If an ordinary average person who survived the second half of the eighties at a conscious age is asked to briefly describe this time today, then in most cases you can hear something like “perestroika is horror and shame”. Naturally, a young person born (or not yet) in those years needs a more detailed story.
The story of Gorbachev
Perestroika of Gorbachev (namely, he coined the term, although he might not have coined it himself), started in early 1987. What happened earlier, after his election to the post of General Secretary, was called acceleration. And before that stagnation reigned in the country. And even earlier there was voluntarism. And in front of him is the cult of personality. Here before Stalinism there was a spot, presented against the background of all the abuses of subsequent decades, bright. This is NEP.
That is how, since the end of the eighties, the history of the USSR was imagined by the majority of Soviet people. Numerous articles published in popular publications (Ogonyok, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Arguments and Facts, and many others) contributed to this vision. Previously banned literary works appeared on the shelves, for the possession of which a few years ago it was possible to make a lot of trouble, and they were swept away in no time. Our country was the most read in the world before, and after 1987, the popularity of books and newspapers broke all world records of the past (alas, it is possible that of the future).
Vestiges of the past
Of course, all these sources of knowledge about the history of their native country, with their enormous revelatory power, should not have shaken the firm faith of Soviet people in the highest justice of socialist society and its ultimate goal - communism. M. S. Gorbachev and his associates in the Politburo were aware of the regrettable fact that, due to low efficiency, a substantial restructuring is required for agriculture and industry. The economy skidded, many enterprises were not profitable, but rather costly, the number of "collective farms-millionaires" increased (in the amount of debt to the state), the simplest household items became scarce, and the food situation was not good either. The young general secretary understood that he had a certain credit of trust, because for so many decades everything had been done wrong, so you need to be patient for some time. As it turned out later, the years of perestroika dragged on a little. Then no one could foresee this.
Acceleration and Cooperatives
The update course itself was definitely needed. For the first couple of years, it was believed that the direction was taken correctly, and "there is no alternative, comrades," you just need to move along it faster. This led to the name of the first stage from which perestroika began. The history of the NEP suggested that if some areas of the economy are transferred to private hands, then shifts are almost guaranteed. In the twenties, the country quickly defeated the devastation and famine, helped from somewhere undertooking entrepreneurial and active owners. An attempt to repeat these achievements after sixty years led to a not quite identical result. The cooperators became a touchstone in the creation of a new class of Soviet capitalists. They filled certain segments of the domestic market, while the most successful ones also swung to the external, but they could not get the whole economy off the ground. Therefore, the assertion that perestroika is a repetition of a new economic policy has no foundation. GNP growth has not occurred. Quite the contrary.
Frames
In 1986, almost no one remembered acceleration (about which they joked that it used to be just "tyap-blunder", and now "tyap-tyap-blunder-blunder"). New structural measures were required, and this leadership of the country began to feel even earlier. New faces appeared instead of the retired party mastodons, but Gorbachev did not refuse from the old cadres, who had a reputation of “advanced intellectuals”. E. Shevardnadze began to chair the Supreme Council, N. Ryzhkov took the chair of the presidential council, the party’s Moscow city committee was led by B. Yeltsin, a little-known then rapidly gaining popularity. A. Lukyanov and A. Yakovlev entered the Politburo, having made a dizzying career. It seemed that success was ensured with such a team ...
What was the way out
So, the main problems seemed to be identified. Step forward must be more decisive, bolder. M. S. Gorbachev himself, with his eloquence characteristic of him, explained to the “ordinary people” crowding around him that perestroika is when everyone does his own thing. A natural question arose: what did everyone do before 1985? But experienced Soviet citizens did not ask him.
As in the days preceding industrialization, the USSR felt a lack of development of mechanical engineering. The 1985 Plenum set the goal of industrial production growth by 70%. By the nineties, a breakthrough to the world level was planned, quantitative and qualitative. Personnel and resources for this were. Why didn't this happen?
XXVII Congress and its correct decisions
In 1986, the 27th CPSU Congress was held, the work of which - in fact, and not just according to the newspaper propaganda stamp - was monitored by the whole country. The delegates supported the adoption of a revolutionary law expanding the rights of labor collectives, who could now elect directors, regulate salaries, and decide for themselves what products to produce in order to get the most benefit. These were such reforms of perestroika that the working people could not even dream of recently. Based on social changes, it was planned to effectively use the state potential in order to increase the productivity of the economy by 150%. It was proclaimed that by 2000 all Soviet families would live in separate apartments. The people rejoiced, but ... prematurely. The system still did not work.
Economic socialism
Two years have passed since perestroika began. Gorbachev, obviously, began to torment doubts about the correctness of the very direction in which the country was moving. Many years later, already in 1999, speaking in Turkey at a seminar conducted by the American University, he would call himself a staunch anti-communist who had been fighting for the triumph of democracy all his life. In a sense, he may be right, but today it is difficult to assess the appropriateness of his actions in 1987. Then he talked about something completely different, blaming the mysterious representatives of the “command and administrative system” and the no less mysterious mechanisms that slow down everything. Nevertheless, it was precisely in the second (and last) period of perestroika that the crown of impeccability was removed from socialism and systemic vices were discovered (quite unexpectedly). It turns out that everything was planned well (by Lenin), but in the thirties it was greatly distorted. The concept of economic socialism arose, as opposed to the stupid party administration. The theoretical justification was provided by articles by professors and academicians L. Abalkin, G. Popov, N. Shmelev and P. Bunich. On paper, again everything went smoothly, and in practice the usual socialist self-financing was preached.
Nineteenth Party Conference
In 1988, the last line of defense of party-nomenclature omnipotence was surrendered. Civil society and the limitation of the influence of the CPSU on state and economic processes, the empowerment of councils with independence in decision-making, were declared the goal to which we should strive. Discussions arose, and despite the revolutionary approach, it turned out that these tasks again had to be solved under the leadership of the party. Just because there was no other driving force. The delegates decided on that, supporting Gorbachev wholeheartedly. It seemed that the previous years of perestroika were spent uselessly, but this is not so. The consequences were, they concerned the composition of the Soviets, in which a third of the deputies now represented public organizations.
Material crisis, spiritual crisis
After the conference, something resembling a split in the RSDLP happened. The party has its own democrats and radicals, representing irreconcilable ideological trends. Meanwhile, the country, accustomed to peace and stability, became agitated. Educated on communist ideas, representatives of the older generation painfully perceived the collapse of their ideas about a just society. Mature people, accustomed to social guarantees and respect for their labor achievements, experienced material difficulties, exacerbated by the apparent financial superiority of cooperators - people who are often ignorant and rude. Young people during the perestroika period also felt a spiritual crisis, seeing that the education received by their parents did not guarantee a decent life. The foundations were crumbling.
Someone is losing, but someone is finding
The destruction of the dominant ideology, regardless of how close it is to universal human values, is always accompanied by large-scale associated phenomena, most often extremely difficult to tolerate by most of the population. Strikes of industrial workers and miners began. Food and consumer crises arose unpredictably, tea, cigarettes with cigarettes, sugar, soap disappeared from the shelves ... At the same time, perestroika in the USSR made it possible for the owners of some posts to get rich. Briefly, it can be described as the period of initial accumulation. The state monopoly on foreign trade was the victim of democratic transformations, people who had experience in foreign markets and had the necessary connections, immediately took advantage of their potentials. A great opportunity was given by loans. Soviet banknotes were rapidly losing their useful qualities, it was not difficult to repay debts, investing the amounts received in almost any product. Credited, however, not all. And not for nothing. But these are trifles ...
About the national question
Not only impoverishment, but also bloody events marked the period of perestroika. The USSR was bursting at the seams from serious ethnic conflicts in the Baltic States, Ferghana Valley, Sumgait, Baku, Nagorno-Karabakh, Osh, Chisinau, Tbilisi and other geographical points of the more recently friendly Union. Massively created "popular fronts", called differently, but having the same nationalist root. Demonstrations, rallies and other acts of civil disobedience overwhelmed the country, the actions of the authorities were tough, but they were guessed by the weakness of the authority of the leadership and its inability for a long-term military confrontation. The perestroika of 1985-1991 caused the collapse of the Union into separate national state formations, often hostile to each other.
Five hundred days ... or need more?
By 1990, two main concepts of further development were dominant in the economic horizon. The first, one of the authors of which was G. Yavlinsky, implied almost instantaneous (over five hundred days) privatization and the transition to capitalism, which, as it seemed then to almost everyone, was far more progressive than socialism that had become obsolete. The second option was proposed by the less radical Pavlov and Ryzhkov, and provided for a smooth movement to the market with a phased release of administrative state constraints. So, gradually raising prices, the country's leadership began to act. However, it turned out that such a slow movement has a destructive effect.
The putsch - unexpected and inevitable
In the same 1990, Soviet citizens suddenly appeared president. This has not happened in the history of the state — both tsarist and Soviet. And in June, Russia declared its independence, and now Gorbachev could lead in the USSR anywhere, but not in Moscow, where Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, chairman of the Armed Forces, became the master. Mikhail Sergeyevich, of course, did not move out of the Kremlin, but the conflict arose and continued until the very end of the USSR.
The referendum in March 1991 showed two important things. Firstly, it became clear that the majority of Soviet citizens (over 76%) want to live in one big country. Secondly, they can easily be persuaded to change their minds, but this turned out a little later.
After the collapse of the union state (which means the USSR without Russia?), The new subjects of international law began to prepare an association, for which they assembled a committee in Novo-Ogaryovo. In June, Yeltsin won the election, becoming the first Russian president. He was supposed to sign the union treaty on August 20. But then there was a putsch, literally a day earlier. Then there were three days, full of excitement, the release of Gorbachev, who was languishing in Foros, and much more was different, different and not always pleasant.
So the restructuring ended. It was inevitable.