“When he [Emperor Alexei V Duca] saw Monsignor Pierron and his men, saw that they, being on foot, had already penetrated the city [Constantinople], he spurred his horse and pretended to rush at them, but he rode halfway, arranging only the appearance of such a great spectacle.
And when all the French were already inside, everyone was on horseback, and when Emperor Morchofle [Emperor Alexei V Duca], a traitor, saw them, he was seized with such fear that he left his tents and his treasures there and ran off to the city …"
Robert de Clari. Conquest of Constantinople
Before intro 1
As part of our cycle, we do not have the task to comprehensively consider the pros and cons of the late Soviet system, to analyze in detail all the steps and actions, for example, the law on cooperation or the “velvet revolutions” of the KGB in Eastern Europe. A small article can hardly contain the whole range of such questions, we will focus only on the reference points that are important for understanding the development of civilization at this time.
Before intro 2
1204 is the year when Western warriors captured Constantinople and Byzantium. After this blow, the country was never able to recover, it faded more and more, turning into a semi-colony of Genoese, until 200 years later its miserable remnants were finally swallowed up by the Ottoman Turks.
Introduction
Until now, we have written about “managerial mistakes” in the development of our country, which were based on the factor of inadequate assessment of challenges, threats and the surrounding reality, which resulted in the lack of a proper response when making managerial decisions. This circumstance was closely related to both the personal qualities of the rulers and the administrative anti-system that was formed by the ruling stratum. Chimera, as LN Gumilyov understood it, is a system for individual social groups and an anti-system for the majority.
A serious problem was an insufficient analysis of the past, and as a result, a lack of understanding of the processes in the recent historical: right? enthusiasm and boasting about Peter I did not stop during the entire period of the reign of the Romanovs, but the authorities did not make a clear analysis of his transformations for themselves.
Since 1917, the leaders of the Western world have felt the threat from the new Russia in full measure. Yesterday's semi-colony began to form challenges. Participation in the civil war of the West on the side of the "old forces" was a vivid confirmation of this, then there was a war unleashed by Hitler not only against communism, but with the aim of seizing "living space" and solving their problems by colonizing Russian lands.
After the victory in World War II, the issue became even more acute, it was already not only about losses for the West, the collapse of the colonial system, but also the possibility of the degradation of this civilization under the pressure of external factors. The Cold War became the first all-encompassing war of a new type to destroy not the military and economic might of the enemy, but self-awareness and psychotype, and it was not the Soviet Union that declared it. As President R. Nixon wrote:
"Until we understand that secrecy is one of the instruments of power, we will be initially at a disadvantage in geopolitical rivalry with Moscow … A secret operation is not an end in itself, it is a means to an end …"
In the USSR, after the experiments of the 20s, the twentieth century is ready.a system began to take shape (it happened gradually), based on the same organic principles of the Russian village or community, no matter how paradoxical and unexpected it sounds. And this society was really organized democratically, or rather, it was created with elements of direct democracy: “we are in power here” - the slogan that sounded today at street protests was literally embodied in life.
As the philosopher A. A. Zinoviev wrote, the author of the famous aphorism "aimed at communism, but ended up in Russia," the organization of the population was based on the primary collective (cell). Or, as many other researchers believe, the same modified Russian community: "The life of people under the conditions of such an organization is formally simple, life lines are clear and definite." The centralized and hierarchical system of power and control (CPSU) ensured a cloudless existence for society. The Soviet system, which seemed to an observer in the West, as well as to "internal emigrants" such as A. Solzhenitsyn, unusual and unnatural (from the point of view of another civilization), was for the overwhelming majority of living organic, natural and stemming from the historical development of the Russian people and others, I emphasize, of the fraternal peoples of the USSR. It was her defeat that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and restoration:
Sociologist D. Lane wrote in 1985:
“… If legitimacy is viewed from the standpoint of the psychological commitment of citizens, then the Soviet system is just as“legitimate”as the Western one. It should be analyzed in the light of its own history, culture and tradition."
Since the 60s, the most important process in the USSR has been the process of urbanization of society and civil atomization.
At the moment when the Russian peasantry reached its peak, when a guy from the village in a white shirt with a tie and in a suit could go to rest at the resort, like the hero of V. Shukshin ("Stoves-benches"), the countdown began: in our opinion, he was not inevitable, but history ordered it differently. Just during the transition from a "simple rural" society to an urbanistic one, the masses experienced a "break in templates."
B. V. Markov, in his preface "After the Orgy" to the famous book "America" by the French philosopher J. Baudrillard, wrote:
"In Russia, there was a revolution again, which began with perestroika, and it can be understood as a protest against material well-being, because the consequences for the economy and politics turned out to be truly catastrophic."
The key source of tension was not the economic or military area, but the control system. These problems, to a lesser extent, concerned the masses involved in real production.
On the one hand, the management system was extremely overloaded with tasks: the current governor, compared to his “colleague”, the regional committee secretary, is just a slacker, cutting ribbons.
On the other hand, managers at the level of the "collective unconscious" were dissatisfied with the assessment of their work in conditions of extreme exactingness to the results of their activities and control not only by the leadership, but also by the people.
The "creative intelligentsia" had the same claims, we put their validity in brackets.
The natural reaction to this was the defense of the management system with the help of formalism and bureaucracy, and as a result, the fall of the very level of management.
And this was systematically used by our opponents, destroying the self-consciousness of those to whom they could reach, that is, the elite.
At the same time, in the conditions of forty years of peaceful life and changes in material prosperity, against the background of “unconscious discontent”, social relaxation took place. The nomenklatura, unlike other countries, did not have to fight for their privileges (albeit ridiculous in comparison with today), other social groups did not have to fight for work, with deteriorating working conditions and with the market conjuncture, the same can be said about the army. the command and officers of which allowed such a phenomenon as hazing. As M. Gorbachev quoted V. I. Lenin in "New Thinking":
"Such revolutions - which, having won, you can put in your pocket and rest on your laurels, have never happened in history."
Thus, what Western researchers also pay attention to, the key point was the issue of management: a real assessment of the situation or understanding the situation and making a decision on the further path of development.
Today it is safe to say that the country was facing a fork, and the country had three paths, like a knight at a crossroads: the first, and this is noted by Western analysts, was to do nothing, in the conditions of the new capitalist crisis of the 90s, the country had a chance look very good economically. The second is a thoughtful and planned renovation, not a "restructuring" aimed at destroying the system. The third is the restoration or end of the revolution, the rejection of its conquests.
Nothing new, however, everything is the same - the choice is like that of Nikolai Pavlovich or Nikolai Alexandrovich, or Yuri Vladimirovich.
Economic problems
So, maybe there were some global problems with production, besides inefficient distribution and pricing for sausage and soap?
Is there a distrust of the Soviet assessment of the painting? Okay, let's look at it from the other side. Severin Beeler, an expert of the Time magazine, writes in 1980 that the USSR is the first state in the world that is capable of supplying the entire population with oil and … guns, having military parity with more developed countries. In 1984, the renowned economist J. Kenneth Galbraith argued that labor productivity in the USSR is higher than in the United States. The fact that management guru Lee Iacocca wrote about the high level of education of engineers in the USSR, we wrote in a previous article on "VO". Even in 1990, Jerry Hough, a leading American Sovietologist, noted:
"In comparison with other multinational states, the Soviet Union seems to be quite stable … The confusion in 1989 turned out to be in Gorbachev's hands … This confusion was good for Gorbachev economically."
Despite the economic and managerial problems caused by "perestroika", even in 1990 the USSR economy showed significant growth:
"The collapse of the Soviet Union was caused not by objective economic factors, but by intellectual miscalculations and false expectations of the Soviet elite."
(Mark Almond.)
The oil price myth
The myth about the fall in oil prices and the associated economic crisis not only exists, but is the cornerstone of the ideological justification of our country's lagging behind. I will emphasize that it has been repeatedly refuted by real analysis, but it continues to surface and surface in journalism and even government reports. But mistakes in data analysis lead to erroneous management decisions!
The change in oil prices during the end of the USSR did not in any way affect the structure of the country's economy and could not be the cause of the economic crisis.
Today, when Russia, like other former Soviet republics, is a raw material appendage of the "advanced countries", this excuse brightens up the reality. But such a situation became possible only after the collapse of the USSR, and in no way during the period of its existence.
The oil and gas complex, thanks to which modern Russia lives, was created in the period of 60-70s. XX century.
According to the Statistical Yearbook for 1990, the GNP of the USSR was 798 billion rubles. in 1986. Further, it only grew, by 1990 it amounted to 1000 billion rubles.
The GP (gross social product), comparable to GDP (there was no such indicator during this period) in 1986 was 1,425.8 billion rubles.
At the same time, exports in 1986 amounted to 68.285 billion rubles, or 11.68% of GNP and 4% of "GDP" (GP).
While in the Russian Federation in 2018, with a GDP of $ 1570 billion, exports amounted (according to the Federal Customs Service) to $ 452.066 billion, or 29% of GDP.
That is, what to compare: 4 and 29%, while oil in exports accounts for 58% (260, 171 billion rubles), or 260,171 thousand tons, 46% of the produced.
In 1986, 21% of the produced oil was sold, or 1.6% of the total GNP, and taking into account the CMEA - 8.2%.
Thus, the calculation only for oil, in the context of the total volume of production and exports, shows that there is no need to talk about any "oil needle" for the USSR, and even more so about the economic crisis, the contours of which appeared only after the beginning of Gorbachev's unsystematic reforms.
The problems that existed in the economy during this period were primarily associated not with the production area, although there were enough of them here, but with the area of distribution and prioritization. But this topic does not apply to the one we are considering now.
The myth of defeat in the arms race
The second key myth about the reasons for the fall of the USSR is the defeat in the arms race.
The USSR constantly lived under the pressure of a real military threat, under these conditions, the country's leadership achieved by the 80s substantial parity in the military field, which is quite natural and does not happen otherwise, at the expense of the social sphere. The coming to power of the "Hollywood cowboy" intensified the war hysteria, and his plans to ruin the Soviet Union through an arms race and the creation of SDI were, as we now understand, a bluff, but this was not how they looked at it in the 1980s. While “thick-skinned” old men with nerves of steel were in power, there was no panic and there could be the situation was still Gorbachev. Incompetence and haste in his negotiations, neglect of information provided by the military, diplomats and representatives of academic science immediately led to significant losses for the country's security, but this is not about that now.
In the end, firstly, the publicized American SDI program turned out to be a fake, and the Soviet space program, as we understand today (for example, "Buran"), not only did not yield, but in many respects surpassed the American one. The loss of the USSR's achievements in this area is a blow not only to Russia, but also to the progress of all mankind.
Secondly, almost 25 years later, military potential (property and technology) and developments of the Soviet period make it possible for the former republics of the USSR to exist tolerably well. After the export of raw materials, this is the second item of Russian sales.
Thirdly, the potential of developments and operating models in the military-industrial complex of the USSR was of such a level that, on its basis, in many respects, new modern military-industrial complexes were created in such new superpowers of the world (civilizations) as China and India.
This laid the foundation for modern Chinese production in the field of aviation, air defense systems, shipbuilding and space, against the background of thoughtless and unjustified sale of the latest equipment and licenses from the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
With the sale in the 90s of the Soviet rocket engine RD120 by the Ukrainian enterprise "Yuzhmash" and with the participation of its specialists, modern rocketry began in the PRC. The first spacewalk of the taikonaut into space was provided by the Feitian spacesuit, an exact copy of the Russian Orlan-M spacesuit.
Moreover, the PRC is already actively (somewhere since 2015) begins to compete with Russia on the world arms market, in areas created, again, on the basis of the USSR's reserves transferred to China by "sellers" from Russia. China came out on the 3rd place with 5-6% of the world market.
And taking into account the unconditional leadership of the PRC in the production of modern microelectronics and, we add, the complete absence of such production in the Russian Federation, within the framework of the 4th industrial revolution, it is not difficult to predict the development of the situation.
Information revolution
At the end of the 60s of the twentieth century, the West began an economic (stagflation: stagnation of the economy amid inflation) and a social crisis, its frequency increased (4, 3 years versus 7 years), "in the decaying West", as Soviet newspapers wrote and as they were answered by the wits-anti-Soviet: “so that I rot like this,” sophistically replacing the concepts of the personal well-being of individuals and the development of the well-being of the whole society. The reasons were the same as before World Wars I and II:
1. Overproduction or production of what is not needed.
2. Extreme aggravation of the struggle for sales markets.
3. Increased confrontation for raw materials, energy sources and cheap labor, due to the fall of the "Western yoke" over the colonies and the presence of communist countries.
The traditional solution to these problems by means of a world war was impossible due to the presence of the USSR, which would not have allowed such a scenario for the development of events.
This situation led to a number of serious social shifts in Western society: a revolution in culture and music, student unrest, sexual revolution, feminism, the fall of the apartheid system in the United States, the disintegration of the traditional family, rampant violence and crime, anti-bourgeois social movements, the death of a small farmer and shopkeeper as a bearer of bourgeois values.
Here is a far from complete list of changes caused by the crisis of Western civilization in the second half of the twentieth century. The American philosopher Francis Fukuyama quite rightly called this period the "Great Break".
The problems, many of which were similar to Soviet ones, had different origins. And this must be clearly understood.
Supporters of the so-called convergence (rapprochement) of the two systems, Soviet and Western, believed that this similarity between them at least gives greater understanding and interpenetration. One of the most ardent supporters of this idea in the 60s was the "physicist-lyricist" Andrei Sakharov. I repeat, many things and situations were similar, but the nature of things, due to completely different development of societies, was different. Proponents of convergence, both analysts and politicians in the USSR during the period of perestroika, by their complete lack of understanding of the sources and causes of problems that outwardly resemble those in the West, “threw out the baby with water”. Blinded by the sheen of the packaging foil, at best a placebo, they mistook it for drugs, but in fact took the poison from the package.
The crisis in the West was overcome thanks to the same "good old" decisions: new sales markets, sources of cheap raw materials and labor force appeared.
First, the USSR and its allies, who suffered defeats in the Cold War, were included as subjects in the structure of the “global market” or the economic sphere of influence of Western TNCs as markets and sources of raw materials and cheap labor. Second, the transfer of production to China has created significant cost savings, providing additional profit growth in the West.
All this, in turn, led to structural changes in employment in the West: jobs were created in the field of office and financial bureaucracy (management, design, marketing, etc.) and the services and services dependent on it, and the presence of outwardly effective technical innovations such as personal computers, fax machines, digital copiers and printers gave rise to a new technological revolution.
Undoubtedly, the most important element of the economy of this period is the development of computer technologies, but by themselves they were only an application to the first stabilizing factors of the economy listed above, not being key yet.
Thus, the USSR in 1985 had no global economic or military crisis, no insurmountable lag within the framework of the information revolution. Moreover, in the period up to 1990, there has been a constant growth in production, and … a crisis of supreme management, which affected the entire system of government and public consciousness.
Management is the main reason for the collapse of the USSR
So, as we wrote above, at the end of the twentieth century, there were no such difficulties in the USSR caused by the next economic crisis of Western civilization. “Of course there were other problems: they were looking for something to eat” - a classic selection bias, when, based on a distorted example, an incorrect generalizing conclusion is made.
I repeat, there were no such problems in the West that were the source of the “Great Divide”, therefore the medicine of the “foremen of perestroika” and “young reformers” became poison for Russian civilization.
Here, the country's rulers did not miss anything, as in the nineteenth century, but they began to “blow on the water” at the wrong time, which also led to a disastrous result: social and economic regression and an urgent need for new modernization.
Not economic reasons became the reason for the destruction of the USSR, but the reasons associated with management, as a result of which an economic and social crisis began, which continues to this day.
The “young” leader actually turned out to be an incompetent leader, whose level did not correspond at all to the scale of the country and civilization he took over: he could not cope with the destructive processes that he himself launched (and, in the opinion of many, he himself inspired). Of course, it was not done here, to put it mildly, and without Western "charity".
Oxford historian Mark Almond wrote sarcastically:
“Exalted and heroized by them [the Western leaders], Gorbachev believed in his own propaganda, making a mistake that his predecessors never did (although they were often written off as decrepit, over-raised peasants). After several generations of dumb apparatchiks elevated the Soviet Union to the status of a superpower, it was the brilliant Gorbachev who took the helm of the country and headed straight for the rocks."
1204 year of Russian civilization
Of course, the question legitimately arises: what kind of country is it or, as you say, a civilization (?!) That allowed such a collapse?
In the epigraph, I made a quote from the notes of the crusader Robert de Clari, who depicts the actions of Emperor Alexei V, who had an empire and an army in his hands and who could not organize effective resistance and surrendered the capital of the Roman Empire, thereby starting the process of gradual dying of Byzantine civilization, so that anything is possible in history.
On the other hand, in scientific historiography, the question of how Moscow could rise in the period of the XIV-XV centuries remains open: any rational arguments have counterarguments. Only one main explanation remains. All other things being equal, thanks to the extremely stubborn and persistent grand dukes of Moscow.
Within the framework of the theory under consideration, the dispute of those who believe that the collapse of the USSR was predetermined or vice versa is not very important now. Again, it is secondary.
What is important is what happened in 1991, and this is undoubtedly the 1204 year of Russian civilization with all that it implies. Due to the processes that began in the "perestroika" and continues in the era of restoration to this day, modern Russia in economic terms represents 1/10 of the USSR, or 1/2 (1/4) of RI in 2018! (H. Folk, P. Bayroch) with all the ensuing social, military and other possibilities. Let's add to this: psychologically and ethnopsychoologically, this is a country of deepening and growing "cognitive dissonance."
An unfinished story?
But back to the issue of management. If during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the problem in management was an underestimation of the situation or paralysis in decision-making, then the “young secretary general” had an absurd reassurance, which caused a “restructuring” in international and domestic affairs (fear has big eyes) and eventually capitulation to the West:.
An erroneous overestimation of the surrounding threats and challenges, as a result of which - an excessive reaction and the adoption of inadequate management decisions. As Marshal D. T. Yazov quietly remarked at the signing ceremony of the Treaty on Conventional Arms in Europe:
"We lost the third world war without firing a shot."
All these discussions about "new thinking" and the idea of a common European home collided with the iron grip of the Western powers, who knew their business and clearly realized their interests. Americans, according to Anat. A. Gromyko, saw in "perestroika" "a lever for the destruction of socialism."They aimed at communism, but ended up in Russia! Secretary of State J. Schultz recalled:
“He [Gorbachev. - VE] acted from a position of weakness, but we felt our strength, and I understood that we must act decisively."
From the point of view of Western civilization, the common European home meant only one thing: the absorption of the countries of the eastern bloc, gaining control over new sales markets, raw materials and cheap labor, which was done. This happened, as M. S. Gorbachev wrote in 1998, "on the path of changing the civilizational paradigm, on the path to entering a new civilization." And this could only be achieved by destroying Russian civilization.
A lack of understanding of what actually happened is another step towards a managerial mistake today: a lack of understanding of the historical process does not exempt one from annihilation.
