The most difficult year for all mankind in the XNUMXst century has ended. To the problems associated with changes in global politics, with the unpredictability of the actions of the heads of state, with the economy and relations between countries, there has been added a global threat - a pandemic. The world, to which everyone was accustomed, which, although it was not just, was its own, began to collapse.
Against this background, the problem of nostalgia for the past was very clearly highlighted. Yes, according to the very past, with which not long ago we fought with such pleasure and zeal. More and more people recall with annoyance the lost socialist past. More and more people, even from a generation that have never seen this very socialism with their own eyes, are beginning to dream of its return.
For some reason, it is generally accepted that nostalgia for the socialist past is characteristic only of citizens of the former Soviet republics, but now independent countries. Even a pseudoscientific substantiation of such a phenomenon was invented - the genetic memory of several generations. Meanwhile, according to social polls in the former socialist countries, the number of people who regret the socialist past ranges from 10 to 30 percent or more.
The Federal Republic of Germany is an excellent example of this nostalgia. There, according to polls, the number of those wishing to return everything is estimated from 10 to 40% of citizens. Such a spread is due to the difference in the social status of West and East Germans that has survived to this day.
Of course, this state of affairs can be explained by the large number of pensioners. They remember their youth. And in youth, ice cream is tastier, and girls are prettier, and the air is cleaner. But it's not that simple. Then how to explain the emergence of left-wing radicals? How to justify the growing popularity of left-wing parties? And the burst of fashion for socialist ideas in general?
Does Russia want to become the new USSR?
The post-Soviet period can be characterized as a period of great resentment against Russia for what was happening in the Soviet Union. Moreover, our former fellow citizens for some reason forgot about how much was built (in their now independent states) during the period of the USSR, what social environment the Union created, how specialists were trained for their economy. They do not even remember that the very existence of their people became possible only after entering Russia.
The Russians became to blame for all the troubles that befell these new countries after the collapse of the Union. A kind of "little man" complex, for which the "big" decided everything. Even in the emergence of nationalism and fascism in these countries, Russia is accused.
Remember the speeches of Ukrainian politicians. They already openly say that their Maidan is a project of Russia. We also created odious nationalists, like the Right Sector or C14?
Why are such pearls launched into society? Why are those who in the initial period at the origins of numerous revolutions soon call themselves agents of the Kremlin? This is more or less understandable. Amateurs who have broken through to power very quickly understand that they cannot stay there for a long time. Leading a government is a little harder than criticizing it.
That is why yesterday's revolutionaries are beginning to pull everything they can into their own pockets. We must have time to fill the chests so that later, somewhere in London, Berlin or Paris, we can tell local politicians about the barbaric state, about the dictatorship of the president, about the omnipotence of the special services, about the persecution of dissidents. And they steal shamelessly, brazenly. Literally everything is swept away. And what they cannot swallow is sold for the appropriate bribe to foreigners.
The calculation is correct. Do the Georgians admit that it was they (and not Russia, the United States or some aliens) who chose Saakashvili? Of course not. Maybe the Armenians themselves chose Pashinyan? No, it turns out that Soros chose him. I will probably keep quiet about the Ukrainians. In general, everyone is to blame. Today is a friend, tomorrow is an enemy, the day after tomorrow is a friend again. And this burden lasts for years. And the Russians are also not to blame for any choice. Already, to the devil's erased, phrase
"I did not vote for him"
set everyone on edge.
Today, when the pandemic has affected everyone in one way or another, when the coronavirus has decently patted the bins of every family, the nostalgia in the former Soviet republics for the stability of Soviet times has intensified. The number of those oriented towards the USSR has grown exponentially. Note, not Russia, but the USSR.
The transformation has also taken place in the minds of Russians. Even those who until recently were in favor of the complete restoration of the USSR within its former borders are now talking about the selective admission of the former Soviet Union to the future Union. We no longer need the Baltics, Western Ukraine and some other countries too. An interesting change, isn't it?
So do we want a new Union or not? And, if we want, then in what and in what composition? What ideas? For what purposes? A great many questions arise. And there are no definite answers to them. It turns out that we are dreaming about as many different types of unions as there are citizens living in Russia and in other countries.
In fact, we all want, of course, a stable state with peaceful borders. Perhaps this can be the most appropriate definition for a future union.
How do we want to unite?
Probably, no one will argue with the fact that Russia, in all periods of its development, despite the autocratic power, was a union. A union of peoples (different in culture, customs, faith, etc.). Therefore, small nations went under the protection of the Russian Tsar. That is why they asked for the rule of the Russian emperor. Therefore, they entered the USSR not as provinces, but precisely as republics. Therefore, these peoples remained with their history, by their customs, by their faith.
The very idea of a welfare state is progressive, but its implementation in the late USSR was utterly perverted. Therefore, it took some time for the next growth in the popularity of a state in which everyone is equal. The human psyche is designed in such a way that over time the bad is forgotten, and the good takes on a global scale.
I would divide those who yearn for the restoration of the USSR into several categories. First of all, it is romance. Those who believe that the unification will occur due to the very genetic memory of generations. He believes that tired of injustice, betrayal of national interests, of plundering their state, the people of the new independent countries will take power into their own hands in one way or another and ask the Russian Federation to join it as one of the regions.
The dream is beautiful, but utopian in its essence. It is beautiful in that it is very easy to implement. The Russians don't have to do anything. Just live and wait for the messengers with the petition to appear. And then you can still move your nose. Whether we want these or not to our union, our federation.
And life makes this dream utopian. If the new state is politically and economically successful, then why would it lose part of its independence when joining a new state? Why worsen the lives of its citizens by increasing spending on the maintenance of the federal center? And if the state is destroyed and thrown to the very bottom of economic life, reduced to the level of poverty of the people, then do we need it? Can we pull it purely economically?
I would call the other part of the supporters of the reconstruction of the USSR economists. The original idea here is more modern and more capitalized, if you will. The Russians have to work here. Simply put, the essence of the idea is that Russia should become another “economic tiger” in a short time. Perform an economic miracle and become one of the richest countries in the world. If not surpassed, then equal in power to the United States. And then the neighbors, as it were, will automatically want to be friends with us and wish to join our structure.
Alas, the desire to become a rich country in the modern world is not realizable. The world economic system is organized in such a way that any state that will show significant economic growth and pose a threat (in economic terms) to the powerful will be crushed by sanctions, blockades, import and export bans. To our deep regret, we see such examples quite often.
Thus, the prospect of the economic rise of any state is possible only after the total breakdown of the existing system of economic relations in the world. And this is not a matter of a single day, not a single year, decades. Or a war. That is, in any case, the decision to recreate the union based on the economy is a matter of the distant future.
There is one more category of supporters of the union. I would call her kind (compassionate, kind). They are based precisely on feelings, and not on any calculations or expediency. True, this category does not cover all the former republics of the USSR, but only those parts of them where the war took place, where blood was shed. Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Donbass.
These views are based on the memory of Russians about the Great Patriotic War. Almost every family has heroes of that war, there are those who died in that war. Even children in Russia are aware of the sacrifices made by the Soviet people at that time. Destruction, death of people in war and other horrors are superimposed on the very personal memory of each person and on the memories of the family. And a person is ready to give up the last in order to somehow mitigate the fate of those who are at war today, without even leaving their own home.
Alas, not everything is simple here either. In any war that took place or is ongoing on the territory of the former Soviet Union, both sides are right and guilty. They are right because they are ready to defend their views on the structure of their state even at the cost of their own lives and the physical destruction of some of their opponents. And they are guilty because they are involved in the actual murder of their fellow citizens. In the destruction of your own country.
Everything else, all references to ancient chronicles, which speak of the ownership of lands by a certain people, references to the opinion of the whole people, separatism, totalitarianism, conservatism (and other isms) are just propaganda tinsel designed to explain the war. The Soviet Union, creating a new community of people - the Soviet people, mixed all peoples deeply enough to be able to talk about some rights to land or the creation of a national state.
We do not yet pay enough attention to the danger
The past year has shown the weakness of our (Russian) positions in the border states. Several countries have demonstrated at once that Russia's influence is no longer sufficient to maintain stability at the borders. We do not have enough arguments to coerce the former Soviet republics into partnership.
Years of talk about soft power, which we supposedly do not use in these countries, has led to the fact that the former soviet have developed immunity. They perceive this very force as an opportunity to receive goods from Russia again at reduced prices or even free of charge.
For us, such conditions are impracticable. We are not strong enough economically to act in the same way as the USSR did. We give benefits, but this is not enough for our neighbors. They openly say that Russia is pressing them economically. Add to this the aggravated social issues and you get an explosive mixture of deterioration in the lives of people and Russia as the reasons for this deterioration.
Slowly, but already noticeably enough, the former Soviet republics are switching to the creation of states, the main idea of which is to confront Russia (anti-Russia). For some reason, we continue to believe that among our neighbors there are our friends who love us and will love us because of some mythical “common root” in antiquity. Or because we once saved them from destruction, etc.
I would like to remind you of one situation that in a fairly short period of time dramatically changed the attitude of a part of the people towards Russia. To be honest, I still don't understand why this technique is not used, for example, in Ukraine?
Remember the introduction of the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet in Kazakhstan? It seems to be okay? On the contrary, it became more convenient for Kazakhs to learn European languages. And what happened after a couple of years? The growth of nationalism, talk about territorial claims against Russia, anti-Russian sentiments. Just the Europeanization of the alphabet and such results.
There is one more factor to remember. This is the lack of real subjectivity in the former Soviet republics. Let's look at the alternative history of some states. In Ukraine, this story is now elevated to the rank of state, In Belarus, it is an opposition idea. It all depends on who is in power at the moment.
The story is invented, often funny and does not correspond to historical facts, but it exists. And it is already in the minds of young people. Already today this story is “fighting” with the allegedly invented Russian history. We take great risks when we reduce this historical research to laughter. We have not learned the example of the Baltics? But all this happened before our eyes.
The Baltic states no longer perceive their fascists as fascists. Even a new explanation for this phenomenon has been invented. From the point of view of the Baltic states, an SS man is only a fascist when he is German and voluntarily went to serve in the SS. In the Baltic States, however, the SS troops went not only voluntarily, but also on call. So, they are no longer fascists, they are fighters for the freedom of their own people?
The same card is being played now in Ukraine. No matter how hard Ukrainian opposition politicians try to tell that the Ukrainian people will not accept the bandits and murderers of their own people from the OUN-UPA, the SS Natigal division and other nationalists and traitors, literally on January 1, we will again see the all-Ukrainian celebration of Stepan Bandera's birthday there.
We will see how the fascists will pass through the capital of Ukraine with the tacit consent of the people of Kiev. Moreover, they will pass without hiding under their own banners, with unambiguous slogans and openly zigging. And those who do not perceive these ideas will stand by and watch. And then they, too, will just look at how they humiliate the veterans-front-line soldiers on May 9 ...
In general, no matter how offensive it may be for our neighbors, the new states have not yet formed as sovereign countries. They have not yet identified themselves specifically as states. There are already signs of the state, but there is no subjectivity. Maybe that is why the most contradictory ideas coexist so easily there and our Western partners are so stubbornly climbing there?
We don't care to live together
The West did not change the global task for itself. This is a struggle with Russia, its disintegration from within or a military takeover and, ultimately, the establishment of control over natural resources. The global West does not need a strong and independent Russia. Moreover, it is dangerous.
The West does not intend to fight the Russians either. The memory of Russian and Soviet soldiers on the streets of European cities is too alive. And a long life in greenhouse conditions led to the degradation of the European armies. These are more ceremonial boxes than combat units today.
There is only one option left. Create a zone of instability on the borders of the Russian Federation that would distract Russians from the fight against the West and drain the juice from the Russian economy. There are two ways to do this. Either create “like European” states, which would be on a short leash with the West, but would be part of this West only conditionally, or create a zone of instability, a zone of constant war.
The decades that have passed since the collapse of the USSR already allow us to see both these scenarios with our own eyes. The first option was implemented in the Baltics. And what is the result? As a result, we see deserted states from which young people leave en masse. Completely destroyed economy. What was once the pride of the people of these countries is now a thing of the past. Now these are the countries that are on permanent subsidies from the EU.
The second scenario is clearly visible in Georgia or Ukraine. All the same steps to destroy the economy. The same scenario for creating a donor state of labor resources. The same policy of creating an economy completely dependent on Western handouts. At the same time, a sluggish war, which explains the causes of all misfortunes.
As we can see, both scenarios do not provide for the creation of strong and rich states. The West does not need competitors. We need workers and soldiers who, under certain circumstances, will become cannon fodder in a local war. The Americans do not want to seriously arm and train the armies of their "allies". The war on 08.08.08 perfectly showed what American training is.
The former Soviet republics already have an understanding of what the future holds for their countries. So far, very few local politicians have expressed these views. But as the situation develops, their number will increase and ultimately lead to a reorientation of each state towards Russia.
I guess we're just doomed to live together. Both geographically and mentally.
We are too Europeans to become an Asian state. And too Asians to become European.
And this applies to all the republics of the USSR collapsed by us.