The era of "great stagnation" in the USSR began when the party elite was scared of the future, scared of its people, their passion, enthusiasm and creativity. Instead of development, the post-Stalinist leadership chose stability and existence. Instead of change, there is immutability. The Soviet elite no longer needed a new reality, a "bright future" for everyone.
Now in Moscow they were solving the problem of how to come to terms with the old world, the capitalist (Western) system, negotiate with the masters of the West on coexistence. In fact, it was surrender - reconciliation and coexistence meant a refusal to fight an unjust concept of life, with a gradual surrender of positions and involvement in the Western system. Moreover, in case of abandoning its development project, great Russia (USSR) inevitably had to become a cultural, technological semi-colonial, raw material periphery of the West. This is what we saw in the 1990s and 2000s, and we see it at the present time. No other is given. Either an original, own, Russian development project based on the Russian civilizational, national code, or slaveryperhaps at first in the illusions of "freedom" and consumer paradise. But the payment for this "paradise" will have to be the future of entire generations and the devoted past of the great power.
After the elimination of Stalin, the Soviet elite began to degenerate, and each of its generation was weaker and more painful than the previous one. Which led to the 1991 disaster. At the same time, the catastrophe has not yet ended and continues. Its development was only frozen in the 2000s. But the process of decay itself continues. The core of great Russia (USSR) - the Russian Federation, still exists. The West is still waging a war of destruction, which will be decided by the elimination of the "Russian question" - Russian civilization and people. A terrible and bloody tragedy is unfolding right before our eyes. Even the darkness of information technology and the digital world can no longer cover up the obvious. Russians are dying out, and unless a radical change occurs, they will not survive the 21st century. They will leave behind the pitiful remnants of a once great people, "ethnographic material" that will be swallowed up by the global South, North and China. The situation has already reached the point that in the 1990s and even 2000s it would seem like a madman's ravings - before the fratricidal war in Donbass, Russians against Russians, two Russian states, the Russian Federation and Little Russia (Ukraine), were pitted against each other. The masters of the West raised in small Russia an aggressive, oligarchic, gangster-Nazi regime that hates everything Russian and is robbing the dying fragment of the Russian world, its historical cradle. The situation is catastrophic, and most people do not even see what is happening.
Thus, the Soviet elite abandoned its own development project and began to look for opportunities for rapprochement with the West. They staked on material needs, personal, clan and group interests. Matter has conquered spirit. Stalin's heirs in one moment devalued all the feats, heroism, hardships and multi-million dollar losses of the people. We dealt a fatal blow to Soviet civilization, the project and the new society of the future. They betrayed the project of Russian (Soviet) globalization on the principles of co-prosperity.
It is clear that the country was still moving forward by inertia, under Khrushchev and Brezhnev there were still great victories and achievements, discoveries and breakthroughs. Schools and institutes were built, roads and bridges, space and military technologies showed the amazing possibilities of future reality. But this was already inertia, not a conscious movement. Why did it happen? Obviously, because of the psychology, the moral qualities of the then party elite. The party nobility proceeded from material, selfish interests. She wished for power for the sake of personal, clan, group interests. These people easily joined the ranks of the "fifth column", "enemies of the people." They wanted to “live beautifully,” as representatives of the Western elite lived abroad. As soon as the process of "cleansing" and renewal of the elite stopped, its decay began.
These people clung to power with all their might, since power provided ample material opportunities. Hence the rapid corruption of the authorities, the rapid overgrowth of the "elite" with connections, capital, property, luxury goods, and deliberate overconsumption. The "elite" falls away from civilizational, national development tasks and turns into marauders, thieves, and mafia. Loses support among the people and is looking for contacts with the same mafia abroad. All this we have perfectly observed and are now observing in the vastness of the former USSR. It is clear that the percentage of active "rats" was initially small. The bulk of the party and the bureaucracy of the USSR were ordinary people, passive and driven. But the work was done by a small part - passionate (with a minus sign), energetic, cunning and cynical. All kinds of Khrushchevs, Gorbachevs, Suslovs, Yakovlevs, Chubais and Gaidars. So the door to the future was closed to the people.
At the same time, the 1960s-1970s are considered the "golden age" of the USSR. There was still hope for a bright future. New generations were born and grew up, which either partially affected or did not see the horrors of the Civil War, the subsequent devastation, labor, blood and sweat of industrialization and collectivization, the terrible Great Patriotic War. For the first time in the history of Russia-Russia, the country lived in security, with the most powerful armed forces on the planet. The constant threat of war is a thing of the past. People have seen how life is improving literally before our eyes. The reforms of Kosygin, a Stalinist nominee, a brilliant business executive and the smartest man, continued Stalin's work. Kosygin tried to spur production, improve the lives of the best workers, those who work better than idlers. At the same time, public funds were developing, from which medical services, pensions, sanatorium treatment, vouchers, etc. were paid. As a result, positive structural changes took place in the Soviet economy.
The country has made a new leap forward. Thus, the Soviet Union made a breakthrough in radio electronics and aircraft construction. The Union is creating the first communications satellites and deploying ground-based space communications complexes. The automotive industry is reaching a new level. Soviet cars were then sold abroad and appreciated. The USSR then did not lag behind America in the creation of large computers. And he followed his own course. Housing construction proceeded at an accelerating pace. Families received apartments for free! Large masses of their own household appliances and radio electronics were produced, practically not inferior to Western models. Culture and art developed. The country was the most readable in the world. Nowhere in the world did young people have such opportunities to develop their intellect and creative abilities. Millions of pensioners received, albeit not rich, but secure, a quiet old age.
The chemical industry, oil production and oil refining are developing. The Kosygin government is investing in geological exploration, discovering huge deposits of oil and gas. New mining methods are being mastered. It should be noted that most of the refineries were built in the 1930s-1960s. In the 1970s, no oil factories were built, since Brezhnev began to sell (at high oil prices) oil abroad.
Thus, the development potential of the USSR economy was enormous! The problem was that the party elite had already abandoned its own project-concept of development and had lost the "keys to heaven" (an influx of creative energy necessary for a breakthrough into the future). All the attention of the nomenklatura was focused on the struggle for power. A bargaining began with the masters of the West for favorable conditions for "rapprochement" and coexistence (in fact, the absorption of the socialist camp and the USSR by the West). The party elite dreamed of becoming a part of the global "elite". Therefore, any novelty, violation of stability frightened the authorities. And Kosygin's reforms were curtailed.
Under Brezhnev, the nomenklatura began to look for a calmer way to maintain the status quo. And I found him. Oil. Huge reserves of "black gold" required by the world economy. In 1967 Moscow received abundant oil from Western Siberia. In addition, another Arab-Israeli war began, and oil prices jumped sharply. In the late 1960s, the Union began massive oil exports. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, prices for "black gold" rose sharply again. It seemed that in Moscow they found "Eldorado" - a golden country. Currency poured into the USSR. As a result, the economy was hooked on the sale of raw materials abroad. The transformation of the Soviet economy into a "pipe" economy began. It got to the point that they even stopped the development of oil refining. At the same time, it is worth remembering that the USSR kept its production until the last, despite the development of negative trends. Their production was destroyed already in the 1990s by Yeltsin, Gaidar and Chubais, and then in the 2000s by their heirs - the tandem of Putin and Medvedev. At the same time, a layer of capitalist oligarchs and a comprador bourgeoisie was created, flourishing on the sale of raw materials and devouring their own country.
The economic, social, political and psychological consequences of the "oil miracle" in the USSR were dire. In fact, the people and the government under Brezhnev made a “big deal”. The working people lived better and better, beyond their means, raising their living standards independently of the growth of production efficiency, labor productivity and production growth. Additional consumer goods were purchased with foreign currency. The "golden age" of the Soviet citizen began. In exchange, the Soviet elite received an "indulgence", the tacit approval of the majority, the opportunity to talk about the problem of refusal to develop, to decay the swamps of stability. A gradual privatization of the people's wealth by the nomenklatura begins, the cultivation of national clans of marauders, future khans-bais-presidents in Transcaucasia, Central Asia, etc.
There is nothing surprising in this process. Usually a person tries to live in conditions of conservation of resources, energy. The oil "freebie" corrupted the government and the people. Labor criteria have been perverted. Why work as a "Stakhanovite" if the country is rich in resources and oil. The standard of living is out of touch with real productivity. It doesn't matter how you work if you have a lot of resources. In such a system, there was no need to develop, as a person, products. Why maintain a high level of the engineering corps and its high status, if it will do so? Most bought "freebies". They began to build "oil communism", which literally in a decade and a half killed the great Soviet empire.
In fact, under Putin, this "big deal" was repeated. Oil was expensive. Oil dollars flowed like a river. The population lived beyond their means. In the conditions of collapse, plunder and sale of the heritage of the past and the capital of future generations. In the conditions of the death of its own production, the country was flooded with consumer goods (as it turned out later, often these goods, for example, food, are of much worse quality than Soviet ones). "Elite" lived in luxury, but crumbs fell from the master's table. In exchange, the people, additionally deceived by the haze of TV and other media, suggesting that the country is “getting off its knees” and soon we will live like in Portugal, turned a blind eye to the terrible growth of corruption and theft. That the country's future is sold. The fact that the top of the country, from deputies and officials to the creative intelligentsia, is trying with all its might to become a part of the West, transferring capital, families and children there. That the country and the people do not have a goal, project and development program. That conscience and truth have been replaced by the ideology of the "golden calf". That there is an extinction of the Russian superethnos. And there is practically no time left to save civilization, country and people.
