Overthrow of the Soviet Union

The overthrow of the Soviet Union was the process of bourgeois counter-revolution which culminated in the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) into independent states in December of 1991. Among the various causes for dissolution was the organization of a bourgeois class inside the USSR under a 'shadow economy' which effectively guaranteed their interests through corrupt officials of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). It's generally accepted that the political and economic policies of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and ultimately Gorbachev paved the way for counter-revolution in the USSR.

Background

After Stalin's death, Khrushchev was elected general secretary of the CPSU, and began a "de-Stalinization" campaign. Khrushchev and later reformers had ideological ties with Bukharin,^[1]^[2] who supported the NEP and the bourgeois elements it created.^[3] Under Khrushchev, the sixth five-year plan advocated for wage equalizations which would eventually cause discontent among the Soviet intelligentsia, which earned less than skilled workers.^[4] This prompted many workers to pursuit alternative sources of income through illegal private economic activity for personal gain.^[5] Over time, these personal gains amounted to concentrations of wealth and gave rise to a petty-bourgeois class of people who depended on private economic activity for most or all of their income.^[6] Thus began the development of a "second economy" in parallel to socialist economy.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected general secretary of the CPSU by the Politburo after Konstantin Chernenko's death. His liberal policies led to nationalism and ethnic conflict.^[7] Eventually, all of the soviet republics proclaimed sovereignty, although they did not secede until later. This started with Estonia on November 16, 1988, and ended with Kyrgyzstan on December 15, 1990.

Breakup

In 1990 and 1991, the now-sovereign republics seceded from the Soviet Union, starting with the Baltic states. A referendum was held in March of 1991 in which 78% of the population voted to keep the Soviet Union, but this referendum was later ignored.^[8] In August, several CPSU officials attempted to overthrow Gorbachev but the coup collapsed after three days.^[9] On September 6, 1991, the secession of the Baltics was recognized. On December 25, Gorbachev resigned and gave his power to the neoliberal Boris Yeltsin. The next day, the Soviet Union was dissolved.

Results

After the USSR was overthrown, wars began in Chechnya, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Tajikistan. These conflicts led to nearly 200,000 deaths, plus additional deaths from ethnic conflicts and pogroms.^[10]

There is growing nostalgia for the Soviet era in many countries. In 2020, only 18% of Russians disagreed that the Soviet Union was the best time in Russia's history.^[11] 78% of Russians 35 years or older said that the overthrow of the USSR was bad for their country.^[12]

Causes

The overthrow of the Soviet Union came across as a shock to most people and there have been several attempts to explain the debacle. The causes behind the fall have been said to be external pressure by imperialism, economic stagnation and the rise of black markets, the defeatist policies of Gorbachev and even the entire socialist project being too authoritarian, bureaucratic,etc.

The external pressure argument is upheld by hawkish conservatives who celebrate Ronald Reagan's hostile policies towards the Soviet Union. It, however, doesn't account ofr the fact that the Soviet Union had suffered similar hostility earlier but wasn't shattered.

Although economic growth of the Soviet Union had been falling, pinning its fall to the stagnation ignores the fact that the Soviet Union was then at its apex of power in terms of influence and living standards of its citizens.

Attempts to Restore the USSR

Black October

In September and October of 1993, the Supreme Soviet and many opposition protesters attempted to remove Yeltsin from power. Yeltsin responded by sending tanks to shell the parliament building. 147 people were killed and over 400 were wounded and Yeltsin abolished the Soviets.^[13]

1996 election

By 1996, Yeltsin was very unpopular and had an approval rate below 10% in the polls.^[14] He was given a $10 billion loan from the United States that made him win the election against Gennady Zuganov, the KPRF candidate.

References

↑ “In general, the analysis of the economic problems fell into the two traditional camps: the camp with ideological links to Bukharin and Khrushchev and the camp with links to Lenin and Stalin. The former saw the problems as due to over-centralization, and for it the solution was decentralization, the use of market mechanisms, and the allowance of certain forms of private enterprise.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 46). [LG]
↑ “Moreover, the literature pertinent to the economic debates of the 1960s and later, the evaluations of the performance of the economic model in the past and present, and the criticisms and proposals for change, show an amazing parallelism, even similarity, to the debates of the 1920s in theme, wording, and phraseology. As the intellectual map of the present controversy unfolded, it became entirely clear that it contained hints, allusions, plagiarized quotations, unnamed authorities, and direct and indirect use of ideas of personalities of the 1920s, who were apparently irrelevant and long forgotten and some of whom were executed and buried in infamy in the 1930s. It was not difficult to find the missing pieces in this jigsaw puzzle: central among them is N. I. Bukharin, the leader of the last important opposition to Stalin.

[...]

It was astonishing to discover how many ideas of Bukharin's anti-Stalinist program of 1928-1929 were adopted by current reformers as their own and how much of their critique of past practices followed his strictures and prophecies even in their expression”

Moshe Lewin (1974). Political undercurrents in Soviet Economic debates: from Bukharin to the modern reformers (pp. xii-xiii). [LG]
↑ “Stalin’s main opposition on this point came from Bukharin, who in 1919 had made an about-face from opposing self-determination to embracing it. By 1923, Bukharin not only supported the NEP and the petty capitalists created by it but also advocated a hands-off approach toward this class’ growing nationalism.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 24). [LG]
↑ “The very success of socialism had created a vast urbanized and educated intelligentsia in the Soviet sense of white-collar, non-manual workers. Some of this intelligentsia felt disadvantaged by the wage equalization that had occurred since the 1950s. For example, doctors, teachers, engineers, and administrators typically earned less than skilled workers did. Moreover, increased travel and communication had made the intelligentsia aware that they enjoyed a lower standard of living than their counterparts in the West.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 84). [LG]
↑ “After 1953, a new economic basis for bourgeois ideas began growing within socialism. This basis was the population engaged in private economic activity for personal gain, in a so-called second economy that existed beside the first, socialist economy. At first, the very existence of a second economy was disguised by its interpenetration of the first or socialized economy. The second economy usually did not involve a separate class of people, but rather workers and farmers in the primary economy who spent time making money on the side in legal or illegal, private activity. Increasingly, however, in the post-war years, the second economy embraced more and more people and accounted for more and more of their income and in effect re-created a petty bourgeois stratum.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 63). [LG]
↑ “Most scholars agreed that by the 1980s the second economy reached into every nook and cranny of the society and touched almost everyone. In a reference to private money-making, Brezhnev himself remarked, “No one lives on wages alone.” What was important, however, was not petty pilfering or the purchase of black market goods, but the emergence of a layer of people who depended upon private activity for all or a substantial portion of their income. Some people became exceedingly wealthy and acquired the name, the “Brezhnev new rich.” Such people could rightly be considered a nascent class of petty bourgeoisie.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 75). [LG]
↑ Mark R. Beissinger (2017). Nationalism and the Collapse of Soviet Union (pp. 5–6). [PDF] Princeton University.
↑ Dieter Nohlen, Philip Stöver (2010). Elections in Europe: A data handbook (p. 1647). ISBN 9783832956097
↑ A. V. Ostrovskiy (2011). Stupidity or treason? Investigation into the death of the USSR (Russian: Глупость или измена? Расследование гибели СССР) (p. 864).
↑ Gordon M. Hahn (2017). Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West and the "New Cold War". McFarland. ISBN 9781476628752
↑ Andrei Nikerichev (2020-03-24). "75% of Russians Say Soviet Era Was 'Greatest Time' in Country’s History – Poll" The Moscow Times. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
↑ David Masci (2017-06-29). "In Russia, nostalgia for Soviet Union and positive feelings about Stalin" Pew Research Center. Retrieved 2022-01-02.
↑ Jonathan Steele, David Hearst (1993-10-05). "Yeltsin crushes revolt" The Guardian.
↑ Lilia Shevtsova (1999). Yeltsin's Russia Myths and Reality (p. 156). Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

[1] “In general, the analysis of the economic problems fell into the two traditional camps: the camp with ideological links to Bukharin and Khrushchev and the camp with links to Lenin and Stalin. The former saw the problems as due to over-centralization, and for it the solution was decentralization, the use of market mechanisms, and the allowance of certain forms of private enterprise.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 46). [LG]

[2] “Moreover, the literature pertinent to the economic debates of the 1960s and later, the evaluations of the performance of the economic model in the past and present, and the criticisms and proposals for change, show an amazing parallelism, even similarity, to the debates of the 1920s in theme, wording, and phraseology. As the intellectual map of the present controversy unfolded, it became entirely clear that it contained hints, allusions, plagiarized quotations, unnamed authorities, and direct and indirect use of ideas of personalities of the 1920s, who were apparently irrelevant and long forgotten and some of whom were executed and buried in infamy in the 1930s. It was not difficult to find the missing pieces in this jigsaw puzzle: central among them is N. I. Bukharin, the leader of the last important opposition to Stalin.

[...]

It was astonishing to discover how many ideas of Bukharin's anti-Stalinist program of 1928-1929 were adopted by current reformers as their own and how much of their critique of past practices followed his strictures and prophecies even in their expression”

Moshe Lewin (1974). Political undercurrents in Soviet Economic debates: from Bukharin to the modern reformers (pp. xii-xiii). [LG]

[3] “Stalin’s main opposition on this point came from Bukharin, who in 1919 had made an about-face from opposing self-determination to embracing it. By 1923, Bukharin not only supported the NEP and the petty capitalists created by it but also advocated a hands-off approach toward this class’ growing nationalism.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 24). [LG]

[4] “The very success of socialism had created a vast urbanized and educated intelligentsia in the Soviet sense of white-collar, non-manual workers. Some of this intelligentsia felt disadvantaged by the wage equalization that had occurred since the 1950s. For example, doctors, teachers, engineers, and administrators typically earned less than skilled workers did. Moreover, increased travel and communication had made the intelligentsia aware that they enjoyed a lower standard of living than their counterparts in the West.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 84). [LG]

[5] “After 1953, a new economic basis for bourgeois ideas began growing within socialism. This basis was the population engaged in private economic activity for personal gain, in a so-called second economy that existed beside the first, socialist economy. At first, the very existence of a second economy was disguised by its interpenetration of the first or socialized economy. The second economy usually did not involve a separate class of people, but rather workers and farmers in the primary economy who spent time making money on the side in legal or illegal, private activity. Increasingly, however, in the post-war years, the second economy embraced more and more people and accounted for more and more of their income and in effect re-created a petty bourgeois stratum.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 63). [LG]

[6] “Most scholars agreed that by the 1980s the second economy reached into every nook and cranny of the society and touched almost everyone. In a reference to private money-making, Brezhnev himself remarked, “No one lives on wages alone.” What was important, however, was not petty pilfering or the purchase of black market goods, but the emergence of a layer of people who depended upon private activity for all or a substantial portion of their income. Some people became exceedingly wealthy and acquired the name, the “Brezhnev new rich.” Such people could rightly be considered a nascent class of petty bourgeoisie.”

Roger Keeran & Thomas Kenny (2010). Socialism betrayed: behind the collapse of the Soviet Union (p. 75). [LG]

[7] Mark R. Beissinger (2017). Nationalism and the Collapse of Soviet Union (pp. 5–6). [PDF] Princeton University.

[8] Dieter Nohlen, Philip Stöver (2010). Elections in Europe: A data handbook (p. 1647). ISBN 9783832956097

[9] A. V. Ostrovskiy (2011). Stupidity or treason? Investigation into the death of the USSR (Russian: Глупость или измена? Расследование гибели СССР) (p. 864).

[10] Gordon M. Hahn (2017). Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West and the "New Cold War". McFarland. ISBN 9781476628752

[11] Andrei Nikerichev (2020-03-24). "75% of Russians Say Soviet Era Was 'Greatest Time' in Country’s History – Poll" The Moscow Times. Retrieved 2022-01-02.

[12] David Masci (2017-06-29). "In Russia, nostalgia for Soviet Union and positive feelings about Stalin" Pew Research Center. Retrieved 2022-01-02.

[13] Jonathan Steele, David Hearst (1993-10-05). "Yeltsin crushes revolt" The Guardian.

[14] Lilia Shevtsova (1999). Yeltsin's Russia Myths and Reality (p. 156). Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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