Who and how overthrew the socialist system and destroyed the USSR

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

History, especially covering the Soviet era, has come to the fore over the past three decades in the ideological struggle.

The enemies of the Soviet power, resorting to all sorts of falsifications and one-sided interpretation of facts, actively used the insidious rearrangement of the past in order to cloud the mass consciousness, and ultimately to overthrow the socialist system and the collapse of the USSR.

The struggle for the minds and souls of people in the historical field continues. And today the interlocutor of Pravda about the pressing problems of this struggle is its constant participant, a well-known historian, advisor to the rector of the Moscow Pedagogical State University, Evgeny Yuryevich Spitsyn.

He is not only the author of the five-volume "Complete Course in the History of Russia", which was highly appreciated in the scientific community.

- You know, the situation, in my opinion, has become even more acute. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, The counterrevolution that triumphed in 1991, which had two main incarnations - Western liberals and Vlasov monarchists, finally united in its hatred of October and Soviet power.

Moreover, curiously enough, the ideological heirs of the RZPC, NTS and other most vicious anti-Soviet structures abroad and well-known kept women of the Western special services in their hatred of everything Soviet surpassed even the most frostbitten liberals like Igor Chubais or the ever-memorable Madame Novodvorskaya, who in the Yeltsin period set the tone for the entire anti-Soviet hysteria.

Secondly, under the guise of "objective truth", sophisticated or outright lies were implanted in many television programs.

For example, that the October Revolution is not an objective historical process generated by the screaming contradictions of the previous development of the country, but a "vile conspiracy of the dark forces", a "color" revolution slapped on the money of Western puppeteers.

That the "Red Terror" in its gigantic proportions allegedly could not be compared with the White Terror, that, they say, it was purposeful and extremely bloodthirsty, and the "White" - only a response, "white and fluffy." But this is a real lie, refuted by facts!

Thirdly, The many times exposed lies about the allegedly forged "Act of abdication" of Nicholas II, about the "ritual murder" of the former Tsar and his family, and other anti-scientific nonsense, so to speak, played with new colors and were actively propagated, especially by the sect of "Tsarebozhniki", which in fact was and remains the direct heiress of the most rabid fascist public from among the well-known emigrant centers, long patronized by the intelligence agencies of the United States and Western Europe.

- Naturally, the most unbridled slander caused rejection among the majority of our people, who had already learned from the bitter experience of Yakovlev's propaganda during the Gorbachev "perestroika" period. After all, it was then that the “Yakovlev’s algorithm” for the destruction of the Soviet Union intoxicated many Soviet people and played an important role in the death of our state, for the freedom and independence of which the Soviet people paid a huge price during the Great Patriotic War.

Now many of our people, in my opinion, are not so naive, they are far from everything, from what the central mass media stuff them with, they take it for granted. Plus, of course, the fact that many Russian historians, who were not infected with the anti-Soviet virus, stopped sitting in the trenches and often gave a worthy rebuff to this entire public, including in discussions on radio and TV.

As for public support for the ideas of October, the ideas of socialism, the achievements of the Soviet government and its recognized leaders, it is difficult for me to judge objectively on this score.

On the one side, it seems that there is a kind of sobering up of the mass consciousness, especially in relation to such gigantic figures as V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin, in the understanding that the Soviet period was the highest achievement of our entire history, etc.

But, on the other side, political realities, above all the election campaign and its results, lead to sad thoughts. Either people simply do not fully understand the seriousness of the problems facing our country today, and the entire world civilization, or they are simply infected with the “Ukrainian syndrome”.

After all, you must admit that the current ruling "elite" very skillfully played on this syndrome and continues to play. Say, this is what the Maidan revolution in Ukraine led to …

- Sorry, I say, but is the revolution as a global social process subject to mantras of incantations? After all, this is an objective process that takes place according to the laws of dialectics, including according to the law of the transition from quantity to quality!

Of course, the current "owners of factories, newspapers, ships" in Russia, any revolution is similar to death, therefore, through the lips of a whole cohort of "experts", "scientists", "journalists" and "social activists" a constant, in various forms rush to Oktyabrskaya the revolution, its ideals, Soviet history, Soviet leaders … "Yakovlev's algorithm" in "Goebbels' packaging" is still in demand.

The Soviet past is a guiding star to the future

- The fact that the current government was initially infected with the virus of anti-Sovietism is actually no secret to anyone. Manifestations of this can be observed constantly.

Suffice it to recall at least the shameful story with the memorial plaque to Gustav Mannerheim in Leningrad, that is, to the one who bears direct, I emphasize this, responsibility for the Leningrad blockade, for the death of hundreds of thousands of Leningraders and the creation of concentration camps in Karelia, including in Petrozavodsk.

Or, say, the constant references of the powers that be to the work of Ivan Ilyin, who admired the ideology of German Nazism and criticized it for only one single flaw - "the lack of Orthodoxy." And was it not Ivan Ilyin, after the defeat of the Third Reich, relied on the fascist regimes of Franco and Salazar as the pillars of the revival of National Socialism?

What can you say here: we are a country of "victorious capitalism" in its worst version - "feudal-comprador". The fact that the most odious oligarchs of the 1990s were pushed away from power and partly from the trough does not mean anything at all.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The country was ruled as well as by big business, and at the head of public power are his protégés, who have long and very successfully, especially in recent years, become adept at patriotic rhetoric.

You have to understand: the conflict that has been shaking the world for the past ten years is a completely traditional inter-imperialist conflict, which is simply (for greater persuasiveness) charged with traditional Russophobia. Nothing is new under the moon, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, V. I. Lenin.

This is only under N. S. Khrushchev, and then L. I. Brezhnev, who, being general secretaries of the Central Committee, absolutely did not "petrify" in the Marxist theory, the pack of Khrushchev's "sixties" dragged revisionist ideas into Marxism-Leninism, on the basis of which "Eurocommunism", the theory of "convergence" and other crap, which is very competent and skillfully used by our ideological enemies.

Remember that already at the turn of the 1950s-1960s, the central party apparatus was crammed with degenerates or internal party dissidents, whom L. I. Brezhnev called "my Social Democrats" - Arbatov, Bovin, Shishlin, Burlatsky, Chernyaev, etc.

It was these guys during the years of Gorbachev's "perestroika" that formed the backbone of that team of ideological mongrels, which, under the strict guidance of Alexander Yakovlev, implemented his well-known "algorithm".

- As for the Soviet legacy, here everything is very selective, Jesuitically sly. For example, we glorify the Soviet people for the defeat of Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan, we hold the "Immortal Regiment" and Victory parades, but we shamefully block Lenin's Mausoleum, and the name of I. V. We send Stalin to the trash heap.

We take from the Soviet era only what is profitable, because our achievements are not enough, but children still need to be educated on something. Therefore, we say yes to the Great Victory, the Soviet atomic bomb and Soviet space exploration - and then we mercilessly sling mud, shamelessly lying about Stalin's industrialization, collectivization, cultural construction and all the other achievements of Soviet power.

Moreover, as they say, the trend of all recent years has become literally the glorification of imperial Russia, in which, supposedly, everything was harmonious and uplifting.

We tell tales about the great reformers - S. Yu. Witte and P. A. Stolypin, we erect monuments to them and open memorial plaques, erect a monument to Alexander III, create new commissions for Nicholas II, etc.

But at the same time, over all these years, not a single monument to Soviet leaders has been erected. And what, the same Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, who was the head of the Soviet government for more than ten years, does not deserve a monument? Indeed, it was during this period that the industrial might of the Soviet state was created, without which we would not have won the war. You see, you wouldn't have won! This means that now we simply would not exist as a nation, as a state.

And the other Soviet prime minister, Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin, who headed the government for fourteen years, also does not deserve a monument?

- Listen, but you can't do it in the end! Why in the place of some myths to fence others? Why is it impossible to tell the truth about the same tsarist reformers who, with their transformations, did not solve any of the problems that were shouting then? They tried to solve them again at the expense of the people and, in fact, gave rise to a revolution …

It seems that they quite deservedly began to pay tribute to the memory of the heroes of the First World War, but they shyly keep silent about the fact that the Russian people did not need this war, that they prepared poorly for the war, with very rare exceptions they fought it mediocrely, millions of people put it for nothing.

After all, Lenin was absolutely right when he said that this war was an imperialist massacre, a war of conquest on the part of both warring coalitions! That is why the "man with a gun" played a key role in the events of 1917.

By the way, the sovereign emperor was warned about this by P. N. Durnovo and others, but everything happened as it happened. And this is also a lesson …

- Speaking about the attitude towards Soviet values and achievements, I declare: this, of course, today is not so much people's nostalgia as a guiding star for the real revival of the country! With such a colossal historical experience behind you, including bitter mistakes, it is not only possible, but also necessary to turn to it.

Of course, not just at the level of banal rhetoric, but in the practical plane of everyday work. This is vital for the country.

Only, I'm afraid, there was no deep awareness of this at the top of the power. They cannot understand one elementary truth there: Russia is a weak link in the pack of imperialist predators, it will never be allowed into the "club of the elite", it will always be an outcast in the camp of the tycoons of world capital. And it does not matter who will sit in the presidential chair - "patriot", "Westerner" or "neutral".

Is there still no understanding that the very system of bourgeois relations with a bunch of antagonistic, that is, insoluble, contradictions will constantly provoke military psychosis and anti-Russian hysteria?

Truly Russia will be able to revive only by adopting a serious, alternative, socialist project. Somewhere in the depths of my soul there is still a glimmer of hope for him, but, frankly, it is fading away in me more and more, because obscurantism is increasingly replacing the truly scientific knowledge of the world, masked by the appearance of a return to national origins and traditions …

A look at the Civil War a century later

Should history teach social justice and how can it be taught in today's conditions?

- I will speak thesis.

First. Of course, the Bolsheviks did not call for the Civil War and did not start it, all this is a lie. Our opponents, especially the most aggressive of them - "sectarian clergymen" and pseudo-Orthodox activists, traditionally cite the well-known Leninist slogan "about turning an imperialist war into a civil war" as proof of their rightness, which was put forward by V. I. Lenin in a number of his works, in particular "War and Russian Social Democracy", published in early November 1914.

However, he meant something quite different. He spoke about the proletarian revolution, that is, the traditional main slogan of the Marxists, emphasizing only the fact that in conditions of war, any revolution is a civil war.

This slogan stemmed from all the conditions of the imperialist war, and primarily from the fact that it was she and she alone, but not the Bolsheviks, who created a new revolutionary situation in most European countries, primarily in Russia, where a rapid growth began in 1910. new anti-government protests, very similar to the revolutionary situation of 1902-1904.

Second. As for the issue of responsibility for unleashing a large-scale Civil War, let's start with the fact that, according to many modern historians, the first visible foci of armed civil conflict arose already during the February coup, the main beneficiaries of which were the liberals, Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

Even then, the number of victims of the revolutionary elements was measured in thousands, and not only in Petrograd and Moscow. Secondly, in October 1917, not the Bolsheviks came to power, but a coalition of Bolsheviks and Left SRs, and this power was legitimized by the completely legitimate (under the conditions of a revolutionary process) Second Congress of Soviets.

It was then that the triumphal march of Soviet power across the country began, and in the overwhelming majority of regions this power was established peacefully, without bloodshed.

In addition, it should be emphasized that the Bolsheviks did not at all intend to immediately build socialism on a large scale. The basis of their then program was made by Lenin's "April Theses", where it was written in black and white that "our immediate task" is "not to introduce socialism immediately," but the transition "only to control by S. R. D. for social production and distribution of products”.

However, it is well known that the sabotage of the decree "On workers' control" provoked the "Red Guard attack on capital" carried out in the winter of 1918.

But already in April of that same 1918, in his work "The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power", returning to the "April Theses", he again proposed a compromise to the bourgeoisie, whose interests were expressed by the Cadets, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

But no, they were already charged with inciting a large-scale Civil War! Moreover, a huge amount of facts and documents confirms that the main interest and sponsor of this war were European and overseas "partners".

Let me remind you that already in December 1917 in Tiflis, at a meeting of the American Consul L. Smith, the head of the British military mission, General J. Shore, and two French military attachés - Colonels P. Chardigny and P. Gushe, it was decided to support the Russian "democrats".

And shortly before the new year, they made a fleeting voyage to Novocherkassk, where they informed General M. V. Alekseev, one of the leaders of the "white movement", on the allocation of impressive sums of money to fight the Bolshevik regime.

- Yes, the Civil War, in fact, was the result of a conspiracy of two forces - the so-called Februaryists and their foreign sponsors, who very soon ceased to be limited only to financial assistance, and went on to open intervention against our country.

Now the third. As for the "red" and "white" terror, this question, in my opinion, has in principle already been sufficiently studied, especially in special monographs by the famous St. Petersburg historian Ilya Ratkovsky.

However, it seems that nothing can convince our opponents, primarily from the ultra-monarchist camp. They stubbornly deny the massiveness and systematic nature of the White Terror, reduce everything to just "isolated incidents."

But it is enough to look at the management system of the white governments, for example, the same Admiral A. V. Kolchak in Siberia and the Urals, where the bloody dictatorship of the "Supreme Ruler of Russia" was proclaimed and rigidly implemented, and we will see that it was based on a system of concentration camps, hostages, mass destruction of civilians, including the execution of every tenth hostage, etc.

Moreover, all this terror was based on official orders not only of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, but also members of his government, including the Minister of War, General N. A. Stepanov, Governor-General of the Yenisei province, General S. N. Rozanov and the commanders of the Irkutsk, Amur and West Siberian military districts, Generals V. V. Artemieva, P. P. Ivanov-Rinov and A. F. Matkovsky.

On the question of "Stalinist repressions"

- As you understand, I cannot assess myself. Let my colleagues and my readers and listeners give it. You must understand, I do not stand on the position of complete denial, let alone a complete justification of repression. But I am focusing on the following facts and circumstances.

First, repression as such is an instrument of any (I emphasize: any!) State power. Not a single political regime or type of class state has ever done without repression.

It is no coincidence that the power bloc of the executive branch, that is, the government, is very often called a repressive apparatus. Moreover, Marx and Lenin, speaking about the class essence of the state, argued that it is a machine for the suppression of one class by another, an apparatus of violence and an apparatus of domination of the ruling class.

Secondly, let's admit that the very deep-rooted phrase "Stalinist repression" also raises a lot of questions, especially in the light of the latest scientific research of the historian Yuri Nikolaevich Zhukov. After all, in many ways he saw the origin of these repressions in a different way, which, perhaps, is much more fair to call "secretarial repressions."

The fact is that they were initiated by the first secretaries of a number of republican, regional and regional party committees, primarily R. I. Eikhe, N. S. Khrushchev, P. P. Postyshev, E. G. Evdokimov and I. M. Vareikis.

In addition, contrary to popular belief, I. V. Stalin then was by no means an omnipotent and sole dictator, but at that time critically depended on the moods and interests of the very secretary corps that formed the backbone of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which, as is known, at its plenums formed the personal composition of the Politburo, the Organizational Bureau and the Secretariat. Central Committee.

Finally, quite legitimate indignation and rejection are provoked by endless stories of anti-Stalinist and anti-Soviet writers about the absolutely incredible scale of these repressions.

Indeed, two memos of S. N. Kruglova, R. A. Rudenko and K. P. Gorshenin (heads of the Soviet power structures) addressed to N. S. Khrushchev and G. M. Malenkov, who give a completely adequate idea of the real scale of "political repression", moreover, over a huge period of 33 years, that is, from January 1921 to December 1953.

- I agree. And there is only one conclusion: there were no millions, and even more so tens of millions of victims, about which all these Solzhenitsyn, Gozmans and Svanidze are trending, and there are no.

Moreover, not all of the victims of these repressions were innocent, many of them received for their cause and what they deserved - the same Vlasov, Bandera, members of bandit formations, foreign agents and spies, plunders of socialist property, etc.

As for the common thesis about the destruction of the Russian peasantry during the years of collectivization, I advise all lovers of this lie to read the last work of the Doctor of Historical Sciences, Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov, mentioned by you, "Stalin and the people: why there was no uprising."

It contains mostly figures from the archives, but they very eloquently show the attitude of most of the Soviet peasantry to the policy of collectivization, and to the policy of dispossession, and to other "innovations" of the Stalinist leadership.

The bottom line is that the Stalinist course was supported by the overwhelming majority of the people, 85 percent of the population of the Soviet countryside.

- There are several reasons, I think, and they should be discussed separately. And here I will express only one purely personal consideration.

The centuries-old Russian territorial community, in my opinion, was initially alien to the private ownership instinct, for example, there was no private ownership of land and other means of production.

Now they are trying to convince us in every possible way that the right to private property is "sacred and inviolable." Where did it come from? What and why is the sanctity of this right? In false bourgeois theories, which in the West have long been elevated to the legal canon?

All these theories of "natural law", "social contract", "separation of powers", etc., born in the heads of the European "enlighteners" of the New Age, were only ideological tinsel, colored candy wrappers, a bright garland to cover exclusively class, selfish interests "Third estate". That is, the long-fledged European bourgeoisie, intensely striving for political power.

And, of course, these theories do not possess any "universal values". Just mantra-spells of the next servants of capital, nothing more. It doesn't smell like the genuine interests of the working people. All these theories can and should be exposed, including their political component in the form of bourgeois "democracy" with thoroughly false elections and electoral technologies.

- I agree.