Humanity has always strived for happiness and wanted to build a just society. In the USSR and other countries, attempts were made to build a society of equal opportunities. Many researchers have agreed that the abolition of private property, economic planning and social achievement can collectively be called a socialist society. These basic features of the USSR were copied and adapted by various developing countries to their conditions. And yet, attempts to implement the desired ideal were unsuccessful. Why did the Soviet Union collapse?
A state was built with a developed industrial structure, universal education and social security. The USSR was an industrial, nuclear and space power, where absolutely everything was produced: from household appliances to spaceships and nuclear missiles with computer navigation. In the USSR, there was free and the best education in the world, free housing and medicine. The mass culture of the 19th century intelligentsia was instilled: classical music, theater, ballet and literature. The friendship of peoples, the promotion of ethnic minorities and women were cultivated.
Why, on December 26, 1991, the session of the Upper House of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a declaration on the termination of the existence of the USSR? Sociologists and political scientists name many reasons for the crisis and collapse of the Soviet Union. Here are three main ones.
1. The collapse of ideology and the crisis of confidence in power
Idealists move our egoistic world forward, but they are followed by a completely different wave - a pragmatic one, which begins to subjugate the ideals of the pioneers and work according to the usual egoistic laws. By the 1960s, a generation emerged with a much greater selfish desire that began to question Soviet ideology. Persecution of dissidents, terror and repression also played an important role. The Kosygin reform of the 60s, Gorbachev's complex of measures under the general name "Perestroika" and the adoption of cooperation in the late 80s paved the way for the rejection of socialism.
2. Economic recession
Soviet propaganda emphasized the social advantages of the USSR. Oddly enough, this very comparison played against the authorities as soon as the economic downturn began. A salary that did not allow "to make ends meet", problems with obtaining and maintaining housing. In addition, the belief in socialism was undermined by the shortage and monotony of consumer goods (fridge, TV, furniture and even toilet paper, which had to be “taken out” and queued up). In fact, it was the failure of economic competition with capitalist countries.
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3. The authoritarian character of society
The ideal of socialism emphasized the creation of conditions for a free, reasonable, active and independent person. In fact, coercive collectivism leveled personality, individuality, national and religious affiliation. With the weakening of the central government, centrifugal nationalist tendencies intensified. The desire of peoples to independently determine their own destiny resulted in a trend that was later called the "parade of sovereignties" of 1990-1991.
The USSR existed for 70 years, but collapsed at a rate that even the prophets of the imminent end of socialism, Immanuel Wallerstein and Randall Collins, could not predict. They saw the trend of unbearable geopolitical costs and the scale of the Union's institutional problems.
I. Wallerstein compared the Soviet Union with a plant seized by trade union activists during a strike. They impose strict discipline, strive for a better distribution of wealth, but cannot achieve equality and democracy.
E. Fromm explained that the thinking, political and social system of the USSR in all respects was alien to the spirit of Marx's humanism. In this system, a person is a servant of the state and production, and not the highest goal of all social activity. And Marx's concept is based on the fact that socialism is a society in which material interests cease to be the main interests of man.
Marx did not limit his goal to the emancipation of the working class, but dreamed of the emancipation of human essence by the return of unalienated labor to all people, of a society that lives not for the production of goods, but for the sake of transforming man into a fully developed being.
Marx in his writings pointed out that before building communism, it is necessary to go through a certain social development. After all, a communist society is, first of all, a conscious society in which everyone is linked into one family and everyone feels like a part of the others. This requires a person to fully understand his nature and the goal to which we must come.
Modern man is the complete opposite of an integral (communist) society, he is absolutely alienated from other people, does not want to think and care about others. This person knows only one way of dealing with the outside world: possession and consumption. And the greater the degree of his alienation, the more consumption and possession become the meaning of his life.
Therefore, before building communism, it is necessary to go through a certain social development. It is necessary to create in society such a way of relationships in which a person can overcome alienation from his work, people around him and nature, create conditions in which a person can find himself and take the reins into his own hands so as to live in unity with the world. After all, the communist society is, first of all, a conscious society in which everyone is linked into one family and everyone feels like a part of the others. This requires a person to fully understand his nature and the goal to which society must come.
Communism cannot be clothed with selfishness! First, we need to prepare people, educate them in the spirit of integration and interconnection. This was not done either in the USSR or in other countries where they tried to liberate the working class and realize equality and brotherhood.
Baal HaSulam pointed out very clearly that a communist society can be built only in a country where people completely get rid of selfishness, that is, they rise to the first minimal spiritual steps. As stated in his book "The Last Generation", a person in this case should work for bestowal and receive pleasure from what he gives, and does not receive.
First you need to change the person, but this is not about violent measures. Integral education speaks of mitigating egoism, so that we begin to understand that we are in an integral environment, and this is a law of nature, from which you cannot get away.
Such an internal transformation of a person and his view of the world is required, which cannot be realized in a short time either by force or by persuasion - a long process of education is required.
The reason for the failure to translate the idea of communism into practice is that theory has diverged from practice! Nobody has been able to change the egoistic nature of a person into an altruistic one. On this all humanity "stumbled".
However, a systemic crisis will reveal to humanity that all people are interconnected. They will see how awful it is to be in a closed system with our inflated selfishness! After all, when we involuntarily move towards a closed society, in which all people on Earth feel like they are in one family, but in one where it is impossible to coexist peacefully, then we naturally try to break all ties between ourselves.
It is these conditions that are the prerequisite for wars, conflicts and terror. Humanity does everything it wants to subconsciously avoid the connection that its egoistic principle cannot bear.
What if we see that nature is still leading us to this? People get divorced, drift apart, and consume drugs and antidepressants just because they instinctively don't want to be properly interconnected.
Humanity unconsciously acts in spite of the forced general rapprochement. But there is no way out, we will still get closer, because nature drives us into a state of complete dependence on each other. This is a law of development that cannot be resisted - it is higher than us.
In the book "The Last Generation" Baal HaSulam writes that, one way or another, humanity will come to a communist society. This is a society in which a person does not live in order to earn money. He is brought up so that he has no need to take more from society than he needs to exist. He does not take care of himself, since the environment takes all the care of him.
His job, first of all, is the desire to be properly connected with everyone else and to produce only those goods that are necessary for society in order to meet the basic needs of a person.
All this is solved by upbringing, which goes in parallel with the transformations in society - not earlier, and not later. But the most important thing is that a person comes to a state of such a relationship with others, when he does not feel the difference between himself and others. He is so connected with them that for him "I" and "we" completely merge. The egoism that separates us disappears, and everyone begins to feel everyone as himself.
The implementation of the integral methodology allows society to ascend to a higher level, where it is clearly seen that it is necessary to re-educate oneself, how to do it, and what we must come to. She clearly indicates on which path you can reach the goal, correctly working on yourself.
Author: T. Asher