The disintegration of the Soviet Union is an important international event in the 20th century, which has had an important impact on the international pattern. Many scholars have done a lot of research on the causes of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. What is the reason for the disintegration of the Soviet Union? What factors led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union? Here are the reasons for the disintegration of the Soviet Union. I hope you like it.
Reason I. economic factors
During Gorbachev's period, the Soviet Union "seriously lagged behind the developed capitalist countries in people's living standards and quality, which was the most fundamental reason for the disintegration of the Soviet Union." The fundamental reason for the decline of the Soviet economy is that the rigid economic system, structure and strategy of the Soviet Union can not adapt to the development and changes of the times.
First of all, from the perspective of economic system, the economic system of the Soviet Union is a highly centralized command planned economy based on the concept of product economy and with the state as the core. Its basic features are:
(1) administrative relationship between enterprises and the state. The enterprise is a production unit under the administration of the state, which has no economic independence, and the operating results are ultimately the responsibility of the state;
(2) centralization and instruction of economic management. Planning is the only means to manage the national economy, and instruction is the only means to implement the plan;
(3) the materiality of economic relations and economic ties. Excluding the relationship between commodity and currency, they believe that commodities, currency, market and trade are the remnants of capitalist economy. Although they can not be used under socialist conditions, they have lost their former essence and connotation and only retained their shell. This is quite effective under the specific historical conditions during the war, but with the changes of environment and conditions, the role of the above driving mechanism continues to decline, which is no longer suitable for the productivity at that time, and seriously frustrates the enthusiasm and creativity of workers. The highly centralized mandatory planned economic system leads to the failure of the economic system.
Secondly, from the perspective of economic structure, the economic structure of the Soviet Union is a super heavy and consumption economy. Its basic characteristics are as follows: the relationship between industry and agriculture is dominated by industry; Give priority to heavy industry in the relationship between light and heavy industries; Speed comes first in the relationship between speed and efficiency: production comes first in the relationship between production and consumption, and consumption is subordinate to production. The economic structure of emphasizing industry over agriculture and one-sided development of heavy industry has led to serious imbalance in the national economic structure.
Finally, from the perspective of economic strategy, the Soviet Union's economic strategy is extensive and "quantity catching up" economy, and "speed first" is the prominent strategic policy of the Soviet Union's economic development. The high speed of economic growth in the Soviet Union for a long time mainly depends on more investment and high consumption. The consequences of extensive economic growth are: first, the cost of raw materials and energy consumption is too high, and the material consumption per unit product is much higher than that of developed countries. This strategy eventually leads to an increase in the cost of economic development and stagnation.
Under this rigid "Soviet economic model", the Soviet economy was devastated. It is embodied in the following four aspects:
First, the economic growth rate is slow and the proportion of the national economy (agriculture, light and heavy) is unbalanced;
Second, currency issuance is out of control.
Third, high debt.
Fourth, the inflation rate is getting higher and higher. In short, the rigid economic system of the Soviet Union led to the economic crisis of the Soviet Union, which in turn led to the belief crisis, political crisis and national crisis, and finally led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Second, the highly centralized political system
The highly centralized political system of the Soviet Union has many factors that are not conducive to democracy and decision-making, which has become another important factor leading to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It is mainly manifested in:
(I) party and government are not divided, and the party replaces the government. Taking charge of state and social affairs has plunged the party into daily management and objectively weakened the party's overall political leadership over the state and society. The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and local Soviets at all levels, the organs of power clearly stipulated in the constitution, are actually under the direct intervention of the party and have no real name. In this way, the so-called Soviet democracy or Soviet socialist democracy can only be a formal thing, and it is impossible for the people to truly become the masters of society.
(2) the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has formed a highly centralized bureaucratic system, which makes it possible for individuals to be arbitrary and undermine the socialist legal system. The greatest feature of the Soviet Bureaucratic System is a high degree of centralization. All power is concentrated in the party organs at all levels, and the power of the party organs is concentrated in the hands of the secretaries, which gradually becomes individual leadership, so that individuals are above the organization, and it is possible to turn the Party organs and organizations into individual tools.
(3) under this system, the people are getting farther and farther away from power. The people are gradually alienated from the Soviet and the state power, and the state power separated from the people cannot reflect the superiority of proletarian democracy, nor will it receive the heartfelt support and support of the people. Once it encounters storms, it will inevitably have shocks, and its function of performing state power will be greatly affected, which will lose the legitimate basis of this power and the foundation of stability of the country.
Reason 3: ethnic issues
Another important reason for the disintegration of the Soviet Union is that the national problem has not been properly solved for a long time. These ethnic problems are mainly reflected in the following aspects:
(1) after Lenin, successive Soviet leaders lacked scientific national theory to guide the solution of national problems. They believe in vulgar internationalism, lack of understanding of the complexity and long-term nature of national problems, simply equate national contradictions with class contradictions and class struggle, and regard the national process and social process as synchronous. The result is divorced from reality, and haste is not achieved.
(2) the wrong ethnic policy has buried the root of the intensification of ethnic contradictions. Since the Stalin era, the principles of national equality and friendship have been trampled on. Great Russia prevails, vigorously promotes integration, forces ethnic minorities to migrate, pays no attention to and respects the values of all ethnic groups, and pays attention to how to eliminate differences. As a result, it hurt the feelings of some ethnic groups and planted the root of ethnic contradictions and conflicts. The leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union have long ignored or deceived themselves to whitewash peace, resulting in more and more national contradictions. Finally, driven by the economic crisis and political crisis, the national problems broke out in the form of national contradictions, which eventually led to the collapse of the unified Soviet state.
(3) the leaders of the Soviet Union did not realize the huge defects in the national system for a long time because of their lack and immaturity in theory. The constitution of the Soviet Union stipulates that the Soviet Union is a federal state, which recognizes that all ethnic groups have the right to establish institutions to independently manage their own affairs, and all participating republics have the right to secede from the Soviet Union. In fact, the Soviet Union was a unitary centralized state. However, the leadership of the Soviet Communist Party has not seriously solved how to make the participating republics voluntarily stay in the alliance and ensure that they exercise their sovereignty in theory and practice. This undoubtedly sets aside a time bomb for the disintegration of the alliance.
Reason 4: failure in ideology and policy
The disintegration of the Soviet Union is a historical tragedy. The main reason for this tragedy is the failure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the failure starts from the ideological field. In the later period of the Soviet Communist Party, some leaders connived or directly advocated the diversification of guiding ideology, which led to ideological confusion within the party and opened the door for the infiltration of hostile forces and Western thought.
First of all, an important reason for the failure of the Soviet Communist Party is that the party deviated from Marxism Leninism in theory, lost the guidance of correct theory and lost control over the ideological field, resulting in ideological confusion and social unrest inside and outside the party. Since Khrushchev came to power in the 1950s, the Soviet Communist Party has lost the guidance of correct theory.
The world political and economic situation is constantly changing, and the scientific and technological revolution is rising rapidly, but the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union turn a blind eye. There is no new development in the party's theory, and the theoretical work has been stagnant for a long time.
On the one hand, the dogmatization of Marxism can not be used to solve practical problems, and it is difficult to deal with the tendency of anti Marxism.
On the other hand, Khrushchev's "national state" and "National Party" did not accord with the reality that there were still classes in Soviet society; Talking about the "three noes" (no war, no weapons, no army) is completely wishful thinking, but paralyzes the party and the people. Some members of the Russian Communist Party believe that Khrushchev and Gorbachev come down in one continuous line. Since Khrushchev, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has always had misunderstandings in its understanding of socialism, and did not understand the development stage of building socialism in the Soviet Union. It once thought that it had entered "developed socialism" and proposed "building communism in 15 years". When Gorbachev proposed "humane and democratic socialism" and advocated "democratization" and "openness", he actually destroyed socialism in a barbaric and bandit way. The party's insistence on the Marxist line of development, coupled with the people's distrust of the party's leadership, has always led to serious consequences. In fact, the party's insistence on the Marxist line of development and the practice of this kind of leadership, which goes against the Marxist line of publicity and practice, has always led to serious consequences.
Secondly, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union gave up its control over the ideological field and transferred the position of cultural public opinion. The Western camp led by the United States continuously selected the concept of freedom and democracy from the Soviet Union through the Internet, CNN, Hollywood and other ideological and propaganda tools, which eventually led to the change of the concept of the Soviet people, laying an ideological foundation for the later disintegration of the Soviet Union and turning to capitalism. At the same time, there are also great mistakes in internal publicity.
It simply publicized the superiority of Soviet socialism to the people. But what people saw and felt was different from the propaganda. Instead, they doubted the propaganda of the Soviet Communist Party and bought the curse for people to accept Western ideas. More importantly, especially in the period before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Yakovlev controlled news organizations and media, openly catered to the needs of Western hostile forces, wantonly spread all kinds of public opinions slandering the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union, publicized Western values, advocated "total Westernization", fabricated rumors, slandered and vilified leaders, but did not allow positive opinions to be published in newspapers and periodicals, which exacerbated the ideological confusion of the masses, Destroyed the ideological foundation of the people's common struggle.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union is the result of the interaction of domestic and foreign factors, and many unstable factors in the Soviet Union are the fundamental reason for the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union. The high concentration of the Soviet political system, the imperfection and lag of the economic system, the improper handling of national issues, the failure of ideological policies and the interaction of domestic factors such as the personal factors of senior leading cadres within the party finally led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Disintegration of the Soviet Union (Russian: Распад СССР， On December 25, 1991, the supreme leader of the Soviet Union Gorbachev announced his resignation and transferred state power to Russian President Yeltsin. That night, the Soviet flag slowly dropped from the Kremlin, the union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved, and the international communist movement suffered a major setback, marking the end of the cold war and the bipolar pattern. So far, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union dissolved themselves, the Soviet Union no longer existed in reality and law, and the red empire collapsed. The Russian Federation led by Yeltsin, who won the political struggle, inherited the main comprehensive national strength and international status of the Soviet Union. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the capital Moscow became the capital of the Russian Federation, the largest joining country, and split into 15 countries (East Slav, Baltic, Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Moldova, etc.).
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russian President Yeltsin implemented "shock therapy" to stimulate the Russian economy and his dream of 100 days to achieve the goal of capitalism. When he came to power, he issued state-owned bonds, and every Russian citizen could own state-owned bonds, but the Russian vision was soon dashed. Under the effect of shock therapy, the Russian economy collapsed, more than 70% of the people lived below the poverty line, the elderly did not retire their wages, the national wealth was owned by individuals, a small number of people became rich, most of them were in extreme poverty, and everyone lived an equal life in the Soviet era, Happy life is over. Prices soared 1600 times, the ruble depreciated and withdrew from international trading currencies. The country has become a mess, and the crime rate has risen sharply. On average, more than five people die on the streets of Moscow every day. Alcohol control has also ended. Anyone can buy and use alcohol at will. Guns are rampant, the police do all kinds of evil, and government departments are greedy for pleasure.
In addition, when Russia was just founded, a "de Soviet" movement was launched. Lenin was pulled down, Soviet books were burned, Soviet veterans were insulted, and some people who had worked in the Soviet government could not even solve their food and clothing, and even were shot and killed. Anything about the Soviet Union was smashed and burned.
Russian anger finally erupted in October 1993. More than 50000 Moscow citizens gathered in Moscow's famous "October square" and waved the Soviet flag. Calling the names of Lenin and Stalin, the procession is becoming larger and larger. For example, in 1991, Muscovites demanded independence on the same scale as American democracy, but it is already a march against Yeltsin dictatorship. The dispute over rights has existed since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin once won broad support from the people in the name of pursuing democracy, but after he took power, he monopolized power and overhead Parliament. People gathered in front of the "White House" square and shouted that the Russian Parliament (the parliament is the people's Congress of the Russian Federation and its permanent organ, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation) should be the supreme authority of Russia. The people, military and police supporting the Russian Parliament were flooded in front of the square and shouted a protest to the Russian government in front of the Ukrainian Hotel on the other side. It was originally thought that Yeltsin would make concessions, but unexpectedly, Yeltsin sent elite tank troops of the Central Military Region to fire at the "White House". Suddenly, the "White House" burst into flames. The army killed the people in the square, killing more than 1500 soldiers and civilians defending the Russian parliament. It is called "Russian constitutional crisis" in history. After that, the Russian Communist Party was established and became the largest party in Russia until the establishment of the United Russia party in 2000. After the constitutional crisis in 1993, Russia's "first sentry post" has been transferred from Lenin's tomb to the tomb of unknown martyrs next to red square until today.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin commented on the disintegration of the Soviet Union: whoever does not regret the disintegration of the Soviet Union has no conscience; Anyone who wants to restore the former Soviet Union has no mind!
The disintegration of the Soviet empire in the early 1990s can be said to be the biggest event of mankind in the 20th century. So there are two reasons for this: one is the disintegration of the Soviet empire, which marks the complete bankruptcy of the biggest movement of mankind in the 20th century - the Communist Movement - from theory to practice; Second, because the disintegration of the Soviet Union marked the end of the cold war and the world was freed from the shadow of the Third World War, the peace of mankind in the 21st century began to take shape.
The threat of the Soviet empire to human peace at that time may be seen from its military expenditure at that time. In 1960, the Soviet Union's military expenditure was equivalent to $36 billion. At that time, most of it was spent on military personnel and conventional weapons. By 1970, the Soviet Union's military expenditure had reached $70 billion, mainly for the development of missiles and nuclear weapons. According to the estimate of the Stanford Institute of the United States, the Soviet Union's military expenditure in 1970 amounted to $74.3 billion, equivalent to 90% of the US military expenditure in the same year. If the military "scientific research and development" expenses are included, the actual military expenditure will reach US $90.5 billion, accounting for about half of the total financial expenditure of the Soviet Union in that year. Soviet physicist Sakharov also said publicly that the Soviet Union's military expenditure in 1969 reached 80 billion rubles. Even if the Soviet Union's military expenditure in 1970 was $70 billion, it accounted for 21.4% of the Soviet Union's net material production in that year, that is, excluding the income of the non-material production sector of $321.5 billion, and 42% of the entire fiscal expenditure of $167.5 billion; The average military expenditure burden of the Soviet Union is about $300 per person a year, accounting for 23% of the average national income of $1313 per person in that year. Since the Soviet Union's GNP is only about half that of the United States, and its annual military expenditure is close to or even more than that of the United States, its military expenditure in the proportion of GNP or financial expenditure has undoubtedly surpassed the United States and jumped to the "champion" of the world. At the first National People's Congress in 1989, the Soviet Union officially acknowledged for the first time that the previously announced national defense expenditure was only the daily maintenance cost of the army. The national defense expenditure in 1989 was 77.3 billion rubles (about 130 billion US dollars, excluding the military aerospace part of 7 billion US dollars), accounting for 8.5% of the gross national product and 12.1% of the national income. The military expenditure announced in 1990 was 70.976 billion rubles, accounting for 7.5% of the gross national product and 11% of the national income. Although the credibility of this figure is questionable (it is generally believed that it should be about $210 billion), international public opinion tends to believe that it is more realistic. It is generally believed that the Soviet Union's military spending should be maintained at 15-17% of its gross national product. The proportion was so large that in the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union's strategic weapon system was still far behind the United States. By the end of the 1970s, the Soviet Union surpassed the United States in the total number of nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles, strategic missile nuclear submarines and attack nuclear submarines. However, it was precisely because of the uncontrolled growth of military spending that dragged down the economic and social development of the Soviet Union - especially under the guidance of the so-called "Star Wars plan" (actually a scam) of the United States, the Soviet economy finally collapsed and finally led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
In view of this, Russia, which inherited most of the military heritage of the Soviet Union after the disintegration, carried out a large-scale disarmament plan with the support of the international community (especially European and American countries). The first is to reduce the size of the army. From 1992 to 1996, the Russian army was reduced from 2.5 million to 1.7 million; From 1997 to 1999, the Russian army was again greatly reduced to 1.24 million. Since 2008, Russia has disarmed again. In 2012, the number of Russian armed forces will be reduced from 1.24 million to 1 million, four years ahead of the previous plan. Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there were more than 50000 tanks, but only 3000 after reduction! In the army, the only one whose level can rise steadily is the airborne. In terms of nuclear weapons, due to the conclusion of the strategic nuclear weapons reduction treaty with the United States, the scale of Russia's strategic rocket army has shrunk significantly compared with the Soviet Union, and the current pillar forces are SS25 poplar and ss27 poplar m developed by the Soviet Union in the later stage. At present, these two missiles can only carry a single warhead (550000 tons of TNT equivalent). However, after the United States unilaterally abolished the "ABM Treaty", Russia began to develop mobile multi warheads for Poplar m, and there is no sign of loading now. The Soviet Union had more nuclear warheads than the United States during the cold war, but now it is less than the United States. In terms of the Navy, this service is probably the most weakened compared with the Soviet era. Of the seven aircraft carriers in their heyday, there is only one "Kuznetsov" left. Moreover, due to a major failure, the Kuznetsov is far from reaching the design speed, so it can only be used as training materials for naval shipborne aviation soldiers. In terms of scale, the Russian navy can only reach one-fifth or weaker than that in the heyday of the Soviet Union. In terms of aerospace industry, in order to compete for superpower status, the Soviet Union pursued the development strategy of competing for the leading position in aerospace with the United States during the cold war. Aerospace Science and technology industry is one of the few leading fields in the world in the former Soviet Union. They adopted the strategy of focusing on giving priority to the development of military aerospace industry. In the 1960s and 1980s, the number of aviation industry enterprises and research institutions in the whole Soviet Union reached more than 300, and the number of employees in the whole industry was as high as 700000. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited about 90% of the space industry of the former Soviet Union. In the process of reform, the funding of Russia's space program decreased significantly, which was once lower than that of Brazil in US dollars. From 1990 to 1994, the total number of Russian aerospace enterprises decreased by 35% and the number of experts decreased by 50%.
The reduction of disarmament and military spending is also beneficial to Russia's greater financial resources for economic construction. By 2000, Russia's GDP had increased by 70%, with an average annual growth rate of 6.9%, and the real income of residents had doubled. Due to the transformation into a market economy, various resources have been reasonably allocated. Many military enterprises originally under public ownership and the heavy industry, chemical industry and electronic industry supporting military enterprises have successively changed into private enterprises to engage in the production of consumer goods. The social production structure gradually tends to be reasonable, the production enthusiasm of employees has improved, production has also developed, commodities have been enriched, and government revenue has increased, Paid back the past salary, pension and other white paper arrears. More importantly, people will no longer regard Russia as the source of war like the Soviet Union.
However, the international situation always goes up one after another. While Russia embarks on the road of peaceful development by cutting its military spending, some countries, especially some countries in East Asia, are increasing their military spending.
Like Japan. Although, since 2003, Japan has adopted the policy of controlling the national defense budget due to "financial difficulties". In 2012, the defense budget drawn up by the democratic government was 46453 billion yen, 60 billion yen less than that in 2011. However, according to the report of Yomiuri Shimbun on January 8, 2013, the Liberal Democratic Party, which regained power, decided to abandon the past defense economy line, and the military expenditure this year will increase by 100 billion yen (about US $1.15 billion). Most of this will be used to strengthen the "military early warning" capability, such as increasing fuel and repair costs for early warning aircraft, and increasing funds for the research and development of advanced radar technology. For another example, from 2008 to 2011, the military expenditure of countries in the Asia Pacific region experienced rapid growth, among which Brunei, Vietnam and the Philippines increased the most: 135%, 90% and 80% respectively. India's military spending increased by about 35%. British IHS Jane's group predicts that military spending in the Asia Pacific region will continue to grow by US $118 billion from 2012 to 2015, an increase of up to 37%.
And China, of course. Since the 1970s, China's military expenditure has been in a "concave" shape: at the beginning of reform and opening up, due to the need to concentrate on economic development, the proportion of military expenditure in national financial expenditure decreased from 17.37% in 1978 to 10.63% in 1984. The proportion of military expenditure in the gross national product decreased from 4.6% in 1978 to 2.13% in 1984, about doubling the decline. In the 14 years from 1986 to 1998, the Chinese army was in a period of patience and was forced to make great sacrifices. At that time, China's annual military expenditure was only enough to barely maintain normal operation. However, since 1999, military expenditure has increased year by year, with an annual increase of 12-20%. In 2001, national defense expenditure increased by 23.5 billion yuan or 17.7% over the previous year; In 2002, it increased by 26.6 billion yuan, an increase of 17.6%; In 2003, it increased by 20 billion yuan, an increase of 9.6%; In 2004, it increased by 29.2 billion yuan, an increase of 11.6%; The defense budget for 2005 increased by 24.7 billion yuan, or 12.6 percent, over the previous year. In the six years from 2000 to 2005, national defense expenditure doubled from 120.754 billion yuan to 247.5 billion yuan. In the 11 years from 1999 to 2009, military spending increased from 107.6 billion yuan to 480.6 billion yuan, more than quadrupling the total. Therefore, when China's military expenditure was US $84.9 billion in 2008, it jumped to the second place in the world.. The latest data is: China's defense budget in 2012 was 670.274 billion yuan, an increase of 67.604 billion yuan (about 106.37 billion US dollars) or 11.2% over the budget implementation of the previous year. China plans to spend $114.3 billion in military spending in 2013, an increase of 10.7% over last year.
One of the consequences of the rapid growth of military spending is to heat up the "China Threat Theory" again. For example, in the annual report on China's military strength released by the US Department of defense on May 23, 2006, it is claimed that China's total military related expenditure is "two to three times" of China's published military budget. According to the current proportion of China's military expenditure in GDP, "China's military expenditure may increase by three times or more by 2025". The enhancement of China's military strength has threatened the regional military balance, In the long run, it may "pose a real and effective threat" to the armies of the United States and other countries in the region. In the latest annual report on China's military strength released on May 25, 2007, "China is carrying out a comprehensive military transformation and strengthening its power delivery, anti entry and regional denial capabilities; the focus of China's military modernization is to deal with the potential Taiwan conflict in the near future and to achieve regional and global goals in the long term; China's future military strength will become the main factor to change the military power balance in East Asia, and the influence of China's strategic strength has even exceeded the Asia Pacific region". The rise of this threat theory may trigger an arms race among regions, thus laying a hidden danger for peace; Secondly, the rapid increase in military spending may drag down economic development. The reason is also very simple: military spending and economic development are a zero sum game. The more military spending, the smaller economic development. Excessive military expenditure may drag down the development of the whole national economy and threaten social stability - the former Soviet Union is a lesson from the past. Jane's analyst guy? Anderson pointed out: the development of military industry alone is bound to consume huge national finance and drag down economic development in peacetime. The Soviet Union has told future generations this lesson with facts.
China should follow the path of peaceful development, and the problem of excessive increase in military spending deserves vigilance.