Thirty years after the Revolutions: 1917 and 1991
Konstantin Yuon "New Planet". 1921 GTR. Moscow
The term "revolution" was adopted in the 1642th century. from astronomy, and initially it did not carry the meaning that it has in our time. In astronomy, "revolution" meant the return of a star to its starting point. The term was applied to the events in England, when, after the tumultuous events of 1658-XNUMX, including the execution of the king and the creation of the republic, the throne was restored and the son of the executed, Charles II Stuart, was invited to it. The external attributes of the republic were destroyed, the figures who participated in the struggle against the king were executed. Here is such a "movement stories"And was called a revolution. We observed similar events, the restoration and return of the monarchy, after the Great Bourgeois French Revolution.
As for the Russian Revolution, in essence, it was the Great Peasant Revolution, which resolved the irreconcilable class issue between the noble feudal lords and their former serfs, the peasants. In a country, I emphasize, where the bourgeoisie was a small stratum. And all the horrors and excesses of this struggle, terror, no matter by whose hands it is carried out, is connected precisely with the struggle to destroy the "class": "liquidate as a class».
The liquidation of tsarism "at the root" is in the same row. "Collective unconscious“The popular masses, destroying the enemy class, or, let's be honest, or those who were counted among them, also destroyed the form of noble, feudal rule, the monarchy.
In this regard, the collapse of the Russian Empire into parts, all sorts of republics and countries that had already clearly formed by the October Revolution, meant what was in all European feudal countries 4-5 centuries before that, namely feudal fragmentation. But all this happened not in the XNUMXth century, but in the XNUMXth century, when the conceptual scientific approach to the management of society was completely different.
The Bolsheviks, who led, and then saddled and calmed the elements of popular anarchy, through a painful and difficult search, saved the Russian statehood, eliminated "feudal-ethnic fragmentation”, By the way, not everywhere only by force, and they were able to offer an image of the future, which the Russian peasant, who lived in 1914, could not even imagine.
And as A. Toynbee wrote, the Western Bolsheviks carried out the Second Russian modernization, which led the USSR to victory in World War II.
Without the social revolution of 1917, such a scenario would have been completely impossible: without the expropriation of the means of production, land and subsoil from individuals in the ownership of the entire people, no Second Russian modernization would have happened, as well as the victory of the USSR-Russia in the clash of two civilizations.
And the victory of the whites would lead to the establishment of a fascist regime in the style of Mussolini or Horthy, financially and politically dependent on Western creditors, in which one would not even dream of any "single and indivisible", and the collapse of a single Russian state was very similar to what we observe today, but in the 20s. XX century
In this work, there is no purpose to list all the milestones in the history of the USSR, but the Revolution, which, in the opinion of the last self-liquidated General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M.S. Gorbachev, "continued" back in 1987, ended in 1991 with restoration and counter-revolution, like most other revolutions.
Thirty years later
This year marks exactly thirty years after the quiet death of the USSR, with the support of the "masses" who hoped for a happier life than in the "scoop", about which I wrote on VO.
Let's just look at some, but key aspects of what happened by the XNUMXth anniversary of the existence of the USSR and the Russian Federation.
Geopolitics
The first aspect is the geopolitical component. By 1947, the USSR was a military superpower, controlling the territory from the borders of Western Europe to the Pacific coast, the USA and Great Britain were formally allies of the USSR, while the USSR actively helped the Chinese communists.
The European part of the USSR, destroyed by the invaders, was actively rebuilding, in 1947 such industrial giants as Zaporizhstal were launched and the Dnieper hydroelectric power station was restored. In 1947 food ration cards were canceled. In this work, the USSR could rely only on its own resources, and in fact it was necessary to establish life not only in the USSR, but also to feed the countries of Europe, the countries of "future people's democracy."
But these efforts made sense, since for the first time in the history of the Russian people, the USSR, after several devastating invasions by states belonging to Western Civilization, was able to move the threat of a first strike to a significant distance from the Russian borders.
What can not be said about the current state of the country after 30 years. In the west, the country returned to the borders of the Time of Troubles of the 30th century, when Smolensk, Pskov and Novgorod were border fortresses. There is no need to talk about any geopolitical influence that the Bolsheviks achieved by the XNUMXth anniversary of Soviet power. The Russian Federation has absolutely no allies, and this, of course, is in no way compensated for by the mantra of Alexander III about the army and navy as the country's only allies.
For thirty years, besides the return of Crimea, this is more of a path of losses: the deployment of foreign bases on the territory of the former USSR, the loss of their largest foreign military bases, the entry of former Soviet republics into NATO, the loss of fraternal Ukraine, where our geopoliticians and diplomats believed that everything was captured and everything is for us, etc. etc.
The work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and the Russian Federation for thirty years cannot be compared in any way. Soviet diplomats since the 1921 Genoa Conference and “pajama agreement»In Rapallo in 1922, pursued a consistent and offensive policy, using the contradictions of the leading capitalist countries, concluding treaties necessary for the country's economy and defense. They had to fight for the very recognition of the Soviet republic, while proving the legality of the refusal to pay off the onerous tsarist debts. It was thanks to their efforts that it was possible to keep countries such as Turkey and Sweden in neutrality, to bring Finland out of the war in 1944. country conditions, which existed almost until the end of the twentieth century.
Moreover, the policy of the Soviet Union was supported, however pathetic it may sound, by huge masses of people in the world who saw the USSR as a bulwark in the struggle against injustice and inequality: political, economic and ethnic.
Thirty years later, the Russian Federation has absolutely nothing, from the point of view of ideas, to offer the world, and what a country that has become a part of the global capitalist system and is organized like any capitalist country, with peripheral capitalism, as in 1916, can offer. That is why we are witnessing the thirty years of shuffling from some "dear partners" to other, no less "dear partners". Representatives of the Foreign Ministry, instead of working on the international field, convince the television audience of unprecedented success. And foreign policy action consists of “expressions of concern” and press conferences.
However, the international policy of any country is only a reflection of its economic potential.
Economy
What achievements do we see on the economic front after 30 years in the two republics?
By 1941, the USSR had become the number two economic power, overtaking even Germany.
How did it all start in 1917?
After the civil war, the RSFSR had a devastated economy, the overwhelming number of citizens were semi-literate, which did not imply their use in modern industries without serious training, starting with literacy, there was no schooling system, there was no healthcare system, and there were no doctors and hospitals either.
All this was aggravated by the fact that the country "missed" two industrial revolutions and did not have colonies that could be plundered, as England and France did, to raise wealth in the metropolis. A new world war loomed on the horizon, in the course of which the leading capitalist powers planned, some to keep, and others to get a "place in the sun." Russia, as a source of resources, was to become a battlefield.
For thirty years, a world economic miracle has been accomplished, but this path was not easy, and sometimes extremely harsh, but the price of the issue was not "the crunch of a fresh roll".
Over the years, the USSR has carried out a cultural revolution, a huge number of transformations in the field of medicine and pedagogy. Only in 1918, in the midst of the “extermination of everyone and everything by the Bolsheviks,” a huge number of research institutes were opened, which became the “drivers of development”. Today you can see how many of the remaining research institutes and universities are celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2018–2021.
As we already wrote, by the beginning of World War II, the USSR had become the second economic power in the world in terms of basic indicators, but during the Great Patriotic War, the economic losses of the USSR amounted to five Soviet five-year plans. But even the USSR, lying in ruins by its thirtieth anniversary, although several times inferior to America in terms of production, was the second world economic power.
How did it all start in 1991?
The RF "inherited" a highly educated population and a highly developed economy. The most extensive network of railways, developed machine tool industry, developed mining and processing of minerals, the world's first fishing fleet, a full cycle of farming. production from raw materials to tablets, the world's second largest aircraft industry. Powerful social infrastructure: an extensive system of preschool and school, and medical institutions: hospitals and clinics. A huge number of sanatoriums, dispensaries, boarding houses, health centers and pioneer recreation camps. Children's sports schools and complexes, sports palaces and swimming pools, some of the best stadiums in the world. Huge progress in the scientific field.
Contrary to popular opinion, agriculture in the country, located in the zone of risky farming, occupied the leading positions in the world in many areas, Soviet people consumed more milk and eggs per capita than US citizens.
In terms of the use of robotics in industry, the Union was in third place in the world after the United States and Japan.
The USSR was the number one space power. On top of that, given the constant external threat, the country had a powerful military potential. After the collapse of the USSR, the Russian Federation got, for example, four aircraft carriers.
In 1989, the USSR had, according to various estimates from the IMF to the CIA, and according to research by economists (IG Kalabekov and others), from 12 to 16% of world GDP. By comparison, China's GDP was 2,1%. In 2018, the GDP of all former countries of the USSR amounted to 2,5%, and China came out in the same year by 15,91%.
But the RSFSR in 1989 had 7,9% of world GDP; by the thirtieth anniversary of the Russian Federation came up with a figure of less than 2% of world GDP.
In passing, we note that the USSR, which had the same share of world GDP as the PRC today, had a population 6 times less than the PRC, which removes any questions about the effectiveness of the Soviet economy and labor productivity.
Concluding this review, we note that by 1947 the USSR was the undisputed leader in advanced technologies, of course, yielding, but actively competing with the powerful US economy. In 1947, the first ballistic missile was launched, and two years later the atomic bomb was tested. There is no need to talk about the modern Russian Federation in such a way.
Demographic development
Before the start of World War I, the number of the population that lived on the lands that had entered the USSR by 1924 was ≈ 145 thousand people. In the whole empire, including Finland, there were 826 thousand people.
After losses during the world war, a bloody civil war and many disasters caused by the consequences of these wars, already according to the 1926 census, the population was twenty years after the Revolution - 162 million people. From September 1939 to 1940, after the return of a number of lands, the population of the USSR increased by another ≈ 21 people. Even after colossal losses in the Second World War, already in 000, according to the census, the population amounted to 000 people. In 1959 it was estimated at 208 million, that is, even with colossal losses caused by the wars from 826 to 923, and especially the Second World War, the population increased over thirty years, within the boundaries of 1947, by ≈ 178-1914 million.
After the collapse of the USSR, the population of the Russian Federation, the growth rate of which from 1979 to 1989. accounted for ≈ 1 people per year, there were 064 people. After 777 years, the population of the Russian Federation has become ≈ 148 people.
Instead of conclusions
This article examined only a part of the indicators of Russia's development thirty years after the events of 1917 and 1991. It should be understood that we were talking about key, comparable indicators and did not take into account minor, “point” achievements and failures during these periods. Thus, in the Russian Federation there are world-class companies in the digital sector, but, unlike the United States, they occupy a modest place in the structure of the economy, they are not even included in the top five, while in the United States there are four high-tech companies in the top five.
Taking these moments into account, it is necessary to draw comprehensive conclusions about the development of countries over thirty years.
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