Myths about the USSR
I would like to talk about modern methods of warfare. Ways that do not involve military invasions and bloody battles, but allow subjugating and even destroying virtually any state. It will be about the information and ideological war. The USSR faced this type of aggression, and today Russia is facing. The USSR could not find adequate answers to this aggression and was destroyed. Russia is holding on, fighting back, but not taking any significant retaliatory strikes. And one defense can not win the war.
So, a new type of warfare is informational. I propose to consider one of the most effective tools of information impact - the creation of a myth.
Most of the visitors to this site was born in the USSR. We remember that power and can compare what we had with what we have now. Comparison is often not in favor of modern Russia. So why have we not yet declared our desire to return that country and that system? Why in 1996-m in the elections voted to preserve the liberal government? And this is despite the fact that all illusions about capitalism had already ended then, and the people no longer lived, but survived. Then why did we choose Yeltsin?
Let's start in order.
The information and subversive war against the USSR began with Churchill’s Fulton speech 5 March 1946. His main idea was as follows: “We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the freedoms that citizens have in the United States, in the British Empire, do not exist in a significant number of countries, some of which are very strong. In these countries, control over ordinary people is imposed from above through various kinds of police governments to such an extent that it contradicts all the principles of democracy. ”
In general, short and categorically.
But let's analyze this quote. What kind of freedoms did the citizens of the United States and Britain have? Freedom to die of starvation? The “Great Depression” showed that all residents of Western countries have this freedom (with rare exceptions). Freedom to express your opinion? But these statements do not affect the political class of the West, which serves the interests of the super-rich stratum of society. Maybe there was equality of all before the law? Again, no. Discrimination against blacks and native Americans flourished in those years. If we talk about Britain, then what kind of equality could there be in the colonial system? Maybe there was no control over the citizens? It was, and very hard. The first concentration camps did not appear in Germany, but in the USA. And this control today in the West is elevated to the absolute by total surveillance of all.
We conclude that all of Churchill’s main allegations are lies. And this was understood both in the West and in the socialist camp. So why was it necessary to voice this lie? It was a plan of action. It was these theses that had to be introduced into the minds of the Soviet people. Embed the myth. Embed so that they would believe in him. And this work began and continued over 40 years.
In the ideological war against the USSR, many types of influence were used. These are radio stations broadcasting in Russian, and dissidents (Soviet citizens bought by Western special services, whose task was information and subversive activities). In the mid-eighties, the leadership of the USSR also became a dissident. This is also the organization of protest forms in Soviet culture and art. The Soviet intelligentsia became pro-Western and ceased to perform the function entrusted to it of educating the Soviet person. The basis of all this destructive activity were laid myths. Myths that citizens of western countries live better than citizens of the USSR.
What did the Soviet man know about life in the West? That every family there had a house, a car, a bank account. Each family could easily buy everything that was in short supply in the USSR. Every family could go to Hawaii for a vacation. Paradise, and only, right? Our people did not know that the house and the car were bought on credit, and for this loan you have to pay for life. They did not know that a bank account was a credit card, and everything that was in short supply in the Soviet Union due to high demand and high solvency of the population was bought on credit cards in the West. And these cards were invented in order to increase the demand of the population, because capitalism cannot stand still; it needs sales. And the population was driven into debt. So it was invented a consumer society.
Our people did not know about loans for education, as they themselves received it for free. They did not know that half of the US population cannot receive medical care because there is no insurance, and for cash it is very expensive, I cannot afford it. They did not know that a trip to Hawaii is possible only after retirement, because all the time before it is devoted to one thing - making money.
Soviet people believed in a myth. And for the sake of this myth destroyed their country. Needless to say, Gorbachev did it. No one went out into the street and said “no!” To that cesspool into which he pulled the country. Just the opposite, they came out to support those who advocated the collapse of the Union. We destroyed the country ourselves.
But why then, after sipping on the full in the nineties, we again did not come out and did not hold accountable the dissident liberals who had seized upon the authorities?
Again, this contributed to the myth.
In the mid-nineties, tales of a capitalist paradise were no longer passed. The people, on their own skin, experienced it and did not believe in the tales of our Western friends and their Russian servants. For the West, there was a real threat of the resurrection of the USSR and the restoration of the socialist system. To prevent this, another myth was invented. The myth of how bad it was in the USSR. This myth spun in all media, it was driven into our heads and the heads of our children. And still driven in. And we again believed in the lie invented by the West.
Let's take a look at the highlights of this tale, muddy over the Great Country.
1. The socialist form of the economy is inefficient. State-owned enterprises always lose to private.
This statement is given as an axiom that does not require proof. They believe in it and no longer even dispute it. But let's turn to the facts.
In terms of GDP, the USSR was in second place in the world, immediately after the United States, yielding in 1,5 times. And this is despite the fact that in the USSR there was no machine for printing money from the air. The share of the USSR in world industrial output was 20%. This indicator dispels another myth - that the entire economy of the USSR rested on the sale of oil. The share of revenues from the sale of fuel and electricity on average in the period from 1980 to 1990 was about 8%!
Economic growth from the beginning to the mid-eighties averaged 3,5% per year. It was higher than the US. And growth, albeit small, remained until the collapse of the country. Inflation in the United States in the eighties averaged 5%. And in Germany reached 18%! There was no inflation in the USSR. On the contrary, prices have steadily declined. And only in the early nineties, we learned that such a depreciation of money. And further. The lack of inflation and even deflation did not affect the growth of production. In capitalist countries, deflation was feared as a fire, because lower prices meant a lack of demand and a drop in production.
And now another indicator. GDP growth in the USSR from 1951 to 1960. He was 244%. By 24,4% per year. Industrial production growth over the same period was 228%. And this is despite the fact that already in 1948, the prewar level of industrial production was mainly reached. For three years, the country has recovered after a devastating war. And by 1950, the main production assets increased to the level of 1940 of the year: in industry - by 41%, in construction - by 141%, in transport and communications - by 20 percent. Someone else wants to speak on the inefficiency of the socialist economy?
As for the inefficiency of state-owned enterprises, all of today's experience suggests otherwise. It is state companies that are the most effective today. This is Rosneft, and “our everything”, Gazprom, and VTB, and Sberbank, and defense plants. They are the main donors of the Russian budget. And the experience of China speaks about the greater efficiency of the public sector in comparison with the private one.
2. In the USSR, there was no freedom.
This statement causes a smile. But let's go over the facts.
What is freedom? The term is rather vague, right? So conceived. There is no clear definition of freedom, but there is a list of human rights and freedoms, which is constantly expanding. Now, for example, freedom is an opportunity to freely use drugs, freely change sexual orientation, freely agitate children for entering into homosexual relationships. But is this freedom? In my opinion, a person makes free a few things. Here are some of them: the opportunity to get an education; opportunity to have a job; the opportunity to have a home; opportunity to give birth and raise children; opportunity to participate in the management of their state.
Were these freedoms available in the USSR and were they in Western countries?
Education in the USSR was compulsory and the best in the world. And it - up to the highest - was free. In the West, education was clearly worse, and a secondary technical and higher education could be afforded by far few due to the fact that it was paid for.
In the USSR, there were no unemployed. At all. Lack of work was a criminal offense. The work was strictly by specialty. If you are an engineer, then be kind enough to work as an engineer, not a salesman. In the West, unemployment, especially among young people, reaches 25%. People simply cannot find work, they cannot feed themselves and their families.
The USSR practiced free allocation of housing by the state and enterprises for its employees. There was also the opportunity to buy a cooperative apartment. Yes, the waiting lists were long. In Moscow. In the outback - not very. Companies allocated dormitories for workers without housing, including small families. There was no housing problem in the countryside. In the West, all housing is bought on credit. In case of loss of work, the tenants are simply thrown out into the street.
In the USSR, there was a steady increase in population. For this, the state did a great deal, from kindergartens for a nominal fee and extended-day groups at school to paid leave to care for a child. Paid sick leave, free medicine, the cheap cost of basic foodstuffs, benefits and housing for large families, organization of free children's activities, children's clubs and sections - and so on, and so forth. In the West, juvenile justice is now flourishing. The birth rate is falling rapidly. Children are taken from the family for any reason. In the West, such a phenomenon as child suicide has arisen - this is when the children of 5-8 have settled accounts with life for years. Never before has this ever been fixed. Today, having a baby in the West is a problem. It can be ruined career, may collapse the financial situation. Western countries are dying out.
In the USSR, any enterprising person could enter the governing elite of the country. In general, social elevators in the USSR were very developed. Any worker had the opportunity to improve education and grow to the factory director. The combine harvester Gorbachev has grown to be the general secretary, and the foreman Yeltsin is to the president of Russia. In the West, getting into the political elite is possible only for the elect. And increasingly there is a family relationship. Professional growth, as a rule, ends at the level of a middle manager. Top managers are children and relatives of business owners. Generally, aliens can enter the high society in the West in only one way - by marriage with the children of the elite. What happens infrequently.
So, as can be seen from the above, in terms of freedoms the USSR surpassed the countries of the West in all respects.
3. The USSR is a prison of nations.
This myth was especially zealously used in the secession of the Soviet republics. Now it is being reborn in relation to Russia. But was the prison of the USSR? Not. He was a progressive state. He pulled the standard of living backward suburbs to acceptable. He eradicated barbarism in the republics. And after the collapse of the USSR, the former republics collapsed - they fell where they were pulled from for decades. Central Asia returned to feudalism, the Baltic states returned to fascism, the Caucasus returned to the tribal system. All the peoples of the former USSR after its collapse began to live worse. There was national discrimination, inter-ethnic wars. In the USSR, all were equal. In the USSR, a person of any nationality could reach any height. But in the West - no. Only in the West could such phenomena as ghettos and chinatowns arise. Well, the Ku Klux Klan. Today, in the West, the reverse process is underway, the indigenous white population is being oppressed in favor of migrants. But they could not and could not create a single multinational people in the West. And in the USSR it almost happened.
Myths about the USSR continue to drive into our heads. These myths are being modernized and gradually become myths about Russia. "Russia feeds the Caucasus" - this is what it is.
The war is not over, it continues. Russia has always been an enemy for the West, because its existence threatens the existence of Western civilization in its current form. And because this war will be fought until the complete destruction of one of the parties. And while Russia loses this war. To begin to win, you need to know and understand the techniques of the enemy, respond to them and strike back. Maybe using it weapons. Or maybe just telling the truth, debunking western lies. But something needs to be done. In the meantime, nothing is done.
Information