should be repeated. A huge country ruled 5—6, maybe 10 people – “Friends” of the General Secretary. This, of course, is much better than the single “leader” granted to the whims of his split psyche, but there is simply no one to correct these people, in case of their serious mistake, or, perhaps, even a direct betrayal of the interests of their country. Civil institutions, communities, most importantly, independent, speaking people, there is not (or the “security service” immediately takes them for the mentally ill). A similar system develops in science, art, and all branches of industry. Artistic councils do not allow creative groups to develop. KGB chief Yuri Andropov, for the sake of the “economic scouts” he loves, drives the groups of initiative masters into the awkward giant VNIITSEVT, makes mindlessly copy IBM 360; completely stopping all this development of domestic computers. In 1969, Americans make a global breakthrough: they create a computer network ARPANET, a connection between the scientific institutions of the United States, England… the entire developed Western world, the prototype of the modern Internet. In the USSR this epoch-making movement remains practically unnoticed.
And all that sort of thing.
Under Khrushchev, the five-million-strong Soviet Army and Navy are largely reduced. This is, of course, a good thing. However, officers are subject to unacceptable humiliations. Yes, they do not know how to do anything more often, often the colonial majors have to occupy very insignificant posts, up to the collective farm shepherd; but, after all, we understand that this is not the way to deal with people.
Under Leonid Brezhnev and his Friends, the Armed Forces of the USSR (not restrained, for example, awakened by the high consciousness of the people), and the military-industrial complex, take an excellent revenge. Armored vehicles are produced. Many, many tanks and armored personnel carriers. All of them are stored in vast fields, open-air, throughout the USSR, and there, without due maintenance and attention, gradually die. NATO countries focus on helicopters, air defense assets, guided missiles and other high-tech products; high mobility and efficiency. As practice showed, this decision is quite appropriate. So, in Afghanistan, the Soviet tanks T-64, T-72, (with a slight elevation of the gun, very vulnerable from above, gluttonous and overweight) did not make a special impression on the Mujahideen; while helicopters Mi-24 – more than.
Defense spending on the Internet, specific numbers, and not lengthy reasoning on a given topic, is rather difficult to find. The ratio of military spending in the general budget of opponents is somewhat trusting: the USSR – 18%, the USA – 6%.
The number of the Soviet Army is increasing, from 2 million in 1970 to 5.5 million in 1985. And, as we are now friends, a huge but not motivated military armada does not at all guarantee the security and integrity of the state. On the contrary, it only contributes to its disintegration in every possible way.
…Since 1964 the organization “Council for Mutual Economic Assistance” (CMEA) is coming to full capacity, uniting the most developed socialist countries of the world. The beginning of it, recall, believes the decision of Stalin (1949), as well as the actual reception for the maintenance of future satellites in 1945—1947. For example, only Romania (an agrarian country), a recent ally of Hitler’s Germany, who lost 0.5 million of its soldiers in the war (and contributed to the death of probably a comparable number of Soviet soldiers), gratuitously received 480,000 tons of wheat and corn. During the same period, at least 800,000 people died of starvation in the Soviet Union, mostly collective farmers and (not having any allowances) disabled veterans of the war.
The continuation of the CMEA, in general, corresponds to its beginning. The currency of the organization is the so-called transfer (non-cash) ruble. Money that can not be cashed, presented in the form of a ringing coin or a crispy note – are dead. Moreover, despite the national name; “The ruble”, the USSR in principle does not have the ability to print these banknotes so much as to pay off all debts, and buy in the CMEA member countries as much as they put up for sale. In this, the monetary policy of the Soviet Union is radically different from that in the United States. The American Fed produces exactly that, live money – gray-green dollars, which, despite their theoretical lack of gold, you can touch, hide in your pocket, pay for a tank of gasoline, or, say, big poppy. The countries – the satellites of the USA, and not only, greedily buy up these material banknotes, enter into the internal circulation, pay off among themselves, and with the whole world. Not quite honest, but more than effective. Rothschilds, Rockefellers, senators and presidents … the whole American nation understands that buddies who are constantly sitting on their neck, feeling themselves in debt, will betray you at any convenient moment.
…In 1965, the USSR gave Poland licenses, a full cycle of production of the most popular aircraft AN-2 and Mi-2 helicopters. Of course, this is just one of a great many examples of not mutually beneficial cooperation. Most of the industrial production, transport, power capacity in the Eastern Bloc (Warsaw Pact, CMEA) was established by the Soviet Union. The essential difference between the organization of the Warsaw Pact (from 1955) and NATO, incidentally, is that a significant share of common arms is produced by Western European countries. This is their contribution to the North Atlantic Alliance… which can be replaced by resources, or simply (live) money. In the Eastern bloc, weapons for almost 8 million soldiers supply the industrial capacities of the Soviet Union. Or, the USSR has to purchase these weapons – paying, for example, for the Mi-2 mentioned above, with transferable (provided by real goods and resources) rubles to the socialist Poland. The assessment of general assistance to Cuba, the DPRK, China, Iraq, India, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Algeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Albania, Nicaragua and other non-European socialist (or simply “friendly”) countries is difficult, but on the basis of some data the number of “400 billion not devalued dollars” seems plausible. In order, at least approximately, to convert this amount into its modern equivalent, it is necessary to multiply 0.4 trillion by 4. And still, it would be somehow tolerable if from this donation there appeared at least some economic, even if only moral return. “Who feeds the girl at the restaurant, he dances with her” – this widely known, psychologically quite justified situation in this case does not work. The Soviet Union feeds its “girls” year after year, waiting for love, but they show some enthusiasm only with the next supply of weapons and food. At the same time, sometimes, the followers behave with respect to the “teacher” very aggressively, and in a boorish way. So, Albania simply selects four submarines from the USSR at the base in Vlora, Cuba physically prevents the dismantling of rocket launchers on its territory, etc. Two truly democratic countries never fight each other, autocratic or totalitarian – quite self. Everything depends on a whim that lacks a real connection with the people of the leaders: the degree of indigestion of their stomach, migraine, toothache, nighttime “prophetic” sleep, nervous illness, or middle-aged crisis. Undoubtedly, the Soviet people discourage such things as the war between the socialist countries: Ethiopia and Somalia, China and Vietnam, … the suppression by Soviet troops of speeches in Czechoslovakia, and, of course, almost resulted in the Third World Conflict of the USSR and the Maoist PRC.
The assistance of the Union to African countries leads, in the end (in addition to other factors) to the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of European colonists from the developed lands; The immersion of once prosperous states in the abyss of chaos.
…So, the countries of the socialist camp only say sometimes about sympathy for the Soviet Union – but more substantial evidence of this love is not provided. There are no Soviet, chic and very inexpensive resorts in the victorious Vietnam, Laos, Egypt, Syria… ocean tours to Cuba. These countries do not accept good Soviet rubles for payment… In the end, the understanding that mercantile “girls” are simply “dynamiting” their patron, reaches the consciousness of the entire Soviet people (even, it seems, its top leaders).
The
