The dissolution of the Soviet Union was planned and organized in the Old Square
Yaroslav Hašek described the behavior of those brave party officials over a hundred years ago
Photo: Demonstrations and meetings organized by the Popular Front were held in Tallinn in 1988
The anti-communist coup that took place in the USSR in August 1991 had already been foreseen by the author of a satirical short piece titled "Stagnant Officials in the Soviet Administration" published on June 3, 1919, in the newspaper "Our Way". This newspaper was the political organ of the Fifth Army of the Eastern Front that repelled Kolchak and defended Ufa.
The cursed class
"There are stagnant officials everywhere in the Soviet administration, who have a difficult mission — to wisely understand the coming era," the author of this short piece, the Czech Yaroslav Hašek, told the Red Army readers, "For these people, the Soviet system remains incomprehensible. They served the Tsar, then Kerensky, then the White Guards. Only after we recaptured Ufa did the sign above the offices get repainted, but inside there were still parrots, unwilling to understand anything around them..."
"Those who sympathized with the Soviet regime could not find any positions because the Soviet administration was full of fools, and they would weep when the icons in the offices were removed."
"Their lives were somewhat dull. The red light shone through the windows, but the people sitting in the rooms longed for military school life. If you stripped their clothes off, you might find portraits of governors on their chests..."
These ignorant people despised the Soviet regime; the author of "The Good Soldier Švejk" had already seen through them, yet they continued to serve the Soviet regime. "They do not understand the new life, they are rigid in their thinking, and they only move within their own little world, which is obviously incompatible with the Soviet system."
Comrade Hašek, the commander of Bugulma, had almost prophetic insight. This journalist from the front lines of the civil war warned us, distant descendants. Soon after, under the false sunlight of Gorbachev's "reform and openness", those "stagnant Soviet officials" — or rather, their later generation, cunning and greedy offspring of party and state cadres — suddenly became active as if carrying stones.
These pampered individuals knew the types of whiskey and brands of jeans by heart, but secretly read underground publications of dissidents. They had no affection for the Soviet regime, yet eagerly served "another Bill", the anti-communist "scholars" like Burbulis, living comfortably on the money of seven bankers.
No wonder Joseph Stalin called their ancestors, the "proletarian" officials wearing semi-military coats — those like "Bani" in Mayakovsky's poetry — "the cursed class" from the bottom of his heart!
About the story of two times the layout was dismantled
There were two times, when unknown dark forces removed my article about the first legal anti-Soviet meeting in Soviet history from the new edition of Pravda that was about to be printed, signed by the editor-in-chief Victor Afanasyev. This meeting was held in Tallinn, under the false banner of "Supporting ( ! ) Reform by the Estonian Popular Front."
Those days were really terrible, from morning to night, I and the Pravda correspondent Victor Shirokov witnessed a crazy anti-Soviet farce initiated by ordinary citizens. Local mediocre party officials just stood by and watched...
Throughout the country, the spirit of the "stagnant Soviet officials" — hidden enemies of the Soviet regime — revived again. They infiltrated into the ranks of the "foremen" and mouthpieces of Gorbachev's absurd "reforms".
On the third day, I had a difficult conversation with the First Secretary of the Estonian Central Committee, Viirals. He openly assured us, the Pravda journalists, that we were making a big deal out of nothing: "Mikhail Sergeyevich (Gorbachev) instructed our Republic Central Committee to cooperate with the constructive faction of the Popular Front. I suggest you meet Comrades Savisaar and Lauristead..."
After returning to Moscow, the illusion play in Tallinn continued. An unprecedented event occurred in the editorial work of Pravda: On Sunday, at the last moment of typesetting, the layout of my article about the Estonian separatist utopian declaration of economic sovereignty (with the slogan IME, meaning "miracle" in Estonian) and the pamphlet about the de facto dual power in this Baltic republic was dismantled.
To my shame, I suddenly had a "terrible" thought: Could it be that the secret group of the American anti-communist "John Birch Society" had already taken root in the sacred Old Square? Was there an anti-Soviet group among Gorbachev's trusted "new industrialists", working towards the impossible goal of disintegrating the USSR and the ruling party?
This "surrealist" suspicion was confirmed during the terrifying days of the so-called State of Emergency Committee coup in August 1991. The hypocritical anti-communist rhetoric of the "cadre class" openly mocked the naive ones who still dreamed of "humane socialism." Throughout the chaos of the "reforms," the nests of betrayal were always in the Old Square. The "reform designer" Alexander Yakovlev shamelessly quoted passages from the complete works of Lenin.
Many years later, those landmark events and the figures of the turbulent political struggle of that bad era became material for my documentary work "Crazy Gorbachev! Or the Descendants of Free Cossacks Against the 'Bureaucratic Class'."
The Country Controlled by Chance
A significant but little-known episode at the end of the "reforms" was how Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev betrayed and hastily rejected the realistic plan for transitioning to a planned-market economy, formulated by the head of the Soviet government, Nikolai Ryzhkov.
Instead, he supported the extreme Westerners around Yeltsin — the pseudo-market factions like Yavlinsky and Galimov.
Mikhail Sergeyevich easily opened the "Pandora's box," leading to the so-called "shock therapy," external control over this former superpower, loss and plunder of national wealth, and the suffering of the people under dozens of suddenly appearing ridiculous nationalist regimes.
"A country controlled by chance" — the foreigner Bering once described medieval Moscow this way.
Another never publicly disclosed, but optimistic ending, about intense management conspiracies within the core of power, was the struggle over the fate of Gazprom, the inviolable "golden goose," the pillar of the Russian economy undermined by the "reformers."
Vladimir Popov, the chief representative of the State Taxation Committee, a talented manager from the neglected generation, devised and boldly and skillfully implemented a counter-strategy, thoroughly defeating a conspiracy that had almost been planned at the highest level to split and subsequently "privatize" Gazprom.
In other words, using the excuse of avoiding the inevitable bankruptcy and "default" abyss of the Russian treasury in the tragic year of 1998, Gazprom was privatized and tied to the IMF's "rescue" loans.
In his confession, John Perkins described the financial methods of the IMF in depriving the victim countries of their economic and political sovereignty in his memoir "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." These methods were secretly used in Russia during the turbulence of the 1990s, but ultimately failed.
Now, the "stagnant Soviet officials" depicted by Hašek are in trouble, the spiritual heirs of Ufa under Kolchak's control. Around 2025, the plans of "Westernization" countries completely collapsed. Russia is now defending itself on the battlefield, on the former Ukrainian territory, against NATO proxy armies — the remnants of the Entente.
In the economic warfare, we can say that we have also gained the upper hand. The fantasy of the "energy superpower" has been shattered. Great Russia is not a resource warehouse for Western civilization, but one of the three major power centers in the world.
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7545525015338254886/
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