A brief history of the Soviet Union
"Evil has great momentum, but the forces of good are inert.
whatever happens."
After two victorious “People’s Wars”, first against the Japanese and then against the Germans, Moscow realized that an
era of coexistence with its capitalist foes was beginning. The successive
conflicts previously mentioned left the Soviet Union terribly weakened. Even
when eastern Poland became part of the Soviet republic of Byelorussia, and
Manchuria and Korea became Soviet protectorates, a great part of the western
Soviet Union suffered utter destruction.
After five years of strife, the Soviet Union's economy faced collapse.
Stalin, confronting Ukrainian nationalist uprisings and Chinese-backed revolts
in the Central Asian republics, launched economic reforms at home and a
conciliatory policy toward the outer world. To strengthen itself for subsequent
conflict, the Soviet Union sought better diplomatic relations, trade, and
credits from the Western Powers. Improved diplomatic relations would provide
some security against further attacks and win trade concessions.
Several European countries reacted favorably because their industries
lacked sufficient markets and their governments, never truly comfortable with a
weakened but still powerful Germany in the middle of Europe needing a
counterweight, wanted for normal relations.
The obstacles to settlement included the rise of communist activity
around the world (local communist pointed to the victorious Soviet Union as an
example of the “people’s power”), and the increasing appeal of communism among
the European colonies’ local elites; and especially Soviet debts, totaling
about 50 billion rubles. Among the Great Powers, France especially sought some
sort of repayment of the war debt: but when the Soviet Union made clear the
advantages of a military treaty pact, France accepted to make some short-term
credits, trade agreements, and cancelled the soviet debt. In 1943 both
countries signed a Mutual Defense Pact, clearly aimed against Germany and its
allies.
After securing the western border of the Soviet Union, Stalin maintained
an isolationist policy while reconstruction the western part of the country and
reorganizing his conquests (Korea, Manchuria and Sinkiang). Stalin also sent
his representatives to the Paris Conference (April 1945), conceived as an
international effort to restore Europe's depressed economy after the
Soviet-German war and its consequent post-war economic decline. Stalin made
attractive offers of extensive trade with the Soviet Union and promising
investment in nascent Siberian and Manchurian industries.
Stalin's policy of cultivating relations with the rest of Europe ended Soviet isolation, and its security accord with France enhanced Soviet security and contributed to its economic recovery. That same year, Moscow betrayed the Chinese warlord in Sinkiang (China's most western land), Sheng Shi Kai, and sent forces into the area. Only a year after the treaty with the French, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Moscow (April 1944), recognized the independence of Manchuria (Manzhouguo), Mongolia and Sinkiang, and stipulated neutrality if either country were attacked by a third power.
However, Soviet hostility toward Germany persisted. This animosity
increased when Germany organized the European Security Accord (ESA), viewed in
Moscow as a lethal threat against the Soviet Union. The Soviet military buildup
continued, with Germany and the rest of the ESA in mind, in spite of its
negative effect over the economy and the unlikeness of a new German invasion.
Not until 1973 would the Soviets alter their hostility toward Germany.
On the other hand, Asia remained secondary in Soviet policy. After its war against Japan, the Soviet Union had the opportunity to extend its influence over the entire Chinese landmass, but the German invasion left the Soviet Union too weak to exploit the turmoil in China, and conformed with dominating Korea and Manzhouguo. In order to weaken Franco-British influence in the Middle East, Stalin supported nationalists movements in Syria, Arabia and Iran. But even when Stalin regarded China as the key to Asia, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and its transformation into a buffer and Soviet base on China's frontier made impossible the advance of communism among the Chinese peasantry. In other parts of Asia, the Soviet triumph over the Japanese and alleged communist attempts to subvert the colonial governments provoked a "Red Scare" in all Asia that ended with the downfall of the communist parties in the region and strained relations between the colonial powers and the Soviet Union.
Stalin's death in 1958 brought a power struggle among the Soviet
government that lasted almost half a year, when Khrushchev appointed himself as
leader of the Communist Party. He began to remove potential and actual rivals
from positions of power and influence at home. Distrustful of the cosmopolitan
and richer countries of the west, he acted to sever ties with Europe, marking a
growing and isolation from European affairs.
The worsening economic conditions in the USSR fomented the apparition of
independent clandestine sindicates among Soviet workers,whose standard of
living still was being affected by the efforts and destruction of the previous
wars. Also in these years the Soviet Union lost its relative technological
parity with Germany and Japan, specially in the military and industrial fields.
Khrushchev –apparently in an effort to quell the workers movement and
gain military support– declared that a major shift in Soviet foreign policy was
imminent, and raised the specter of renewed foreign assaults against the USSR.
Soon afterward he proclaimed that the USSR was “the sole bastion of world
revolution” and demanded to all Communist parties exclusive allegiance to
Moscow, and later accused Germany of making preparations to attack the Soviet
Union without a shred of evidence. Despite the great pressure exerted over the
dysfunctional Soviet economy by the subsequent military tension with the ESA countries
(and later with China), Khrushchev kept his intransigent and dangerous foreign
policy, provoking confrontations with other powers and growing military
expending.
But the Soviet economy continued to decline and with it the living
standards of the Soviet population. But this time not only the peasants and
workers were affected, even the military and vast sectors of the communist
apparatus (specially the less powerful and therefore the most pragmatic) found
that their situation turned from bad to desperate. However, the Soviet
government was unable to tell the difference between popular pressure in
support of economic reform and economic paralysis brought by the generalized
discontent among the peasants and workers. The brief but incessant strikes reinforced
the idea in the Kremlin and among the people that Khrushchev no longer governed
the country, instead he merely reacted to events.
A coal miner’s strike in Novokuznetsk in January 1963 spread out of
control and in June 2 Nikita Khrushchev was deposed by a coalition of
pragmatic party leaders, “workers’ associations” (independent syndicates) and
mutinous military units. Even when some elements of the NKVD tried to resist in
Moscow, Leningrad and Minsk, after two months of infighting the new government
was constituted as a committee formed by military and civilians alike and with
Nikolai Ocherednoi, a former trade union leader, as first president of the
USSR.
The “Soft Revolution”
In the following years, the pragmatists consolidated
their position. Although they occupied all of the main party or government
positions, the pragmatist allowed and unprecedented freedom, specially in
economical matters. The new policies were confirmed in the party and state
constitutions adopted in 1964. These included accelerating the Soviet Union's
economic development by the best possible means; for example, by rewarding good work, even if this resulted in some
inequalities in society. In 1966 the Resettlement Administration was
established in Vladivostok, and then began a controlled resettlement of Soviet
citizens from the European USSR to Siberia and the Far East, where active
exploitation of its natural resources had recently begun. Steps were also taken
to prevent the concentration of power that had marked Stalin's time. Thus, the
new state constitution limited state leaders to two consecutive terms.
Nevertheless, the new leadership remained
firmly committed to Communism. The 1966 constitution stated again the
fundamental principles that should guide the society: the leadership of the
Communist party, the "workers’ and peasants’ democratic
dictatorship," the socialist road, and Marxism-Leninism thought. The new
constitution allowed a greater measure of political freedom and civil rights,
and legal safeguards were introduced. It was evident, however, that there were
limits to the new liberalization. After an early period during which
considerable freedom of speech was allowed, the post-Khrushchev leadership
began to warn against destructive criticism.
The new regime's goal was the development
of Soviet economy by means of the modernizations of agriculture, industry,
science and technology. The new leadership placed great stress on them, with
the aim of bringing the Soviet Union back into the front rank among the world's
nations. To achieve the ambitious aims of the program, the new leadership
replaced the Stalinist dogma of stressing isolationism, with the practical
value of international cooperation. In education, they sought academic rapprochements
with the West and Japan, and the entire college system was rehabilitated. In
industry, the old Siberian industrial cities of the Stalinist era was cleansed
and modernized with the help of Western experts. In agriculture, peasants were
allowed private plots. Some over ambitious projects were begun, and some
replanning proved necessary.
Nevertheless, the pragmatists were
optimistic that they would attain their goals. They set a reasonable economic
growth rate of 5.2 percent per year and began a rigorous campaign to increase
the rate of population increase. They hoped that these measures would quadruple
industrial and agricultural production by the year 2000. In 1980 Ocherednoi
retired and was succeeded by Pyotr Chizhov as President of the Soviet Union and
Valerian Demidov as Secretary of the Communist Party
However, several factors conspired to
destroy the Soviet society’s economic, politic and social equilibrium. The
economic growth was not the same everywhere: several regions of the Soviet Union
(the Far East, Leningrad, Ukraine) began to operate as a separate entity in
global trade and their growth rates were up to 6-7%, and found particularly
strong trading partners with the U.S., Japan and the members of the AELE. In
the rest of the country growth was more like 3% (in some cases, i.e. the
Central Asian republics, the growth was nearly 0%), and trade organizations
(AELE, EZV, the “East Asian Corner”) give the Soviet Government observer status
or probationary status only, restricting the growth of Soviet international
trade.
Also, Soviet economic resources were
strained to the utmost after the collapse of several “mega-projects”, specially
those related with space military programs and the exploitation of northern
Russia’s resources, and the collapse of the Deutsche Mark in 1983. Alone -its
Manzhouguan and Korean client states were economic pygmies- the Soviet Union
proved powerless in the face of growing protectionism and cutthroat global
competitiveness.
Finally, the general trend throughout the
postwar period toward increasing education, urbanization and
professionalization of the labor force brought with them different attitudes
toward authority and generated among the common citizens a greater desire to
control their destiny.
By 1990, mass discontent at home
threatened the continuation in power of the Communist Party, forcing the
government to answer the threat of political change, but instead of crack down
the slightest sign of dissidence, the government made half-hearted, inefficient,
and ineffectual efforts of reforms. This is what triggered the downfall of the
Soviet Union: its attempted reforms under Pyotr Chizhov.
After 70 years of communist dictatorship
(1921-1991) and, centuries before that, of czarist autocracy, the peoples of
the Soviet Union started to show its discontent in a violent way. The disorders
reached a climax in July 1991 in the city of Novomoskovsk, when the local
military commander rallied the people against the government buildings and
troops had to be sent in to restore order. From that time on, the political and
inter-ethnical conflicts started to disrupt the Soviet society, which never
again know something resembling normality.
Along the enormous Soviet territory, new
independent power centers tried to take hold: autonomous republics leaders,
self-appointed mayors, legislators, and even some independent military
commanders. Unfortunately, instead of implementing a policy of reform and
opening up, the members of the communist structure tried to use the Soviet
military-security apparatus to bring the USSR again into submission: Red Army
units invaded the Parliament Building, locked up the country's media,
communications, airports and roads. The “Soft Revolution” was another of
Russia’s false dawns: from Catherine the Great to Peter the Great to the
Bolshevik Revolution to Khrushchev…
The Civil War and its aftermath
The Soviet Union was seized by a sinister
anachronism: its dying self. The conflict quickly blossomed into full-scale
civil war, and all hope of political rapprochement disappeared. At first, the
clashes of the mostly Russian Red Army with the rebels caused a flare-up of
Russian nationalism; but as the war progressed, the Russian nationalism
declined while non-Russian nationalities within the Soviet Union grew. The
conflict generated a steadily deepening moral weariness with a war waged for no
apparent reason but to save the heinous Communist regimen. Also, since the
regimen didn’t allowed legal channels for the expression of discontent, there
were sporadic eruptions of popular dissatisfaction caused for the economic
hardships, particularly related to food supplies. These were put down with the
help of troops of a nationality other than that of the population that was
rioting, sharpening the enmity among the nationalities.
By May 1995 the government forces were
wearied by four years of nearly continuous warfare, the leadership was rent by
internal disunity, and the economy was paralyzed by spiraling inflation.
However, disunity among the myriad of rebel forces allowed the government to
regain military initiative, and in the summer of 1997, the Soviet Civil War
ended.
The Red Army, with the control of the
remnants of the former government, convened the Soviet Union’s Political
Consultative Conference, an ad hoc quasi-constituent body of 541
members, which adopted a set of guiding principles and an organic law for
governing the country. The conference elected the Central Government Council,
which was to serve as the supreme policymaking organ of the state while the
conference was not in session. General Vladimir Lapin, who served as chairman
of this body, was, in fact, head of state. The new regime, which conserved the
name of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, even when is reforming its economy
to fit a capitalistic model, was officially proclaimed on October 1, 1999.
But those same forces which toppled the
“Soft Revolution” now threaten the very fabric of the new Soviet state. An
economic crisis is gripping the country, and especially the government. The
Soviet Union government has been forced to resort to force to keep the country
united. In many places, and with special intensity in Central Asia, Muslim
political parties and some former Red Army units among the local nationalities
still struggle for separation from the Soviet Union.
The Soviet citizens have had access to the
West, and have seen what "could be" if the Soviet Union government is
replaced. Since 1991 the Soviet Union has experienced an unexpected 'ethnic
revival.' From Ukraine to Turkmenistan, many of the country's more than one
hundred minority nationalities have asserted claims for greater rights,
privileges, and constitutional recognition. The Red Army is fighting Ukrainian
and Muslim separatist and barely keeps control over the urban centers.
For its neighbors, the fall of the
crumbling Soviet empire would likely to have several consequences of note.
First, the Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Central Asian republics will lose what
has been, if not a friendly force, at least a stabilizing one. The resulting
power vacuum would be very dangerous, as Germany, China, Iran, and Turkey vie
for influence in the region, and the various ethnic and religious conflicts in
the area would flare up. Perhaps most troubling is the potential increase in
nuclear smuggling, as central control is loosened, and regional blocs gain
physical possession of nuclear material, if not the ability to use it.
Associated problems include the selling or smuggling of nuclear technology or
essential equipment, as well as the emigration of those scientists with
knowledge of Soviet nuclear technology. What is clear is that, whatever happen
in the future, the fate of the Soviet Union will be a matter of utmost
importance for the entire world.
