The Fall of the Soviet Union

[Bot]

A discovery Channel Documentary.

 

[pmaitra]

'I fought for USSR, but failed': RT talks to Mikhail Gorbachev

[h=1]'I fought for USSR, but failed': RT talks to Mikhail Gorbachev[/h]

 

[Ray]

Gorbachev was an idiot and Yeltsin a drunk!

 

[civfanatic]

One of the saddest days in human history, IMO. It was a great country, though it had flaws like any other state.

Personally, I always remember the USSR for its friendly assistance to India when we were still a young republic, for showing that humanity's potential is limitless by opening the world to the Space Age, and for the noble idealism (dampened though it was by tragic reality) on which it was born.

Slava CCCP!

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Indian Flag is upside down..

 

[amoy]

Many of my father's books on architecture were translated from CCCP.

"We'll be living in apartments like in Soviet Union someday with electricity and telephones", such remarks are available in older generations' reminiscence back in 1960s, and "Today of Soviet Union will be tomorrow of China" alike. The significance of its fall IMO includes loss of an alternative development model.

Ironically on the basis of its collapse China's defense industry got modernized - hundreds (or thousands) of Russian/Ukrainian scientists were invited to work for China, by Premier Li Peng, who earned his engineering degree from FSU.

 

[Param]

One of the saddest days in human history, IMO. It was a great country, though it had flaws like any other state.

Personally, I always remember the USSR for its friendly assistance to India when we were still a young republic, for showing that humanity's potential is limitless by opening the world to the Space Age, and for the noble idealism (dampened though it was by tragic reality) on which it was born.

Slava CCCP!

In a way the collapse of the SU was good for India in the long run.It was not much of a match for the US though it tried really hard.
Otherwise today Pakistan would have been a much more formidable enemy US backing it. Besides we would have still been in the pre liberalisation era and lost out on a lot of economic growth.

I just hate the stupid Bhai Bhai slogans.

 

[pmaitra]

Good or bad, better than US or not, the USSR was indeed a great friend India had, at the times when she needed her most. Young, inexperienced, nascent and vulnerable India learnt plenty from the USSR who stood there like a benevolent and protective elder brother.

India got access to a lot of technology that no other country was willing to share. What is the point in arguing the Soviets were good but the US is better, which of course is not true in many cases. The best that India was able to get was from the USSR, hence, for us that is what matters.

 

[pmaitra]

Hindi Rusi Bye-Bye (not Bhai-Bhai)

I just hate the stupid Bhai Bhai slogans.

Here are some interesting articles:

Hindi Rusi Bye-Bye
​

The famous expression "Hindi Rusi bhai-bhai" ("Indians and Russians are brothers") has become so hackneyed that its true meaning dissolved due to frequent usage.

Meanwhile, its true sense during several decades (while the USSR which opposed China and the U.S. existed, while India's worst enemy, Pakistan, was the main foothold of the imperialistic West in the region) was as follows. In the economic sphere, the USSR was in fact the only supplier of weapons for India. In the political sphere, -- nearly the only strategic ally whose position India always supported, regardless of circumstances.

If we recall just that side of the relations between the two countries, the failure of yesterday's Russia-India summit seems unexpected and even shocking. Yet, the core of the problem is that the relations went far away from where they were in the 1970s-1980s, while the old signboard about "bhai-bhai" remained. Abscess has been gathering since long ago, and had to burst sooner or later.

We do not let ourselves forget the USSR no longer exists. Yet, we also do not want to notice there no longer exists that India which was just 20-30 years ago. Modern India is a power that loudly proclaimed its leadership ambitions. Leadership in the region, naturally. However, India's ambitions stretch much farther.

The content of the bilateral foreign trade relations has changed as well. India still buys weapons from Russia, and this article prevails in the turnover. However, India's approach to the issue has changed long ago. In fact, this country buys just 'hardware' from Russia, and prefers looking for high-tech filling elsewhere. Moreover, India bargains desperately in the 'hardware' deals. For instance, India bargained fiercely when knocking down the price of Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carries, bought it for a price of scrap metal, and the deal's fate is still in question. It is not important here which is of primary value: the quality of Russian weapons, the price-quality ratio which dissatisfies India, or the striving to diversify supplies.

Anyway, Russia traditionally expects India to fully support any of its initiatives on the global agenda. India does not always do it, which every time offends theKremlin and Smolenskaya Square.

The ambition to look upon the world through the "bhai-bhai" prism and expect the same from a partner has other flaws as well. Thus, Russia has been refusing for many years to supply weapons to Pakistan, afraid to offend India. Meanwhile, India strengthened strategic relations with the U.S., which had once armed and equipped its worst enemy, and now is not in a hurry to give up their strategic alliance.

So, not finding new allies in the important region of South Asia, Russia risks loosing what it had. Who knows, perhaps the "bhai-bhai" expression will soon sound in a new way, as "Hindi Rusi bye-bye".

Boris Volkhonsky, observer​

Hindi Rusi Bye-Bye - Kommersant Moscow

Monday, Dec. 12, 1955
COMMUNISTS: Bhai Bhai in India

Starvation, squalor, teeming restlessness and ill-concealed resentment haunt the alleys and byways of refugee-swollen Calcutta, India's biggest (pop. circa 7,000,000) and most turbulent city. There last week, in greater numbers than ever, hysterically cheering Indians turned out to greet the touring missionaries of Muscovite good will, bulletheaded Communist Party Chief Nikita Khrushchev and his straight man, Soviet Premier Bulganin. Streets along the line of entry were scrubbed and decorated with triumphal arches; the city's swarming sacred cows had been driven into back alleys, and red flags fluttered on every side.
For hours before the Russians arrived, a crowd estimated at more than 2,000,000 jammed the center of the city. Only a comparative handful were within viewing distance when at last Khrushchev, Bulganin and their host, West Bengal Chief Minister Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, showed up in an open Mercedes-Benz. At the intersection of two of Calcutta's big streets, the Russians waved their straw hats, and Khrushchev cried out in their own language: "Hindi Russi bhai bhai!" (Indians, Russians, brothers, brothers!). Instantly the crowd burst forward, shattering police lines and bamboo barricades to swarm over the car. Some clutched Bulganin's coat. Others seized Khrushchev's hands and arms. As the Indians piled their weight upon the Mercedes, it broke down. With police aid, the visitors pulled themselves clear of the clustering crowd and fought their way to a nearby police van. Behind them, the happy mob pulled the Mercedes apart. Safe at last from their frantic fans, the Russians sped on in the paddywagon to reach an official reception at Government House one hour late.
Genial Generalities. The reception in Calcutta provided the final crashing chord to a barnstorming tour which had succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of any campaigning vote-seeker. But while Moscow's good-will ambassadors swelled with complacency at the air of universal approval surrounding them, their Indian hosts had begun to entertain some sober second thoughts. Bursting with genial, jocular generalities all along the line of march, the fun-loving Red Rover Boys had progressively proved more and more forgetful of the fact that Nehru's India still hugs a determined neutralism close to its heart. In one breath they decried the West's preoccupation with H-bombs; in another, they boasted loudly of their own recent experiments with the same weapons—never pausing to reflect that to Indians, all hydrogen is deplorable in fissionable form. They cheerfully compared Gandhi to Lenin, which takes some doing. Khrushchev also, fantastically, proclaimed: "The English, French and Americans started the Second World War and sent new troops against our country—the troops of Hitlerite Germany."
This was going too far. Among those severely pained were the British, who as former rulers of India and Burma were Khrushchev's chief target. Many an indignant Briton demanded that his country cancel its invitation for Bulganin and Khrushchev to visit Britain in the spring, and cartoonists had a field day anticipating the event. In Calcutta itself, Premier Nehru felt constrained to remind his guests: "Twenty centuries ago Asoka told us that a person who extols his own faith and decries another's injures his own faith. We try to be friendly with all countries. We refrain from criticizing, even when we disagree." As if to prove that the Khrushchev-Bulganin politicking had not been all in vain, however, Pandit Nehru added musingly: "It is strange, though, that while one bloc is speaking of peace, another is thinking in terms of war and military alliances."
Misgivings. The Russian visit, said the Times of India, "carries its own warning to us. There is danger not only of the Indian message being distorted in global eyes but of our own people being carried away on a tidal wave of mistaken exuberance. By all means let us return courtesy for courtesy, but not to the point of letting the guest edge the host out of his own mansion. When our Parliament is converted into a pulpit from which guests attack countries with whom we have no basic quarrel, it is time to be more than slightly wary."
Did Jawaharlal Nehru share these misgivings? Those Americans who are his partisans, such as ex-Ambassador Chester Bowles, make much of the argument that, for all his annoying idiosyncrasies, Nehru is engaged in a great trial of systems with Communist China: both struggling to raise the living standards of a vast, poor and untutored people; both required to make bold use of large-scale planning, but Nehru alone handicapped because, as a democrat, he has elected to deny himself the power of coercion. If this is the case, Nehru's position requires him ever to point the contrast, constantly to show his 360 million people that his way is different and has no need for vast slave camps. Instead, Nehru had invited the Kremlin bosses to India, declared public holidays for them, and decreed the biggest welcome any visitor to India ever got. He gave them platforms to spread their deception, and sponsored their attacks on all that free nations stand for.
It may take years to undo the mischief.

COMMUNISTS: Bhai Bhai in India -- Printout -- TIME

 

[A.V.]

In a way the collapse of the SU was good for India in the long run.It was not much of a match for the US though it tried really hard.
Otherwise today Pakistan would have been a much more formidable enemy US backing it. Besides we would have still been in the pre liberalisation era and lost out on a lot of economic growth.

I just hate the stupid Bhai Bhai slogans.

That's a complete wrong way in which the world would have worked, had a reformed USSR being in existence now the world would have been a better place .and also INDIA

 

[A.V.]

What do you guys think is the reason for its collapse and what should the lesson be ? i can go on pointing in this thread about a lot of facts still unknown by indians and deliberately not published by the west to hide the good deeds of the SU

 

[Tronic]

What do you guys think is the reason for its collapse and what should the lesson be ?

A whole host of reasons IMO, from economical collapse, to power hungry opportunists.

 

[A.V.]

Tronic , economy was main so was that , did you consider the religious aspects ? or did you consider the change in idealism , removing the idea of the ETERNAL SOVIET MAN

the main idea of collapse was the human factor which many dont count , HUMAN beings changed and it happened too soon to even take the jolt .

 

[A.V.]

[h=1]The straw that broke the Soviet Union's back[/h]

The June 1991 Russian presidential election was, arguably, the straw that broke the Soviet Union's back, even if its organizers had no such intention.
Yet perhaps it was also simply the logical conclusion of a clash that can be best described by the Russian saying "you can't have two bears in one den." In this case, it was two presidents in one country and, ultimately, even one city. In theory, it wouldn't have mattered who won: any president of the former RSFSR would have been hurled into an inevitable conflict with the president of the Soviet Union.
The only candidate with any real chance of winning in those days was Boris Yeltsin, who was already on a collision course with Mikhail Gorbachev, the first and last president of the Soviet Union. All the other candidates trailed far behind, with very little chance of making it to the runoff, and, in point of fact, they competed for votes much less with Yeltsin than amongst themselves.
But let us recall some of the other candidates who took part in that race, whether as a result of their own decision or someone else's encouragement, and see if there's something to be learned.
Competing amongst themselves
Nikolai Ryzhkov, a former Soviet prime minister who had retired from the post by the time of the elections, was expected to become Yeltsin's biggest challenger. As one of Gorbachev's men, he enjoyed the support of all those who wished to preserve the Soviet Union - although Yeltsin was hardly trying to break up the country.
Ex-Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin was another Gorbachev associate who ran in the election. Other contenders included Aman Tuleyev, then the chief government official of the Siberian region of Kemerovo, and General Albert Makashov, a member of the Soviet Union's parliament.
These four candidates were all similarly conventional, with only a few cosmetic differences.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, by contrast, was a new kid on the block. An emerging ultranationalist leader, he entered the race thanks largely to his idiosyncratic and inflammatory rhetoric. His participation was the only unexpected twist of that election campaign, and his finish in third place proved to be its only real sensation.
"We were well aware for whom that post was being created..."
The rest of the campaign went ahead as planned by Yeltsin's team. Their candidate won in the polls hands-down and with a wide margin. Such an outcome was surprising to few.
"Introducing the office of the President of the Russian Federation was an imperative impossible to ignore," Ilya Konstantinov, a former Russian MP, recalls. "This was something called for by the current political situation as well as by public sentiment. In a preceding March referendum, voters came out in favor of the preservation of the Soviet Union along with the establishment of the Russian presidency. We were well aware for whom that post was being created, and we knew that Russia's [first] president would be Yeltsin. He was a powerful, domineering man. A very strong leader. That's precisely what he was valued for. That was part of his charisma. "
Konstantinov became a vehement opponent of Yeltsin soon after the elections. But in his political analyses, he tries to avoid any bias.
At the time, the Russian Federation's new leadership already had its own television channel, which they would use proactively in Yeltsin's presidential campaign. But the man hardly needed any spin doctors to help him win the presidency. In contrast, his savvy choice of a running mate proved a welcome aid. The nominee, Colonel Alexander Rutskoi, Hero of the Soviet Union, an Afghan War veteran, had just declared the creation of a new parliamentary faction. Paradoxically called Communists for Democracy, it led to the split of the Communists of Russia, a group opposed to Yelstin.
Victim of the elections
Bringing Rutskoi onto the team helped broaden Yeltsin's support. Ryzhkov responded by taking on General Boris Gromov, the famous Afghan War veteran.
Rutskoi won the 1991 election as Yelstin's running mate, but his subsequent political career was not as successful as his competitors'.
Gromov and Tuleyev serve as governors to this day, and Ryzhkov is a member of parliament's upper house, the Federation Council, while Zhirinovsky is a deputy speaker at the State Duma, the federal legislature's lower chamber.
At one time, Rutskoi also served as a governor. He was made the leader of the Kursk Region after spending several months in a Moscow detention center on charges of instigating public unrest on October 3-4, 1993. Makashov was another politician charged in the case. Both men were subsequently pardoned by the State Duma.
In some sense, Rutskoi was a victim of the 1991 presidential vote. He found himself discarded shortly after he had performed his role as a campaign booster. The colonel-turned-general rebelled in response, and his rebellion led to the abolition of the Russian vice-presidency.
Yeltsin's political career, meanwhile, was quickly moving toward its culmination. The wide public support he enjoyed in the summer of 1991 declined over time, and his reelection five years later was a hard-won victory. But that is another story altogether...

The straw that broke the Soviet Union's back | Features & Opinion | RIA Novosti

 

[A.V.]

[h=1]The last will of the Soviet people[/h]
Here read this 74 percent people voted to kept the soviet union alive and they loved it , those who say that human beings were angry with the regime and the policies arnt true , majority of the citizens wanted the SU to stay and live .

the vote which was futile and never considered .

Twenty years ago, on March 17, 1991, the majority of Soviet citizens (76.4%) voted for the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Baltic republics, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova did not take part in the vote. This referendum was a unique occurrence in Soviet history: the Soviet authorities' desperate attempt to stop the country from disintegrating by appealing directly to the people.
Ironically, several months later it was the people's will that buried the USSR – on December 1, more than 90% of Ukrainians backed independence even though as recently as March over 70% had voted to retain the union state. With the secession of the second most important Soviet republic, the process had passed the point of no return and within a week the whole world learned that the Belovezhskaya Pushcha accords had been signed and the USSR was officially dissolved.

more here :- The last will of the Soviet people | Features & Opinion | RIA Novosti

 

[A.V.]

http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20110313/162959645.html

 

[pmaitra]

What do you guys think is the reason for its collapse and what should the lesson be ? i can go on pointing in this thread about a lot of facts still unknown by indians and deliberately not published by the west to hide the good deeds of the SU

A.V.,

Kindly share with us all you can about what happened in the USSR before its collapse, including the causes that are not heard of.

I have relatives in Russia, who migrated to the USSR before its collapse, but I would like to hear your story.

Thanks

 

[Blackwater]

but i heard soviet union fell under by Zahil hamid and his few good men

 

[pmaitra]

but i heard soviet union fell under by Zahil hamid and his few good men

That was what the Mujahideen and Taliban often bragged about before invading India (Kargil). 'We defeated the Russians, we'll defeat the Indians,' was their refrain, till they got their posteriors handed down to them.

The USSR collapsed due its own deficiencies.

 

[A.V.]

One of the things that i think is prominent :- the last 5 years of the SU

1. religious rules were revoked which made the people believe that the ideals of the SU they followed were wrong .

The supreme council that looked after the religious aspects were just made a body for consultation in 1991 , this is in direct conflict over the 70 years of soviet rule which made religion as a sign of weakness towards the idea of the SOVIET MAN .


2. Opening up the market for western big mncs likely macds and rest , they brought with them the baggage of the west . they could have opened up the market for europe just rather than the US .the issue was these big MACS were offered deals to get them dear killing whatever little was left of the domestic area, TILL TODAY 2 MACDS IN MOSCOW ARE ON A RENT OF ROUBLE 1 PER MONTH IN CENTRAL KREMLIN AREA . imagine they were given perks to get them there and showcase the gloss of the wet deliberately.