History is the memory of things that have been said and done. —Carl Baker
How powerful was the Soviet Union?
In 1956, in a speech to Western diplomats, Khrushchev of the Soviet Union arrogantly uttered the famous words that shocked the world: "We will bury you." ”
At the United Nations General Assembly in 1961, Khrushchev dared to take off his shoes and knock on the table, which was enough to see the strength and domineering.
The Soviet Union was so powerful and developed that it even made humanity tremble, producing an unprecedented 50 million tons of nuclear bombs, and detonating one on its own territory to test its power. As a result, radio communications throughout the northern region were completely disrupted, and aircraft, missiles, radars and communications equipment within a radius of 4,000 kilometers were affected to varying degrees.
On September 4, 1981, the Soviet Union held the world's largest military exercise code-named "Occidental-81", and the largest audience for this exercise was NATO countries, and a large number of Western countries were invited to watch.
Looking at the invincible images of the Soviet steel torrent during the exercise, NATO countries were frightened and frightened, and US President Reagan said that "if the Soviet Union attacked us in 1981, the United States would not be able to resist." According to NATO estimates, once the Soviet Union started a war, it could occupy all of Western Europe within a week, and then blockade the English Channel to prevent the Landing of the American Expeditionary Force.
The most powerful period of soviet military power was the late 1980s, in 1988 the number of Soviet troops reached 5 million, 60,000 main battle tanks, 20,000 various combat aircraft, more than 1,000 various combat ships, including the world's largest nuclear submarine Typhoon-class submarine, the number of Soviet nuclear bombs reached more than 30,000, the total explosive yield of nuclear weapons was 10 billion tons, and the overall nuclear weapons capability has surpassed that of the United States.
The United States and the Soviet Union competed for hegemony, the two superpowers of the 20th century, the tip of the needle against Mai Mang, mutual disobedience, the Soviet Union did not lose militaryly to the United States.
In the face of the strength of the Soviet Union, the Western countries suffered from "Soviet phobia.". The West believed that the Soviet Union had so many nuclear weapons that if a nuclear war broke out, even if 99% of the Soviets' nuclear bombs were stopped, the rest could still destroy mankind.
At the same time, the Soviet Union refreshed many world records in military technology.
In 1954, the world's first nuclear power plant was built and the peaceful use of nuclear energy began.
In October 1957, the first artificial earth satellite was successfully sent into space, opening a new chapter in the human journey into space.
In 1961, the first manned satellite was sent into space, and the astronaut Gagarin became the first person to enter space.
The first space station was built in April 1971.
The Soviet Union's space technology has surpassed the United States, and the impact on American society is extremely shocking, and it is called the "Sputnik Crisis" by the Americans.
The strength and development of the Soviet Union made many politicians and famous scholars make a prediction that capitalism would perish, and the Soviet model would emerge and lead the world trend.
Because the 1930s were an era of economic crisis in the West, and the Soviet Union was an era of rapid rise, from 1928 to 1960, the national income of the Soviet Union increased by 6% per year, which was the fastest economic growth rate in history at that time.
The Soviet Union became a model country for some scholars, and mainstream textbooks written by British economists declared that the Soviet economy was superior to capitalism in terms of economic growth, the provision of full employment and price stability, and even the altruistic motivation to create people.
The Nobel laureate in economics, American Samuelson, in his "Economics" university textbook, also repeatedly predicted the arrival of Soviet economic hegemony. In the 1961 edition of Economics, Samuelson predicted that soviet national income could surpass that of the United States in 1984, or likely in 1997.
Few people have judged that such a powerful Soviet Union would one day collapse and collapse completely.
The economist Hayek is such a sober and judgmental independent scholar.
After examining the Soviet Union and the United States and other capitalist countries, Hayek wrote the book "The Road to Slavery" and concluded that the Soviet model would not be a solution to the economic crisis, and would eventually fail. History has finally proved that Hayek's judgment was correct.
Solzhenitsyn wrote to Hayek after reading The Road to Serfdom, saying that he could not believe that a man who had never lived in the Soviet Union could see as soberly as he did the consequences of the political ideas his country followed.
The Soviet Union's military and military science and technology aerospace, leading the world. But the Soviet Union was a lame giant, walking on one leg.
Although heavy industry in the Soviet Union was the largest in the world, it was developed on the basis of sacrificing light industry and agriculture, and it was extremely unbalanced. In fact, light industry and agriculture in the USSR were almost self-sufficient.
The military strength of the Soviet Union masked the shortcomings of the Soviet economy and gave the illusion that the Soviet Union was fully developed. Surpassing the United States has become a historical joke, and the torrent of steel has become a broken copper.
The shortcomings of the Soviet model, Zyuganov of the Soviet Union put forward three monopolies: first, the monopoly of political power, the monopoly of power of the whole country into the hands of one party, and the lack of democracy and supervision within the party led to the concentration of power within the party into the hands of individual leaders; second, economic monopoly, monopolizing the entire national economy through a commanding planned economy; third, ideological monopoly, monopolizing ideas, and engaging in imprisonment.
The Soviet Union was a political experiment of the 20th century that shook the world, and its failure also caused people to reflect infinitely. "We will bury you", the arrogant Khrushchev did not expect that the Soviet Union would finally bury itself.