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31COLLAPSE OF THE “SYSTEM”: SOME CAUSES AND EFFECTS
Gagik Harutyunyan’
More than 20 years have passed since the day (November 9, 1989) when the East German patrols guarding the symbol of the Cold War - the Berlin Wall, left their duty stations and Germany unified de-facto. The fragments of the fallen “wall” became hot selling souvenirs and thus, in a way they remained symbols but this time around, symbols of the new era. Two years later the USSR and the “socialist bloc” ceased to exist.
What happened was described as the “end of the Cold War”, “victory of democracy”, although characterizations like “geopolitical tragedy” or “civilizational collapse” are suggested as well. Nonetheless, the fall of the Berlin Wall ushered in a new era, which essentially differs from the previous one and used to be called “post-modernity”. It is not for nothing that the international community pompously celebrated the 20th anniversary of this event, with official events organized and wide discussions held in mass media and political scientists circles. Meanwhile, there have not been too many references to this topic in our information space.
Armenian realities. 20 years ago the “Berlin Wall” of ours ran across Lachin, and the unification and relative restoration of territorial integrity as a result of the war took place only in 1994, when an armistice was concluded. Ideas with mainly national and historical roots dominated the Armenian society. This added a certain peculiarity to the social and political developments ongoing then, which even so were in line with the logic of “socialist system” destruction and creation of the new world order. However, this period and the subsequent ones have not been fully studied so far, although there were some attempts made. To some extent, this was because of the transformation of Armenian SSR into the Third Republic, the country dropped out of the imperial scientific, educational and cultural space, which
* Executive Director of the ,,Noravank” Foundation.
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had to lead inevitably to its isolation and significant narrowing of the society’s horizons in general. Consequently, today we do not always adequately assess and sometimes do not even comprehend at all the phenomena that are out of our local perceptions.
In particular, the system changes occurred in the 90s of the last century are somewhat naively designated as just “gaining independence” and some researchers even suppose that Armenia was a colony of the USSR. Such a dubious approach is the legacy of the unpretentious Soviet social science concepts based on the methodology of permanent criticism of the British colonialism (and later on the criticism of the so-called neo-colonialism) by the Soviet propaganda.
The successor of the Russian Empire - the Soviet Union, with all its disadvantages and advantages, was a unique phenomenon and in fact, it was an immense geo-ideological project. In the context of these realities, the comparisons with other imperial structures are not always appropriate, and this concerns not only the Eurasian/continental nature of the Soviet empire. The status, real rights and obligations of all the peoples of USSR (including Russians) and their administrative formations practically did not differ from each other. The same concerns the “socialist bloc” countries that formally were not part of the “parent state.” Moreover, as far as freedoms are concerned, things were much better in those so-called “vassal” countries. Furthermore, as a result of such system some nations (especially those in the Asian part of the USSR) acquired writing systems, literature and modern culture; universities, branches of the Academy of Sciences, operas and philharmonic orchestras were established in the autonomous republics and regions, and this played a key role in their development.
As for Armenia, it should be mentioned that despite the severe ordeals it had go through along with the other nations of USSR (repressions, ignoring and falsifying national and historical issues, etc.), the Soviet years had also been an important phase for us from the standpoint of scientific and technological, and spiritual and cultural development.
The list of the misconceptions about the Soviet past may go on and on, but let us mention that they are not always the legacy of the Soviet past, where the officious stereotypes prevailed in the field of humanities. Today, one may clearly observe the tendencies of manipulating the national memory that point to application of the modern technologies for informational and ontological warfare and nation building.
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Consequently, the mass media depict the Soviet period mainly in “tragic” or “ironical” tones, and call for getting out of “clutches of the past”. The form, spirit and “black-and-white” approaches seen in these materials conspicuously “made for export” interestingly resemble the much-criticized Bolshevik “agitprop”.
At the same time, attempts are currently made to analyze our recent history in a more complex manner: some interesting research works and memoires are published. However, because of the small print run volumes of such a literature, the absence of appropriate PR(which is a necessary condition today) and the partial loss of the “books culture” and reading in general, these studies hardly scratch the surface of the informational space and make no imprints in the consciousness of the society, particularly, the youth.
The considerations brought herein do not imply at all creation of a Stalin-style “History of the All-Union Communist Party: Short Course”, where the definite assessment of the recent past would be given. The approaches may differ and even be mutually exclusive, but their existence would help forming elaborate conceptions in the society with regards to the pathway we walked through with a dignity. This is important not only from the cognitive standpoint; it is known that comprehending the continuity of one’s own history is one of the cornerstones for the national and informational security and national ideology. However, let us get back to the “Berlin Wall”.
The fall of the “Wall” is presented in many versions by mass media and expert literature over the last 20 years. Most of them are quite curious, but what they allow is just once again stating the fact that such a global phenomenon as the collapse of the “socialist bloc” was, could not have happened due to only one or even several factors.
“External factor՞. The main “external” cause for the “system” collapse was, of course, the coordinated and consistent military and political (the creation of the “black holes” consuming the resources of the Soviets in Latin America, Africa, Afghanistan and other “hot spots”), economic (like the exhausting “armaments race” and “star wars”, manipulations with the oil prices), informational and psychological (particularly, in the form of radio broadcastings that rather skillfully portrayed an irreproachable “image” for the West and the gloomy reality of the “socialist bloc”, through dissemination of “dissident” literature, etc.) struggle of the USA and its allies in the Cold War against the USSR and “socialist bloc”, which ended with the defeat of the latter. At the same time, some historiographic circles often interpret the col-
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lapse of the system exclusively as a result of the activities of western intelligence services during Perestroika and political and economic “agents of influence” enlisted by them. It has to be mentioned that many reprehensible actions in the post-Soviet period are also attributed to those “agents of influence.”
These observations, often confirmed by documents, suggest that the intelligence services indeed played an important role in the “collapse”. There are evidences that not only ordinary citizens but also some high-ranking Soviet leaders acted against the USSR and in the interests of the US. Particularly, the so-called “Gold-laden donkey”1 technology was efficiently used, which implies bribing and orienting the political figures in the needed direction. One may assume that the aforementioned methods of the external influence were then, of course to a much smaller scale, used in “Armenian developments”, and it cannot be precluded that such techniques are used today as well.
In the context of aforementioned, the public statements by the western officials to the effect that the processes of those years were a “surprise” to them sound unconvincing: at the meetings where no mass media are present, they express quite different views. For example, in 1995 the US president Bill Clinton stated at a closed meeting of the chiefs of staff that: “the policy carried out over the recent decade against the USSR pursuing the destruction of one of the strongest world powers had proved right ... Taking advantage of the Soviet diplomacy mistakes, unwarranted self-confidence of Gorbachev and his circle, including those who had taken a visibly pro-American stance, we achieved what the US president Truman wanted to do using the atomic bomb [1].
At the same time it should be recognized that the US and its allies acted in their national interests and accusations against the West might be understandable from the emotional point of view, but they are not compelling at all: the “hypothetical enemy” acted in a spirit of the Cold War and used the methods accepted in that war. It is also very important that these actions resonated with the Soviet society. Part of the so-called “agents of influence” acted in a way, out of “ideological considerations” and sincerely believed that the existing system had to be changed by any means, because it would be for the good of the country. However, the notions of “motherland” and “undesirable political system” were evened in the 1 * * * * 6
1 This expression is credited to Philip of Macedon who once said that for capturing cities few armies were as power-
ful as a single donkey laden with bags of gold. Such technology called “Gold-laden donkey” in the expert and jour-
nalist circles, and which existed during the whole history of humankind, has been “legitimized” and essentially im-
proved nowadays (particularly, considering the great number of “grant” programs and capabilities of the modern
banking system). It plays an important and legitimate role in not only the concepts of the intelligence services, but also in military and political, diplomatic and information spheres of some world powers.
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meanwhile, as it had happened with the Russian social democrats on the eve of the 1917 October revolution, with all the ensuing consequences. Thus, apparently there were also “internal” preconditions for the system collapse.
“Internal factor”. The Soviet system was established in a result of revolutionary violence, and the “terror” against own people based on different motives or without any had lasted for about 36 years (1917-1953), till the death of Stalin. According to the data from the Commission on Rehabilitation of the Political Repression Victims under the president of the Russian Federation, the number of these victims totals to about 32 million people, of which 13 million are the casualties of the Civil War, and part of the huge number of victims in the Great Patriotic War (30 million) can be attributed to the “peculiarities” of the totalitarian regime1. Not only “human resource” or “human capital” fell victim of the terror; huge strata of the spiritual/ intellectual and cultural values, as well as material ones created over the centuries in the multi-national Russian Empire were destroyed.
It is known that in the post-Stalin period the “system” just became somewhat softer and the “national” and “human” factors still had not been regarded of any particular value. The “Perestroika” allowed the entire Soviet society, as well as the population of the republics with national problems, to express their protests accumulated over decades. The policy of “Perestroika” carried out by the Communist party high-ranking functionaries, or at least by some of them, had also been a peculiar form of dissatisfaction with the system.
That very dissatisfaction and buildup of the critical mass of those who protested against the “system”, in interaction with the “external” influence in line with the Cold War recipes, destroyed the “socialist bloc”. Let us also mention that the collapse occurred when the information revolution began: under the new realities, it was impossible to imagine the existence of an isolated systems sized 1/6 of the planet, as the USSR was. In addition, it is not unconceivable that had the “system” survived till the Internet age, the collapse scenario might have followed a smoother pattern, since the “protesting masses” would have not had abstract perceptions about the surrounding world, but rather more realistic ones.
Society out side the system. It is known that even in the “not free” states the creative communities find their forms of self-expression. In our case, this was facilitated by the fact that the idea of creating a strong Soviet power and stressing * 7
1 See http://www.lenta.ru/russia/2001/10/29/yakovlev/. It has to be mentioned that the conclusions of the commission suggest that the number of the victims might be incomplete.
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the ideological factor necessitated the communist leadership to create an integral, developed and large-scale military/industrial, scientific/educational and cultural complex. Consequently, the USSR (and later on its allies too1) turned into a country with highly developed science, technologies and culture on the basis of which a new, Soviet intelligentsia bearing deep knowledge and spiritual values had come into being. Taking advantage of Khrushchev’s “Thaw” and partial reforms, the said creative elite seemed to have assumed the role of Soviet people’s spiritual leader to some extent.
For the considerable part of the society, the words of the reputable scientists and writers, successful books and films were much more important than the speeches of the communist party leaders or the theses of their party congresses. The “dissident”1 2 * * * * * 8 and national movements gained some significance: in spite of the repressions, many people disseminated and read the so-called “Samizdat (self-published books) or “ Tamizdat” (foreign-published books). Remarkably, the formerly condem-nable system of values and its bearer - the Soviet person (Homo Sovieticus), the hero of many jokes, unlike today's Homo Economicus, has a rather high rating today. For instance, both in Armenia and in Russia some clergymen presently consider that the citizens of the atheist USSR very often stood much closer to the true Christian values and ideas than those who live amid the current “freedom of conscience and religion” and follow the religious rites. In this context one may say that following the “Perestroika” slogan borrowed from A. Chekhov “to squeeze the slave’s blood out of oneself”, the post-Soviet society along with that “squeezed out” some rather precious qualities, too.
Nevertheless, the political perception of the “protesting” part of the Soviet society at the same time was more than naive and guileless. The idealized “free world” seemed to be the only alternative to the communist regime and even the slightest sign of distrust towards the “West” was interpreted as a manifestation of the official propaganda or, at the very least, a delusion. The understanding, that the western
1 These realities reflect in the fact that some countries of the “socialist bloc” despite economically lagging behind their “developed capitalist” neighbours, outperformed them in social and health indices and by some other criteria.
2 Interestingly, according to the Russian political scientists Sergei Kurginyan and Alexander Dugin the “dissident”
movement in the USSR was managed by KGB, because the Committee was not satisfied by the “system” (Al. Dugin
qualified KGB as an “Atlantic order” in the USSR). It is known that in the world practice the collaboration between
special services and anti-state organizations is not an extraordinary phenomenon. Moreover, the intelligence ser-
vices, as a rule, are much better aware of the situation in the country and from this point of view KGBshould have
forecast back in 1970s that the “system” is degenerating and losing to the West. This, as well as certain collaboration between the elite of the “dissident movement” and the higher echelons of KGBdoes not sound as something fantastic. On the other hand, it would be definitely an exaggeration to think that KGB managed the dissident movement and this was the main reason for the collapse of the USSR, as S. Kurginyan and Al. Dugin believe.
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model is also a system of a sort with harshness of not a lesser degree, came later. It is characteristic that only very few Soviet “dissidents” openly admitted that: most probably for many of them such an acknowledgment implied revision and reconsideration of their own views, which perhaps, was hard from psychological standpoint1.
Effects and possible prospects. The collapse of USSR and the “socialist bloc” took place in the classical revolution mode with all the ensuing negative consequences: ethnic conflicts, refugees and street children, crime rates increase, management system collapse, decline of economy and living standards (markedly, even up till now the GDPs of some post-Soviet republics have not reached their Soviet period levels), destruction of scientific, industrial and cultural infrastructure (specifically, in Armenia the science is currently financed 30 times as little as it was 20 years ago), impoverishment and, most importantly, demoralization of the society. In this context it is worth noting that in 1990-1995 the annual print run of magazines dropped about 17 times [2]. In Armenia, the decrease in the number of bookstores reflects the dwindling interest to literature: presently there are only a few bookstores in Yerevan, whereas at a time there were dozens of them. As for the political aspect, it turned out that the geopolitical confrontation was still going on and very soon after the First Cold War, the Second Cold War broke out, which was a more sophisticated (particularly, in the informational area) and dangerous one in many aspects [3].
It could be stated that the “Perestroika”, organized as a very much Soviet style event, was one of the gravest crimes committed by the communist high-ranking functionaries. Undoubtedly, the reforms could have been carried out in a more thoughtful manner as to prevent losing yet another time the “human capital”, the huge spiritual, intellectual and material values and the potential accumulated over the decades of the Soviet rule. It is known that Armenia did not avoid this either.
At the same time, the fall of the “socialism” had its certain negative effects on the victorious “free world”, too. It hard to argue with the Western researchers (including the renowned scholar Immanuel Wallerstein) who contend that the absence of the competition between the systems in the post-Soviet realities in some sense corrupted the West and led to the “post-modernist” permissiveness. * 9
1 Professor Alexander Zinovyev (1922-2006) holds a special place among them. He was banished from the USSR in 1978 for his book “The Yawning Heights.” Upon returning to the “new” Russia he publicly criticized the disadvantages of the “western system” and published fundamental scientific works devoted to this issue.
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Remarkably, a new “dissident” movement is emerging in the modern, almost globally “democratic”, but at the same time not so “free” world. Very often, these modern dissidents are the representatives of intelligentsia who have rather high positions in the society (as A. Sakharov or Al. Zinovyev used to have), and sometimes are even state officials or political figures. Interestingly, in the political and ideological arena socialist postulates has been activated again, though in a new edition. What happens can be conditionally called “post-modern” style convergence1 processes, when in the absence of the actual “socialist system” the interaction occurs at the ideological, or in a way, virtual level. All of this comes to prove that the “system collapse” phenomena can recur later, and this time this might reach a more global scale.
January, 2010
Reference Sources and Literature
1. В.Л. Ченгаев, С.В.Баленко, Условия возникновения вооруженных конфликтов в 21-м веке на территории РФ и возможный их характер в период обострения военнополитической обстановки, «Военнаямысль», #9, с. 2, 2009
2. Дубин Б, Pro et Contra. Т.13, # 1, с.6, 2009.
3. Г. Тер — Арутюнянц, Холодная война - 2, Голос Армении, 04.12.2003, Г Тер — Арутю-нянц, Многополярная и асимметричная Холодная война, Вестник Академии Военных наук, #4(21), с.23. 2007.
1 According to the convergence theory which appeared in the 1960s (John Galbraith, Pitirim Sorokin and others) a kind of conceptual convergence, counter motion took place between the socialist and liberal systems. As a result, in the USA the system of governmental planning developed, whereas in the USSR — the approach of gaining profit from economic activity.
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