Stalin period 1930 1953 mass repressions. Why was Stalin's terror necessary?

If the “Red Terror” during the Civil War in Russia can still be somehow explained by the struggle for power, the reaction to the “White Terror”, revenge for centuries of slavery, and other reasons, then the repressions of the 1930s defy any explanation. One gets the impression that their only reason was that the authorities wanted to make the people afraid of themselves. And I must say that she succeeded.

The sword of Damocles hung over each. And no one, including the most prominent dignitaries of the state, could feel calm. This sword knew no mercy and cut off heads quietly but inexorably.

In Russia, before the 1917 revolution, official executions of death sentences were publicly announced. Beginning in the 1930s, this became a state secret. At night, shots rang out in the basements and courtyards of prisons, muffled by the work of running car engines or simply by thick brick walls.

The condemned were usually killed one by one. Putting handcuffs on the condemned, he was taken to the basement, where he was shot. Later, the soundproof cellars of the NKVD prisons were equipped with a special path, walking along which the convict received a bullet in the back of the head, and an automatic device for washing blood.

Sometimes mass executions "in nature" were also practiced. So, for example, they dealt with Polish officers in Katyn. They were shot in uniforms with fastened orders. The hands were usually tied with wire or braided cord. Sometimes they put a noose around the neck, and the free end of the rope was tightened by hand. If a person tried to move his hands, the noose around his neck was tightened. The Poles were taken out in batches to the forest on "funnel" and finished off with shots in the back of the head. The executions were supervised by Major of State Security V.M. Blokhin, who brought with him a whole suitcase of "Walters". Soviet pistols could not withstand mass executions - they overheated.

Used in the 30s and other methods of executions. In 1937, in the bowels of the NKVD, the method of execution by hanging, which seemed to have been worked out for centuries, was improved. For increased excruciating death of class enemies, instead of a rope, a piano string and a rubber hose were used. People were dying for three hours, convulsively gasping for air all this time.

The NKVD was also looking for new methods of killing, it is no coincidence that in the USSR, before Nazi Germany and the USA, they came up with a “gas chamber” - a gas chamber. Its inventor is called the head of the AKhO of the NKVD Department for Moscow, I.D. Berg. The Soviet gas chamber was located in a van with a sealed body and an exhaust pipe led into the body. The van was emblazoned with the inscription "Bread".

And, finally, the most painful and long-playing method of execution in the USSR was slow killing in labor camps, where hunger, cold and hard work slowly but surely drove a person into a coffin.

Special departments of the GULAG united many labor camps in different regions of the country: Karaganda labor camp (Karlag), Dalstroy NKVD / USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, Solovetsky labor camp (USLON), White Sea-Baltic labor camp and the NKVD combine, Vorkuta labor camp, Norilsk labor camp, etc. The hardest conditions and severe punishments were applied for the slightest violations of the regime.

The tightening of criminal penalties also contributed to the filling of the camps with a labor force. In 1936, the maximum term of imprisonment in the USSR was increased from 10 to 25 years.

The list of "execution" articles in the Criminal Code has also expanded. According to the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of August 7, 1932, it became possible to shoot for the theft of state and public property. And on June 9, 1935, a law was passed in the USSR establishing the death penalty for escaping across the border, the relatives of defectors were declared criminals. This was already a purely political issue. In fact, the authorities made it clear that no one was going to get away from her, and if he did, then his relatives would have a hard time.

True, this threat did not affect the majority of the population in any way: in order to straighten a passport for traveling abroad, a peasant had to go through many instances. And for the illegal border crossing, most people simply did not have money.

On December 1, 1934, the secretary of the Central Committee and the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Sergei Kirov, was killed in Smolny by a former instructor of party activists Leonid Nikolaev.

Stalin used the assassination of Kirov as a pretext for the start of large-scale repressions. By a resolution of the Central Committee, an abbreviated legal proceeding in cases of terrorist acts was introduced. Execution sentences began to be stamped as if on an assembly line.

The flywheel of repression began to unwind when Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda (real name Enoch Gershonovich Yagoda) was placed at the head of the NKVD. Thanks to his relationship with one of the leaders of the revolution - Sverdlov, Yagoda got a job in the Cheka. Knowing Yagoda well during the period of his work in the Cheka, Leon Trotsky wrote about him: “Very accurate, overly respectful and completely impersonal. Thin, with a sallow complexion (he suffered from tuberculosis), with a short-cropped mustache, in a military jacket, he gave the impression of an zealous nonentity.

However, Yagoda made a completely different impression on most people. He seemed big and terrible to them. No wonder Heinrich Georgievich became the champion in landings. If before him, in 1933. 334 thousand people were in places of deprivation of liberty, then already with him in 1934. - 510 thousand, in 1935 - 991 thousand, and in 1936 already 1296 thousand. And, perhaps, Yagoda was the first to actively introduce into the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs the principle "beat your own so that others are afraid." It was under him that large-scale repressions against their own employees began. In 1935, 13,715 policemen were brought to criminal responsibility, and in 1936 - 4568, in 1937 - 8905. Of these, 5284, 2621 and 3057 people were convicted, respectively.

Ironically, Genrikh Yagoda himself did not escape arrest and trial. They say that during a search of Yagoda's apartment, more than 3,000 pornographic photographs were found with the participation of the wives of prominent figures in the party, science, culture and the army, not counting nude compositions of ballerinas, athletes and ordinary citizens of the USSR. But he was accused not of collecting pornography, but of a huge number of other conceivable and unthinkable sins. Yagoda, wanting to bargain for his life, repented of everything. In that he was one of the leaders of the right-wing Trotskyist underground, which set itself the goal of overthrowing Soviet power and restoring capitalism, in complicity in the murder of S.M. Kirov, V.R. Menzhinsky, V.V. Kuibysheva, A.M. Gorky and his son M.A. Peshkov, in the attempt on the life of the new People's Commissar of the NKVD Yezhov, in helping foreign spies and much more.

The main task of Yagoda was the reprisal against the opportunists. And although these opportunists were, as a rule, the old Bolsheviks, people of authority in the party, but former comrades-in-arms let them "waste" without any regrets.

No matter how scary it sounds, but for many people sentenced to death under political articles, the execution became a kind of retribution from above for their participation in the "Red Terror". As during the French Revolution, the revolutionaries were executed first, and then they were executed.

In this regard, the execution of the old Bolsheviks and Lenin's associates - Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev - became the most revealing. In fact, they were not Zinoviev and Kamenev, their real names were Radomyslsky and Rosenfeld, respectively, but they went down in history under pseudonyms. Zinoviev and Kamenev had previously distinguished themselves by their independent position in relation to the opinion of the leader. For example, back in October 1917 they protested against the armed uprising of the Bolsheviks. However, independent judgments in relation to Stalin's opinion became fatal for them. First, in 1934, in the case of the Moscow Center, Zinoviev received 10 years of captivity, and Kamenev - 15. But already in 1936, in the case of the Anti-Soviet United Trotskyist-Zinoviev Center, they both again came under investigation. At first, Zinoviev and Kamenev did not want to confess to the crimes they were accused of, including the attempted assassination of Stalin. Iosif Vissarionovich was very angry, he shouted to the leaders of the NKVD:

Tell them no matter what they do, they won't stop the course of history. The only thing they can do is die or save their own skin. Work on them until they crawl to you on their belly with confessions in their mouths!

In the end, Zinoviev and Kamenev made a deal with Stalin. They pleaded guilty in exchange for a promise that they would not be shot and that their families would not be repressed. However, this did not help them. They were both sentenced to death and shot on August 25, 1936.

Perhaps the relatives of many of those who were shot before them considered the death of Zinoviev and Kamenev a fair retribution. It is known that Zinoviev actively contributed to the "Red Terror" in Petrograd. Not without his participation, graduates of the Alexander Lyceum were subjected to mass repression. Just because they used to get together and in their circle express an impartial opinion about the new government.

And Kamenev supported this very terror. “Our terror was forced, it is not the terror of the Cheka, but of the working class,” he declared in his speech on December 31, 1919.

And then the shooting of their comrades-in-arms began. On October 5, 1936, a veteran of the revolution, the leader of the Zinovievites, G. Fedorov, was shot.

In parallel with the Zinovievists, the "organs" continued to finish off the Trotskyists:

On October 4, 1936, Russian revolutionary Yuri Gaven was shot. However, he lived and worked under a pseudonym. His real name is Dauman. The Latvian teacher Dauman at one time himself sent a bunch of people to the next world. Here, for example, is how he wrote about himself: “I consider it necessary to recall that I used the massive Red Terror even at a time when it had not yet been officially recognized by the party. So, for example, in January 1918, using the power of the previous. Sevast. Military Revolution. Committee, ordered the execution of more than six hundred counter-revolutionary officers.

Before the revolution, Gaven-Dauman spent almost 8 years in hard labor. But after the victory of Soviet power, he got into the nomenklatura. From November 1921 he was chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Crimean ASSR, from 1924 - a member of the Presidium of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, in 1931-1933. - Director of the Soviet oil trading company in Germany. But at the same time, he still carried out communication between Lev Sedym and Trotsky and opposition groups. For this he was arrested and shot on charges of counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities and terrorism.

And then it turned out that the main fighter against the opportunists, Genrikh Yagoda, was an opportunist himself. No minister of the interior had ever faced so many charges before him. And Yagoda, wanting to bargain for his life, repented of all conceivable and unthinkable sins: that he was one of the leaders of the right-wing Trotskyist underground, which set itself the goal of overthrowing Soviet power and restoring capitalism, of complicity in the murder of S.M. Kirov, V.R. Menzhinsky, V.V. Kuibyshev, A.M. Gorky and his son M.A. Peshkov, in helping foreign spies and much more. For example, Yagoda was also charged with an attempt on the life of Nikolai Yezhov, who replaced him as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. According to the materials of the investigation, the former people's commissar allegedly ordered the walls and curtains of his successor's office to be sprayed with a potent poison that slowly evaporated at room temperature. Such sophisticated villainy outweighed sincere remorse. The court sentenced Yagoda to be shot.

In his last speech, he said: “The fact that I and my co-trial co-workers are sitting here in the dock and holding an answer is a triumph, a victory of the Soviet people over the counter-revolution.” And when he was led to execution on March 15, 1938, he sang the Internationale.

According to the customs of that time, all the closest relatives of the ex-commissar were repressed in different years. His wife, Ida Leonidovna, Yakov Sverdlov's niece, died in custody. And son Heinrich left the camp under an amnesty in 1953.

However, what happened under Yagoda seemed like “berries” in comparison with the “hedgehogs” of Nikolai Yezhov. Under him, "Stalinist" repression reached its peak. Yezhov was head of the NKVD from September 1936 to December 1938. Here are the statistics of only death sentences in these years:

1937 - 353.074

1938 - 328.618

During the period 1937-1938, 681,692 estimated sentences were passed (about 1,000 sentences a day!). "Hedgehog gloves" did not spare anyone. 325 Yagoda's closest associates and himself were shot and imprisoned. They sent to the camps, regardless of the titles and ranks, and members of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, and cultural figures, and "clergymen", and ordinary hard workers. The criminals got it too. In August 1937, the camps received an order from N.I. Yezhov, according to which it was required to prepare and consider at the "troikas" cases against persons who "are actively anti-Soviet, subversive and other criminal activities at this time." The blow also fell on the leaders of the thieves' community. More than 30 thousand people of criminal authorities and leaders of criminal groups were shot in all camps of the NKVD.

And here is just a small list of the most famous executions during the period of Yezhov's drug addiction:

On March 13, 1937, the Russian revolutionary, the first Soviet People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs, Nikolai Glebov-Avilov, was shot;

On May 25, 1937, the Russian revolutionary, the first People's Commissar of Railways, the first historian of the Bolshevik Party, Vladimir Nevsky, was shot;

On June 11, 1937, in the Ishim prison, in the Omsk region, a mass execution of priests led by Bishop Seraphim of Dmitrov was carried out. On the site of their death, the only monastery in Russia of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was subsequently erected;

And in Moscow on the same day, June 11, 1937, a closed trial took place over Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and 7 other top Soviet military leaders accused of treason. TASS reported that all the defendants pleaded guilty. The final speech of the prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky lasted only 20 minutes and ended with the demand for the death penalty. The sentence was carried out four hours after it was pronounced;

On September 2, 1937, the Russian revolutionary, People's Commissar of Labor of the first Council of People's Commissars Alexander Shlyapnikov was shot;

On October 3, 1937, Alexander Chayanov, a Russian economist, the author of agricultural reform projects, was shot in the case of the Labor Peasant Party;

On the same day, the former leader of the Social Revolutionaries, the head of Komuch, Vladimir Volsky, was shot;

On October 8, 1937, the Old Believer and poet Sergey Klychkov was shot. In 1905, he participated in revolutionary events, and then wrote poems on revolutionary topics. Participation in the revolutionary movement for the Old Believer Klychkov turned into the fact that in 1937 he was convicted and shot on false charges. In 1956 they rehabilitated;

On October 9, 1937, the Russian revolutionary Nadezhda Bryullova-Shaskolskaya, the author of the national program of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was shot in Tashkent;

On October 30, 1937, a heavy workload fell on the firing squads. On this day, the following were executed: the former secretary of the Central Executive Committee and Stalin's ally - A. Yenukidze, as well as 13 other members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, former confidants of Kirov, Bolshevik veterans Chudov and Kodatsky, the first people's commissar of agriculture of the USSR, the organizer of Soviet statistics Vladimir Milyutin ;

On November 20, 1937, one of the leaders of the Russian clergy, the former Metropolitan Kirill, was shot;

On November 27, 1937, E. Kviring (head of the Bolshevik faction in the State Duma), Y. Khanetsky (Lennin's comrade-in-arms in emigration), N. Kubiak (secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks), S. Andreev (leader of the Komsomol of Ukraine) were shot;

On December 10, 1937, the former speaker of the Second State Duma of Russia, Fyodor Golovin, was shot in the Moscow region;

In 1938, the revolutionary Anastasia Bitsenko was shot (in 1905 she killed General V. Sakharov, for which she was sentenced by the tsarist court to execution, which was replaced by hard labor);

On March 2, 1938, an open trial of Bukharin, Rykov and others began in Moscow. The case was considered in an open court session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. 18 people, i.e. almost all those involved in the case were sentenced to death. Sentenced to imprisonment D.D. Pletneva, H.G. Rakovsky and S.A. Bessonov was also shot in absentia in September 1941 among the prisoners of the Oryol prison;

On March 15, 1938, the death sentence was carried out on the leaders of the mythical “right-wing Trotskyist bloc” Rykov and Bukharin, accused of “kholuy aiding foreign intelligence, sabotage and sabotage”, called “enemies of the people” (from an editorial in Izvestia on March 12, 1938 , entitled "Shoot like filthy dogs!");

On the same day, March 15, 1938, the first People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR A.I. Rykov and 15 other defendants.

Alexey Ivanovich Rykov before the revolution was not the last person among the revolutionaries. Member of the RSDLP since 1905. All Moscow spymasters had a certificate about him: "Alexey Ivanovich Rykov, aka Vlasov, aka Sukhoruchenko Mikhail Alekseevich, surveillance nickname" Capercaillie "." In tsarist times, Alexei Ivanovich was repeatedly arrested, exiled, and escaped from exile.

Rykov was at the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs for only 9 days - from November 8 to November 16, 1917. But during this time he managed to establish a workers' militia. On November 16, he resigned as a minister and resigned from the government in protest. He, you see, wanted the government to be uniformly socialist, and it was created as a purely concrete Bolshevik. Of all the subsequent people's commissars and ministers, no one parted with his position in protest.

On July 28 and 29, 1938, communists of Latvian origin - old revolutionaries - were executed by executions: army commander Vatsetis, candidate member of the Central Committee Unshlikht, chairman of the State Planning Commission Mezhlauk and others. On the same days, Commander Dybenko, the chairman of Soyuzkino, Shumyatsky, and the former People's Commissar for Agriculture, Yakovlev, were executed together.

Curious metamorphoses with the anarchist Pavel Dybenko deserve special mention. From a simple sailor, he became an army commander. From the red commander - the people's commissar of the timber industry. From the opponent of the death penalty - the executioner. And, finally, from a defender of the revolution - an "enemy of the people" and an American spy. On the eve of the death sentence, desperate to explain to the investigators the absurdity of the charges against him, Pavel Efimovich wrote to Stalin that he could not be an American spy because he did not speak American. But with this argument, Dybenko did not convince either Stalin or the court. The latter had 17 minutes of trial to condemn the legendary commander to death.

However, Dybenko left the holiday as a legacy to the Soviet people. The Day of the Soviet Army and Navy, now known as Defender of the Fatherland Day, was established after the Red Army under the command of Pavel Dybenko stopped the German offensive near Narva on February 23, 1918.

On July 29, 1938, in addition to Dybenko, the head of the Central Control Commission, Rudzutak, and the old revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Comintern, Osip Pyatnitsky, were also executed.

On August 1, 1938, a Russian revolutionary, one of the founders of the first Soviets in Russia and leaders of the 1917 revolution, Andrei Bubnov, was shot;

On August 19, 1938, the former Minister of War of the Provisional Government, General Alexander Verkhovsky, was shot;

On August 29, 1938, the former leader of the Left Social Revolutionaries Boris Kamkov (real name Katz), who became one of the organizers of the Left Social Revolutionary rebellion of 1918, was shot. For the rebellion, he was given 3 years of captivity, and then they were given the opportunity to work hard at household work. Under Yezhov, he was remembered and shot;

On September 1, 1938, a prominent revolutionary, a candidate member of the Politburo, V. Ossinsky, was sentenced to death at a secret meeting by a military collegium and shot on the same day;

On September 17, 1938, a former member of the Provisional Government, economist, author of the first Soviet five-year plan, Nikolai Kondratiev, was shot;

On September 20, 1938, a Soviet diplomat, former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lev Karakhan was shot;

On October 3, 1938, the former leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, People's Commissar of the first Soviet Council of People's Commissars Vladimir Algasov was shot, as well as the former leader of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries of Russia, Mikhail Gendelman;

Finally, and "the old woman found a hole." On April 10, 1939, the "sinister dwarf" NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov was arrested. They say that during the search they found several flattened revolver bullets wrapped in pieces of paper with the inscriptions "Zinoviev", "Kamenev", "Smirnov". By that time, the bullet for Yezhov had already been cast, but had not yet been signed.

Yezhov was presented with a whole bunch of accusations:

1. He was the head of the anti-Soviet conspiratorial organization in the troops and bodies of the NKVD.

2. He betrayed the Motherland, carrying out espionage work in favor of the Polish, German, Japanese and British intelligence services.

3. In an effort to seize power in the USSR, he prepared an armed uprising and the commission of terrorist acts against the leaders of the party and government.

4. Engaged in subversive, wrecking work in the Soviet and party apparatus.

5. For adventurous and careeristic purposes, he created a case of alleged "mercury poisoning", organized the murder of a number of persons objectionable to him, who could expose his treacherous work.

There could only be one sentence for such crimes. And on February 2, 1940, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by V.V. Ulrich sentenced the former People's Commissar of the NKVD Yezhov to be shot.

True N.I. Yezhov denied at the trial all the accusations against him about anti-Party activities, espionage, etc., which he admitted during the preliminary investigation.

At the same time, Yezhov declared that “there are also such crimes for which I can be shot. I cleared 14,000 Chekists. But my great fault lies in the fact that I did not clean them enough. Everywhere I cleaned security officers. I did not clean them only in Moscow, Leningrad and the North Caucasus. I considered them honest, but in fact it turned out that under my wing I hid saboteurs, pests, spies and other kinds of enemies of the people.

On February 4, 1940, Nikolai Yezhov, the former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, was shot. During his leadership of the NKVD (from 1936 to 1938), more than 1.5 million people were subjected to unjustified repressions.

Lavrenty Beria, who replaced Yezhov as head of the NKVD, began his career promisingly. In 1938 he signed a decree "On arrests, prosecutorial supervision and investigation." In accordance with it, mass operations for arrests and evictions were prohibited, it was ordered to make arrests only by court order or with the sanction of the prosecutor, and judicial "troikas" were liquidated. As a result, many innocent people were soon released from prisons and camps. On the contrary, law enforcement officials were prosecuted for groundless mass arrests. As a result, the flywheel of repression slowed down its speed hundreds of times. In 1939, only 2,552 death sentences were passed, and in 1940, even fewer - 1,649.

However, politics and war had their say. Repression again began to gain momentum.

Here are some of the most famous executions of the pre-war and war years:

On November 30, 1939, Bela Kun, the leader of the Hungarian revolution, was executed in the USSR, accused of spying for Germany and England. He came to Russia in 1916 as a prisoner of war, at the same time he joined the RSDLP (b). After the revolution of 1917, he distinguished himself in repressions against Russians. Then he went to Hungary to make a revolution there. After the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he returned to the USSR, where he found his death.

On February 2, 1940, the Russian theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold was shot. His case can serve as a model for the speed of Soviet justice. On January 28, on the day of his birth, Meyerhold received a copy of the indictment in Butyrka prison. On February 1, in the basement of the Military Collegium, he heard the verdict. And on February 2, this sentence was carried out. Boyarsky-Shimshelevich and Mikhail Koltsov were shot together with Meyerhold.

« They laid me face down on the floor, beat me with a tourniquet on my heels, on my back; when he sat on a chair, they beat him on the legs with the same rubber. The following days, when these places of the legs were flooded with profuse internal hemorrhages, these red-blue-yellow bruises were again beaten with this tourniquet, and the pain was such that it seemed that boiling water was poured onto the painful sensitive places (I screamed and cried from pain) . They beat me in the face with their hands ... The investigator kept repeating, threatening: “You won’t write, we will beat again, we will leave my head and right arm intact, we will turn the rest into a piece of a shapeless bloody body.” And I signed everything until November 16, 1939».

On September 11, 1941, the following were shot: the former head of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine Kh. Rakovsky, the leading Russian doctor D. Pletnev, accused of the murder of M. Gorky, as well as Russian revolutionaries, leaders of the Left Social Revolutionaries Maria Spiridonova and Ilya Mayorov

On September 15, 1941, Eva Broido, the leader of the Menshevik anti-Soviet underground, was shot in the Oryol prison.

On October 28, 1941, by order of L. Beria, a revolutionary, one of the organizers of the execution of the royal family F. Goloshchekin, was shot

After the war, on the wave of victorious euphoria, Stalin and Beria announced to the people about the abolition of the death penalty. This act of mercy, against the backdrop of the current reputation of these politicians, looks like something fantastic, but it was really carried out. The Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 26, 1947 proclaimed the abolition of the death penalty. This Decree established that for crimes punishable by death under current laws, imprisonment in a forced labor camp for a period of 25 years is applied in peacetime.

The estimated execution was not valid from March 26, 1947 to January 12, 1950. True, no one was going to liquidate the Gulag. After the war, the number of those convicted on political charges was:

1946 - 123,294 people

1947 - 78,810 people

1949 - 28,800 people

Although the number of executions in the “Beria” period was noticeably reduced, the NKVD bodies performed their task of supplying free labor to the camps regularly. In the third year of the leadership of the NKVD by Beria, in 1941, the number of prisoners in the USSR reached a record number - 1,976 thousand people. And by the time they returned after a break to the post of head of the internal affairs bodies, in 1953, there were 2,526 thousand people. However, during this period, Lavrenty Pavlovich, it seems, began to think himself: did he not overdo it? And as a result, he started the largest amnesty in the history of the country.

However, no amnesty could save him himself. Beria has already lost confidence. June 26, 1953 Lavrenty Pavlovich was arrested. And already on December 23 of this year, a verdict was read to him, according to which he was accused of conspiracy to use the internal affairs bodies against the Communist Party of the Soviet government, as well as of many other crimes. And on the same day, Beria was shot.

It should be noted that not only Beria led the post-war repressions. On April 14, 1943, the NKVD was divided into two law enforcement agencies - the NKGB of the USSR and the NKVD of the USSR, under the leadership of L.P. Beria and V.N. Merkulov. Moreover, as the head of the NKGB in January 1946, Beria was replaced by V.S. Abakumov, who led it until June 1951.

The death penalty in the USSR was re-introduced on January 12, 1950 by the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces "On the application of the death penalty to traitors to the Motherland, spies, subversive bombers", and on April 30, 1954, the death penalty was introduced for premeditated murder.

One gets the impression that in the three years that there was no death penalty in the country, the people “became bolder”, and in order to drive them back into the framework of “permanent fear”, the “Stalinist falcons” began to practice certain actions aimed at creating an additional effect on others. In this regard, one story can be cited:

In September 1950, when the so-called "Leningrad case" was heard in the building of the House of Officers, all the accused were sentenced to death. Immediately after the verdict was announced, the historian writes, “tall guards threw white shrouds over the suicide bombers, put them on their shoulders and carried them to the exit across the entire hall. At that moment, the noise of a falling body and the clang of a weapon were heard: this was a fainting spell with a young escort, not provided for by the script.

In 1954, the former head of state security, Abakumov, was tried in the same hall of the House of Officers. Prosecutor Rudenko was told about the scene when the condemned were carried out of this hall, and he asked the defendant:

Why did you do it then?

For the psychological impact on those present. Everyone should have seen our power, the indestructible strength of the organs, - Abakumov replied.

In the USSR, they were often executed on the basis of party and professional affiliation, and in 1952 they began to be put into consumption on a national basis. On May 8, 1952, a trial began on charges of cosmopolitanism against the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, as if they openly sympathized with the West, admired its achievements, and also in their connections with foreign intelligence services. 13 defendants in this process were shot in the cellars of the Lubyanka on the night of August 12, 1952. This night went down in history under the name "Night of the Murdered Poets", since three poets were on the list of the executed: Peretz Markish, Itzik Fefer, David Bergelson. Moreover, the latter was shot exactly on the day when he turned 68 years old. Here is a congratulation received from the Soviet government. Diplomat Solomon Lozovsky and artist Veniamin Zuskin were also among those executed. All were buried in a common grave at the Donskoy cemetery.

On the same day in the city of Stalino, now Donetsk, there was already an execution for professional affiliation. A group of senior workers of the metallurgical complex, accused of sabotage, was shot.

At the beginning of 1952, Stalin's personal attending physician Vinogradov advised the leader to engage in politics less, to have more rest in order to preserve his failing health. And this recommendation, Stalin saw a secret plan to remove him from power. The leader set the Minister of State Security Ignatiev the task of finding the instigators in the conspiracy of doctors. "If you don't get the recognition of the doctors, we will make you a head shorter," the leader joked gloomily.

Ignatiev correctly assessed that in every joke of the leader there is a great deal of truth, and therefore he soon reported on the "deliberate mistreatment" of the top party leaders. Doctors Vinogradov, Yegorov, Vasilenko, Buzalov, Etinger, Vovsi, Kogan and others were allegedly responsible for the death of Shcherbakov and Zhdanov.

On January 13, 1953, Pravda published an article entitled "The Arrest of Pest Doctors". Pravda claimed that "killer doctors, monsters in human form, turned out to be paid agents of foreign espionage." Three of the accused doctors were Russians, six were Jews.

In early February 1953, members of an underground Israeli Zionist organization detonated a bomb at the door of the Soviet embassy in Tel Aviv in protest against the anti-Jewish campaign in the USSR. And although the perpetrators were punished by an Israeli court, the USSR severed diplomatic relations with Israel, and the spiral of anti-Semitic fever continued to rapidly unwind.

In February, another 37 people were arrested, mostly again doctors and their families. The campaign in the press caused a real mass hysteria. People refused to take medicine from Jewish doctors or pharmacists for fear of being poisoned.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953. A month after his death, on April 3, 1953, the arrested doctors were released. We can say that they are very lucky.

The sinister era of Stalinist repressions ended with the death of the leader. According to the report prepared for N.S. Khrushchev, the OGPU collegium, the NKVD troikas and the Special Meeting for the period from 1921 to 1954, 3,777,380 people were convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, including 642,980 to capital punishment, to detention in camps and prisons for a term of 25 years or less 2 369 220, into exile and exile - 765 180 people.

By 1954, 467,946 people were held in camps and prisons for prisoners convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, and, in addition, 62,462 people were in exile after serving such punishments. For criminal offenses and gross violations of the law, 1,324 NKVD-MGB officers were sentenced to various penalties, including death. 2,370 former employees involved in the repressions were punished in the party or administrative order. 68 generals were stripped of their military ranks, dismissed from service and convicted.

We can say that the last chord of the Stalinist repressions were the repressions against their main characters.

After Stalin's death, Lavrenty Beria seemed to repent. And he actively engaged in the correction of the excesses allowed.

On May 9, 1953, an amnesty was declared, releasing 1,181,264 people. A number of high-profile political criminal cases were dropped or reviewed. The “case of doctors” was closed, those arrested on it were released; all those convicted in the "Leningrad" and "Mingrelian" criminal cases were rehabilitated. High-ranking military men imprisoned during the trials of the late 1940s and early 1950s were released and reinstated in rank, for example, Air Chief Marshal A.A. Novikov, Marshal of Artillery N.D. Yakovlev and others. In total, investigation cases were closed for 400 thousand people. Finally, in order to prevent "excesses" in the future, Beria issued a secret order ordering the observance of "socialist legality" during the investigation and prohibiting torture during interrogations.

But nothing could save Lavrenty Pavlovich himself. The members of the Presidium of the Central Committee were, on the initiative of N.S. Khrushchev, it was announced that Beria was planning to carry out a coup d'état and arrest the Presidium at the premiere of the opera The Decembrists. On June 26, 1953, during a meeting of the Presidium of Beria, G.K. was arrested. Zhukov, on behalf of Khrushchev, was bound, taken out of the Kremlin by car and kept in custody in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Air Defense District.

Soon, Beria appeared before a special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I.S. Konev. He was accused of spying for Great Britain, striving for "the elimination of the Soviet worker-peasant system, the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie." And also in the elimination of persons who could expose him. For example, an old communist, party member since 1902, M.S. Kedrov, who had information about Beria's criminal past. Despite the fact that Kedrov was acquitted by the Supreme Court of the USSR, he was not released from custody, but was shot on the personal orders of Lavrenty Pavlovich. Beria was also accused of moral decay, which consisted in the fact that he cohabited with many women and raped some. Thus, the accusation included the fact that on May 7, 1949, Lavrenty Pavlovich, having fraudulently lured a 16-year-old schoolgirl into his mansion, raped her, threatened her and her mother with physical destruction if they filed a complaint. For this bouquet of crimes, Beria was sentenced to death.

The sentence was carried out on December 23, 1953 in the same bunker of the MVO headquarters where Beria was kept after his arrest. The execution was attended by the commander of the Moscow Military District, General of the Army K.S. Moskalenko, First Deputy Commander of the Air Defense Forces, Colonel-General P.F. Batitsky, Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko.

A. V. Antonov-Ovseenko described the procedure for the execution of Beria as follows:

“They took off his tunic, leaving a white undershirt, twisted his arms behind him with a rope and tied him to a hook driven into a wooden shield. This shield protected those present from the ricochet of a bullet. Rudenko read out the verdict.

Beria: - Let me tell you...

Rudenko: - You've already said everything. (To the military) Shut his mouth with a towel.

Moskalenno (to Yuferev): - You are the youngest among us, you shoot well. Let's.

Batitsky: - Comrade commander, allow me (takes out his "parabellum"). With this thing, I sent more than one scoundrel to the next world at the front.

Rudenko: - I ask you to carry out the sentence.

Batitsky raised his hand. A wildly bulging eye flashed above the bandage, the second Beria screwed up his eyes. Batitsky pulled the trigger, the bullet hit the middle of the forehead. The body was hanging on the ropes.

Later, Batitsky reported to Konev with a memo: "The sentence was carried out at 19.50 on 12.23.53 Batitsky."

On the same day, six associates of Beria were shot in the basements of the Lubyanka: V.N. Merkulov (former Minister of State Security of the USSR), V.G. Dekanozov (former head of one of the departments of the NKVD of the USSR, then the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR), B.Z. Kobulov (former Deputy Minister of State Security, then Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR), S.A. Goglidze (former People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR, lately the head of one of the departments of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs), P.Ya. Menshik (Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR), L.E. Vlodzimirsky (former head of the investigative unit for especially important cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs).

A brief report on the trial of Beria and his collaborators appeared in the Soviet press.

A year later, retribution overtook the former Minister of State Security of the USSR Viktor Semenovich Abakumov. He was shot on December 19, 1954.

They say that Abakumov was handsome, tall, well built. He looked after himself: he wore a carefully fitted uniform and fashionable suits, smelled of exquisite cologne, played tennis, was a master of sports in sambo. He, like Beria, did not need to rape women, they gave themselves to him with pleasure. For using safe houses for amorous meetings, he was even once transferred from state security to the system for the execution of punishments. In addition to women, Abakumov loved foxtrot, football and kebabs, which were brought to him from the Aragvi restaurant.

However, the life-loving Abakumov deprived the lives and freedom of very many. He was not such a zealous apologist for mass repressions as Yagoda and Yezhov, but he used them while still being the head of the NKVD department for the Rostov region in the late 30s. Already at the post of Minister of State Security, Viktor Semenovich distinguished himself, for example, by fabricating the "Leningrad case" in 1950-51, according to which numerous arrests and executions of Leningrad party and economic leaders were made.

During these years, the influence of Abakumov increased dramatically and he began to be seen as one of the main rivals of Beria. However, Lavrenty Pavlovich turned out to be stronger at that time and managed to “fall down” the competitor. On July 12, 1951, Abakumov was arrested on charges of concealing a "Zionist conspiracy" in the USSR Ministry of State Security.

They say that even as the Minister of State Security, Viktor Semenovich often personally conducted interrogations, during which he beat the defendants. After his arrest, he himself found himself "in their shoes." Methods of physical influence were actively applied to him. They say that Abakumov endured torture and beatings very courageously and did not break down psychologically, but after them this once flourishing man remained an invalid.

At the trial, he was accused of treason, sabotage, fabrication of criminal cases and a number of other crimes. Viktor Semenovich pleaded not guilty, saying: "Stalin gave instructions, I carried them out." However, the court still considered that he was guilty of treason, sabotage, terrorist attacks, participation in a counter-revolutionary organization and sentenced him to death.

Together with Abakumov, his closest assistants were shot: the head of the investigation unit for especially important cases of the USSR Ministry of State Security A.G. Leonov, Deputy Ministers of State Security of the USSR V.I. Komarov and M.T. Likhachev.

The crimes of rulers cannot be imputed to those over whom they rule; Governments are sometimes bandits, peoples never. V. Hugo.

After the villainous murder of S.M. Kirov mass repressions began. On the evening of December 1, 1934, on the initiative of Stalin (without the decision of the Politburo - this was formalized by a poll only 2 days later), the secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee Yenukidze signed the following decree.

1) Investigative authorities - to deal with those accused of preparing or committing terrorist acts in an expedited manner;

2) Judicial bodies - not to delay the execution of sentences of capital punishment because of the petitions of criminals of this category for pardon, since the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR does not consider it possible to accept such petitions for consideration;

3) The bodies of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs - to carry out the sentence of capital punishment against criminals of the above categories immediately after the pronouncement of court verdicts.

This decision served as the basis for mass violations of socialist legality. In many falsified investigative cases, the defendants were accused of "preparing" terrorist acts, and this deprived the accused of any opportunity to check their cases even when they retracted their forced "confessions" in court and convincingly denied the charges.

It should be said that the circumstances surrounding the murder of Kirov are still fraught with many incomprehensible and mysterious things and require the most thorough investigation. There is reason to believe that the killer of Kirov - Nikolaev was helped by someone from the people who were obliged to protect Kirov. A month and a half before the murder, Nikolaev was arrested for suspicious behavior, but was released and not even searched. It is extremely suspicious that when the Chekist attached to Kirov in December 1934 was taken for interrogation, he was killed in a car “accident”, and none of the persons accompanying him were injured. After the assassination of Kirov, the leaders of the Leningrad NKVD were removed from work and subjected to very mild punishments, but in 1937 they were shot. It can be seen that they were shot in order to cover up the traces of the organizers of the murder of Kirov.

Mass repressions intensified sharply from the end of 1936 after a telegram from Stalin and Zhdanov from Sochi dated September 25, 1936, addressed to Kaganovich, Molotov and other members of the Politburo, which stated the following:

“We consider it absolutely necessary and urgent to appoint Comrade Yezhov to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Yagoda was clearly not up to the task of exposing the Trotskyite-Zinovievist bloc. The OGPU was 4 years late in this matter. Party workers and the majority of regional representatives of the NKVD speak about this. Khlevnyuk O.V., 1937: Stalin, the NKVD and Soviet society. - M.: Respublika, 1992 - S.9..

By the way, it should be noted that Stalin did not meet with party workers and therefore could not know their opinion. This Stalinist attitude that “the NKVD was 4 years late” with the use of mass repressions, that it was necessary to quickly “catch up” for what was lost, directly pushed the NKVD workers to mass arrests and executions. Mass repressions were carried out at that time under the flag of the struggle against the Trotskyists.

In Stalin's report at the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of 1937, "On the Shortcomings of Party Work and Measures to Eliminate Trotskyist and Other Double Dealers," an attempt was made to theoretically substantiate the policy of mass repression under the pretext that "as we move forward towards socialism," the class struggle must allegedly more and more aggravated. At the same time, Stalin argued that this is how history teaches, this is how Lenin teaches. In fact, Lenin pointed out that the use of revolutionary violence is caused by the need to crush the resistance of the exploiting classes, and these instructions of Lenin referred to the period when the exploiting classes existed and were strong. As soon as the political situation in the country improved, as soon as Rostov was taken by the Red Army in January 1920 and the main victory over Denikin was won, Lenin instructed Dzerzhinsky to abolish mass terror and to abolish the death penalty. Lenin substantiated this important political event of the Soviet power in the following way in his report at the session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 2, 1920:

“Terror was imposed by the terrorism of the Entente, when all the peacefully powerful powers fell upon us with their hordes, stopping at nothing. We could not have held out even two days if these attempts by the officers and the White Guards had not been answered in a merciless manner, and this meant terror, but this was imposed on us by the terrorist methods of the Entente. And as soon as we won a decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after the capture of Rostov, we abandoned the use of the death penalty and by this showed that we treat our own program as promised. We say that the use of violence is motivated by the task of crushing the exploiters, of crushing the landlords and capitalists; when this is allowed, we will renounce all exceptional measures. We have proven it in action."

Stalin retreated from these direct and clear program instructions from Lenin. After all the exploiting classes in our country had already been liquidated, and there were no serious grounds for the mass application of exceptional measures, for mass terror, Stalin oriented the party, oriented the organs of the NKVD towards mass terror.

Only from 1929 to 1953, 19.5-2.2 million Soviet citizens became victims of Stalinist repressions. Of these, at least a third were sentenced to death or died in camps and exile. After the war, society in the socio-political sense was not simply “conserved”, but acquired some new gloomy features of a bureaucratic, police character. Stalin managed to combine the incongruous - in every possible way to support the external enthusiasm, the asceticism of people who believed that just about, nearby, already beyond the nearest pass, those very shining peaks. And then there is the constant threat of individual or mass terror.

CONCLUSION

Stalin dictatorship of repression

Since this period was too long for a more detailed consideration, I have highlighted the most prominent errors and shortcomings.

It should be noted that in Stalin's activities, along with the positive aspects, there were theoretical and political errors. Certain traits of his character had a negative effect on the structure of our country. If in the first years of work without Lenin, Stalin reckoned with critical remarks addressed to him, then later he began to deviate from the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, to overestimate his own merits in the successes of the party and people. A personality cult of Stalin gradually took shape, which entailed gross violations of socialist legality, caused serious harm to the activities of the party, to the cause of communist construction.

Stalin loved secrets. Big and small. But most of all he adored the mysteries of power. There were many. Often they were creepy. His biggest secret was that he managed to become a symbol of socialism. Many positive things that were born in society became a reality, primarily not thanks to, but in spite of Stalin.

The constant "secret" of influencing public consciousness was to maintain uninterrupted tension in society. Stalin knew one more "secret" of managing public consciousness: it is important to instill in it myths, clichés, legends that are based not so much on rational knowledge as on faith. People were taught to believe in the absolute values ​​of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Ritual meetings, manifestations, oaths made them part of the worldview. Confidence based on truth was replaced by faith. People believed in socialism, in the "leader", in the fact that our society is the most perfect and advanced, in the innocence of power.

Stalin's life testifies to the fact that the lack of harmony between politics and morality always, in the end, leads to collapse. The historical pendulum of events in our country raised Stalin to the highest point and lowered him to the lowest. A person who believes only in the power of violence can only go from one crime to another.

63) Great Patriotic War 1941-1945

The Great Patriotic War (1941 - 1945) - a war between the USSR, Germany and its allies within the framework of World War II wars on the territory of the USSR and Germany. Germany attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941, with the expectation of a short military campaign, but the war dragged on for several years and ended in the complete defeat of Germany. The Great Patriotic War became the final stage of the Second World War.

Causes of the Great Patriotic War

After the defeat in World War I During the war, Germany remained in a difficult situation - the political situation was unstable, the economy was in a deep crisis. Around this time came to power Hitler, who, thanks to his reforms in the economy, was able to quickly bring Germany out of the crisis and thereby gain the trust of the authorities and the people. Standing at the head of the country, Hitler began to pursue his policy, which was based on the idea of ​​​​the superiority of the Germans over other races and peoples. Hitler not only wanted to take revenge for losing the First World War, but also to subjugate the whole world to his will. The result of his claims was the German attack on the Czech Republic and Poland, and then, already within the framework of the outbreak of the Second World War, on other European countries.

Until 1941, there was a non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR, but Hitler violated it by attacking the USSR. In order to conquer the Soviet Union, the German command developed a plan for a swift attack, which was supposed to bring victory within two months. Having seized the territories and wealth of the USSR, Hitler could enter into an open confrontation with the United States for the right to world political domination.

The attack was swift, but did not bring the desired results - the Russian army put up stronger resistance than the Germans expected, and the war dragged on for many years.

The main periods of the Great Patriotic War

The first period (June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942) Within a year after the German attack on the USSR, the German army was able to conquer significant territories, which included Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine. After that, the troops moved inland with the aim of capturing Moscow and Leningrad, however, despite the failures of the Russian soldiers at the beginning of the war, the Germans failed to take the capital. Leningrad was taken under blockade, but the Germans were not allowed into the city. The battles for Moscow, Leningrad and Novgorod continued until 1942.

The period of a radical change (1942 - 1943) The middle period of the war bears such a name due to the fact that it was at this time that the Soviet troops were able to take the advantage in the war into their own hands and launch a counteroffensive. The armies of the Germans and the allies gradually began to retreat back to the western border, many foreign legions were defeated and destroyed. Due to the fact that the entire industry of the USSR at that time worked for military needs, the Soviet army managed to significantly increase its weapons and put up decent resistance. The army of the USSR from the defender turned into an attacker.

The final period of the war (1943 - 1945). During this period, the USSR began to recapture the lands occupied by the Germans and move towards Germany. Leningrad was liberated, Soviet troops entered Czechoslovakia, Poland, and then into Germany. On May 8, Berlin was taken, and the German troops announced their unconditional surrender. Hitler hanged himself after learning of the lost war. War is over.

The main battles of the Great Patriotic War

The results and significance of the Great Patriotic War

Despite the fact that the main goal of the Great Patriotic War was defensive, as a result, the Soviet troops went on the offensive and not only liberated their territories, but also destroyed the German army, took Berlin and stopped Hitler's victorious march across Europe. The Great Patriotic War was the last stage of the Second World War.

Unfortunately, despite the victory, this war turned out to be devastating for the USSR - the country's economy after the war was in a deep crisis, since the industry worked exclusively for the military industry, most of the population was killed, the rest were starving.

Nevertheless, for the USSR, victory in this war meant that now the Union was becoming a world superpower, which had the right to dictate its terms in the political arena.

64) Post-war restoration and further development of the national economy of the USSR

Difficulties of post-war reconstruction. In the first post-war years, the main task was to restore the destroyed national economy. The war caused enormous damage to the economy of the USSR: 1710 cities and towns, more than 70 thousand villages and villages, 32 thousand industrial enterprises, 65 thousand km of railway lines, 98 thousand collective farms, 1876 state farms, 2890 MTS were destroyed, 27 million died. Soviet citizens.

The United States, according to the Marshall Plan, provided colossal financial assistance to European countries in economic recovery: for 1948-1951. European countries received $12.4 billion from the US. The US offered financial assistance to the Soviet Union, but subject to control on their part over the spending of the funds provided. The Soviet government rejected this assistance under such conditions. The Soviet Union was rebuilding its economy with its own resources.

Already at the end of May 1945, the State Defense Committee decided to transfer part of the defense enterprises to the production of consumer goods. On June 23, 1945, the session of the Supreme Council adopted the Law on the demobilization of 13-age army personnel. The demobilized were provided with a set of clothes and shoes, a one-time cash allowance, the local authorities had to provide them with a job within a month. There have been changes in the structure of state bodies. In 1945, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was abolished. All functions of managing the economy were concentrated in the hands of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 - the Council of Ministers of the USSR). At enterprises and institutions, a normal work regime was resumed: an 8-hour working day was restored, annual paid holidays were restored. The state budget was revised, appropriations for the development of civilian sectors of the economy increased. The State Planning Commission prepared a 4-year plan for the restoration of the national economy for 1946-1950.

Recovery and development of industry.

In the field of industry, three major tasks had to be solved:

demilitarize the economy;

restore destroyed businesses;

carry out new construction.

The demilitarization of the economy was basically completed in 1946-1947. some people's commissariats of the military industry (tank, mortar weapons, ammunition) were abolished. Instead, ministries of civilian production (agricultural, transport engineering, etc.) were created. The difficulties of the transition of industry from military to civilian production were quickly overcome, and in October 1947 industrial output reached the average monthly level of 1940, and in 1948 the pre-war level of industrial output was surpassed by 18%, and in heavy industry by 30%.

The most important place in the restoration of industry was given to power plants as the energy basis of industrial regions. Huge funds were directed to the restoration of the largest power plant in Europe - Dneproges. Colossal destruction was eliminated in a short time. Already in March 1947, the station gave the first current, and in 1950 it started working at full capacity.

Among the priority recovery industries were the coal and metallurgical industries, primarily the mines of Donbass and the metallurgical giants of the country - Zaporizhstal and Azovstal. Already in 1950, coal production in the Donbass exceeded the level of 1940. The Donbass again became the most important coal basin in the country.

The construction of new industrial enterprises throughout the country has gained considerable momentum. In total, during the years of the first post-war five-year plan, 6,200 large enterprises were built and destroyed during the war were restored.

In the post-war period, the state paid special attention to the development of the defense industry, primarily the creation of atomic weapons. In 1948, a plutonium production reactor was built in the Chelyabinsk region, and by the autumn of 1949, atomic weapons had been created in the USSR. Four years later (summer 1953) the first hydrogen bomb was tested in the USSR. At the end of the 40s. The USSR began to use atomic energy to produce electricity: the construction of nuclear power plants began. The world's first nuclear power plant - Obninskaya (near Moscow) was put into operation in 1954.

In general, industry was restored by 1947. On the whole, the five-year plan for industrial output was fulfilled by a large margin: instead of the planned growth of 48%, the volume of industrial output in 1950 exceeded the level of 1940 by 73%.

Agriculture. The war dealt particularly heavy damage to agriculture. Cultivation areas were greatly reduced, the number of cattle was extremely low. The situation was aggravated by the drought unprecedented in the last 50 years in 1946 in Ukraine, Moldova, the Lower Volga region, and the North Caucasus. In 1946, the average yield was 4.6 centners per hectare. The famine caused a massive outflow of people to the cities. In February 1947, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considered the question "On measures to improve agriculture in the post-war period." The resolution outlined a program for the restoration and further development of agriculture.

During the years of the first five-year plan, 536,000 tractors, 93,000 grain combines, 845,000 tractor plows, seeders, cultivators, and other agricultural machinery were sent to the countryside. The number of machine operators in the MTS on collective farms and state farms has reached 1.4 million people. in 1950, large-scale work was carried out to electrify the countryside: in 1950, the capacity of rural power plants and electrical installations was three times greater than in 1940; 76% of state farms and 15% of collective farms used electricity.

In order to strengthen the collective farms in the early 1950s. the amalgamation of farms was carried out through the voluntary amalgamation of small collective farms into larger ones. Instead of 254,000 small collective farms, 93,000 large-scale farms were created in 1950. This contributed to the improvement of agricultural production, more efficient use of technology.

At the same time, in the autumn of 1946, the state launched a broad campaign against horticulture and horticulture under the banner of squandering public lands and collective farm property. Personal subsidiary plots were cut down and heavily taxed. It got to the point of absurdity: every fruit tree was taxed. In the late 40s - early 50s. dispossession of personal farms and the creation of new collective farms was carried out in the western regions of Ukraine, Belarus, in the Baltic republics, Right-Bank Moldova, annexed in 1939-1940. to the USSR. In these areas, mass collectivization was carried out.

Despite the measures taken, the situation in agriculture remained difficult. Agriculture could not meet the country's needs for food and agricultural raw materials. The socio-economic situation of the rural population also remained difficult. The payment for labor was purely symbolic, the collective farmers were not entitled to pensions, they did not have passports, they were not allowed to leave the village without the permission of the authorities.

The plan of the 4th five-year plan for the development of agriculture was not fulfilled. Feed, grain, meat and dairy remained constant problems in agriculture. However, the level of agricultural production in 1950 reached the pre-war level. In 1947, the rationing system for food and industrial goods was abolished, and the currency reform was also abolished.

Socio-political and cultural life. In the post-war period, to restore the economy and establish a peaceful life, a huge spiritual tension of the whole society was required. Meanwhile, the creative and scientific intelligentsia, by their nature tending to expand their creative contacts, hoped for the liberalization of life, the weakening of strict party-state control, and pinned their hopes on the development and strengthening of cultural contacts with the United States and Western countries.

But the international situation immediately after the war changed dramatically. Instead of cooperation in the relations between the former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, confrontation began. The intelligentsia, however, still hoped for greater cooperation with the West. The leadership of the USSR set a course for "tightening the screws" against the intelligentsia. In 1946-1948. Several resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on cultural issues were adopted. In March 1946, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad", in which the work of the writers M. Zoshchenko and A. Akhmatova was criticized. At the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, where the issue of these magazines was discussed, JV Stalin declared that a journal in the USSR is not a "private enterprise" and has no right to adapt to the tastes of people "who do not want to recognize our system."

In 1949, a broad campaign began in society against cosmopolitanism and "groveling before the West." "Rootless cosmopolitans" were found in many cities, the disclosure of creative pseudonyms became widespread.

The authorities began to explain the difficulties of post-war development, disruptions in certain types of production by the "wrecking" of the technical intelligentsia. Thus, "sabotage" was discovered in the production of aviation equipment ("The Case of Shakhurin, Novikov and others), the automotive industry ("On hostile elements at the ZIS"), in the Moscow healthcare system ("On the situation in the MGB and on sabotage in the medical business" The "doctors' case" (1952-1953) received a great response. A group of well-known doctors, most of whom were of Jewish nationality, were accused of poisoning and accelerating the death of people close to I.V. Stalin - A.A. Zhdanov, A. S. Shcherbakov, and also, even before the war, M. Gorky and others. After the death of I. V. Stalin, most of them were released. organization was accused of creating an anti-party group and carrying out wrecking work.Among them were A. A. Kuznetsov - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, M. N. Rodionov - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR.

In 1952, the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place, at which I.V. Stalin. At the congress, it was decided to rename the CPSU (b) into the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

On March 5, 1953, I.V. died. Stalin, whose death was received differently by the Soviet people.

65)Socio-political and cultural life

Post-war ideological campaigns and repression

During the war and immediately after it, the intelligentsia, primarily scientific and creative, hoped for the liberalization of public life, the weakening of the rigid party-state control. However, the international situation soon after the war changed dramatically. The Cold War has begun. Instead of cooperation, there was confrontation. The leadership of the USSR set a course for an immediate "tightening the screws" on the intelligentsia, which had somewhat weakened in the last years of the war. In 1946-1948. Several resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on cultural issues were adopted. We started with the Leningraders. The March 1946 decree “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad” subjected the work of M. Zoshchenko and A. Akhmatova to merciless criticism. At the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, where this issue was discussed, I.V. Stalin declared that the magazine in the USSR "is not a private enterprise", it has no right to adapt to the tastes of people "who do not want to recognize our system." The main ideologist of the country at that time, A.A. Zhdanov, speaking in Leningrad with an explanation of the decision, called Zoshchenko a “vulgar”, “non-Soviet writer”. After the defeat of the Leningrad writers, they took up theaters, cinema, and music. The resolutions of the Central Committee of the party “On the repertoire of drama theaters and measures to improve it”, “On the film “Big Life”, “On Muradeli’s opera “Great Friendship”, etc. were adopted accordingly.

Science was also subjected to ideological destruction. The development of agriculture was negatively affected by the position of a group of administrative scientists headed by Academician T.D. Lysenko, who took a monopoly position in the management of agricultural science. Her position was consolidated in the decisions of the notorious session of VASKhNIL (Academy of Agricultural Sciences), held in August 1948. The session dealt a heavy blow to genetics, the key science of modern natural science. Lysenko's views were recognized as the only true in biology. They were called "Michurin's doctrine." Classical genetics was recognized as a reactionary trend in biological science.

Attacks also began against the core of theoretical physics of the 20th century - quantum theory and the theory of relativity. The latter was declared "reactionary Einsteinianism". Cybernetics was called reactionary pseudoscience. Philosophers have argued that the US imperialists need it to foment a third world war.

Spiritual terror was accompanied by physical terror, which was confirmed by the "Leningrad case" (1949-1951) and the "doctors' case" (1952-1953). Formally, the “Leningrad case” was started in January 1949 after an anonymous letter received by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks about the rigging of the election results of the secretaries of the Leningrad Regional Committee and the City Party Committee. It ended with the removal from work of more than 2 thousand leaders who had ever worked in Leningrad, and the execution of over 200 of them. They were accused of trying to destroy the USSR by pitting Russia against the Union and Leningrad against Moscow.

In recent years, two opposing courses were closely intertwined in Soviet society: the course towards the actual strengthening of the repressive role of the state and the course towards the formal democratization of the political system. The latter appeared in the following forms. In the autumn of 1945, immediately after the defeat of militaristic Japan, the state of emergency was ended in the USSR and the State Defense Committee, an extra-constitutional body of power that concentrated dictatorial powers in its hands, was abolished. In 1946-1948. re-elections of councils at all levels were held and the deputy corps, formed back in 1937-1939, was renewed. The first session of the USSR Supreme Council of the new, second convocation was held in March 1946. It approved the 4th Five-Year Plan, adopted a law on the transformation of the Council of People's Commissars into the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Finally, in 1949-1952. resumed after a long break congresses of public and socio-political organizations of the USSR. Thus, in 1949, the 10th Congress of Trade Unions and the 11th Congress of the Komsomol were held (17 and 13 years later, respectively, after the previous ones). And in 1952, the 19th Party Congress was held, the last congress attended by I.V. Stalin. The congress decided to rename the CPSU(b) into the CPSU.

Death of Stalin. power struggle

On March 5, 1953, I.V. Stalin died. Millions of Soviet people mourned this death, while other millions associated hopes for a better life with this event. Those and others were separated not only by different feelings, but often by the barbed wire of numerous concentration camps. By this time, according to N.S. Khrushchev, there were about 10 million people in concentration camps and exile. With the death of Stalin, a difficult, heroic and bloody page in the history of Soviet society ended. A few years later, recalling his front-line ally and political enemy, W. Churchill called Stalin an Eastern tyrant and a great politician who "took Russia with a bast shoe, and left it with atomic weapons."

After the funeral of I.V. Stalin (he was buried in a mausoleum next to V.I. Lenin), the top leadership of the state redistributed duties: K.E. Voroshilov was elected head of state, G.M. Malenkov was approved as head of government, Minister of Defense - N .A. Bulganin, Minister of the United Ministry of Internal Affairs (which included the Ministry of State Security) - L.P. Beria. The post of party leader remained vacant. In fact, all power in the country was concentrated in the hands of Beria and Malenkov.

At the initiative of Beria, the "case of doctors" of the Kremlin hospital, accused of trying to kill the leaders of the party, state, and the international communist movement, was terminated. He also insisted on depriving the Central Committee of the party of the right to manage the country's economy, limiting it only to political activities.

In the summer of 1953, returning from Berlin, where he led the suppression of the anti-Soviet uprising, and offering to refuse support for the GDR, agreeing to its unification with the FRG, Beria was arrested. The initiators of this extremely dangerous action were the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU N.S. Khrushchev and the Minister of Defense N.A. Bulganin. The capture group of the all-powerful Beria, which consisted of generals and officers of the Moscow Air Defense District, was led by Bulganin's deputy Marshal G.K. Zhukov. In December 1953, a closed trial and execution of Beria and his closest associates took place. They were accused of organizing mass repressions during the years of Stalin's life and preparing a coup d'état after his death. In the history of the Soviet state, this was the last major trial of "enemies of the people" in which persons of such a high rank were held.

66) Complication of the international situation. The collapse of the anti-Hitler coalition

After the defeat of Germany and Japan, the geopolitical situation in the world began to change dramatically. Two centers of attraction and confrontation arose - the USSR and the USA, around which military-political blocs began to be created and plans for a new war were developed. The USSR emerged from World War II as a recognized great power that played a key role in the defeat of German fascism and Japanese militarism. In the United Nations Security Council, established in 1945, the USSR became one of five permanent members along with the USA, Great Britain, France and China. The results of World War II predetermined the course of world development for decades. There have been huge changes in the world. The defeat of German fascism and Japanese militarism meant the victory of humanism, universal human values, and the strengthening of the positions of democratic, peace-loving forces in different regions of the globe. During the Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) over the main Nazi war criminals, the essence of German fascism, its plans for the destruction of entire states and peoples, were exposed, for the first time in history, aggression was recognized as the gravest crime against humanity.

Changes in the post-war world were contradictory. The anti-Hitler coalition quickly broke up, and the cold war came to replace the common anti-fascist front. The anti-colonial, national liberation movement faced a powerful confrontation between the forces of neo-colonialism. The objectively overdue process of democratization was under the powerful pressure of Soviet totalitarianism and American hegemonism.

The international situation in the post-war period was determined by the beginning cold war.

Causes of the Cold War

After the end of the bloodiest war in the history of mankind - the Second World War, where the USSR became the winner, the prerequisites were created for the emergence of a new confrontation between the West and the East, between the USSR and the USA. The main reasons for the emergence of this confrontation, known as the "cold war", were the ideological contradictions between the capitalist model of society, characteristic of the United States, and the socialist model that existed in the USSR. Each of the two superpowers wanted to see itself at the head of the entire world community and equip life, following its ideological principles. In addition, the Soviet Union after the Second World War established its dominance in the countries of Eastern Europe, where communist ideology reigned. As a result, the United States, along with Great Britain, was frightened by the possibility that the USSR could become a world leader and establish its dominance, both in the political and economic spheres of life. At the same time, one of the main tasks for the United States of America was to pay close attention to the policy of the USSR in the countries of Western Europe in order to prevent socialist revolutions in this territory. America did not like communist ideology at all, and it was the Soviet Union that stood in its way to world domination. After all, America got rich during the Second World War, it needed to sell its manufactured products somewhere, so the countries of Western Europe, destroyed during the hostilities, needed to be restored, which was offered to them by the US government. But on the condition that the rulers - the communists in these countries will be removed from power. In short, the Cold War was a new kind of competition for world domination.

Start of the Cold War

The beginning of the Cold War was marked by the speech of the English ruler Churchill, delivered in Fulton in March 1946. The US government's top priority was to achieve complete military superiority of the Americans over the Russians. The US began to implement its policy already in 1947 by introducing a whole system of restrictive and prohibitive measures for the USSR in the financial and trade spheres. In short, America wanted to defeat the Soviet Union economically.

The course of the cold war

The most culminating moments of the confrontation were 1949-50, when the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, the war with Korea took place, at the same time the first atomic bomb of Soviet origin was tested. And with the victory of Mao Zedong, rather strong diplomatic relations between the USSR and China were established, they were united by a common hostile attitude towards America and its policies. The Caribbean crisis of 1962 proved that the military power of the two world superpowers, the USSR and the USA, is so great that if there is a threat of a new war, there will be no losing side, and it is worth considering what will happen to ordinary people and the planet as a whole. As a result, since the beginning of the 1970s, the Cold War has entered the stage of normalizing relations. A crisis erupted in the United States due to high material costs, but the USSR did not tempt fate, but made concessions. A nuclear arms reduction treaty called START II was signed. The year 1979 once again proved that the Cold War was not yet over: the Soviet government sent troops into the territory of Afghanistan, whose inhabitants put up fierce resistance to the Russian army. And only in April 1989 the last Russian soldier left this unconquered country.

End and results of the Cold War

In 1988-89, the process of “perestroika” began in the USSR, the Berlin Wall fell, and soon the socialist camp disintegrated. And the USSR did not even begin to claim any influence in the countries of the third world. By 1990, the Cold War was over. It was she who contributed to the strengthening of the totalitarian regime in the USSR. The arms race also led to scientific discoveries: nuclear physics began to develop more intensively, space research gained a wider scope.

Consequences of the Cold War

The 20th century has ended, more than ten years have passed in the new millennium. There is no longer the Soviet Union, and the countries of the West have also changed ... But as soon as the once weak Russia rose from its knees, gained strength and confidence on the world stage, the United States and its allies again see the “ghost of communism”. And it remains to be hoped that the politicians of the leading countries will not return to the policy of the Cold War, since, in the end, everyone will suffer from it ...

67) socio-economic development of the ussr in the mid-1950s the first half of the 1960s

The most important problem of this period was the insufficient production of agricultural products. The industry had low productivity, insufficient mechanization, and the collective farmers had no incentives to work. The government began to take measures to reorganize agriculture. In August 1953, with the adoption of a new budget, subsidies for the production of goods in the food industry increased. At the September Plenum of the Central Committee in 1953, a decision was made to raise purchase prices, write off debts of collective farms and reduce taxes. The February Plenum of the Central Committee decided to start agricultural production in the semi-arid zone in the east of the country - the Trans-Volga region, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Altai and the Lower Urals. To this end, in 1954, 300,000 volunteers went to the development of virgin lands. It was planned to put into circulation 42 million hectares of arable land and by the end of 1960 to increase grain production by 40%. Initially low yields fell over time, the land was depleted and needed funds for land reclamation, agronomic activities, infrastructure development, etc. The soil died from erosion and weeds. Nevertheless, due to the development of vast areas, it was possible to increase the gross harvest of grain crops. In three years, agricultural production increased by 25%. After Khrushchev's visit to the United States, the Plenum of the Central Committee in 1955 decided to make corn a major crop. 18 million hectares were sown in areas not suitable for this production. The next stage of the reorganization of agriculture began in May 1957, when Khrushchev put forward the slogan "Catch up and overtake America!" . In 1957 MTS were dissolved. As a result, collective farms received equipment, but were left without a repair base. This led to a reduction in the fleet of agricultural machines and the withdrawal of significant funds from the collective farms. The second reform aimed to enlarge the collective farms and create associations that would promote the industrialization of agriculture. Farm managers sought to fulfill their obligations to the state by infringing on the interests of ordinary collective farmers (household plots were reduced, personal cattle were forcibly taken to collective farms). Much attention was paid to the development of heavy industry and defense. As a result, the situation in the production of consumer goods was missed, and a deficit appeared in this area. In 1954, the 11th Trade Union Congress revealed serious shortcomings in the management of industry and the condition of the workers. Production meetings were revived, control over overtime work, and incentive measures were strengthened. Administration officials teamed up with experts. In 1957, to facilitate interaction between industries, the industrial ministries were replaced by economic councils. However, the "administrative fever" did not give positive results, the pace of the country's economic development was declining. In general, the standard of living in the country has risen. To this end, the state has taken a number of measures. Wages increased regularly. The law on pensions was adopted, the working week was shortened, and the length of maternity leave was extended. The practice of imposing purchases of compulsory state loans has ceased. All types of tuition fees have been abolished. Mass housing construction began. At the turn of the 50-60s. serious miscalculations were made in agrarian policy and the economy. The manufacturing sector was destructured by rash reforms and storming. Since 1963, the government was forced to make regular purchases of grain abroad. They tried to rectify the crisis situation by withdrawing funds from the population by raising retail prices and lowering tariff rates for production. This led to social tension and spontaneous actions of workers (for example, in Novocherkassk, 1962)

68)20 Congress of the CPSU and Khrushchev's report

The 20th Congress of the CPSU was held in 1956, February 14-25. At this Congress, those assessments that had previously been given to Stalin's policy were revised. Stalin's personality cult was also condemned. One of the speakers was Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. The report "On the cult of personality and its consequences" was presented on February 25 at a closed morning session. It criticized the political repressions of the 1930s, as well as the 1950s, and all the blame for the events of those years was placed personally on Stalin.

The report "On the cult of personality and its consequences" made a strong impression on the listeners. The delegations of France and Italy, as well as the delegations of the communist states, were acquainted with it. It should be noted that the report was accepted ambiguously.

English translation published in the summer of 1956 in the USA. Citizens of the USSR were able to get acquainted with it only in 1989. But, due to the fact that rumors about the report made on the last day of the congress still leaked outside the Kremlin offices, a decree was issued on June 30 “On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences”, which explained the position of the Central Committee.

The 20th Congress of the CPSU and Khrushchev's report led to a split in public opinion. Some citizens of the country perceived it as a symbol of the beginning of democratic changes. The other part reacted negatively. This could not but alarm the ruling elite and, as a result, led to the termination of the discussion of the problem of Stalinist repressions.

Perestroika" in the social and political life of the USSR

The concept of "perestroika" can be defined as an attempt to preserve administrative-command socialism, giving it elements of democracy and market relations, without affecting the fundamental foundations of the political system. Perestroika had serious prerequisites. Stagnation in the economy, the growing scientific and technological backwardness from the West, failures in the social sphere have caused millions of people and some leaders to realize the need for change. Its other prerequisite was the political crisis, expressed in the gradual disintegration of the state apparatus, in its unreasonableness to ensure economic progress, in the frank merging of part of the party-state nomenclature with the businessmen of the shadow economy and crime, which led to the formation in the mid-80s of stable mafia groups, especially in the union republics. Apathy and stagnation in the spiritual sphere of society pushed for change. It was obvious that without changes it was impossible to raise the activity of the people.

Reforming the political system.

a) The change in the leadership of the CPSU and the “personnel revolution” of M.S. Gorbachev.

March 11, 1985 An extraordinary Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU elected 54-year-old Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Party, whose life path did not differ from that of his predecessors.

The very fact of renewal and especially rejuvenation of the party leadership was a very significant event. To replace the infirm elders in the Politburo, a group of relatively young leaders began to form, albeit with traditional experience in apparatus Komsomol-party work.

At the plenum of the Central Committee in April 1985. the task of achieving a qualitatively new state of Soviet society was put forward. This event is considered to be the starting point of perestroika:

The first stage - since April 1985. until the end of 1986

The second stage - from January 1987. to April 1988

The third stage - since April 1988. to March 1990

The fourth stage - since March 1990. to August 1991

Despite all the conventions of such a periodization, it allows us to trace the dynamics of the perestroika process, the main stages of the political struggle, participation in the socio-political life of the broad masses of the people.

The reforms began with the personnel renewal of the "top of power" and management. Correlating with the traditions of the political leadership of the party and the state, the mentality of specific people included in this leadership, M. Gorbachev began personnel reshuffles. He drew personnel from the party nomenklatura. The process of personnel reshuffles proceeded relatively without conflict, which was facilitated by the age composition of the Politburo, in which M.S. Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In March 1986, when this Politburo was being formed, there were only four people in it from the previous composition of the same body, elected five years ago. Almost every second member of the previous Politburo by the spring of 1986. died, the rest were sent to "a well-deserved rest. The process of personnel renewal in the "tops of power" was completed in 1988. By the beginning of 1987 70% of the members of the Politburo were replaced. As the second person in the secretariat, E.K. Ligachev, N.I. Ryzhkov, a specialist with a higher technical education, was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers; Secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional party committee B.N. was invited from the Urals to Moscow. Yeltsin, who soon became the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee.

Throughout 1986. 60% of the secretaries of the regional party organizations were replaced, 40% of the members of the Central Committee of the CPSU, who received their posts under L.I. Brezhnev, at the level of city committees and district committees, the staff was updated by 70%.

By 1992 only M. Gorbachev was the next link between the old and the new nomenklatura at the pinnacle of power.

b) The policy of democratization and glasnost in the light of the decisions of the XIX All-Union Conference.

In 1988 (June-July) at the XIX All-Union Conference of the CPSU for the first time in the years of Soviet power, the question of the need for a deep reform of the political system was raised. Unusual preparations for this forum by previous standards, the relatively democratic nature of the election of its delegates, and broad support for the course of reforming society contributed to the growth of faith in the party's ability to lead the transformation. Almost all the prominent reformers (the so-called foremen of perestroika) then were in the ranks of the CPSU, and some of those who were not (A.A. Sobchak, S.V. Stankevich and others) joined it.

The decisions of the conference included:

creation of the rule of law

development of parliamentarism within the Soviets

an end to the replacement of economic and state bodies by the CPSU.

All these transformations had to be carried out in the presence of three mandatory elements:

Democratization

Glasnost

Pluralism of opinions.

The rule of law, as part of the reform of the legal system, should be based on the rule of law, the actions of the legislative, executive and judicial authorities (but under the control of the fourth force - the CPSU). Hence - the fundamental principle of the new state - "everything that is not prohibited by law is allowed."

In December 1988 The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Socialist Republic amended the current Constitution of the country. The congress of people's deputies became the supreme body of power, from which a permanent parliament was formed - the Supreme Council, consisting of two chambers (the Council of the Union and the Council of Nationalities).

The policy of glasnost played an important role in the implementation of reforms and the involvement of broad sections of the working people in political life. It began in revealing the truth about the crimes of the Stalinist period, without exposing which it was impossible to break the totalitarian regime.

A special manifestation of democracy in Soviet society was not only the opportunity to express one's opinion, the publication of previously banned literature, the return of citizenship to former Soviet dissidents and human rights activists, but also the introduction of freedom of religion.

Political pluralism also affected the CPSU, where as many as five directions stood out, but on the whole the party was still following its General Secretary.

c) Formation of a multi-party system and attempts to reform the CPSU.

During the years of perestroika, liberal parties were the first to appear (Democratic Union, Christian Democratic Union of Russia, Russian Christian Democratic Party, Islamic Renaissance Party, Democratic Party, Liberal Democratic Party, etc.).

The political forces of the socialist direction for a long time were represented only by the CPSU and the platforms operating within its framework (Democratic platform, Marxist platform, etc.). But in May 1989 the creation of the Social Democratic Association was proclaimed, and on its basis in May 1990 - the Social Democratic Party of Russia. In 1991 the People's Party of Free Russia, the Socialist Party of Workers, the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Russian Communist Workers' Party, and others are formed.

National-patriotic parties and movements are being formed. May 1990 operating since 1924 was legalized. Orthodox Russian-monarchical order-union. Back in 1987 the national-patriotic front "Memory" is formed, and in 1991. - Russian All-People's Union.

During the period of perestroika, the parties of socialist orientation found themselves in a truly crisis state. For them, the main problem was to defend their ideological and theoretical foundations. Not everyone managed to do it.

The collapse of the CPSU began, on the ruins of which in the fall of 1991. - in the winter of 1992. up to a dozen different parties of a communist orientation arose. Interestingly, after the collapse of the CPSU, a deep crisis hit the liberals as well. Most of the parties of a liberal orientation were guided by a long and uncompromising struggle with the regime of the ruling party. But when the CPSU collapsed, they were not ready to offer their own programs to get out of the crisis that hit the country. Some of them went into opposition to the government, which has adopted a course of radical market reforms. Others declared their support for the reform, but did not provide practical support to the government. Therefore, with the beginning of the implementation of the government program of transition to the market, a new regrouping of political forces began. In any case, at the center of the political struggle of the period of perestroika were parties of a communist orientation and parties of a liberal direction. If the supporters of the former called for the predominant development of public, state ownership of collectivist forms of social relations, then the liberals advocated the privatization of property, a system of full-fledged parliamentary democracy, and a real transition to a market economy.

d) Reform of public administration bodies.

Innovations in the economic sphere occurred simultaneously with the decentralization of its management.

Within five years, several reductions and transformations of management structures were made. So, in November 1985. Six agricultural departments were liquidated and the State Agroprom of the USSR was established. April 1989 it was abolished, some of its functions were taken over by the State Commission of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Food and Procurement. In 1991 it was liquidated and on its basis the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR was formed. In August 1986 The Ministry of Construction of the USSR was "rationed" - four ministries were created on its basis, in charge of construction in different regions of the USSR. In 1989 they were abolished.

The total of the first two years of economic reforms turned out to be bad.

From this moment begins the second stage of economic reforms (1987-1990). It is characterized by the curtailment of the planned economy, the enterprise received a fairly broad independence and was freed from the petty tutelage of higher departments (union and republican ministries, Gosplan, Gossnab of the USSR).

In 1990 new economic entities begin to emerge. The process of turning some ministries into joint-stock companies is gaining momentum. Shareholders are not only state-owned enterprises, but also individuals. At the same time, the network of some state banks is being abolished and a system of commercial banks is being formed. On the basis of Gossnab subdivisions, the Russian Commodity Raw Materials Exchange is being formed, and many profitable industries are being privatized.

However, dissatisfaction with these transformations was brewing in society, because. no administrative changes in management have eliminated the shortage of food products.

To compensate for the decline in the authority of power, it was decided to introduce the post of President. The first President of the USSR in March 1990. M.S. Gorbachev was elected. But the mechanical introduction of the presidency while maintaining the Soviets, which combined legislative and executive functions, led not to the separation of the branches of power, but to their conflict.

Attitude towards religion

In the context of democratic transformations, there have been changes in the relationship between church and state. Several meetings were held with M.S. Gorbachev with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Pimen and representatives of other religious denominations. In 1988 anniversary celebrations were held in connection with the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus'. New religious communities were registered, spiritual educational institutions were opened, and the circulation of published religious literature increased.

The religious buildings that had been taken from them earlier were returned to the believers. The authorities gave permission for the construction of new temples. Church leaders were given the opportunity, along with all citizens, to participate in public life. Several prominent church hierarchs were elected as deputies to the country's Supreme Soviet.

New legislation was developed and approved. Its appearance was preceded by a discussion in the pages of the periodical press on the question of how state-church relations should be built. The new law "On freedom of conscience" fixed the course towards the liberalization of the attitude of the state towards religion.

National relations and international processes.

a) Exacerbation of interethnic conflicts.

With the beginning of perestroika, interethnic relations in the USSR sharply worsened.

In the Union republics, the national movement rose to its full height, and parties were formed that advocated secession from the USSR. Initially, they acted under the slogans of the struggle for perestroika, reforms and the interests of the people. Their demands were about culture, language, democracy and freedom. But gradually the national forces took a course towards achieving sovereignty and independence.

The traditional unwillingness of the Union Center to take into account the interests and needs of the national republics and regions led to the growth of militant nationalism and separatist tendencies.

b) "Parade of sovereignties".

During the period 1989-1990. the "parade of sovereignties" of the Union republics began, trying to independently find a way out of the deepening crisis.

Elections of their own authorities are taking place in the republics, which have taken a decisive course towards self-determination and independence, statements from the Center about the supremacy of republican laws over union ones, laws were adopted on the state language, the creation of their own armies, their own currency. This unconstitutional and spontaneous declaration of independence from the Center in the conditions of the incapacity of the allied authorities in the national question only increased internal instability and shook the foundations of the Soviet Union, which, in the end, led to its collapse.

c) Formation of an independent policy of the RSFSR (spring 1990-summer 1991)

May 1990 Despite the efforts of the central authorities and the leadership of the CPSU, Yeltsin B.N., who spoke out against the inconsistent leadership of the country for the radicalization of reforms and the abolition of the privileges of the nomenklatura, was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. declaration of sovereignty, which proclaimed the priority of republican legislation over the Union. To strengthen his position, Yeltsin achieved a decision to hold elections for the President of Russia. Elections were held on June 12, 1991.

Thus, B.N. became the first president of Russia. Yeltsin.

d) Federal policy of Russia.

The special role of Russia, its government and personally the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin in the August-September events was not in doubt. Boris Yeltsin demonstratively hurried to take advantage of this. Decrees were issued on the transfer to the jurisdiction of Russia one branch of the economy after another. The Russian leadership did not hide its first task - as soon as possible "to dismantle the remnants of the unitary imperial structures and create mobile and cheap inter-republican structures." According to the new federal treaty, Russia was proposed to have such a structure in which it would consist of large regional territories, national republics with their own parliaments, laws, and governments.

At the federal level, a bicameral parliament, the President, the federal government and departments were envisaged. The model assumed a combination of a unitary federal leadership with independent, to a very high degree, members of the federation. At the end of 1991 By decision of the session of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR, the republic was renamed. From now on, the RSFSR became known as the Russian Federation with the addition in brackets - (Russia).

The political crisis of August 1991 and its consequences.

Scheduled for August 20, 1991 the signing of the Union Treaty could not but push the supporters of the preservation of the former USSR to take decisive action. The decree of the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin on departization, according to which the activities of any parties were prohibited in state institutions of the RSFSR. Thus, a blow was dealt to the monopoly position of the CPSU. The ousting of the party nomenklatura from power structures and its replacement by new people from Yeltsin's entourage began.

In the absence of the President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev, who was on vacation in the Crimea, on August 19, 1991. some representatives of the top leadership of the USSR made an attempt to disrupt the upcoming signing of a new Union Treaty. The State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP) was formed. It included: Vice-President of the USSR G.I. Yanaev, Prime Minister of the USSR V.S. Pavlov, Minister of Defense D.T. Yazov, Chairman of the KGB of the USSR V.A. Kryuchkov, Minister of Internal Affairs B.K. Pugo etc.

Vice President of the USSR G.I. Yanaev issued a decree on assuming the office of the President of the USSR due to the "illness" of M.S. Gorbachev. The State Emergency Committee announced the introduction of a state of emergency in certain regions of the country, the dissolution of those power structures that were formed contrary to the current Constitution of the USSR of 1977, suspended the activities of political parties and movements in opposition to the CPSU, banned rallies and demonstrations for the period of the state of emergency, established control over the media . Troops were sent to Moscow.

Resistance to the actions of the State Emergency Committee was led by the leaders of Russia: President B.N. Yeltsin, head of government I.S. Silantiev, First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR A.V. Rutskaya, who, in the event of a victory of the putschists, were deprived of their power in the republic.

The actions of the GKChP were declared as an illegal anti-constitutional coup (although the structures on behalf of which the functionaries of the RSFSR acted were not represented in the Constitution of the USSR of 1977) and its decisions were also declared illegal. At the call of Yeltsin, thousands of Muscovites took up defensive positions around the house of the Russian Government. The troops brought into the capital did not take any action. Elite units of the KGB abstained from any decisive action in favor of the putschists. Not without tragic bloodshed, in which some parts of the troops were to blame, the commanders of which decided to move to defend the White House without coordinating their actions with the leaders of its defense. The putschists were at a loss, not expecting such a turn of events. Soon they were arrested.

"Liberation" of the President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev from his "imprisonment" at the dacha in Foros allowed us to consider that his career as a politician was over. His influence as the President of the USSR fell sharply, which led to the rapid abolition of the central power structures. Soon after the failure of the conspiracy, eight Soviet republics declared their independence. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, previously recognized by the international community, were recognized by the USSR as independent sovereign states.

The August-September events were immediately regarded in hot pursuit from two fundamentally different positions.

One, which became official, boiled down to the fact that the events of August 19-21 were a putsch, an unconstitutional attempt to seize power by reactionary forces opposed to the democratic renewal of society, in favor of a return to a totalitarian system. According to this point of view, the President of the USSR was indeed forcibly isolated in Foros, the usurpers of power intended to behead the Russian leadership, and were ready to shed people's blood. The coup failed, thanks to the active opposition of the Russian government, which led the popular resistance.

According to the second position, events are sharply divided into two stages:

the first is August 19-21: an unsuccessful "palace" coup with an attempt to give it a soft constitutional form, undertaken by the "Soviet leadership" with the tacit half-consent of the President of the USSR. His isolation in Foros was purely conditional. It seemed to be taken out of the game for a while, so that emergency measures would not compromise its “democratic image” in the eyes of the world community. In case of success of the enterprise of the “gekachepists”, he could well return to the presidency (as G.I. Yanaev spoke about at a press conference). Namely, the bet on soft constitutional forms explains many of the troubles in the actions or inaction of the State Emergency Committee. That is why they first declared a state of emergency, and then brought in troops (and not vice versa, which serious putschists do), because they were not going to use them, except as an intimidation, and therefore they did not arrest B.N. Yeltsin and other Russian leaders.

At this first stage, they were immediately defeated, running into unexpected sharp resistance from Yeltsin, who did not accept the proposed "rules of the game", declaring the top of the legitimate union government to be conspirators and usurpers. He went to the aggravation and easily won. At this point in the "palace coup" the Democrats won;

in September the second stage began. It is already characterized as a genuine coup d'état, because what happened at the 5th Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, and led to a change in the socio-political system, gave impetus to the collapse of the USSR.

So, in the August-September events, in the protracted confrontation between Russia and the Union, Russia won. The Union began to rapidly "fall apart". The CPSU and the Communist Party of the RSFSR, whose activities were suspended, resignedly left the political scene. So far there have been no disagreements in the camp of the winners: President B.N. Yeltsin and Vice-President A.V. Rutskoi, acting. Chairman of the Supreme Council R.I. Khasbulatov at all celebrations stood side by side shoulder to shoulder. It was their common victory. Their joint triumph, the finest hour of Russia's democratic leaders.

Legitimization of the collapse of the USSR and its assessment.

After the signing of the Treaty on the Economic Community (10/18/1991), the discussion of the issue of political union also revived.

The position of the Russian parliament, especially its chairman R.I. Khasbulatov, became more and more definite. It was based on the principle of maintaining a single Russian state: there should not be any independent states on the territory of the RSFSR.

The fundamental provisions of the future statehood were decided by a narrow circle of leaders:

On November 14, a meeting of the State Council was held in Novo-Ogaryovo, at which the leaders of seven sovereign states spoke in favor of a single confederal democratic state. The state was preserved - the Union of sovereign states - as a subject of international law. However, the intended initialing of the text did not take place;

On December 8, in a secluded residence near Minsk, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the leaders of three republics met: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. They signed an agreement according to which the USSR, as a "subject of international law", was declared "ceased to exist". The creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States was announced.

The model of state structure chosen in Minsk left no room for the Center, and did not provide for any federal government bodies at all.

The Belovezhskaya agreements produced the effect of an exploding bomb. As M.S. Gorbachev, the three leaders of the republics "met in the forest and "closed" the Soviet Union."

The theme of the "conspiratorial" nature of the action was subsequently described by the former Chairman of the Council of the Union of the USSR Armed Forces K.D. Lubenchenko: "a brilliant covert and unexpected political operation was completed, just like in wartime."

The Supreme Soviets of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus ratified the Belovezhskaya Accords, thereby giving them a more legitimate character. In December, other republics joined the Commonwealth, except for the Baltic republics and Georgia (in 1994 it joined the CIS). At the end of 1991 the RSFSR was renamed into the Russian Federation (Russia).

December 25, 1991 M.S. Gorbachev resigned his presidential powers in connection with the disappearance of the state itself. This day will be the last in the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The dramatic collapse of a huge and powerful state was commented on in different ways.

Some say that an essentially unitary power that subordinated to a single center economically, spiritually, ethnically diverse republics, formally sovereign, but practically devoid of independence, in conditions where not all of them entered the Union voluntarily, was initially doomed to inevitable death.

Others, led to a sad result by a short-sighted, incompetent, ambitious and self-serving policy, primarily of the country's ruling elite, the struggle for power among leaders, in parties and movements, during which the most important state and socio-economic interests and values ​​were sacrificed.

Thus, perestroika, conceived and carried out by some of the party and state leaders with the aim of democratic changes in all spheres of society, has ended. Its main result was the collapse of the once mighty multinational state and the end of the Soviet period in the history of the Fatherland.

69) The main tasks of the USSR in the international arena in 1956-1964. were: the speedy reduction of the military threat and the end of the Cold War, the expansion of international relations, the strengthening of the influence of the USSR in the world as a whole. This could be achieved only through the implementation of a flexible and dynamic foreign policy based on a powerful economic and military potential (primarily nuclear). The reformist course of the Soviet leadership headed by Khrushchev was reflected in the new foreign policy doctrine promulgated from the rostrum of the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956. Its main provisions were: a return to the "Leninist principles of the policy of peaceful coexistence of states with different social social systems, the possibility of creating conditions for the prevention of wars in the modern era. The variety of forms of transition of various countries to socialism and the multivariance of the ways of its construction were also recognized. In addition, the need was recognized, based on the principles of "proletarian internationalism", to provide comprehensive assistance to both the countries of the socialist camp and the world communist and national liberation movement. As the main direction in ensuring peace throughout the world, Khrushchev proposed creating a system of collective security in Europe, and then in Asia, as well as starting immediate disarmament. Wishing to demonstrate the seriousness of these intentions, the Soviet government went for a unilateral reduction in the Armed Forces: from August 1955 it was decided to reduce them by 640 thousand people, and from May 1956 by another 1 million 200 thousand people. Significant reductions in their armies were carried out by other countries of the socialist camp. In 1957, the USSR submitted proposals to the UN to suspend nuclear weapons tests and to undertake obligations to renounce the use of atomic and hydrogen weapons, as well as to simultaneously reduce the armed forces of the USSR, the USA and China to 2.5 million, and then "to 1 5 million people.Finally, the USSR proposed to eliminate military bases on the territories of foreign countries.In 1958, the Soviet government unilaterally declared a moratorium on nuclear testing, turned the Axis to the parliaments of all countries of the world to support this initiative.Western countries were skeptical about Soviet proposals and put forward such conditions as the development of measures of confidence and control over the reduction of conventional and nuclear potentials of opposing military-political groups. Khrushchev's speech in the fall of 1959 at the UN General Assembly on the problem of general disarmament caused a great resonance in the world. In his speech, the leader of the Soviet state proposed a plan for the complete elimination of national armies and navies, leaving the states with only police forces. This first visit of the leader of the USSR to the USA sharply increased the prestige and prestige of our country in the international arena and contributed to the easing of tension in Soviet-American relations. The major reductions in the Armed Forces of the USSR, carried out in 1955-1960, made it possible to reduce the Soviet Army by almost 4 million people and bring its strength to 2.5 million. However, it was not possible to break the vicious circle of the arms race in the 1950s .

Caribbean crisis

The first image of Soviet missiles in Cuba, received by the Americans.

The Caribbean Crisis is an extremely tense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States regarding the deployment of nuclear missiles by the Soviet Union in Cuba in October 1962. The Cubans call it the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre), in the United States the name Cuban Missile Crisis is common (eng. Cuban missile crisis).

The crisis was preceded by the 1961 deployment by the United States in Turkey of Jupiter medium-range missiles that directly threatened cities in the western part of the Soviet Union, reaching as far as Moscow and major industrial centers.

The crisis began on October 14, 1962, when a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft of the US Air Force, during one of the regular overflights of Cuba, discovered Soviet R-12 medium-range missiles in the vicinity of the village of San Cristobal. By decision of US President John F. Kennedy, a special Executive Committee was created to discuss possible solutions to the problem. For some time, the meetings of the executive committee were secret, but on October 22, Kennedy addressed the people, announcing the presence of Soviet "offensive weapons" in Cuba, which immediately began to panic in the United States. A "quarantine" (blockade) of Cuba was introduced.

At first, the Soviet side denied the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons on the island, then assured the Americans of the deterrent nature of the deployment of missiles in Cuba. On October 25, photographs of the missiles were shown at a meeting of the UN Security Council. The executive committee seriously discussed the use of force to solve the problem, and his supporters convinced Kennedy to start a massive bombardment of Cuba as soon as possible. However, another overflight of U-2 showed that several missiles were already installed and ready for launch, and that such actions would inevitably lead to war.

Number and type of US nuclear warheads. 1945-2002.

US President John F. Kennedy offered the Soviet Union to dismantle the installed missiles and deploy ships still en route to Cuba in exchange for US guarantees not to attack Cuba and overthrow the Fidel Castro regime (it is sometimes stated that Kennedy also offered to withdraw American missiles from Turkey, but this demand came from the Soviet leadership). Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev agreed, and on October 28, the dismantling of missiles began. The last Soviet missile left Cuba a few weeks later, and on November 20 the blockade of Cuba was lifted.

The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted 13 days. It had an extremely important psychological and historical significance. Humanity for the first time in its history was on the verge of self-destruction. The resolution of the crisis marked a turning point in the Cold War and the beginning of international détente.

70) In the post-war period, the restructuring of Western capitalism on social and humanistic principles continued, after the defeat of fascism, the reformist-democratic trend fully manifested itself. The leaders of Western countries realized the need for constant corrective state intervention in the economic and social sphere. The growth of public spending on social purposes, state support for science and technology, capital construction, and infrastructure development stimulated employment and effective consumer demand to the maximum. The concepts of "welfare state", "mass consumer society", "high quality of life" became dominant. The volume of industrial production in the capitalist world in 1948-1973 increased 4.5 times. Real wages from 1950 to 1970 in the USA grew 1.5 times, in Great Britain - 1.6 times, in Italy - 2.1 times, in France - 2.3 times, in Germany - 2, 8 times. In the "golden" years for Western countries, the 60s, the proportion of unemployed fell to 2.5-3% of the economically active population. The growth rate of industrial output in the 1960s was 5.7% compared to 4.9% in the 1950s and 3.9% in the interwar period. In the post-war period, many new, seemingly completely unexpected phenomena appeared. Thus, from the end of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1980s, the growth rates in Germany and Japan ranged from 10 to 20%, that is, they were the highest among developed countries. The "Japanese" and "German miracles" had a lot in common. The most important was: minimizing military spending in these countries that lost the Second World War; use of traditional diligence, discipline and high cultural and educational level; the development of not energy- and resource-intensive industries, but the production of finished, complex products (cars, sophisticated electronics, ingenious technological lines, etc.); expedient redistribution of national income through a system of progressive taxation, in which the upper values ​​were up to 50-80%. Creation and development of international financial structures (World Bank, IMF, IBRD). The process of integration of states in various fields of activity in recent decades has been called globalization. A major result of the cooperation that developed between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition during the Second World War was the creation in 1945 of the United Nations. By 2006, 192 states were members of the UN. The range of UN activities in the system of international economic relations is very wide and fully reflects the trends of internationalization and globalization of modern economic life. An important aspect of globalization is the increasing integration of world economies, facilitated by the ease of movement of goods and capital across national borders. The international monetary system is a set of monetary relations that have developed on the basis of economic life and the development of the world market. The main components of the world monetary system are: - a certain set of international means of payment, - the exchange regime, including exchange rates, convertibility conditions, - regulation of the forms of international payments, - a network of international banking institutions that carry out international payments and credit operations. In 1944, the International Monetary and Financial Conference took place in Bretton Woods (USA), at which it was decided to establish the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both organizations have the status of specialized agencies of the United Nations. The IBRD began operating in 1946 and the IMF in 1947. The purpose of the IBRD is to assist member countries in obtaining long-term loans and credits, as well as guaranteeing private investment. In the first post-war years, the IBRD provided significant loans to the countries of Western Europe for economic recovery. In the future, the main object of the IBRD's activities were developing countries. Since the end of the 1980s, the IBRD began to provide loans to the countries of Eastern Europe. Russia joined the IBRD in 1992. IBRD issues bonds, which are bought by private banks, receiving over 9%. From the collected funds, the IBRD provides loans covering about 30% of the cost of the object, and the rest must be financed from internal or other sources. IBRD loans are provided for the development of energy, transport, communications and other infrastructure sectors for up to 20 years at a high interest rate, determined by the level of interest rates in the loan capital market. If the initial capital of the bank did not exceed $10 billion, then in 1995 it exceeded $176 billion. 181 states are members of the IBRD. 182 countries are members of the IMF. The Russian Federation has been a member of the IMF since 1992. The purpose of the IMF was proclaimed to promote the development of international trade and monetary cooperation by eliminating foreign exchange restrictions, as well as providing foreign exchange loans to equalize balances of payments and establish norms for regulating exchange rates. The capital of the IMF has come close to $300 billion, with the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France and Japan having the greatest influence in accordance with the largest quotas. Quotas are set depending on the level of economic development of the country and its role in the world economy and trade. Since 1944, the Bretton Woods monetary system has been in effect. It provided for the preservation of the functions of world money for gold while simultaneously using national monetary units, primarily the US dollar, as well as the British pound sterling, as international payment and reserve currencies. The obligatory exchange of reserve currencies for gold was established by foreign government agencies and central banks at the official rate - $ 35 per troy ounce - 31.1 g of gold. Mutual equalization and exchange of currencies was envisaged on the basis of currency parities agreed with the IMF in gold and US dollars. Deviation of market exchange rates was allowed no more than 1%. The dollar was in a privileged position. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dates back to January 1, 1948. At its core, GATT is a binding treaty between the governments of member states. Initially, there were 23 of them, and by 1994 their number had reached over 100. The goal of the GATT was proclaimed to provide a predictable international trading environment and trade liberalization in the interests of promoting economic development. GATT performed very important functions: establishing rules binding on governments in the field of international trade and related areas of economic relations; conducting trade negotiations; fulfilling the duties of an international "court" on trade matters. Thanks to the GATT, publicity, non-discrimination, and national treatment of taxes and duties on imported goods have become universally recognized in the system of international economic relations. By 1994, the GATT member countries accounted for over 90% of world trade. The average level of customs duties on goods under the GATT was reduced from 40% to 4%. Thanks to GATT, streamlining began in such important areas as trade in services, the results of creative activity, and foreign investment related to trade. Back in 1982, the USSR established contacts with the Secretariat (in the city of Geneva) and the main countries participating in the agreement. On May 16, 1990, the USSR received observer status in the GATT. The Russian Federation began to participate in some of the working bodies of the GATT, and in June 1993, the Director General of the GATT received an application from the Government of the Russian Federation with a request to join this agreement. We have to talk about GATT in the past tense, since on January 1, 1995, by decision of the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations on the legal basis of GATT, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed. Any organization that accepts the obligations of the entire package of documents underlying the WTO can become a member of the WTO. At the end of 1996, 130 states became members of the WTO, and another 30 expressed interest in joining it. An important role in the functioning of a complex system of international economic relations is played by structures created under the United Nations (UN). Among them are such UN specialized agencies as the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Labor Organization (ILO). Since 1968, the Commission on the Law of International Trade (UNISTRAL) began to work, the purpose of which is to harmonize and unify the law of international trade. UNISTRAL has developed a number of international legal documents approved by the UN. By 2000, there were over 400 intergovernmental and about 3,000 non-governmental international organizations in the world. International economic organizations can be characterized as organizations created at the interstate, intergovernmental, interministerial levels or created by business and public organizations to coordinate the activities of countries in various spheres of the world economy. The creation of international economic organizations was a product of the growing internationalization of economic life, the globalization of economic processes. Transformation of neo-colonialism and economic globalization. Coordination of efforts in order to achieve concrete results has become an important way for countries that have begun to free themselves from colonial dependence to fight for their place in the system of international economic relations. In 1963, at the 18th session of the UN General Assembly, developing countries for the first time jointly expressed their point of view on international economic problems. In 1964, the name Group of 77 appeared, as 77 states signed the corresponding declaration on trade and development at the UN Geneva Conference. The declaration spoke about the general and special principles of international economic relations: about the sovereign equality of states, about accelerating economic growth and reducing the gap in income levels of different countries, regardless of the political system, about increasing the export earnings of third world countries, etc. Over time, the Group of 77 included 120 states of Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as the European countries of Malta, Romania, and the SFRY. In 1974, at the initiative of the Group of 77, the VI Special Session of the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration and Program of Action for the Establishment of a New Economic Order. Along with international organizations whose activities are of global importance, there are many regional organizations. In 1945, the League of Arab States (LAS) was formed. The members of this regional organization are 22 Arab states: Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Libya, etc. The Arab League coordinates the activities of its members in the political, economic, military and other spheres, develops a unified policy of the Arab states on a number of pan-Arab problems. In the Middle East, Arab funds and development banks play a significant role, the purpose of which is to lend to developing countries - oil importers. In 1971-1980, over 100 developing countries received subsidies, but ¾ of the funds were given to the Arab states.

In the post-war period, the restructuring of Western capitalism on social and humanistic principles continued; after the defeat of fascism, the reformist-democratic trend fully manifested itself. The leaders of Western countries realized the need for constant corrective state intervention in the economic and social sphere. The growth of public spending on social purposes, state support for science and technology, capital construction, and infrastructure development stimulated employment and effective consumer demand to the maximum. The concepts of "welfare state", "mass consumer society", "high quality of life" became dominant. The volume of industrial production in the capitalist world in 1948-1973 increased 4.5 times. Real wages from 1950 to 1970 in the USA grew 1.5 times, in Great Britain - 1.6 times, in Italy - 2.1 times, in France - 2.3 times, in Germany - 2, 8 times. In the "golden" years for Western countries, the 60s, the proportion of unemployed fell to 2.5-3% of the economically active population. The growth rate of industrial output in the 1960s was 5.7% compared to 4.9% in the 1950s and 3.9% in the interwar period. In the post-war period, many new, seemingly completely unexpected phenomena appeared. Thus, from the end of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1980s, the growth rates in Germany and Japan ranged from 10 to 20%, that is, they were the highest among developed countries. The "Japanese" and "German miracles" had a lot in common. The most important was: minimizing military spending in these countries that lost the Second World War; use of traditional diligence, discipline and high cultural and educational level; the development of not energy- and resource-intensive industries, but the production of finished, complex products (cars, sophisticated electronics, ingenious technological lines, etc.); expedient redistribution of national income through a system of progressive taxation, in which the upper values ​​were up to 50-80%. Creation and development of international financial structures (World Bank, IMF, IBRD). The process of integration of states in various fields of activity in recent decades has been called globalization. A major result of the cooperation that developed between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition during the Second World War was the creation in 1945 of the United Nations. By 2006, 192 states were members of the UN. The range of UN activities in the system of international economic relations is very wide and fully reflects the trends of internationalization and globalization of modern economic life. An important aspect of globalization is the increasing integration of world economies, facilitated by the ease of movement of goods and capital across national borders. The international monetary system is a set of monetary relations that have developed on the basis of economic life and the development of the world market. The main components of the world monetary system are: - a certain set of international means of payment, - the exchange regime, including exchange rates, convertibility conditions, - regulation of the forms of international payments, - a network of international banking institutions that carry out international payments and credit operations. In 1944, the International Monetary and Financial Conference took place in Bretton Woods (USA), at which it was decided to establish the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both organizations have the status of specialized agencies of the United Nations. The IBRD began operating in 1946 and the IMF in 1947. The purpose of the IBRD is to assist member countries in obtaining long-term loans and credits, as well as guaranteeing private investment. In the first post-war years, the IBRD provided significant loans to the countries of Western Europe for economic recovery. In the future, the main object of the IBRD's activities were developing countries. Since the end of the 1980s, the IBRD began to provide loans to the countries of Eastern Europe. Russia joined the IBRD in 1992. IBRD issues bonds, which are bought by private banks, receiving over 9%. From the collected funds, the IBRD provides loans covering about 30% of the cost of the object, and the rest must be financed from internal or other sources. IBRD loans are provided for the development of energy, transport, communications and other infrastructure sectors for up to 20 years at a high interest rate, determined by the level of interest rates in the loan capital market. If the initial capital of the bank did not exceed $10 billion, then in 1995 it exceeded $176 billion. 181 states are members of the IBRD. 182 countries are members of the IMF. The Russian Federation has been a member of the IMF since 1992. The purpose of the IMF was proclaimed to promote the development of international trade and monetary cooperation by eliminating foreign exchange restrictions, as well as providing foreign exchange loans to equalize balances of payments and establish norms for regulating exchange rates. The capital of the IMF has come close to $300 billion, with the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France and Japan having the greatest influence in accordance with the largest quotas. Quotas are set depending on the level of economic development of the country and its role in the world economy and trade. Since 1944, the Bretton Woods monetary system has been in effect. It provided for the preservation of the functions of world money for gold while simultaneously using national monetary units, primarily the US dollar, as well as the British pound sterling, as international payment and reserve currencies. The obligatory exchange of reserve currencies for gold was established by foreign government agencies and central banks at the official rate - $ 35 per troy ounce - 31.1 g of gold. Mutual equalization and exchange of currencies was envisaged on the basis of currency parities agreed with the IMF in gold and US dollars. Deviation of market exchange rates was allowed no more than 1%. The dollar was in a privileged position. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dates back to January 1, 1948. At its core, GATT is a binding treaty between the governments of member states. Initially, there were 23 of them, and by 1994 their number had reached over 100. The goal of the GATT was proclaimed to provide a predictable international trading environment and trade liberalization in the interests of promoting economic development. GATT performed very important functions: establishing rules binding on governments in the field of international trade and related areas of economic relations; conducting trade negotiations; fulfilling the duties of an international "court" on trade matters. Thanks to the GATT, publicity, non-discrimination, and national treatment of taxes and duties on imported goods have become universally recognized in the system of international economic relations. By 1994, the GATT member countries accounted for over 90% of world trade. The average level of customs duties on goods under the GATT was reduced from 40% to 4%. Thanks to GATT, streamlining began in such important areas as trade in services, the results of creative activity, and foreign investment related to trade. Back in 1982, the USSR established contacts with the Secretariat (in the city of Geneva) and the main countries participating in the agreement. On May 16, 1990, the USSR received observer status in the GATT. The Russian Federation began to participate in some of the working bodies of the GATT, and in June 1993, the Director General of the GATT received an application from the Government of the Russian Federation with a request to join this agreement. We have to talk about GATT in the past tense, since on January 1, 1995, by decision of the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations on the legal basis of GATT, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed. Any organization that accepts the obligations of the entire package of documents underlying the WTO can become a member of the WTO. At the end of 1996, 130 states became members of the WTO, and another 30 expressed interest in joining it. An important role in the functioning of a complex system of international economic relations is played by structures created under the United Nations (UN). Among them are such UN specialized agencies as the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Labor Organization (ILO). Since 1968, the Commission on the Law of International Trade (UNISTRAL) began to work, the purpose of which is to harmonize and unify the law of international trade. UNISTRAL has developed a number of international legal documents approved by the UN. By 2000, there were over 400 intergovernmental and about 3,000 non-governmental international organizations in the world. International economic organizations can be characterized as organizations created at the interstate, intergovernmental, interministerial levels or created by business and public organizations to coordinate the activities of countries in various spheres of the world economy. The creation of international economic organizations was a product of the growing internationalization of economic life, the globalization of economic processes. Transformation of neo-colonialism and economic globalization. Coordination of efforts in order to achieve concrete results has become an important way for countries that have begun to free themselves from colonial dependence to fight for their place in the system of international economic relations. In 1963, at the 18th session of the UN General Assembly, developing countries for the first time jointly expressed their point of view on international economic problems. In 1964, the name Group of 77 appeared, as 77 states signed the corresponding declaration on trade and development at the UN Geneva Conference. The declaration spoke about the general and special principles of international economic relations: about the sovereign equality of states, about accelerating economic growth and reducing the gap in income levels of different countries, regardless of the political system, about increasing the export earnings of third world countries, etc. Over time, the Group of 77 included 120 states of Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as the European countries of Malta, Romania, and the SFRY. In 1974, at the initiative of the Group of 77, the VI Special Session of the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration and Program of Action for the Establishment of a New Economic Order. Along with international organizations whose activities are of global importance, there are many regional organizations. In 1945, the League of Arab States (LAS) was formed. The members of this regional organization are 22 Arab states: Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Libya, etc. The Arab League coordinates the activities of its members in the political, economic, military and other spheres, develops a unified policy of the Arab states on a number of pan-Arab problems. In the Middle East, Arab funds and development banks play a significant role, the purpose of which is to lend to developing countries - oil importers. In 1971-1980, over 100 developing countries received subsidies, but ¾ of the funds were given to the Arab states.

Globalization is the process by which the world is transformed into a single global system. The issue of globalization became very relevant in the 1990s, although various aspects of this process have been seriously discussed by scientists since the 1960s and 1970s.

ECONOMIC CYCLE AND ECONOMIC CRISIS

Business cycle(from the Greek circle) - a set of economic phenomena and processes that make a circuit over a period of time. The economic cycle is the movement of the economy from one state to another. In all economic cycles, four phases can be distinguished: rise (production expansion), peak (top of business activity), recession (depression), bottom (lowest point of activity).

Types of economic cycles:

A) short-term- a short-term deviation of market demand from the supply of goods and services. Arise due to overproduction (surplus) or underproduction (deficit) of goods on the market;

b) medium urgency- deviation associated with a change in demand for equipment and facilities. It lasts from 8 to 12 years. Medium-term economic cycles occur in all countries in the form of economic ups and downs;

V) long- associated with the transition from one technological mode of production to another. They last about 60 years and are associated with the development of scientific and technological progress (STR).

The economic growth- favorable development of the economy: an increase in production, consumption and investment (money investment in the economy). The demand for goods and services is growing. Inflation and unemployment are low.

Economic crisis- unfavorable development of the economy: a sharp decline in production and trade, the lowest point of development. Accompanied by unemployment and a decline in living standards.

Types of crises. By scale: general (covers the entire economy) and sectoral (covers individual industries: currency, exchange, credit, financial). By regularity: irregular and regular (often recurring). By the level of supply and demand (crises of underproduction and overproduction).

In the 17th century economic crises were thought to be accidental. The causes of the crisis were sought in violations in the field of money demand. The well-known economist J. Keynes saw the origins of the crisis in the weakness of the market mechanism. Marxism is in the contradictions of capitalism and the private capitalist form of appropriation. In the modern economy, there are internal causes of economic crises: imbalance of supply and demand (overproduction or underproduction), development of scientific and technological revolution, high inflation and unemployment, speculation in securities, government activities. External reasons: social cataclysms, wars, revolutions.

economic depression- the most acute form of the crisis, in which there is a very high level of unemployment and an almost complete halt in the production of goods and products. During the economic crisis and the Great Depression in 1933, about 2 thousand people died of starvation in the United States.

Ways out of the crisis: gradual recovery of the economy from its own reserves and loans from foreign countries: reducing inflation and unemployment, raising wages, strengthening the national currency, etc.

71) Socio-economic development of the USSR in the mid-60s - 80s

The main feature of the socio-economic life of the 60-80s was the constant search for new ways of development, with which the party leadership could not finally decide. In the 1960s, the government still made attempts to maintain the reform impulses of the Khrushchev period, but starting from the 1970s, this process finally stopped.

Industrial Reform 1965

The economic reform, which was adopted in 1965, was the most ambitious transformation in the post-war period of the USSR. A. N. Kosygin was involved in the development of the reform, although the foundations were laid by the Khrushchev government.

The transformations affected industry, agriculture, construction and management. Changes took place in the management of industry, the planned system was partially refuted, the assessment of the activities of enterprises was not the quantity of manufactured products, but the volume of its sale.

Financing of enterprises engaged in construction was carried out with the help of interest-free loans. The results of the reform. Businesses that have migrated to the new system have seen significant performance improvements.

The fuel and energy complex became the core of the state's economy: the USSR took the world's leading position in the production of oil and gas. During the period of the reform, the military-industrial complex was significantly strengthened.

In pursuit of parity with the United States, the Soviet state began mass production of ballistic missiles and medium-range nuclear missiles. The scientific and technical potential of the state has also increased. During this period, new industries emerged in the Soviet industry - microelectronics, robotics and nuclear engineering.

Despite the apparent growth of the economy, the leadership of the USSR failed to consolidate the results of the reform, and by the beginning of the 70s, production volumes began to fall steadily.

Agriculture

If the industrial reform brought the expected results, then the attempts to transform the agrarian sector suffered a crushing failure from the very beginning. Most state farms and collective farms, despite the financial support of the state, brought losses.

The rate of agricultural production was only 1% per year. Since the mid-1960s, the government began to regularly buy grain abroad. The crisis of the agrarian complex has not been eliminated.

Social life

In the 1960s and 1980s, the Soviet state experienced increased urbanization. Rural residents massively moved to big cities, as work in production brought a stable income, unlike labor on the ground.

By the beginning of 1980, the urban population was 62%, rural 12%, military personnel 16%. Until the mid-70s, the life of the Soviet people was characterized by social and economic stability. Education, housing and medicine in the state were free.

The situation changed dramatically in 1976, when the crisis of production first began to affect the life of society. The food problem has become much more acute; many necessary products were in short supply. The agricultural sector could not meet the food needs of the population.

Despite this, the country's leadership did not stop financing the space and military industries, which led to a socio-economic paradox: in a state that was the world leader in the production of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, it was not possible to easily buy milk and butter.

72) Socio-political development of the USSR in the mid-60s, half of the 80s

In October 1964, N.S. Khrushchev was accused of "voluntarism" and "subjectivism", removed from all posts and retired.

The ruling elite did not want to endure Khrushchev's reform actions, which were accompanied by a personnel reshuffling. The people did not understand Khrushchev's struggle for a "bright future" with the deterioration of current life.

L.I. was elected the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Brezhnev, A.N. was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Kosygin. With the advent of Brezhnev to power, the management of Soviet society passes to a "new" class (700 thousand people), a class of managers devoid of faith in social justice and many moral prohibitions. The nomenklatura surrounded itself with new privileges and material benefits, and its most corrupt members were associated with the "shadow economy". The main source of enrichment for the ruling class in the 1960s and early 1980s was all sorts of abuses of office, bribes, and postscripts. By the mid-1980s, the ruling elite was turning from managers of "socialist" property into its real owners. An atmosphere of impunity and permissiveness is being created.

The domestic policy of the Brezhnev administration was conservative ("neo-Stalinism"). Since the second half of the 60s, criticism of the cult of Stalin was banned, the process of rehabilitation of the repressed was stopped, and the persecution of dissidents began. In the 1970s, dissent joined the dissident movement, whose characteristic features were anti-communism and anti-Sovietism (academician A.D. Sakharov, writer A.I. Solzhenitsyn, musician M.A. Rostropovich).

In 1977, a new Constitution of the USSR was adopted, which legally fixed the construction of "developed socialism". The Constitution expanded the social rights of citizens: the right to work, free education, medical care, recreation, etc. The Constitution of the USSR for the first time officially fixed the special role of the CPSU in society. The political life of the country in the first half of the 1980s was characterized by a frequent change of top leadership: in November 1982, L.I. Brezhnev, in February 1984 Yu.V. Andropov, in March 1985 - K.U. Chernenko.

Since the end of 1964, the country's leadership has been trying to carry out economic reforms. The March plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1965) outlined measures for agriculture: establish a firm purchase plan for 6 years (1965 - 1970) raise purchase prices, introduce a 50% surcharge for above-plan products, increase investment in the countryside, reduce taxes . The implementation of these measures led to a temporary acceleration of agricultural production. The essence of the economic reform in industry (September 1965) was as follows: the transition to sectoral management, the transfer of enterprises to self-financing, the reduction in the number of planned indicators (instead of 30-9), the creation of incentive funds at enterprises. A.N. played an active role in the preparation and implementation of the reform. Kosygin (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR).

The economic reform of 1965 proved to be successful during the years of the 8th Five-Year Plan (1966-1970), the volume of industrial production grew by 50%. 1900 large enterprises were built (the Volga Automobile Plant in Tolyatti produced the first Zhiguli in 1970). Agricultural production increased by 20%.

By the early 1970s, the reform had ceased to operate. Market mechanisms for managing production were paralyzed by the command and control system. Agriculture again moved to the 2nd plan. Economic reform, not supported by the reform of the political system, was doomed.

From the beginning of the 70s. increased the rate of decline in production. The economy continued to develop on an extensive basis, mainly in breadth (involvement in production of additional material and human resources). There were not enough workers at the newly built factories and factories due to the low birth rate. Labor productivity has fallen. The economy has become immune to innovation. Only enterprises that worked for military orders were distinguished by high technology.

The country's economy was militarized. Military spending grew twice as fast as national income. Of the 25 billion rubles. total spending on science 20 billion rubles. accounted for military-technical research.

Civil industry suffered losses. By the beginning of the 80s, only 10% - 15% of enterprises were automated. During the years of the 9th Five-Year Plan (1971 - 1975), economic growth stopped. The appearance of the well-being of the national economy was provided through the sale of natural resources - gas and oil. "Petrodollars" were spent on the development of the eastern regions of the country, the creation of gigantic territorial-production complexes. The construction of the century was carried out (VAZ, KAMAZ). From 1974-1984 the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) was built - 3 thousand km.

Agriculture remained the weakest industry in the 1970s and 1980s. The old management system interfered with the independence of the heads of collective farms and state farms. Purchase prices for agricultural products were low, and for agricultural machinery - high. The state was forced to import grain (1979 - 1084 - 40 million tons per year).

In the 1970s, a campaign was launched on the "second virgin lands" - the Non-Chernozem region (29 regions and republics of Russia). The main emphasis was placed on agro-industrial integration, i.e. the unification of agriculture with the sectors that serve it - industry, transport, trade. The mass liquidation of "unpromising villages" (200,000) began. In 1982, a food program was developed to solve the food problem in the USSR by 1990.

Crisis phenomena gradually accumulated in the social sphere. The rise in the living standards of the population stopped, there was a deficit, a hidden rise in prices. This became the economic prerequisite for the formation of a "shadow economy".

From the mid-60s to the mid-80s, the political regime in the USSR "came to its senses" after the debunking of Stalin and other innovations of the Khrushchev "thaw", the readiness of society for change was limited by the rigid framework of the ideological paradigm of "building communism", the political monopoly of the party- state structures, the nomenklatura, which is a stronghold of conservatism, and the absence of influential social groups interested in dismantling totalitarianism.

Despite the official thesis about the rapprochement of social groups, in reality there was a complication of social relations. Differentiation in the quality and standard of living, the real rights of the administrative system and the rest of the population increased.

The contradictory nature of phenomena in Soviet society could not but be reflected in the development of its spiritual sphere - education, science, culture.

Relations between government and society in the period from the mid-60s to the mid-80s led to the third wave of emigration.

All this reflected the presence, interweaving and confrontation of two trends in the spiritual life of Soviet society from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s - official-protective and democratic.

During these years, a dissident movement was born, which will be discussed in this paper.

Phenomenon of dissidence

The Brezhnev team rather quickly took a course towards the suppression of dissent, and the boundaries of what was permitted narrowed, and what under Khrushchev was completely allowed and even recognized by the System, from the end of the 60s could be classified as a political crime. Indicative in this regard is the example of the head of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the USSR N. Mesyats, who, being appointed to the post in the October days of 1964 and called upon to ensure control over information programs, sincerely believed that it was enough to press a certain "button" and such control will be implemented.

The 20th Congress of the CPSU and the campaign against the "cult of personality" that began immediately after it can be considered the origins of the revival of the organized movement of dissidents. The population of the country, party organizations and labor collectives, representatives of not only the intelligentsia, but also the working class, the peasantry took the new course so seriously that they did not notice how criticism of Stalinism smoothly flowed into criticism of the System itself. But the authorities were vigilant. The persecution of dissidents (and in this case - on consistent guides to the life of the decisions of the party congress) fell upon immediately.

Nevertheless, the beginning of the dissident movement in its classical form was laid in 1965 by the arrest of A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel, who published in the West one of their works, Walks with Pushkin. It was from this time that the authorities began a targeted fight against dissidence, thereby causing the growth of this movement. From the same time, the creation of a network of underground circles, wide in geography and representative in composition of participants, set as its task a change in the existing political order.

The speech on August 25, 1968 against the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, which took place on Red Square, became a symbol of dissidence. Eight people took part in it: student T. Baeva, linguist K. Babitsky, philologist L. Bogoraz, poet V. Delaunay, worker V. Dremlyuga, physicist P. Litvinov, art critic V. Fayenberg and poetess N. Gorbanevskaya. However, there were other, less explicit forms of disagreement that made it possible to avoid administrative and even criminal prosecution: participation in a society for the protection of nature or religious heritage, the creation of various kinds of appeals to "future generations", without a chance for publication then and discovered today, finally, refusal from a career - how many young intellectuals of the 70s preferred to work as janitors or stokers. The poet and bard Y. Kim recently wrote about the connection with his last, which was a great success performance "Moscow Kitchens", that the Brezhnev era remains in the memory of Moscow intellectuals as the years spent in the kitchen, talking "in their circle" on the topic of how to change the world. Were there not some kind of "kitchens", albeit of a different level, the university in Tartu, the department of Professor V. Yadov at Leningrad University, the Institute of Economics of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences and other places, official and unofficial, where jokes about the squalor of life and the stuttering of the Secretary General interspersed disputes in which the future was foreseen?

Directions of the dissident movement

The first is civil movements ("politicians"). The largest among them was the human rights movement. Its supporters declared: “Protection of human rights, its fundamental civil and political freedoms, protection by open, legal means, within the framework of existing laws, constituted the main pathos of the human rights movement ... Repulsion from political activity, a suspicious attitude towards ideologically colored projects of social reconstruction, rejection of any forms organizations - this is the set of ideas that can be called a human rights position";

The second - religious movements (faithful and free Seventh-day Adventists, evangelical Christians - Baptists, Orthodox, Pentecostals and others);

Third - national movements (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Armenians, Georgians, Crimean Tatars, Jews, Germans and others).

Stages of the dissident movement

The participants in the movement themselves were the first to propose a periodization of the movement, in which they saw four main stages.

The first stage (1965 - 1972) can be called the period of formation.

These years were marked by:

- "campaign of letters" in defense of human rights in the USSR; the creation of the first circles and groups of human rights orientation;

Organization of the first financial aid funds for political prisoners;

The activation of the positions of the Soviet intelligentsia not only in relation to events in our country, but also in other states (for example, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1971, etc.);

Public protest against the re-Stalinization of society; appeal not only to the authorities of the USSR, but also to the world community (including the international communist movement);

The creation of the first policy documents of the liberal-Western (A.D. Sakharov's work "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom") and soil (A.I. Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Lecture) directions;

The beginning of the publication of "Chronicles of Current Events";

Creation on May 28, 1969 of the country's first open public association - the Initiative Group for the Protection of Human Rights in the USSR;

The mass scale of the movement (according to the KGB data for 1967-1971, 3,096 "groups of a politically harmful nature" were identified; 13,602 people who were part of them were prevented; the geography of the movement in these years marked the entire country for the first time);

The coverage of the movement, in essence, all social strata of the country's population, including workers, military personnel, workers of state farms,

The efforts of the authorities in the fight against dissent during this period were mainly focused on:

On the organization in the KGB of a special structure (the Fifth Directorate), focused on ensuring control over the mindset and "prevention" of dissidents;

Widespread use of psychiatric facilities to combat dissidents;

Changing Soviet legislation in the interests of fighting dissidents;

Suppression of ties of dissidents with foreign countries.

The second stage (1973 - 1974) is usually considered the period of the movement's crisis. This state is associated with the arrest, investigation and trial of P. Yakir and V. Krasin, during which they agreed to cooperate with the KGB. The result of this was new arrests of participants and some attenuation of the human rights movement. The authorities attacked samizdat. Numerous searches, arrests and trials took place in Moscow, Leningrad, Vilnius, Novosibirsk, Kyiv and other cities.

The third stage (1974 - 1975) is considered to be the period of wide international recognition of the dissident movement. During this period, the creation of the Soviet branch of the international organization "Amnisty International" falls; deportation from the country of A. Solzhenitsyn; awarding the Nobel Prize to A. Sakharov; resumption of the issue of the Chronicle of Current Events.

The fourth stage (1976 - 1981) is called Helsinki. During this period, a group was created to promote the implementation of the Helsinki agreements in the USSR, headed by Yu. Orlov (Moscow Helsinki Group - MHG). The group saw the main content of its activities in the collection and analysis of materials available to it about the violation of the humanitarian articles of the Helsinki Accords and informing the governments of the participating countries about them. Her work was painfully perceived by the authorities, not only because it contributed to the growth of the human rights movement, but also because after the Helsinki meeting it became much more difficult to deal with dissidents using the old methods. It was also important that the MHG established links with religious and national movements, primarily those not connected with each other, and began to perform some coordinating functions. At the end of 1976 - beginning of 1977. Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian, Helsinki groups were created on the basis of national movements. In 1977, a working commission was created at the MHG to investigate the use of psychiatry for political purposes.

Conclusion

So, the dissident movement is the most radical, visible and courageous expression of dissent.

The beginning of the dissident movement in its classical form was laid in 1965 by the arrest of Sinyavsky and Daniele.

There are three main directions in the dissident movement:

1. civil movements;

2. religious movements;

3. national movements.

There are four stages of the dissident movement.

The most active forms of protest were characteristic mainly of three strata of society: the creative intelligentsia, believers, and some national minorities.

The 70s were marked by:

A number of obvious successes of the KGB in the fight against all forms of dissidence;

The continuous decline in the international prestige of the USSR due to repression.

All these directions and forms of protest will be recognized and flourish in the period of "glasnost".

73) The foreign policy of the USSR in the mid-60s - 80s

In the mid-60s and early 80s, the USSR was in a state of confrontation with the capitalist West. Foreign policy during this period was of a contrasting nature: the thaw in international relations often turned into a new aggravation of contradictions.

The diplomacy of the USSR in the mid-1960s and early 1980s should be considered in two main streams of political relations with the socialist camp and the capitalist states.

The foreign policy of the Soviet Union with the socialist countries

The diplomatic relations of the Soviet Union with the countries of the socialist camp were regulated by the so-called "Brezhnev Doctrine", the meaning of which was the need to preserve the unity of the proletarian states by any means and consolidate the leading role of the USSR in the socialist world.

The Soviet army actively participated in the suppression of anti-socialist uprisings in Czechoslovakia ("Prague Spring", 1968). An attempt was also made to intervene in the internal confrontation between communists and democrats in Poland, however, the beginning socio-economic Soviet crisis forced the government of the USSR to abandon the use of the Prague experience.

In the early 1970s, tension arose in Soviet-Chinese relations. The Communist Party of China began to claim leadership in the socialist camp, gradually ousting the USSR. After short military conflicts, and the departure from the political arena of Mao Zedong, the diplomatic relations of the Soviet state with the friendly Republic of China were completely severed.

The government of the USSR failed to implement the "Brezhnev Doctrine" to the end. The socialist republics, willingly entering into diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and taking advantage of the prerogatives provided by a powerful "mentor" in the foreign market, nevertheless actively defended their sovereignty and political independence.

The embodiment of the world proletarian revolution was significantly delayed, and over time it completely lost its relevance.

USSR and the capitalist world

The international relations of the parties to the Cold War were characterized by instability. In the mid-60s, political and military parity was achieved between the USSR and the USA, which meant the potential threat of the outbreak of the Third World War.

However, during R. Nixon's official visit to Moscow in 1972, an agreement was signed between the states that limited the strategic possession of nuclear weapons by both countries, as well as their non-use in peace conditions. This was the first step towards nuclear disarmament and significantly eased the tension between the powers.

Since 1973, the international relations of the USSR with the countries of the capitalist West have gained stability and were based on friendly good neighborliness, without making political claims. Diplomatic relations with the West were destabilized in 1979 when the Soviet armed forces with an international mission invaded Afghanistan.

Start of the war in Afghanistan was not based on good reasons, the motivation for helping the Afghan people in the construction of socialism looked unconvincing in the eyes of Western democracy.

The Soviet government ignored the warnings of the West, which gave rise to a new stage in the Cold War. By the beginning of the 1980s, diplomatic relations were finally severed, and the parties again returned to mutual threats of a nuclear attack.

On September 26, 1968, the Pravda newspaper published the so-called "Brezhnev Doctrine" on the "limited sovereignty" of the socialist countries in the face of the danger hanging over the world socialist system... Doctrine was that the USSR could interfere in the internal affairs of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which were part of the socialist bloc in order to ensure the stability of the political course, which was built on the basis of real socialism and aimed at close cooperation with the USSR. The word "doctrine" in the Soviet foreign policy lexicons of the military-political field never got used, this word did not take root. There were decrees and declarations, the opinion of TASS or the Soviet government was expressed. The Brezhnev Doctrine was explained and fueled by ideological, political and economic factors. Soviet leaders from Stalin to Andropov intuitively understood the importance of geopolitics as a factor in the security of the Soviet Union. The main pillars of Soviet foreign policy under Brezhnev were the principles of peaceful coexistence and proletarian socialist internationalism. The foundations of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union were formed in the real world, where there was a constant fierce struggle for military-political spheres of influence and economic interests. Everyone remembers that there were doctrines of US Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon. Theoretically, they were based on the principles of political realism, which were developed by perhaps the most famous American analysts, Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan. Kennan, for example, put into circulation the doctrine of the containment of communism, which in practice became the doctrine of the rejection of communism. US Secretaries of State Kissinger and Christopher believed and continue to believe that in world politics there is a constant struggle for influence, power, initiative, the state achieves its goal by adapting or imposing its will on others. Either they adapt or they impose. The main conductor of the foreign policy of the USSR was the Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko. He said that the world is socially bipolar, that there are fundamental differences between the two systems - capitalist and socialist. Along with cooperation within the framework of peaceful coexistence, there is a struggle that must be waged by peaceful means. The communist ideology, the economic and military might of the Soviet Union and its allies are the main means of maintaining the balance of power on the world stage. The nuclear arms race is the greatest threat to mankind. The race must be stopped, weapons banned. The United States and NATO are objectively interested in this. The Soviet Union has many allies and friends on the world stage, and we must support them. This is an axiom of any diplomacy. Friends are easy to lose and hard to find. For the security of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was created, hence the support provided to the GDR. Everyone knows, for example, that the minister, when he flew to the FRG, always stayed in the GDR. It was a conscious policy.

74)Reasons for a new attempt to reform the political system of the USSR

By the beginning of the 1980s, the Soviet economic system had exhausted its possibilities for development and had gone beyond the boundaries of its historical time. Having carried out industrialization and urbanization, the command economy could not further carry out deep transformations covering all aspects of society. First of all, it turned out to be incapable in the radically changed conditions to ensure the proper development of productive forces, protect human rights, and maintain the country's international prestige. The USSR with its gigantic reserves of raw materials, industrious and selfless population lagged behind the West more and more. The Soviet economy was not up to the increasing demands for the variety and quality of consumer goods. Industrial enterprises, not interested in scientific and technological progress, rejected up to 80% of new technical solutions and inventions. The growing inefficiency of the economy had a negative impact on the country's defense capability. In the early 1980s, the USSR began to lose competitiveness in the only industry in which it successfully competed with the West - in the field of military technology.

The economic base of the country ceased to correspond to the position of a great world power and needed urgent updating. At the same time, the enormous growth in the education and awareness of the people in the post-war period, the emergence of a generation that did not know hunger and repression, formed a higher level of material and spiritual needs of people, called into question the very principles underlying the Soviet totalitarian system. The very idea of ​​a planned economy failed. Increasingly, state plans were not carried out and were continuously redrawn, the proportions in the sectors of the national economy were violated. Achievements in health care, education, culture were lost.

The spontaneous degeneration of the system changed the entire way of life of Soviet society: the rights of managers and enterprises were redistributed, departmentalism and social inequality increased.

The nature of production relations within enterprises has changed, labor discipline has begun to fall, apathy and indifference, theft, disrespect for honest work, envy of those who earn more have become widespread. At the same time, non-economic coercion to work persisted in the country. The Soviet man, alienated from the distribution of the produced product, has turned into a performer who works not according to conscience, but under compulsion. The ideological motivation of labor developed in the post-revolutionary years weakened along with the belief in the imminent triumph of communist ideals.

However, in the end, completely different forces determined the direction and nature of the reform of the Soviet system. They were predetermined by the economic interests of the nomenklatura, the Soviet ruling class.

Thus, by the beginning of the 1980s, the Soviet totalitarian system was actually deprived of the support of a significant part of society.

Under the conditions of monopoly domination in society by one party, the CPSU, and the presence of a powerful repressive apparatus, changes could only begin "from above". The top leaders of the country were clearly aware that the economy needed to be reformed, but none of the conservative majority of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU wanted to take responsibility for implementing these changes.

Even the most urgent problems were not solved in a timely manner. Instead of taking any measures to improve the economy, new forms of "socialist competition" were proposed. Enormous funds were diverted to numerous "constructions of the century" like the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

75) Goals and stages of perestroika Perestroika is the general name for the set of political and economic changes that took place in the USSR in 1986-1991. In the course of perestroika (especially since the second half of 1989 - after the First Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR), the political confrontation between the forces advocating the socialist path of development and parties and movements that link the future of the country with the organization of life on the principles of capitalism, as well as on issues of the future, sharply escalated. the image of the Soviet Union, the relationship between union and republican bodies of state power and administration. By the mid-1980s, the imminent need for change was clear to many in the country. Therefore, proposed in those conditions by M.S. Gorbachev's "perestroika" found a lively response in all strata of Soviet society. In short, “perestroika” meant: the creation of an effective mechanism for accelerating the socio-economic development of society; comprehensive development of democracy strengthening discipline and order respect for the value and dignity of the individual; renunciation of command and administration, encouragement of innovation; a decisive turn towards science, the combination of scientific and technological achievements with the economy, and much more. By the beginning of the 1990s, perestroika ended with an aggravation of the crisis in all spheres of society, the liquidation of the power of the CPSU and the collapse of the USSR. Stages of perestroika First stage (March 1985 - January 1987) This period was characterized by the recognition of some shortcomings of the existing political and economic system of the USSR and attempts to correct them with several large administrative campaigns (the so-called "Acceleration") - an anti-alcohol campaign, "the fight against unearned income ”, the introduction of state acceptance, a demonstration of the fight against corruption. No radical steps have yet been taken during this period; outwardly, almost everything remained the same. At the same time, in 1985-86, the bulk of the old cadres of the Brezhnev draft were replaced with a new team of managers. It was then that A. N. Yakovlev, E. K. Ligachev, N. I. Ryzhkov, B. N. Yeltsin, A. I. Lukyanov and other active participants in future events were introduced into the leadership of the country. The second stage (January 1987 - June 1989) An attempt to reform socialism in the spirit of democratic socialism. It is characterized by the beginning of large-scale reforms in all spheres of life of Soviet society. In public life, a policy of glasnost is proclaimed - mitigation of censorship in the media and the lifting of bans on what used to be considered taboo. In the economy, private entrepreneurship in the form of cooperatives is legalized, and joint ventures with foreign companies are being actively created. In international politics, the main doctrine is "New Thinking" - a course towards the rejection of the class approach in diplomacy and the improvement of relations with the West. Part of the population is seized with euphoria from the long-awaited changes and freedom unprecedented by Soviet standards. At the same time, during this period, general instability began to gradually increase in the country: the economic situation worsened, separatist sentiments appeared on the national outskirts, and the first interethnic clashes broke out. The third stage (June 1989-1991) The final stage, during this period there is a sharp destabilization of the political situation in the country: after the Congress, the confrontation between the communist regime and the new political forces that arose as a result of the democratization of society begins. Difficulties in the economy develop into a full-blown crisis. The chronic commodity shortage reaches its climax: empty store shelves become a symbol of the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. Perestroika euphoria in society is replaced by disappointment, uncertainty about the future and mass anti-communist sentiments. Since 1990, the main idea is no longer "improving socialism", but building democracy and a market economy of the capitalist type. The “new thinking” in the international arena comes down to unilateral concessions to the West, as a result of which the USSR loses many of its positions and actually ceases to be a superpower, which a few years ago controlled half of the world. In Russia and other republics of the Union, separatist-minded forces come to power - a "parade of sovereignties" begins. The logical result of this development of events was the elimination of the power of the CPSU and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

REASONS FOR RESTRUCTURING

Perestroika is the final stage in the history of the USSR, which began in 1985 with the reforms of the Soviet Union. However, the feeling of the need for change arose in Soviet society back in the era of "stagnation". In his work, L.I. Brezhnev and his entourage relied primarily on the officials of the CPSU apparatus, who controlled literally everything in the country - from the queue for foreign intelligence to the production of children's toys. Such a system made it possible to make various kinds of illegal transactions and receive large bribes. This is how the first large capitals, often of criminal origin, began to form in the USSR.

1. Causes of repression: reflections and doubts

At the very beginning, it is necessary to make one remark about the deliberate violation of the chronological framework of the presentation of the material. It will no doubt strike the reader that the chapter on the assassination of Kirov follows a discussion of Stalin's general policy in the mid-1930s. Whereas the canons of chronology dictated the reverse order of chapters. But in this case, I deliberately went for this violation: it seemed to me logically justified to consider the problem of repression in one block, and here the murder of Kirov just serves as a kind of starting point. It is organically connected with the deployment of large-scale repressions and purges that followed him. Therefore, in some way violating the requirements of the chronological sequence, I tried to place at the forefront the principle of the internal interconnection of the events unfolding then. Which, in my opinion, is much more important than strict observance of the event chronology. In short, it is better to violate the canons of chronology than to break the internal connection of times and events.

In the political biography of Stalin, a new sharp turn is coming, and all his biographers are unanimous that the year 1934 became the boundary of such a turn. It was the year of Kirov's assassination, which opened a period of repressions steadily growing like a grandiose wave. Coming to the description of this period in the political fate of the leader, one experiences an influx of very contradictory thoughts and feelings. They are generated both by the importance of the issue itself, and by the extreme complexity of the historical material, which has to be given a certain assessment. To be completely frank, I myself have not formed a clear and precise concept, based on which one can make well-founded judgments. Everything is too shocking with its, at first glance, cruel senselessness, and even more so with its grandiose scale, to be able to fit in the mind, to find its logical and historical explanation and justification. The abundance of contradictions makes it difficult to choose the right path to the knowledge of the events of that time. Sometimes it seems that everything that happened is beyond human understanding. And yet, it took place in life, and requires its own interpretation.

It is necessary to make a reservation in advance: the reader will come across on the pages devoted to this period of Stalin's political biography with inconsistency, and sometimes uncertainty, and a clear duality of the author's judgments and conclusions. And the reason is not in the carelessness or haste of the author, but in the inconsistency of the historical material itself. The thought sometimes occurred to me that the political arena of that time was more like a madhouse than a certain historical reality accessible to objective logical and psychological analysis. And to understand what happened in a madhouse, only the madman himself can do it. It turned out a kind of vicious circle, going beyond which was tantamount to going beyond the limits of human logic. Therefore, I myself, in spite of my will and desire, sometimes plunged into a certain pool of doubts and thoughtlessness. I was permeated by a keen sense of uncertainty when clarity and certainty were required in the formulation of one or another specific conclusion or general assessment.

At the same time, it should be noted that I thoroughly familiarized myself with a large amount of facts, I knew quite well the positions and assessments of historians who studied this period of Stalin's activity. Terra incognita for me was not the era of repression itself, but its explanation, its inner essence, inner logic, which served as the locomotive that set this whole process in motion. In Stalinist historiography, there are a huge number of concepts and simply hypotheses that interpret the period under consideration. But each of them individually and all of them together do not give a clear answer to many fundamental questions. One gets the impression that the era of repression has not yet found its really deep, comprehensively substantiated and, in all important respects, motivated historical explanation. It has been and, apparently, for a long time will be the subject of not only scientific research, but also tough polemical fights.

Of course, the author's efforts in this area are unlikely to become some kind of fundamental innovation, a kind of revolution in the interpretation of the events of that time. It seems to me that the time span separating us from that era is too short so that we can give them an objective, generalized assessment that meets the requirements of historical truth without outbursts of emotions. After all, to say that these were crimes and to put an end to it is the same as to say only A. But one must also say B. One must explain the internal logic of what took place in life. It is necessary to reveal not only the motives that guided Stalin, but also why all this became possible. Understanding the internal springs that set in motion a historical process of any scale is by no means a simple matter.

Finally, it is important to always keep in mind and never lose sight of two fundamentally important points from the thread of your reflections: the role of the subjective factor, i.e. the role of the leader himself, and the role of the objective factor, i.e. the totality of real conditions in which the events of that pores. Some researchers see the main reasons for the repressions in the personal qualities of Stalin as a person, supplemented and multiplied by the features of his political philosophy. Hence follows the methodology of their approach, which predetermines the final conclusions and assessments. Others emphasize the action of objective laws, due to which the leader, regardless of his personal plans and motives, acted exactly as it happened in life, that everything was almost predetermined by the logic of the historical process.

I believe that the first approach suffers from one-sidedness, lack of breadth of the historical vision of events, and attaches importance to the individual person, disproportionate to his real role in the development and dynamics of social processes. Therefore, such an approach does not open up the possibility of deeply and comprehensively explaining both the origins of repressions and their scale. The second approach, by virtue of which the individual is, as it were, excluded from the field of action of historical laws, looks not much more convincing. And even if it is not excluded at all, then in any case it is very limited, acting only as some kind of obligatory extra in the arena of events.

The way to solve the problem, I believe, is to combine both of these approaches into something unified. But to connect not mechanically, but organically. True, this is easy to say, but extremely difficult to do. The internal interconnection and interaction of the first and second approaches, their interweaving can serve as a good prerequisite for avoiding the extremes of both of these approaches, taken separately. But any historical material is always a single whole, and it is unacceptable to divide it artificially. Although, in this case, we do not mean the historical material itself as such, but only the methodology of its analysis.

My reasoning about the root causes of repressions in Soviet Russia in the 1930s bears the stamp of some kind of abstractness, non-historicity. The reader will involuntarily have the idea that such phenomena were unique and had no precedent in world history. But this will be a delusion: world history is so rich in events of any kind that, as they say, nothing surprises it. In other countries and among other peoples, phenomena of a more or less similar order also occurred.

But it makes no sense to delve into the depths of the history of other countries and make some comparisons and comparisons in order to prove some uniqueness of the repressions undertaken by Stalin in the 30s. Although, of course, they have their own unique features and characteristics. The main thing is to try to understand their origins, purposeful motives and consequences, which left a deep imprint in the minds of many millions of people.

First of all, of course, one should start with the director and main performer of the grandiose political action that so profoundly affected the entire Soviet society and, in the end, had far-reaching international political consequences. Stalin, as the undisputed leader of the country, no doubt had his own reasons for launching a grand purge, which continued with varying intensity for almost four years. And as such, the purge, in fact, never stopped. Therefore, there is reason to believe that purges and repressions were a permanent phenomenon during Stalin's rule. And this was one of the characteristic features of the entire Stalinist era.

Before moving on to the motivation that underlay Stalin's policy of repression, one should not lose sight of his personal traits, which were discussed in some detail in the first volume. Here I do not want to repeat myself, although repetition is sometimes dictated by necessity: after all, the very personality of the leader is dynamics in its most real expression. Stalin of the 20s is not adequate to Stalin of the 30s, and even more so of subsequent decades. He was in continuous development, acquiring new features and new experience, abandoning some of his previous views and ideas. It must be judged with indispensable consideration of the time factor. It is difficult to imagine Stalin in a static state, as a kind of political leader that is unchanging in his manifestations. His political activity bears an indelible stamp of pragmatism. But he himself was not a pragmatist in the usual sense of the word. His political philosophy was distinguished by its breadth of outlook and the ability to recognize the deep tendencies of the historical process and take them into account in its practical activities. Moreover, he was not as simple as he seemed and as he liked to portray himself in the eyes of public opinion in his country and abroad. There are many statements by Stalin that characterize his attitude to the evaluation of his personality abroad. Here is one of them, relating to 1931, when he was not yet at the zenith of his fame. In a conversation with E. Ludwig, he stated: “I know that gentlemen from the hostile camp consider me anything. I consider it below my dignity to dissuade these gentlemen. They will also think that I am looking for popularity ”. By the way, this passage from the recording of the conversation was not made public during Stalin's lifetime for reasons that one can only guess about.

To an even lesser extent, he corresponded to the image that his political opponents painted. Although, it must be said that they were able to discern many negative traits of his character and personality in general almost from the very beginning of his ascent to the heights of power. Trotsky was especially successful in this, portraying his mortal enemy as a person who combined almost all the vices inherent in a politician. But Trotsky did not manage to discern the main advantages of Stalin. He, despite a certain insight, was unable to see in Stalin a personality of historical proportions. Either the feeling of indestructible ardent hatred for the Secretary General prevented, or an exorbitantly high self-conceit, which deprived the ability to objectively evaluate people, including their rivals. For all the thoroughness of Trotsky's works on Stalin (and they, even taking into account their undeniable tendentiousness, undoubtedly occupy the first place in Stalinist historiography), they clearly lack not so much a flight of thought as insight into the essence of historical events, fixation on the desire to present his opponent with a gray personality who made his way to the historical stage only thanks to his cunning, unscrupulousness and unsurpassed acting. True, on some of these qualities (in the absence of others - more significant) it is simply impossible to play such a role in the history of the country, and in world history as a whole.

In fairness, it should be noted that Trotsky's derogatory assessments are contained in his public speeches and publications. In his own diary, remaining alone with himself, the leader's main opponent was much more perspicacious and more objective in his assessments. In the mid-1930s he wrote: “Victory ... Stalin was predetermined. The result that onlookers and fools attribute to Stalin's personal strength, at least to his extraordinary cunning, was embedded deep in the dynamics of historical forces ... Stalin was only a semi-conscious expression of the second chapter of the revolution, its hangover..

In other words, Trotsky is forced to admit that the victory of Stalin's strategic course was predetermined by the logic and laws of the historical process. In the future, I will touch on the question of how historically inevitable and natural were the events that filled the Stalin era with pages of cruel repression and persecution. Now I will touch only on the personal qualities of the leader and how they influenced the turn of Russian history at that time.

Reflecting on Stalin and how his personal human qualities affected his activities and his fate in general, I would like to quote lines from D. Byron. They, it seems to me, help to understand at least some of the features of this historical figure. D. Byron wrote in his Child Harold:

“All his life he created enemies for himself,

He drove friends, rejecting their love,

The whole world was ready to suspect him.

On the closest revenge is his blind

Collapsed, burning with poison, -

So the bright mind was darkened by darkness.

But grief is guilt, is it a fatal disease?

Insight itself cannot

To comprehend madness under the mask of the mind ... "

These lines, it seems, do not depict the image of the hero of Byron's creation, but the personality of Stalin - they so faithfully and accurately convey his general appearance and even, in some ways, the tragedy of his entire fate. After all, the political triumph of Stalin, the leader, was always, like a shadow, accompanied by some kind of personal doom, which he himself was not aware of.

In the context of the problem under consideration, Stalin's personal qualities undoubtedly played an extremely important role - they determined the whole style and methods of carrying out the great purge (or great repressions - which name is more to your liking!). The seal of suspicion, distrust, vindictiveness and even deceit inherent in the leader clearly peeps through all the pages of the terrible epic that has gone down in our history as a crime of the period of the cult of personality. But from the very time when N. Khrushchev exposed Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956, the question arose of how to measure and how to combine crimes, the responsibility for which was assigned exclusively to one person, with the action of the so-called laws of social development? How did such phenomena become possible within the framework of the Soviet socialist system? Or are these "objective" laws not so objective, if one person can cross out their effect? Or did the action of these objective laws themselves predetermine the policy pursued by Stalin?

In a word, there were much more questions than people capable of giving intelligible answers to them. Over time, as various stages of de-Stalinization unfolded, all sorts of backlashes in criticism of the leader, etc. of events, the sharpness of the questions posed not only did not weaken, but also became more and more topical. Many concepts arose, within the framework of which attempts were made to finally give the necessary and historically correct explanation for the events of that time.

One of these concepts, an active supporter and developer of which was a prominent Russian historian of the patriotic trend V. Kozhinov, boils down to the following. “... Such a large-scale and multilateral turn is wrong, even absurd to consider it as something accomplished according to the personal plan and will of Stalin ...” And then he writes that it was: “... the course of history itself, and not the implementation of a certain personal program of Stalin, who only to one degree or another was aware of the ongoing historical movement and somehow consolidated it in his “instructions”. And, as is clear from many facts, his support for this objective course of history was dictated primarily and most of all by the growing threat of global war, which directly became on the agenda after the German Nazis came to power in 1933..

If we briefly outline the essence of the position of V. Kozhinov (as well as a number of other researchers who hold similar views), then it can be reduced to the following. Beginning in 1934, there was a clear turn in Stalin's political strategy from traditional Marxist-Leninist class postulates to geopolitical thinking. The latter demanded the revival of Russian national values, many traditions that had previously been defamated, and finally, the return to the country and the people of its true history. A story that would be based on real facts, and not on narrowly interpreted class criteria. In other words, the stage of revolutionary overthrow ended in its logical end, and the stage of national building inevitably had to begin. Moreover, national creation meant not only the Russian national heritage (history, culture, science, art, etc.), but also the national values ​​of other nations and peoples that were part of the Union.

It was from that time in Stalin's political philosophy that a tilt towards a historically objective, true-to-life assessment of the role of the Russian people and the principle of statehood in general in the formation and establishment of a multinational Russian state in the international arena began to be more and more clearly and consistently indicated. A power that was fundamentally different from the classical colonial empires of the era of capitalism and imperialism. So, criticizing the poet D. Bedny, Stalin emphasized at the beginning of 1930:

“The leaders of the revolutionary workers of all countries eagerly study the most instructive history of the working class of Russia, its past, the past of Russia, knowing that in addition to reactionary Russia there was also revolutionary Russia, the Russia of the Radishchevs and the Chernyshevskys, the Zhelyabovs and the Ulyanovs, the Khalturins and the Alekseevs. All this instills (cannot but instill!) in the hearts of the Russian workers a feeling of revolutionary national pride, capable of moving mountains, capable of performing miracles.

And you? Instead of comprehending this greatest process in the history of the revolution and rising to the height of the tasks of the singer of the advanced proletariat, they went somewhere into the hollow and, entangled between the most boring quotations from the works of Karamzin and no less boring sayings from Domostroy, began to proclaim to the whole world that Russia in the past was a vessel of abomination and desolation…”.

In the context of the realities of today's Russia, it is especially important to emphasize that Stalin actually pursued a completely sound and time-tested idea: the creation of the new cannot be carried out on the basis of the general destruction and desecration of the past. The iron law of historical continuity operates inexorably in the life of countries and peoples. And to break this continuity of times meant jeopardizing the future of the whole country. For history remains real history only when the connection of times, the connection between the past, the present and the future, is preserved.

The Russian emigration with great tension followed the turn that was taking place in the Soviet country. Part of the emigrants regarded this turn as a revolution, although it was not of a social and political nature, but of an everyday nature, that is, at the level of ordinary life. The prominent Russian thinker G. Fedotov wrote in this regard: “Starting with the assassination of Kirov (December 1, 1934), arrests, exiles, and even executions of members of the Communist Party have not stopped in Russia. True, this is happening under the flag of a struggle against the remnants of the Trotskyites, Zinovievists and other groups of the Left Opposition. But it is unlikely that anyone will be deceived by these officially sewn labels. Proofs of "Trotskyism" are usually sewn with white thread. Peering into them, we see that Trotskyism is generally understood as revolutionary, class or international socialism... The struggle... is reflected in all cultural politics. In schools, political literacy is canceled or reduced to nothing. Instead of Marxist social science, history is being restored. In the interpretation of history or literature, a struggle is declared against economic schemes that nullify the cultural originality of phenomena ... One could ask oneself why, if Marxism in Russia ordered a long life, they will not remove its faded scenery from the stage. Why, at every step, cheating on him and even mocking him, are they sanctimoniously muttering old formulas?.. It would be reckless to renounce one's own revolutionary genealogy. The French Republic has been writing “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” on the walls for 150 years, despite the obvious contradiction of the last two slogans to the very foundations of its existence..

Reading these lines, you involuntarily ask yourself the question - has Soviet Russia really entered a period of rollback from the revolution since the mid-1930s, or rather, on the path of a kind of counter-revolution? If so, then all subsequent mass repressions find their historical and logical explanation, and by no means because, according to the famous expression, the revolution devours its children. By the way, Stalin's opponents from the camp of Trotskyists and the rightists believed that things were turning out in this way, since the very foundations of the psychology of the old Bolshevism turned out to be incompatible with the new course of Stalin's policy, with his reforms, which revived many of the foundations of the former regime.

Later, the idea even arose of some kind of historical retribution, which, they say, was to fall upon the old guard of the Bolsheviks as a legal punishment for everything that they had done to the former Russia. And fate chose Stalin as the instrument of this punishment, putting an end to the manifestations of revolutionary internationalism that had already become not only unnecessary, but also harmful and dangerous.

Of course, one can agree or disagree with such conceptions that explained the events of the thirties. It seems to me personally that they look unconvincing, because they are based on a purely external coincidence of events, and not on their deep historical analysis. And in the end, the fundamental parameters of the Soviet system under Stalin did not undergo radical changes in these years. Therefore, in its true meaning, the terms new revolution or counter-revolution are not properly applied here. The reforms carried out by Stalin were dictated not by the desire to destroy or undermine the foundations of the entrenched Soviet system, but by the desire to adapt it to new historical realities. This meant making this system more viable, more effective in the face of the inevitable impending upheavals in the international sphere. And one more argument: the leader never ceased to consider himself a consistent student of Lenin, and therefore an adherent of the theory of the revolutionary transformation of the world. Of course, both in theory and especially in practice, there were certain differences between these two luminaries of Soviet communism, which is quite within the framework of evolutionary development. After all, the objective conditions of life of the country itself and the world as a whole were changing radically, and at a pace unprecedented in history. Therefore, blindly following some pre-formulated theories and principles would be tantamount to idiocy, in which Stalin cannot be suspected. New conditions demanded new approaches and new solutions. But they nevertheless were carried out as a whole within the framework of the system, the fundamental foundations of which were laid by the founder of Bolshevism.

By virtue of the above arguments, there are no serious grounds to regard the events of the middle and second half of the 1930s as some kind of new revolution of the Stalinist type. It follows from this that the idea of ​​some kind of social retribution as the root cause of terror looks more like a literary metaphor than a solid historical argument. Undoubtedly, the Stalinist reforms of this period affected many aspects of the country's life, but they did not touch the socio-economic and political foundations of the Soviet regime. On the contrary, it is thanks to these reforms that the regime has become more stable and more adapted to the realities of life. He cleansed himself only of the dense outgrowths of orthodox Bolshevism, the adherence to which could really lead the multinational Soviet society to a deep crisis. And individual symptoms of this kind of phenomena became more and more palpable. But the main thing was that Soviet Russia had to prepare itself for severe and inevitable trials on the external front. For the threat of war from a propaganda cliché, as it was in the late 1920s and early 1930s, was increasingly turning into an inevitable reality. The only question was when it would break out.

Stalin, being himself an old Bolshevik, to put it mildly, did not have much respect for them. Moreover, in the depths of his soul, he considered them a burden of the new regime, since either because of their conviction, or because of the conservatism inherent in people of such a warehouse, they were very critical, if not looking for stronger expressions, about Stalin's general course. They organically rejected the reforms so necessary for the regime to move forward. The old Bolsheviks perceived Stalin's entire policy as a rejection of Lenin's precepts, as a kind of betrayal of the ideals of the revolution. There is a lot of evidence for this. I will refer at least to the "Letter of an Old Bolshevik", which has already been discussed earlier. It said: “Growing up in the conditions of revolutionary struggle, we all brought up the psychology of the opposition… we are all not builders, but critics, destroyers. In the past this was good, now that we have to do positive construction, this is hopelessly bad. With such human material… nothing solid can be built…”.

In the context of all these realities, the dissolution of the organization of the old Bolsheviks, the society of former political prisoners and other measures designed to put an end to the already turned page of history was not accidental.

All these arguments only complement the overall mosaic of the picture, but they do not answer the main question - what are the underlying causes of mass terror and repression of those unforgettable years. Now I will try to answer it in the most general way, although I understand that my explanations are also more in the nature of historical hypotheses and speculative assumptions than convincing conclusions.

I will not adhere to any strictly verified system in substantiating my assumptions. The reasons, their whole set, are closely interconnected with each other, sometimes so intertwined that it is difficult to draw a dividing line between them. But in the end, it is not their distinction that is the crux of the problem.

Firstly, the entire ten-year period, beginning with the death of Lenin, for Stalin was filled with a permanent, in essence, never weakened, struggle, first for the conquest, and then for the assertion of his power. He drew a number of conclusions from this, and, obviously, one of the main ones was as follows: his opponents will never stop fighting against him, they will never agree with his strategic course. Their public confessions of their mistakes, their repentant speeches at congresses and plenums of the Central Committee are just a disguise, forced actions that they instantly disavow as soon as the right moment presents itself. Moreover, at the slightest weakening of his position of power, they will not hesitate for a moment to launch a counteroffensive against him again. The only compromise acceptable to them is his unconditional and complete surrender, that is, removal from power.

The leader had more than enough grounds for such a stream of reflections. The reader himself can recall the speeches of Stalin's repentant opponents, cited in the preceding chapters, from which a whole mile reeked of hypocrisy and duplicity. It may be objected that this hypocrisy and those who did not know the measure of praising Stalin, which sounded from the lips of people who hated him fiercely in their souls, was a forced step, dictated by the hopelessness of the situation in which Stalin's opponents found themselves. All this, of course, is true, but from the understanding of this circumstance, the leader, apparently, not only did not decrease his distrust of his defeated opponents, but even increased exponentially: the more they swore loyalty to him and devotion to his general line, the less he believed them.

The second important factor explaining the growing wave of repressions, had its source in Stalin's deep conviction (sincere or not - another question) in the inevitability of an aggravation of the class struggle even in the conditions of the triumphant victories of socialism, which at that time was trumpeted by all propaganda organs. Just at the height of the wave of repressions, the leader found it necessary to reaffirm that his concept of the intensification of the class struggle not only had not lost its relevance, but had become even more topical. Here is how he formulated his idea: “We must put an end to the opportunistic complacency that comes from the erroneous assumption that, as our forces grow, the enemy seems to become more and more tame and harmless. This assumption is fundamentally wrong. It is a belch of the Right deviation, which assures everyone and everything that the enemies will gradually creep into socialism, that they will eventually become real socialists. It is not the business of the Bolsheviks to rest on their laurels and roam. We do not need complacency, but vigilance, real Bolshevik revolutionary vigilance. It must be remembered that the more hopeless the situation of the enemies, the more readily they will seize on extreme means as the only means of the doomed in their struggle against Soviet power. We must remember this and be vigilant.”.

The next significant reason The unleashing of repressions was that, according to Stalin, successes in building a new social order created an atmosphere of arrogance and complacency in the country. This situation was fraught with considerable dangers and threats, since it discouraged people and opened up favorable opportunities for subversive actions of enemies. The leader tried to dispel these sentiments, without which the very campaign to deploy mass repressions would have been impossible. The creation of an appropriate political and psychological atmosphere in the party and in society acted as an obligatory component of the repression campaign. In a sort of simplistic form, Stalin attacked the complacency and ecstasy of successes that allegedly almost paralyzed the whole country:

“It is not surprising that in this stupefying atmosphere of arrogance and complacency, the atmosphere of ceremonial demonstrations and noisy self-praise, people forget about some essential facts that are of paramount importance for the fate of our country, people begin to ignore such unpleasant facts as the capitalist encirclement, new forms of sabotage, dangers associated with our successes, etc. Capitalist encirclement? Yes, that's bullshit! What significance can any capitalist environment have if we fulfill and exceed our economic plans? New forms of sabotage, the struggle against Trotskyism? All this is nonsense! What significance can all these trifles have when we fulfill and exceed our economic plans? The party charter, the election of party organs, the accountability of party leaders to the masses of the party? Is there a need for all this? Is it worth bothering with these trifles at all, if our economy is growing, and the material situation of the workers and peasants is improving more and more? All this is rubbish! We are overfulfilling our plans, our party is not bad, the Central Committee of the party is also not bad - what the hell else do we need? Strange people are sitting there, in Moscow, in the Central Committee of the party: they invent some questions, talk about some kind of sabotage, they themselves do not sleep, they do not let others sleep ... ".

In connection with the quoted statements, the question involuntarily arises - did Stalin himself believe in what he said? Was he sincere even to himself? Could this ominous idea of ​​the boundless exacerbation of the class struggle coexist in the mind of the leader with his sharp practical mind, with his ability to realistically assess the situation and not fall into exaggerations unforgivable for a political leader. It is difficult to give a definite answer to this question. It seems that he was not an involuntary and helpless prisoner of the idea of ​​intensifying the class struggle. There are more reasons to believe that he consciously and purposefully sharpened the issue of the class struggle in order to have both a theoretical and a political-psychological justification for his course of unleashing repressions.

However, from the standpoint of historical objectivity, it is not so important whether Stalin himself believed in what he said, or whether he was engaged in self-deception, coupled with the deception of public opinion as a whole. In the end, the final result matters.

Considering further the causes of large-scale repressions, one cannot lose sight of the following point. There were many dissatisfied with Stalin's policies in the party and the country. By the way, this was also confirmed by A. Mikoyan, a close associate of Stalin at that time, who declared in 1937: “I thought I should say this, I don’t know about you, comrades, but I thought that if the Marxists before the revolution were against terror, against the tsar and autocracy, how can they, people who went through the school of Marx, be for terror under the Bolsheviks , under Soviet rule? If the communists of the whole world, being enemies of capitalism, do not blow up factories, how can a person who has gone through the school of Marxism blow up a factory in his country? I have to say that it never entered my head. But apparently you have to learn. Apparently, the fall of the class enemy, the Trotskyists, is so low that we did not even imagine, namely, as Comrade Stalin predicted, who seemed to lead us by the hand and said that there is no such dirty trick that the Trotskyists and the Rights could not commit. So it turned out that our political vigilance turned out to be weakened ... Understand, comrades ... we have many people are unhappy (highlighted by me - N.K.). These people are recruited for subversive work by the Japanese-German fascists..

Stalin, who had all the information at his disposal, when planning the deployment of a campaign of large-scale repressions, undoubtedly took into account a very serious level of dissatisfaction with his policies. And here he had in mind not only his former opponents from the ranks of the party itself, but also other social forces that never reconciled themselves to the revolution and Soviet power. The remnants of the former exploiting classes, dispossessed peasants, a large contingent of innocent victims of the great upheavals of the late 20s and early 30s, special settlers, representatives of the old intelligentsia who were subjected to undeserved persecution, all kinds of nationalists in the Soviet republics, and in general those who suffered in any way from the Soviet regime - all of them, taken together, represented a great force. And this force, under a certain set of circumstances, could openly oppose the new system, against the course, the personification of which was Stalin.

According to the logic of the leader, all those dissatisfied with the Soviet regime automatically became its enemies and waited only for an opportunity to strike at it. The leader's policy proceeded from the fact that a preemptive strike should be delivered to all these forces at the right moment in order not only to demoralize them, but, if necessary, to physically destroy them. It is no coincidence that during these years the motto proclaimed by M. Gorky became almost the slogan of the day: “If the enemy does not surrender, they destroy him!”.

Listing the actual and potential causes of repressions, one cannot pass over in silence the following circumstance, which played the role of a kind of driving spring that set the entire repressive mechanism in motion. We are talking about the fact that for a number of years Stalin received quite reliable and completely trustworthy reports from the security agencies about plans for his physical liquidation. The suppression of plans for the physical elimination of Stalin was one of the most important reasons for the deployment of a campaign of mass repressions, at least in its first stages.

It is worth dwelling on this issue specifically, since the point of view is quite firmly rooted in the literature about Stalin, that all talk about plans to kill the leader is nothing more than a myth specially worked out by Stalin himself and his entourage, designed to substantiate and justify the repressions themselves. Meanwhile, there are good reasons to consider this point of view untenable. Indeed, even before the deployment of mass repressions and the inclusion of attempts to organize the murder of Stalin and some of his closest associates among the indispensable and especially grave charges that were brought against those arrested, there were objective facts that testified that the opponents of the leader quite seriously raised the question of the need to eliminate him. Let us recall at least Ryutin's platform, not to mention other episodes. After all, the call for the elimination of Stalin, if it is interpreted legally correctly, did not in the least exclude the possibility of his physical destruction. It is impossible to deny this without violating elementary common sense. Moreover, however small the number of underground Trotskyist and other anti-Stalinist organizations may have been, it is quite clear that they existed. And they did not exist for the sake of periodically exchanging secret letters condemning the Stalinist regime and its policies. Their plans extended much further and did not unconditionally rule out the use of individual terror. It must be admitted that in Stalin's place, any other political and statesman had to take into account the possibility of organizing an attempt on his life.

And if all this is multiplied by the generally recognized suspiciousness of Stalin, his immanent feeling of distrust towards people, then it is not surprising that this moment became one of the levers that set in motion the mechanism of repression. Since the leader himself proceeded from the fact that only the physical destruction of a real or potential enemy puts an end to the fight against him, he extended a similar way of thinking to those against whom he fought. It turned out that the final political victory over the enemy was his physical destruction. This unspoken postulate largely determined both the nature of the repressions and their scale.

The next motive for the repressions was Stalin's desire to intimidate not only his opponents, but also his own supporters, including his closest associates. People filled with fear and uncertainty about their future will follow the leader's instructions with great zeal and will not dare to oppose him in any situation. Such a calculation, of course, was present in the system of motivations that explained the policy and behavior of Stalin. But this motive also has a wider dimension. In an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, it was much easier to carry out the toughest decisions made by the leader. No one dared to express even the slightest doubt about the correctness of such decisions. And this extended not only to the political elite or the middle link of party functionaries, but in fact to all segments of the population.

Of course, Stalin relied more on fear than on the love of his fellow citizens. He, apparently, was not misled by the endless panegyrics addressed to him - he knew how all this was done and what all this was worth on the field of political struggle. Therefore, deploying a campaign of repression, he was aware that the fear that settled in the country, in the souls of his fellow citizens, would be a serious help, a kind of trouble-free tool in the implementation of his future plans.

Finally, another version in the by no means complete list of the reasons that caused the wave of repressions is the version according to which Stalin launched a preemptive strike against the allegedly existing and operating Soviet Union in the conditions of the deepest secrecy of the so-called fifth column. This version has many adherents among the left spectrum of Russian historians. Based on certain data and facts, they prove that Stalin learned in good time about the existence of such a fifth column, which operated primarily in the ranks of the army, and therefore delivered a crushing preventive blow, thereby securing the country from treason and betrayal among the highest command staff of the armed forces in conditions the impending war. Thus, they say, he saved the country from defeat during the Nazi invasion.

I will not analyze the validity of this version, since in the course of further presentation I will touch on the issue of the so-called fascist conspiracy in the Red Army in connection with the case of Tukhachevsky and other military leaders. Here I note that this version is not fully convincing. After all, one of the statements of Hitler, who said: “Stalin did the right thing by destroying all his military leaders…”. Praise of the worst enemy is by no means a compliment to Stalin, and even more so it is not proof that the top of the army was repressed during these years. Of course, much in this version raises perplexing questions that do not find a convincing answer. But as one of the possible motives for the Stalinist purges, it can be considered and subjected to analysis and critical evaluation. And in this sense, it undoubtedly has the right to exist. In general, it should be noted that in such complex and delicate issues it is often almost impossible to get to the bottom of the truth. For any argument there is a counterargument, and everything, as they say, returns to normal. But, repeating, I will say that it has the right to be considered as one of the possible explanations for the epidemic of Stalinist repressions in the 30s. Although in passing it should be noted that the bacchanalia of repression began before the disclosure of the allegedly existing conspiracy in the army. This already says something.

The above version of a preventive strike on the fifth column organically adjoins comprehensive general cleaning version, which Stalin undertook in order to fully guarantee the implementation of his general line in the new conditions that had developed after the completion of collectivization and in connection with fundamental changes in the international arena. The main direction of these changes, of course, was the growing danger of war, which was practically impossible to avoid. This version, however paradoxical it may seem, was first expressed by N.I. Bukharin is one of the main victims of Stalin's hammer of repression. Three months before the execution, while under investigation, he sent a purely personal letter to Stalin. This message contains the following remarkable suggestion as to the underlying motives of the repressions carried out.

"There is some big and bold political idea general purge a) in connection with the pre-war period, b) in connection with the transition to democracy. This purge captures a) the guilty, b) the suspicious, and c) the potentially suspicious. They couldn't get along without me. Some are neutralized in one way, others in another way, and still others in a third way. The safety factor is also the fact that people inevitably talk about each other and forever instill distrust in each other (I judge by myself: how angry I was with Radek, who rattled me! and then I myself went down this path ...). Thus, the management creates full guarantee.

For God's sake, don't misunderstand what I'm implicitly reproaching here, even when thinking with myself. I have grown so much out of baby diapers that I understand that big plans, big ideas and big interests overlap everything, and it would be petty to raise the question of my own person. along with world-historical tasks lying primarily on your shoulders.

But here I have both the main torment and the main painful paradox.

The internal logic in Bukharin's reasoning is such that he, as it were, agrees with the historical inevitability of repressions, considering them through the prism of grandiose tasks and plans for building a new society. It cannot be said that he justifies these repressions, but in a sense expresses an understanding of their inevitability and even regularity. Of course, it is quite natural to assume that, by expressing such a point of view, the arrested person wanted to win the indulgence of the leader, hoped that he would appreciate his “objectivity” and would not agree to a death sentence during the upcoming trial. However, the above explanation does not look like just a plea for forgiveness. It also contains a large share of truth, throws additional light on the picture of the events that took place. Rather, on their backstage - and most important - side.

Appendix A. Sever Causes of Stalin's repressions. Little known facts Revolutionaries or businessmen? Of course, one of the reasons for the Stalinist repressions was blatant corruption in the highest echelons of state power. We will begin our story about this with the “demon

Doubts and oddities The first incomprehensibility. Neither before nor after the legend of the Mamaev massacre, Orthodox warrior monks are ever mentioned anywhere. The Roman Church had military monastic orders, yes, but that's a completely different story. And - more than a single battle of Russians with