From the time when Soviet Union was founded in 1922, Communist henchmen thought of it as simply a tool of spreading Communism across the Globe. Soviet coat of arms featured sickle and hammer over the Earth and Soviet Constitution openly stated that it was only the matter of time, before the rest of world’s countries would join “workers’ paradise” as Soviet republics. Therefore, USSR could not enjoy vitality for as long as it was expanding. When after the end of WW2 it stopped expanding, it began collapsing internally. Thus, the whole post-war period in Russia’s history can be described as essentially the period of stagnation. This stagnation was due top failed political agenda. After coming to power, Khrushchev strived to slightly liberalize public life in Soviet Union, without understanding that Liberal principles and ideology of Communism are simply irreconcilable. What Khrushchev did to Soviet Union from 1957 to 1964, can be compared to what students do to dead frogs, during anatomy classes, while putting electrical currents through frog’s legs, thus causing them to move. He wanted to revitalize something that could not be revitalized by definition.
Khrushchev needed Western Democracies to begin thinking of USSR not as bloody Communist dictatorship, which used to be the case prior to 1939,, but as “main contributor to the defeat of Nazism”. This is the reason why Soviet official ideology, after the end of WW2, became essentially opposite to what it originally used to be. Given the fact that USSR had failed at reaching its geopolitical agenda, it became only the matter of time, before it would cease to exist. From 1964 onwards, after Brezhnev came to power, Soviet Union had stopped progressing scientifically and culturally altogether, while being turned into essentially a natural resources’ colony. Once prices for oil had dropped in eighties, Soviet Union simply could no longer exist; therefore, its collapse in 1991 cannot be exclusively blamed on Gorbachev, as many people in Russia do, but on the very essence of Communist ideology.
Today’s Russia is nothing but a miniature model of Soviet Union. Russia’s elite consists of former KGB high officials and oligarchs (former Communists), who were able to enrich themselves immensely on suffering of ordinary Russians. However, after having learned a lesson of Soviet Union, which had peacefully ceased to exist in 1991, because everybody in this country (including Soviet officials) hated it with utter passion, today’s Russian elite wants to prevent the same thing happening to Russian Federation, by instilling ordinary Russians with the sense of “imperial pride”. This is why the old myths of “great patriotic war” and of “Russia’s unilateral role in defeating the Nazism” are now being again jammed down ordinary citizens’ throats. This is why Russia had attacked Georgia in 2008, while violating the most basic international laws and this is why it will continue to escalate international tensions in future.
Bibliography
Suvorov, V. 1990. “Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?”. London: Viking Press.