In 1917, the "October Revolution" shocked the world in Russia, and Lenin established the world's first socialist country in poor and backward Russia. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 also shocked the world, and most countries may have reacted with relief, with Europe and the United States lamenting that rivals that had existed for many years had finally disappeared. China's reaction was more complicated, fortunately the pressure from the "strong enemy" in the north was finally gone, and the uneasiness was whether the collapse of the Soviet Union would have a negative impact on China.
Speaking of the disintegration of the Soviet Union starting from Brezhnev, because Stalin and Khrushchev's administrative methods were relatively simple and crude, the Soviet high level urgently needed a mediocre leader to balance the interests of all parties, so Brezhnev was pushed to the forefront as a political balance. Brezhnev was indeed the "mascot" of the Soviet Union, and as a result of Stalin and Khrushchev's active development of production, they caught up with the second oil crisis, and the Soviet Union unexpectedly reached its peak during the Brezhnev period.
In the middle and late period of Brezhnev, the Soviet Union struck a heavy blow around the world and vigorously aided third world countries, spending money like water. In 1979, Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires", was invaded, and the Soviet economy continued to be bloodied. By the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982, the Soviet Union had a large number of problems such as aging cadres, ideological rigidity, and leadership corruption. As global crude oil production increased and the Soviet economy slowed down, the successor Soviet leaders inevitably had to clean up a "mess."
Succeeding Andropov and Chernenko died of age and illness, so in the subsequent elections, in order to ensure that the leader would not die quickly, the younger Gorbachev was selected, who was only 54 years old at the time. Unfortunately, Gorbachev is still alive and well, and the Soviet Union has been dead (disintegrated) for 31 years. The Soviet people hoped that the young Gorbachev would be able to bring a new hope to the Soviets when he became the leader of the Soviet Union.
After Gorbachev took office, he began to reform, and the normal reform was nothing more than open source and throttling, abolishing the lifelong system of officials, letting older officials go home to retire, withdrawing the Soviet army in Afghanistan, and so on. Gorbachev's reforms began with prohibition of alcohol, and it was impossible for the Soviets, who fought against the cold, to ban alcohol, and as a result, the black market prospered. At the 1985 congress, Gorbachev proposed an "acceleration strategy" for economic and social development, using the rapid growth of Soviet industry to drive other industries, and as a result returned to the old road of developing heavy industry.
Then Gorbachev introduced a "new thinking", he put forward the goals of "reform", "openness", "democratization", "pluralism", the construction of "humane and democratic socialism", in fact, compromise with Western countries, the implementation of democratization, multi-party system, his "democratic socialism" statement, deceived the Soviet people at that time.
In the field of agriculture, in 1987 the Soviet Union allowed the operation of individual farms to be legalized, and adopted the Basic Principles on Fundamental Reform of Economic Management, allowing enterprises to operate independently and bear their own profits and losses, and later passed the Law on Cooperatives and the Law on Leasing. These policies are similar to the "New Economic Policy" implemented by Lenin, the problem is that Gorbachev is too anxious, the economic field has not been properly completed, and it has returned to the political field. The Soviet economy began to let it go, with runaway management, shortage of goods, depreciation of the ruble, and inflation.
As a result, the old economic problems were not solved, and a large number of new problems appeared, Gorbachev pushed the responsibility for the failure of economic reforms to the political field, and in 1988 Gorbachev proposed a reform of the political system, proposing the establishment of "humane democratic socialism", and later the Supreme Soviet became a permanent organ, the parliament. In 1990, a multi-party system was introduced, and the President of the Soviet Union was established, stipulating that the CPSU no longer had a legal leadership position. The dictatorship of the proletariat was the core of the Soviet Union's survival, and the multi-party system deprived the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the leadership of the country, and since then Soviet society has begun to be turbulent, and the member countries have been alienated from Germany.
Some people took advantage of the chaos of Gorbachev's economic reforms to turn the wealth of the country into their own, and they certainly did not want to lose vested interests, so they contributed to the liberalization of the Soviet market economy and legitimized the wealth they stole. Since 1989, the Soviet economy has deteriorated severely, with excessively high inflation, high prices, and high unemployment among the people in the country, and the economy is facing collapse.
Under these circumstances, Yeltsin no longer intended to pay money from Russia to the Soviet Central Committee to save the collapsed economy, and Gorbachev could only declare the collapse of the Soviet Union in the case of internal economic collapse and no external loans and financial assistance. Judging from the hasty and failed reforms that Gorbachev has taken office, Gorbachev may want this result. In the old Chinese saying, why did Gorbachev "plot rebellion"?
Gorbachev was born in time for Stalin's "collectivization" campaign, and the ensuing famine starved Gorbachev's three uncles. Gorbachev's grandfather had been exiled to Siberia for logging for passive sabotage, and his grandfather had been branded a "member of the right Trotsky counter-revolutionary organization" during the Great Purge and had been imprisoned for 14 years without trial, and he hated the Soviet system too much. Secondly, At that time, China's reform and opening up had been successful, making Gorbachev more determined to carry out reforms, but he failed because of his haste for quick success and improper operation.
After his retirement, Gorbachev ushered in the second spring of his life, although he did not know how to govern the country, he shined in writing books, shooting advertisements, speaking, and making movies. Gorbachev's books "New Thinking", "Causes and Consequences of the August Incident", "The Unfortunate Reformer", "On the Past and the Future", "Truth and Confessions: Gorbachev's Memoirs", etc., are very popular in Western countries, and some have become materials for studying the history of the Cold War, and the copyright tax is very rich.
As the terminator of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev often went to the university to give lectures, and his appearance told the thrilling scenes before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the appearance fee was also quite large. In 1997, Gorbachev took his granddaughter to a photogenic commercial, his first commercial endorsement. Gorbachev has starred in more than 20 films, in which he always plays himself, announcing the collapse of the Soviet Union over and over again, and he may be an artist who has been delayed by politics, resembling the famous emperor of calligraphy and painting in the Northern Song Dynasty, Song Huizong.
Emperor Huizong of Song believed in Taoism, was proficient in tea art, created a thin gold body, and had deep achievements in painting, but he did not know anything about the military and governed the country in a mess. During his reign, he appointed Cai Jing, Gao Li and other traitors to impose taxes, which led to continuous uprisings in various places. During the external implementation of the joint Jin dynasty to destroy the Liao, the fact that the Song army was weak was revealed, causing the Jin army to go south to besiege Beijing. The army and the people were about to fight to the death, and Emperor Huizong of Song advocated peace talks, but was eventually deceived and taken prisoner to the Five Kingdoms City and imprisoned to death. During his imprisonment, he still did a lot of painting and calligraphy and gave birth to many children.
Gorbachev and Song Huizong originally belonged to different times and dimensions of characters, but their lives and deeds were quite similar. They all governed the country as the monarch of the country, changed the dynasty (disintegrated) of the country, and from then on, they let themselves go and shine in art. On the external front, Emperor Huizong of Song advocated talking with the Jin people, and Gorbachev advocated democratic reforms and improved relations with the West.
The difference is that Song Huizong was later imprisoned, and the Jin people worried that Song Huizong would restore the country after he fled, while Gorbachev would not let the Western countries have this worry, watching Gorbachev repeatedly announce the disintegration of the Soviet Union and flogg the Soviet Union, it was also a way to celebrate the victory of the Cold War. Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Yi(佶谥谥), made it clear that he was an emperor of calligraphy and painting, similar to Gorbachev's titles as "Shun" and "Gong", Emperor Su Shun and Emperor Su Gong, taking the meaning of conforming to Providence and "Zen Concession" to the state. Who approves of Gorbachev's statement that it is a bit like Song Huizong? Who is against it?