An analysis of the deep-seated reasons for the disintegration of the Soviet Union

1991On August 24th, Sue was forced to announce its dissolution. There are many reasons for Su's death, but as the author said: "The Soviet Communist Party was not only overthrown by anti-Soviet forces at home and abroad, but also abandoned by the working class and the Soviet people she always represented. This latter point is one of the decisive factors that led to the demise of the Soviet Union. " Whether it is a political power or a political party, its future and destiny ultimately depend on the people's hearts. If it can't win the support of the broadest masses, it will inevitably collapse. "

China's theoretical circles have talked a lot about the reasons for the demise of the Soviet Union, such as imperialist subversion and peaceful evolution; The Soviet Union's long-term rejection of reform and opening up and its adherence to a highly centralized planning system led to economic stagnation and backwardness; Later, we implemented the wrong reform route, abandoned Marxist principles, weakened the party's leadership and so on. However, there is another important fact that cannot be ignored. People talk less, that is, the Soviet * * * production party was not only brought down by the anti-* * forces at home and abroad, but also abandoned by the working class and the Soviet people she always represented. This latter point is one of the decisive factors leading to the demise of the Soviet Union.

Shocking contrast: glory and desolation

Yeltsin, as a grave digger in the Soviet Union,1March 89, 989. 44% of the votes, that is, with the support of the overwhelming majority of people in the constituency, he defeated the official candidate of the Soviet Union and was elected as the representative of the Soviet people. After he announced his resignation from the party, he was elected president of the Russian Federation by an overwhelming margin.

199 1 year "8"? The "19" incident was Su's last attempt to "avoid going into the abyss of disaster". Unfortunately, at the critical moment of life and death, Su * * failed to get positive response from the people, including1100 million Su * * party member, and the army refused to carry out orders or even defected.

After the failure of the incident, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and its property was confiscated ... It is shocking that not only did the people who seized it not encounter any organized resistance, but also in the relevant historical archives, there was no record of workers, employees and Soviet party member spontaneously gathering to defend their district committees, municipal committees and state committees, or holding large-scale protests.

Sergei, a political commentator of the Russian newspaper of the Soviet Union, once wrote: "For various mysterious reasons, there is a belief among Russian workers that destroying the Soviet system and giving up unity with the Soviet Union will benefit the people." Why do people think that? This is an eternal mystery. At present, no one has given a clear explanation for this mystery. "Sergei inexplicably said," it seems that ... some normal people ... but now they stumble like blind people in rolling in the deep. "

Does this nation lack political passion? No, in the first few years of the same century, the wave of mass revolution swept away feudalism and capitalism and established the first socialist country in the world in less than a year.

On the eve of the October Revolution, the * * * production party proudly won two overwhelming majorities: one was that the people handed over 60% of the Soviet Union's representative seats to the Bolsheviks through voting, and the other was that the Bolshevik party also gained overwhelming support in the old army, the pillar of reactionary rule. In Petrograd and Moscow, the two largest cities in Russia, four out of every five soldiers supported the Bolshevik Party, so the interim government came to the end of betraying others. It is said that the stronghold of the uprising, the Smolny Institute, could be captured by sending a capable team of 500 people at that time. However, the interim government cannot even send such an army. The scene we saw in the historical blockbuster "Lenin in October" is a true record of history: when the uprising team poured into the gate of the Winter Palace, only a few students blocked the car with gladiator's arms to resist ineffectively.

There is also Lenin in 19 18, which is familiar to domestic audiences. It also truly reproduces the harmonious relationship between the party's leaders and the people: after Lenin's assassination, the crazy crowd almost tore the assassin to pieces; Hungry workers are anxiously waiting for Lenin's illness to be announced ... These unforgettable images are in stark contrast to the amazing indifference people showed when Gorbachev suddenly left in his prime 73 years later!

The reason why Su * * * was brilliant when she started her business and bleak when she made a curtain call must be found in the change of her relationship with the people.

The Transformation of "People's Public Servant" in Stalin's Era

It is said that the Bolsheviks came to power with three slogans: peace, land and bread. Together, these three slogans reflect the basic and urgent demands of the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers who participated in the February Revolution. However, the bourgeois provisional government rejected the "narrow interests" of the lower classes with the so-called national interests, so the masses turned to the Bolshevik side. It is with this kind of support and trust that the weak new Soviet regime can gain a firm foothold, consolidate its position and grow stronger in the encirclement and suppression of domestic counter-revolutionary forces and the armed intervention of 14 countries. It is with this kind of support and trust that the Soviet Union can independently build a socialist society under the blockade of world capitalism, and in the shortest time in history, it has reached the industrialization that western countries took a whole era to realize.

At the beginning of the October Revolution, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party also made some mistakes in critical situations, such as collecting surplus grain for free, causing peasant riots, the expansion of revolutionaries hurting the intellectual class, and shooting the Tsars when the White Army approached damaged the image of the red regime ... But as a proletarian revolutionary with selfless heart and frank mind, Lenin resolutely corrected his mistakes once he found out. Most famously, he replaced military capitalism with a new economic policy aimed at the Soviet economy. Lenin also paid great attention to party member's exemplary role to prevent the ruling party from being divorced from the masses. 19 19 * * There is a sentence widely circulated on Russian soil in party member's handbook, which was mobilized to the front line: "* * * party member's title carries many obligations, but it only gives him a privilege-to fight for the revolution first." 1922 The 11th Congress of Russia * * * specially stipulated that "individuals' attempts to get rich must be ruthlessly stopped", and it is absolutely not allowed to join the Party as a means to seek status and treatment from the people.

Stalin made immortal contributions to the development of the Soviet Union, especially to the victory of the world anti-fascist war. Regrettably, he did not fully implement these important thoughts of Lenin, but fixed some temporary measures under special circumstances, which went to extremes in some aspects.

For example, after the victory of the revolution, Lenin had to adopt the cadre appointment system in order to take over local political power as soon as possible, while Stalin regarded appointment as the only way to appoint cadres. This top-down appointment system and disguised appointment system not only undermine the principle of democratic centralism of the party, but also because the selected cadres are only responsible to their superiors, not to their subordinates; I'm afraid that the leadership criticism is not afraid of the opposition of the masses, which will inevitably make people gradually lose the sense of "ownership" at the beginning of the * * * production party's power.

For another example, Lenin emphasized that the party's ideological unity was based on Marxism, while Stalin extended the "ideological unity" to not allow party member to have any different opinions on the party's specific policies. In fact, as early as the end of the 1940s, Soviet leaders proposed to reform the planning work with the commodity-currency relationship and the law of value, so as to make the national economy develop in a balanced way and improve people's living standards. In rural areas, it is also suggested that the accounting unit should be decentralized from the production team to the management team, and be responsible for its own profits and losses, so that individual labor and material interests can be linked. These were all reflected by grassroots cadres engaged in economic work and rural work at that time, and they were also correct opinions that met the requirements of production development. Sadly, the correct opinions put forward were not adopted, and the cadres who put forward opinions were also convicted.

Also, due to the constraints of the environment at that time, Lenin had to emphasize the centralization of democratic centralism, which was necessary, but it also brought hidden dangers. Lenin realized in his later years that one of the most talked-about issues before his death was how to prevent "public servants" from becoming "masters of the people" and how to strengthen supervision over the party and state power. Stalin, on the other hand, moved from a high concentration of power to personal arbitrariness and undermined the socialist legal system. This has seriously stifled the democratic atmosphere and damaged the people's right to be masters of their own affairs. Especially in the subsequent "great cleansing", a large number of outstanding sons and daughters of all ethnic groups in the Soviet Union were wrong. How many people died in this period is unknown. In short, these figures are shocking. This not only did great harm to the revolution and construction of the Soviet Union, but also caused serious social, moral and psychological consequences. At that time, Su * * * also used cruel physical punishment and corporal punishment to extort confessions, which affected relatives and friends, led to numerous unjust cases, and formed a social atmosphere in which everyone feared for himself ... Then the Soviet Union collapsed and the socialist countries in Eastern Europe collapsed, which cannot be said to have nothing to do with the sequelae of the "great cleansing". Today's Democrats try to scare the people by constantly exaggerating this history, and take advantage of people's fear of returning to the "Stalin's authoritarian era" to compete with Russia for voters today.

It can be said that the huge rift between the party and the masses in the Soviet Union began in the Stalin era.

Privilege and corruption made Su lose the hearts and minds of the people.

After Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was rehabilitated as a victim of the Great Purge, but in the political and economic system, there was no socialism divorced from Stalin's model. Therefore, although after decades of socialist construction, the welfare of the Soviet people and the cause of science, culture and education have greatly improved and made progress, the tendency of the leading group to be divorced from the masses has not been corrected, but has developed.

We know that Marxists have never regarded egalitarianism as socialism. In a socialist society, it is normal that there are differences in treatment due to different contributions and responsibilities. At the beginning of the October Revolution, there was a touching story: a member of the People's Committee of Food (equivalent to the Minister of Food) fainted from hunger at the meeting of the People's Committee. During the famine, Quluba had the right to allocate millions or even tens of millions of Pute grain, but did not leave a sip of grain to fill his stomach. His noble qualities touched all the people present. When Lenin learned of this, he personally proposed to set up a "sanatorium canteen" on Glanowski Avenue for the sick state workers, with the aim of taking this as a necessary measure to ensure that the party and state leaders were overworked and burdened during the famine years. This practice is completely understandable and acceptable to the people.

However, after the Soviet economic situation improved, the "sanatorium canteen" was not cancelled, but gradually evolved into special rations and other treatments for Soviet cadres. At first, this kind of treatment was limited to a few senior leaders, with little difference, which was a relatively normal situation. But later, with the continuous expansion of the party and government organs, the distribution areas became wider and wider and the standards became higher and higher. When senior and middle-level leading cadres enjoy more and more benefits than the people, the consciousness of "climbing up" will inevitably be strengthened. Later, the special treatment of the Soviet Union even gradually became a privilege, keeping secrets from other social classes, which meant that the administrative organs of the party and the state began to be divorced from the people.

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the former Soviet Union? Ryzhkov once quoted a very philosophical saying: "Power should be a burden. When it is a burden, it will be as stable as Mount Tai. When power becomes a kind of enjoyment, everything will be finished. " In Brezhnev's later years, his main focus was on "stabilizing" cadres. First, stabilize power and constantly promulgate various rules and regulations. Many of these rules and regulations have nothing to do with the demands of the people, but aim to further fix, standardize and institutionalize the expanding interests of the bureaucratic class, make them grateful and become firm supporters of the leading group at that time. The other is to stabilize the ranks and try to promote some cronies, mainly to prevent others from using the method of ousting Khrushchev against him. The following cadres also need Brezhnev, the leader who cares about cadres, to take the stage to safeguard their rights and interests. Between the superior and the subordinate, a kind of "* * * recognition" of special interests is formed, but it is increasingly divorced from the masses.

In this case, corruption is bound to prevail, but it is difficult to carry out the anti-corruption struggle. For example, Uzbeks wrote a lot of letters to the Soviet Central Committee, reflecting all kinds of unhealthy practices and violations of law and discipline. These letters were sent to Uzbekistan and The CPC Central Committee, asking for an investigation, but the answers were the same, either saying that the investigation was unfounded or that it had been dealt with. However, people keep writing to Moscow, reflecting that they have been retaliated. In just four years from 1980 to 1983, the Soviet Central Committee received tens of thousands of such letters from Uzbekistan.

The organizational line of promoting cronies and protecting officials has led to a large number of mediocre people entering and staying in the leadership, leading to the decline of the party's overall decision-making ability; And divorced from the people, ignoring the interests of the masses, will further lose the basis for making correct judgments. Engaging in an arms race with the United States and replacing butter with nuclear missiles will inevitably affect the improvement of people's living standards and cause dissatisfaction among the masses. In particular, the war of invading Afghanistan lasted 10 years, with 30,000 young Soviet soldiers and tens of millions of families losing their sons. The suffering can only be blamed on the regime at that time.

The evil consequences of the disconnection between theory and practice

In addition, there is a problem that cannot be ignored: once the theory and practice are inconsistent in socialist countries, the people's bearing capacity is far lower than other social systems.

Take the issue of equality as an example. Although capitalist countries also say that "sovereignty belongs to the people", in economic life, capitalism publicly claims that shares have the same rights and money is equal, and there is no equality between minority shareholders and major shareholders, and between bosses and employees. In the Soviet Union, people were told from an early age that they lived in a worker's country without exploitation and oppression. All citizens in Soviet countries are equal, and Soviet workers are public servants of the people. Therefore, people's demands for social equality are more intense, and they are more sensitive and disgusted with the emergence of bureaucratic privileged classes and corruption.

On the other hand, the Soviet leadership said that the people were the masters of the country, but at the same time, "public servants" made arbitrary decisions that harmed the interests of the people. Criticize the decadent lifestyle of western capitalism and limit people's contact with western society; At the same time, it is my privilege to buy imported brand-name goods at low prices and send my children to study in the west. This will inevitably strengthen the rebellious psychology of the Soviet masses, and even think that all their preaching is hypocritical and even endanger people's fundamental belief in socialism. As a result, the party leader lost his prestige and became the object of ridicule and spit on by the people. Therefore, there is nothing that makes leaders lose the trust of the masses more than this double standard of self and people.

In this case, Yeltsin, who is famous for "daring to attack privileges" and calling for "upholding the principle of social justice", naturally became a popular "anti-corruption hero". He was dismissed as an alternate member of the Political Bureau and the first secretary of the Moscow Municipal Committee at the plenary session of the Soviet Central Committee in June 1987, which gave him a golden halo of martyrs and greatly improved his appeal among the masses. Later, he was elected as the representative of the Soviet people and the president of Russia by an overwhelming majority, as well as in "8? In the "19" incident, so many Muscovites stood up to defend the "White House" because they believed that Yeltsin, who was eager to get rid of the Soviet leadership group, could represent their interests.

The flesh-and-blood ties between the Party and the people established by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, with the accumulation of various discontent among the masses, the feelings of the Soviet people towards the Party and the government changed from closeness to alienation, from heat to cold, and more and more cracks appeared. Although the loss and distraction of people's hearts are still invisible and latent in a certain period of time, or the leaders don't think there is much danger, in fact, this danger has been lurking behind the beautiful slogans and cheers in the streets during the festival parade. When this "unbreakable unity" between the party and the people is only a superficial shell, but the inside is rusty, the building will collapse in the event of an earthquake. This is particularly evident in the preview of the drastic changes in some eastern European countries-the drastic changes in the former Soviet Union. The bloodiest scene was the shooting of Mr. and Mrs. ceausescu. At that time, the Romanian * * * production party was one of the largest * * * production parties in Eastern Europe, and there were 1 * * production parties in every six people in China.

An old comrade who once attended the last Romanian Party Congress as a member of the China delegation told me that ceausescu was interrupted by thunderous applause when all the delegates stood up for dozens of times when giving a report at the plenary session. In the face of this exciting scene, who would have thought that it would become a disaster so soon? Who would have thought that when the couple fled, no one helped! Cronyism, corrupt style and ambitious, resulting in serious alienation from the masses. The annual accumulation rate as high as 39% has not improved people's lives for a long time, and sharp social contradictions have long been lurking. So, once the upheaval happens, people's hearts suddenly rise, and the Luo * * * organization collapses instantly.

Comrade Xiaoping once said, "We are not surprised about things in Eastern Europe, but they will appear sooner or later. The problems in Eastern Europe are first and foremost internal. " Sue * * * is the same. Comrade Wang Changjiang, an expert in Soviet history at the Central Party School, once told me a set of figures. Shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was in Moscow. At that time, the Soviet Academy of Social Sciences conducted a questionnaire survey. Respondents think that the Soviet Union still represents workers, 7% think that the Soviet Union represents all the people, and only 1 1% think that the Soviet Union represents all party member. In other words, the vast majority of the Soviet people do not think that the * * * production party is the representative of their interests! In this case, the people and even ordinary party member will naturally have no political enthusiasm and selfless spirit to defend the Soviet regime and the socialist motherland. It is not surprising to look on coldly and even appear in the camp she opposes. In a sense, it was the first disintegration of the relationship between the party and the masses in the Soviet Union that led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its tragedy.

Su's historical tragedy tells us that difficulties are not terrible, setbacks are not terrible, and what is terrible is losing people's hearts.