No wonder it is said that the big is seen at a distance. The time is palpably approaching when the need for an objective, unbiased assessment of the experience of building a socialist society in our country began to appear. An experience that failed catastrophically, thank God, without apocalyptic bloodshed, which is fraught with changes in the socio-economic structure of society.
I remember that at one time, almost the same 25 years later, the Soviet government also suddenly began to look at the history of the Russian Empire with different eyes. In 1943 we returned to the old officer ranks, shoulder straps, differently we began to assess the commanders, and the kings themselves; reconciled with the Orthodox Church, etc. Wiser, matured. The Internet edition "Century" did the right thing by initiating a round table on the topic "USSR: victories and defeats", inviting a wide range of scientists and experts to participate. I received such an invitation too, but since I am temporarily not in Moscow, I will try to express my views on this super topic in writing.
So, to the point: can the Soviet system be considered a dead-end path for the development of society? To pose the question in this way is incorrect either scientifically or practically. Dead end is a bad propaganda term. He stops the thought, as a road sign "Brick" urgently demands to put on the brakes. The socialist model in the USSR is one of the varieties of the teachings of Marxism, with Asian deviations from it aside from democracy. For a hundred years now, the world here and there is confronted with variants of social democracy in theory and in the flesh (dogmas of the Second, Third and even Fourth Internationals; Austrian, Swedish and other living models). And we should not close our eyes to the PRC and other varieties of this doctrine.
Socialism cannot be deleted from the menu of humanity's public dishes. It must be "brought to mind", as engineers do with a good idea, but imperfect machine.
The key drawback of the Soviet system was the fatal hypertrophy of the role of the party leader in the fate of the country. The secretaries general possessed such a fullness of power that even the emperors could not dream of. They could shape the socio-economic model of the country as they liked. In their hands were the most powerful tools of management in the person of the party and security forces, plus all kinds of public organizations (they were called "driving belts" from party to people). From war communism to NEP, from it to five-year plans, to the "great construction projects of communism" … What was not there! There was both self-financing and Kosygin reform projects, to which Leonid Brezhnev responded: "Everything is correct, but premature …". After all this, talking about a "dead end", about a "unreformable system" is to take a big sin on the soul. N. Khrushchev alone has undertaken so many reforms in ten years that one enumeration of them is breathtaking. The party-state elite more often than not simply agreed with the "leader" instead of participating in the development of serious decisions in a constructive spirit. Khrushchev himself said that he sent the idea of dividing the regional party committees into urban and rural ones in writing to all members of the Politburo, asking them to honestly express their opinion. Everyone replied in writing in the spirit of "Good luck!"
Any system (by the way, not only socialist) as the world develops needs to be improved. Monarchies, dictatorial regimes, democratic republics, etc. constantly changing in form and essence. Talented political leaders and sensitive national elites with timely reforms kept the stability of their systems and ensured their development. In the USSR, alas, this did not happen. With each successive round of leadership changes, the qualities of the first person deteriorated: Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and, finally, Gorbachev. This happened because the real choice of the country's leader was made by a narrow group of people (Politburo), whose members were guided by personal interests, and not by the fate of the USSR. They chose not the most talented, but the most comfortable ones. Veterans of the security service recall that Brezhnev intended to nominate Shcherbitsky as his successor, but D. F. Ustinov picked up the "atomic suitcase", handed it to Andropov, who was standing next to him, and said: "Well, Yura, take things now!" That said it all. Andropov was already terminally ill by that time, but he had a long-term friendship with Ustinov …
With such a monstrous concentration of power in the hands of one person and such an absurd system of "succession to the throne", the state and people could not count on sustainable, prosperous development.
All that was left was to hope that, perhaps, by chance, according to the law of roulette, we would get a “lucky ticket” and the country would be headed by a sane, strong-willed politician with a clear plan for the development of society.
We, the then intelligence officers, often discussed among ourselves whether the difficulties of socialist construction in the USSR stemmed from objective reasons inherent in the doctrine itself, or whether they were the result of subjective factors, i.e. anthropogenic. And each time we came to the conclusion that the human factor is to blame. After all, it was not for nothing that we even then gave unflattering names to historical segments associated with specific leaders. The Stalinist "cult of personality" was replaced by Khrushchev's "voluntarism", it was replaced by the Brezhnev "period of stagnation", then came the "fifth anniversary of the funeral" and finally, Gorbachev's "perestroika" began, the meaning of which, apparently, the inventor of this word himself did not understand, so and failed to explain it to the people. Remember the phrase of the writer Yuri Bondarev, who said that perestroika is a plane that knows where it took off from, but does not know where it will fly and where it will land !. The Communist Party itself, with each change of leader, publicly or through clenched teeth, condemned its own recent policy, but was unable to change the technology of forming power and the procedure for making decisions. This was the root cause of her misfortunes and, in the end, death.
A real political leader is one who has in his head and heart a complete program of action, as they would say now, a "road map", who brought it to the consciousness of the majority of the nation, received democratic approval and then did everything to implement this program. Unfortunately, in the Soviet Union, the last five leaders did not have any of this set of requirements. Any attempt at renewal frightened the party and state elite.
For many years, her symbol was M. Suslov - "a man in a case", who in sunny weather invariably wore galoshes. Considered an ideologue of the CPSU, he froze every living thought, but he had no thoughts of his own.
Socialism is an "eternally living teaching"; in fact, in the USSR it turned into a brake on social thought, an ossified dogma. I really liked the expression of one authoritative statesman (foreign) who, discussing with me the state of affairs in our country, said: “The USSR resembles a car, the driver of which fell asleep at the wheel, and instead of waking him up, put your finger to your lips and say "Hush, hush … otherwise he will wake up!"The question very often arises of how the collapse of the socialist system and the Soviet state began. First, let's say that the Soviet Union reached the peak of its development, in my opinion, in 1975. Everything looked quite well. The country was preparing to meet the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution. The 69-year-old Brezhnev looked like a youthful big man and was about to adopt a new, more democratic text of the Constitution. Good oil prices (the result of the Arab-Israeli conflicts) caressed the hearts of the Kremlin's inmates.
But for our constant political opponents - the United States and NATO, things were going very badly. In 1974, as a result of a loud "Watergate" scandal, Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace from the presidency of the United States. The Carnation Revolution in Portugal in April 1974 triggered a crisis in NATO and led to the collapse of the colonial empire in Africa. The United States was defeated in 1975 in the dirty war in Vietnam, and was forced to get out of there in disgrace. And ahead of the Americans were even bigger troubles in the form of the 1979 Khomein revolution in Iran, the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran and the humiliating failure of Operation Eagle Claw in an attempt to forcefully free the American hostages.
Live and rejoice!.. But Soviet intelligence was well aware of the ripening difficulties that had to be reckoned with. We were helped by all sorts of Sovietological studies that were carried out by our opponents and the results of which fell into our hands. It was then that two documents were prepared for the Politburo (through Yu. Andropov). One, warning of the danger of excessive geographical expansion of the zone of influence in the world due to the lack of material and human resources in the USSR. The second is about the expediency of limiting the quantitative production of any weapons and the transition to the principle of "reasonable sufficiency". Information left without feedback. Attempts to formulate our recommendations more vividly once received the following answer: "Do not teach us to govern the state!"
1976 saw the beginning of the decline of the USSR and the socialist system, which passed into degradation, and then into the stage of disintegration.
Maybe it all started with the serious illness of Leonid Brezhnev, who even suffered clinical death and could no longer be considered a full-fledged leader of the party and state. For the next six years (until the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982), the country lived on “autopilot”.
It was at this time, in 1978, that M. S. Gorbachev, who soon became the gravedigger of the socialist system in the USSR. Now the state strategy has ceased to exist. Each influential member of the leadership team addressed issues from a departmental perspective.
Brezhnev himself understood his position and more than once raised the question of resignation, but instead he was awarded another Hero's Star almost every subsequent year; in violation of the status, he was twice made a Knight of the Order of the October Revolution, awarded the Order of Victory (not at all in the case) and awarded the title of Marshal. The entourage held on to their places at any cost, without thinking about the state.
I remember that during one of Y. Andropov's visits to the intelligence headquarters, we directly told him about the difficult situation that had developed in the USSR, and suggested making Leonid Brezhnev the honorary chairman of the CPSU, approving some special insignia and electing a new General Secretary. The answer was harsh: "Don't quarrel me with the Party!"
With the introduction of the 40th Army into Afghanistan at the end of 1979, the USSR and the CPSU began to slide into the abyss. The absolute secrecy of the preparations for this war, even within the framework of the party and state elite, did not allow the consequences of this action to be calculated professionally. The entry of troops was an obvious intervention in an internal civil conflict, on the side of one of the opposing forces, with which the Soviet leadership was associated with emotional friendship. All other arguments were purely pro-pandist. Our people and the country's Armed Forces did not understand the meaning of this suicidal undertaking.
This senseless war lasted ten years, in which we lost 14 thousand dead and more than 400 thousand (!) Disabled as a result of injuries and diseases. The losses of equipment are also impressive: about 300 aircraft and helicopters, hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles, thousands of cars.
Nobody considered how much this war had cost our people. The Afghan adventure led to a sharp isolation of the Soviet Union in the world. The Non-Aligned Movement, which was very authoritative at that time, headed by Fidel Castro on a rotational basis, was stunned by the actions of the Soviet leadership. Until 1979, the members of this Movement were more likely to sympathize with the Soviet Union than the United States, but now the situation is changing before our very eyes.
The propaganda machine of the West started working at maximum speed. We became an "evil empire" in the eyes of US public opinion. The 1980 elections were won by Ronald Reagan, who was distinguished by an extremely anti-Soviet attitude. He put forward the idea of creating a system of strategic defense of the United States against threats from space (the so-called SDI - strategic defense initiative). The Cold War went beyond any reasonable bounds. The COCOM system was created, i.e. approved lists of goods prohibited for delivery to the USSR.
A convenient situation was created for the United States, in which they could wear out the Soviet Union with someone else's hands and someone else's blood, widely using the banner of Islam.
Soviet hardships could be minimized in the eyes of their people through tight control over the media, but they could not be hidden from the foreign public. Finally, the moment came when it became possible to throw the gauntlet to the socialist system as such. This happened a year after the start of the Afghan war, when in Poland, in Gdansk, the independent trade union "Solidarity" was formed in 1980 under the leadership of electrician Lech Walesa. He began to play the role of a political party, which eventually turned into the gravedigger of socialism in Poland.
If the Afghan war can be considered the beginning of sliding into the abyss, then we must agree that its multi-vector destructive effect was multiplied tenfold by the fact that it proceeded against the backdrop of a grueling arms race, into which we thoughtlessly got involved with the beginning of the Cold War. The security of the Fatherland is a sacred thing, but one must reasonably weigh how many and what weapons are sufficient to guarantee it. The USSR squeezed the latter out of itself in order to be on a par with potential opponents. At the "zenith" of the arms race, the USSR had more than 50 thousand nuclear weapons and more than 10 thousand launches, hundreds of submarines, tens of thousands of aircraft.
Yuri Andropov, when he became General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, once said that the USSR should have an arsenal of weapons equal to the combined arsenal of the United States, NATO and the PRC.
This is already the level of paranoid thinking. Western experts believed that 40% of the USSR's GDP went to the arms race. It is quite obvious that it was beyond the strength of our economy. Military spending has had the most disastrous effect on our civilian sectors and on the welfare of the population. They also lay a heavy burden on our allies in the Warsaw Pact, giving rise to and strengthening anti-Soviet sentiments.
The saddest thing is that the piles of accumulated weapons turned out to be completely unnecessary, and they had to be destroyed in accordance with the signed agreements. Bearing huge expenses, we got rid of chemical, bacteriological, nuclear missile weapons, cut tanks, planes, etc. And at the same time, they believed that the remaining weapons were quite enough to guarantee the safety of the Fatherland. In 1994, Russia sold to the United States 500 tons of Soviet weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, which also turned out to be "superfluous." There was no objective need for this fatal self-torture.
Dozens of times Soviet leaders declared that we would respond with "asymmetric measures", but in reality they continued to "rivet" everything, copying our opponents. For some reason, the Chinese, having become an atomic power, did not begin to quantitatively catch up with their possible opponents, they saved funds for the development of the economy and raising the standard of living of the population.
Carried away by the problems of a military-political and international character, the Soviet leaders stubbornly refused to see the crisis phenomena that were brewing in the economy. Please note that the overwhelming majority of the members of the Politburo were not engaged in economics at all. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the KGB, the Ministry of Defense, the CPSU itself, Ukraine, Kazakhstan were always represented there, i.e. those who knew how to spend state funds. And only one lonely Chief Council of Ministers (A. Kosygin) was obliged to earn these funds. Nobody wanted to be engaged in agriculture at all. Even Gorbachev, brought specially from Stavropol to revive agriculture, “fled” from this position at the first opportunity. And over the shadow of Khrushchev who just did not scoff, calling him a "maize". These distortions have nothing to do with the objective vices of the Soviet system, which we talked about above.
For many years we have been reading that, they say, the industrial basis of the USSR by 1991 was hopelessly outdated, technically backward, it was not possible to reform it, and it was subject to breakdown. Actually, this is what happened, unfortunately for the state. However, such statements have nothing to do with reality. These are nothing more than propaganda incantations for political purposes.
The USSR, for all its shortcomings, was one of the leading powers in the world with a developed nuclear, aerospace, engineering, chemical and other industries. There was no catastrophic lag behind world progress.
Low percentages of GDP growth are not yet a sign of an economic crisis, although the signal for the authorities is quite serious.
Many states experienced periods of stagnation, especially during periods of major changes in production technology. In the United States, for example, entire regions of formerly flourishing industries have degraded. Where is Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago and others now? But new technologies gave birth to California, Texas, etc. In Germany, instead of the dilapidated Ruhr, the formerly agricultural Bavaria began to grow. Tax policy in the hands of the state is the most effective tool for facilitating the flow of capital in the direction of the country. It is a crime to break or call for breaking the production base of the country. Once the super-creative communists called for the breaking of the bourgeois railways, their spiritual followers acted at a different time in the same spirit.
The Cold War and sanctions against the USSR did not play a decisive role in the death of the socialist Titanic, although American authors often exaggerate the merits of the CIA or US propaganda agencies in this area. The Cold War was fought against the USSR since 1946, with W. Churchill's Fulton speech, and for 40 years its effect was negligible. After the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, China was subjected to both sanctions and a propaganda assault. For several years, the PRC almost disappeared from the field of view of the world, silently doing its job, until all attacks on it had resolved. For more than half a century, Cuba lived in the position of a besieged fortress, under fierce US propaganda fire. The result is in front of everyone's eyes.
Sometimes they talk about the "Westernization" of Soviet society as a prerequisite for the collapse of the Soviet system and the state. It is unlikely that this argument can be taken seriously. "Westernization" is, in essence, one of the trends of "globalization", i.e. universalization of morals, customs, elements of culture, clothing, etc. This is a consequence of the revolution in the media, greater mobility of the population of our planet, the transformation of the English language into a means of international communication. Globalization has taken over the whole world, even such traditionally conservative societies as Japan and China, but to believe that "Westernization" is capable of causing the death of the state and the system will be, as they say, "overkill".
The USSR, with its 74-year history, will for the foreseeable future be the subject of study of both its achievements and failures. But the study will be fruitful only if its authors are objective and free from any national, social, party or clan preferences. The author is a child of that time and that state, but he has the right, at least with scanty strokes, to give his picture of a bygone era. The main achievement of the USSR was the elimination of not only class, but also, most importantly, property inequality of citizens, which automatically created equal starting opportunities for any person born in the USSR. The principle of socialism "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work" is absolutely invulnerable to criticism, because it is fair. The founders of the socialist doctrines of the nineteenth century dreamed of this, putting forward the principle of liquidating the right to inherit property. A talented person may at least drown in luxury if he has earned it (like, say, Bill Gates), but his children must start from the same line as all his other peers. This will be the triumph of the principle of "equal opportunities". A triumph of justice. Any other interpretation of this formula would be a scam.
In the USSR, the social elevator worked properly, i.e. transfer of a person from one social level to another. Education, attitude to work, public reputation were the wings on which people flew from one life position to another.
Obtaining education was encouraged and supported by the state, which made it possible to quickly restore the intellectual potential, which had suffered greatly during the years of the revolution and the Civil War.
The official doctrine of comprehensive equality gradually entered the mentality of the individual, citizens in everyday life ceased to feel like people of different nationalities, the implanted atheism removed religious differences. Multinationality was replaced by the word "Soviet people", the bearer of "Soviet patriotism." It was somewhat similar to the theory of the "American cauldron", in which a new nation with its own patriotism is boiled out of motley immigrants.
On this human foundation, industrialization, victory in the Great Patriotic War, great construction projects, the flourishing of science and much more became available. This should be written about in multivolume works, and not in journalistic articles. The state had the opportunity to mobilize all the country's resources for the solution of those tasks that were brought to the fore by life. In the popular song "March of Enthusiasts" it was sung: "We have no barriers either in the sea or on land, we are not afraid of ice or clouds …". This spirit of confidence in the future, to one degree or another, dominated our hearts almost until the very end of the "period of stagnation", after which we began to deflate like a punctured soccer ball.
The gone history of the Soviet Union radically changed the history of mankind. Its improved edition in the world is the People's Republic of China, created with the help of the USSR and taking much of the positive from its experience.
Left-leaning political scientists and other scientists in the 50s and 60s of the last century developed the theory of the so-called "convergence" ie. building society on the basis of the best, proven by life, principles of capitalism and the best features of the socialist system. Now, it seems, the closest thing to this theory in practice is the PRC, which could not have been born without the USSR.
The merits of the USSR are exceptionally great in the evolution of the capitalist system towards its humanization, taking into account the social needs of the working people. Under the pressure of his example, there was a gradual reduction in the length of the working day, paid vacations and many other gains of the working class.
The heroism and steadfastness of the peoples of the Soviet Union in the war against German fascism, which the countries of Western Europe could not resist, will forever go down in world history.
Even the self-destruction of the Soviet Union will be a warning to humanity about the inadmissibility of those distortions and mistakes that ultimately ruined the socialist experiment in our country.
