B. Growing crisis phenomena in society
2.1.The concept of “developed socialism”
Marxist theory, which became the foundation of Soviet state ideology, was based on very simple and widespread ideas: it is possible to build a fair society where there would be no self-interest, violence and exploitation in relations between people. Private property and the state were declared the sources of all these troubles. Thus, the path to the ideal had to lie through the destruction of all signs of the state and through the elimination of the stratum serving state power - the bureaucracy.
However, the entire history of socialism in the USSR came into blatant contradiction with the conclusions of Marxism about the withering away of the state. With the death of Stalin, the last obstacles to the transformation of the bureaucracy from a “servant” of state power into an independent social and political force, claiming full mastery of this power, disappeared. The situation was further complicated by the fact that within the ruling elite there was a separation of separate groups based on various government departments and structures. In people's minds, the Soviet state was increasingly associated not with communist ideals, but with the interests of the bureaucracy.
The energy charge contained in Marxist-Leninist ideology appeared in the second half of the 60s. on the verge of extinction. This was manifested in the obvious decline in mass labor enthusiasm, the growth of social apathy, the increasingly widespread spread of “ideologically alien” phenomena, etc. The main task in ideology is to form among workers faith in the possibilities of the Soviet system.
In December 1966, an article by F.M. appeared in the main Soviet newspaper Pravda. Burlatsky “On the construction of a developed socialist society.” A new ideological concept was taking shape: the completion of the full construction of socialism (which was announced at the 21st Congress of the CPSU) marks a new long period - the stage of “developed socialism”, during which the advantages of the socialist system are fully realized. Entry into communism was postponed indefinitely. In 1967, Brezhnev himself spoke about building “developed socialism” in the USSR in a speech on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, and this conclusion was finally consolidated at the 24th Party Congress in 1971.
The concept of “developed socialism” was intended, firstly, to “reconcile” the fundamental provisions of Marxist-Leninist theory with the established realities of socialism: the preservation of the class division of society, various forms of property, commodity-money relations and, finally, the state itself with its bureaucratic apparatus. Secondly, to justify a departure from previous grandiose projects (the economic reform of 1965 is one of them) to a calmer, more stable development. Thirdly, to instill in the consciousness of citizens that the reality around them is a value in itself, which should bring satisfaction and instill pride.
New Constitution
The new development concept influenced the country's legislation. The Constitution of 1936 ceased to meet the objectives set. For example, the first article of the Constitution called the USSR “a state of workers and peasants,” the second article spoke of “the conquest of the dictatorship of the proletariat,” which in no way connected with the declaration of “genuine” democracy. In addition, in the existing image of state power there were practically no “proletarian” features. A new definition of the political system, social structure, and the nature of the economic and interethnic development of the USSR was necessary.
In February 1976, at the XXV Congress of the CPSU, it was decided to begin practical preparations for the adoption of a new Constitution of the USSR. Preparations were carried out under the slogan of improving socialist democracy, and as a real confirmation of this, a nationwide discussion of the project was organized in May 1977. The draft Constitution was published in newspapers, and citizens were given the opportunity to propose amendments to it. Thus, the appearance of a democratic process was respected. The final text of the Constitution was approved on October 7, 1977 at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The most important article in it was Article 6, which read: “The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, the core of its political system, state and public organizations is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” This led to an even greater strengthening of the importance of the party apparatus throughout the power pyramid, and finally established party membership as a prerequisite for any career. At the same time, the very fact that a special article about the CPSU appeared in the Constitution spoke of a weakening of the party’s ideological influence. Previously, there was simply no need to formally consolidate its role as a leading force.
The state was declared “national”, i.e. from now on it was supposed to equally represent the interests of all social strata. This provision was supposed to become the justification for the triumph of “genuine” democracy in the Soviet Union.
The social structure that had developed in the USSR was interpreted in a new way: Soviet society was declared homogeneous. There were still classes - the worker and collective farm peasantry and the “social stratum” - the intelligentsia, but their differences were declared insignificant. In fact, Soviet society was not only not homogeneous, but its structure became increasingly hierarchical, resembling a kind of social pyramid. The main sign of social status was the place a citizen occupies in relation to the authorities.
The most important place in the characterization of the society of “developed socialism” was occupied in the new Constitution by the question of the state and development of interethnic relations. It was proclaimed that as a result of the rapprochement of nations and nationalities in the USSR, a “new historical community - the Soviet people” had emerged. But at the same time, it was not explained by what criteria some nationalities have the constitutional status of a nation, and others - a nationality, why some were allowed to have statehood in the form of a union republic, others - only an autonomous one, and still others did not even have this.
2.3. Political “stagnation”. "Gerontocracy"
If previously the overwhelming majority of party workers, civil servants and business leaders were people from the common people who showed business abilities, then in the 60s, and especially in the 70s-80s. The replenishment of the power elite took place through a special system of selection and training of future leaders: higher party, Komsomol and trade union schools, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Diplomatic Academy. It was possible to get into them only on the recommendation of influential officials. The formation of the elite also occurred through “natural reproduction.” From the very beginning of their entry into independent life, children and other relatives of bosses found themselves in a special position. They studied at prestigious universities, then many of them occupied promising positions, almost automatically making a career.
The bureaucracy of the times of “stagnation” is characterized by the fact that the country’s top leadership began to consist mostly of very elderly people. The average age of Politburo members by the end of the 70s. reached 68 years of age. Many of them suffered from serious illnesses, including L.I. himself. Brezhnev, who suffered a stroke in 1976. According to the testimony of his attending physician E.I. Chazov, Brezhnev in the last years of his reign turned into a frail old man.
Television reports and radio broadcasts unwittingly demonstrated the anecdotes caused by his physical condition. A truly “gerontocracy” (the power of the old people) has been established in the country. The efforts of doctors, who ensured that the workload on elderly leaders was reduced to a minimum (for example, Politburo meetings often lasted no more than 15-20 minutes), did not save the situation.
Against the backdrop of all this, there is a rapid decomposition of power and management structures, law enforcement agencies, economic, scientific, and educational institutions. Bribery, theft of state property, false reporting on the state of the economy, the establishment of connections between government officials and the underworld - all this reaches such proportions that it becomes impossible to prevent scandalous situations. For example, the so-called “fishing business” in the early 1980s. about the smuggling of red caviar and valuable fish abroad with damage to the state in the tens of millions of rubles. The threads of criminal connections stretched to the very leadership of the Ministry of Fisheries.
National politics
National relations in the USSR were considered to be a source of pride for party and state policy. Indeed, officially proclaimed in the 60-70s. the new historical community of people really existed. Soviet history provided many examples that ethnic, cultural, and racial differences did not prevent people from getting along. The main thing that made it possible to achieve this was the feeling of involvement in a common great cause. This was the case during the first five-year plans, during the Great Patriotic War and the Virgin Lands epic. Troubles and misfortunes that suddenly happened in different parts of the country evoked empathy and a desire to help on the part of the entire multinational Soviet people. An example of this is the earthquake in Tashkent in 1966, which completely destroyed the entire city and killed tens of thousands of its inhabitants. Just a year later, on the site of the ruins, a virtually new city arose, entire streets of which were built largely through gratuitous efforts and at the expense of all the republics of the USSR. The basis of national policy was the idea of achieving actual equality of nations. This idea went back to Lenin’s ideas that the internationalism of a “great” nation should consist “in the inequality that would compensate on the part of the oppressing nation, the large nation, for the inequality that actually develops in life.” In other words, the Russians, as the largest and formerly “oppressive” nation, must take responsibility for the development of all nations of the Soviet Union, paying a particularly high price for this.
Such “donation” of the Russian people was justified from the point of view of overcoming mistrust of them on the part of minorities, but something else happened. While helping all the republics, Russia was unable to properly take care of solving its own pressing problems. One of them already in the 60s. There is a real extinction of the Non-Black Earth Region - a huge region that includes about 30 regions of the RSFSR. Chronic domestic instability pushed many residents of the Russian hinterland to leave their native lands and seek happiness in more prosperous places in the vast country. The Non-Black Earth Development Program (1974) turned out to be ineffective, since its main emphasis was on the development of the economic rather than the social sphere. Moreover, it proclaimed a policy of eliminating “unpromising” villages, which only accelerated the process of extinction. From 1959 to 1979, according to population census data, the number of villages in the non-chernozem zone of the RSFSR decreased from 294 to 177 thousand.
In ideas about actual equality, all republics should not only be the same in terms of living standards and social security, but their economic and social structures should also be similar so that integration (unification into a whole) would be easier and more natural. Enormous funds were invested in the construction of factories in Central Asia, Transcaucasia, and the Baltic states. However, from the very beginning there was a problem of personnel for these enterprises. The deficit was made up almost exclusively by relocating labor and specialists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to the republics. As a result, in the capitals and large cities of the republics, representatives of the “titular” nations in a number of cases found themselves in a minority compared to the Russians.
Very serious contradictions arose on this matter.
In the Baltics, Georgia, and Moldova, the growing presence of Russians was perceived as deliberate Russification and assimilation. In Muslim republics, the cause of discontent was the unconventional behavior of visitors to these places. In addition, the national elite saw the Russians as their competitors and an obstacle to the realization of narrow national interests.
At first glance, the social structure of the union republics increasingly resembled the Russian model, but in reality it turned out that the division into social groups in most republics occurs along strictly national lines. “Indigenous” residents preferred traditional types of economic activity - agriculture, services, trade. The state apparatus and the education sector were staffed primarily with national personnel. Russians, as a rule, made up the main backbone of the working class, engineering and technical workers, i.e. those layers whose social status was never high, and in “stagnant” years it generally fell. Thus, the “native” rural residents felt disadvantaged in comparison with Russian city dwellers; at the same time, social differences in cities often placed Russians in the position of “second-class” citizens.
Some leaders of the republics sought to increase the share of representatives of “their” nationalities in capitals and large cities by attracting people from rural areas. As a result, cultural and social differences became much more pronounced, and national isolation arose. The Russians became increasingly uncomfortable in this atmosphere. At every opportunity they sought to return to Russia.
The problem of a number of repressed peoples also remained unresolved. Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans advocated the restoration of their autonomies liquidated during the Great Patriotic War. Meskhetian Turks and Greeks demanded permission to return to their former places of residence.
A separate problem in the USSR was the so-called “Jewish question”. In June 1967, in connection with the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War, the USSR broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. UN Security Council Resolution No. 242 identified Israel as an aggressor country. A powerful anti-Israel campaign began in Soviet newspapers. At the same time, there was a surge in everyday anti-Semitism. The reaction to this on the part of Soviet Jews was the struggle for the right to leave the USSR for their “historical homeland.”
This stage in the history of the Soviet Union coincided with the growth of ethnic self-awareness among the majority of the peoples of the USSR. However, the lack of a proper reaction to this on the part of the central government contributed to the fact that this process began to result in the “jealousy” of peoples towards each other, infatuation with illusions about a separate “national paradise”.
2.5.Completion of the period of “gerontocracy”
In November 1982 L.I. Brezhnev died. Yu.V. was elected General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Andropov. From 1967 until the beginning of 1982, he was chairman of the KGB of the USSR. Andropov’s weight in the circles of the country’s leadership was, firstly, determined by the influence that he acquired through his leadership of the state security agencies. Secondly, his personal qualities played a role: intelligence, high education, asceticism (combined with authoritarianism and intolerance of dissent).
Andropov’s personality corresponded to the interests of various groups within the Central Committee and the Politburo. He clearly outlined the priorities of the new policy: “Although everything cannot be reduced to discipline, we must start with it” (December 1982). In the first half of 1983, a campaign was launched to strengthen labor discipline. In particular, they conducted raids in cinemas, bathhouses, and shops in order to identify those who were there during working hours.
Soviet citizens learned about the scale of the revealed abuses. For example, during Operation Web, multimillion-dollar thefts in trade, which were widespread, were proven. Investigations such as the “Uzbek case”, which revealed many years of large-scale fraud in cotton, the “Krasnodar case” (about corruption in the Krasnodar region), and the “case of the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs”, which affected Minister N.A., had a wide resonance. Shchelokov and his deputy, Brezhnev's son-in-law Yu.M. Churbanova.
A number of major leaders were sentenced to severe punishments, some committed suicide. The fight against corruption was accompanied by a serious personnel renewal - on average, more than 30% of party functionaries were forced to leave their posts.
For the first time in many years, there were objective assessments of the state of Soviet society, recognition of contradictions and accumulated problems. The new secretary general stated bluntly: “We don’t know the society in which we live very well.”
But Andropov's reign lasted less than a year and a half.
In February 1984, Yu.V. Andropov, who suffered from many chronic diseases, passed away.
The complete opposite of Andropov was the new General Secretary of the Central Committee K.U. Chernenko, Brezhnev's closest friend and ally. The appearance of such a person in power indicates that the party bureaucracy dreamed of eliminating the threat to its quiet existence. The Stalinists also pinned their hopes on Chernenko. However, the short reign of the elderly and sick Chernenko did not allow these hopes to come true. In March 1985, K.W. Chernenko died.
2.6. Economic “stagnation”
By this time, new resources had been discovered on the territory of the USSR, opening up the possibility of further extensive development, in the form of gigantic reserves of oil, gas, non-ferrous metals, etc. All this predetermined the development that was established in the 70s. socio-economic “stagnation” in the country.
The transition to “stagnation” was marked by the proclamation of a course toward “improving the economic mechanism.” Externally, this course differs little from the previous one. The same tasks were set - the development of cost accounting, material incentives, turning production to the needs of workers, etc. However, in practice this was expressed in strengthening centralized management and a return to indicators focused on quantitative rather than qualitative growth of production. In the plans of the ninth (1971-1975) and tenth (1976-1980) five-year plans, the task of increasing growth rates was no longer set; it was only intended to increase the production of total output. As a result, during the ninth five-year plan, the gross volume of industrial production increased by 43%, during the tenth - by 24%, in agriculture - by 13% and 9%, respectively. At the same time, the planned targets of the five-year plans were not fulfilled: in the ninth five-year plan, the implementation of the plan in industry was 91% (in agriculture - 68%), in the tenth - 67% (in agriculture - 56%). Thus, in the 70s. The Soviet economy sank to the level of simple reproduction, which was only capable of satisfying the already established needs of the population.
Meanwhile, people's demands gradually grew and came into increasingly sharp conflict with the capabilities of the domestic economy. The result of this was a chronic shortage of industrial and food products, often affecting essential goods. The situation with commodity supplies was worst in the regions of the RSFSR remote from the Center - in Siberia, the North, the Urals and the Far East. Moscow, Leningrad, the capitals of the Union republics and some other cities, including the so-called science cities, remained “islands” of very relative prosperity.
The existing imbalances in the Soviet economy associated with the intensifying arms race also played an important role in creating this situation. Defense spending diverted funds and effort from civilian production.
The refusal of reforms inevitably pushed towards a routine solution of socio-economic problems: the lack of quality goods and food of own production begins to be compensated for by ever-increasing imports. The Soviet Union became the world's largest grain importer, even ahead of traditional grain importer Japan.
By the mid-80s. every third ton of bread products was produced from imported grain. The production of livestock products was based on grain imports. The USSR was forced to enter into long-term agreements on grain supplies, to undertake obligations to annually purchase at least 9 million tons from the USA, 5 million. tons in Canada, 4 million tons in Argentina.
The sources of funds for purchases abroad are gold and foreign exchange reserves, external loans and export earnings. The use of gold reserves during Brezhnev's times was a relatively rare occurrence. The main focus was on increasing profitability from foreign trade. The easiest way to gain a place in the foreign market was through the export of fuel and minerals.
During the global energy crisis of 1973, as a result of a 20-fold increase in world oil prices and an 8-10-fold increase in raw materials, the USSR received significant income. The proceeds from the sale of raw materials and fuel were used to purchase consumer goods and equipment for their production.
In connection with this, the main priority of industrial development in the 70s. becomes a mining, primarily fuel and energy, complex. Since 1969, by a special decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the accelerated development of oil and gas production in Western Siberia began. Over 10 years, the volume of oil produced here has increased 10 times. At the same time, rapid growth occurred in other sectors of raw materials production - coal, timber, mining and processing of non-ferrous metals. The costs of maintaining these priorities were constantly growing, since it required the creation of acceptable social infrastructure in remote areas, and most importantly, the development of the transport system. In 1974, the grandiose construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline began practically from scratch, which lasted 10 years. In 1970, the first Soviet-German “gas-pipe” contract was concluded, according to which the USSR received pipes from Germany for the construction of a gas pipeline from Western Siberia, then paying for gas supplies to Europe.
Tremendous successes have been achieved in the development of the fuel and energy complex and in the development of the natural resources of Siberia. To this day, the basis of the Russian economy is the extractive industries.
All these activities were carried out due to the lag of those industries that determined scientific and technological progress - electronics, mechanical engineering, robotics, etc.
Thus, the policy of the period of “stagnation” made it extremely difficult to solve the objective task of transitioning the Soviet economy to intensive development. The Soviet economy became part of the world market, with prices for its main export (oil) largely dependent on Saudi Arabia, and for its main import (grain) on the United States. Possible sharp price fluctuations posed a threat to the future of the Soviet economy. But the Soviet leaders, led by Brezhnev, preferred not to look for the deep reasons for what was happening, and they perceived reality itself in an increasingly distorted form.
Related information.
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The resignation from leading party and government posts of N. S. Khrushchev in October 1964 was, as the subsequent twenty years showed, an important milestone in Soviet history. The era of the “thaw”, energetic, although often ill-conceived reforms, was replaced by a time marked by conservatism, stability, and a retreat to the previous order (partial, not in all directions). There was no complete return to Stalinism: the party and state leadership, which did not hide its sympathy for Stalin’s times, did not want a repetition of the repressions and purges that threatened its own well-being. And objectively the situation is in the mid-60s. was completely different from the situation in the 30s. Simple mobilization of resources, over-centralization of management, and non-economic coercion were useless in solving the problems posed to society by the scientific, technical, and later technological revolution. These circumstances were taken into account by the economic reform that began in 1965, the development and implementation of which was associated with the name of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A. N. Kosygin. The idea was to update the economic mechanism, expand the independence of enterprises, introduce material incentives, and supplement administrative regulation with economic regulation. Already the idea of the reform was contradictory. On the one hand, it was proposed to rely on commodity-money relations and economic management methods. Enterprises independently planned the growth rate of labor productivity, average wages, and cost reduction. They had a large share of the profits at their disposal, which could be used to increase wages for workers. The number of planned indicators by which the activities of enterprises were assessed decreased, among them appeared such as profit, profitability, wage fund, volume of products sold. On the other hand, the reform did not dismantle the basic structures of the command system. The sectoral principle of economic management through ministries was restored. Directive planning remained in force, and the work of enterprises was ultimately assessed based on the performance of planned targets. The pricing mechanism, although slightly adjusted, remained essentially unchanged: prices were set administratively. The old system of supplying enterprises with raw materials, machinery, equipment, etc. has been preserved.
The reform gave good results. The decline in economic growth rates has stopped, and wages of workers and employees have increased. But by the end of the 60s. industrial reform has virtually ceased. In the 70-80s. the economy developed extensively: new enterprises were built (but only a few technically and technologically corresponded to the world level - VAZ, KamAZ), the extraction of irreplaceable natural resources (oil, gas, ore, etc.) increased, the number of people employed in manual and low-skilled labor increased. Despite all efforts, the economy rejected the latest technological developments. The achievements of scientific and technological progress were implemented extremely poorly. Meanwhile, the possibilities of such a costly growth model were steadily declining: the extraction of fuel and raw materials, moving to hard-to-reach areas of Siberia and the Far North, became more expensive; the population growth rate was declining, the problem of labor resources arose; the equipment was wearing out and becoming obsolete. A heavy burden for the economy was the huge costs of the military-industrial complex, which made it possible to maintain military-strategic parity (equality) with the United States. Qualitative indicators (labor productivity, profit, profit-to-cost ratio) were deteriorating.
It was a dead end: the command economy could not work effectively in the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution, but the country's leadership still tried to solve all the problems primarily by administrative means. The deadlock is dangerous, because the gap between the developed world economy and the USSR economy was steadily increasing. The situation in agriculture also did not inspire optimism. The expenditures of public funds grew continuously (in the 70s they reached more than 30% of all budget expenditures), but the return was extremely small. The collective and state farm economy, while willingly accepting huge capital investments, did not demonstrate any noticeable growth in production.
Hence, very serious deformations in the social sphere. Wages and incomes of the population were constantly growing, and this was an indisputable achievement. But neither industry nor agriculture could offer society a sufficient amount of goods, food, and services. Shortages, queues, “blat” (when necessary goods were purchased through acquaintance) were an indispensable phenomenon of everyday life in these years. At the end of the 70s. in certain regions of the country, the rationed distribution of some products on cards has reappeared. The emergence and growth of the so-called “shadow economy” (underground workshops, “speculation”, etc.) in these conditions was a natural and even inevitable phenomenon. In the socio-political life of the country, conservative tendencies reigned supreme. Their ideological justification was the concept of developed socialism, according to which the slow, systematic, gradual improvement of real socialism, built “completely and completely” in the USSR, will take an entire historical era. In 1977, this concept was legislatively enshrined in the preamble of the new Constitution of the USSR. For the first time, the thesis about the leading and guiding role of the CPSU received the status of a constitutional norm. The Constitution declared the USSR a state of the entire people and proclaimed a full set of democratic rights and freedoms of citizens.
Real life did not fully correspond to the requirements of the Constitution. Councils of people's deputies at all levels remained a decoration; power belonged to the party apparatus, which prepared and made all major decisions. His control over society, as in previous years, was comprehensive. Another thing is that the apparatus and the nomenklatura that made it up (party and state officials of a certain level), to use the term of those years, were “reborn.” L. I. Brezhnev, who for 18 years held the post of First (from 1966 - General) Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, considered it necessary to maintain personnel stability of the apparatus, strengthen its privileges, and refrain from harsh actions in relation to the nomenklatura. The party elite, sensitive to the changes , was burdened by the fact that her omnipotence was not supported by property. The further, the more she sought to secure for herself the share of public property that she controlled. The merging of the party-state apparatus with the “shadow economy” and corruption began in the 70-80s. an important factor in socio-political life. Officially, their existence was recognized after Brezhnev’s death by the new General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Yu. V. Andropov (1982-1984). The investigation of criminal cases in which high-ranking managers and officials were accused showed the scale and danger of the crisis.
The crisis was also evidenced by the emergence of the dissident movement (see ticket No. 23). Human rights, religious, national, environmental organizations, despite the repression of the authorities (arrests, camps, exile, expulsion from the country, etc.), opposed neo-Stalinism, for reforms, respect for human rights, rejection of the party’s monopoly on power, etc. The dissident movement was not massive, but it spoke of growing opposition sentiments and dissatisfaction with the current situation. The apathy, indifference, and cynicism that struck society, in their own way, but just as clearly confirmed this conclusion. The most stable era in Soviet history ended with its own denial: society demanded change. Stability turned into stagnation, conservatism into immobility, continuity into crisis.
Foreign policy of the USSR from the mid-60s to the mid-80s:
Foreign policy of the USSR in the mid-60s - mid-80s. was aimed at achieving three main goals: strengthening its influence in the socialist community, uniting the world system of socialism, and preventing any countries from falling away from it; improve relations with developed Western countries, primarily with the USA, Germany, France, and ensure peaceful coexistence with them; expand its sphere of influence in the “third world”, intensify military-technical and economic cooperation with developing countries. Relations with socialist countries. In 1964-1985. in relations with socialist countries, the USSR adhered to the so-called “Brezhnev doctrine”: to preserve the socialist camp by all means, maximally strengthening the leading role of the USSR in it and actually limiting the sovereignty of the allies. For the first time, the “Brezhnev Doctrine” was used when troops of five Warsaw Pact countries entered Czechoslovakia in August 1968 to suppress processes recognized as anti-socialist (“Prague Spring”). But it was not possible to fully implement this doctrine. China, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Romania occupied a special position.
In the early 80s. The performances of the Solidarity trade union in Poland almost forced the Soviet leadership to take advantage of the Prague experience. Fortunately, this was avoided, but the growing crisis in the socialist world was obvious to everyone. Relations with China were especially tense. The Chinese Communist Party, like the CPSU, claimed leadership in the world communist movement. The conflict went so far that China put forward territorial claims to the USSR, and in 1969 provoked military clashes in the area of Damansky Island. In the 70s The Chinese leadership sharply criticized “Soviet hegemony,” nullifying economic and political cooperation with the USSR.
Relations with Western countries. Second half of the 60s - 70s. - the time of detente in relations between the USSR and capitalist countries. It was initiated by French President Charles de Gaulle. In 1970, L. I. Brezhnev and German Chancellor W. Brandt signed an agreement recognizing the post-war borders in Europe. In 1972, Germany signed similar agreements with Poland and Czechoslovakia.
In the first half of the 70s. The USSR and the USA entered into a number of agreements to limit the arms race. Official meetings of the Soviet and American leadership at the highest level took place (1972, 1973, 1974, 1978). In 1975, in Helsinki, 33 European states, as well as the USA and Canada, signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe on the principles of interstate relations: respect for sovereignty and integrity, non-interference in internal affairs, respect for human rights, etc. The results of the Helsinki Conference were understood differently by East and West. The United States and its European allies emphasized the humanitarian aspects of the agreements reached (human rights, personal integrity, etc.). The USSR attached primary importance to the principles of non-interference in internal affairs and the inviolability of post-war borders in Europe; sovereign equality and respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty, including the right to freely choose and develop one's political, economic and cultural systems. Détente in general was a controversial phenomenon. It became possible not least because by 1969 the USSR had achieved military-strategic parity (equality) with the United States. The superpowers continued to arm themselves. The arms race rapidly intensified. The USSR and the USA opposed each other in regional conflicts in which they supported forces fighting against each other (in the Middle East, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Angola, etc.). In 1979, the USSR sent a limited military contingent to Afghanistan. The discharge did not withstand this test. New frosts have arrived. The Cold War has resumed. Mutual accusations, notes of protest, disputes and diplomatic scandals became integral elements of the system of international relations in the first half of the 80s. Relations between the USSR and the USA, the Warsaw Department and NATO reached a dead end.
USSR and third world countries. As was said, relations with the countries of the “third world” were largely subject to the logic of the strategic confrontation between the USSR and the USA. In the Middle East, the USSR took a clearly pro-Arab position, maintaining friendly relations with Syria and Egypt, the leaders of the Arab world. When Egyptian President A. Sadat concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, contacts with it were virtually frozen. During the period of American aggression in Vietnam (1964-1975), the USSR provided significant military-technical assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Supported the USSR and anti-American rebels in Nicaragua. An active policy was carried out in Africa, where Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Ethiopia were under Soviet influence. The introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan (December 1979) marked the beginning of a long military conflict in which the USSR suffered great human, material, and moral losses. It was a grave mistake, the tragic consequences of which still remind us to this day.
In general, the economy of the USSR continued to develop predominantly extensively, despite the gradual depletion of free resources, primarily labor, or their significant rise in cost (mining and transportation of minerals). As a result, the rate of economic growth declined rapidly. The curtailment of reforms and a return to previous economic practices, which was openly heralded by the economic “counter-reform” of 1979, could not prevent this. Even according to official statistics, the average annual growth rate of industrial production from 8.5% in 1966–1970. decreased to 7.4% in 1971-1975, 4.4% in 1976-1980. and 3.6% in 1981-1985, and national income, respectively, from 7.2% to 5.1, 3.8 and 2.9%. By the beginning of the 80s, the Soviet economy entered a period of stagnation. In physical terms, production volumes in a number of industries not only did not grow, but, on the contrary, decreased. Labor productivity growth has virtually stopped.
A large-scale increase in military spending had a huge deforming effect on the national economy of the USSR. Thanks to the overstrain of the Soviet economy, and partly due to the fact that America in the second half of the 60s and the first half of the 70s was mired in a bloody and expensive war in Vietnam, military-strategic parity with the United States was achieved. However, the arms race continued in the 70s and 80s. The military-industrial complex practically “crushed” the entire Soviet economy. The official military budget was in 1985. RUB 19.1 billion However, data on actual military spending was carefully kept secret. Even the secretaries of the Central Committee in charge of economic issues did not know them. As M.S. later admitted. Gorbachev, in 1983 Yu.V. Andropov did not allow him and two other secretaries of the Central Committee in charge of economic problems to familiarize themselves with the real budget and data on military expenditures. According to Western estimates, Soviet military spending amounted to approximately 1/2 of GDP, which was many times higher than the corresponding figures for the United States, and even more so other Western countries. Up to 80% of the domestic engineering industry worked directly or indirectly for military needs. The militarization of the Soviet economy and financial system was further intensified by the war USSR in Afghanistan in 1979–1989. Annual expenditures on it were estimated at 3-4 billion rubles. As a result, the Soviet national economy simply could not withstand the colossal military expenditures.
The massive sale of natural resources allowed the gaping holes in the sinking economy to be patched and the appearance of prosperity to be maintained. Favorable conditions for this were created by the development of oil and gas fields in Western Siberia, as well as a multiple jump in world energy prices in the mid-70s. As a result, in the 70s alone, an estimated 180 billion “petrodollars” entered the country. They were spent not so much on solving the most acute structural problems of the Soviet economy, but on military needs, the purchase of food, consumer goods and other current needs.
The underlying reasons for the growing economic difficulties were rooted in the fact that, despite a slight increase in the material interest of workers and an increase in the role of economic levers in the management of enterprises, a significant restructuring of the economic mechanism did not actually occur. The fundamental problem of incentives to work was not resolved. As a result, only every third worker in the USSR worked at full capacity.
As the scientific and technological revolution continued to unfold, the insensitivity of the socialist economy to scientific and technological progress became increasingly clear. The average annual increase in inventions and innovation proposals used in production has been steadily declining: in the 50s it amounted to 14.5%, in the 60s - 3, and in the 70s - only 1.8%. As a result, only 1/5 of the inventions were introduced into production.
Thus, if the USSR as a whole was able to take advantage of the achievements of the first stage of the scientific and technological revolution, thanks to the huge concentration of resources in relatively few advanced areas, then the second stage of scientific and technological revolution, which began in the 70s, with the invention of microprocessors, mass computerization, etc. ., and characterized by a sharp expansion of the “front” and the pace of scientific and technological discoveries, almost did not affect the Soviet economy. The situation was a little better in the military sectors. But even in them, the traditional policy of maximum concentration of material and human resources in the new conditions was failing, since they were increasingly dependent on the general technological level of the national economy; efficiency of the economic mechanism.
Leading Western countries in the 70s began the transition to a new post-industrial, or information, society, in which the role of fixed capital was no longer land (as in an agrarian society), not factories and factories (as in an industrial society), but information. This society was characterized by a sharp increase in the role of the non-productive (according to Marxist ideology) and especially the educational sphere, the curtailment of traditional industries (mining, metallurgical, etc.), the transition to resource-saving and knowledge-intensive technologies (microelectronics, computer science, telecommunications, biotechnology), and the individualization of consumption . In 1985, in the United States, approximately every fifth family already had a personal computer, and 3/4 of the population worked in the service sector. In our country, less than 27% of workers were employed in non-production sectors.
Thus, the USSR continued to develop within the framework of an industrial society with an emphasis on traditional industries. It took first place in the world in the production of oil, gas, steel, iron ore, mineral fertilizers, sulfuric acid, tractors, combine harvesters, etc. But even in traditional industries, the Soviet economy was falling further and further behind. When tested in 1979–1980. technical level of almost 20 thousand types of domestic machinery and equipment, it turned out that at least a third of them need to be discontinued or radically modernized. By international standards, the USSR economy, with the exception of raw materials industries, was uncompetitive. The share of machinery and equipment in Soviet foreign exchange exports was approximately 3%. Moreover, in terms of total industrial production volumes, the Soviet Union in the 80s “let ahead” Japan.
The extensive nature of the development of the Soviet economy and growing economic difficulties sharply limited the possibilities for solving social problems. Thanks to the massive influx of “petrodollars,” there was a noticeable shift in the development of the social sphere and an increase in the well-being of the population. Number of specialists employed in public education in 1970–1985. more than doubled: from 6.9 to 14.5 million people, the average monthly salary increased from 122 to 190 rubles, consumption of goods increased, especially such as cars, color TVs, vacuum cleaners, furniture, etc. However, the rate of growth in wealth declined rapidly in the 1970s and early 1980s. Thus, despite the acute housing problem, the share of capital investments in housing construction (to the total volume) decreased from 17.7% in 1966–1970. to 15.1% in 1981 - 1985, the commissioning of housing has practically not grown since the second half of the 70s. The share of the Union budget funds spent on education and health care by 1985 fell below the level of 1940. Since the 70s, the average life expectancy in the USSR stopped increasing (in 1985 it was lower than in 1958), it became child mortality rate is rising. By the beginning of the 80s, the USSR was only 35th in the world in terms of life expectancy, almost 50 countries had lower infant mortality.
The outpacing of the growth of the population's cash income over the supply of goods and services exacerbated food difficulties and shortages of consumer goods. Unequal access to goods and services due to the presence of a whole system of benefits, distributors, etc. seriously widened the gap in the quality and standard of living of the bulk of the population - workers, peasants, intelligentsia - and the privileged strata, primarily the party and economic nomenklatura. According to some estimates, the USSR ranked only 77th in the world in terms of per capita consumption.
A feature of the development of the Soviet economy in 1965–1985. was the rapid growth of foreign trade. Favorable conditions were created by the relaxation of international tension (the conclusion of treaties on the limitation of strategic arms, the adoption of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference, which confirmed the inviolability of borders in Europe, and other documents that changed the very atmosphere of relations between East and West), an increase in world energy prices and an increase in supplies of oil and gas from the USSR. Only for 1970–1980. oil exports increased from 66.8 million to 119 million tons, and gas exports from 3.3 to 54.2 billion cubic meters.
Of no small importance was the course of the Soviet leadership towards the development of the closest possible economic cooperation, broad industrial cooperation with socialist countries, pursuing both economic and political goals, for example, ensuring maximum cohesion of the “socialist camp”.
As a result, the foreign trade turnover of the USSR for 1970–1985 increased from 22.1 billion to 142.1 billion rubles. The structure of Soviet exports was dominated by fuel and energy and raw materials, and imports were dominated by machinery, equipment, grain and consumer goods. For a number of industries (rolling equipment, equipment for the chemical, textile industries, etc.), imports provided the overwhelming majority of the needs of the Soviet economy. Thus, in the second half of the 60s - the mid-80s, there was a gradual, largely forced overcoming of the autarky of the Soviet economy and its integration (in a number of positions) into the world economic economy. This circumstance, combined with the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet economic model, created the conditions for a new attempt at economic transformation.
It is necessary to understand that within the framework of the administrative-command system, radical reforms were impossible. To transform society, it was necessary to change the system itself, the very idea of socialism, which was impossible at that time. There were attempts to implement reforms in the old theoretical models, however with minor changes, but they failed. This was explained by a number of reasons: subjective - personnel who grew up in the administrative-command system did not know how and did not want to work differently. Objective – industrialization was not completed, high marginality of society remained, and social apathy of the masses was observed.
After the displacement in October 1964 N.S. Khrushchev in Soviet society, the party leadership is struggle between two trends: conservative and democratic. The democratic trend was not realized. A representative of conservative forces, L.I., comes to power. Brezhnev (1964-1982). This man was the complete opposite of N.S. Khrushchev with his courage, his penchant for risk, and his thirst for change. Period 70 -80 years got the name "stagnation". The Soviet system is becoming even more rigid. During this period, it is formed braking mechanism society. This is a set of outdated conservative institutions, views, and stereotypes of practical action in the development of society.
The existing political system was unable to protect society from stagnation. The braking mechanism in any political system is the result of a change in the balance of power between democracy and bureaucracy in favor of the latter. It is necessary to trace how this process took place in Soviet society.
The Soviet political system lacked: a permanent sphere of legislative power; separation of powers; mechanism of checks and balances. All this led to the concentration of power in a single center, in party bodies, in the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy actually seized power for itself. The leader of the party and the country, Brezhnev, became a symbol of stagnation. He was incompetent and cautious. This suited the conservative bureaucratic apparatus and provided additional opportunities for the apparatus workers. The bureaucracy seized power, leaving the political leader with only external signs of power. The bureaucracy in such a political system became uncontrollable and omnipotent. The overwhelming majority of party and government officials adhered to conservative views.
The braking mechanism in the political system that developed back in the 30s goes beyond the political system itself and becomes destructive for all spheres of society: economy, culture, etc. Party and ideological control over the media and culture is increasing.
In the 70s and 80s, negative processes were growing in Soviet society, which were not critically assessed in time and the measures necessary to overcome them were not taken. The authorities refused to solve pressing social and political problems and strengthened the conservatism of the ideological and political course.
TO 80 years old this approach led to political, economic, social crisis. The Soviet Union loses its superpower status; loses the arms race; the war in Afghanistan was lost and this defeat showed that the USSR had lost the competition with America; the international position of the USSR worsened, the world community reacted negatively to the USSR’s participation in the Afghan war; A crisis begins in the world system of socialism and socialist countries emerge from Soviet control. This process was also an indicator of the weakness of the USSR.
Within the country, the political passivity of the masses is increasing, the dissidence movement and travel abroad are growing. Problems are emerging in interethnic relations within the USSR.
The condition of the Soviet economy is deteriorating while the Western economy is developing dynamically. In 1970, the volume of capital investments in the USSR and the USA was the same for the first time. The USSR surpassed the United States in the production of many important types of products: coal, ore, cast iron, pipes, turbines, electric locomotives, diesel locomotives, etc. This was associated with the scientific and technological revolution. But the existing management mechanism and planning practice hampered economic development in this direction. A contradiction arose between the enormous opportunities that the scientific and technological revolution opened up for the economy and outdated administrative and command methods and forms of economic management. As a result, negative phenomena began to increase in the economy, economic degradation began, the crisis became permanent and affected all sectors of the economy. The rate of growth of national income began to fall sharply. Plans for most economic indicators were not met. The quantitative, qualitative and technological lag behind the Western economy has increased. The country that once fed Europe itself began to live on imported food.
In the social sphere, it is necessary to note the decline in living standards. The needs of the Soviet people increased, because People's ideas about life, about the norms and ideals of everyday life, changed, and although they were far from Western standards of life, even they did not find satisfaction. Many goods and products were unavailable, and later a rationing system for supplying the population was even introduced. As an example, let's look at the following data: the level of consumption in the USSR in the mid-70s corresponded to the official poverty level in the USA - a line below which 12% of the American population was located. In subsequent years, the standard of living declined further.
In fact, by most objectively measured indicators, living conditions were improving. On average, Soviet people began to earn 150-200 rubles a month by the end of the 70s, and not 30, as before the war, or 50-60, as in the early 50s. But to meet today's normal needs of the average Soviet family of two adults and two children, each worker in it needs to earn at least 400 rubles a month.
There was a mismatch in the interests of various layers and groups of the population, the principle of distribution according to labor and the principle of social justice were violated. Negative social phenomena associated with drunkenness, corruption, social indifference, etc. increased.
Thus, in the 70-80s, the development of Soviet society stopped, which led to a crisis. This period also called period missed opportunities. Soviet society was in need of reform. The administrative-command system that was formed in the 30s was on the verge of collapse.
Culture in 1970-80
Acquiring an increasingly “urban” character, the social structure of Soviet society seemed to develop within the framework of global trends.
But despite the official thesis about the rapprochement of social groups, in reality social relations were becoming more complex. The differentiation in the quality and standard of living, the real rights of the managerial layer and the rest of the population increased.
The contradictory phenomena in Soviet society could not but affect the development of its spiritual sphere - education, science, culture.
There were significant differences in the level of education of the urban and rural populations. In terms of quality, education not only did not consolidate at the internationally recognized high level of the late 50-60s, but began to lag behind the requirements of the time and scientific and technological progress.
They tried to solve the problem of secondary school through the school reform of 1983-1984. The main task was to orient the school to the needs of the economy. However, the lack of necessary funds led to the rapid collapse of the reform. The growth in the number of universities was not accompanied by an improvement in the quality of student training. This was hampered not only by the weak material base of universities and sometimes insufficient qualifications of the teaching staff, but also by a decrease in the level of training of secondary school graduates, caught up in the pursuit of mass participation in connection with the transition to universal compulsory secondary education. The decline in the prestige of certified specialists, especially mass technical specialties, had a negative impact. In many universities, due to a chronic shortage of students, admission was sometimes carried out without any selection based on abilities and level of training.
The development of science was also contradictory. The USSR lagged behind in the field of computerization for decades. Even the traditional policy of accelerated development of military industries with the maximum concentration of material and personnel resources in them began to give serious disruptions in the new historical conditions, since these industries were increasingly dependent on the general technological level of the national economy and the efficiency of the entire economic mechanism.
Many interesting works during these years, for ideological reasons, never saw the light of day. At the same time, semi-legal bards V. Vysotsky, B. Okudzhava, A. Galich, Y. Vizbor, Y. Kim received unofficial recognition. Theatrical and film productions of T. Abuladze, G. Volchek, A. German, M. Zakharov, Y. Lyubimy, A. Tarkovsky, A. Efros, with difficulty making their way, outlined new horizons for the audience. V. Aksenov, V. Voynich, V. Dudintsev, V. Maksimov, V. Nekrasov, A. Rybakov and others created their own works of art that did not fit into the framework of “socialist realism”. The paintings of I. Glazunov, A. Shilov, and avant-garde artists aroused great interest and discussion among the intelligentsia.
During these years, economists who saw the success of economic development in its transfer to a market framework were persecuted. In the 70s, representatives of the “new direction” in historical science - P. V. Volobuev, M. Ya. Gefter, K. N. Tarnovsky and others - were subjected to obstruction by the authorities, who tried, strictly within the framework of Marxist ideology, to revise some ossified provisions of Soviet historiography.
Relations between government and society in the period from the mid-60s to the mid-80s led to a third wave of emigration, at the top of which were prominent representatives of the creative intelligentsia - I. Brodsky, V. Aksenov, A. Solzhenitsyn, M. Rostropovich, G. Vishnevskaya, M. Baryshnikov and many others.
All this reflected the presence, interweaving and confrontation of two directions in the spiritual life of Soviet society from the mid-60s to the mid-80s - official-protective and democratic.
The phenomenon of dissidence
The Brezhnev team quickly set a course to suppress dissent, and the boundaries of what was permitted narrowed, and what was fully tolerated and even recognized by the System under Khrushchev, from the late 60s could be classified as a political crime. Indicative in this regard is the example of the head of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the USSR N. Mesyats, who, having been appointed to the post in the October days of 1964 and called upon to ensure control over information programs, sincerely believed that it was enough to press a certain “button” and such control will be implemented.
The origins of the revival of the organized movement of dissent can rightfully be considered the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the campaign of condemnation of the “cult of personality” that began immediately after it. The population of the country, party organizations and labor collectives, representatives not only of the intelligentsia, but also of the working class and peasantry took the new course so seriously that they did not notice how criticism of Stalinism smoothly flowed into criticism of the System itself. But the authorities were on alert. The persecution of dissidents (and in this case, of the consistent implementers of the decisions of the party congress) fell immediately.
And yet, the dissident movement in its classic version began in 1965 with the arrest of A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel, who published one of their works “Walks with Pushkin” in the West. It was from this time that the authorities began a targeted fight against dissidence, thereby causing the growth of this movement. From this same time, the creation of a network of underground circles, wide in geography and representative in composition of participants, began, whose task was to change the existing political order.
The symbol of dissidence was the speech on August 25, 1968 against the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, which took place on Red Square. Eight people took part in it: student T. Baeva, linguist K. Babitsky, philologist L. Bogoraz, poet V. Delaunay, worker V. Dremlyuga, physicist P. Litvinov, art critic V. Fayenberg and poetess N. Gorbanevskaya. However, there were other, less overt forms of disagreement that made it possible to avoid administrative and even criminal prosecution: participation in a society for the protection of nature or religious heritage, the creation of various kinds of appeals to “future generations”, without a chance of publication then and discovered today, and finally, refusal from career - how many young intellectuals of the 70s chose to work as janitors or stokers. The poet and bard Yu. Kim recently wrote about the connection with his last performance, “Moscow Kitchens,” which was a great success, that the Brezhnev era remains in the memory of Moscow intellectuals as the years spent in the kitchen, talking “in their circle” on the topic of how to remake the world. Weren’t there some kind of “kitchens”, albeit of a different level, the university in Tartu, the department of Professor V. Yadov at Leningrad University, the Institute of Economics of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences and other places, official and unofficial, where jokes about the wretchedness of life and the stuttering of the Secretary General were interspersed disputes in which the future was anticipated?
Directions of the dissident movement
There are three main directions in the dissident movement:
the first is civil movements (“politicians”). The largest among them was the human rights movement. His supporters stated: “Protection of human rights, his basic civil and political freedoms, open protection, by legal means, within the framework of existing laws - constituted the main pathos of the human rights movement... Repulsion from political activity, suspicious attitude towards ideologically charged projects of social reconstruction May 28, 1969 The Committee of Human Rights in the USSR was created in Moscow. The initiators were physicists V. Chalidze, A. Tverdokhlebov and academician A.D. Sakharov. The Committee became the first independent public organization for human rights to receive official recognition: in July 1971 it became a branch. The International League of Human Rights is a non-governmental association with the status of an advisory body to the UN, UNESCO and the ILO. The second half of the 60s also saw the formation of such a form of protest as the creation. financial assistance funds political prisoners and their families.
second - religious movements (faithful and free Seventh-day Adventists, evangelical Christians - Baptists, Orthodox, Pentecostals and others);
third - national movements (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Armenians, Georgians, Crimean Tatars, Jews, Germans and others).
Stages of the dissident movement
The movement participants themselves were the first to propose a periodization of the movement, in which they saw four main stages.
The first stage (1965 - 1972) can be called the period of formation.
These years were marked by:
a “letter campaign” in defense of human rights in the USSR; the creation of the first human rights circles and groups;
organization of the first funds for material assistance to political prisoners;
intensifying the positions of the Soviet intelligentsia not only regarding events in our country, but also in other countries (for example, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1971, etc.);
public protest against the re-Stalinization of society; appealing not only to the authorities of the USSR, but also to the world community (including the international communist movement);
the creation of the first program documents of the liberal-Western (work by A.D. Sakharov “Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom”) and pochvennicheskoy (“Nobel Lecture” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn) directions;
the beginning of the publication of "Chronicles of Current Events";
the creation of the country's first open public association - the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR;
the massive scope of the movement (according to the KGB for 1967 - 1971, 3,096 “groups of a politically harmful nature” were identified; 13,602 people included in their composition were prevented; the geography of the movement in these years for the first time outlined the entire country);
the movement's coverage of essentially all social strata of the country's population, including workers, military personnel, state farm workers,
The efforts of the authorities in the fight against dissent during this period were mainly concentrated on:
on the organization of a special structure in the KGB (the Fifth Directorate), aimed at ensuring control over mental attitudes and “prevention” of dissidents;
the widespread use of psychiatric hospitals to combat dissent;
changing Soviet legislation in the interests of combating dissidents;
suppression of dissidents’ connections with foreign countries.
The second stage (1973 - 1974) is usually considered a period of crisis for the movement. This condition is associated with the arrest, investigation and trial of P. Yakir and V. Krasin, during which they agreed to cooperate with the KGB. This resulted in new arrests of participants and some fading of the human rights movement. The authorities launched an offensive against samizdat. Numerous searches, arrests and trials took place in Moscow, Leningrad, Vilnius, Novosibirsk, Kyiv and other cities.
The third stage (1974 - 1975) is considered to be a period of broad international recognition of the dissident movement. This period saw the creation of the Soviet branch of the international organization Amnesty International; deportation from the country of A. Solzhenitsyn; awarding the Nobel Prize to A. Sakharov; resumption of publication of the Chronicle of Current Events.
The fourth stage (1976 - 1981) is called Helsinki. During this period, a group was created to promote the implementation of the Helsinki agreements in the USSR, headed by Yu. Orlov (Moscow Helsinki Group - MHG). The group saw the main content of its activities in the collection and analysis of materials available to it about violations of the humanitarian articles of the Helsinki Accords and informing the governments of the participating countries about them. Her work was painfully perceived by the authorities not only because it contributed to the growth of the human rights movement, but also because after the Helsinki Conference it became much more difficult to deal with dissidents using previous methods. It was also important that the MHG established connections with religious and national movements that were previously unrelated to each other, and began to perform some coordinating functions. At the end of 1976 - beginning of 1977. Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian, and Helsinki groups were created on the basis of national movements. In 1977, a working commission was created under the MHG to investigate the use of psychiatry for political purposes.
Forms of disagreement and withdrawal
The most active forms of protest were characteristic mainly of three layers of society: the creative intelligentsia, believers and some national minorities. The creative intelligentsia, disappointed by Khrushchev's inconsistency, greeted his fall with indifference. The new ruling elite, in which Suslov played the role of the main ideologist, from the very first days did not hide their desire to finally put an end to the era of the cultural thaw. In September 1965, writers A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel were arrested for publishing their works abroad under pseudonyms, which were then imported into the USSR in printed form. In February 1966 they were sentenced to several years in the camps. This was the first political process in the post-Stalin period. It was intended as an example and a warning; its main meaning was, first of all, that the accused were writers convicted under Article 70 of the Criminal Code adopted under Khrushchev, which defined the crime as “agitation or propaganda carried out with the aim of undermining or weakening Soviet power ... distributing slanderous materials for the same purposes.” fabrications discrediting the Soviet state and social system." Subsequently, this article was widely used to persecute various forms of dissidence. The reaction in the circles of the intelligentsia to the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel testified to the long way it had traveled after the Pasternak “case”: 63 members of the Writers' Union, joined by 200 other representatives of the intelligentsia, sent a letter to the XXIII Congress of the CPSU and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, demanding release the writers and give them bail. Nevertheless, the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel was followed by other trials and convictions. In particular, A. Ginzburg, who compiled the “White Book” of protests against the February 1966 trial, P. Litvinov and Yu. Galanskov, founder of the “samizdat” magazine “Phoenix”, A. Marchenko, author of the first book about Khrushchev’s camps, were arrested. period (“My testimony”), widely distributed in samizdat. Since April 1968, the dissident movement managed to start publishing the “Chronicle of Current Events,” which was published underground every two to three months, reporting on the authorities’ encroachments on freedom. Decapitated by a wave of arrests in October 1972, the magazine's editors had difficulty recovering, and the magazine began to be published sporadically.
At the end of the 60s, the main movements of dissidents united into the “Democratic Movement” with a very vague structure, representing three “ideologies” that arose in the post-Stalin period and were rather programs of action: “genuine Marxism - Leninism”, represented, in particular, by R. and Zh. Medvedev; liberalism represented by A. Sakharov; “Christian ideology” defended by A. Solzhenitsyn. The idea of the first program was that Stalin distorted the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and that a “return to the roots” would make it possible to improve society. The second program considered evolution to Western-style democracy possible while maintaining public property. The third assumed the values of Christian morality as the basis of social life and, following the traditions of the Slavophiles, emphasized the specifics of Russia. The “democratic movement” was still very small and numbered only a few hundred adherents from among the intelligentsia. However, thanks to the activities of two outstanding personalities who became symbols of a kind - A. Solzhenitsyn and A. Sakharov - dissidence, barely noticeable and isolated in their own country, found recognition abroad. Within a few years (1967 - 1973), the issue of human rights in the Soviet Union became an international problem of the first magnitude, which for many years determined the unsightly image of the USSR in the world (it is significant that the activities of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which began in 1973, were largely dedicated to this problem).
Soviet Jewry, the issue of increasing restrictions in the period 1970 - 1985 of the rights of Jews to emigrate from the USSR became the most acute in Soviet-American relations;
Under conditions of repression, dissidence as an expression of radical opposition and an alternative political concept that defended individual rights before the state could not reach wide sections of society. Discontent and dissatisfaction manifested themselves in Soviet reality in different ways. In this sense, the work environment is indicative. Two attempts to create an independent trade union (first by engineer Klebanov at the end of 1977, then by members of the human rights movement who organized SMOT - the Union of Interprofessional Workers' Associations) ended in failure. The strike movement, still very small in number, was no longer, however, an exclusive form of action: between 1975 and 1985, about 60 major strikes took place.
Both in the political sphere itself and outside it, in the field of culture, in some social sciences, discussions began to arise, various kinds of activities began to emerge, which, if not openly “dissident,” then, in any case, indicated obvious differences with the official recognized norms and values. Among the manifestations of this kind of disagreement, the most significant were:
the protest of most of the youth, attracted by the images of Western culture;
environmental companies;
criticism of the degradation of the economy by young “technocrats”, often working in prestigious scientific groups remote from the center;
creation of works of a nonconformist nature in all areas of intellectual and artistic creativity.
All these directions and forms of protest will receive recognition and flourish during the period of "glasnost".
Painting. Artists of the 70s continued to develop the traditions of the previous stage, trying to express their perception of modernity with all its problems. The departure from a prosaically objective image is completely obvious. Symbolism appears more and more in the works. Multi-part paintings – diptychs, triptychs – are becoming popular. Painters turn to folklore, traditions of Western European and Russian art from different centuries. The flourishing of national schools in Transcaucasia, Central Asia, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Belarus continues.
One of the main features of the plastic arts of the 70s and 80s. – the absence of a unified style, there are no strict canons in the use of expressive means and techniques, the boundaries between genres are erased, blurred, art forms are brought closer together. Among the talented masters of the 70s. – T. Nazarenko, O. Bulgakova, A. Sitnikov, V. Orlov.
One of the critics called Tatyana Nazarenko “a troublemaker.” “I hate indifference,” says the artist, “either love or hatred. This is a manifestation of feelings. All my paintings are dedicated to the spiritual disconnection of people and loneliness.” Nazarenko’s paintings have a double and sometimes triple meaning.
In the 70–80s it flourished " underground ", "underground" art. Here, their own movements and trends took shape, such as abstract expressionism, kinetic art, neo-religious painting, conceptualism, and social art.
First, pop art, surrealism, op-art, new symbolism, which was categorically prohibited from entering exhibitions, found a completely official registration in the design of magazines (“Knowledge is power”, “Chemistry and Life”) and books (works of graphic artists Zhukov, Vuchetich , Troyankina). The design sphere turned out to be absolutely free. In the Senezh studio, artists, historians, and psychologists experimented freely, starting from the esoteric school of “origami” and neo-constructivism.
“Pseudo-art”, “other art”, as new trends were called in official circles, became increasingly popular and, unfortunately, often went straight from the basements, not to our exhibitions, but abroad.
These works lack traditional means of artistic expression. They are not designed for direct perception and do not appeal to emotional empathy. They require certain analytical and psychological efforts from the viewer.
The official authorities generally did not tolerate what they did not understand. Moreover, these works were not understood by the absolute majority of “mere mortals”, i.e. they were designed for a specific audience. So it was, in general, easy to “outright ban”. The bans have only led to underground art becoming increasingly politicized. For example, Sots Art represents a merciless irony of words, slogans, deeds of the party and government, and the Soviet way of life. The main creators of social art are V. Komar and A. Melamid; L. Sokov, A. Kosolapov, B. Orlov also worked with them.
G. Bruskin. Fundamental Lexicon. 1986.
The masters of Sots Art were attracted not only by painting. Their arsenal includes sculpture, graphics, poetry, poems, essays, and prose works. “The unsurpassed maestro of the game and the owner of a uniquely synthetic talent” is called D. Prigova (painter, sculptor, graphic artist, poet, prose writer):
I've spent my whole life washing dishes
And in the composition of sublime verses
All my life's wisdom is from here
That's why my temper is not harsh
Here the water flows - I comprehend it
Outside the window below are the people and the authorities
What I don't like, I just cancel
And what you like is what’s around
This is how D. Prigov ironically formulated his “credo”. During the period of perestroika, socialist art came out of hiding, and, as often happens, the keen interest in seditious art faded.
By the second half of the 80s, the entire complex of contradictions in Soviet culture had reached a critical point. The country is facing revolution again.
