The wheel of history has been moving forward, and in the blink of an eye, it has been 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although the superpower that once rivaled the United States is no longer there, there are still many Soviet legends circulating in the rivers and lakes. As the heir of the Soviet Union, Russia, although its development has not been satisfactory for many years, it has still lived quite moistly by relying on the rich legacy left by the Soviet Union.
In particular, the strategic bombers, nuclear-powered cruisers and long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles built during the Soviet period gave Russia the foundation of its founding, and although the Western countries led by the United States have always been eyeing it, they have never dared to act rashly against Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there seems to have been a science arose around the world to study the root causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union in order to wake up other countries.
If anyone is best qualified to talk about the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, I am afraid that no one can compare with Gorbachev. As the last leader of the Soviet Union, it was at his disposal that the former superpower disintegrated. On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev announced his resignation as president of the Soviet Union, and the next day announced the formal disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev then left politics and in May 1993 was elected as the first president of the International Green Cross to devote himself to global environmental protection. In March 2000, Gorbachev returned to politics and was elected leader of the United Social Democratic Party of Russia. In his later years, Gorbachev's main job was to write books, recall the experiences of the first half of his life, and also participate in some social or commercial activities, such as once serving as a spokesperson for the luxury brand LV.
A few days ago, Gorbachev published an article in the magazine "Russia in Global Affairs" that the reforms carried out by the Soviet Union at that time were necessary and error-free, but in the end they failed to save the fate of the Soviet Union, mainly because of the attempted coup d'état in August 1991 and the conspiracy between the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Gorbachev said That Yeltsin was the biggest sinner of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that he had not kept his promise, that he wanted to rule the Kremlin, and that he had ultimately sacrificed the entire Soviet Union, while the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus acted as accomplices. It is reported that after the attempted coup d'état in August 1991, Yeltsin began to plan the establishment of the CIS, and in December of the same year, Yeltsin signed an agreement with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus to establish the CIS, and the establishment of the organization declared the "death" of the Soviet Union.
However, historians say that Yeltsin's series of operations behind the scenes are only the superficial reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the fundamental reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union are multifaceted, and they are the result of the combination of internal and external factors. Even without Yeltsin, there might have been other leaders who would have emerged to steer the Soviet Union toward disintegration.
Historians believe that the Soviet Union had reached a dead end before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that too many problems had accumulated in the economic and political fields, which had seriously damaged the Soviet Union's vitality, and that the reforms that Gorbachev had pushed at that time were "palliative rather than root". After the end of World War II, countries around the world embarked on the road of economic reconstruction, but the Soviet Union still maintained a wartime economic model, that is, attaching importance to heavy industry and ignoring the development of light industry.
This caused a serious imbalance in the structure of the national economy, and as a large country comparable to the United States at that time, the daily necessities consumed by the Soviet people needed to be imported. The rigidity of the economic model and the imbalance of economic structure ultimately lead to low social productivity and insufficient ability to create wealth. At that time, the Soviet Union was a powerful country, but the people's life was quite difficult, and there was a great shortage of daily necessities.
Although after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union carried out a series of reforms to the institutions of power, but some of the ills left over from the Stalin era were not completely eliminated. For example, problems such as the centralization of power and the survival of democratic systems in name only persist, and the direct consequence of the concentration of power is corruption.
It is reported that since the 1970s, the phenomenon of high-level corruption in the Soviet Union has become increasingly serious, and power rent-seeking has spread to various industries and various fields, causing great harm to economic and social development. In addition to corruption, the concentration of power led to the formation of multiple political factions and interest groups at the top of the Soviet Union, and the various factions fought each other, bringing the economic and political reforms of the time to a standstill.
Externally, the strategy of "peaceful evolution" pursued by the Western countries led by the United States hastened the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Western countries used various means to export Western values to the Soviet republics and lobbied some of the republics to break away from Soviet rule. For example, lithuania declared its independence in March 1990, before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since then, many republics have followed suit, leaving the Soviet Union a mess. In addition, the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was also an important reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time, the United States and the Soviet Union seemed to be on an equal footing, but the economic strength of the United States far exceeded that of the Soviet Union, and the United States used the arms race to gradually drag down the Soviet Union.
Looking back at history now, it may no longer matter who caused the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it is obviously unreasonable to put the blame entirely on Gorbachev or Yeltsin. There is a saying that with history as a mirror, we can know the rise and fall. Perhaps the most important legacy of the collapse of the Soviet Union is to teach other countries how to avoid a similar tragedy from happening again.