The majority of the citizens of the perished USSR will agree with the opinion that Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika became a disaster for tens of millions of people, and brought benefit only to an insignificant stratum of the “new bourgeoisie”. Therefore, it is necessary to recall the first "perestroika", which was headed by NS Khrushchev, and which was supposed to destroy the USSR back in the 1960s. However, then it did not go through to the end, they were able to neutralize Khrushchev.
A blow to the future of the USSR
To begin with, the forces behind Khrushchev (the not completely neutralized "fifth column", the so-called "Trotskyists" who acted in the interests of the United States and Great Britain) eliminated I. V. Stalin and L. P. Beria. In this matter, Khrushchev relied not only on the "Trotskyists", but also on many leaders of the "old school", such as Malenkov and Mikoyan. They were supposed to go on an honorable vacation, to be replaced by talented young cadres who had already received an education in the USSR. In fact, Stalin had already begun personnel reform when, at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in October 1952, he not only expressed the idea of promoting committed and educated youth to the highest posts of the state, but also replaced Molotov, Mikoyan, Kaganovich and Voroshilov. The process of changing personnel was only gaining momentum, therefore, the question of what to do with the leader became an edge for the party functionaries.
There was another important reason for the elimination of Stalin and his legacy. They usually do not remember it, although it is of great importance, since for a certain category of people, your pocket is more important than the interests of the state and the people. At the October 1952 plenum, Stalin expressed the opinion that around 1962-1965, while maintaining the current rates of development of the national economy, the USSR's transition from socialism to communism would become possible. And this transition will begin with the elimination of money in the Union. They will remain only for foreign trade. It is clear that for a significant part of the nomenclature, this was a strong blow. By this time, a special bureaucratic class had actually formed, which had round sums in rubles. Undoubtedly, many have accumulated significant amounts in the accounts of foreign banks. If communism comes to the USSR in 10-15 years, what will happen to this money? Run abroad? This means that you lose your high status, all awards and titles will be canceled. The only way out is to get rid of Stalin and his followers as soon as possible.
The "enemies of the people" had to get rid of Stalin for another important reason - Joseph Vissarionovich put forward the idea of a gradual transformation of the Communist Party: it had to lose the role of "manager" of the state, becoming a forge of management cadres, the educational function of the party had to come to the fore. Naturally, many party functionaries did not want to lose the levers of government, to give real power to the elected Soviet bodies (the USSR followed the path of establishing real people's power).
These and other events were conceived for the medium term, but they made many of the top leaders of the party intimidated. That is why none of the old Leninist guard tried to stop the liquidation of Stalin and Beria, or to continue their work themselves. They were satisfied with the current situation. It is clear that most of the top party officials had nothing to do with the conspiracy - they can be conventionally called a "swamp". Some knew about him, others guessed, but their inaction helped an active group of conspirators (Khrushchev was the tip of the "iceberg"). This was the first and most important step towards the future "restructuring" of the Soviet Union. The Soviet peoples were deprived of a future, a brilliant prospect opening up, which made it possible to transfer humanity to a new stage of development, to open a kind of "Golden Age" of the planet. The USSR, under the leadership of Stalin and his associates, could and has already offered mankind a different concept of development, more just and humane than the Western one. This explains the enormous popularity of the USSR and its development model during the Stalin era. Khrushchev and the people behind him ruled out this possibility.
The second step, which dealt a terrible blow to Stalin's cause and the image of the USSR around the world, was Khrushchev's report on Stalin's personality cult in February 1956 at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party. In fact, this report became a kind of starting point for the beginning of anti-socialist, anti-people reforms and Khrushchev's experiments. This act undermined the foundation of the entire Soviet statehood. Millions of people, both in the USSR and abroad, who sincerely accepted the ideals of communism, were disappointed. The prestige of the USSR and the authority of the Soviet government have fallen sharply. There was also a certain split in the party, many communists, outraged by the attacks on Stalin, began to express their indignation. Distrust of the authorities was sown in the hearts of the people. Dangerous fermentation began in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. Since Stalin's course was "criminal," why stay in the socialist camp? The Western world received an excellent tool for an information war with the USSR and the social bloc, and began to skillfully stir up "reformist", liberal sentiments.
Khrushchev was obviously not a genius of destruction, but other people did a good job for him. So, a very clever step was the violation of the principle: "to each according to his work." Equalization was introduced throughout the USSR. Now both the "Stakhanovites" and the lazy ones received the same. This blow had long-term prospects - people gradually began to become disillusioned with socialism, its benefits, began to look closely at life in Western countries. Khrushchev dealt another strong blow to socialism in the USSR by introducing an increase in the growth of labor standards: the growth of wages-rations was frozen (under Stalin, after the elimination of the consequences of the war, salaries increased annually, and prices for the most important goods decreased, which symbolized the level of management quality in the USSR), and production rates began to grow. Production relations under Khrushchev began to resemble camp relations. It is worth recalling that under Stalin, material, monetary stimulation was held in high esteem. Even at the front, the military was paid for a downed plane or a downed enemy tank. It is clear that many front-line soldiers did not accept this money, they considered it unacceptable in such a difficult time, but the system itself existed. Production rates under Stalin rose in connection with the introduction of new capacities and advanced technologies in production.
As a result, under Khrushchev, a “socialist” version of the crowd-elite model of government, characteristic of Western civilization, began to take shape. The people had to serve the party and bureaucratic nomenklatura ("elite"), which created a special world for themselves. It is clear that, first of all, this concerned the party elite. Traditionally, the USSR was considered socialist, but the basic principles had already been violated. Khrushchev's socialism can be safely called state capitalism. One of the main features of a capitalist society is a constant rise in prices, above all for essential goods. Under Khrushchev, prices went up.
A blow to the armed forces
Khrushchev also inflicted great damage on the defenses of the USSR. Under Stalin, immediately after the restoration of the national economy destroyed by the war, a course was taken to build a powerful ocean-going fleet. Why does the USSR need an ocean-going fleet? It was obvious to Stalin that the "peaceful coexistence" of capitalism and socialism was impossible in principle. The collision was inevitable. Therefore, the USSR needed a powerful fleet in order not to be afraid of the aggression of the great sea powers - the USA and Great Britain, and to be able to defend its interests anywhere in the World Ocean. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that a strong shipbuilding industry gave the country thousands, tens of thousands of jobs. Khrushchev destroyed this grandiose and deadly project for the West in the bud.
In addition, the strongest blow was dealt to the Soviet aviation, to which Stalin paid great attention. This enemy began to argue that since the USSR had good ballistic missiles, then supposedly other directions could seriously reduce costs, including aviation. A significant number of aircraft were scrapped, although they could guard their homeland for a long time, many promising breakthrough projects were “slaughtered”. Thus, Khrushchev inflicted strong blows on the USSR Navy and Air Force (and other troops also suffered), and now we see that it is the aviation and the navy that are the most important tools in ensuring the sovereignty of the state.
The officer corps under Khrushchev was simply shredded. Hundreds of thousands of the most experienced military specialists who had the experience of the most terrible war in the history of mankind behind them, the war heroes were simply dismissed. People were simply deprived of the ground under their feet, dismissed without retraining, without housing, without being sent to a new service. Many divisions, regiments and schools were disbanded. Many important military scientific projects and developments were put under the knife, which could turn the Soviet Union into a military space superpower, a power of the 21st century already in the second half of the 20th century. The West did not appreciate Khrushchev's disarmament initiatives, did not appreciate the line on "detente", nuclear tests continued, armies and navies were not reduced, and the arms race continued.
Destruction of agriculture and the Russian countryside
Khrushchev dealt a terrible blow to Soviet agriculture and the Russian countryside. Food security is one of the foundations of the state. If the state is unable to feed itself, it is forced to buy food abroad, pay for it with gold and its own resources. Khrushchev's enlargement of collective farms (their number in 1957-1960 was reduced from 83 thousand to 45 thousand) was this treacherous blow to Soviet agriculture. Thousands of prosperous Soviet collective farms and villages were declared unprofitable and destroyed in a short time for a far-fetched reason. One of the areas of attack on the village was the closure of the machine and tractor stations (MTS) in 1958. Now the equipment had to be redeemed (and at the price of a new one), maintained, repaired and purchased by the collective farms themselves, which was an overwhelming burden on them. The collective farms did not have a normal repair base, storage hangars. Thousands of skilled workers preferred to look for other work than to receive lower wages on collective farms. The destruction of thousands of "unpromising" villages practically became a fatal blow to the Russian countryside. Throughout the USSR, especially in the Great Russian regions, abandoned villages and farms appeared, in fact, there was a process of "depopulation" of the indigenous Russian regions. The course of eliminating “unpromising” villages also had a huge negative demographic effect, since it was the Russian countryside that provided population growth (moreover, it was healthier in terms of mentality and physical health than cities).
A series of reforms and experiments further exacerbated the situation in agriculture (the result was the purchase of food abroad). Huge funds and efforts were invested in the development of virgin and fallow lands of the Volga region, South Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Far East. With a more robust, long-term approach, the result could be positive. But with the methods of "assault and onslaught", the result was deplorable. The old areas of agriculture in the European part of Russia were abandoned, young people and experienced personnel were transferred to the virgin lands. The ill-conceived project consumed a lot of money. The huge areas that had been developed began to turn into salt marshes and deserts, and it was necessary to urgently invest a lot of money in projects to restore the land and protect it. The corn project, the "meat campaign" and the "dairy records" turned into losses. Agriculture was simply flooded with a wave of disorganizing activities.
Khrushchev also managed to carry out a "second collectivization" - by the decision of the December 1959 Central Committee plenum, they called on to buy up personal cattle, and personal plots and subsidiary plots were prohibited. Allegedly, the household prevents the peasants from doing their best on the collective farms. Thus, they dealt a blow to the well-being of the villagers, who could receive additional income from their subsidiary plots. These measures forced many rural residents to move to the city or go to the virgin lands, because there it was possible to "go out into the people."
The course for the rehabilitation of peoples. Changes in the territorial-administrative division
On February 7, 1957, the Chechen-Ingush Republic (CHIR) was restored, several autonomous Cossack regions of the Terek right bank were included in it (they were deprived of autonomy). In addition, 4 districts of the Terek left bank, which had not previously been part of the Chechen-Ingush Republic, were cut off from the Stavropol Territory in favor of the ChIR. And the eastern part of Stavropol - the Kizlyar region, inhabited by Russians, was transferred to Dagestan. During the rehabilitation of the repressed peoples, the Chechens were prevented from returning to the mountainous regions, and the Cossacks were sent to the lands. Another "mine" was laid by the transfer in 1957 from the RSFSR of the Crimean region to the Ukrainian SSR.
In 1957-1958. The national autonomies of the Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Balkars, "innocently affected" by the Stalinist repressions, were restored, these peoples received the right to return to their historical territories, which led to a number of clashes on ethnic grounds and laid the foundation for future conflicts.
It should also be noted that as part of the campaign to promote "national cadres", representatives of the "titular peoples" began to receive key posts in administrations, party bodies, the national economy, the education system, health care, and cultural institutions. These measures had extremely negative consequences for the future of the USSR. The "mine" of the national republics, autonomies, special attention to the "national cadres", the national intelligentsia under Gorbachev, "frozen" under Stalin, will blow the Soviet Union to shreds.
Leakage of gold. Major foreign policy "achievements"
Moscow, within the framework of the course towards "proletarian internationalism", launched a large-scale financing of dozens of foreign communist parties with Soviet gold. It is clear that this was the stimulation of a significant number of "parasites". Semi-artificial communist parties began to appear like mushrooms after rain. Many of them, when Khrushchev was removed from power and the financial flow decreased, collapsed or fell significantly in the number of members. Within the framework of the same course, there was an unprecedented in its scale financing of various regimes in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which were called "friendly". Naturally, many regimes willingly accepted the help of the Soviet "brothers" in order to receive virtually gratuitous funding, assistance from Soviet specialists in the field of economics, defense, education, health care, etc. In most cases, this financial and logistical (and political) aid did not bring benefits to the USSR. Already during the years of the Russian Federation, Moscow has written off tens of billions of debt from a number of countries. And this money, resources, forces could be directed to the development of the USSR.
In particular, Moscow was completely in vain to support Egypt. The United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) received from the USSR a loan of $ 100 million for the construction of the Aswan hydroelectric power station, Soviet specialists also helped in its construction. Moscow actually saved Egypt from the combined aggression of France, England and Israel. The result was disastrous - the Sadat regime reoriented itself to the United States, and the persecution of the communists began in the country. It was completely in vain to support Iraq and a number of other Arab and African countries.
A big mistake in foreign policy under Khrushchev was the severance of relations with China. In the days of Stalin, the Russians were "elder brothers" for the Chinese, and under Khrushchev they became enemies. The USSR had to create a powerful military group on the border with China, to carry out measures to strengthen the border. Under Khrushchev, Moscow promised to give the Japanese three islands of the Kuril ridge (they simply did not have time). Because of this mistake (betrayal !?), Russia still has tense relations with Japan. Tokyo gave hope for the transfer of part of the Kuril Islands. And the Japanese elite hopes that during the new perestroika in Russia, Iturup, Kunashir and Habomai will pass to Japan.
In general, the blow that Khrushchev's perestroika inflicted on the demography, economy and defense capability of the USSR was terrible, but not fatal. Khrushchev was removed from the helm of the USSR and was not allowed to complete the destruction of the Union. However, it was precisely from the time of Khrushchev that the USSR was doomed to death (only radical measures could save it). A particularly terrible danger was the change in the consciousness of Soviet people. Khrushchev's reforms, in particular equalization and the privileged position of the nomenklatura, led to the fact that the spiritual values of a significant part of Soviet society changed for the worse. The virus of "Westernism" and consumerism began to gradually kill the soul of the USSR. Many Soviet citizens, especially young people, began to believe that labor for the good of society is a deception, impudent exploitation imposed by means of propaganda. That the dream of communism is a chimera, a myth that will never come true. And in order to live well, one must become an official or a party functionary. As a result, opportunists, careerists, people whose material well-being was the highest ideal, began to overwhelm the Soviet power vertical.
It was then that the West got the opportunity to gradually change the consciousness of the inhabitants of the USSR, to wage a latent information war against Soviet (Russian) ideals. As you know, along with the Khrushchev "thaw", a powerful information campaign was launched against the Soviet people. There was a substitution of values. Spiritual values were replaced by material ones. It was during the era of Khrushchev's reforms that a class of philistines was formed, whose images can be seen in Soviet films, for whom money and things became the main things in their lives. True, the Soviet Union was still dominated by generations of heroes of the industrialization of the 1930s, the Great Patriotic War, so the "bourgeoisie" could make their significant contribution to the destruction of the USSR only under Gorbachev. So, in fact, the soil was created, the social basis for the future destruction of the Soviet Union. It was these people who happily accepted the reforms of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, they did not care about a great power, the blood and sweat of many generations. They hoped that they would live like over a hill, beautifully and happily. However, life quickly put everything in its place. The property of the people ended up in the hands of only a few predators.
We must not forget about this most disgusting factor of Khrushchev's "perestroika" - the materialization and individualization of the consciousness of a part of Soviet people. Unfortunately, at the present time this process has only just received development. Khrushchev's destructive actions became the basis for the collapse and death of the Red Empire.
