while revisions of work quotas and prices not only continued but increased. Moreover, under Khrushchev, prices began to rise. The worker was in the clutches.
From time to time, however, there were injections in wages of one or another category of workers and employees. But in practice, it meant that governmental bureaucracy was giving things to one category that were taken away from others. Not allowing people to earn on their own, bureaucracy gave them a handout, usually called the 'enormous social achievement'. In practice, destroying the actual interest in work, they tried to solve this by encouraging of political enthusiasm. But one injustice caused another: in general, pay raise equalized the good worker and the bad worker, and the redistribution of funds caused the transit of achievements from more successful industry to low-performing one, spreading mismanagement across the country. It is clear, therefore, that these increases did not solve anything and only exacerbated the overall situation. The degradation of the economy continued.
The situation went out of control, but the ruling elite, not understanding the reality, fed on illusions provided by political and economic science. And the whole political economy of the USSR was simply broken due to lack of knowledge about the actual source of growth of productivity of work. The country was already 'building the communism', and was still relying on the 'working class' /work support of capitalism/ with the intensification of physical work, using the vilest methods of this intensification.
And we are not talking here about peasants. One can add to this 'class struggle' with the whole world, called 'cold war'. The increasing production of missiles, tanks, submarines, aircraft, A- and V-bombs – everything was in dimensionless quantities. If we had built the communism, we would have surprised the world and would have won capitalism economically, without a fight, without enormous expenditures for armament.
And what about aid to underdeveloped countries, unequal exchange within the socialist camp. And what about the projects of the century: development of virgin and fallow lands, building secret cities and centres, the BAM, wetland drainage and swamping of deserts, construction of dams and turns in the river bed… And so on and so forth. All at the expense of workers – cuts in their standard of living. And where is the true historical aim here? Where is the understanding of the meaning of life?
Politics dictated the economy its conditions, instead of, on science, being defined by it. Its relationship with economy has been turned upside down. And instead of receiving the grounds of its goals, politics hindered the development of economy with inflated phantoms of the political elite. In science, the Central Committee, the Politburo. No one dared to argue with it, to propose ideas, to guide the path of truth. It was beyond criticism and above suspicion. Certainly, this could not continue indefinitely.
Many people think that the collapse of socialism /the COLLAPSE, not a defeat/occurred as a result of 'perestroika'. Alas, this is only a visible consequence. The events are not always coming one after the other, connected by a direct causal-investigatory dependence. We could sink even without 'perestroika'. What is the difference? The crisis happened not in 'stagnant' time /it began to manifest itself at that period/, but much earlier.
It isn't even a conspiracy of the 'imperialist forces'. These forces and the conspiracy are almost always present. But the events are determined primarily by internal causes, without which a foreign conspiracy simply would not come true. In other words, if our elite had those, who were thinking first about the people, the leaders, occupying key positions, and foreign geeks, like Allen Dulles and Zbigniew Brzezinski, would be left holding the bag.
Certainly, it is not about some 'Jewish conspiracy', allegedly encompassing and penetrating the whole world. Ultra-patriots only muddy the waters, replacing a scientific interpretation of problems with ethnic prejudices and zoological instincts. Militant nationalism is favourable to such 'conspiracy' and is often heated by it because these instincts easily hide the true reasons.
The shifting consciousness of the masses from social problems to the area of kinships is the cultivation of blind hatred and stupid narrow-mindedness. Victories at this ideological front usually end in cannibalism. What can be more miserable than an army sent to the wrong place? It is doomed to fail even before the fight.
Discord, in short, was long overdue. Not all was well in our kingdom. But where, when, how and why this infraction happened, remained unclear.
When Gorbachev came to power, the need for change was felt by many. Therefore, his slogans of 'perestroika for the purpose of democratization' and 'democratization to release the creative potential' of the country seeds were well accepted. But it turned out to be nothing more than 'dragon's teeth' because the sower did not know, why in fact there was no democracy and for whom it should exist. And what one needed to do to have it. He simply did not know /did not have programs/ for reforming the existing system of leadership, and he did not find anything better than to sew it, certainly, with white thread to 'western values': publicity, pluralism, multiparty system, the presidency, – existing more for the gratification of the masses, and not for improving their lives. He went not towards the development of the personal system, not from its roots, and through borrowing in addition to the existing. Naturally, it was a freak with two heads on the splitting neck. And there was endless chatter instead of work.
Having talked to complete incontinence, Gorbachev missed the precious time in such historical situations. Party nomenclature, which had remained silent, gradually looked around, raised its head and formed the SCSE / the State Committee on the State of Emergency/. The masses, awakened by Gorbachev's demagogy, resisted this and in the August rush of 1991 destroyed the bankrupt imperious superstructure. This was prudently used by an ambitious rival and competitor of M. Gorbachev, B. Yeltsin, who, in fact, then stole the victory from the people.
Many people, especially obstinate communists, accepted the incident as a counterrevolutionary coup. But it was not so!
Where could these anti-socialist forces come from if there was a united public property? That's nonsense! That's silly! There was no counter-revolution, as many people think, but a real National democratic revolution, which communists, supposedly immutable spokesmen of people's interests, did not let happen at their time. And this event, admittedly, was progressive, and not regressive! It considered the question not about the way of life in society, as the socialist revolution in 1917, but about the method of controlling. Dictatorship or democracy – that was its major concern.
People, it must be said, suffered not from socialism /it did not exist in its true form at that time/, but from false, unscientific and antihuman, bureaucratic, forceful leaders. It was supposed to happen: the superstructure, which did not correspond the basis, as taught by Marxism, was destroyed. Things, which could not be imagined by the scientists, the masses have done in three days.
This revolution involved a tremendous amount of true, thinking communists. If in some sense they were against socialism, but it was not for the purpose of movement back into the past, into capitalism, and with the aim of moving forward into the future, for its improvement, against existing, vile, vulgar and bureaucratic, military socialism with the dictatorship of the party, of the party and state nomenclature.
However, instead of bringing the superstructure in accordance with the basis, the liberals, who had come to power, did not think to democratize anything. They created democracy only for themselves. And they began to appropriate the key positions, banks, and mass media. They began to destroy the basis, bringing it in compliance with its usurped power: to steal public property and to keep it in personal apartments, chests, and safes. Under the guise of denationalization, corporatization, privatization, they were covering the usual greed with beautiful words and colorful slogans. But they did not prove but imposed their doctrine. They did not refute Marxism but rejected it. It was their new government that 'took everything and divided'. Certainly, they divided everything among themselves. They were raking heat with people's, work-worn hands.
It is well known that revolutions are planned by geniuses and are made by heroes, but their results are enjoyed by villains. And the people soon saw who had come to power. It was the same cohort, but only from the second echelon. These were the same nomenclature and its associates, who had turned themselves into 'well-doers', but with even greater appetites.
And the people rebelled again. It happened in September-October 1993. There were many people, who had participated in the revolution