As the saying goes, the gun comes out of the regime. From the perspective of world history, if any state power wants to stand for a long time, it needs to be defended and supported by the army. As the world's first socialist country, it was precisely because of its strong army that the Soviet Union was able to gradually become stronger in international competition and eventually form a camp group to compete with the Western capitalist world. In the era of Soviet-American confrontation, the Soviet army was the most powerful armed force in the world, not only with a large number of troops and advanced weapons, but also with strategic and tactical ideas.
At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had more than 5 million troops, 55,000 tanks, and an equally large number of artillery, armored vehicles, helicopter gunships and other weapons and equipment, and its conventional strength ranked first in the world. At the same time, the Soviet Union also had 40,000 nuclear warheads, as well as supporting intercontinental missiles and nuclear submarines, and its nuclear forces were also among the best in the world. According to military statistics, at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, of the 13 main indicators of the power of strategic weapons, the Soviet Union had an absolute leader in 10 indicators. At that time, the strength of the Soviet Armed Forces was obvious to all.
However, even such a powerful army could not turn the tide when the Soviet Union collapsed. In 1991, the once-mighty Soviet Union was facing a growing crisis. In the "819" incident, several elite Soviet troops led by the Taman Division changed their positions at a critical moment, resulting in the failure of the operation. Since then, the collapse of the Soviet Union has accelerated further, eventually collapsing at the end of December 1991. So, when the Soviet Union collapsed, why did the Soviet army have a hard time doing anything? This was because of several erroneous moves by the Soviet top brass that led to its disintegration by losing the protection of the army.
First, the implementation of the "new thinking" reform has confused the thinking of the army
In the early 1980s, due to the accumulation of various problems and drawbacks, the Soviet Union gradually went downhill. After Gorbachev came to power in 1985, in order to reverse the situation in the Soviet Union, he pursued the "accelerated development strategy", and then implemented the "new thinking" reform. At the same time, Gorbachev also imitated the Western set, advocating the principles of "democratization" and "openness". Due to the accumulated shortcomings over time and the misguided reforms, various contradictions in the Soviet Union gradually surfaced. In this situation, the Soviet army also suffered a negative impact, and the thinking of its officers and soldiers was confused.
Under the offensive of "peaceful evolution" in the West, the officers and men of the Soviet Army gradually no longer identified with the unified Soviet family and turned to the republics that were loyal to their own nationalities, which greatly affected the overall unity of the Soviet army. For example, after the 1988 Armenian earthquake, a large number of Ethnic Armenian officers and soldiers asked to return to their own member countries to serve in order to "participate in the reconstruction of their homeland" (and in fact, in the conflict between Asia and Afghanistan). In addition, officers and soldiers of various nationalities have formed various small groups and do not deal with each other. These examples show that the faith of many Soviet officers and soldiers has been lost, and the military spirit of the Soviet army has begun to disperse.
Second, the failure to stop the centrifugal signs in time led to a deepening of the rift in the army
When a rift arose within the Soviet army, Gorbachev failed to take measures to stop it, causing the rift to grow larger. From 1988 to 1990, incidents occurred in many republics in the Soviet Union, which indirectly led to the increasing dispersion of the Soviet army. After the Tbilisi incident, ethnic Georgian soldiers developed rebellious sentiments; after the Osh conflict, the contradictions between Uzbek and Kyrgyz soldiers intensified; after the Vilnius incident, Lithuanian soldiers were more frequently disobedient. Because of the incorrect thinking and insidious means, Gorbachev had difficulty solving these thorny problems.
After the 28th cpus of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Soviet reforms were almost completely deviated from the direction, and the Soviet army was further scattered. From 1990 to 1991, many member states revised their own military service laws, calling on officers and soldiers of their respective nationalities to "return to the motherland to serve", and the original command system of the Soviet Army was seriously impacted. In addition, when the Soviet Union officially decided to disarm and withdraw its troops, it failed to give veterans due treatment due to domestic economic downturns and other reasons. This has not only led to an intensification of differences between the military and the top brass, but has also led to a further increase in rifts within the army.
Third, a large number of officers who supported the Soviet regime were dismissed, and martial arts were abolished
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were many large-scale personnel changes within the Soviet Army. In May 1987, the Young Rust of West Germany broke into Soviet airspace under the nose of the Soviet Homeland Air Defense Forces, much to Gorbachev's infuriation. After that, Gorbachev replaced Soviet officers on a large scale, and even the defense minister, Marshal Sokolov, was dismissed. After the "August 19" incident, although Gorbachev was still the head of state of the Soviet Union, his power was gradually overshadowed by Yeltsin, Kravchuk and others. Yeltsin drew in Soviet units early on, and when he came to power, he replaced officers at all levels even more heavily.
In late August and early September 1991, Gorbachev and Yeltsin issued numerous orders to abolish the original organizational organs of the troops, and the activities of the CPSU in the army were restricted or even prohibited. At the same time, 28 of the 32 generals of the General Military Political Department of the Soviet Army were forcibly retired, 90,000 officers working in the military department were replaced, and 7,000 officers in the Far East were dismissed. These measures led to the transformation of the Soviet army, which originally defended the leadership of the CPSU, into a Western-style army called "safeguarding the president and safeguarding the constitution", which was equivalent to abolishing martial arts.
In general, the collapse of the Soviet Union involved military, diplomatic, economic, ethnic, ideological and other aspects, but the loss of military protection and support can be said to be one of the important reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Soviet top brass lost control of the army due to various mistakes, which accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union as a whole.