The 70-year period of the existence of the Soviet Union left us a legacy of many controversial events. History has shed light on some of them, but some are still highly controversial.
How did the name of the USSR appear?
As early as 1913, Lenin dreamed of "a huge historical step from medieval fragmentation to the future socialist unity of all countries." In the first years after the collapse of the empire, the question of such unity became especially acute. Stalin proposed that the independent republics formed after the revolution be included in the RSFSR on the basis of autonomy rights, while Lenin, on the contrary, showing "national liberalism," called for a federation of equal republics.
On December 30, 1922, the I All-Union Congress of Soviets was held in Moscow, which, based on the Leninist version, adopted a declaration on the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which included the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the BSSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR.
Interestingly, formally, according to the Constitution, each of the republics retained the right to secede from the USSR; they could also independently enter into diplomatic relations with foreign states.
Who funded industrialization?
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The leadership of the USSR, having only restored the destroyed economy, set the task of catching up with the Western countries that had gone ahead. This required accelerated industrialization, which required considerable funds.
In 1928, Stalin approved a forced approach, which assumed to eliminate the backlog in two five-year plans. The cost of the economic miracle had to be paid for by the peasantry, but this was not enough.
The country needed currency, which the party leadership obtained in various ways, for example, by selling paintings from the Hermitage. But economists said there were other sources as well. According to some researchers, the main source of industrialization was loans from American bankers, who subsequently counted on the creation of a Jewish republic in Crimea.
Why did Stalin abandon Bolshevism?
Soon after gaining sole power, Stalin departed from the revolutionary values of Bolshevism. A clear evidence of this is his fight against the "Leninist Guard". Many of the landmarks outlined by the October Revolution turned out to be unattainable, and the ideas were not viable.
Thus, communism became a distant prospect that could not be realized without the establishment of socialism. The Bolshevik slogan "All power to the Soviets!" Has also undergone a change. Stalin came to a new formula, where socialism is power concentrated in one hand.
The ideas of internationalism are now being replaced by state patriotism. Stalin promotes the rehabilitation of historical figures and prohibits the persecution of believers.
Historians are divided on the reasons for Stalin's departure from the Bolshevik slogans. According to some, this is due to the desire to unite the country, while others explain this by the need to change the political course.
Why did Stalin start the purges in 1937?
"Great terror" 1937-1938 still raises many questions for historians and researchers. Today, few people doubt Stalin's involvement in the "mass purge", opinions differ only when counting the victims. According to some reports, the number of those shot in political and criminal cases can reach up to 1 million people.
The opinions of researchers also do not agree on the reasons for the mass repressions. According to the historian Yuri Zhukov, the repression was caused by the confrontation between Stalin and the regional party bodies, which, fearing losing their posts, prevented the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. But another Russian historian, Alexei Teplyakov, is sure that the Great Terror was an action planned and prepared by Stalin.
For the French historian Nicolas Verte, repression became the action of the mechanism of "social engineering", completing the policy of dispossession and deportation. And the German expert Karl Schlögel believes that "the terror initiated by the elite in the name of the great goal of getting rid of enemies was readily picked up and used by many structures and citizens to solve their problems."
Why was the powerful Red Army defeated in the first months of the war?
The beginning of the Great Patriotic War for the Red Army was disastrous. By July 10, 1941, the Red Army, according to some sources, had lost about 850 thousand people. Historians explain the reasons for the defeats by a complex of various factors that combined and led to the disaster.
A special place among such reasons is occupied by the deployment of Soviet troops, which, according to the September 1940 version of the Fundamentals of Deployment, was designed not for border defense, but for preventive strikes against Germany. The formations of the Red Army, divided into echelons, favored the successful advance of the German troops.
Recently, great emphasis has been placed on the miscalculations of the General Staff, which used the outdated doctrine of warfare. Some researchers, in particular V. Soloviev and Yu. Kirshin, find direct culprits - Stalin, Zhukov, Voroshilov, who “did not understand the content of the initial period of the war, made mistakes in planning, in strategic deployment, in determining the direction of the main attack of the German troops.
Why did Khrushchev condemn Stalin's personality cult?
On February 25, 1956, at the XX Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev made a report "On the cult of the individual and its consequences," in which he mercilessly criticized the former leader. Today, many historians as a whole see behind a correct, albeit biased assessment of Stalin's personality, not only a desire to restore historical justice, but also to solve their own problems.
In particular, by shifting all responsibility to Stalin, Khrushchev, to some extent, absolved himself of part of the blame for participating in the mass repressions in Ukraine. “The accusations leveled against Stalin, coupled with the rehabilitation of the victims of unjustified executions, could have softened the anger of the population,” writes American historian Grover Ferr.
But there are other hypotheses, according to which criticism of Stalin was a weapon in the fight against the members of the Presidium - Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov, which could prevent the implementation of Khrushchev's plans to reorganize the state apparatus.
Why was Crimea given to Ukraine?
The transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 became a resonant event that responded many years later. Now the emphasis is being placed not only on the legality of such a procedure, but also on the reasons for such a decision.
Opinions on this matter are different: some argue that in this way the USSR avoided the transfer of Crimea to the Jewish Republic according to "credit history" with American bankers, others suggest that this was a gift to Ukraine in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada.
Among the reasons mentioned are unfavorable conditions for farming in the steppe regions of the peninsula and the territorial proximity of Crimea to Ukraine. Many people support the version according to which the “Ukrainization” of Crimea was supposed to contribute to the restoration of the destroyed national economy.
Why did they send troops to Afghanistan?
The question of the expediency of bringing Soviet troops into Afghanistan began to be raised already in the perestroika period. A moral assessment was also given to the decision of the Soviet leadership, which cost the lives of more than 15 thousand internationalist soldiers.
Today it is already obvious that along with the declared justification for the introduction of a limited contingent of Soviet troops into the territory of the DRA, as assistance to the "friendly Afghan people", there was another, no less compelling reason.
The former head of the Illegal Intelligence Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, Major General Yuri Drozdov, noted that the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan was an objective necessity, since US actions were intensified in the country, in particular, technical observation posts were put forward to the southern borders of the USSR.
Why did the Politburo decide on Perestroika?
By the mid-1980s, the USSR came close to an economic crisis. The devastation in agriculture, the chronic shortage of goods and the lack of industrial development demanded immediate measures.
It is known that the reforms were developed on behalf of Andropov, but Gorbachev initiated them. “Apparently, comrades, we all need to rebuild,” the word Gorbachev said was picked up by the media and quickly became the slogan of a new ideology.
Today, the organizers of Perestroika are accused of the fact that, consciously or not, the reforms they initiated led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some researchers argue that the reforms were conceived to seize property by the Soviet elite. But Sergei Kara-Murza sees the victory of Perestroika as the result of the activities of the Western special services. The ideologues of Perestroika themselves have repeatedly stated that the reforms were exclusively of a socio-economic nature.
Who was behind the 1991 coup?
On August 20, 1991, Gorbachev planned to sign the Union Treaty, in which the new position of the Soviet republics was to be designated. But the event was disrupted by the putsch. The conspirators then called the need to preserve the USSR as the main reason for the coup. According to the GKChP, this was done "in order to overcome a deep and comprehensive crisis, political, interethnic and civil confrontation, chaos and anarchy."
But today many researchers call the August coup a farce and consider those who benefitted from the collapse of the country as the main directors. For example, a former member of the Russian Government, Mikhail Poltoranin, claims that "the coup of 1991 was played by Boris Yeltsin together with Mikhail Gorbachev."
However, some researchers still believe that the goal of the State Emergency Committee was to seize power, for which they wanted to "overthrow Gorbachev" and "prevent Yeltsin from coming to power."