“The hardest thing to answer is the question, the answer to which is obvious” © Bernard Shaw.
The last topic caused a heated discussion that continues to this day. There was one important thought that I just have to extract and develop separately, because I see that this problem causes real confusion.
Now the time has come when completely different people (regardless of age and place in society) begin to tell, recall, or even speculate (if they haven’t personally caught up) - different, of course, positive things that existed under the USSR. Here are just sketches they get too one-sided and chaotic. Unwittingly, they all describe the Soviet Union as the realm of global “freebies”.
Free housing and education, free medicine and trips to the sea, cheap prices for housing and public utilities, transportation and food ... and so on and so forth. Some go so far as to try to recount all this with modern money, and get huge numbers.
Is it true all of the above, or is it fiction?
True. That's just not the whole truth.
Moreover, it is generally tinsel, against the background of that part of the "iceberg" that is hidden under all of the above. And what is fundamentally silent about those who are “in the subject line”, while the rest persist in their unwillingness to get to the bottom of it. So I will take this work upon myself.
The difference between socialism in the USSR and capitalism in Russia is about the same as between the Closed Joint-Stock Company and the Limited Liability Company. Where LLC Russia has several key owners (receiving dividends from the profits of the “company”, depending on the number of its “shares”), and ZAO USSR — every citizen was a shareholder (with an equal shareholding ”(and equal rights to dividends - which directly depended on the growth of the “capitalization” of the general CJSC USSR)).
The basic equality of the Soviet people was that you (the plant manager or a simple driver), the collective farmer, the General Secretary, the teacher, and the geologist are equal in their right to the "dividends" that are formed thanks to the polished work of the entire state.
And it was the fundamental, inalienable right of every citizen of the Soviet Union. Right - received by him at birth.
All modern memories and experiences, about how then life was good and what social packages were - these are just consequences, and not at all the other way around. First you get the right to become a “shareholder” - and only then - a “preference” from your position.
And if similar “bonuses”, already today, suddenly pay out just like that, they say, “the state helps the residents” - then this is a handout, and not at all the realization of your right. You have no rights.
The form in which the “dividend payments” were made was chosen to be the one that is now being remembered (all kinds of “free of charge and social package”). The reason that the “payments” were made indirectly, and not with live cash to a personal account, is that indirect payments stimulate reinvestment in their own country.
If you are going to build kindergartens, then you need, first, to get hold of the factories where materials will be produced (and this, in turn, will create new jobs and opportunities). If you invest in medicine and sports, then this gives, at the exit, healthier and stronger people; if you invest in science, the productive forces of the whole society grow, and so on.
And at the same time, it is important to understand that if yesterday people needed one thing, then tomorrow, the form of dividend payment could become a different, more suitable moment. Because what matters is not a specific form of “payments”, at a particular moment, but the basic right itself — according to which citizens have the opportunity to receive these same “dividends”, in the form that most closely meets current needs.
Okay, continue. The Soviet party nomenklatura and the then “elite” had only one opportunity to break the bonds of democracy and the absence of social partitions (when I, all so beautiful and in white, I receive “only” as many benefits and opportunities as the “zachuhanny mechanic” from ZHEKA).
The way out was found: - it was necessary to quickly “monetize” the benefits and “bonuses” received from the places they occupy in the social pyramid, and to get the opportunity to transfer the acquired (power, position in society, state property, etc.) by inheritance.
The mechanism of the "transformation of the country" was chosen as follows: - it took to turn the ZAO USSR into the LLC Russia. That is, purposefully depriving the majority of citizens of their basic right "to dividends" (from the work of the state, as a single complex). And to redistribute these rights - in their favor.
And it was brilliantly done with CJSC USSR in the 90-s.
Under the talk of two hundred varieties of sausage; for stories about what they say, “there it is” (i.e. in the West), such as we, “hoo” how much they pay; under the thoughtless howls and rotten slogans that the whole world is just waiting for us to be freed from the “power of the commissars”, and at once will whirl us in the round dance of the “fraternal capitalist peoples” ...
Under all this dirty veil of manipulations, illusions and tantrums - there was a fundamental, fundamental change. The change that the vast majority of people feel every day - but can not express in their own words. Namely:
There was a change in the form of ownership of CJSC Soviet Union. From now on, ordinary citizens have ceased to be shareholders, and now nobody owes them anything. And the elite - securely fixed their position.
Modern Russia is a giant LLC, where there are several clans of "shareholders" (sitting on "pipes" of various kinds; "pipes" that originally belonged to all citizens - and allowed to pull subsidy spheres (schools, kindergartens, sports clubs, etc.) and invest in the integrated development of their own fellow citizens).
These "mega-shareholders" - make a profit from all that was built by our ancestors, all that defended the Great Patriotic War, and all that was originally created specifically for citizens of the USSR corporation.
For citizens who had the full right to sing: - “My native country is wide ...”, because de jure and de facto were the owners (ie, “shareholders”) of their homeland.
Since 1991, all of these “shareholders” have suddenly become a bunch of “wage earners”. And such workers are interchangeable and do not represent much value. "Broke", you can not work for two, often sick, or aged? Well then - get out! We will find others.
People have become things like machine tools in a factory, or printers in an office.
Separately, I emphasize that the lower the salary of workers (for which they are willing to work) - the higher the profits of the new owners. And from this follows another fundamental difference between systems.
If local workers are “unprofitable”, it means that labor migrants who are in the position of semi-slabs should be brought in. And you can safely give a damn about investing, retraining or subsidizing your own citizens; Let them sit on benefits or drink vodka from hopelessness.
If the indigenous people turn up their noses in wages in 5-7 thousand rubles (deep down, intuitively "sensing" that they are somewhere ... abmanated), then instead of them they hire even more impoverished Uzbeks and Tajiks. Understanding perfectly well that when one's own citizens want to “eat”, then they will have nothing left but to go hump for pennies. This is called labor dumping.
But back a bit. Let me remind you that, unlike today's Russia, in the former USSR, every citizen was a shareholder.
It follows a logical conclusion:
- to every citizen, it becomes advantageous for other residents to have a worthy place in life, the highest quality education and the most suitable place of work - simply because the connection between "me" and "them" is iron.
The better everyone works -> the more the total income of the USSR Corporation -> and the greater the dividends for everyone.
Those. the conditional "capitalization" of the entire ZAO of the USSR grows thanks to the contribution of each citizen -> and the dividends of each citizen -> grow due to the effective work of the entire Company as a whole. This means that everyone needs each other instead of today's confrontation: - "I" vs "they".
These are the most important differences between the USSR and the Russian Federation, no one anywhere is trying to explain, or bring to the public debate - but the situation is precisely this. If you declare in plain text that not only “elitist” won (it’s understandable to everyone, and got used to it for a long time), but also explain exactly what 99% of residents have lost, it will cause extreme anger on those who started the scam and reaps its fruits so far.
But people still do not have an understanding of what was specifically taken from them. What I see is some kind of vague, rudimentary and fragmentary, superficially nostalgic experience that once in the country everything was “fair”, and for the thousandth time I heard about: - “cheap housing and communal services, free housing , medicine, education and everything else. "
Confused contemporaries, do not understand the main thing, of what all of the above listed evolved.
It consisted of a legally fixed right to the fact that a country belongs to all citizens, in equal measure.
And they themselves are not just an abstract “population” that accidentally ran into a given territory, but former shareholders and former owners of an equal rights package, to profit from the activities of a mega-corporation, called the Soviet Union.
The owners — who were “thrown” so dexterously, so loudly, so competently — that even having stuffed a bunch of cones, they still believe that they themselves stumbled over by chance.
I understand that sometimes I write quite complicated things. But if you do not understand what the “underwater part of the iceberg” is, what was the root cause and source of well-being, then those who are nostalgic for the USSR will once again be reduced to “free housing” and other “bonuses”. And for those who curse "scoop", the opposite will be reduced to camps and repression.
But it is much more important that both parties understand that they “threw” both those and others. And the reason is not at all in the “goodness” or “badness” of the USSR as a state, but in the fact that everyone was completely deprived of the fundamental fundamental right.
Rights to income from work in their own country. Let these incomes be small, even if they are the same as everyone else’s, let them be expressed not by numbers on a personal account, but by this very destitute “free housing” and the best education in the world - but all this is gone; and not all at once.
And it does not matter at all whether we build capitalism or socialism. The standard of living of citizens with a “basic right” will be much higher, regardless of the political and economic model in the country.
And any slogans, any parties, they say: - “If we win, then tomorrow we will raise wages for everyone!” - there are handouts, demagoguery and withdrawal of attention from the main thing.
We all, as before, will remain deprived of the basic right to own a part of the wealth of our entire immense Motherland. Not a particular birch or a particular mine — but a small fraction of the country's total GDP.
Without this right, you are a perpetual mercenary, shaking for fear of losing your job, without a mortgage apartment, and in general - without means of livelihood.
An employee can pay a large salary, but for a fraction of the profits in a private company - he does not dare to open his mouth. This is a taboo.
What I wrote in this article is a terrible thing. If every resident understands how real it is and what exactly people massively lost in the 1991 year, this completely knocks out legitimacy in any political movement, except for those that call for the citizens to return this “basic right”. And in order to return and fix it, it will be necessary to re-nationalize the notorious "pipes" and the financial system.
And, by the way, this is where the answer to such a popular (in the post-Soviet space) question lies: - "If you are so smart, then why so poor?"
Because citizens have lost the right to participate in the wealth of their country. That it thrives, that it bends - now it does not matter (the maximum that you can do is to amuse your self-esteem, associating yourself and Russia during television news or sporting events).
A giant country possessing any kind of resources cannot ensure the trivial survival of its own citizens. It's a shame. But the shame is not on the conscience of ordinary people spinning like squirrels in a wheel, but on those who drove them into these wheels, 20 years ago ...
Oh, and not yet forgotten. The phrase that “elitists” of all stripes like to repeat, recalling President Boris Yeltsin, they say: “He gave us freedom,” in reality means something completely different: - “He gave us freedom.”
I hope that now you understand both the cynicism and the funny frankness of this phrase. After all, if “us”, he gave something, then from someone - he took something.
Well, in conclusion, I want to quote what was the basis of the citizens' right to dividends. USSR Constitution, "Stalinist" version of 1936 year:
“Article 6. Land, its subsoil, water, forests, factories, factories, mines, mines, railway, water and air transport, banks, communications, state-owned large agricultural enterprises (state farms, machine and tractor stations, etc.), as well as utilities and the main housing stock in cities and industrial sites are state property, that is, the national wealth. ”
“Article 11. The economic life of the USSR is determined and directed by the state economic plan in the interests of increasing social wealth, the steady rise in the material and cultural level of the working people, strengthening the independence of the USSR and enhancing its defense capability. "
“Article 12. Labor in the USSR is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen according to the principle: “who does not work, does not eat”. ”