The illusion of a capitalist paradise that destroyed Soviet civilization
Formation of the fifth column
As previously noted (How the Soviet Union was killed), the masters of the collective West skillfully waged an information (cold) war against the USSR. Various units of the future fifth column were supported and formed: from dissidents to national separatists and outright thieves.
Just like during the Troubles of 1917, the West relied on nationalists. Baltic, Ukrainian, Caucasian, Turkestan and others.
Various anti-Soviet movements were connected with each other. Thus, the Georgian Helsinki Group was headed by the nationalist, future dictator of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Human rights activist Yu. Orlov was at one time hidden by Ukrainian nationalists.
Religious opposition was also supported from abroad. Baptists, Pentecostals, and Adventists carried out active subversive activities. Clandestine printing houses were created. Orthodox dissidents also appeared. In the so-called "samizdat" materials were passed around, stories, where truth was mixed with lies. For example, on the history of the Civil War, where the White movement was whitened and the Bolsheviks and the Red Army were denigrated.
To work to undermine the USSR, various figures were used, including ostentatious “patriots”. Alexander Solzhenitsyn stood out among them (Why did they create the myth about the great writer-truth-worker Solzhenitsyn). It was deliberately promoted; Khrushchev personally gave it publicity, praising “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” The Gulag Archipelago has gained worldwide fame. The West proclaimed him a great writer, the conscience of the nation and even a classic of Russian thought, and honored him with all kinds of honors, including in the new liberal Russia. Gave the Nobel Prize. But for ordinary citizens of Russia, Solzhenitsyn remained an alien, if not a hostile figure.
He was a weak writer. “The Gulag Archipelago” and “The Red Wheel” are written in ragged and ugly language, where history, journalism and personal fantasies (not to say lies) are mixed. The main feature of Solzhenitsyn’s work is hatred and anger towards the “soviet”, towards the Soviet Motherland. The red line running through all of his work is personal hostility towards the USSR. For him, the USSR is pure bloody totalitarianism and the Gulag, nothing more. The entire history of the USSR is a black bloody hole, which allegedly only claimed tens of millions of lives.
Even our Great Patriotic War for this writer, glorified by the West for good reason, is not heroic and, especially for him, not at all sacred, but only a “self-destructive” and simply ordinary “Soviet-German” war:
“We should not be proud of the Soviet-German war, in which we killed for 30 million, ten times more than the enemy, and only established despotism over ourselves.”
Anti-Soviet people, both Western and homegrown, used all these myths to denigrate and destroy the Soviet Union.
In the later period of his activity, this writer suddenly took the position of a traditionalist and began to zealously defend the interests of the Russian people, at a time when the word “Russian” was almost a dirty word in the so-called. "elite". However, in Russia, in the people's memory, Solzhenitsyn forever remained primarily one of the main symbols of the denigration of Soviet Russia.
Solzhenitsyn among American senators. 1975
Anti-Sovietism and the Jewish Question
Since 1966, the Soviet government began to apply such measures as deprivation of citizenship and deportation abroad to dissidents. But they were not always used. Often those who were needed in the West for propaganda and information warfare were expelled. So, it was Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky who were expelled. And the rest were imprisoned in the SSSO, and they were also used in the West, talking about “victims of the Soviet regime.”
As “stagnation” developed, the growth of official patriotism, and the empty slogans of the Communist Party, underground circles and groups of Marxists and Leninists began to appear, who believed that the CPSU had moved away from the right course. The number of structures of the People's Labor Union (NTS) grew. The dissemination of NTS materials increased to the detriment of Soviet citizens who visited other countries. If in 1968–1978. Among them, 230 thousand leaflets, newspapers and magazines were distributed, then in 1978–1988. – already 560 thousand pieces.
The West used the accusation of anti-Semitism against the USSR, as before against the Russian Empire. True, it turned out badly. Jews in the Union generally lived well. Of course, in the USA they tried to find traces of mass anti-Semitism in the USSR. They tried to exaggerate individual excesses and accuse Moscow of Russian nationalism and chauvinism, but without much success.
When the United States decided to recognize the USSR as a priority trading partner, Senator Jackson introduced an amendment so that the Soviet Union would allow Jews free travel to Israel in return. Moscow needed grain and agreed. Immediately there began a general exodus of Jews abroad. In general, between 1970 and 1988, about 290 thousand Jews emigrated from the USSR.
At the same time, most of the Jews settled in Europe and tried to move from there to the USA and Canada. Mostly less assimilated, religious Jews from the Baltic states, Moldova and Georgia went to Israel, and more assimilated, Russified Jews from the RSFSR and Ukraine went to the USA. That’s why it was called the third wave of Russian emigration.
The majority of Jews in the USSR belonged not to workers and collective farmers, but to the intelligentsia and office workers. Many worked in science, the military-industrial complex, and were allowed access to certain secrets. It is clear that they were prevented from traveling abroad. Here in the West they screamed - anti-Semitism!
The Soviet authorities began to demand that leaving Jews pay for the education received in the USSR. Anti-Semitism again! They tried to introduce restrictions for Jews when entering universities related to the defense industry and “regime” branches of science. Anti-Semitism again!
Russian "evil empire"
A third wave of Russian emigration is taking shape abroad. It consisted of expelled dissidents, defectors, and those who left legally. From Russian Jews. From tourists, artists, athletes, cultural figures, participants in various conferences and delegations who decided not to return back.
Most of this public was not “political.” People were simply looking for a well-fed, “beautiful” life. They dreamed of Western abundance and wanted to remain in the “showcase of capitalism.” As now, residents of Africa, Asia and Latin America are rushing out of poverty to this “paradise”. And artists and cultural workers dreamed of “creative freedom,” which, of course, had to be well paid there.
In the Western press, TV, in the “voices” that were broadcast to Soviet Russia, this was presented in such a way that supposedly the best representatives of culture, sports, etc. chose “freedom.”
It is interesting that in the USA they took an openly anti-Russian course. The USSR was declared an “evil empire.” Historical fakes and myths, including those concocted in the Third Reich, were revived. In Western cinema, literature, and the media, the image of the enemy – the “Russian” – was formed. The American Captive Nations Act of 1959 declared that these nations were enslaved by “Russian communism.” Among the dissidents, various nationalists, Ukrainian, Baltic, Caucasian and others, were brought to the fore. They fought against “Russian colonialism.”
Costume parade for the 70th anniversary of October. Moscow. Red Square, 1987
The image of a capitalist “paradise”
The information influence on the USSR came not only through the political opposition, the fifth column and emigration. It also came directly, through the people. The West took advantage of scientific and technological progress. The USSR launched mass production of transistor receivers. As a result, anyone with a radio could listen to foreign music and “voices.”
Then the “tape revolution” began. It made it possible to widely distribute and rewrite prohibited songs, poems, and broadcasts from abroad. Copiers have appeared in scientific, educational and other institutions. There has been a general replication of banned literature, samizdat, semi-underground literature and other things.
Foreign influence penetrated through other socialist countries. They had more freedom to communicate with capitalist countries. And through them various books and magazines, music and films penetrated into the Union. Including erotica and pornography. Foreign films, for example, French and Italian films, were also shown in the USSR. Soviet citizens saw “freedom”, a “showcase of capitalism”, where each (as in the films) Westerner had the opportunity to have a large selection of different clothes, food, household appliances, a personal car, a villa, etc.
All this turned out to be much more effective than direct, state propaganda that talked about the horrors of capitalism. The image of the capitalist “paradise” turned out to be more attractive and beautiful. Now any Soviet worker or employee knew that “life is better with them.”
All this had a particularly effective influence on the younger generation, who did not know the war, pre- and post-war difficulties, and the intelligentsia. Copying the West, the USSR had its own punks and hippies, demonstrating protest. The intelligentsia was drawn to “universal human values.”
As a result, the Soviet consumer society, which had lost the real ideals of communism, obviously lost to the “showcase of capitalism.” The Soviet intelligentsia and townspeople dreamed of a consumer “paradise”, and they were easily led by the “rats”-traitors who dreamed of privatizing people's property.
The Soviet civilization, which was the most advanced civilization on the planet, was destroyed. Citizens soon found themselves with nothing, but it was too late. You can't bring back the past.
Information