Possible reasons for the collapse. The collapse of the USSR - a natural or provoked process

There is no particular need to prove the importance, topicality of holding a serious conversation on the topic "The collapse of the USSR: causes and consequences." It is obvious, if only because the collapse of the USSR is also part of our personal biography and drama, and at the same time, in my opinion, it is the most significant dramatic episode in world history.

There is no particular need to prove the importance, topicality of holding a serious conversation on the topic "The collapse of the USSR: causes and consequences." It is obvious, if only because the collapse of the USSR is also part of our personal biography and drama, and at the same time, in my opinion, this is the most significant dramatic episode. world history. Especially the history of the Russian people of the second half of the 20th century. And yet I will refer, in the form of a kind of proof of the topicality of the topic, to the authority of the famous “new Russian” billionaire and politician B.A. Berezovsky. In the summary of his treatise, entitled “From revolution to evolution without losing the country. Genetic Transformation of Russia: Economics, Politics, Mentality”, a treatise interesting with many ideas, the most interesting thing is, perhaps, that in his enlarged historical periodization of the “Transformation of Russia (USSR)” in the period from April 1985 to 1997 inclusive, he forgot to mention (or “lost”, using his terminology) the collapse of the USSR, one of the two great superpowers of the 20th century, an integral (and rather artificial, I would even say ugly) part of which was Russia, more precisely, the RSFSR, now the Russian Federation. It is possible, of course, in this connection to be ironic for a long time about Berezovsky's historical and political science "virginity", but such irony will be unproductive. Moreover, it's stupid. After all, when such a very intelligent person, and, by the way, a philanthropist, with billions as if suddenly arising, “out of thin air”, forgets about such a historical “detail” as the “collapse of the USSR”, telling about the transformation of Russia at the turn of the 80s - 90s 1990s, then such alleged forgetfulness speaks of many very serious things. And there's no laughing matter here.

It is this “forgetfulness” about the great country (in which, by the way, he was born) that feeds - and not without reason - the views of those who believe that the collapse of the USSR is not accidental, and not accidental in the very sense that it is rather a consciously planned and implemented process, rather than a spontaneous one. By the way, I am not a supporter of such views and included this phrase in the title of the speech, I confess and repent, for the sake of poignancy. Although, of course, I do not think that this process was predominantly spontaneous, and even more so historically random. And if it is random, then only in the understanding of randomness in which it occurs at the intersection point of some necessary processes.

Now let's move on from politically sharp jokes - to an attempt at a sober, scientific understanding of some of the causes and some of the consequences of the collapse of the USSR. For me, this is not an easy, not fully (for myself) clarified problem.

First of all, I proceed from the fact that it was the USSR that collapsed, and not the Russian Empire, which was different in name. The Russian Empire, “recreated” as far as possible with Bolshevik fire and sword, by 1922, after the defeat of the so-called Stalinist idea of ​​“autonomization”, not only legally, but, so to speak, structurally ceased to exist. And today it can be argued (just today, of course, and not in 1922) that historically, with the creation of the USSR, that is, a state built, formally speaking, on a national-ethnic basis, some foundations were laid (albeit in the form of a formal or abstract possibility) for its collapse, which took place in the era of the great crisis of communism or, more precisely, real socialism. But in order for this opportunity to be realized, many unrelated things had to happen. historical events, other, internal inherent and acquired contradictions of the USSR as a great and multinational state should have unfolded. Let's talk about them now.

The USSR, despite the international mentality of its creators, is still largely a Russian state. And, like everything Russian, it is literally woven from contradictions.

Indeed, according to the method, the nature of the relationship between the Center and the regions, between large and small peoples, the USSR is, of course, a unitary state, which is largely due to the rigidly centralized system of management of territories and the peoples living here that is characteristic of it (and its necessity cannot be therefore, reduce to the idea of ​​the so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the mechanisms of exercising power arising from this). In addition, the USSR is a type of state structure, which in the second half of the 20th century received the name party-state in political science. Moreover, this is a socialist state, more precisely: state-administrative socialism (and not fascist Italy or Nazi Germany). From a managerial point of view, for such a state, not only in words, but also to a large extent in deeds, the principle of the so-called. democratic centralism (in one form or another).

This principle is even fixed in the Constitution of the USSR (both in Stalin's and in Brezhnev's) as the main principle of organizing the entire state and public life of the country. I say “even” because, in words or in the letter of the Basic Law of the USSR, the state in which we were all born is a federal state. Moreover, with serious inclusions of elements or principles of confederalism: for example, the right to secede from the USSR of union republics or “formulas” about “sovereign” states within a single federal state (which in itself is a clear inconsistency). However, it is quite obvious that, firstly, the principle of democratic centralism cannot, on a fair, equal basis, regulate relations between large and small nations (without prejudice to the small ones, but in our country it turned out that it cannot, without prejudice to the big ones, for example, for the Russian nation). In the same way, it is impossible to imagine the coexistence in practice of the principle of democratic centralism - with, say, a real right to secede from the USSR, well, let's say, one or two or three of the 15 republics that were part of the Union.

Another feature of all management problems in the multinational Soviet state (USSR) is a peculiar, I would say, paradoxical attitude to the national question: its content, forms, prospects for resolution, and even its very existence. In my opinion, the paradox of understanding or the paradox of misunderstanding national question- especially the Russian question as a national one - the leaders of the USSR, especially Gorbachev, became one of the most important subjective reasons that blew up the multinational Union of the SSR at the turn of the 80s and 90s.

The history of the theoretical attitude to whether the national question has been resolved or not resolved in our country is instructive, what is meant by its solution, whether self-determination of nations is possible up to secession, i.e. before the formation of the “own” state within the framework of the federation and whether this right is extended to ... the Russian people, etc.

I will leave aside the very interesting and important for historians, philosophers and political scientists question about the attitude of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev to these problems and will tell on the material available to me, previously absolutely confidential information, about the solution of these problems in the historical period of L.I. Brezhnev -Yu.V.Andropov-K.U.Chernenko, as well as M.S.Gorbachev.

It is known that in order to get out of the impasse of the formula about the complete and final solution of the national question in the USSR (which clearly contradicted reality), a clause was introduced in one of Brezhnev's speeches that this issue was resolved in the form in which we inherited it from the past (pre-revolutionary past). Such a reservation, as it seemed to the ideologists of the CPSU, made it possible to slightly open the “taboo” over the analysis of those real problems, contradictions that in the 70s began to grow in the relations between various nations and peoples of the USSR under the loud crackle of anniversary speeches about the flourishing and rapprochement of all nations in the conditions of developed socialism. In fact, the scientific significance of this reservation was illusory, as evidenced by the relevant scientific literature of this period of Soviet history. I know, however, that the working group of the Politburo Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the preparation of a new, "Brezhnev" constitution of the USSR in 1977 tried to take a step forward in solving some real interethnic problems, to "expand" one of them, which, as history has shown, played a fatal role in the collapse of the USSR. I mean the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh.

As you know, Nagorno-Karabakh, after falling under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan after October 1917, the more it became a tangled knot of Armenian-Azerbaijani contradictions. A constructive form of easing this tension could be raising the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region to an Autonomous Republic. Such a proposal (based, of course, on numerous "letters of workers" - in this case, those who actually existed) was made. Its authors (and they were: A. Lukyanov, A. Bovin, Academician V. Kudryavtsev, Professor V. Sobakin) believed - and not without reason, that this long overdue problem could be solved without much, as they say, noise, within the framework of ongoing constitutional reform (adoption of a new Constitution of the USSR). The Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, however, rejected this proposal: the point of view that was popular in those years prevailed (from which, by the way, M.S. structural, status changes in the existing national-state structure of the USSR.

Life has shown the short-sightedness and short-sightedness of such a point of view. The spontaneously developing process of aggravation of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations around the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh led, as we know, first to the Sumgayit tragedy in 1988. Not only was it not stopped in time by M.S. Gorbachev, but it did not even receive a public, and indeed, any serious political assessment. The next stage of this drama in the context of the progressive weakening of the central government during Gorbachev's perestroika was the first bloody war in the Soviet and then post-Soviet space - Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the collapse first “de facto”, and then “de jure” of an important part of the USSR in Transcaucasia.

During the period of the “late” Brezhnev, another attempt, unknown to the public, was made to move the attitude towards the national question, which was not only brewing, but gradually heating up, off the ground. As a member of that narrow group that finalized in January 1981 at the residence of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU in Zavidovo the Report of the Central Committee to the XXVI Party Congress, I can report that in the first version of this report, which was sent to a member of the Politburo for the so-called. “to a narrow circle (i.e. not all and as if unofficially) on behalf of L.I. Brezhnev, in the section of the report devoted to organizational and party work, there was a proposal to create a new department within the Central Committee of the CPSU - the Department of Social and National Policy, as well as a proposal to create a State Committee for Nationalities Affairs within the structure of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (by analogy with the Leninist-Stalinist People's Commissariat of Nationalities). There is no doubt that the adoption of such innovations in 1981 could have played a positive role in preventing a threat that none of us was then aware of - the threat of the collapse of the USSR. However, both of these proposals were not included either in the final draft of the report of the Central Committee of the CPSU, or in the report itself. As far as I remember, these proposals were unanimously buried by almost all members of the Politburo from M.A. Suslov to Yu.V. Andropov and K.U. Chernenko inclusive. As you know, the department for national policy was nevertheless created in the Central Committee of the CPSU at the end of the 80s, when not only the USSR, but, as it turned out, the CPSU, had very little time left to live, and there were already very few real opportunities for saving them (if they still were, of course).

Theoretically or ideologically significant for those times, advances in relation to the national question were made at a time when Andropov-Chernenko controlled the party ideology and the entire party. I take these completely different people in a pair with each other because, in particular, it was in 1983, when Yu. It was clearly formulated that "the solution of the national question in the form in which it was inherited from the past does not mean at all that the national question is generally removed from the agenda." A little earlier, in Andropov's report on the 60th anniversary of the USSR, it was said that success in resolving the national question does not mean that all problems in interethnic relations have disappeared, that they must be resolved in a timely manner, otherwise they may worsen. In this spirit, the draft of the new edition of the Program of the CPSU, on which serious work began only when Chernenko was elected General Secretary, said that present stage, i.e. in the conditions of the so-called. developed socialism, the national question is not removed from the agenda, it has its own content and forms, and so on. etc.

It is characteristic that it was M.S. Gorbachev, who in 1984-85. on behalf of the Politburo, he supervised the activities of the working group for the preparation of a new version of the CPSU Program (I was the head of that part of this group that outlined internal problems our development), opposed even such flexible formulations. The text of the letter is kept in my personal archive - with remarks by M.S. Gorbachev (addressed to me personally). It literally says the following: “when we talk about the national question at the present stage and that we are talking about it in the form in which it exists under the conditions of developed socialism, here, it seems to me, there is a subtext that we must avoid.” He easily imposed this point of view on the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU, where our program texts were discussed.

So “we” avoided the subtext by declaring through the mouth of M.S. Gorbachev at the XXVII Congress of the CPSU, which was still completely controlled by him, that the national question was “successfully resolved” in our country. But as soon as the old command and administrative “brakes” were weakened and the country’s monetary and financial system began to fall apart under the conditions of perestroika and for many other reasons, Sumgayit, Karabakh, January (1991) Baku, Vilnius, the Baltic complex as a whole, Moldovan - Transnistrian problems, etc. etc. And in the end - almost uncontrolled from the late 80s - early 90s, the collapse of the USSR.

The August putsch of 1991 plus the Belovezhskaya Accords led to the final collapse of the state, which, as it turned out, was built not on democratic centralism, as the creators of the Brezhnev constitution believed, but on the national-ethnic principle, which made it easier for the new ethno-political elites in the republics to disperse, which is completely constitutional under these conditions. from each other.

A few words about the conceptual features of the management of the multinational USSR, without which it is difficult to understand some of the causes and consequences of its collapse.

We noted that the regulation of interethnic relations in the USSR was based on the principle of unitarism in the form of a kind of democratic centralism. Its content in certain specific cases was interpreted by the party, more precisely by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the republics (except for the RSFSR, where the Communist Party did not exist until the 90s), and in difficult cases by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU. No matter what they say today about this supreme body of party and state power in the USSR, it was a collective body. He, of course, was led by the Secretary General, endowed with enormous power, but objectively speaking, this power was less than the power and powers that the President of the Russian Federation has today both under the Constitution and de facto. The main tool, the main lever of management of this body in calm times (60-70s) was by no means repressions, not violence, but personnel policy, which quite flexibly combined professional-political and national-ethnic qualities, vertical and horizontal rotation across the country of these personnel, etc.

Another feature of the management of the multinational Union of the USSR was that the legal basis for the regulation of interethnic relations was virtually absent, unless, of course, we count the general principles of the Constitution, in which assessments, boundaries and limits of what is permissible and unacceptable in interethnic relations were given.

However, in solving the national question, an enormous regulating (and effectively regulating) role belonged to ideology and propaganda and educational work, carried out very professionally. On the surface, two principles prevail here: the friendship of peoples (or internationalism) and respect for the national dignity of small nations, the non-admission of discrimination against the so-called nationalists. Moreover, real conditions are being created, even privileged conditions for their national and cultural development within the framework, of course, of state socialist values. Despite the odiousness of many aspects of the propaganda and educational work of the party and the state in the spirit of these principles, their importance cannot be underestimated.

As for troubled, bad times, conflict relations between nations, they were unequivocally resolved with the help of not law, but force or the threat of its use (in various forms).

Were there any advantages to such a system of governing a multinational state? The main plus (inconceivable from the point of view of the 90s) is the absence of armed inter-ethnic mass conflicts, and even more wars, on an inter-ethnic basis. Is it a lot or a little? Probably the people who survived in such conflicts, and even more so those who died, will answer this question differently than those who were aloof from them, did not fall into this inter-ethnic “meat grinder” of the late 20th century.

Let's draw some conclusions. The reasons for the landslide (I emphasize: landslide) collapse of the USSR were predominantly subjective (political) in nature (and the role of the subjective factor in a totalitarian or authoritarian state is extremely high). Of these, it is worth highlighting:

1. Misunderstanding by the leadership of the former USSR of the contradictions of its state structure. And above all, the fact that the USSR in form represented a federation (with some even interspersed in its constitution - both Stalin's and Brezhnev's - confederate elements, for example, the right to secede from the USSR), but in fact it was a unitary, rigidly centralized state. No political efforts were made to overcome this contradiction, which sooner or later was bound to blow up the state.

2. The USSR is a multinational state. However, the legal basis for state regulation of ethnic relations was virtually absent. The CPSU tried to compensate for this basis, merged with state structures, built as a single interethnic or international organization, striving (for better or worse) to create the ideological and political basis of a single multinational state. With the liquidation, first of the legal, and then the actual role of the CPSU, that axial rod was pulled out, the structure that cemented interethnic relations, and another was not created.

3. Another contradiction, or rather a fundamental shortcoming of our former state system, was the orientation towards ensuring the priority of the so-called indigenous or titular nationality (with the exception of Russian). As a result, the formally proclaimed idea of ​​a union of equal peoples was replaced by the idea of ​​a kind of elected (“titular”, “nomenklatura”) nations.

In the context of a sharp weakening of the central state power, all this could not but cause the well-known “parade of sovereignties”, which contributed to the collapse of the USSR, almost collapsed the RSFSR, and objectively laid the foundation for the growth of Russian nationalism, capable of either demolishing everything that stood in its way, or (in its healthy form) to recreate Russia as a historically Russian, great, multinational state.

4. At the end of the 80s, i.e. back in the years of Gorbachev-Ryzhkov's rule, the country's monetary and financial system essentially collapsed. After that, the collapse of the USSR was only a matter of time. August 1991 was just the last straw here. so-called. In this sense, the “Belovezhskaya conspiracy” was not only and not so much the cause of the collapse of the USSR, but rather a statement of this fact and its consolidation (quite hasty and largely unsuccessful).

Some consequences:

The collapse of the country's economy as a single national economic complex, which, for obvious reasons, was the main factor in the catastrophic decline in production and living standards in all the republics of the former Soviet Union, including the RSFSR (according to some estimates, a 50% drop in production in our country was caused precisely by this) ;

The Russian people, the largest, most numerous in Europe, contrary to global general integration trends, suddenly became a divided, torn nation (more than 17% of the entire Russian population of the former Soviet Union, i.e. about 25 million Russians ended up in states foreign to Russia , and some of them became foreigners deprived of internationally recognized human rights). For the first time in history, Russians turned out to be “nationalists”, including in the primordially Russian territories - Crimea, Northern Kazakhstan, etc.

The colossal geopolitical losses of the Russian state, which in many respects in this regard was discarded almost in pre-Petrine times.

All this puts before healthy socio-political forces and domestic business circles, incl. including large Russian capital, the task of reviving Russia. The essence of this task is the revival of Russia as a great power, otherwise, its main state-forming people - the Russian people - is doomed to historical extinction. Hence the meaning of Russian national idea, which has been historically worked out and so far objectively (and subjectively!) exists. Its components are: sovereignty, patriotism (Russian - up to self-sacrifice in the name of the Motherland), statehood (a special attitude towards the state and it (the state) - to the people). Finally, the idea of ​​human solidarity and social justice, rooted in Russian historical truth-seeking.

Representative power: monitoring, analysis, information, 1998. - Spec. release.

Krupa Tatyana Albertovna, Candidate of Sociological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of National History and Archiving, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok [email protected] Okhonko Olga Ivanovna, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of National History and Archival Studies, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok

The collapse of the USSR in the context of random and regular factors

Annotation. The article deals with random and regular factors of the collapse of the USSR. The role and place of the United States in the destruction of the USSR is assessed. The impact of internal political factors on the collapse of the USSR is analyzed. A complex of internal and external political consequences of the collapse of the USSR is given. Key words: internal political, foreign political, natural, perestroika, coup, collapse, union agreement, accidental, USSR, factors.

Appeal to this topic is due to memorable dates: 90 years since the formation of the USSR and 21 years since its collapse. The collapse of a huge state that existed on the territory of Europe and Asia had a lot of obvious and hidden reasons, as well as a complex of negative consequences. The purpose of this article is an attempt to understand the domestic and foreign factors of the collapse of the USSR, to determine whether these factors were natural or accidental. In theoretical terms, the problem remains not fully understood. The absence of archival materials, the presence of closed sources causes ambiguity and understatement, the discrepancy in the assessments of this catastrophe raises many questions. When studying this problem, the points of view of not only Russian historians and politicians were analyzed, but also the positions of foreign leaders who had a direct influence on current events. The content of this article analyzes a book called "WorldTransformed", its authors are J. Bush (senior) and his security adviser B Scowcroft. The book provides answers to important questions in the history of modern times - how the conditions were created for the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, which led to serious consequences in the balance of power in the world. From a number of factors that influenced the collapse of the USSR, the role of the United States, which understood the real threat contained in the military potential, cannot be excluded Soviet Union. This is confirmed by the facts reflected in the aforementioned book, written in 1998. It evaluates the role and place of George W. Bush in the history of the United States and in world history. It is emphasized that the George W. Bush administration achieved the national goal, which many Americans aspired to achieve - the liberation of Eastern Europe and the destruction of the deadly threat to the United States. The USSR, having a huge stockpile of nuclear missile weapons, theoretically posed a threat to the military-political structures of the United States. The perestroika started in the Soviet Union and M. Gobachev's new foreign policy course suited the United States. M. Gorbachev's reforms made it possible to strengthen the position of the United States in Eastern Europe. G. Bush and B. Scowcroft note that, having embarked on perestroika, "Gorbachev set in motion forces whose consequences were unpredictable - they were unknown even to himself." In many ways, the United States was unexpected by M. Gorbachev's numerous concessions in relations with the countries of the former "socialist camp" that were members of the Warsaw Pact. In this book, George Bush writes that “Gorbachev does not understand the real situation that has developed in Eastern Europe. It looks like he was trying to cultivate "little Gorbachevs" who would win public support." Obviously, he hoped for a multiplier effect from perestroika, which would be extended to all the countries of Eastern Europe. However, the process of the collapse of the ATS was irreversible, the American plans to blow up the ATS from the inside were implemented, thereby, according to the United States, an end was put to the split of Europe. the process of collapse, did not delay, but on the contrary, accelerated it. Analyzing their impression of the collapse of the communist regimes in Europe, the authors of the book exclaim: “Even in their dreams they could not dream that during their lives they would see this: Europe is united and free.” The loss of control over Eastern Europe had a huge negative impact on the Soviet Union. In particular, the GDR was a “prize” for the USSR after the end of World War II, a reliable military ally and an important economic partner. The loss of the GDR meant the recognition of the end of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev's foreign policy position caused a negative reaction among Soviet politicians, military men, diplomats and in the general public of the USSR. Gorbachev gave up one position after another. He made concessions to American pressure in many foreign policy issues, and this was disastrous for the USSR. For many years, throughout the Cold War, plans were developed in the United States to destroy the Soviet Union. Huge amounts of money were spent for this purpose, nuclear arsenals were created, radio stations were financed on the territory of third countries, and so on. When perestroika and glasnost began, the USSR became more open to the world. In the conditions of aggravated economic difficulties and changes that made it possible to talk about everything aloud, it would be strange if the United States suddenly abruptly abandoned the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bdisintegrating the USSR and did not begin to use the opportunities that opened up before them. It turns out that the United States was better in control of the situation in the USSR than in the Union itself. Unfortunately, Gorbachev largely did not understand the seriousness of the danger that threatened the Soviet Union. By 1991, an internal political crisis was rapidly developing in Moscow. The American side was informed about the impending putsch of the State Emergency Committee. US Ambassador to the USSR J. Matlock was informed about the forthcoming putsch by Moscow Mayor G. Kh. Popov. Political figures The United States, in its memoirs of the collapse of the USSR, notes that the American side immediately informed M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin about the impending putsch. Up to now, the putsch has been presented in Russian literature as an emergency situation, and this is confirmed in history textbooks. In this context, it becomes clear why Gorbachev declared that he would never tell the whole truth about the August events.

When the State Emergency Committee arose on August 19, 1991, George W. Bush was the first of the leaders of the Western states to support Yeltsin. As Gorbachev's real power diminished, the attitude of the US president towards the two rival leaders towards Yeltsin gradually changed. The Americans had a good opportunity to observe from the outside the internal political struggle in the USSR, especially since B. Yeltsin kept George W. Bush informed of all the details related to the State Emergency Committee. On August 21, B. Yeltsin had a conversation with George W. Bush, in which he congratulated the US President on the fact that in our country "Democracy has won the greatest victory, thank you very much for providing us with colossal assistance." This act of B. Yeltsin can be regarded as a betrayal of the Soviet Union. Even George Bush refused to comment on what had been done. B. Yeltsin was waiting for congratulations, and George Bush simply replied that he understood him and felt "a little embarrassed" at the same time. B. Yeltsin was sure that at present the country was freed from "the global center that commanded us for more than seventy years." He launched a frontal attack on the USSR and openly "pulled the Union brick by brick in order to then transfer most of the rights of the Union to Russia." Much of what has been analyzed suggests that in the current crisis situation in the USSR on the eve of collapse (economic crisis, political, party, etc.), this process was artificially initiated both from within and from without. It is impossible to exclude the influence of the information factor on the collapse of the USSR. Glasnost as structural element perestroika played its decisive role, it consisted in weakening censorship and removing the numerous information barriers that existed in Soviet society. The people were in a state of shock for a long time, dumbfounded, it was difficult to understand "who is who." All were launched information means, after all, glasnost, democratization - swept the USSR, everyone reveled in it, not understanding what was really happening. Discussions began about the horrors of the Soviet system; they were aimed primarily at the ideological destruction of the foundations of Soviet society, the press was inundated with negative information, where the image of a terrible homeland and a wonderful foreign country clearly loomed. system and the Soviet Union in general. This same direction various factors could only be explained by guidance from single center. In other words, an information attack was carried out on our country, and it gave its devastating results. Signs of ideological collapse began to appear throughout the country. The leadership of the USSR did not take effective measures to stop this destructive process, it was split. The actions of M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin are characterized by many researchers as a policy of “purposeful inaction.” On the eve of the collapse of the USSR, tension was growing in the Union republics. The positions of M. Gorbachev and B. Yeltsin on the question of the fate of the republics were completely different. M. Gorbachev was a supporter of a gradual transition to their independence. B. Yeltsin spoke about the right of the union republics to secede from the USSR, as a result of which it can be concluded that he "hit the backbone of the Soviet state, shaking its political structure to its foundations." When the declarations of the union republics on sovereignty were adopted in 1991, the question was raised about the continued existence of the Soviet Union and its transformation into a democratic federal state. In the same year, a resolution "On the general concept of the union treaty and the procedure for its conclusion" was adopted. But at the beginning of the preparation of a new union treaty, the extreme aggravation of relations between the leadership of the USSR and Russia played its role. Doctor of Historical Sciences Z.A. Stankevich emphasized that by the spring of 1990, “the trend towards “chaotic decentralization of economic, political and socio-cultural life in the USSR” had intensified.” It became obvious that a radical renewal of the Union was needed on the basis of a new union treaty. At the fifth (last) congress people's deputies The USSR was asked to prepare an agreement on the Union of Sovereign States, in which each of the republics "will independently determine the form of its participation in the Union." On November 6, 1991, the President of the USSR sent to the State Council a draft Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States (USS), a union democratic state exercising state power. Until December 1991, the agonizing process of saving the Union in any form continued, but the situation became more and more uncontrollable every day.

Ukraine defiantly stepped aside even from participating in the preliminary discussion of the union treaty. In mid-November, only 7 participants remained at the negotiating table in NovoOgaryovo: Russia, Belarus and five Central Asian republics. On December 1, in a referendum in Ukraine, 90.3% of the participants voted for its independence. The United States immediately declared its readiness to establish diplomatic relations with it, and B. Yeltsin was the first to recognize the independence of Ukraine. Thus, the Union Treaty, not having time to be born, died. Events were coming to an end. The locomotive of the USSR approached the crash site in the little-known Belarusian village of Vaskuli, in the wilds of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, where back in the time of N. Khrushchev a hunting lodge was built for the rest of former party officials: it was easier to keep your plans secret here. The main characters B. Yeltsin, L. Kravchuk, S. Shushkevich were in fear. They understood that their actions were not entirely legal and even criminal to some extent. On December 25, 1991, M. Gorbachev made a statement on television: “Due to the current situation with the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I cease my activities as President of the USSR.” At 19:38 on December 25, 1991, the red flag of the USSR was replaced over the Kremlin tricolor Russian. Of course, one can assume that the Soviet Union has outlived its usefulness, and Gorbachev became a brake on the path of reforms, but in this situation it would be legal at the negotiating table to all the leaders of the republics to officially declare the abolition of the treaty on the creation of the USSR of December 30, 1922. The Belovezhskaya Treaty was illegal and criminal, because three people did not have legal authority to decide the fate of an entire state.

To ratify the Belovezhskaya agreement, it was necessary to convene the highest body of state power - the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR, since the agreement affected state structure Republic and entailed changes in the constitution. In April 1992, the 5th Congress of People's Deputies refused to ratify the agreement three times and exclude references to the constitution and laws of the USSR from the text of the constitution of the RSFSR, which would later become one of the reasons for the confrontation between the Congress of People's Deputies and President Yeltsin, which would later lead to the tragic events of October 1993. Thus, Despite the fact that de facto the USSR ceased to exist, the Constitution of the USSR of 1977 de jure continued to operate on the territory of Russia until December 25, 1993, when the Constitution of the Russian Federation adopted by popular vote came into force, which did not contain a mention of the Constitution and laws of the USSR. After 21 a year after the collapse of the USSR, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an interview with former Belarusian Foreign Minister Pyotr Kravchenko under the heading “It’s not true that the document on the CIS was waved without looking by the half-drunk B. Yeltsin, L. Kravchuk and S. Shushkevich.” He claims that the document was based on the Russian-Ukrainian and Belarusian-Russian agreements on friendship and cooperation of 1990, i.e. “We made a multilateral document out of bilateral documents, which made it possible to create the Commonwealth of Independent States.” Disputes over the assessment of the significance of the Belovezhskaya Agreement continue to this day. The Belovezhskaya agreement became one of the episodes of the accusation against B. Yeltsin. The Special Commission of the State Duma stated that B. Yeltsin, by signing the Belovezhskaya Agreement, went on a gross violation of Articles 7476 of the Constitution of the USSR and committed these actions contrary to the will of the peoples of the RSFSR on the need to preserve the USSR, expressed during the popular vote (referendum) held on March 17, 1991. The commission also accused B. Yeltsin of treason by preparing and organizing a conspiracy to unconstitutionally seize the union power, abolish the then union institutions of power, and unlawfully change the constitutional status of the RSFSR. In search of an answer to the question: “was the collapse of the USSR the result of objective processes or the result of the destructive actions of specific historical persons and forces?”, One should proceed only from an analysis of the specific facts and circumstances of that time. And the most important argument in this dispute should be the position of the peoples of the USSR, it is the people who are the bearer of sovereignty, the will of the people is the highest power in the country. But this did not play a decisive role, although it should be taken into account that the referendum on the preservation of the USSR was held belatedly. And the main thing, in our opinion, was that the will of the people did not correspond to the personal interests of the group of politicians of that time headed by B. Yeltsin. They were not even stopped by the fact that these separatist actions were contrary to the Constitution and were not approved by the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR, the highest body of state power. The RSFSR did not have legal force in the part related to the cessation of the existence of the USSR. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the USSR did not know major upheavals, but in the 1990s of the twentieth century it experienced events that, in terms of their consequences for the population, can be compared with a real war. So thinks the current President V. Putin. Huge territories were lost, the population was reduced, industry fell into decay, long years devastation reigned. Summing up, it should be noted that in the problems of the collapse of the USSR, the laws or accidents of this fact, it is too early to draw any deep conclusions. Many questions remain unclear to this day. We need archival materials, documents of that period and their truthful, objective interpretation. Our convictions do not rule out serious economic, political, ideological and many other factors that have undermined the might of a great power. But at the same time, we believe that the collapse of the USSR is the result of gross miscalculations and mistakes of politicians, the actions of destructive centrifugal forces that made Belovezhskaya Pushcha a symbol of irresponsibility and voluntarism in politics. Russian Federation - B. Yeltsin, who in 1996 stated that he regretted signing the Belovezhskaya Agreement. M. Gorbachev also admitted his miscalculations, but no one has yet told the whole truth about what he had done. A historical analysis of previous eras shows that our country The period of more than a thousand years of history faced the threat of collapse during the period of feudal fragmentation in the 13th century, and during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century, and during the years of great social upheavals in 1917-1922. External and internal enemies tried to destroy the state through non-recognition, blockade, famine, destructive wars. They did not succeed, because there were always forces within the state that opposed this threat. The greatness of Russia at all times relied on the spiritual potential of the nation.

V. Putin called the collapse of the USSR the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. And he emphasized that in order to survive in an era of upheaval, it is precisely “spiritual bonds”, the unity of the people, that are needed. In general, one can note the domestic and foreign policy consequences of the collapse of the USSR. states in place of the former USSR.Among the internal political factors can be divided into three groups: territorial, demographic, economic, internal political and social. Territorial factors include a decrease in the territory of the Russian Federation compared to the territory of the USSR by 24% (from 22.4 to 17 million km²), while the territory of Russia has practically not changed compared to the territory of the RSFSR. To demographic factors includes a decrease in population by 49% (from 290 to 148 million people). Streams of refugees and internally displaced persons were formed, not only the Russian-speaking population of the republics of the former USSR, but also many other ethnic groups of the vast collapsed country, the regions of their exit: Central Asia, the Caucasus, the North Caucasus. Economic factors include: the collapse of the ruble zone, the decline in production, the depreciation of the ruble, destruction of economic relationships between enterprises. Political factors include: the cessation of the existence of the unified Armed Forces of the USSR, there was a massive reduction in the military. The termination of the legal powers of the USSR and the lack of a legislative framework in the newly created Russian Federation led to a "war of laws", which resulted in the tragic events of October 1993. There were significant changes in the social structure of Soviet society. New social strata appeared, including “poor working people”, the homeless, the homeless and many others who were unable to adapt and adapt to other living conditions within the new state. There was a deep stratification of society, at one extreme - oligarchs, officials, entrepreneurs of high rank; on the other, low-income and needy citizens of Russia. Was the collapse of the USSR a historical inevitability, a coincidence, or a betrayal of the leading Soviet politicians headed by M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin? Questions that are usually classified as debatable problems of history. In any case, it is too early to put an end to this issue, especially considering the terrible consequences of the collapse of the USSR.

1.Bush G., Scowcroft B.A. World Transformed. NewYork–Toronto, 1998.590 p. Cit. by: Ivanov R.F. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. American version // Historiography and source studies. 2000. No. 5.С.167174.2. Ivanov R.F. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. American version // Historiography and source studies. 2000. No. 5. С. Domestic history for humanitarian universities. M., 2008.345 p. 5. Reports of the US Ambassador to Moscow J. Matlock // Modern and Contemporary History. 1996. No. 1. С. Historical and legal aspects of the collapse of the USSR: Abstract of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Legal Sciences. M., 2002.52 p. 7. Alekseev V.V., Nefedov S.A. The death of the Soviet Union in the context of the history of socialism // Social sciences and modernity. 2002. No. 6.С.6687.8. Zlatopolsky D.L. The destruction of the USSR: reflection on the problem. M., 1992.291 p. 9. Shakhnovich T. Ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Petr Kravchenko: “It’s not true that the document on the CIS was waved without looking by half-drunk Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich ...” // Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 8, 2012 No. 185.C.8.10. Isakov V.B. Dismemberment: who and how destroyed the Soviet Union: a chronicle. Documents. M., 1998.344 p. 11. Kostikov V. Confused generation // Arguments and facts. No. 49.2012. P. 6.12. Yasin E. G. Who ruined our beautiful Union? // Knowledge is Power. 2001. No. 4.С.7687.

Krupa Tatiana, PhD in sociology, assistant professor of Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok [email protected] Okhonko Olga, PhD in history, assistant professor of Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok Disintegration USSR in context casual and natural factors.Abstract. In article are considered casual and natural factors of the disintegration of the USSR. The role and place USA are Valued in destruction USSR. The influence of the domestic political factor is analyzed on the decay of the USSR. Happens to the complex inwardly and outward politicalconsequence wreckages USSR.Keywords: inside political,outward political, natural, realignment, putsch, disintegration, union agreement, casual, USSR, factors.

Type of work:

Abstract on the topic: The collapse of the USSR is an accident or a pattern

03.07.2014 16:27:42

File type:

Virus check:

Checked - Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Full text:

Introduction. 3
Chapter 1. Prerequisites and causes of disintegration processes in the USSR on the eve of collapse. 5
1.1 Causes of disintegration in the USSR. 5
1.2 The process of the collapse of the Soviet state (autumn 1990 - winter 1991). Characteristics of the stages. eight
Chapter 2. "Regularities" and "accidents" in the process of collapse of the USSR. fifteen
2.1 The contradiction of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR. fifteen
2.2 Historical prerequisites for the collapse of the USSR. 17
Conclusion. 20
List of used literature.. 22

Introduction
The collapse of the USSR, the disintegration of the multinational empire, which played one of the key roles on the Eurasian continent for three hundred years, is one of the most significant events in the world history of the 20th century. This is perhaps the only assessment that is accepted by the majority of historians and politicians without disputes and reasoning.
Consideration of the problem of the causes of the collapse of the USSR is far from this common opinion, since this process has rather multifaceted trends in its development. The possibility and expediency of preventing these contradictions is practically impossible at the present time, as the polarization of society continues towards those who negatively assess the collapse of the USSR and those who see in its disintegration the path to progress, the birth of a new Russia. Scientific analysis The process of the collapse of the Soviet state is associated with various subjective political and ideological positions of researchers.
In this paper, an attempt is made to generalize the main views on the causes and preconditions for the collapse of the USSR, on the questions of a natural or random element in the issue of disunity of the USSR.
The purpose of the study: to consider the main trends and causes of the collapse of the USSR, to highlight the elements of accidents and patterns of this process.
To achieve this goal, the following tasks are put forward: to consider the causes of disintegration in the USSR; highlight the process of the collapse of the Soviet state (autumn 1990 - winter 1991). Characteristics of the stages; determine the contradiction of the causes of the collapse of the USSR; consider the historical prerequisites for the collapse of the USSR.
When writing the work, materials of Russian researchers were used - M. Zuev, Sh. Munchaev, V. Ustinov and others; classical works of foreign authors (N. Werth, J. Hosking).

Chapter 1. Prerequisites and causes of disintegration processes in the USSR on the eve of collapse 1.1 Reasons for disintegration in the USSR
The reasons for the collapse of the USSR are multifaceted. They can be considered in various aspects - political, national, international, economic. Let's try to dwell on each of them.
It should be noted that one of the main prerequisites for the disintegration of the Soviet state lies in the very nature of the country. The USSR was created in 1922 as a federal state. However, over time, it increasingly turned into a state, in essence, a unitary state, controlled from the center and leveling the differences between the republics, the subjects of federal relations.
The first conflict on ethnic grounds happened back in 1986 in Alma-Ata. In 1988, hostilities began between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory inhabited mainly by Armenians, but which was part of the AzSSR. In April 1989, mass demonstrations took place in Tbilisi for several days. The main demands of the demonstrators were the implementation of democratic reforms and the independence of Georgia. The Abkhaz population spoke out for revising the status of the Abkhaz ASSR and separating it from the Georgian SSR.
The growth of centrifugal tendencies in the USSR had quite serious reasons, but the Soviet leadership, as in its other political actions, showed a complete inability to cope with them. The refusal to consider national contradictions as the most serious problem actually only further confused the issue and, rather, contributed to the intensification of the struggle, rather than vice versa.
Thus, the growing confrontation between the union center and the republics became not only a struggle for reforms, but also a struggle between the central and local elites for power. The result of these processes was the so-called "parade of sovereignties."
On June 12, 1990, the First Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR adopted the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Russia. It legislated the priority of republican laws over union ones. B.N. Yeltsin became the first president of the Russian Federation, A.V. Rutskoy.
By the autumn of 1990, it was already obvious that after five and a half years of perestroika, the Soviet Union had entered a new stage in its history both in terms of domestic policy and in the development of relations with the whole world. A genuine revolution of minds has taken place, making it impossible to return to the former state. Yet—and this was a formidable danger to the future of Gorbachev and his team's experiment in modernizing the country—none of the three key problems that emerged after 1985 were resolved:
1) the problem of political pluralism, an integral part of any process of democratization;
2) the problem of creating a market economy.
Although it should be noted that on July 20, 1990, the main provisions of the program adopted by the Russian government, dubbed the "Mandate of Trust for 500 days" and providing for the privatization of state property and the release of prices, were made public in the press. This "Yeltsin plan" was presented as an alternative program to the more cautious plan prepared for the entire Soviet Union by Ryzhkov, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. However, this program proved to be stillborn;
3) the problem of the federal contract.
One of the important prerequisites that played a role in the collapse of the USSR was the economic factor. The agonizing planned economy showed rapidly growing inflation rates (in the last years of the USSR, prices rose quite quickly), the gap between the cash and non-cash ruble, which was fatal for any economy, the planned system was bursting at the seams and the rupture of economic ties with the union republics.
The processes of the collapse of the Soviet state took place against the background of democratic transformations in the countries of Eastern Europe, the result of which was the fall in them in 1989-1990. communist regimes.
Thus, by 1991, a rigid knot of contradictions had formed in the USSR in the political, national, and economic spheres. The impossibility of resolving the problems facing the country as a whole predetermined the fate of the Soviet state.

1.2 The process of the collapse of the Soviet state (autumn 1990 - winter 1991). Characteristics of the stages
From the point of view of political analysis, the year from the autumn of 1990 to the winter of 1991, which, according to the French researcher N. Werth, is the key year in the process of the collapse of the USSR, is divided into three stages:
1) the period until the signing on April 23, 1991 by Gorbachev, representing the union center, and the leaders of nine republics (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan) of a document known as the “Statement 9 + 1”, which declared the principles of the new union treaty.
2) the period since the end of April 1991, marked by a kind of "truce", seemed to be established in relations between Yeltsin and Gorbachev, who were mutually concerned about the fall in the authority of any state power. Gorbachev played a more subtle political game, ceasing to systematically resort, as was evident during the January events in Vilnius, to the use of conservative forces to create a "counterweight" to Yeltsin. Meanwhile, political and economic situation the country deteriorated so much that in August an attempt by conservative forces to carry out a coup d'état became possible;
- the period after the failure of the putsch on August 19-21, when the defeat inflicted on the camp of conservatives catastrophically accelerated the collapse of the Union, led to the abolition of the former state structures, including the KGB, the suspension of activities and the subsequent ban on the CPSU. In less than four months, a new and very unstable geopolitical entity, the CIS, emerged on the site of the former USSR.
Turning to a more detailed examination of these periods, we note that the first open conflict between supporters of Gorbachev and Yeltsin broke out in October 1990 during the discussion of alternative economic reform projects. On October 11, speaking at a plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Gorbachev spoke out in support of the option presented by Ryzhkov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. This plan, which ultimately provided for the transition to "real" prices, the release of wages, the increase in the independence of enterprises, the social protection of the unemployed, the appearance of which would inevitably have been caused by its implementation, was immediately criticized by the authors of a competing project known as the "Program 500 days”, which received the support of Yeltsin and the majority of Russian parliamentarians. G. Yavlinsky, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, and then B. Yeltsin spoke in the Russian parliament on October 17 against the "return to the administrative-command system." The "500 Days Program", approved by the people's deputies of the RSFSR a few weeks earlier, Yeltsin said, was already torpedoed by the first measures taken in accordance with the presidential plan. The mutually exclusive nature of the two programs was not in doubt. Yeltsin's supporters refused any kind of compromise, convinced that the presidential plan would soon fail.
On November 23, the republics were presented with another version of the draft of a new union treaty. All the republics, with the exception of the Baltic and Georgia, took part in its discussion. Although references to socialism disappeared from the draft and the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" gave way to the "Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics", the influence of the center was felt in every article of this version of the contract.
At the same time, already at the time of presentation, this project belonged to the past: three days earlier, on November 20, a bilateral agreement was concluded between Russia and Ukraine, according to which the two republics recognized each other's sovereignty and the need for economic cooperation without the participation of the center on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. Two days later, a similar agreement was signed between Russia and Kazakhstan. These agreements, B. Yeltsin declared, create a model of a new Union and the core around which it will be formed.
On January 12, during the operation of the Soviet Army to seize the building of the Lithuanian television in Vilnius, 16 people were killed. This action, enthusiastically met by the Lithuanian Committee of National Salvation, created from opponents of the independence of the republic, the military, conservatives, and part of the press, led to the final split of the intelligentsia, which had previously supported Gorbachev for the most part.
The events in Vilnius, repeated a few days later in Riga, sharply aggravated the conflict between reformers and conservatives. On January 22, B. Yeltsin strongly condemned the use of force in the Baltic republics. On January 26, the federal government announced the introduction of joint police and military patrols on the streets of large cities from February 1 under the pretext of intensifying the fight against the growth of crime. January 24, 1991 announced the withdrawal from circulation of fifty- and one hundred-ruble bills on the pretext of fighting the "shadow economy". The immediate and, in fact, the only tangible result of this operation was the indignation and growing discontent of the population.
February 21, in the midst of overwhelming Moscow, Leningrad and other big cities demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, Yeltsin, in a speech on television, demanded Gorbachev's resignation and the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In response, Gorbachev accused the "so-called democrats" of "seeking to destabilize the country" in the run-up to a nationwide referendum scheduled for March 17 on the preservation of the USSR.
The demands of the reformers received strong support from the leading organizations of the independent labor movement that arose during the summer strikes of 1989, primarily in the coal basins of Donbass, Kuzbass and Vorkuta. In 1991, the miners went on strike on March 1, now demanding not only an increase in wages in connection with the announced increase in retail prices after April 2, but also the resignation of Gorbachev, the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the nationalization of the property of the CPSU, a real multi-party system, the departization of enterprises and organizations . In essence, the process of departi- zation had been going on since the autumn, when at hundreds of enterprises workers' and strike committees dismissed party committees and official trade union bodies and occupied their premises. Once again, as in 1917, the incapacity of official structures became apparent, and the “power vacuum” was fully manifested, primarily in the localities.
Chaos in the organs government controlled increased even more after the referendum on 17 March. According to the results of the referendum, 80% of Russians supported the holding of a general election of their own president, and only about 50% of Muscovites and Leningraders and 40% of Kyivans expressed a desire to preserve the Union in the proposed form.
The ambiguous results of the referendum were quickly eclipsed by the terrifying population increase in prices (from 2 to 5 times), which caused all the more indignation because wages were increased by an average of only 20-30%. The most massive strikes of labor collectives took place in Minsk, clearly showing how much the consciousness of the working class grew and radicalized after the summer of 1989: not limited to economic demands, the workers opposed the socio-political system as a whole, putting forward slogans for the resignation of Gorbachev and the entire union government, the abolition of all privileges, the abolition of the KGB, the restoration of full private ownership of land, the holding of free elections on the basis of a multi-party system, the departization of enterprises and their transfer to the jurisdiction of the republics. In April, the number of strikers exceeded one million.
Under these conditions, among the conservatives, the idea arose of organizing a conspiracy both against the new model of the Union and against reforms in general. On the morning of August 19, TASS reported on the creation of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP), which included 8 people, including Vice-President of the USSR Yanaev, Prime Minister Pavlov, KGB Chairman Kryuchkov, Defense Minister Yazov, Minister of Internal Affairs Dot Pugo. Declaring that the President of the USSR Gorbachev, who was on vacation in the Crimea, “due to health reasons, cannot perform his duties,” the GKChP announced its intention to restore order in the country and prevent the collapse of the Union. The State Emergency Committee announced a state of emergency in certain regions of the country. The structures of power were disbanded, which, according to the State Emergency Committee, acted contrary to the Constitution of the USSR. The activities of opposition parties and movements were suspended, rallies and demonstrations were prohibited. Military equipment and troops were drawn to Moscow. In Decree No. 1, the State Committee for the State of Emergency promised to raise wages, give all workers 15 acres of land, and provide everyone with housing. A state of emergency was established for six months, censorship was introduced.
However, having met popular resistance, led by RSFSR President Yeltsin, the putsch failed. The indecisiveness and split in the troops, the confusion of the putschists, who fell into prostration in the face of the unforeseen reaction of Muscovites (as well as Leningraders, residents of other largest cities), tens, and then hundreds of thousands of whom spontaneously gathered in front of the building of the Russian parliament, which became a stronghold of resistance to the newly-minted junta, the hesitation of the troops brought into Moscow in front of the unarmed people who opposed them, the support of Yeltsin by the majority of governments of the countries of the world and international public opinion - in their totality, all these factors led to the fact that in less than three days the coup attempt was eliminated.
On the evening of August 21, Gorbachev returned to Moscow, but by this time Yeltsin, who emerged as the main winner from this test, in the words of one French politician, "won the epaulettes of the head of state."
The failure of the coup attempt, which demonstrated an incredible growth of public consciousness and political maturity of the masses, sharply accelerated the collapse of the USSR, led to the loss of Gorbachev's influence and power, to the abolition of the former institutions of central power. In the days that followed the failure of the putsch, eight republics declared their independence, and the three Baltic republics, which had already achieved their recognition by the international community, were recognized by the Soviet Union on September 6.
M. Gorbachev, despite his reaffirmed commitment to communist ideals, left his post as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and dissolved the Central Committee. The activity of the CPSU was suspended, and a few weeks later it was completely banned by Yeltsin. Due to the withdrawal from the competence of the KGB a number of important functions and management of this organization was greatly reduced. There was a complete renewal of the political establishment (from the heads of the media to members of the government), which was joined by reformers and Yeltsin's associates, who immediately consolidated the new position with a series of parliamentary decrees. Gorbachev, wanting to keep the center and thus his post, proposed a new - but too reminiscent of the past - version of the union treaty. However, the political positions of the president of the USSR were already too weakened by the putsch.

Chapter 2. "Regularities" and "accidents" in the process of the collapse of the USSR
The process of holding a referendum on the preservation of the USSR (March 1991) and the subsequent disintegration of the country during the Belovezhskaya Accords (December 1991) can be considered one event of a controversial nature. The majority of the population said "yes" at the same time to the preservation of the "big country" and its disintegration, approving the national-state independence of their republics. There is still no agreement among experts on what this phenomenon means. But it is obvious that the factors that determined the “time of life” of the USSR were of a complex nature. Some of them can be named even now.
Our century has witnessed the transformation of many state formations. It's not just about empires. A number of federal states collapsed, and elements of confederate relations were introduced in some others. A difficult fate befell individual unitary state units (the collapse of Pakistan, the division of the Republic of Cyprus, the formation of the Palestinian Authority within Israel, the federalization of Belgium, the introduction of a system of relations close to the federal system in Spain and Great Britain).
Ethnoterritorial separatism is very noticeable in global political processes. Along with this, opposite tendencies are also expressed - towards regional integration. Here, the most striking example is the formation of the European Union, but a similar orientation of political processes is also characteristic of other regions of the world. It can be stated that so far geopolitical processes are akin to tectonic ones: they are observed, but not controlled. Cannot be considered unique and the region Northern Eurasia, where two sociopolitical systems have changed over the course of a century: the Russian Empire and the USSR, and now there is a third one (CIS).
In the 20th century, the world experienced two technological revolutions: heavy industrialization (until approximately the Second World War) and the computer revolution (started in the 1950s and 1960s). Radical transformations also took place in the field of politics: the introduction of universal suffrage, a radical reorganization of public administration (the creation of a “law-based state”), the emergence of a “welfare state”. These changes were global in nature, but they were led by the countries of Western Europe and North America, where the "primary modernization" - the industrial revolution - had begun earlier. The leaders were followed by other countries that started the “secondary” industrial modernization from other starting positions. Among them was Russia. The states living in the mode of "catch-up development" were faced with the task in the shortest period of time to pass the path for which the West took many decades. One of the options for "secondary modernization", as many historians and sociologists admit, was the "socialist path of development." "Secondary" modernization often gives rise to a special type of society, called "mobilization". As a result, in order to achieve socially significant goals, society was forced to pay a higher “price”, regardless of costs, including human casualties.
The peculiarity of the Soviet Union was that here technological modernization was not synchronized with changes in the political structure. If at the stage of heavy industrialization (the creation of the production of means of production, a communication system operating on the basis of an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, etc.), the imbalance between the technological and political foundations of society did not manifest itself so clearly, then the scientific and technological (computer) revolution of the second half of the 20th in. in countries of this type could not be carried out without a radical transformation of their political organization. The archaic political system itself came into conflict with the development needs of the country and its peoples. The victim of this conflict was the state, which carried out accelerated modernization in the “mobilization” mode and failed to carry out “demobilization” at the right historical moment.
The costs of “catching up development”, the growing global unevenness, were supplemented by the intrastate socio-cultural distance between the peoples and regions of the USSR. In Soviet times, it was not possible to level the level of socio-economic and socio-cultural development of ethnic groups and regions of the country. This created fertile ground for the ideology of nationalism. Its distribution in the XIX and especially in the XX centuries. acquired an avalanche-like character, determined by the modernization processes. Although the right to self-determination took central location in the national program of the Bolsheviks and allowed the creation of the USSR, only a few peoples of the country were in the 1920s. at the level of development that presupposes the desire for national-state independence. But in the future, the socio-economic development of the USSR led to the growth of nationalism among the numerous peoples of the country. We are talking about the emergence of a national political, managerial, creative elite, accumulating the values ​​of this people. In a particularly critical form, nationalism developed among peoples who had not gone through all the stages of the modernization process. The very same state structure of the USSR left room for the implementation of this ideology.

2.2 Historical background of the collapse of the USSR

The Russian Empire was a unitary state, although it included a number of self-governing territories. During the revolution and civil war, federalist ideas allowed the Bolsheviks to “gather” the lands and peoples and recreate the Russian statehood. In the early 1920s the USSR was created. The new Union of four countries (Russian and Transcaucasian Federations, Ukraine and Belarus) took shape as a confederation. Each of the states had the right to secede from the Union. Subsequently, Ukraine and Belarus even became members of the UN, and this is one of the signs of state sovereignty. At the same time, tendencies of unitarism also developed. Their carrier was the Communist Party. Already at the XII Congress of the RCP(b) (1923) the thesis about its dictatorship was adopted, which was established as a constitutional norm. The party also performed the functions of a unitary state. Elements of confederalism, federalism and unitarism in the state structure of the Soviet Union coexisted until recently.
Of course, unitarianism dominated. But he was strong as long as the power of the Communist Party remained. With its weakening (the second half of the 1980s), confederal and federal sentiments revived. Separatist movements emerged. In conditions of commodity deficit, domestic customs began to be introduced. The emergence of “Buyer Calling Cards” highlighted the collapse of the unified financial system. The Belavezha Accords of December 1991 only legally formalized the disintegration of the unified state.
In the works of the late 1980s. our research team consistently insisted on the reorganization of the USSR, taking into account both the peculiarities of the state structure (the combination of elements of confederation, federation and unitarism), and the integration experience of the Western European community. A gradual transition to the type regional integration. Perhaps, having chosen this vector of development, it would be possible already now to have in Northern Eurasia a political system of a more civilized and, most importantly, promising type than the CIS.
The policy of the Government of M.S. Gorbachev had a multidirectional character. On the one hand, the core that held together both the political and economic system of the USSR (party leadership, state dominance in the economy, hierarchy of subordination of territories, etc.) was removed. Instead, a new solid structure was not created. The 1991 referendum was supposed to strengthen the legitimacy of the central government and formally and legally stop separatist sentiments. But could it have legal consequences? The referendum procedure requires that the issue be unambiguously clear and not involve multiple interpretations. In reality, at the referendum, it was proposed to simultaneously speak out on several issues, artificially reduced to one phrase. The legal consequences of such a vote would be negligible. At the same time, the “Novoogarevsky process” was going on, during which autonomous entities lower level acquired a new "patron" in the face of the central government. As experience has shown, this policy proved to be a failure.
We must not forget about the personal factor, which ultimately decided the fate of the USSR. We are talking not only about the disagreements in the Central Committee of the CPSU, which led to an attempted coup in August 1991 (it is known that it was then that the Baltic republics declared their independence, and soon Ukraine.) An extremely important role was played by the confrontation between the leadership of the USSR and the RSFSR, which became the last a drop that destroyed the Soviet Union. Thus, we do not consider the collapse of the USSR to be either an accidental or inevitable event, but interpret it as a manifestation of not fully realized social patterns.

Conclusion
Analysis of the material presented in the work allows us to come to the following conclusions and generalizations.
The reasons for the collapse of the USSR lie in various planes - political, economic and spiritual. Exhaustion of the possibilities of extensive development; a sharp drop in economic growth rates; undivided dominance of the command-administrative system of economic management; further centralization in economic management; the crisis of the system of non-economic coercion, the lack of real economic incentives for workers; huge spending on the military-industrial complex; the economy of the USSR could no longer withstand competition with the West - all this determines the economic crisis.
The crisis of the political system was due to the fact that the complete dominance in the socio-political life of the CPSU and the Marxist-Leninist ideology; the decisive role of the party leadership in making almost all decisions; tougher repressions against dissidents; strengthening of bureaucratization in public administration; deepening crisis in international relations.
In the spiritual sphere, the establishment of a comprehensive ideological control over culture and education took place; widespread double morality and double standards behavior; the growing gap between word and deed; avoiding an objective analysis of the state of affairs in society; another round of rehabilitation of Stalinism; the growth of mass skepticism, political apathy, cynicism; a catastrophic decline in the authority of leadership at all levels.
The regularity of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the nature of the predestination of the collapse of the Soviet Union, is seen as quite exaggerated, and is also exaggerated by many researchers. Rather, a group of people who wanted to come to power determined the fate of the USSR, there was a banal change from one political group to another, without taking into account the opinion of the majority of the population.
Thus, the collapse of the USSR was not a natural phenomenon, but more of an accidental one, since a country of this magnitude took at least another 10-20 years before it would naturally come to naught. The main reason for the collapse, therefore, was the failure of the political forces of the Soviet Union to continue their policy.

List of used literature
Werth N. History of the Soviet state. 1900–1991 – M.: Ves Mir, 2009. – 544 p. World History: Cold War. The collapse of the USSR. Modern world / V.V. Adamchik (ed. coll.). - M.: AST, 2012. - 400 p. Gurina N. Russians want to return back to the USSR // RBC daily. 2011. March 30. URL: http://www.rbcdaily.ru/2011/03/30/focus/562949979962338 (accessed 06/17/2011). Ten years later, Russians mourn the USSR. URL: http://www.inosmi.ru/untitled/20011211/142450.html (Date of access: 06/17/2011). Treaty on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. December 30, 1922 // A failed anniversary: ​​Why didn't the USSR celebrate its 70th anniversary? M., 2009. S. 22–27. Documents on the creation of the CIS // Diplomatic Bulletin. - 1992. - No. 1. - January 15. - P. 7-26. Zuev M.N. Domestic history: In 2 books. - M .: Onyx 21st century, 2010 - Book. 2: Russia in the XX - early XXI century. – 672 p. History of the state and law of Russia / Ed. Yu.P. Titov. - M.: Prospekt, 1997. History of the creation of the CIS // Club of the CIS and the Baltic States MGIMO // http://www.sng.nso-mgimo.ru/sng_sozdanie.shtmlKravchuk L.M. The funeral of the empire // Mirror of the week. - 2011. - August 21. – P. 7. Lobanov D. V. Seven samurai of the USSR. They fought for their country! M., 2012. Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Russian history. – M.: Norma; Infra-M, 2010. - 758 p. Naumov N.V. International aspects of the collapse of the USSR // Elections in Russia: Scientific journal // http://www.vybory.ru/nauka/0100/naumov.php3Parhomenko S. Gennady Burbulis: Political role - "killer" // Nezavisimaya Gazeta. 1992. January 29. P. 2. Prazauskas A. A. Could the “Unbreakable Union” be eternal? // Free thought. 1992. No. 8. Pribylovsky V., Tochkin G. Who and how abolished the USSR? // New daily newspaper. 1994. December 21. C. 6.; The Union could be saved. P. 507. Rubtsov N. Train // Rubtsov N. Russia, Rus! Save yourself ... M., 1992. S. 109. Modern international relations / Moscow state. Institute of International Relations / A.V. Torkunov (ed.). - M.: ROSSPEN, 2000. - 584 p. Agreement on the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. December 8, 1991 // The Union could have been saved. White paper. 2nd ed. M., 2010. P. 451–455. Turgunbekov J. The international political status of the CIS (To the 7th anniversary of the creation of the CIS) // Scientific and educational journal "Polysphere" // http://polysphere.freenet.kg/no1/ PSF1A07.htm. Hosking J. History of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). - Smolensk: Rusich, 2010. - 496 p. Tsipko A. If the collapse of the state is the price for getting rid of communism, then it is prohibitively expensive // ​​I and the world. 1992. № 1. Shishkov Yu. The collapse of the empire: Mistake of politicians or inevitability? // Science and life. 1992. No. 8. Shutov AD On the ruins of a great power, or the agony of power. M., 2004. P. 43. Zuev M.N. Domestic history: In 2 books. - M .: Onyx 21st century, 2010 - Book. 2: Russia in the XX - early XXI century. – 672 p.
Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Russian history. – M.: Norma; Infra-M, 2012. - 758 p.
Werth N. History of the Soviet state. 1900–1991 – M.: Ves Mir, 2009. – 544 p.
Hosking J. History of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). - Smolensk: Rusich, 2010. - 496 p.
Werth N. Decree. slave. – C. 537.
World History: Cold War. The collapse of the USSR. Modern world / V.V. Adamchik (ed. coll.). - M.: AST, 2012. - S. 376.
Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Decree. slave. - S. 692.
Modern international relations / Moscow state. Institute of International Relations / A.V. Torkunov (ed.). - M.: ROSSPEN, 2010. - S. 459.
Hosking J. Decree. slave. – S. 490.
Werth N. Decree. slave. - S. 537.
There. - S. 538.
Zuev M.N. Decree. slave. – S. 625.
Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Decree. slave. - S. 721.
Hosking J. History of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). - Smolensk: Rusich, 2010. - S. 488.
World History: Cold War. The collapse of the USSR ... - S. 366.
Werth N. Decree. slave. - S. 539.
History of the state and law of Russia ... - S. 239.
Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Decree. slave. – M.: Norma; Infra-M, 2012. - S. 728.
Zuev M.N. Decree. slave. – S. 590.
There. - S. 592.
World History: Cold War. The collapse of the USSR ... - S. 362.

If you are interested in assistance with WRITING EXACTLY YOUR WORK, according to individual requirements - it is possible to order assistance in the development of the topic presented - The collapse of the USSR is an accident or a pattern ... or similar. Our services will already be covered by free revisions and support until defense at the university. And it goes without saying that your work in without fail will be checked for plagiarism and guaranteed not to be published earlier. To order or estimate the cost of individual work, go to

REASONS FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR

Yeltsin's press secretary P. Voshchanov called the reason for the collapse of the USSR as follows:

“Everything is much more complicated. You remember how in 1991 everyone was already talking about the transition to the market. But what is a market? New ownership relations and new owners. The struggle between the center and local political elites at that time was a struggle for who would play first fiddle in the historical division. This is the main thing in the tragedy.”

Everything is correct here, except for the word "tragedy". Gorbachev created a bourgeois SSG from the communist USSR: a multi-party system, the ban on the CPSU, the dispersal of the Politburo, the introduction of a market (literally capitalist) economy, and finally the very replacement of the USSR with Gorbachev's SSG.

As Gorbachev thought, he would be able to manage such a new bourgeois country. But Gorbachev knew history poorly: as soon as tsarist Russia collapsed as a result of the bourgeois February revolution of 1917, then immediately its national bourgeois subjects (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and the countries of the Caucasus) demanded national independence, since without it, the bourgeois system itself is in principle impossible.

Therefore, the SSG - in fact the Union of Capitalist States - was obviously Gorbachev's chimera: under state capitalism, the national elite rules. No one will share billions of dollars with the Center. As a result, Gorbachev repeated once again the history of tsarist Russia. As soon as he introduced capitalism, he immediately lost power over everything.

Whether Gorbachev understood this or not, he never said. But the fact is that he read the so-called "Burbulis memorandum" - after the name of the politician who replaced Gorbachev in his office, who is credited with authorship. This is supposedly a secret text of Yeltsin's advisers, which Gorbachev received long before the collapse of the USSR. The document has two important points.

1. “Before the August events, the leadership of Russia, opposing the old totalitarian regime, could rely on the support of the leaders of the vast majority of the union republics, who were striving to strengthen their own political positions. The liquidation of the old center invariably brings to the fore the objective contradictions between the interests of Russia and other republics. For the latter, the preservation of the existing resource flows and financial and economic relations for the transition period means a unique opportunity to reconstruct the economy at the expense of Russia. For the RSFSR, which is already experiencing a serious crisis, this is a serious additional burden on economic structures, undermining the possibility of its economic revival.

2. “Objectively, Russia does not need an economic center standing above it, engaged in the redistribution of its resources. However, many other republics are interested in such a center. Having established control over property on their territory, they seek to redistribute the property and resources of Russia through the allied bodies in their favor. Since such a center can exist only with the support of the republics, it will objectively, regardless of its personnel composition, pursue a policy that is contrary to the interests of Russia.

The position is understandable and absolutely correct: the format of state capitalism does not fit into the outdated union relations. For example, today Russia, having received hundreds of billions of dollars on oil speculation (selling it at exorbitant prices), would have to distribute most of the profits to the republics of Central Asia, where almost as many people live as in Russia itself, although these countries have nothing to do with Russian oil reserves. have.

Gorbachev's exclusion from the Constitution of the USSR-SSG and the Constitutions of the republics for the Novo-Ogarevsky agreements of the socialist property of the people on the means of production (and the country's subsoil) meant that from now on the Latvian and Tajik have no rights to the diamonds of Yakutia and the oil of Siberia. This is the END of the USSR. The division of the previously public property and the public bowels of the USSR according to national apartments INEVITABLY leads to the disintegration of the country into national apartments. This is an axiom. For we in the USSR were united by our common all-Union people's property. As soon as it was gone, there was no general. This is the same as dissolving a collective farm, distributing tractors and cows to the families of the villagers - and then waiting from the sky again for some kind of "integration" of the villagers.

And the most important thing is that only Russia is so rich in all sorts of resources, and there are many neighbors of Russia who want to have them either for free or at bargain prices. But today Russia is already a grated kalach, and its neighbors cannot be fooled just like that, and in Russia itself there is such an abyss of problems that thinking about neighbors without solving them is simply bad in relation to your own people.

In general, as we parted ways in national apartments, so in the foreseeable future we will be in them. In full accordance with the teachings of Karl Marx. After all, Marxism does not provide for the reconstruction of the USSR from countries that have been capitalist for almost 20 years and are not going to get rid of their capitalism, because they live better that way. And the most important proof of this is the fact that our bourgeois countries of the CIS are ruled or ruled in these two decades by former members of the Politburo, the Central Committee of the CPSU and simply members of the CPSU, and even former Komsomol functionaries. None of them in the CIS has ever hinted at the fact that the people should return their socialist property of the people to the means of production, return the CPSU to power and return the Politburo as a governing body of the country. That is, the top officials, former members of the Politburo and the first secretaries of the republics, fully agree with the state of affairs where they became presidents. That's the main thing for them.

But what about the party? But what about the idea? Everything is forgotten. Which once again proves the rottenness of our USSR. Who would have thought that the leaders of the CPSU from the Asian republics would suddenly become, OPENLY AND OPENLY, having received the presidency, the main capitalists in their homeland, and their relatives - the owners of factories, TV channels, hotels, oil wells? This metamorphosis was evident in advance, we were simply too sure of our ideals of youth. Isn't it crazy - the son of a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU or the Politburo of the USSR - a dollar millionaire? And this is now the NORM for almost everyone southern countries CIS.

WHO NEEDS A CONSPIRACY THEORY?

Why is the history of the collapse of the USSR not presented honestly in the mass of articles and films, but instead is monstrously distorted? Why are the main aspects missed - the Ukrainian referendum, the issue of the elimination of socialism in the USSR, Gorbachev's proposals to give autonomies republican status? Why is everyone reduced only to the "Bialowieza conspirators" and to the "intrigues of the West"? That is, to the Conspiracy Theory.

In my opinion, there are several reasons. I'll name the main ones.

1. The national elites of the CIS countries (former members of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Politburo, employees of the party apparatus and the Komsomol, the directors' corps, etc.) during the collapse of the USSR became the owners of the very property that was "nationwide" in the USSR. And the collapse of the USSR hides a completely different secret - already really from the framework of the Conspiracy Theory: the topic of privatization. That is, the theme of the division of public socialist property (and such a division of it with the people is obligatory when the country abandons socialism).

Few people know that it was not Chubais who invented vouchers, but the Gorbachev administration was the first to prepare the introduction of vouchers in the planned JIT. It is difficult to judge what would have come of this, but, apparently, it would have been the same as with the Chubais vouchers, because the Russian privatization program largely repeated the one that was developed for the SSG by the Gorbachev team and was proposed for signing and implementation in the Novo- Ogaryov agreements.

In fact, the privatization program was drawn up by those who then controlled the property of the USSR - and drawn up in such a way that they would become its main owners.

However, a similar privatization in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the GDR had a fair character: all the socialist property of the people was counted and evaluated - and divided by the number of inhabitants of the country. As a result, the share of each family turned out to be quite large: for vouchers, the family became the owner of a small store or a significant shareholder large enterprise, and in the mid-1990s, the share of "income from privatized property" in household income in these countries averaged 20 to 40% or more. In Russia, as you know, Chubais's voucher was sold for a bottle of vodka. That is, the entire socialist property of the RSFSR, created over 70 years of Russian labor into the "collective piggy bank of a large collective farm", was reduced to 150 million bottles of vodka.

The population of the CIS countries was deceived: in some countries, a handful of people (the former party nomenklatura and directors) became the owner of public factories and resources, in other countries state capitalism (that is, the bureaucracy) became their owner. Here, in order to hide this outright theft of public property from their people, the new owners do their best to hide this issue from consideration. And that is why the collapse of the USSR is considered selectively only as an administrative collapse of the country, avoiding discussion of the topic of the collapse of the socialist formation - because this issue is directly related to the question of HOW our public property was divided. And therefore, the new owners are extremely interested in hiding the history of their dishonest appropriation of this property and blaming everything on the "Belovezhskaya Plots", or even better - on the CIA or the West. Like, "if only to get away from us."

2. The collapse of the USSR was a blow to the mentality of those who thought in "imperial terms". Recently, in Russia, the idea of ​​"Empire" has become very popular, and the USSR is already associated with " historical Russia”and the“ Russian Empire ”, and in such myths the collapse of the USSR is erroneously presented already as the “collapse of Russia”. It is clear that such an interpretation of the events of 1991 is not looking for real facts and reasons, but simply requires a mythical "anti-Russian conspiracy."

4. Populist leaders of the CIS countries (like, for example, Zhirinovsky with his LDPR party) speculate on the nostalgia of the marginal part of the population for the USSR - and therefore are also extremely interested in talking about the collapse of the USSR as a "conspiracy of our enemies."

5. Any executive power of the CIS countries itself is always interested in preserving the "Soviet traditions", because in the USSR there was no Civil Society capable of controlling it. The Soviet people have always been very easy to manage - like an obedient herd. Hence the cult of the USSR, the glorification of the USSR, the celebration of Soviet holidays and especially military ones - with the simultaneous scolding of Gorbachev's Perestroika and all its democratic achievements. Within the framework of this demagoguery, the lawlessness of the mid-1990s is blamed on Perestroika, and not at all on the rule of the new owners, who took away from the people their socialist property into their private or state-capitalist property. In this context, a true story about the history of the collapse of the USSR is simply impossible.

This specificity is fully reflected in the work of the structures of the CIS, where our unanimous desire for integration (as if recreating the USSR) is always declared, but in reality it is only about the formalization of our post-Soviet relations. For the real, and not in words, reconstruction of the USSR is a return to the people's socialist ownership of the means of production and subsoil, which, when carried out, removes all obstacles to the unification of countries. That is, complete deprivation. And without the transfer of property and subsoil to the people, the reconstruction of the USSR is impossible in principle.

There is only another option - when, during the unification, it is not necessary to break the property system, transferring it from private to national, and even more so international with the united republics. This option was proposed by Putin: in order for the peoples of other CIS countries to become, as in the USSR, also involved in the resources of Russia, they should enter into its composition simply as new provinces - for Russia no longer intends to consider its resources "all-Union".

Life, as we see, shows that no revival of the USSR is possible in principle, since Russia and its structures (Gazprom in the first place) do not intend to share with the "fraternal peoples". Unless - with the complete refusal of the neighbors from all their statehood, which, however, does not make them co-owners of Russian resources. For no "USSR" is being revived (that is, the most popular socialist property of all republics for all means of production and subsoil).

It must be admitted that Yeltsin's advisers were right. Russia, according to Putin's definition, is an energy country, the main source of its income is the sale of energy resources. If Russia continued to share these revenues with the CIS countries, being with them in some kind of allied relations, then they would really solve their problems of state building (with the obvious prospect of future independence) at Russia's expense. In this regard, the "divorce of the republics" was most beneficial to Russia itself. Those huge incomes that Russia shared with other republics have now become only its income - and today they allow solving many of the accumulated sores and problems of the country: the problem of poverty, and the problem of meager salaries of doctors and teachers, and bad roads, and much, much more.

And, of course, Yeltsin's rejection of Gorbachev's plan to divide the RSFSR into autonomous states was also fateful for Russia. The demonization of all previous rulers of the country, which has been a tradition since the days of the USSR, also seems unfair. Brezhnev, accused of creating a "period of stagnation", nevertheless removed the executions of dissidents from our lives. Gorbachev, guilty of the collapse of the USSR, nevertheless created the rudiments of Civil Society and democracy in our country with his Perestroika. Yeltsin, in creating an oligarch class in an unfair privatization, was also convinced that he was serving the good of Russia by ridding her of communism and cannibalistic communist ideas. There can be no unambiguous historical assessments here.

Except one. The USSR - as a complete dead end in the history of Human Civilization - had to disintegrate for its own internal reasons back in the 1940s. He was saved only by the victory over Nazism in World War II, which immensely strengthened the position of the USSR in the world and veiled the problems of the system in the eyes of the population. In the same way, today North Korea is "developing the last resources" from the fact of winning the war with the United States. This cannot go on forever.

I don't see any difference between Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. And if someone speaks of the collapse of the USSR as a "tragedy", then he equally calls the "tragedy" and the expulsion of Pol Pot from Kampuchea, who destroyed a third of the country's population in three years.

What is the collapse of the USSR for all of us: the administrative collapse of the country - or is it still the expulsion of radical communist cockroaches from our brains? Here is the question.

In my opinion, the second order is historically more important for us than the first. Therefore, the collapse of communism and the USSR with it is the greatest blessing and happiness for us, it is our return to universal human values, to respect human life and human personality. Let at least a hundred of the USSR disintegrate to achieve this goal - it's not a pity. For we are finally gaining a NORMAL state.

And when homo impericuses lament that, they say, “the collapse of the USSR is a great tragedy,” then with such an approach, the collapse of the Third Reich is also seen by homo impericus “ greatest tragedy century." In fact, the post-war Germans (whom the United States spent huge amounts of money on de-fascistization and de-imperialization) today consciously consider the collapse of the Third Reich to be their boon. The rejection of imperial ideas allowed Germany to create and Civil society(without which an efficient economy is impossible), and to focus the energy of the masses on the improvement of their country - instead of diverting it to "external conquests" and militarization. As a result, Germany defeated by us, having lost a third of the male population and burned to the ground, has become the leading economic power FROM ZERO, and the average wages and pensions in this country we have defeated are orders of magnitude higher than ours, the WINNERS.

The paradox lies in the fact that the rejection of imperial ideas and the desire to "rule the neighbors and the world" leads to the concentration of the efforts of the nation and state funds for the improvement of their country. Which gives visible results in improving the quality of life in the country - and becomes, as in anti-imperial Germany or Japan, just the OBJECT OF NATIONAL PRIDE. The country becomes GREAT in terms of its weight in world politics - but GREAT not because of its imperialism, but because it was able to improve itself remarkably well - and this created its weight in the international arena.

Somewhere in the second half of the twentieth century, the greatness of the country began to be determined not by the power of its armed forces and the number of atomic missiles, but by the size of average salaries and pensions - and the degree of individual freedom in the State. From the point of view of ancient ideas from the Age of Empires, the USSR was quite strong as an Empire, because it had an incredible number of tanks and nuclear warheads. Why did it fall apart?

Alas, it turned out that the strength of the country no longer depends on the degree of its militarization. The so-called "human factor" has become the main one: a person has ceased to be a "cog in the system", without respect for his personality and without the development of his well-being - any most powerful nuclear power is weak, like a colossus on clay feet.

Supporters of the Conspiracy Theory see in the "forces that destroyed the USSR" one or another "intruder", while placing the people of the USSR itself outside the process of History. This, of course, is a huge delusion: to see in the Soviet people only an obedient and brainless herd, in love with the USSR. In reality, the Soviet people were then terribly tired of Gorbachev's demagogy - and even more exhausted by the catastrophic crisis in the economy, empty shelves in stores, huge queues for everything vital and the introduction card system. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE SO - that was the main idea of that era, common to the understanding of all.

In search of a better future, the exhausted Soviet people abandoned the USSR.

SO WHO DESTROYED THE USSR?

Let's return to this main question, which, in my opinion, has its own answer.

A combination of circumstances, chaos and chaos, a power vacuum, as well as the separatism of Ukraine and other republics - do not explain the most important moment: why did the RSFSR, as supposedly the “Soviet and Russian Empire” (as almost everyone in Russia now say), did not take any steps against collapse of the USSR? That's the question!

Gorbachev retrospectively finds that "the president of Russia and his entourage actually sacrificed the Union to their passionate desire to reign in the Kremlin," and cites an episode about which he was told by one of the deputies of the Russian Supreme Soviet, who was in the past in the circle of Yeltsin's supporters:

“After returning from Minsk in December 1991, the President of Russia gathered a group of deputies close to him in order to enlist support for the ratification of the Minsk agreements. He was asked how legal they are. Unexpectedly, the president fell into forty minutes of reasoning, with inspiration telling how he managed to “hang noodles” on Gorbachev before going to Minsk, to convince him that he would pursue one goal there, while in fact he was going to do the exact opposite. "Gorbachev should have been taken out of the game," Yeltsin added. This attempt to shift their measure of historical responsibility onto Yeltsin alone is typical of all Gorbachev's memoirs, just as the communists of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation stubbornly do not want to remember that it was they who unanimously voted for the collapse of the USSR. According to Gorbachev, the communists also had a hand in the collapse of the USSR, who almost unanimously voted for the Belovezhskaya Accords and for Russia's secession from the USSR.

Nikolai Zenkovich in the book “Secrets of the outgoing century” cited above writes:

“Why did the communists vote so unanimously “yes”? Many did it, probably reluctantly. The general mood was expressed by pilot-cosmonaut V.I. Sevastyanov, who was a member of the Fatherland faction, said with relief: “Thank God, the era of Gorbachev is over.” They voted not against the USSR, as deputies repent today, but against the incapacitated center headed by Gorbachev. And to get rid of it, they liquidated the state.”

Yes, there was a confluence of circumstances. But after all, a mistake is always EASY TO FIX! And after all, they tried to fix it - the State Duma of the Russian Federation on March 15, 1996 adopted a resolution to cancel the decision of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of December 12, 1991, which denounced the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR.

So what? Nothing. It turned out that another POWERFUL FORCE in Russia itself was extremely interested in the collapse of the USSR, which in 1996 spat on this decision of the State Duma, and in 1991 behind the scenes pushed the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR to denounce the Treaty on the creation of the USSR.

As always and in all cases, and in the history of the collapse of the USSR, we must ask the obligatory main question - who benefits most from this? The answer to it will name the main organizer of the EVENT. At the same time, as we will see, the collapse of the USSR itself is directly related to the collapse of precisely socialism in the USSR.

In his book, Zenkovich devoted two chapters to the collapse of the USSR, but did not name the main organizers of the collapse. And only in one sentence on page 571 does he give a “hint” to answer the main question (without realizing the essence of the topic here):

“Having retained 90 percent of the entire oil production of the former Soviet Union, Russia has lost 60 percent of its oil equipment production capacity, 35-40 percent of oil refining capacity and 60 percent of the oil cargo throughput of seaports.”

What does the phrase “Having retained 90 percent of the entire oil production of the former Soviet Union” mean? It really means that in the USSR and Gorbachev's SSG project this "preservation" was not envisaged, oil was placed under the control of the Center (as well as gas, diamonds of Yakutia and other resources). And Yeltsin, by the collapse of the USSR, did not “SAVE” at all, but for the first time TAKEN these “90 percent of all oil production of the former Union” from the USSR-SSG to himself in Russia.

My version of the retrospective of events is as follows. When the Gorbachev team proposed to the republics the creation of the SSG within the framework of the Novo-Ogaryovo agreements with the rejection of socialism, with the privatization of socialist ownership of the means of production and subsoil and its division through privatization vouchers, the RSFSR began to consider this prospect.

The results of the reflections are in the “Burbulis Memorandum” cited above, but it is only a reflection of the generally extremely acute problem of PROPERTY that arose during the transition of the USSR from socialism to capitalism.

The draft of Gorbachev's all-union privatization already took into account the wishes of the party-director's nomenklatura to take possession of this public property, and it was precisely such privatization that took place in the CIS countries and in the Russian Federation after the collapse of Gorbachev's country. Apparently, it is wrong to call Russian vouchers “Chubais vouchers”, since Gorbachev invented them for the USSR-SSG. It was absolutely clear that the main profitable “commodity” of the USSR was energy resources.

In Gorbachev's JIT project, privatization was supposed to be ALL-UNION: that is, Gazprom's shares were to be divided among the republics, and Russian 90 percent of the entire oil production of the USSR was to be divided with the Balts, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Moldovans, Asian and Caucasian republics - which together were more than the Russians themselves.

The injustice is obvious: Russia produces 90% of the oil of the USSR, which is the main source of income for the country of the USSR, but for some reason, when privatizing the USSR, the SSG must give it equally to the property of other republics. The directors of the energy-producing industries of the RSFSR, in discussing the planned privatization and in anticipation of becoming millionaires, flooded the government of the RSFSR with their letters, and it was on their basis that the “Burbulis Memorandum” was formulated.

As a result, the question was how, during the privatization of the USSR, the party-director corps of the RSFSR Snatch MORE. And much MORE came out in the event that the RSFSR would become a state independent of its neighbors, pretenders to freeloaders on Russian oil and gas.

And now, almost 20 years have passed since the collapse of the USSR, and we see that Russia's main income is the sale of energy resources, on which it grows immensely rich with the world's rising prices for them. The country's leadership defines the concept of Russia as an "energy power", the main governing force of the Russian Federation is Gazprom, and the billionaires of Russia are people of that party-director's corps who were at the origins of the privatization of Russia's mineral resources. Instead of Gorbachev's "division of the mineral resources of Russia between the republics", we see that the Russian Federation sells energy resources to the republics at world prices, and stops attempts to resent, although these "disturbances" are largely caused by the project of Gorbachev's SSG rejected by the RSFSR, where the mineral resources of Russia became equally privatized by all subjects THE USSR.

Strictly speaking, in a broad historical sense, the question is not who destroyed the USSR (if it was an accident and a temporary mistake), but who is preventing Russia from reunification into the Union for almost 20 years. The main obstacle to this is Gazprom and other energy companies of the Russian Federation, and personally their shareholders, dollar millionaires and billionaires. At the same time, their participation in the collapse of the USSR was the most important.

I repeat that the re-creation of the USSR is once again the unification into a common socialist exploitation of the mineral resources of our countries. The former “brothers” of Russia in the USSR do not have any such “special bowels”, except for Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, well, also Kazakhstan. It is clear that these four ex-USSR republics absolutely do not want to make their subsoil again "common property" with their neighbors.

Of course, neither Yeltsin nor Putin, for the idea of ​​“recreating the USSR”, could no longer offer the CIS countries common ownership of the subsoil and energy production enterprises of the Russian Federation, since they belong to private owners and shareholders in the Russian Federation. I believe that the question “who destroyed the USSR?” and the question “who doesn’t need the USSR today?” - this is the same question, because all those who do not need the USSR today are equally involved in the events when the collapse of the USSR was carried out. For they became owners at that time.

But in any case, it should be recognized that the very epochal nature of the collapse of the USSR is so historically global that different points of view about these events are possible, and we will never find the “only historical truth”. Which gives full play to the most diverse concepts of the Conspiracy Theory - no matter how absurd they may sound. Some grain of truth, perhaps, lies in each such version of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - an odious state that went down in history and Yuri Gagarin, and the famine in Ukraine, and massive illegal repressions of its population, and the victory over Hitler, and the adoption of a law on the execution of 12-year-old children for a handful of rotting spikelets “kidnapped” from a harvested field. Like everyone else in life, there was everything: both the gloomy, eerie, and something that you can be proud of forever. In any case, the USSR is something lived and experienced, and again we will never enter “this river” a second time.

perestroika collapse of the soviet union

In the early 1970s, all concepts of the turn to a market economy were dealt a blow. The very word "market" has become a criterion of ideological unreliability. Since the second half of the 70s. the organization of industrial production began to change. Production research and production associations (NGOs) appeared. The practical result of such measures was only gigantism. The desired merging of science and production did not happen. But in these years, the merging, interweaving of the official economy with the shadow economy - various kinds of semi-legal and illegal production and trading activities in which entire enterprises were involved. The incomes of the shadow economy amounted to many billions. By the beginning of the 80s. the ineffectiveness of attempts at limited reform of the Soviet system became apparent. The country entered a period of deep crisis.

Due to these and many other reasons, by the mid-80s. the possibility of a gradual, painless transition to new system public relations in Russia was hopelessly missed. The spontaneous degeneration of the system changed the entire way of life of Soviet society: the rights of managers and enterprises were redistributed, departmentalism was strengthened, social inequality. The nature of production relations within enterprises has changed, the labor discipline, apathy and indifference, theft, disrespect for honest work, envy of those who earn more have become widespread. At the same time, non-economic coercion to work persisted in the country. The Soviet man, alienated from the distribution of the produced product, has turned into a performer who works not according to conscience, but under compulsion. The ideological motivation of labor developed in the post-revolutionary years weakened along with the belief in the imminent triumph of communist ideals, in parallel with this, the flow of petrodollars was reduced and the external and internal debt of the state grew.

In the early 80s. without exception, all sections of Soviet society suffered from lack of freedom, experienced psychological discomfort. The intelligentsia wanted genuine democracy and individual freedom.

Most workers and employees associated the need for change with better organization and wages, a more equitable distribution of social wealth. Part of the peasantry hoped to become the true owners of their land and their labor.

Ultimately, however, completely different forces determined the direction and nature of the reform of the Soviet system. These forces were the Soviet nomenclature, weighed down by communist conventions and the dependence of personal well-being on official position.

Thus, by the beginning of the 80s. the Soviet totalitarian system is actually deprived of support in society and ceases to be legitimate. Its collapse becomes a matter of time.

The first concrete step towards political reform was the decisions of the extraordinary twelfth session of the USSR Supreme Council (eleventh convocation), which took place on November 29 - December 1, 1988. These decisions provided for a change in the structure supreme bodies power and state administration of the country, endowing the newly established Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR elected by it with real power functions, as well as changing the electoral system, primarily the introduction of elections on an alternative basis.

1989 was a year of radical change, especially in the political structure of society. The elections of people's deputies of the USSR held in 1989 (March-May) were preceded by an election campaign unprecedented in our country, which began at the end of 1988. The possibility of nominating several alternative candidates (9505 candidates were nominated for 2250 deputy seats) finally gave Soviet citizens choose one of several.

A third of people's deputies were elected from public organizations, which allowed the Communists, as the most mass "public organization" at the Congress, to have a majority, or, as they say in civilized countries, a lobby. This was announced as an achievement: the share of communists among people's deputies turned out to be 87% against 71.5% of the previous convocation, on the basis of which a loud conclusion was made that in the conditions of freedom of choice the authority of the party was confirmed.

In the elections held on March 26, 1989 in 1500 territorial and national-territorial districts, 89.8% of those included in the voter lists participated. These elections were a noticeable shift in society towards democracy, at least as it seemed at the time. The entire country followed the work of the Congress - a decrease in labor productivity was recorded everywhere.

The First Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR (May 25 - June 9, 1989) became a very major political event. Never before has there been such a thing in the history of this country.

Of course, now one can look with irony at the battles that took place at the Congress, but then it looked like a victory for democracy. There were few practical results of the Congress, in particular, a new USSR Supreme Council was elected. Several general decrees were adopted, for example, the Decree on the main directions of the domestic and foreign policy of the USSR.

The discussions at the Second Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR (December 12-24, 1989) were more businesslike than at the first Congress. The Second Congress adopted 36 normative acts, incl. 5 laws and 26 regulations. One of the central issues on the agenda of the Second Congress of People's Deputies was the discussion of measures to improve the economy. The issue of combating organized crime was discussed. The congress considered the reports of the commission devoted to both foreign policy issues (assessment of the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany of August 23, 1939, political assessment of the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in 1979) and domestic political issues (on the Gdlyan investigative group, on the events in Tbilisi April 9, 1989, on privileges) ...

When the First Congress of People's Deputies opened, many pinned their hopes for a better life on it. But, like many hopes of our people, they were not destined to come true. The First Congress is now called the "game of democracy", which, in fact, it was. By the Second Congress, people's interest had noticeably subsided. It has already become clear to the people that it is impossible to make life better with one magical stroke. The reform of the electoral system was a necessary thing, but it gave the people little concrete, vital.

Introduction to the presidency.

In the summer-autumn of 1989, the reformers in the CPSU, who did not want to get rid of the tenacious embrace of the conservatives, gave the democrats the opportunity to gain political strength and influence, allowed them to present center-right unity in the CPSU as a strategic line, and not as a temporary tactical maneuver. The situation in the country required a decisive development of a course towards a mixed economy, towards the creation of a state of law and the conclusion of a new union treaty. All this objectively worked for the Democrats.

By the winter of 1989/90, the political situation had changed significantly. Gorbachev, fearing, not without reason, that the spring elections in the republics would lead to the victory of radical forces (Democratic Russia, the RUH and others), who immediately - following the example of the Baltic States - would try to take an independent position in relation to the Supreme Soviet of the Union headed by him, took a step , against which he and his like-minded people opposed a few months ago. Using his authority in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR headed by him, he managed - with the resistance of the Interregional Deputy Group - to pass a decision on the establishment of the post of President of the USSR. Having become President, Gorbachev received broad political powers and thereby greatly strengthened his power in the country.

Then the political struggle moved to the state level. There was an actual multi-authority, in which the union and republican structures could neither act without regard to each other, nor come to an agreement among themselves. The "war of laws" between the Union and the republics was fought with varying success, and by the winter of 1990/91 reached its climax due to the tragic events in the Baltic states, the struggle over the Union Treaty and the Union budget. All this happened against the background of the rapid collapse of the economy, interethnic confrontation between the republics and within them.

As a result, there has been another shift in the mindset of society. After the democrats came to power in the large industrial centers of Russia and Ukraine, a lot of time passed, but the situation continued to worsen. Moreover, democracy was clearly degenerating into anarchy, intensifying the yearning for a “strong hand”. Similar sentiments also seized the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: in December, fearing an unpredictable development of events, it delegated additional powers to the President, and at the same time additional responsibility. Gorbachev, in January of this year, formed a new Cabinet of Ministers, in which representatives of the "enlightened" bureaucracy and the military-industrial complex took key posts.

Speaking of the USSR, one must make a significant reservation about the first president of the Soviet Union, who became Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, since this also played a role in the history of the USSR, in particular in the collapse. The election of Gorbachev to the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU was not at all predetermined by the alignment of political forces. There was, according to Mikhail Sergeevich himself, another candidate. But as a result of a hidden, hardware game inaccessible to a mere mortal, it was his team that won.

Naturally, Gorbachev needed to consolidate his grip on power. And in order to ideologically justify his fight against the "sclerotic gerontocrats", the old party guard, he was forced to proclaim a course towards the renewal of socialism with its leading and guiding force - the CPSU. At first, in April, when the people mourned over the alcohol campaign, personnel changes began. One after another, the party leaders of the regions and republics went on a well-deserved rest. The cleaning of the apparatus was led by the now forgotten Yegor Kuzmich Ligachev, and in two years he coped with his task - he seated dedicated people to all key positions.

On this, all party "perestroikas" before Gorbachev, as a rule, ended, but Ligachev's influence in the party increased so much that the Secretary General felt the competitor's breath in the back of his head. And before the new nomenklatura had time to fall to the trough, Gorbachev announced that perestroika was continuing.

However, it was not so easy to “topple” Ligachev in the party arena, and Gorbachev, in the end, had to create alternative structures in the form of the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies in order to keep the apparatchiks in constant tension. In sitting on two chairs at once, Gorbachev found undoubted benefits for himself: partycrats could always be intimidated by democrats, and democrats by the glory of the CPSU.

The struggle in the political arena of the country was mainly around two points. The first is the general scenario for the development of perestroika. Will it be a gradual ingrowth of the established management structures into a market economy and the introduction of state-bureaucratic capitalism "from above"? Or, on the contrary, the liquidation of these structures and the spontaneous formation of capitalism "from below"?

The second key point is that since reforms require deliberately unpopular measures, the responsibility for their adoption and all the costs associated with them are, as a rule, assigned to political opponents. Most often, the Center acted as a "scapegoat". This manifested itself, for example, in the course of a political scandal that erupted in the Supreme Soviet of Russia, when the Union government announced the decision to introduce negotiated prices for a number of goods (in November 1990). Meanwhile, this decision was agreed with B.N. Yeltsin, and with I.S. Silaev. There are also known cases where

The center itself found a “goat”: the five percent sales tax introduced by presidential decree, which took a little less than a billion (931.5 million) rubles from the pocket of the population in January-February 1991 alone, was “blanked” on the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR.

By the end of 1990, a stalemate was established: neither the communist reformers nor the liberals could, individually, achieve positive changes in the economy, politics, and the social sphere. The main thing is that they could not stand alone against the threat of general anarchy. The first - because they have largely lost the support of the people, the second - because after their first victories they managed to lose many of their adherents.

The understanding of the need for a political compromise was observed both in one and in the other camp. In their documents of the second half of 1990, reformist communists (and even conservative communists represented by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the RSFSR) called for civil accord, expressed their readiness to create not just a bloc of “socialist orientation” forces, but to enter into an alliance with all democratic parties and movements. Their opponents, having taken a sip in resolving the practical issues that they faced when they came to power at the local, and in some places at the republican level, also seemed to be internally ready for cooperation. The idea of ​​a compromise with a part of the apparatus and the center and the creation of a strong executive power is, for example, the leitmotif of G.Kh. Popov, entitled not without a claim: "What is to be done?". The idea of ​​civil accord through the suspension or complete dissolution of all political parties became popular by the end of 1990 and flashed on different flanks of the liberal democratic movement. A.A. also spoke about this. Sobchak, and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia V.V. Zhirinovsky. The liberals, apparently, realized that their time was running out before it had even begun.

The political wind rose of perestroika has changed yet again. An acute crisis broke out in the existing political system. Having proclaimed the slogan "All power to the Soviets!", the reformers did not even think about the fact that the Soviets, which had ceased to be the driving belts of the CPSU, were not in a position to organize a normal process of political development. The press of the CPSU sharply criticized the "incompetent democrats" who did not know how to organize the work of those Soviets in which they had the majority. "Incompetent democrats" pointed to "sabotage" by the former ruling caste - the apparatus of executive power, mafia structures. However, the essence of the matter goes deeper. The political crisis of the end of 1990 is the result not so much of incompetence or sabotage as of an obsolete type of statehood.

Each political force sought to find its own way out of this crisis. The "state classes" reacted most painfully to it - those strata whose very existence was now at stake. They increasingly pushed the President and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to establish an authoritarian presidential regime under nominal Soviet power. Gorbachev, although not without hesitation, was forced to go for it. He needed support, but there was nowhere to get it: the CPSU lost its mobilization abilities, and cooperation with the liberals did not work out - the inertia of confrontation affected.

However, even if it had taken shape, the authoritarian transformation of the regime could hardly have been avoided. For liberals - in any case, those of them who make the weather on the political horizon, considered the strengthening of executive power, authoritarian methods of transition to a market economy as something long-term, and not as a temporary tactical measure, therefore, strictly speaking, not only democrats, but and they were liberals except in quotation marks. It was enough to read the draft Constitution of Russia to see that the totalitarian regime is supposed to be replaced not by universal democracy, but by authoritarian power. At the same time, however, unlike the communist reformers, the liberals aimed at changing the foundation of the political system, at transforming Soviet power into a parliamentary republic.

The year 1990 was marked by the unilateral decision of some union republics (primarily the Baltic ones) to self-determine and create independent nation-states.

Attempts by the allied center to influence these decisions by economic measures were ultimately unsuccessful. A wave of declaring the sovereignties of the union republics, electing their own presidents, and introducing new names swept across the country. The republics sought to get rid of the dictates of the center by declaring their independence.

The real danger of the uncontrolled collapse of the USSR, threatening with unpredictable consequences, forced the center and the republics to look for a way to compromises and agreements. The idea of ​​concluding a new union treaty was put forward by the popular fronts of the Baltics as early as 1988. But until mid-1989, it did not find support either from the political leadership of the country or from people's deputies who had not yet freed themselves from the remnants of imperial sentiments. At that time, it seemed to many that the contract was not the main thing. The center finally “ripened” to realize the importance of the Union Treaty only after the “parade of sovereignties” changed the Union beyond recognition, when the centrifugal tendencies gained strength.

It is impossible not to mention the putsch in 1991, since it accelerated the process of the collapse of the USSR, that is, after the putsch, the USSR actually ceased to exist.

The signing of the new Union Treaty, scheduled for August 20, 1991, prompted the conservatives to take decisive action, since the agreement deprived the top of the CPSU of real power, posts and privileges. According to the secret agreement between M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin and the President of Kazakhstan N. Nazarbayev, which became known to the chairman of the KGB V. Kryuchkov, after the signing of the agreement, it was supposed to replace the Prime Minister of the USSR V. Pavlov N. Nazarbayev. The same fate awaited the Minister of Defense, Kryuchkov himself, and a number of other high-ranking officials.

However, on the night of August 19, 1991, President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev was forcibly removed from power. Group high-ranking officials, which included Vice President G. Yanaev, KGB Chairman V. Kryuchkov, Defense Minister D. Yazov, Prime Minister V. Pavlov formed a self-proclaimed, unconstitutional State Committee on the state of emergency in the USSR (GKChP).

By decrees of the State Emergency Committee in a number of regions of the country, mainly in the RSFSR, a state of emergency was introduced, rallies, demonstrations, and strikes were prohibited. The activities of democratic parties and organizations, newspapers were suspended, and control over the mass media was established.

But, only three days the GKChP was able to hold on to power, from the first days running into the active resistance of the Russians.