in Libya. Perhaps, because of the inconceivable mixture of tribes, beliefs, mentality, godless pride, etc., it was impossible simply from the beginning. In this case, this goal does not appear to have been set. Oil and security, for its people – is not bad in itself.
Democracy, law, order and prosperity, however, are quite successfully implemented in other countries controlled by the US, including the former members of the Warsaw Pact, and the republics that make up the Soviet Union itself. The center of their crystallization is yes, the military bases of NATO. The USSR was unable to present its satellites with legislative, judicial, financial, political, civil-law systems, convenient to use, leading to success, and North America – yes. And, it is this, and not humiliating gifts, the most important thing.
What do we do? Declare democracy and civil society, as now fashionable, harmful, dangerous, initially not applicable to treatment in Russia? Those who say this are our enemies. We need to study democracy, can debug and improve, develop to higher heights, surpass the US in it – and use it on the entire planet, at its discretion.
…In the Brezhnev USSR of the seventies of the last century factories and factories are working, gas and oil are running in the pipes, numerous tractors and harvesters are scurrying along the cultivated fields. But here in the village store (“Selpo”) on the shelves are the same sprats in tomato, “Tourist breakfast”, mineral water, bread … sunflower oil in bottling, Georgian, not very good tea (and sometimes not always), chicory instead of coffee … that’s all. In urban retail outlets, the situation is only slightly more interesting. The best that is produced by the national economy, somewhere that, imperceptibly for the people themselves, disappears. Everything that is genuinely loved by “ordinary people”, the government, for some reason declares harmful, somehow tries to make it uncomfortable … unrealizable. Television, radio, and print media are under the control of an extremely narrow circle of party bureaucrats. To assess the situation, to shout to the whole country, to ask – and to be heard in the “small Politburo”, in this System is difficult. Something similar, already clearly on the verge of a mental break in 1975, is undertaken by Capt. 3rd Rank Valery Sablin; raises the rebellion on the guard ship “Watchdog”, goes to Kronstadt, to speak on the Central TV, outlining the views of the representative of the people – but in the end, only gets a bullet in the basement of the Committee of State Security.
In 1977, Leonid Brezhnev made a move, which, as it seems, seems to strengthen the vertical of power remarkably well, and, also, the Soviet state as a whole. Since June 16 this year, the posts of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee are combined. A peculiar two-headed eagle becomes, of course, himself, already suffered a stroke, devoid of firmness of gait and former clarity of consciousness, esteemed Leonid Ilyich. A very significant political figure, Nikolai Podgorny, who previously held the post of head of the abovementioned higher legislative body of the Union, is sent to retirement. Two years earlier, the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, AN Shelepin, “left”; and on such, it should be noted, an interesting fact that “for the sake of false democracy,” he eats in the common dining room and rests in a sanatorium “for ordinary people.” L. Brezhnev disappears from his inner circle and the leader of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny, is the same one who once had dissuaded Leonid Ilyich from the physical elimination of Nikita Khrushchev. In the “small Politburo” there are only the nearest, in all consonants with “Samim” (He is), as they say now, “Friends.”
Chairman of the Council of Ministers, “business executive” A. Kosygin does not count. To correct, now there is no one left from the collective conduct of affairs of the “leader”. And so, in response to the murder of Hafizullah Amin’s security service by the personal friend of the secretary general, Nura Taraki, Brezhnev, after some communication with Andropov and Ustinov, opens Pandora’s box. The invasion of Afghanistan, the destruction of Amin and half of his family, a long, viscous war with those who could be good neighbors, are the beginning of the end of the USSR.
They say that there is something indistinct about “Americans who might appear in Afghanistan” … In Vietnam they also appeared when what was so good for them there? And now the Coalition troops are still in the “Afghan”. Us, friends from this, it turns out, is neither cold nor hot.
Meanwhile, the extremely narrowed circle of responsible persons, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, now has no one to rely on. A person with weak health, he falls into captivity to his, still quite vigorous friends. There is no alternative, the people are silent, the threads of running a huge country are ultimately tied in just two or three people. Leonid Brezhnev sometimes only calls Defense Minister D. Ustinov, with a tear and reproach in his voice, asks: “When will this war end?! … Dima, you promised me it would not be for long.”
Leonid Brezhnev has no right to dispose of even himself. Several times he declares his desire to retire, and receives from the Politburo a benevolent “no” answer. This system lacks the institution of a more or less regular, legitimate change of power. Looking at the speaker on television, stumbling on every word of the head of state, citizens of the USSR (according to the author’s feelings) involuntarily identify with himself, the state, the state of things: “soon all this will end.”
The only spirit remaining in the minds of the townsfolk to this day: “We already have a ruler, he knows something and knows how, do not rock the boat, otherwise everything will get worse.”
The Secretary-General dies from cardiac arrest in 1982. However, eighteen years of his rule are a kind of “Golden Autumn of the Empire.” This is the time when you can live without fear of a “black funnel” under the window at night, it’s quite tolerable to eat, start children, drink natural fruit-wine, sing bard songs and dream of a beautiful far away…
Personal life: married to Viktoria Petrovna (born Denisova) since 1927, two children. A fan of hunting for large animals, football and driving (including rare cars).
Dmitry Ustinov, photo of the 1950s
Dmitry Ustinov. Birth – 1908, Samara, … in children’s summers – courier work… the introduction of a volunteer in the Red Army, service in Special Purpose Chambers (CHON). Further Ustinov works as a fitter at the factory, he studies at various institutes, down to the Leningrad “Voenmech”. Since 1937 (the vacancy field has been cleared) – engineer-designer, director of the plant “Bolshevik”. In 1941, 33-year-old Dmitry Fedorovich became a People’s Commissar of Soviet armament. His predecessor, B. Vannikov, Stalin must be released a month after the outbreak of the war – since it is too necessary for the production of ammunition. The recent prisoner becomes deputy commissar-beginner. Since 1946 Dmitry Ustinov, the USSR Minister of Armaments, has been actively participating in the missile project. In 1957, D.W. advocates N. Khrushchev, in 1964 – promotes his displacement. Since 1976, Ustinov – one of the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee, which is included in the unofficial, so-called. “A small Politburo”, as well as the Minister of Defense. He died in 1984, from severe pneumonia; caused by the reluctance of Dmitry Fedorovich to leave, an official event held in the cold wind. It suggests that almost simultaneously with D. Ustinov, and with the same clinical picture of the disease, the defense ministers of the GDR, Hungary and Czechoslovakia die, who were together at a festive dinner (in honor of the completion of the Warsaw Pact exercises).
Private life: wife Taisia, son, daughter. The usual ratio of attention to work and personal life: 10: 1.
Evaluation of the author: D. F. Ustinov is one of those people who with passion and passion create colorful false pictures of reality. The Soviet
