Gorbachev's Dilemma: Where the water is shallow, the stones have been touched

Text/Huang Zhangjin

On August 30, 2022, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Soviet Union, passed away. The evaluation of Gorbachev's merits and demerits depends on your feelings about the Soviet Union, and it is extremely difficult to reconcile opposing views.

However, although Gorbachev was the ruiner of the Soviet Union, even at the last moment, he still tried his best to avoid its collapse and fragmentation, let alone his reform legacy turning into wars and disputes that lasted for decades.

The failure of Gorbachev's reforms was because, as demographers said, the decline in the number of births and the increase in deaths at the end of the Soviet Union formed an X-line, and they were destined to perish? Or is it like Gorbachev who was fooled by the West naively, or lacked political wisdom and failed to distinguish priorities?

We might as well go back and see if hindsight can save Gorbachev from failure.

【Who is the most suitable successor】

On September 19, 1978, four people walked silently on the empty platform of a train station called Mineral Water City in Krasdanor Border State, under the watchful eyes of the guards.

Gorbachev recalled that during the whole meeting, Brezhnev just casually asked about the harvest and the canal, and then he was silent. Afterwards, Androbo comforted Gorbachev: the general secretary just had a stroke and had trouble speaking.

In 1979, 47-year-old Gorbachev became a political alternate, and in 1980, Gorbachev entered the Politburo.

The Politburo elected by the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1981 had an average age of 70 years. When Chernenko died on March 10, 1985, the Politburo had lost half of its precious wealth: 6 people died, 1 person retired from illness.

Among the 6 people who died, three died when the general secretary took office, namely Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko, and the other three were the "red bishop" Suslow who was in charge of ideology husband, Minister of Defense Ustinov and Chairman of the Supervisory Committee Perse.

In the front is Brezhnev, in the middle are Andropov and Chernenko, and the last young man is Gorbachev.

The historic meeting of the last four general secretaries of the CPSU gathered here was arranged by Androbo—Brezhnev was accompanied by Chernenko to Baku to participate in the activities, and Androport intended to take part in the event. Erbachev came to see the General Secretary.

The old comrade who retired from illness was Kirilenko. Although he managed to live until 1990, when Andropov mobilized him to resign in November 1982, Kirilenko could not even recognize many comrades in the Politburo. .

Nine days before Chernenko passed away, at the Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 71-year-old Grishin and 54-year-old Gorbachev were nominated as successors. Elder Gromyko was the first to speak, recommending Gorbach Qiaofu is young and capable, and his statement influenced the choices of the representatives.

People with a "Soviet complex" must hope that the Soviet Communist Party chose something other than this result.

Today, many of Russia’s political science fiction and games are based on the fact that the Soviet Union still exists. In these parallel universes, another person is invariably arranged to be the general secretary and let him save the Soviet Union.

This man is Romanov.

Romanov was the second youngest person in the Politburo. He was the secretary of the Leningrad Municipal Party Committee and was transferred to the central government by Andropo to assist him in promoting reforms. It was once believed that Romanov would succeed Andropov after his death.

Romanov is the secretary of the secretariat in charge of industry and military industry. Compared with Gorbachev in charge of agriculture, his status is much more important, but he is 8 years older than Gorbachev.

The predicament facing the Soviet Union at this time made it necessary for the new general secretary to promote Andropov's reforms, and who was most suitable to shoulder the important task of reforms depended on conditions.

Romanov and Gorbachev have the same characteristics: young, simple background, clean hands and feet, calm and sober, decisive and resolute in character.

Being young means that you have the energy and will to promote reforms. A simple background means that you do not have to look forward and backward from the interests of the mountains. Clean hands and feet mean that you can gain trust. Mind and character determine the success or failure of your career.

If the demise of Andropov is counted as a failure, then Andropov is the second reform loser after Khrushchev.

If you count the murder of the idea before it was put into practice, Beria will also be added to this list. version goes even further.

Khrushchev's shortcomings are impulsiveness and extensiveness, Andropov's Achilles' heel is age, and Beria's hands are covered with blood. However, the public reason why the comrades sentenced him to death seems to give a reform The verdict of the martyrs:

Betray the motherland, work hard for foreign capitalists, vainly attempt to seize state power, overthrow the Soviet system of workers and peasants, restore capitalism and rebuild the capitalist country.

No matter how you evaluate Gorbachev, he was the best candidate for reform at that time.

People once worried that Gorbachev, who had little seniority, would find it difficult to control real power. His opponents were not only powerful, but most of them were members of Brezhnev's "Dnepr Gang":

Prime Minister Tikhonov, First Secretary of Ukraine Shcherbytsky, First Secretary of Kazakhstan Kunayev, Defense Minister Sokolov, KGB Chairman Chebrikov, Vice Chairman Tsinev and others.

The speed at which Gorbachev seized power was even faster than that of Stalin.

In September 1985, the 80-year-old Prime Minister Tikhonov resigned and Ryzhkov took over.

In December 1985, Moscow Party Secretary Grishin was replaced by Yeltsin, Gorbachev's favorite general.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident broke out, and the First Secretary of Ukraine Shcherbytsky resigned.

In December 1986, Kazakhstan's emperor Kunayev was replaced.

On May 28, 1987, Rust, a 19-year-old young man from West Germany, drove a small plane and landed on Red Square in Moscow. The Soviet Union lost face, and Minister of Defense Sokolov and dozens of generals were dismissed.

On October 21, 1987, Aliyev, a Politburo member from Azerbaijan, resigned for health reasons.

On October 1, 1988, Chebrikov, chairman of the KGB, retired to the second line and quit the Politburo in August 1989.

However, competitors in the same ecological niche are the real enemies. On July 1, 1985, Romanov became the first person to be kicked out of the Politburo by Gorbachev.

It is hard to return to the old Soviet Union, and the Russians who have a "Soviet plot" in their hearts today have a much deeper understanding than "Soviet lovers" abroad.

In order for the Soviet Union in the parallel universe not to sink, the general secretary is set to always be held by Romanov. In one game, he is even leading the Soviet people to cross the river by feeling the stones in 2032.

【Fiscal Crisis: The First Driving Force of Reform】

When Brezhnev passed away, the outside world had the strongest perceptual knowledge of the Soviet Union on September 4, 1981, the Western-81 military exercise. This was also the most memorable moment for the majority of "Soviet lovers".

At that time, the Soviet Union's conventional weapons and nuclear weapons far exceeded that of the United States, and its military expenditure was even 50% higher than that of the United States, at the apex of global expansion.

The price of oil was the most important booster for the rise of the Soviet Union's national power during the Brezhnev period.

When the Middle East war broke out in October 1973, it took only 19 days for a barrel of oil to rise from $3 to $13, and then rose nearly 20 times all the way. In the Soviet Union, oil production increased ninefold between 1969 and 1980.

From the outbreak of the oil crisis to before Gorbachev came to power, the oil dividend of the Soviet Union was as high as 270-320 billion US dollars. Kotkin, an authority on the history of the Soviet Union in the United States, believes that without oil, the Soviet Union may disintegrate 20 years earlier.

However, the national fortune was used up by Brezhnev alone.

When Gorbachev came to power, the transaction price of oil had plummeted from US$40 in the early 1980s to US$10. At the same time as the oil price fell, the oil wells that contributed a lot of money to the Soviet Union began to age, and the cost of oil production rose rapidly.

The Soviet Union left behind by Brezhnev looked extremely powerful, but its problems of corruption and inefficiency were unprecedentedly serious. For his successor, the most urgent threat was actually a sharply worsening financial problem.

In order to compete for world hegemony, the Soviet military expenditure increased from 32.6 billion rubles in 1965 to 155 billion rubles in 1981, accounting for 1/3 of the fiscal budget. In order to meet the consumption needs of residents, subsidies exceeded 73 billion rubles in 1985, accounting for 18% of the fiscal budget . In the 1970s, in order to cope with the food shortage, food imports continued to increase, and it increasingly became a bottomless foreign exchange pit.

While the fiscal gap continued to expand, Western debts also rose rapidly. In 1975, the debt was 15.4 billion U.S. dollars, in 1980 it was 25.2 billion U.S. dollars, and by 1985 when Gorbachev came to power, it rose to 38.3 billion U.S. dollars.

At that time, people distinguished conservatives and reformers by "technical school" or "economic school". The so-called "technical school" believes that the increase of productivity depends on investment in technical equipment. The representatives are Stalin and Brezhnev. The "economic school" believes that economic incentives are also very important. The representative figures are Khrushchev, Kosygin.

Gorbachev has a slight "Economist" tendency, and his local work experience made it easier for him to see the disadvantages of over-death control.

However, no matter who comes to power, they are faced with how to solve the imminent financial problems. Whether they are biased towards "technical" or "economical", the options for improving finances are the same :

Options for reducing spending: 1. Cutting military spending; 2. Cutting aid to friendly countries; 3. Cutting residents’ welfare; 4. Cutting administrative costs; 5. Anti-corruption;

There are only two options for increasing income: 1. Change the management system to release social productivity; 2. Increase consumption tax

Whether the attitude towards the Stalinist system is reform or conservative is largely a financial issue. The internal driving force of the reform is the financial crisis, and its determination to advance is directly proportional to the pressure of the predicament it faces.

Therefore, Brezhnev went from supporting Kosygin to continue reforms, to re-discussing the benefits of a planned economy and strengthening centralized management, and turning "reform" into "improvement". "Oil Dividend", Sudden Loose Hands

Now that money is suddenly loose, why bother to reform at the cost of harming the interests of a large number of comrades?

The bigger temptation is that the finances suddenly become particularly ample. Who doesn't want to take power up and concentrate resources to do a few major events that can be seen by others, so that they can be recorded in the annals of history as a promising king?

Similarly, when the old system cannot be maintained due to huge financial pressure, whether it is Beria and Andropov who are former intelligence chiefs, Khrushchev who is risking his life in order to catch up with the speed Gorbachev, a cadre of the regiment faction admired by the "Red Bishop" Suslov, finally gave almost the same prescription:

Externally, it eased with the West, loosened allies, and allowed younger brothers to follow their own unique paths. Internally, it reformed the Stalinist system and mobilized enthusiasm for production.

If there is too much resistance to reform and it is necessary to win popular support and reputation to increase political resources , there are two ways: first, fight corruption and privilege; second, redress unjust, false and wrong cases .

After Gorbachev came to power, he continued Andropov's anti-corruption and anti-privilege politically, and purged Brezhnev's "Dnepr Gang" high-level members in the name of youth. In terms of production discipline rectification, theft, miners, drunkenness, sneaking, and other behaviors that disrupt production are severely punished by forceful means.

Gorbachev's economic measures are a typical "technical" "acceleration strategy", that is, by focusing on increasing investment in machinery, chemicals, and metals to catch up with the West, the "acceleration strategy" has exacerbated the imbalance in the economic structure .

Gorbachev was truly labeled a "reformist" by the outside world because he took the initiative to resume disarmament negotiations. He made his first appearance in the West when he visited Canada as a newcomer to the Politburo in May 1983. His wisdom and sharpness contrasted sharply with the old and rigid Soviet leaders.

Gorbachev could not only argue fiercely with Canadian Senators and Representatives, but also chat and laugh with Western journalists; when he first entered the negotiating table, he was a cold opponent, but after only two years he became an angel of peace. The West has never seen such a Confused Soviet leader.

From 1986, when Gorbachev first proposed his "new thinking" on international issues and foreign policy perspectives, to his speech on the same topic at the UN General Assembly two years later, the West has always focused on studying Gorbachev's sincerity .

Gorbachev successfully concealed his real motives. Western countries, which had a huge advantage in the cards, did not know that the Soviet Union was on the verge of internal collapse until after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

After winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, Gorbachev even managed to convince himself that the original initiative for peace was motivated by a great idea of the common good of mankind rather than a lack of money.

The new diplomatic thinking allowed Gorbachev to win great prestige in the West and stabilize his domestic position. The political cost is to offend the military and the military-industrial complex with as many as 5-8 million people in related industries.

Gorbachev's most failed reform was the alcohol ban implemented in May 1985, when he came to power for only two months.

Alcohol was monopolized by the state in the Stalin era, and its contribution to the Soviet Union's finances was equivalent to that of tobacco to China's finances. If planned properly, it could have raised prices and taxes to relieve its financial difficulties, but Gorbachev is the successor of Andropov, and he must complete the unfinished business of his predecessors.

Ligachev was in charge of formulating a plan that was much stricter than Khrushchev in 1958 and Andropov's alcohol prohibition in 1983. Ryzhkov believed that such a one-size-fits-all administrative method was not feasible, but the plan was approved by Ge Erbachev agreed.

In 1988, the vigorous alcohol prohibition reform quietly came to an end. Although it had many immediate results and even increased the fertility rate in the short term, the financial loss of tens of billions of rubles made it go down in history as a reform that made things worse.

Excluding military spending and foreign aid, the heaviest financial burden is consumer subsidies for residents.

Between 1971 and 1985, the currency circulation in the USSR increased by 2.1 times, while the production of consumer goods did not increase. Strict price controls led to severe shortages of consumer goods, and the subsidized Soviet citizens did not benefit from it. They paid the real price by queuing up every day.

Despite the heavy pressure on consumer goods subsidies, the Soviet Union did not dare to implement "price breakthroughs" like China did in 1988, correcting the distorted price system and reducing financial subsidies.

In the early 1980s, hidden inflation in the Soviet Union was so serious that once price controls were lifted, it was very likely that the wallets of urban residents would be emptied, and no one dared to take such a risk.

In May 1962, Khrushchev just raised the price of meat, eggs and milk, and public dissatisfaction boiled over. A general strike broke out in Novocherkassk, first offending the comrades of the whole party, and then offending the common people. be retired.

Khrushchev overturned the barrier, and the Soviet leaders learned a lesson from it: In order to prevent urban residents from putting down their chopsticks and scolding their mothers, they could only increase food purchase prices while freezing retail prices, and use financial subsidies to purchase social stability.

By the time Gorbachev came to power, the financial problem had become a snowball that had been rolling on a slope for two decades.

There is an important prerequisite for China to try to break through the price barrier before the Soviet Union: the reforms that have just been launched have achieved a significant improvement in residents’ income, and the reform promoters have gained more social trust and determination to advance.

【The stones that are easy to touch have been touched】

The problem is that the Soviet Union could not find a breakthrough like China's 1978 household contract system, with minimal resistance and significant results, to establish the legitimacy of the reform and social confidence.

After Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev started to explore "revisionism", and then to Prime Minister Kosygin's reforms in the Brezhnev era, the Soviet Union touched all the stones that China only touched in the mid-1980s.

Take rural areas as an example:

In the Stalin era, as in China before 1978, a surplus grain expropriation system was adopted. After deducting farmers’ rations, the surplus was handed over to the state without compensation. Khrushchev replaced the robbery system with the purchase system, that is, the surplus grain was purchased at the official price, and the purchase price was continuously raised, allowing farmers to own private plots and livestock.

When Kosygin was prime minister from 1965 to 1979, in addition to the continuous increase in the price of grain, it was also divided into two levels: purchase price and contract price. Market price transaction income.

Kosygin was marginalized in the mid-1970s, and the Soviet agricultural sector continued to grow at a high rate for nearly two decades. By the golden age of late Brezhnev, the per capita consumption of grain and animal food in the Soviet Union had reached that of China. 2010 level.

Although farmers in the Soviet Union were still deprived by the serious industrial-agricultural scissors gap. For example, in response to the food crisis at the end of 1990, the government raised the purchase price of grain by three times at one time, but it was still less than one-fifth of the market price.

However, due to the fact that Soviet peasants’ self-reserved land was much larger than the land that Chinese peasants contracted for, coupled with other conditions, the material living standards of the Soviet collective farms in the early 1980s were seriously lacking in light industrial consumer goods, in terms of food, housing, and social security. At least not lower than today's Chinese farmers.

There are two types of organizations in Soviet agriculture: collective farms and state farms. The former is a traditional rural farm that has been transformed by collectivization, and the state does not guarantee the income and livelihood of the farmers. The latter is a state-invested farm owned by the whole people, and agricultural workers are wage workers.

In the 1950s, the Soviet collective farms had an annual salary system, which was gradually improved to a monthly salary system. In 1964, the collective farm established an independent medical and social security system, and the standard treatment slowly improved. In the late Brezhnev period, the collective farms had become nationalized to a considerable extent.

Before the reform, Chinese farmers were in a state of extreme deprivation and poverty. Apart from loosening management, there were not too many complicated arrangements and designs, which benefited farmers who accounted for 80% of the total population.

The dilemma brought by Khrushchev’s reforms to future generations is that Gorbachevs could neither find room for reforms that would benefit the peasants greatly, nor could they find a reason for the peasants to be grateful for the reforms made thirty years ago .

The same is true of industrial reform in the cities.

The reforms China gradually promoted in the 1980s: Whether it was the breaking of divisions at the macro level, the separation of government and enterprises, and independent management, or the material stimulus at the micro level, such as piece-rate wages and the factory director responsibility system, there were footprints left by the Soviets ahead.

When Zhang Weiying summed up the "impossibility theorem of entrepreneurs under the state-owned system" in 1986, China was enthusiastically promoting the experience of Ma Shengli, Bu Xinsheng and others in contracting factory directors. It will be broken after a year.

Perhaps Zhang Weiyang's real confidant could only be found in the Soviet Union, which began to discuss "privatization" at that time.

The new economic system promoted by Kosygin once emphasized the use of the law of value to expand the autonomy of enterprises. However, the Soviets discovered a few years later that the separation of the party and the government, the unified leadership of the factory director, and the material stimulation of spiritual rewards did not turn officials sent to enterprises into real entrepreneurs.

Soviet economists even discovered the paradox of increasing production long ago: the factory manager must control the task completion indicators intelligently. Of course, too little will not work, and too much will not work. If the task or profit is overfulfilled, the superior will increase the task indicator next year, and the work will become more difficult. .

What's worse is the "hidden rule": if the operation is particularly good, your position becomes a place where you can easily achieve results. The better you do, the easier it is to be replaced by those who have a better relationship with your superiors .

The Soviets have more experience in how material incentives can play a role.

Experts from planning departments at all levels in the Soviet Union have formulated a set of scientific, detailed and precise reward regulations for each production category, production link and labor volume. There are cash, goods, vacation and recuperation, ranging from tea sets to carpets, TV sets, and cars.

However, in the practice of socialist production, smart Soviet laborers learned through exchanges and explored a set of game rules for deceiving rewards in every link. Therefore, the KPI system formulated by mathematicians only increases the meat in the big pot.

Workers and peasants fished in troubled waters, making the Soviet Union the world's largest producer of defective products. And the leading cadres deceived the top and the bottom, making the Soviet Union the country with the most water in statistics.

The Uzbekistan cotton case in the 1970s was the largest corruption case known to the Soviet Union. Local cadres organized a group to falsely report cotton production and extort 3 billion rubles from the central government. Most of the money was distributed. And when the nuclear inventory comes from above, there will always be a fire by chance.

Until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Chinese academic circles generally had a positive evaluation of the Soviet reform: careful deployment, correct thinking, matching measures, and emphasis on legislation . The supporting reform extended from enterprise reform to the macro field is in a proper sequence.

The Soviets have known for a long time that breaking divisions, delegating management power, and operating independently can indeed stimulate enthusiasm for production, but going forward, the stones in deep water are not easy to touch.

Breaking the division of the vertical management of the industry by the central government and giving more autonomy to the local "blocks" will immediately cause infrastructure expansion and budget overruns. Once the power is decentralized, the local governments will not be able to collect money .

Once factory directors and managers have autonomy, they will continue to increase wages and benefits. In order to avoid excessive income imbalances in the industry, the government will be forced to raise wages generally, and the increase in inflation will stimulate a new round of salary increase competition .

In addition, the price distortion of industrial products is equally serious. The closer to the raw materials, energy, materials, and primary processed products, the lower the prices, and the closer to the consumption of industrial products, the higher the prices. The rates vary greatly.

As a result, industries with high profit margins have poor quality and serious waste, and workers generally do private work, while industries with low profit margins lack enthusiasm for production. Once the price of the basic industry is raised, it is easy to trigger a series of price increases.

If the reform takes a few more steps, it will encounter budget imbalance and inflation. The best solution is to return to a strictly planned economy. The Soviets waded back and forth in shallow water several times, and the road was familiar.

The 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1986 and the subsequent June Plenary Session marked that Gorbachev had basically completed the distribution of power at the top. The growth of industry and agriculture in that year exceeded expectations, but Gorbachev encountered Huge resistance.

Decentralization of management power to enterprises means that local party and government officials are not listened to. Passive disobedience and public opposition are quickly passed on to the central government. However, Ligachev and others in the Politburo did not stand by Gorbachev.

What if the leader is isolated from the party leadership? The party’s historical experience library actually has a large number of ready-made solutions:

When Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy in 1920, the high-ranking party members refused to take capitalist prescriptions to save the new regime. Lenin directly bypassed the Politburo, used the media to speak out, mobilized social forces to force the government , and finally achieved his goal.

In December 1986, the Soviet Union dropped criminal proceedings against the opposition. At the January 1987 Plenary Session, Gorbachev launched political reforms, using democratization and openly attacking bureaucracy to weaken resistance to economic reforms.

The Soviet diplomat Federline mentioned in his memory that when Brezhnev had talks with Nixon, he asked Federin in front of Nixon’s Russian translator: Do I still read the following passage?

Relying on the huge and meticulous bureaucratic system and the strict control of the military, police, constitution, and special forces, the Soviet Union can easily be ruled by the elderly for more than 20 years. Once this bondage is broken, the Empire State Building will collapse at any time.

This is dangerous deep water. Where the water is shallow, the stones have been touched by the predecessors.

【Food that overwhelms finances】

In the 1950s, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union proposed to promote the household contract system. In the 1960s, there was even a plan to complete the household contract system in 1980. Perhaps because of the lack of urgency, they all became documents that "government orders will not leave the Kremlin." .

At the 27th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Gorbachev proposed not only to promote collective ownership in the countryside, but also to develop household contracting. In 1988, Gorbachev also proposed to implement the "agricultural leasehold contract responsibility system."

Moscow's call slowly touched the agricultural system. In May 1987, the first privately operated farms appeared in Russia's Pskov Oblast. The number reached 9,000 in 1991, but their proportion in Soviet agriculture was negligible.

Not only did the agricultural reform fail to achieve immediate results, on the contrary, due to the decline in the fertility of the Central Asian reclaimed land developed in the 1950s, coupled with climate reasons, the grain output of the Soviet Union fell all the way.

To make matters worse, a few years later, decentralization of power and the advancement of enterprise reforms will soon have a negative impact on agriculture: the price of agricultural machinery and pesticides and fertilizers will be greatly increased, and farmers will be less willing to grow grain and pay less. Withholding, the food parity supply system is unsustainable.

The food predicament of the Soviet Union will make people mistakenly think that it is the result of one-sided development of military and heavy industry and neglect of agriculture.

In fact, this is not entirely the case. Since the 1960s, the Soviet Union has continuously increased the proportion of investment in the agricultural sector. By the end of the Brezhnev era, the Soviet agricultural investment accounted for nearly 30% of the total social investment, which was much higher than that of ordinary industrial countries. .

By the early 1980s, the Soviet Union had the most extensive arable land, the highest fertilizer output, and the largest agricultural machinery output (tractors and combine harvesters), and finally changed from a traditional food exporter to the largest food importer .

It is generally believed that the food shortages and fiscal deficits that occurred in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1970s were due to the price subsidy policy that stimulated urban meat consumption, which in turn led to the demand for feed grains. However, the growth of agricultural output was slow, and food could only be imported in large quantities. Supplement the shortage of feed grain.

The real problem is that the distorted price system makes waste and inefficiency flood every link of agricultural production, and the continuous increase in agricultural incentive investment only chases up the cost of agricultural production, resulting in a vicious financial cycle. A large amount of food and meat are imported. Yes they are cheaper.

Since the mid-1970s, the annual production of tractors and combine harvesters in the Soviet Union began to lead the United States by a large margin, but by the early 1980s, the number of holdings in the Soviet Union was only half of that of the United States. Due to poor quality and lack of maintenance, the five-year scrap rate of tractors is 87%. The scrap rate of combine harvesters is 92%.

Since the number of tractors can better reflect the level of mechanization rate, the production resources allocated to supporting farm implements are seriously insufficient, resulting in idle tractors being wasted. The loss of agricultural machinery operators has caused no one to operate the equipment, and the utilization rate of tractors is only 50-60%. During the busy season, 2/3 of the combine harvesters stop working and others.

Except for European areas with high population density, there is no field management at all, especially in the Central Asian reclamation zone. During the harvest season, some potato fields have to push the weeds to see the potato seedlings. The wheat fields look like waves of wheat, but because there are too many weeds And milky yellow.

The agricultural sector is only responsible for the quantity of agricultural and livestock products in the field. From collective farms and state-run farms to state-run stores in various cities, there are long industrial chains and links such as transportation, storage, processing, packaging, and sales.

According to the classic theory of the Soviet Union, this part does not create value, so it is the least valued. It caused the Soviet Union to have a huge book food output, a large part of which could not reach the consumer end. There are different opinions about the loss of Soviet agricultural products. Academician Nikonov, an authority on Soviet agriculture, estimated that the loss of Soviet grain was 40%.

In 1988, according to the statistics of the Soviet Union’s agricultural department, the potato production was 87 million tons, but only 17.4 million tons entered the market. During this period, 60% was lost, and only 7 million tons were left when it reached the end of consumption.

In 1989, the Soviet Union purchased 60 million tons of grain from collective farms and state farms, 40 million tons of unharvested and rotting grain, and imported 40 million tons of grain.

Due to the great waste and inefficiency, the real cost of the products provided by the Soviet agricultural sector was much higher than the purchase price in the international market, and the production cost of meat and eggs was more than 50% higher. Neither the citizens on the consumption side nor the farmers on the production side benefited. .

Make producers directly responsible for agricultural output, whether it is the contract system that has not changed for twenty years or simply privatization, in a society dominated by state-owned farms and collective farms, it will encounter unimaginable difficulties.

It is easy to find technical reasons for it: vast land, high degree of mechanization, insufficient family labor, and so on. Unlike China, where the degree of production cooperation is extremely low, the land can be quickly contracted.

In fact, this is just an excuse against the contract system, not the real reason. In fact, these characteristics of Soviet agriculture are, on the contrary, where the household contract system or land privatization has more long-term advantages and potential.

Reform is actually a redistribution of power and interests, where there are beneficiaries there are losers .

Collective farms and state farms have formed a solid interest group after decades of evolution. Management, technology, service, and cultural propaganda positions in grassroots units often account for more than 20% of the staff. They are in the pyramid structure of interest distribution. occupy a priority position.

Allocating land to families or individuals is tantamount to pushing millions of people whose interests have been seriously damaged to the opposite side. It will immediately form a question of who is the capital and the surname. The reforms of Khrushchev and Kosygin finally stopped at this.

China's rural economic reform is an exceptional miracle.

Before the reform and opening up, more than 80% of China's population lived in people's communes where the government and society were integrated, and there were millions of cadres in grassroots communes and teams. If the reform severely damaged their interests, the reform would not be able to be implemented . However, there was almost no resistance for the brigade to go down.

Because there is too little food in the big pot of China's finances, grassroots communes and team cadres have no turn to eat national food. Compared with the peasants under the rule, their only benefit is that they can grab some meat to eat when they go to commune meetings .

Most of these people are local capable people. After the land contract, although they can't direct the whole village's labor force to work during the day, and call the whole village's old and young people for a meeting at night, there is a big psychological gap. get rich.

In fact, China has not been able to find a solution for large agricultural collectives - state-owned farms, forest farms, pastures, construction corps and other political and economic integration organizations. been in a dilemma for a long time. It's just that its proportion in China is relatively low, and it has no impact on the overall situation.

In 1988, the food subsidies of the Soviet Union rose to 90 billion rubles, 17 billion more than in 1985. In 1989, the fiscal deficit exceeded the 100 billion ruble mark, accounting for 21% of fiscal revenue.

In 1990, the economy deteriorated to the point that the common people thought it was necessary to break through the price barrier. The rush to buy in major cities forced the government, which had been reluctant to start it, to come up with a plan. For the first time, the problem that had troubled for decades came to the ruling and opposition parties. consensus.

However, two power centers emerged in Moscow, Gorbachev (Soviet Union) and Yeltsin (Russia), each came up with a price reform plan, and the plan dispute became the winner of a power struggle.

Yeltsin's 500-day plan received overwhelming public support. People lost patience with the CPSU's slow-moving reforms. Tens of thousands of Moscow citizens braved the rain and took to the streets to exert pressure.

Although Gorbachev was also inclined towards it in his heart, in order to appease conservatives, he finally chose a compromise version that combined the 500-day plan with Ryzhkov's conservative version.

Yeltsin was determined to take Russia away from the Soviet Union and go it alone. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and it failed to survive the price.

On January 1, 1992, Yeltsin launched the 500-day plan vigorously, and it really emptied the deposits of residents. But it took nearly 1,000 days for inflation to fall back to before breaking the barrier.

The transformation of the Soviet Union and the East in the 1980s and 1990s was a severe economic shock and even a social shock. Just reorganizing the production division chain would bring huge shocks. The division of labor and cooperation once fell to 1/4 of GDP.

And Russia is the country that failed the most in marketization and democratization transformation. When other countries in the Soviet Union and the East have already bottomed out, it is still in the process of continuous decline.

Yeltsin's land privatization did not go smoothly. Due to the Russian Communist Party's legislative attack, he could only force privatization by temporarily promulgating presidential decrees and emergency decrees.

Agriculture in the Yeltsin era was even worse than before. When it fell to the bottom in 1998, the output value of the agricultural sector was only 60% of that in 1991. However, although the sharp depreciation of the ruble made the Russian people worse, it stimulated agricultural recovery.

After Yeltsin resigned, the privatization of land finally achieved results in the hands of Putin. In 2002, Russia's "Land Code" and "Farmland Transfer Law" were promulgated, declaring the victory of land private ownership reform in Russia.

Ten years later, the number of agricultural practitioners in Russia dropped to half of what it was when the Soviet Union collapsed, only 65% of the cultivated land was used, and the stock of tractors was only a quarter of what it was in 1991. However, Russia has once again become a major grain exporter.

In 2014, Russia's grain exports equaled the imports before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and surpassed the United States to become the largest wheat exporter. As of 2021, Russia's grain exports have grown steadily, making it the second largest source of foreign exchange after energy.

【The blame cannot be all blamed on the Dnieper Gang】

Alcoholism, dating and political jokes are an important part of the daily spiritual life of the Soviets.

Lei Guanghan, who was exiled in the Soviet Union and settled in Central Asia in 1970, was shocked by the phenomenon of telling political jokes when he first entered the Soviet Union. Even when officials interrogated criminals, they would actually exchange the latest political jokes in front of the interrogators.

Compared with the Soviets of the Stalin era, the Soviet people of this generation have no political consciousness.

In the era of Stalin, forced labor and compulsory labor were common, and people did not dare to complain. In the Brezhnev era of high welfare, not only political jokes were told, but the phenomenon of stealing, grinding labor, drinking, absenteeism, and destroying tools and equipment became more and more serious . In 1979, there were more than 300 mass incidents in which workers refused to go to work due to treatment issues.

Worse than the Soviet people are the Soviet officials. The proliferation of political jokes is itself a reflection of their image in the eyes of the Soviets.

The worst performer was Brezhnev himself.

Brezhnev was Khrushchev's subordinate during his work in Ukraine. Under Khrushchev's promotion and recommendation, he entered the Central Committee in 1952. After Khrushchev became the leadership core, Brezhnev became Khrushchev's leader. Husband's right-hand man.

In October 1964, Brezhnev, Kosygin, Suslov, Shelei and others jointly ousted Khrushchev and became the general secretary.

Brezhnev was elected as the general secretary, the comrades of the Politburo summed up the experience and lessons from history, and unanimously obtained valuable opinions.

Stalin was a leader who liked to purge old comrades, who were called to meetings and sometimes worried about whether they would get home safely. After Khrushchev came to power, everyone's lives were guaranteed. However, Khrushchev's reforms were frequently changed, and the flop rate of leadership seats was even much higher than that of Stalin's era.

The advantage of Brezhnev is that he does not make troubles and is good at uniting the leadership team. Brezhnev abolished the tenure system for cadres established by Khrushchev, the renewal of the Central Committee by 1/4 each time, and the reduction of cadre salaries, etc., which ensured the status of comrades.

Even if they disagree with Brezhnev, they will not be arrested or even killed. At most, they will retire or leave the central government.

Its side effect is that the entire state apparatus grows old along with the comrades in the Politburo, and the careers of young cadres become very introverted.

What's more, Brezhnev did not shy away from relatives when he promoted talents. His son and son-in-law were all at the vice-ministerial level. One was from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the other was from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. His own children were trustworthy. large and small power groups or political gangs.

The biggest, of course, is the "Dnepropetrovsk Gang" (referred to as the Dnepr Gang) with Brezhnev himself as the core.

The name comes from the fact that Brezhnev was born in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, graduated from the Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute, and served as the first secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk State Party Committee.

After Brezhnev became the core of the new generation of leaders, he vigorously promoted friends, classmates, colleagues or subordinates whom he had met in his early revolutionary career. Most of these people came from Dnepropetrovsk.

Before Brezhnev's death, the "Dnieper Gang" had a more prominent status:

Later General Secretary Chernenko, Prime Minister Tikhonov, Secretary of the Secretariat Kirilenko, Secretary of Ukraine Shcherbytsky, Secretary of Kazakhstan Kunayev, Minister of Internal Affairs Shelokov, Minister of Defense Grezik , KGB First Vice-Chairman Zwegon, KGB Vice-Chairman Zinev, Director of the Central Office Pavlov...

KGB's second-in-command, Zwegon, had a high reputation in the Soviet Union. He was a famous spy war writer and had indirectly influenced Putin's life trajectory. After watching the TV series "17 Moments of Spring", Putin decided to join the KGB. Is the general counsel of the play. Zwegon turned from a writer to the second in command of the KGB. One is that he has created a large number of spy works, and the other is that he and Brezhnev are brother-in-law.

In addition, Air Force Marshal Bugayev, Minister of Civil Aviation, used to be Brezhnev's private jet pilot.

The "Dnieper Gang" has almost monopolized the power of the top. Getting acquainted with or hooking up with this line is the best political way to climb up. The "Dnepr Gang" has thus become the corruption engine of the times.

The major corruption cases representative of the Soviet Union at that time included: the Uzbekistan cotton case, the herring roe export case, the Azerbaijan sale of officials case, the Medunov case, the Shelokov case, and the jewelry and diamond smuggling case. Most of them involve high-level members of the "Dnepr Gang".

They fully demonstrate the diversity of corruption: some sell to officials and party members at a clear price, some cooperate with overseas businessmen to sell export materials cheaply, some have monopoly sales licenses, and some embezzle public funds.

The major case among the major cases is the cotton embezzlement case headed by Rashidov, the leader of Uzbekistan and Brezhnev’s confidant. Gorbachev came to power to investigate again, until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the case was not really thoroughly investigated.

Almost all middle and high-level officials in Uzbekistan were involved. 56,000 people were arrested and interrogated in this case, and 27,000 officials were sentenced, including 3 deputy state-level officials and more than 100 ministerial-level officials.

Many people were dragged into the water because of their participation in the investigation of the case. For example, Brezhnev’s son-in-law and Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Churbanov, his crimes were exposed as early as 1983, but in 1986 Gorbachev’s second The round of anti-corruption was put on trial.

During Andropov’s anti-corruption and production discipline campaign, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union expelled 420,000 party members. After Gorbachev came to power, nearly 500,000 party members were expelled in four years.

During Andropov’s first year in power, more than 70 ministers and state party secretaries were dismissed and investigated for corruption. Due to the severe corruption in the party and government system, Andropov only trusted KGB officials, and even set up a petition department in the KGB. The KGB's unique role in Andropov's anti-corruption has profoundly influenced Putin later .

During Andropov's anti-corruption campaign, two senior members of the "Dnepr gang" committed suicide.

One is Minister of Internal Affairs Shlokov. Because of corruption and suspected political murder, he shot himself and left a note to Chernenko before his death: "Please don't let the villain slander me, it will damage the prestige of leaders at all levels, this is Bo It was what everyone went through before Lezhnev took office."

The other suicide was the second in command of the KGB and former spy war writer Tsweikon. The official cause of suicide has not been determined.

Three years after Gorbachev came to power, all members of the Politburo and the "Dnepr Gang" among the alternate members of the Politburo completed their retirement. At the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the fourth year, more than 100 members of the Central Committee were dismissed at one time on the grounds of youth.

So far, the "Dnepr Gang" in the central leadership sequence has basically been cleaned up, but there is one legacy of the "Dnepr Gang" that the Gorbachevs can't get rid of at all:

During the Brezhnev era, the power to appoint local officials was delegated to the states and localities . "Gang" and combined with nationalism to form a special interest alliance .

Gorbachev just drove the leader away, but the results of the intertwined organization cannot be destroyed. Except for the three Baltic countries that were truly democratized, the "Dnepr Gang" has profoundly affected the political ecology of most newly independent countries in the post-Soviet era. .

In the more than two decades after Ukraine's independence, politicians were often riddled with corruption. The most notorious ones were President-elect Kuchma in 1994, Prime Minister Lazarenko in 1996, and Prime Minister Tymoshin in 2005. division. All three are from Dnepropetrovsk.

Among the three major Ukrainian oligarchs, Victor Pinchuk and Igor Kolomoisky are also from Dnepropetrovsk. They are called the contemporary "Dnepr Gang".

Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan is the highest achiever of the "Dnepr Gang". Nazarbayev studied at the technical school of the Dnipro Metallurgical Plant in Dniproperzhinsky from 1958 to 1960, and was regarded as Brezhnev's elementary school brother.

With the relationship of the leader's apprentice, he became the second person in Kazakhstan after Kunayev at the age of 44. He became the top leader of Kazakhstan in 1989 and worked until the transfer of power to Tokayev in 2021. Up to 32 years.

It would be unfair to blame Brezhnev.

The problem of privileges at the end of the Soviet Union was so serious that when Gorbachev launched the anti-privilege movement, the common people did not believe that they would turn against themselves, so they spontaneously organized to collect evidence of official privileges. With the loosening of policies, their anger quickly turned from officials to the system .

The privilege system was founded by Stalin, and the systemization and standardization of special goods, special medical care, special housing, special education, etc. were all formed here. It is a reward mechanism for the loyalty of subordinates to superiors , just like workers who produce more parts in factories Should get the TV as a matter of course.

The privileges of the Brezhnev era were nothing more than a rise in standards and inclusiveness as productivity increased.

In terms of cadre selection, the superior appointment system replaced the early democratic elections, which began with Lenin; the cadre policies of Lenin and Stalin were never universal, and there was no term system. Khrushchev, who tried to break it, was opposed by the middle and high levels of the party. Collective opposition.

The composition of the "Dnieper Gang" shows that Brezhnev is not bad at least, he is not cruel and cruel, so he will not gather a group of cruel officials around him, he has no grand plans, and he will not gather ambitious young people and reject old cadres. He was afraid of being ruined by his comrades like Khrushchev, so the Politburo was full of trusted acquaintances.

He is a person who loves life, and he is not as keen on grasping production discipline as his predecessors were, making workers and peasants fly like dogs, so that workers and peasants, like cadres, have the opportunity to dig into the corners of socialism to improve their lives.

He is a sympathetic person. In 1969, collective farm members could move around freely with domestic passports issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs like urban residents. They did not have to obtain the approval of the village committee and live in non-village villages as before. shall not exceed 30 days.

Perhaps comparable to corruption in Brezhnev's negative legacy is the size of party officials.

During Brezhnev’s 18 years in power, the establishment of party and government agencies expanded fivefold. There were 18.6 million people eating in party and government agencies throughout the Soviet Union, accounting for 15% of the total employed population, and the annual headcount was 40 billion rubles. There are more than 800 ministers and deputy ministers of various ministries and commissions.

In order to match the extraordinary achievements of a powerful and powerful country, in the 1970s the Soviet Union launched hundreds of new newspapers and magazines, and established a large number of social science and cultural institutions to study and summarize why the Soviet Union is so powerful.

The institutional expansion of the Brezhnev era was actually just a kind of organizational inertia.

What Lenin created was a system in which the party manages all social affairs, and it naturally needs more cadres . Compared with the Tsarist Russian regime before the 1917 revolution, the Soviet government in 1921 had ten times the number of state institutions and four times the number of people.

Government organizations have a natural tendency to expand. Under a democratic system, the restraining power comes from the parliament at the same level, relying on the soft constraints of the budget. Under the Soviet system, the restraining power came from the superior, relying on rigid administrative orders.

Under the Soviet system, plans are laws and orders are laws, and party and government organs can empower themselves at any time. Even Khrushchev, who loves streamlining institutions, finds it difficult to control the expansion of institutions.

From 1954 to 1956, Khrushchev drastically cut nearly one million off-duty management positions. In 1957, he changed the vertical management of the central ministries and commissions of industry and construction into local management, and abolished 144 ministries affiliated to the central government and the Republic. , handed over to the local 104 committees.

However, after the enterprise was transferred to territorial management, the local establishment underwent a series of overlapping designs, but it swelled violently. In the end, the total staff establishment tripled. The reduction of planned intervention also failed, vertical intervention was replaced by horizontal command, and accidents occurred that increased local barriers and undermined supply cooperation.

Generally speaking, the situation is grim. It is necessary to streamline the organization, reduce intervention, and promote social and productive development. No one will oppose the reform. As long as the reform does not change on its own head, in the final analysis it is a redistribution of power and interests.

But if the organization is so large that reforms and streamlining begin when society's financial resources are exhausted, it will sooner or later turn the entire bureaucratic apparatus into an ally against reform.

【unbreakable alliance】

On March 17, 1971, in the dense forest of Daugavpils, Latvia, 700 Red Army soldiers surrounded the bunker of 24 "Forest Brothers" guerrillas. The battle ended at 5:30 am and ended at 1:30 noon. It marked the end of organized separatist forces in the Soviet Union.

But separatism emerged in a way that was parasitic within the Soviet regime.

In 1960, Khrushchev had a whim, since the southern part of Kazakhstan is also a cotton-producing area, and the task assigned to Uzbekistan is to specialize in cotton production, why not allocate this land to Uzbekistan, which is conducive to the overall planning of the cotton industry.

Secretary of Kazakhstan Kunayev was the first generation of senior Kazakh cadres trained by the Soviet Communist Party. Due to reason and reason, he did not support Khrushchev's brainstorming plan, so he was transferred from the post of secretary.

In 1964, Kunayev's old boss, Brezhnev, came to power. He returned to the throne of Secretary of Kazakhstan and stayed until Gorbachev came to power. This veritable local emperor, with his cronies all over the place of power, is like an ancient khan.

On the night of December 16, 1986, Kunayev was defeated. On the morning of the 17th, a large number of Kazakh students took to the streets shouting Kunayev's name. On the 18th, the riot was suppressed by the Soviet Internal Affairs Forces, known as the Almaty incident in history.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Kunayev, the only Kazakh who entered the Politburo, became a national hero, and landmarks named after him spread all over Kazakhstan.

Even more outrageous is the Uzbek cotton case.

In 1983, Uzbekistan's leader Rashidov shot himself knowing that he was guilty. However, around 1988, public opinion began to reverse. Due to the fact that there were "superior means" during the KGB investigation, a large number of those investigated claimed that they were persecuted by Stalin's anti-transformation. Uzbekistan appeared to sympathize with and even praise Rashidov, and then believed that this was Great Russia. persecution in Uzbekistan.

Today, Rashidov entered the contemporary history of Uzbekistan as a national hero. Rashidov's mausoleum, monument and memorial hall are all located in the center of the capital.

Similarly, in the major corruption cases in Azerbaijan and Georgia, many corrupt leaders who were deposed and punished were later sought after as national heroes. To some extent, Gorbachev's anti-corruption and reforms cut off the unbreakable alliance that maintained the Soviet Union.

The most deadly alliance rupture was that of Gorbachev's Reform Alliance.

After Gorbachev came to power, he automatically chose to become political allies with Ligachev and Ryzhkov who Andropov had promoted to the Politburo, and then Yeltsin, Shevardnadze, Yakovlev Promoted to the political inner circle. And these men were older than Gorbachev.

Ligachev and Yeltsin are both known for their honesty, self-discipline, and inhumanity. Gorbachev gave them the sole responsibility. Yakovlev has a broad vision and emancipated ideas. Familiar with the industrial sector, ideal for a prime minister.

However, how long political allies can last depends on how far the reforms go .

Ligachev, whom Gorbachev relied most on, had cherished each other and recommended each other when they first entered the Central Committee. As soon as Gorbachev came to power, Veligachev acted as the second-in-command with full powers.

However, Gorbachev appointed Yakovlev, a theoretical think tank, as the Minister of Propaganda in order to reform the theory, which overlapped with Ligachev's ideological powers. This separation of powers planted the seeds of distrust between the two .

As the head of party affairs, Ligachev is naturally keenly alert and resistant to weakening the party's control over society and weakening the party's prestige. On uncovering the "historical issue", Ligachev believed that "family scandals should not be publicized".

As the "Dnieper Gang" in the Politburo was gradually eliminated, Ligachev gradually became a "conservative" in the Politburo.

In February 1988, Ligachev, who saw Yakovlev's rapid progress in publicity, was worried. He took Gorbachev to visit and organized the publication of an article, emphasizing that historical research should not damage the party's prestige. Gorbachev issued a counterattack after returning home.

The "war between the two newspapers" incident led to the publicization of conflicts. Ligachev's second-in-command position was shaken, and his duties were changed to in charge of agricultural policy. Conservatives gradually gathered around Ligachev, forming a strong constraint on Gorbachev.

Ryzhkov once served as the director of the Ural Heavy Machinery Plant, known as the "Father of the Factory", and later actually undertook the formulation of the Soviet Union's economic plan. The cooperation with Gorbachev began at the end of 1982 when Andropov entrusted them Drafting the outline of economic reforms, which is where Gorbachev's "acceleration strategy" came from after he came to power.

Ryzhkov was not too interested in historical issues, and he did not support political system reforms, but he did not explicitly oppose them. However, at the June 1987 Plenary Session and the Supreme Soviet regular meeting, he and other high-level party members had a dispute with Gorbachev on the price issue. He argued, this is his one-acre three-point land.

Due to the exacerbation of the imbalance caused by the "acceleration strategy", Gorbachev believes that if the price system is not loosened, it will be difficult to make real progress in economic reform. Ryzhkov believed that Gorbachev was bewitched by Yakovlev, and Gorbachev did not receive the support of the majority.

Ryzhkov represented a huge government department under a strict planning system. Until 1990, the goals of economic reforms were still inconsistent. Gorbachev had always emphasized "state-regulated market economy" in public, and Ryzhko Huo emphasized "a planned economy regulated by the market."

However, the drastic changes in the political economy, especially Yeltsin's unexpected rise to aggressively seize the initiative in reform, forced Ryzhkov to formulate a reform plan for "transition to a market economy" in the spring of 1990.

This plan was Ryzhkov's last effort. At this time, the survival of the party was no longer important. He wanted to keep the Union state, and he was so exhausted that he had a heart attack. However, Ryzhkov's name was not included in Gorbachev's cabinet list in January 1991.

Shevardnadze parted ways with Gorbachev a month before Ryzhkov.

Shevardnadze was Gorbachev's best ally.

When Gorbachev made Gromyko the chairman of the Supreme Soviet to thank him for his assistance, and gave the foreign minister to Shevardnadze, he was only known as an anti-corruption maniac before, and his resume had nothing to do with diplomacy.

In terms of enthusiasm for new diplomatic thinking, Shevardnadze is obviously higher than Gorbachev himself. The accusations and criticisms of losing power and humiliating the country are mainly borne by Gorbachev. Of the husband's liberal allies, only Shevardnadze had the opportunity to share.

As pressure mounts on the unexpected rise of conservatives in the party and Yeltsin's radicals, Shevardnadze is at odds with Gorbachev, who he believes has compromised too much with conservatives, especially the military. Fang and the KGB forces gave in too much.

In the summer of 1989, the situation of the three countries in the Baltic Sea changed dramatically, and they began to fight for independence. Gorbachev turned to the conservatives in Shevardnadze's eyes. In his view, Gorbachev was not so much maintaining the integrity of the Soviet Union as a Maintain a position of power.

In December 1990, the Soviet army used force to quell the ethnic disputes in Shevardnadze's hometown of Georgia, and used force to deal with the independence of the three Baltic countries. Shevardnadze was completely disappointed. When he publicly resigned, he left a sentence: The reformers are gone, the dictatorship Those are here .

Although at the last moment before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Shevardnadze extended a helping hand to the troubled Gorbachev and reappointed the foreign minister, but he was completely on the side of Yeltsin at that time.

Without Yeltsin, the fate of Gorbachev and the Soviet Union might have been very different.

Yeltsin, like Ligachev, never took a special car and insisted on commuting to get off work by bus, but Ligachev was a serious and rigid party and government cadre, while Yeltsin was a rare outlier among Soviet Communist Party officials who could mingle with workers.

Although known for his professional dedication, Yeltsin was still the head of the grassroots department at the age of 45 because of his rebelliousness. This year, he was strongly recommended by Ryabov and promoted to the secretary of the state party committee. them.

Ligachev was the first to admire Yeltsin. He believed that Yeltsin's decisiveness and strict execution were suitable for pioneering reforms. On his recommendation, Yeltsin became the Minister of Construction.

Yeltsin was a ruthless person. Ryabov had strongly recommended him to Brezhnev, but after Yeltsin gained power, he never repaid this supporter with his authority. Yeltsin was also unequivocal about Ligachev. After the ban on alcohol was introduced, Yeltsin relentlessly attacked Ligachev's policy as absurd and extremely ignorant.

It's just that Yeltsin implemented the ban on alcohol without restraint. Gorbachev also believed that Yeltsin was upright and fierce, a rare talent. Only Ryzhkov opposed the continued promotion of Yeltsin, although they agreed on the prohibition policy.

Yeltsin lived up to Gorbachev's expectations after being promoted to the secretary of the Moscow Municipal Party Committee. Grishin, Gorbachev's old rival, stayed in the Politburo for 24 years, and Moscow was his deep cultivation. Yeltsin Destroyed Grishin's organization with a thunderstorm.

At the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1986, Yeltsin became an alternate member of the Politburo, but the momentum he set off and the tremendous energy he displayed seemed to have become a new force after Ligachev. number three.

Yeltsin, who trusted Gorbachev so much, was like a big fighting dog without a leash, making Moscow's long-dreary officialdom jump around. Soon, he turned from attacking individual bureaucrats to pointing at the entire privileged system.

Most comrades feel that the phenomenon of privilege must be rectified, because some people have gone too far with excessive treatment. Of course, the cadres are not used to this kind of internal specialization.

However, Yeltsin directly wanted to abolish all the privileged systems such as special supply stores, internal hospitals, government canteens, schools for the children of cadres, and nursing homes for senior cadres, which finally aroused the collective indignation of the entire cadre team.

Gorbachev's attitude towards Yeltsin cooled down quickly, and he kept beating Yeltsin not to overdo it. Offend the entire party and government system.

However, Yeltsin, who was anti-bureaucratic and anti-privileged, had no intention of stopping. Gorbachev did not want to become the second Khrushchev, so he could only let Yeltsin be Khrushchev.

In the June meeting of 1987, Gorbachev's ideologue Yakovlev entered the Politburo, and Yeltsin, the vanguard general, was still an alternate. At the meeting, the two factions argued fiercely, and Yeltsin, who was heartbroken, was still willing to be the pioneer, and criticized Ligachev for obstructing reforms, but was mercilessly ridiculed by Gorbachev.

At the meeting four months later, Yeltsin made a lengthy speech without permission, complaining that the pace of reform and opening up was too slow, leading to poverty for the people, and fiercely attacking corruption within the party. Gorbachev, angry and embarrassed, left the meeting on the spot.

Yeltsin finally paid a heavy price for his Khrushchev-style recklessness. He lost his position as secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, was kicked out of the Politburo, and demoted to the chairman of the Construction Committee.

【Unstoppable Terminator of Destiny】

As the leader of the fifth generation, Gorbachev is naturally a weak general secretary.

He was pushed to the fore by old comrades mainly because everyone did not want to see the crisis of successive death of leaders in old age. He neither had a strong organizational resource team, nor could he rely on the economic benefits brought about by reforms to gain widespread public opinion.

To deal with the huge opposition forces within the party, he can only change the political power by opening up his speech. First, he can gain the support of public opinion.

It was an option not to be taken lightly, but Gorbachev had no choice.

The danger of opening speeches is that, although the citizens may be inspired by the emancipation of the mind for a while, the moral resources of the party will be quickly lost as a result, and the legitimacy of governance will be shaken. Moreover, the opening of speech can only be loosened and never tightened. Once the nationals who have tasted the sweetness encounter the tightening of speech, they will immediately rebound.

It's a dilemma:

1. The party is the source of power and status, and speech must be controlled, but maintaining the party's position will lead to loss of public opinion;

2. Throwing away the moral burden of the party and directly connecting with public opinion will encounter institutional opposition and repeat the Khrushchev tragedy;

Gorbachev must constantly find a balance point, and promote reforms through continuous control of power.

The rise of Yeltsin broke this balance. The huge energy released by Gorbachev's political reform was hijacked by Yeltsin halfway, and he became an invincible terminator.

In 1987, Gorbachev launched political reforms, lifted the "father of the hydrogen bomb" Sakharov and other dissidents from house arrest and exile, and the psychiatric hospital where the thought criminals were locked was emptied, and the air in the entire Soviet Union was filled with demands A call for reform.

Gorbachev was right in one judgment: the old intellectuals who were persecuted in the Brezhnev era lost their topicality and lethality immediately after regaining their freedom and even being confessed. They were out of touch with the times and had little social appeal.

But there is one thing that no one expected, the younger generation who are freed from the system have huge energy for activities. They are good at capturing social hot spots and arousing public emotions. They are good at street activities instead of writing open letters at home.

This huge anti-system force, when lacking leaders, looks like stragglers. Once there are leaders with broad appeal, they will gather together and explode with huge energy.

The times just needed people like Yeltsin.

The performance of succeeding the secretary of the Moscow Municipal Party Committee made the citizens miss the secretary of the Municipal Party Committee who took the bus to and from get off work every day, missed him tossing the officials in circles, missed his heart-to-heart conversations with the citizens, and missed him really caring about the vegetable market...

Yeltsin’s outburst, one of which has become a popular quote: Comrades, I find it difficult to explain to a worker why the starch in their sausages is always is more than meat.

The common people, who had long been dissatisfied with the privileged rule of the CPSU, regarded Yeltsin as a hero who truly belonged to the people. Now, this anti-establishment hero of the people was expelled from the Politburo and immediately became a condensation nucleus, and various groups and organizations gathered around him.

In the summer of 1988, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held its Nineteenth National Congress. Gorbachev successfully incorporated the concepts of protection of civil rights, judicial independence, and the assumption of innocence into party resolutions. It calls for a change in the country's political system and a clear division of the functions of the party and state organs.

By weakening the party's dictatorship and giving up its monopoly on power, Gorbachev weakened the power of conservatives in the party. Gorbachev's victory gave Yeltsin a free ride and sowed the seeds of the Soviet Union's demise.

With the support of all the people, Yeltsin was determined to return to the political stage of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He returned to the constituency where he worked as a party representative. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union ordered local party members to boycott Yeltsin. As a result, the workers threatened to strike, and telegrams supporting Yeltsin spread across the country like snowflakes.

Yeltsin returned to the party's political arena and proposed a series of democratization measures such as the party should be elected from top to bottom, which was criticized by Ligachev and others, and his expectation of restoring his political identity and reputation was completely dashed.

Yeltsin completely lost confidence in the CPSU. At this time, he has become the spokesperson of the people's interests and the body of reform, while Gorbachev, who must rely on the party's power organs to give orders, is no longer the leader of reform worth looking forward to, but the spokesperson of the bureaucracy .

In 1989, under the impetus of Gorbachev, the first National People's Congress was held. This was a major reform that moved the center of power from the Party Congress to the National People's Congress. In this way, his power would no longer come entirely from the Party. .

The results of Gorbachev's political reforms were once again reaped by Yeltsin.

Yeltsin was elected to the National People's Congress with 89.6% of the votes, while Gorbachev was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet. But Yeltsin had to go one step further, and Gorbachev had to prevent it. During the election of the Supreme Soviet, the party members who accepted the orders of their superiors collectively "elected" Yeltsin by secret ballot.

On May 28, more than 70,000 citizens of Moscow took to the streets to support Yeltsin and publicly shouted various reactionary slogans. If Yeltsin does not enter the Supreme Soviet, I am sorry for the expectations of people in my hometown. Yeltsin entered the Supreme Soviet through a by-election.

Yeltsin's consecutive victories made him see the power of the people, but the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which has a huge number of party members and millions of armed forces, is actually vulnerable. His strength came from the streets, whereas Gorbachev was nothing once he was out of office .

Gorbachev also noticed the power of public opinion. In February 1989, he proposed to amend the one-party ruling clause of the constitution to implement a multi-party system and a presidential system. 500,000 Moscow citizens rallied to support Gorbachev. Conservatives in the party surrendered.

In March 1990, Gorbachev was elected as the first president of the Soviet Union at the Extraordinary People's Congress.

In April 1990, Gorbachev met with the prime ministers of neighboring countries in the south. According to the latter's recollection, Gorbachev once said that political reforms should be carried out too early, and economic reforms should be carried out first.

This remorse may be wishful thinking. Without political reforms, Gorbachev was powerless to promote economic reforms. He did not have an established position within the party, and he could not modify the definition of socialism at will to solve the doubts that the economic system reforms belonged to capitalists and society .

At the 28th National Congress in July 1990, Gorbachev truly defeated the conservatives. The weapons were openness and democratization. The collective condemnation and siege of the Politburo by grassroots representatives defeated the conservatives. Public voting results, Ligachev and others out.

Of course, Gorbachev could change his words and declare that the previous openness and democratization, which allowed the common people to flourish, were in fact "a conspiracy to lure snakes out of their holes," and then categorically arrest Yeltsin and the leaders of large and small groups who supported him.

Of course, there was a huge price to be paid, and public opinion demanding an end to the dictatorship was extremely high. In 1989, there were nearly 5,000 mass rallies throughout the Soviet Union, with 16 million participants. By 1990, the situation became even more out of control.

Faced with such a dangerous public opinion, it is no longer possible to take decisive measures only by the leader's personal will.

If drastic measures are taken, it will be tantamount to ruining the reform, and Gorbachev will become the second Stalin.

In fact, Gorbachev had made similar efforts. In March 1991, in order to deter the determination of the Central Committee of the Alliance to deter the separation tendency of the republics, Soviet tanks and soldiers gathered outside the site of the Russian People's Congress. But hundreds of thousands of Moscow citizens took to the streets to support Yeltsin.

Gorbachev backed away.

Compared with the Kronstadt sailors who were able to turn their guns to suppress the vanguard of the October Revolution after the success of Lenin's revolution, and compared with Stalin's ability to shoot most of the cadres trained by Lenin, Gorbachev is indeed a weak and wavering person.

No one can stop Yeltsin.

Yeltsin, who played triumphant songs all the way, was appointed as the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation and then the president of the Russian Federation. In the end, the political life of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev was buried.

No one among the conservative CPSU dared to resist this historical torrent. The planners of the August 19 incident were not for saving the party-state, but for their own power.

On July 29, 1991, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Nazarbayev met in secret and decided to send Vice President Yanayev, KGB Kryuchkov, Minister of Defense Yazov, and Minister of Internal Affairs Pugo Drive out of the core of power. When things were leaked, they temporarily organized an emergency committee and put Gorbachev under house arrest.

If you have deep feelings for the Soviet Union, you must say that the disintegration of the Soviet Union was deliberately planned by Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and you can indeed find personal motives: Gorbachev's two aunts and uncles starved to death, and his grandfather and maternal grandfather were both killed by political power. Arrested, Yeltsin's father was sent to the Gulag for three years for inciting subversion.

But at the moment when they stood on the stage of history and launched reforms, they did not have such a long-term plan at all.

Although Yeltsin is considered to be the number one gravedigger in the Soviet Union, Korzakov, the captain of the guard who has followed him loyally for many years, believes that among the officials of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union he knows, Yeltsin is the most loyal and true communist.

Out of respect for Yeltsin, after Yeltsin was dismissed, Korzakov ran to serve as Yeltsin's bodyguard at his own expense.

If the ultimate goal of the reform is to achieve the development of society and productivity by eliminating the arbitrary empowerment of party and government organs, it will actually mean the de-Sovietization of the regime. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was inevitable .

The repeated reforms in the history of the Soviet Union proved that reforms must go to the end, or they will definitely go back.

What about another person? Perhaps the Russian Political Review commentary on Gorbachev's failure is suitable for everyone:

"He plays with the country like a housewife handles a cabbage. He thinks that as long as he peels off the rotten leaves on the outside, there will be good intentions on the inside, and he keeps peeling off until it's all gone."

Gorbachev was asked about the epitaph before his death. He replied: I don't have my own epitaph, but I will tell you what I read from the tombstone of a friend. This sentence is engraved in my heart-we tried.