Author: Xusheng source: Xusheng (official account ID: lxlong20) has been authorized to reprint
01 if
Gorbachev’s last explosion in world opinion was on August 31, 2022, when he died; He died at the age of 91, which is considered a relatively long life in the East Slav.
When hearing the news of Gorbachev’s death, many people will think, “lying in the trough!”; It means that the Soviet Union has been dead for decades. Why is this old comrade dead now. In the minds of many people, Ge is the man of the last century.
Gorbachev received such high attention because his reforms triggered drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the year of his death, Russia launched the Ukrainian war in an attempt to retrieve the core assets lost by the collapse of the Soviet Union (the black sea resource belt, another core asset is the Caspian Sea energy belt).
We can imagine a scenario: what would happen if Gorbachev did not reform, and the Soviet Union has continued to this day?
1. Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the five Central Asian countries, the three Baltic States and Russia still belong to the same country, with a territory of more than 20 million square kilometers. NATO’s eastern territory still stays in Berlin. The west is still friendly with China due to the strong oppression of the Soviet Union.
2. The population is at least 280 million (when the Soviet Union collapsed, the population was 280 million, and now the total population of those countries that disintegrated is still about 280 million). According to normal population growth, the population of the United States should now be about the same.
3. The resources of the Black Sea, the energy of the Caspian Sea and the complete Dongwu plain will become the most important resource country, energy country, food country and freshwater resource country in the global village. In the era of soaring resource and energy prices, we have made a lot of money.
4. At the political level, it still stands on the top of socialism and can directly affect the geopolitical, military and economic patterns of Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.
5. Gorbachev has been in office for 37 years (1985-2022, the leadership of the Soviet Union is lifetime). He is the longest ruling leader in the history of the Soviet Union, holding millions of troops and tens of thousands of nuclear bombs. Putin’s identity is estimated to be the legendary former director of the KGB.
If the Soviet Union had not disintegrated, then Gorbachev’s death would definitely be the most shocking event in 2022 (much higher than Ampere’s assassination), and its influence would definitely be 100 times greater than that of the current death.
The mainstream media in the world will praise him at length as one of the most powerful leaders in the world; It is reported that he ended the war in Afghanistan, did not throw nuclear bombs out, and maintained the world balance.
It is estimated that half of the we media field praises its great authority and the other half reviles its dictatorship.
02 Koch
Gorbachev was born in 1931. It can be said that he grew up under the socialist red flag of the Soviet Union. In his youth, although he experienced the great elimination of counter revolutionaries in the Soviet Union (his grandfather was affected) and the cruel Patriotic War, he did not delay his study.
After World War II, the Soviet Union became the pole of the world and the global village of the United States. Gorbachev also directly felt all the glory of the Soviet Union.
The atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb exploded one after another, and the Soviet Union broke the American nuclear monopoly.
The Soviet Union successfully launched the first satellite of mankind, successfully sent the first astronaut into space, and competed head-on with the United States in the field of science and technology.
In the field of engineering, the Soviet Union was even more crazy. What is trying to dig through the earth, using nuclear bombs to carry out water conservancy, and so on, are daring to think and do. Gorbachev experienced all those years full of naive ideals and burning passion. Those glories created Gorbachev’s innocence and ideal, and his reckless character.
Soviet leaders before Gorbachev, whether Stalin, Brezhnev, or even Khrushchev, directly participated in the Patriotic War and were tempered by the cruel reality of being chased. They have a pragmatic side. But Gorbachev was not pragmatic, only idealistic and naive. Because he had never experienced the cruelty of the Empire, only his ideals and passion.
History has proved many times that naive idealists are not terrible. What is really terrible is that naive idealists lose their constraints.
Starting from Brezhnev, the Soviet Union encountered a big problem, that is, the withdrawal of the founding military merit group from the historical stage. At all times and in all countries, it is a very dangerous time for any founding military group to withdraw from the historical stage. Because that means that the balance between left and right is broken, and there will be an imbalance. At this stage, Iran is facing this situation (the founding military merit group headed by Khamenei is coming to an end).
The naive Gorbachev traveled to Europe and America and saw the freedom and prosperity there; Compared with the lack of daily necessities in the Soviet Union (the Soviet industry is short legs, the heavy industry is very strong, and the light industry is very poor), I am extremely envious; I think I must make the Soviet Union look like Europe and the United States.
What is more tragic is that Gorbachev’s wife is also a naive idealist.
In the history of the Soviet Union, only Lenin and Gorbachev’s wife often appeared in the lens. Lenin was an entrepreneurial couple who had stood the test of the times. Gorbachev’s wife is beautiful, good-natured and knowledgeable, but it’s a pity that these excellent qualities in ordinary people did not help her become a pragmatic politician, but made her a naive ally of Gorbachev when he carried out naive ideal reform.
Many historical materials show that Gorbachev’s wife took part in the reform affairs and suffered a lot of criticism. As we all know, the power of buccone is very strong. Coupled with the rhetoric of Western politicians, the couple could not stop.
Of course, the reform of superpowers is not promoted by one person, but the result of comprehensive factors, including but not limited to:
1. At the political level, the cold war between the United States and Europe and the relaxation of Sino US relations intensified the isolation of the Soviet Union; Bureaucratism and corruption in the Soviet Union are serious and can not be returned.
2. At the economic level, the people’s livelihood and economy of the Soviet Union were lame, leading to people’s desire for change. Coupled with the sharp drop in external energy prices, foreign exchange finance is tight.
3. At the military level, the failure of the Afghan war foreshadowed military reform.
Here, I’d like to briefly talk about Gore’s reform. The specific content is mainly reflected in four levels, which can be called the magic Quartet.
03 Magic 1, ideological reform
The first level is the reform of guiding ideology.
At the ideological level, the guiding ideology of the Soviet Union was Marxism Leninism, and the realization of communism was the goal of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; The Western guiding ideology is a collection of Christianity and a series of thoughts (freedom, equality, fraternity, etc.).
Goethe’s reform denied Marxism Leninism from the ideological level. Of course, if all Western ideologies are copied, it will feel like surrendering and losing face.
So Goethe promoted a theory called “new ideological trend and humane democratic socialism”. You can tell by the name that most people can’t figure out what it means.
Many successful reforms in history have tried not to change the guiding ideology that touches ideology. For example, the Meiji Restoration did not change the emperor’s sacred guiding ideology. For example, Peter the Great’s reform did not change the guiding ideology of the Orthodox Church.
Of course, the guiding ideology is not static. According to the three-dimensional view of history and the law of the great cycle, we should promote the change of the guiding ideology every time the civilization changes. For example, in the revolution when industrial civilization came, we must change our guiding ideology. The Soviet Union itself relied on Marxism Leninism to replace the orthodox doctrine as its guiding ideology.
Whether the reform is successful or not involves the change of guiding ideology, and a key premise is that it is easy to be understood by most people. We can see that the guiding ideology of the more successful religions in history is very simple. Including the success of Marxism Leninism in the Soviet Union at that time, the guiding ideology was also very simple, “everyone is equal,” “the proletariat is the main force of history,” and “not relying on the emperor and immortals.” how simple and easy to understand, the basic principles were understood by most people at the first hearing.
Goethe’s set of theoretical reforms, in essence, complicated simple problems, and basically ran for failure. Therefore, Gorbachev’s naivety lies in that he thought it was enough to develop a set of “new ideas”. It seems that as long as you bring the word “new”, you will be new.
In fact, most of the Soviets could not figure out what Gore wanted.
In fact, most of the time, Gerhardt himself does not understand what he is doing, but he must change for the sake of change. If we say that art or academic practice can be changed for the sake of change; But when it comes to the guiding ideology of ideology, it will lead to major problems.
Of course, if Gore could firmly control the Soviet Communist Party, the ideological change would not be chaotic. After all, politicians like Truman can still form a set of “Truman Doctrine”. If Gorbachev’s methods are more sophisticated, the whole set of “Gorbachev’s new theory” is not impossible. But the key is that Gore has changed his political party.
04 Magic 2, dismantling the system
The second fundamental difference between the Soviet Union and the West lies in the ruling party.
The Soviet Union was a one party dictatorship, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union led and coordinated all manpower, energy, resources, food, etc. In the west, there are mostly multi-party checks and balances, and the separation of powers in the United States is the most representative.
The main part of Goethe’s reform is the so-called system reform; The guiding ideology is to replace centralization with decentralization; The specific operation is to replace the Soviet Communist Party with the so-called multi-party system and replace the Soviet with the parliamentary system.
To put it simply, in order to move closer to the West in an all-round way, Gore tore apart the skeleton of the superpower Soviet Union. This is equivalent to self decomposition.
History at all times and all over the world has proved that no matter which civilization cycle or system, there has been no chaos after breaking up its own ruling body (including the family in the family era and the ruling party in the Party Politics). The rise and decline of superpowers are accompanied by brutal wars.
The Soviet Union has two strong points:
First, after the ruling party broke up itself, it did not trigger a large-scale war; There is no civil war or foreign war, and China is the only superpower in the history of mankind to dissolve peacefully.
Second, leaving behind a big country like Russia. Because of the existence of Russia, Gorbachev lost the Soviet Union and could still live to the age of 91. We should know that most of the last leaders in history did not end well. In contrast, Gore’s fate is better. Because Russia considered itself the successor of the Soviet legacy, it gave Gorbachev a certain status.
Is there any problem with the Soviet system? Of course. In fact, in Brezhnev’s later period, the Soviet system had become seriously rigid, and bureaucracy led to serious corruption. However, the problem should be looked at in two ways: on the one hand, that rigid system is sufficient to maintain the foundation of the Soviet Union as a superpower; On the other hand, the problem of corruption can be alleviated by strong anti-corruption efforts.
Gore’s naivety lies in completely amplifying the negative factors of the system and ignoring the advantages of the Soviet system. This feature is similar to some known ones.
05 Magic 3, economic privatization
The highlight is economic privatization.
The Soviet Union, guided by Marxism Leninism, took the public economy as the main body.
Objectively speaking, the economic system of the Soviet Union has a lot of problems. On the one hand, the Soviet Union’s heavy industry is very strong, with all kinds of tanks, planes, missiles, nuclear weapons, spaceships, and so on; On the other hand, there is a lack of light industrial commodities related to people’s lives.
The original intention of Gore’s reform was to change the economic imbalance of the Soviet Union and make the Soviet Union as rich as the United States and Europe. His starting point can not be mistaken, but it is full of innocence and ideals.
Why did Gore’s ideal of changing people’s livelihood eventually lead to the sad reality of the disintegration of the Soviet Union? The answer is simple: the people who support gopher’s reform are very greedy.
Because if we want to change the public ownership economy, we must promote privatization. There is a group that sees the historical opportunity to seize national wealth. Their name is oligarchy.
A few years before the Gorbachev reform, privatization was not explicitly proposed. However, since we want to change the public ownership economy, we will eventually embark on the road of privatization and transfer the wealth originally belonging to the state to individuals.
The oligarchs lied that the employees of state-owned assets did not have a sense of ownership and enthusiasm, thus causing a huge waste of social wealth, so they had to be privatized. In this way, the huge state-owned assets of the Soviet Union became the personal assets of the oligarchs. However, the funny thing is that the economy has not improved at all.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy of most countries has remained stagnant in the past few decades. The total GDP of Russia can no longer match that of Guangdong Province in China. Among them, Ukraine is the most tragic country. The university admission rate is very high. Unfortunately, the more you muddle along, the poorer you become. Finally, I couldn’t help but want to turn to NATO to change my destiny, which eventually led to the war in Ukraine and the tragedy of fratricidal fratricide in East Slavia.
06 Magic 4, military reform
In terms of military size, the Soviet Union is perhaps the largest country in the history of the global village. In the Soviet Union at its peak, the tank cluster changed the color of the global village, and the nuclear arsenal was enough to destroy human civilization several times.
The Soviet Union’s “west-81” military exercise: it directly dispatched 500000 troops to conduct the largest military exercise in the history of mankind, and deduced the war sand table of “how to level Europe” in full view of the public.
Marshal Kulikov, who planned the exercise, said: “Central Europe is economically developed and densely populated. For western countries, its strategic position is particularly important.” The so-called central Europe is the Bode plain, the Elbe River and the Danube River Basin.
In other words, the strategic purpose of the Soviet Army’s exercise was to let its own torrent of steel flatten Europe and reproduce the magnificent scene of the third empire’s killing in Europe.
This is not bragging. We should know that this deterrence is based on the world’s First Army (more than 4 million soldiers, more than 50000 tanks and more than 60000 armored vehicles), the world’s first strategic rocket army, the world’s first nuclear arsenal stock (40000 at its peak), the world’s second air force and the second Navy.
Such a strong army originally did not need reform, but now that the country’s guiding ideology, political system and economic foundation have changed, even the strongest army has to fall apart.
Gore’s military reform routine also has a series of nice words, but the core part is that there is no political commissar.
Without political commissars, the Red Army would lose its soul.
The ideological work of the Russian army was replaced by Orthodox priests.
At the farewell ceremony of Gorbachev’s body, Putin crossed Gorbachev’s body, which actually means that Mrs. East Slav has returned from atheism to theism.
Gorbachev’s magic Quartet reform was completed, and he naively thought that he would lead the Soviet Union to Nirvana and rebirth; In fact, it completed the separation of the Soviet Union, which was once a superpower.
At the same time, other big countries in the global village all benefited a lot from Gorbachev’s separation from the Soviet Union.
07 profiteer
First, the United States reaped the greatest profits. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States reaped the huge wealth and human resources.
Second, Europe gains second, not only removing external threats, but also enjoying Russia’s cheap energy.
For this reason, the West spared no effort to praise Gorbachev. Whether it is true or false, at least enough beautiful words have been said.
Third, in China, the strategic pressure of the North has been relieved and a number of technical talents have been acquired; The most important point is to let China understand that gopher’s reform is tantamount to suicide.
Fourth, India took advantage of the devaluation of the ruble to pay off its foreign debt to the Soviet Union (although it was eventually cheated back by Russia).
It can be said that the Soviet Union sacrificed itself and helped others. The world crisis accumulated after World War II was resolved by the Soviet Union through self disintegration.
Now that the Soviet Union has disintegrated for more than 30 years, enough crises have accumulated in the world. At this time, the great power game has become white hot again. Everyone is thinking that a Gorbachev like figure will appear on the other side to resolve the crisis and help the world by sacrificing himself.
