as evidenced by the variety of versions of the decline of the Roman Empire or the Mayan civilization, explained experts from the Forex Academy and exchange trading Masterforex-V, and after 20 years there are different versions of the collapse of the country, for millions of people who lost money overnight their great Motherland, which they were proud of, took an oath and respected.

Who is to blame for the collapse of the Soviet empire? What was random and what was natural in this the most important event 20th century?

Conspiracy theory or 1st (conspiracy) version of the collapse of the USSR

“Churchill came up with all this in 1918,” says the famous song by Vladimir Vysotsky. We are talking about the ever-popular theory of a “world conspiracy” against the USSR, which was backed by Britain in 1918 and the United States of America in the 80s of “perestroika”. This version is the most popular... in the United States itself: the wisdom and insight of its politicians, intelligence services, and Sovietologists, as a result of many years of subversive activities, gave such a stunning effect. What is not a reason for new funding in modern conditions, when the number of enemies around the United States is growing year after year? Evgeniy Olkhovsky, head of the Canadian community of traders at the Masterforex-V Academy, explained. That's why:
– US statesmen themselves have more than once taken credit for the liquidation of the USSR. For example, George W. Bush congratulated the CIA on the collapse of the Soviet Union, Secretary of State J. Baker, who during the 1992 election campaign more than once boasted of his contribution to this matter;
- CIA chief William Casey, according to American researcher Peter Schweitzer, wisely undermined economic fundamentals The USSR, having agreed with the Saudi sheikhs to increase oil production and drop its price from $30 per barrel to $12, depriving the USSR of tens of billions of dollars in foreign exchange earnings per year;
- with the beginning of perestroika, the United States tried in every possible way to revive and maintain separatist sentiments in the Soviet republics;
- in the end, according to the famous English historian Arnold Toynbee, " modern America comparable to a very large dog in a very small room - all it does is wag its tail and there are chairs lying around."

But the result of this activity should have been the weakening of the USSR, and not its collapse. As retired KGB lieutenant general Nikolai Leonov writes, in one of the secret CIA documents of that time, a copy of which he saw personally, the ultimate goal was declared to be the separation of the Baltic states and Right-Bank Ukraine from the USSR. This was the ultimate dream of Washington, and only in the long term.

Everything was much more complicated. Setting the task of weakening the USSR as enemy No. 1, the United States simultaneously feared chaos in a huge country, moreover, stuffed with nuclear weapons. Therefore, while advocating the independence of the Baltic states, the Americans at the same time supported Gorbachev’s idea of ​​​​creating a renewed federation from the remaining republics. For example, the same Bush Sr., during a visit to Kyiv on August 1, 1991, in a speech before the Supreme Council of Ukraine, three weeks before the actual collapse of the USSR, almost agitated for Ukrainians to remain part of the “renewed Union”: “ Freedom and independence are not the same thing. Americans will not support those who seek freedom to replace distant tyranny with local despotism.” This speech was “forgotten” by both Ukrainian national democrats and Sovietologists from the United States. Who enjoys remembering their own misconceptions and mistakes?

That is, Western pressure was one of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR, but far from being the main and determining factor.. Let us admit that only a weak state can be destroyed from the outside. After all, when citizens are satisfied with their lives, no matter what foreign intelligence services do, they will not be able to destabilize the situation in the country. The collapse of the USSR was caused by internal contradictions, and not by external pressure. As the same General Nikolai Leonov said: “The West really wanted to destroy the Union, but we did all the “dirty work” ourselves.”

2nd version of interpersonal contradictions between leaders Yeltsin and Gorbachev

Rationale: the collapse of the country was the result of an elementary struggle for power in the highest echelon of political leadership - between Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Rigidly personalizing the blame, they thereby acknowledge the accident of what happened:
– they say, if Yuri Andropov had healthy kidneys, there would not have been a collapse of the USSR(in 1993 in the American magazine The National Interest article “Andropov’s Kidneys” was published as the reason for the collapse of the USSR);
– confession of betrayal by Gorbachev himself. Gorbachev himself, at a seminar at the American University in Turkey in 1999, reinforced such beliefs by declaring that his life's goal was “the destruction of communism, the intolerable dictatorship over people. I was fully supported by my wife, who understood the need for this even earlier than I did. That is why my wife kept pushing me to consistently occupy a higher and higher position in the country.”. Well, why not the “fifth column”?;
- The United States also indirectly confirms Gorbachev’s treacherous role in the collapse of the USSR, details in the article by “The Exchange Leader” “The Times”: who is trying to celebrate Gorbachev’s 80th birthday and why?
– Shushkevich: if Yeltsin and Gorbachev had not hated each other, the union would have remained. But, they say, their exaggerated conceit, great pride and little restraint ultimately buried him. As Stanislav Shushkevich would write later, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha they decided specific task, namely, how to seat Yeltsin in the Kremlin.
* Gorbachev - “Prince of Darkness”, under this title the Ukrainian poet and writer Boris Oleinik published a book dedicated to Gorbachev, who is said to be nothing less than “a traitor of all times and peoples,” moreover, the deputy of the devil on earth (they say, wherever his foot goes, disasters inevitably arose there - unrest in Tiananmen Square, the end of the existence of the GDR, unrest in Romania and the death of Ceausescu, etc.).

As they joke on the World Wide Web, when asked “should Gorbachev and Yeltsin be punished” for the collapse of the USSR?, 10% answered that it was not necessary, since they had done a lot of good, and the rest said that it was not necessary, since such punishment had not yet been invented. That is, Yeltsin and Gorbachev are solely to blame for everything. If it weren’t for them, we would still live peacefully and peacefully today.

Are the people to blame, and not just Gorbachev and Yeltsin? "Every people deserves the government they have". As American political scientist John Naisbitt wrote, “In times of crisis, some nations choose Lincoln and Roosevelt. In the intervals – these, whatever you call them.” We choose “these, what do you call them” all the time: in a crisis, and in the intervals between crises, and on the rise, and in a new crisis.

Version 3: the collapse of the USSR is a natural result of the national liberation movement of the 15 republics of the former USSR

This version is supported by national democratic movements in almost all 15 independent CIS and Baltic states. Thanks to them and only them, who led people to demonstrations in the late 80s, this empire collapsed. Let's show it using Ukraine as an example.

How do local supporters of the patriotic version of the collapse usually illustrate this very national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people:
- the emergence of the first opposition organization - Rukh, forgetting to add that its first name was “Rukh for Perestroika”, and one of its main demands was the creation of a “renewed USSR”;
– a human chain from Kyiv to Lvov on the day of the so-called “evil”, the chain turned out to be, however, too thin and not supported by the majority of citizens of Ukraine;
– hanging blue and yellow flags, then still unofficial, various rallies;
- student hunger strike, which later received the lyrical name of “revolution on granite.” About 50 students, almost entirely from Lviv and Kyiv, went on a hunger strike and put forward demands for the nationalization of the property of the Communist Party of Ukraine, re-election of parliament on the basis of a multi-party system, not signing a new Union Treaty, passing military service Ukrainians in Ukraine and the resignation of the Masola government;
– miners’ strikes in Donbass, but they were social in nature and Donbass never demanded the collapse of the USSR.

Well, in general, according to by and large that's all. Could these actions have caused the collapse of the most powerful empire in the world? Analysts from the community of Ukrainian traders at the Masterforex-V Academy asked a rhetorical question. National problems in the USSR, of course, existed and were quite serious, but there was no powerful national liberation movement that overthrew everything in its path. There was nothing like the long-term and violent Palestinian intifada, the protracted bloody confrontation in Northern Ireland, or the multimillion-dollar acts of civil disobedience in India in the USSR.

So, the collapse did not occur as a result of a powerful national liberation movement. This is also evidenced by the results of the March referendum (1991) on the preservation of the USSR, when more than 76% of those participating in it supported the preservation of a single state (the leadership of six republics refused to participate in it - the three Baltic ones, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia). But after 9 months the USSR collapsed. So there is some truth in the patriotic version, namely: these and other events brought the idea of ​​independence into the mass consciousness.

4th version: as in nightmare one superimposed on the other

Every serviceman knows: a company of soldiers does not have the right to walk across a bridge at a marching pace (no matter how ultra-modern it may be) so that the amplitude of the vibration of the bridge does not coincide with the marching step. Otherwise, the bridge may collapse.

Each of the above versions (from the subversive activities of the United States to Gorbachev’s internal desire to destroy communist ideals, and Yeltsin to take his place in the Kremlin, Kravchuk - in Kyiv, with the emerging national democratic movement) could give such a self-destructive effect only if all these factors coincided “a dilapidated bridge”, which no one had repaired or maintained in technical condition for a long time, hoping for a Russian “maybe”, unlike China, which managed to preserve both the political system and the integrity of the state.

Supporters of this version are convinced that the collapse of the USSR occurred as a result of a systemic, complex and multi-level crisis that has been constantly developing for decades. The system simply lost the ability to adequately respond to surrounding phenomena, which resulted in a whole series of crises, in which it became possible to use the subjective factor (see versions 1-3):

Political crisis, that is, the weakening of central power, the decline of its authority, its desacralization. The process was not overnight, it went in parallel with economic restructuring and democratization, but in 1990 it accelerated sharply. In historical literature, this period was called the “parade of sovereignties”:
– the first multi-party elections in the USSR in a number of republics brought nationalists to power, the communists were actually removed from their leadership (Baltic, Georgia);
– On June 12, 1990, Yeltsin, intriguing against Gorbachev, played the card of Russian independence. The “Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Russian Federation” was adopted, following the example of which other republics acquired similar declarations (Ukraine - July 16).

The “parade of sovereignties” was followed by a “war of laws”:
– the republics declared their Constitutions and laws superior to those of the union, that is, the erosion of a single political space began,
– declared the right to unilaterally dispose of local resources; economic wars, ersatz currencies were introduced - coupons, coupons, business cards, that is, a single economic space began to creep apart,
– refusal to serve in the Soviet Army, creation of their own national guards, etc. As a result, by the fall of 1991, the USSR began to quickly turn into a loose confederation.

Destruction of spiritual and ideological values Soviet people due to the massive injection of “perestroika literature”, which managed to convince the masses in 5-7 years that they had been walking along a road leading to a dead end for 70 years, socialism has no future, the entire history of the USSR is the mistakes and crimes of the communist regime.

“Paralysis of power” has set in. American scholar Henry Tajfel noted that an ethnic minority can tolerate much as long as it is convinced that government power is stable or legitimate, or both. In this sense, the point of no return was the August putsch, which put an end to both stability and the legitimacy of the central government. In the very first days after the coup, the unilateral declaration of independence acquired an avalanche-like character - within 15 days, 7 republics declared their sovereignty. That’s when the last three pillars of the USSR collapsed - the allied power structures, the army and the CPSU. On August 23, Yeltsin signs a decree “On the suspension of activities Communist Party RSFSR", the next day Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary, and the CPSU Central Committee decides to dissolve itself.

The weakening of central power led to the strengthening of republican leaders. Before that, even Kravchuk in Ukraine only dreamed of his own “ national guard"and the updated USSR. Now the national elite felt that the central government was weak and unable to protect their interests, and that it was no longer dangerous to snatch as much power as possible from the weakened center. Thus, for many, independence simply fell from the sky, in fact it was granted by a favorable combination of circumstances. Even Ukrainian nationalists admit this: “Ukraine was created by God, who did it through the hands of our enemies.”

Economic crisis. Economic difficulties weaken any state, but in themselves do not cause its collapse. Otherwise, let us ask ourselves why the same USA did not collapse into the Great Depression? However, in ethno-federations this connection is more complex and stronger. In 1991, the country found itself in a position economic crisis. And since the Soviet economy was distributive, in conditions of general deficit, many republics decided that they were giving much more to the common “pot” than they were receiving from it, that they were simply being eaten up. It is no coincidence that one of the popular slogans of the Ukrainian rallies in 1990 was “Who’s taking my lard”? The last all-Union Prime Minister Pavlov once even compiled a summary table of mutual claims of 15 Union republics; it turned out that each of them “reasonably” argued that it was being “robbed” by others. Hence the understandable desire of the republics to isolate themselves, to preserve and protect what they have, to stop the outflow of resources and the influx of problems (inflation, migration, shortages).

Ideological crisis, the collapse of the ideals of socialism and internationalism. But nature does not tolerate emptiness. The place of previous values ​​was taken by the national idea, nationalism. Why nationalism? Let us not forget that the federal international state split into national republics. One should also take into account the pendulum nature of mass consciousness, that is, disappointment in the idea of ​​communism forced us to turn to the past; the more illusory the future, the more attractive the past. And finally, ethnic identity is simple and effective, since it does not require any additional effort from a person, but at the same time clearly divides the world into “us” and “strangers.”

Ethno-national crisis. We are talking about the national-territorial principle of state structure, which was murderous for the USSR, which became a “time bomb” that exploded in 1991. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, federal states built on Soviet principles, collapsed in a similar way. In this regard, Zhores Medvedev believes that the Stalinist project of the USSR, rejected by Lenin, would better ensure the “mixing of peoples” according to the American type. The fact is that in the USSR, the subjects of the federation were not just territories, as in the USA, and not even territories with ethnic specifics (Switzerland), but the ethnic communities themselves. Ethnicity was nationalized, the republics received almost all the attributes of independent states:
- boundaries that had symbolic meaning, over time acquired national status;
– the right to secede from the USSR, which was not the case in any federation in the world, even if at first and solely for propaganda purposes;
- authorities;
- national elite, raised in the best universities countries according to national quotas (as they said then “don’t be born happy, but be born local”);
- its great writer, poet, composer, Academy of Sciences, film studio, Institutes of language, literature, history, etc.

And over time, administrative units began to be perceived as a fatherland, and quite strong national feelings and state consciousness were formed among the titular ethnic group. Thus, regional identity quickly developed into ethnonational identity. And all organizational forms were already ready to leave the federation.

– old elite, local party nomenklatura, in that difficult situation, sought to retain the slipping power and increase it. As a result, it did not save the CPSU in any of the 15 states that gained independence, but, on the contrary, destroyed the Union. For example, the declaration of independence of Ukraine on August 24, 1991 would have been impossible without the communists, who had more than half the votes in parliament (group “239”). This decision was made just a day after Yeltsin’s decree banning the Communist Party of the RSFSR. That is, the communists of Ukraine turned out to be interested in the collapse of the USSR, because in those conditions only this allowed them to retain power in their hands, of course, under new flags, slogans and ideology, having managed to jump on the nationalist train in time, quickly change their colors and disassociate themselves from the past. If you succeed, you will no longer be reminded of your long party past or your many years of work in the CPSU. This is exactly what Kravchuk did, who in Soviet times held the post of secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee for ideology, suddenly remembering how as a boy during the war years... he fed and helped the UPA soldiers fight against the system. Why did Kravchuk join the CPSU, if from his youth the UPA soldiers were his idols - let’s leave the question to the first President of Ukraine rhetorical;

– the new elite, ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs suddenly received a pass to power. There is a brilliant and cynical definition of revolution: a revolution means thousands of new vacancies. How many of them then made simply dizzying careers, what is called “from rags to riches” (for example, the chairman of the collective farm, Pavel Lazarenko, who a few years later became the prime minister of independent Ukraine).

– why didn’t the population protest against the collapse of the Union? With starvation wages, empty store shelves, hatred of Gorbachev, ideological brainwashing by the dead end of socialism, American supermarket windows on television and much more, the people were prepared to choose anything that could change their lives. As a result: on December 1, 1991, the independence of Ukraine was supported by more than 90% of those participating in the referendum. The approximate ratio of conscious and unconscious supporters of independence is also known - the former then amounted to no more than a third. Otherwise, why, while voting for independence, Ukrainians at the same time elected Leonid Kravchuk (62%), a former ideologist of the fight against this very independence, as the first president of Ukraine, and not the symbol of this fight - Vyacheslav Chernovol (23%).

So the USSR probably could have been saved, but there was no one, unlike China. As for the last president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, who is preparing for his anniversary, it would be appropriate to recall the wise saying of the ancients: “success testifies to what you can do, and failures testify to what you are worth.” Having talked about how they consciously, already with the late Raisa Maksimovna, planned the collapse of communism in the USSR, Gorbachev himself signed the verdict pronounced verbally by 90% of the citizens of the former USSR: they use traitors, but they despise them and do not erect monuments to them

The most popular on our site

D.E. Sorokin

For Russia, the transition to the 21st century. coincided with a geopolitical catastrophe - the collapse of the state. Discussions about the causes of this disintegration and the possibilities of preventing it are apparently destined for a long life. However, it seems that at the heart of the system-wide crisis that struck Russia at the end of the 20th century was a “failure” in the functioning of its economic system.

In this regard, the question inevitably arises: are there not some deep-seated (fundamental) reasons behind the subjective actions that led to a severe economic crisis, but which, by definition, could have been prevented (prevented, changed), which led to the fact that the economy, possessing colossal natural resource, production, scientific, technical, military, human, etc. potential and therefore turning the USSR into the second (after the USA) superpower, essentially self-destructed? The author wanted to express his point of view on this issue.

1. Model of administrative-command, or mobilization, economy

The economic system in question was created at the turn of the 20-30s of the twentieth century. Of course, throughout its functioning it changed its forms, but its essential features remained practically unchanged. It was a system built on the principle of a single factory operating according to a single plan, where each enterprise played the role of one of the “shops” of such a factory, which, in essence, turned it into a monopolist. 1

Accordingly, the mechanism for regulating such a system required building a rigid management vertical, where each hierarchical level of management had unlimited power in relation to the managed object. Such a system was inevitably based on non-economic methods of stimulating the activities of management objects - be it individuals or entire teams - which served as the basis for giving it the name “command-administrative” Although, of course, this is not entirely correct, since methods were used to a lesser extent moral stimulation, including those based on the enthusiasm of people, many of whom thought themselves creators new history humanity. Economic incentives were also used, primarily in the field of material incentives. But the main ones remained command and administrative levers.

Nowadays, the reasons why this system was created are not important: the theoretical and ideological views of its creators, their personal qualities, multiplied by the struggle for power, the specific historical conditions that developed in Russia and in the world at that time, etc. Apparently , both played a role, and the third. What is important now is the very fact of creating such a system, which existed for 60 years, during which the country turned into a powerful industrial power, carried out a cultural revolution, created systems of mass health care and social protection for the population for the first time in the world, eliminated unemployment, bore the brunt of World War II and finally became the second superpower. It is clear that all this would have been impossible to achieve if the created economic system had not ensured the creation of an appropriate resource base.

Of course, from a moral and ethical point of view, one cannot but agree with the fairness of the harsh assessments of those forms, methods, mechanisms, including political ones, that led to colossal irreversible human losses that were used to achieve these results. However, we must not forget that socio-economic progress, at least until the second half of the 20th century, both in Russia and in the world, was carried out on the same basis. Consider the history of colonial conquest, land enclosure and anti-vagrancy laws in England during the formation of the capitalist system, directed against its own citizens, the destruction of the indigenous population in North America and slave labor on its cotton plantations. Peter's industrialization in Russia was carried out in a similar way. Another question is that, due to a number of historical reasons, Russia went through the corresponding stages of its development at a time when the countries of Europe and America had already completed them, which allowed the so-called civilized world to condemn the mechanisms used here, forgetting about their own history.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Russian economic system was unable to respond to the challenges of modern times and disappeared from the historical stage. To answer the question whether there were objective grounds for this, let’s take a closer look at the history of the functioning of the created economic system.

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.* However, it is more correct to apply the term “dismemberment” to what happened, although it carries a certain charge of emotional assessment. Disintegration, that is, natural separation from a body that has not become a single fused organism, could be called a process in which the state would lose precisely those ethno-territorial units, those that existed before the entry into Russia of statehood, which were collected during Russian history. However, the division occurred in the overwhelming majority of cases not at all along those historical seams, which almost everywhere have almost completely dissolved, but along completely different lines. It can hardly be denied that, despite the abundance of problems, a certain blow was dealt along those lines that had already been cut by an arbitrary decision on the body of the state and many of its peoples in accordance with the historical ideology and political tasks of the creators of the socialist federation. It is appropriate to quote A. Motyl’s judgment that “contrary to widespread belief, the peoples of the Soviet Union are not so much awakening themselves as they are awakening them. They are asserting themselves to the point of demanding independence because perestroika forced them to do so. Ironically, none other than Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, a home-grown proletarian internationalist par excellence, should be considered the father of nationalism in the USSR."

In 1991, the main argument for recognizing the existing internal borders between the union republics as international and inviolable was the thesis of the need for peaceful and conflict-free dismantling, as well as the doctrine of the right of self-determining nations to secede. However, in the real conditions of a centuries-old unified state and the political ambitions of the elites, these tools turned out to be unsuitable for a consistent legitimate and conflict-free solution.

Thus, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the blood in Bendery and the categorical reluctance of Transnistria to submit to the dictates of Chisinau, the war between the Abkhazians and Georgians, the persistent reluctance of the Russian population of Crimea to turn into Ukrainians showed that it was the adopted approach that inherently contained the potential for conflict and clash of interests, which continues to characterize the geopolitical situation in the territory historical state Russian. Each of the union republics, in fact, represented a reduced copy of the Union - also a multinational entity. Moreover, unlike the country as a whole, which took shape over centuries, some republics were often created not at all along the boundaries of the ethnic or historical unity of the population. The titular nations of these republics, having proclaimed their right to self-determination, showed complete unwillingness to grant the same right that they achieved for themselves to nations falling into the position of national minorities within previously non-existent states.

The explanation for this, as a rule, came down to the impossibility of following the path of endless fragmentation of the country, although in reality such a prospect would not affect all republics. But it was obvious that dismantling the USSR by leaving it through a constitutional procedure would objectively contribute to a greater extent to the interests of Russia, the Russians and the peoples gravitating towards them. In this case, the Russian Federation itself would not even be affected. Contrary to the widespread illusion, the Russian Federation did not declare secession from the USSR, and even if everyone else declared secession, it would remain its legal successor, and its autonomy would not have the right to secede under the constitution, and the problem of choice would legally arise only before the peoples of the secessionists republics

From the very beginning, the CIS did not inspire hope that its institutions would implement a mechanism with the characteristics of a subject of world politics, in new form preserving the geostrategic appearance of the historical state of the Russian or USSR. The reasons lie in the non-random amorphousness of the original legal instruments, and in the deep centrifugal tendencies that have become obvious. Nevertheless, the potential of the centripetal impulses of the peoples included in it, contrary to popular opinion, is also obvious. However, the specificity of the formation of new subjects of international relations in 1991 was such that it was the integration potential that was constrained, if not legally paralyzed, since the peoples gravitating towards Russia (except Belarus) were deprived of legal personality. This by no means accidental reality not only made it difficult for Russia to maintain its geopolitical area, which immediately became an object foreign policy surrounding interests, but also made new states internally unstable, gave rise to armed conflicts, and inconsistency among governments.

It is now quite obvious that one of the deep and hardly removable reasons for both tragic clashes and contradictory integration and disintegration trends in the CIS is the double (in 1917 and 1991) redrawing of the historical Russian statehood, carried out according to the doctrine of the right of nations to self-determination, adopted by both Bolshevism and militant liberalism, two doctrines that historically strive for the destruction of nations and borders. “From the days of Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin throughout the century, the idea that ethnicity gives the right to lay claim to cultural and political rights and territory has had a wide resonance,” admits the American author R. G. Suny.

The national principle of organizing the Soviet state by identifying a titular nation on an arbitrarily defined territory and endowing it with special rights ( official language, priority in the development of culture, the formation of governing bodies, the management of resources and capital, tax revenues) is a natural fruit of both the teachings of Locke and historical materialism as a philosophy, as well as the specific political doctrine of building “the world’s first state of workers and peasants”, carried out by the Russian Bolsheviks and liberals on the rubble historical Russia, declared a “prison of nations” for the success of the revolution.

The theory and practice contained antinomies and mutually exclusive tasks. On the one hand, the political slogan was to ensure identity, preservation and “level playing field” for state development of all large and small nations, although equal representation of small and large people meant the opportunity for tiny nations to dictate their will to multi-million peoples. However, both from the point of view of small and from the point of view of the interests of large nations, the separation of titular nations did not eliminate, but only aggravated the problem, since not a single ethnic group is localized within one autonomous entity, and is sometimes specifically divided for political reasons.

“Socialist nations” and “socialist peoples” were constructed on the basis of real or imagined ethnocultural differences and “attached to a certain territory,” writes M. Strezhneva, and “members of the ethnic nation, which gave its name to the corresponding republic ... belonged to the titular population if they lived in “their” republic, and to national minorities if they permanently lived elsewhere within the Union. At the same time, ethnic Russians were essentially a transnational Soviet ethnos and the category of non-titular population in the Soviet Union consisted primarily of Russians.” In the territories of these formations, not only Russians, but also many other peoples fell into the second class. In many formations, Russians made up the majority, and in some the titular nation was even in third place (in Bashkiria, for example, there are fewer Bashkirs than Russians and Tatars).

However, this problem was of little interest to architects, because historical materialism does not consider the nation to be a subject of history and assigns it only temporary significance, based on the movement towards a single communist model until the merger and disappearance of all nations. Therefore, the creation of quasi-state autonomous and republican formations along arbitrary borders with the Marxist goal of a general leveling of the spirit while preserving only the national form (the slogan of culture - socialist content - national form), in combination with the never-cancelled slogan “on the right of nations to self-determination up to and including secession”, at the beginning of the twentieth century laid a charge of enormous destructive force into the very foundation of Russian statehood.

It must be borne in mind that the number of peoples and nationalities once united in the Russian Empire was much greater than the number of arbitrarily designated “socialist” autonomies and quasi-state entities. With multiple redistributions of republican borders, both the Russian people and some other peoples, either completely or in parts, found themselves arbitrarily included in the newly created federal subjects, in violation of the agreements they had once independently concluded with Russia. These are the cases of Abkhazia and Ossetia, which independently entered Russia and were then made part of socialist Georgia, the dismemberment of the Lezgin people, the situation Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the obvious situation in Crimea and Transnistria. Such an arbitrary division did not have a decisive significance for life in the USSR, but it turned into a drama of separation from Russia or the dismemberment of the nation in two during its collapse. This must be taken into account when judging the causes of conflicts, the prospects for the entire geopolitical space of the CIS, the relationships between its participants, and the role external forces, very interested in drawing new subjects into their orbit and using conflicts between them for their own purposes.

Treating the dismemberment of the USSR as an accomplished fact of history, one cannot help but realize when considering the processes in its space that the circumstances of its liquidation largely laid the foundation for many of today’s conflicts and trends, and also programmed the most interested participation outside world in processes. Strictly according to legal norms, the seceding union republics could be considered constituted as states only with the consensus of all their constituent peoples and after procedures that ensured that on the territory of the union republic that declared the desire for independence, each people and territory had the opportunity to freely choose their state affiliation.

In some republics the situation generally satisfied these criteria, but in a number of them the situation was far from such from the very beginning. Nevertheless, these new formations were immediately recognized by the international community, and the conflicts that arose precisely on the issue of secession from the USSR and the constitution of an independent state, which arose before the fact of recognition and formalization of independence, were declared “separatist”, as if they had arisen on the territory of long-established and legitimate recognized states.

Failure to provide a constitutional procedure for secession from the Union allows parties to conflicts today to challenge the historical fate imposed on them. It is for these reasons that the process of national-state reorganization of the post-Soviet space in these states themselves is not considered complete by everyone, and the territorial and legal status of its former republics is considered final. But one way or another, and this is also a given, Moscow, in accordance with the internal political circumstances of its own chosen method of liquidating the USSR, as well as in connection with external pressure, recognized the existing administrative borders as international.

Thus, the potential for conflict was inherent in the ongoing process of disintegration of a single state along non-historical borders. It has not been overcome, only changing its forms and dynamics depending on the orientation of new states on the world stage. Here we come to a very important and defining aspect of the problems of the CIS and the entire geopolitical area of ​​the historical Russian state.

It makes no sense to deny that the revolution of 1917 and the collapse of the USSR in 1991 had internal preconditions. However, it is also indisputable that the external context in 1991 played a greater role in the internal political life of Russia than at any other time in history. Moreover, in the twentieth century. “Realpolitik,” unlike the times of “tyrants,” hides under ideological clichés, as demonstrated by communist universalism, and now repeated by the “one world” philosophy.

Parallels with the revolution are obvious in the policies of the West, especially Anglo-Saxon interests. It is curious that the United States responded to the dramatic events of 1991 in the spirit of its strategy of 1917 and welcomed the destruction of the communist power with the same words as the collapse of the Russian power at the beginning of the century. The policy of omnipresent American interests in the mid-90s showed distinctly “neo-Wilsonian” features. When the protagonist of “freedom and democracy” in Moscow, Kyiv and Tbilisi, President Bush, having promised recognition to Ukraine, blessed the Belovezh Accords, when the United States recognized Georgia without waiting for the legitimization of the Tbilisi regime, we involuntarily recalled the times of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, House and W. Wilson with their Program from XIV points, Lloyd George's plan for the dismemberment of Russia, an attempt to immediately recognize all the "de facto" existing governments on the territory of the "former" Russian Empire, etc. But behind all this is H. Mackinder’s scheme - a belt of small and weak states from the Baltic to the Black Sea, confirmed by the conclusion of the American Council on Foreign Relations of August 1941 on the need for a “buffer zone between the Slavs and the Teutons,” controlled by the Anglo-Saxons through multilateral structures and supranational mechanisms .