Why is soviet union bad

This atmosphere of possibility soon enveloped the Soviet Union itself. On August 18, , concerned members of the Communist party in the military and government placed Gorbachev under house arrest. Leaders of the coup declared a state of emergency. The military moved on Moscow, but their tanks were met with human chains and citizens building barricades to protect Russian Parliament. Boris Yelstin , then the chair of parliament, stood on top of one of those tanks to rally the surrounding crowds.

The coup failed after three days. On December 8, a newly-free Gorbachev traveled to Minsk, where he met with leaders of the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine, signing an agreement that broke the two countries away from the U. R to create the Commonwealth of Independent States. Georgia joined two years later. An end has been put to the Cold War and to the arms race, as well as to the mad militarization of the country, which has crippled our economy, public attitudes and morals.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. After overthrowing the centuries-old Romanov monarchy, Russia emerged from a civil war in as the newly formed Soviet Union. After more than 40 years of the world seeming to teeter on the However, the relationship between the two nations was a tense one. Since its start a century ago, Communism, a political and economic ideology that calls for a classless, government-controlled society in which everything is shared equally, has seen a series of surges—and declines.

Some relationships are better than others, but all of them—from that with Norway in the Far North to that with China in the Far East—are marred by histories of imperial conquests, territorial disputes, and ideological or religious tensions. The end of the Soviet Union was so swift and so complete that it allowed Russia little time for reflection about the right historical and ideological foundations upon which to build its new foreign policy.

There was no precedent in its history for anything other than the pursuit of an empire in one form or another. It was the only foundation that Russian foreign policy could easily fall back on, especially as the transition to democracy and markets at home proved exceedingly painful and disruptive. As a result, the post-Soviet transition did little to change some of the most powerful and enduring drivers of Russian foreign policy.

Key among them is the geography of the western frontier, which offers neither a meaningful barrier to its expansionist impulses nor a reliable defense against threats to the homeland. The principal feature of foreign policy since the days of Peter the Great, when Russia became an integral part of European geopolitics, has been the struggle for control of the flat and open terrain between Moscow and Berlin. At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union had achieved the greatest geographic security the state had ever enjoyed in its history.

This presented a two-fold challenge to Russia. First, it posed a military threat in the eyes of a national security elite deeply rooted in the Soviet experience and reeling from the demise of the old empire. Second, the loss of strategic depth underscored another long-standing vulnerability in that a conflict with NATO would probably start in Europe and thus put Russia at far greater risk to its homeland than the United States.

Whereas the United States could target Russia within the context of a theater war, Russia would have to resort to an all-out nuclear exchange to expose the United States to the same level of risk. For the current generation of Russians in charge of foreign policy the dissolution of the Soviet Union was indeed the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century, as Putin famously stated. They grew up in a country that was recovering from the trauma of war yet managed to conquer space, to build a military that was second to none, and to maintain a great empire.

The system was good to them; they had promising careers in the security services—the elite institutions of the old regime—and the prospect of promising careers. The ideas that the old system was built on had delivered for them. Then, after that system suddenly collapsed, ideas imposed by countries that throughout their careers had been their adversaries failed miserably as Russia struggled to survive the s.

The alternative—authoritarian politics, limited personal freedoms, and state capitalism—was obvious to them. But they had little incentive to allow such elements of the new ideology as free elections and the rule of law to stand in the way of their ability to extract rents from the economy. The result is a hybrid system that combines elements of the free market with authoritarian politics and hostility to the West, fears of encirclement, Soviet nostalgia, and above all a sense of entitlement to its security rooted in the suffering and sacrifice of another generation.

These exploits added a new dimension to the prevailing U. The most important are: undermining democracy in the United States and Europe; delivering further blows to the U. It has taken advantage of U. Over the past four years, it has also capitalized on U. First, it has employed relatively inexpensive diplomatic, military, intelligence, cyber, trade, energy, and financial tools to wield influence and expand its global footprint.

Second, the Kremlin has been generally successful in managing the economic costs for example, Western sanctions of its foreign transgressions while garnering some benefits.

Finally, the Kremlin is likely, largely for domestic political reasons, to up the ante in response to efforts by the administration of President Joe Biden to push back against Russian expansionism, subversion, disinformation, and human rights abuses. The Kremlin wants to push back on U. The three western former Soviet republics—Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine—are the most important ones for Russia, but they have proved difficult targets for attempts to keep them in its sphere.

Relations with Belarus have been much more challenging than the existence of the treaty establishing a union state with Russia would suggest. President Alexander Lukashenko has driven hard bargains with Putin to gain maximum economic benefits in exchange for geopolitical loyalty.

He has resisted pressure for closer political ties, and until recently he had engaged in geopolitical balancing between Russia and the West, with cyclical overtures to Western countries and occasionally even a relatively relaxed—by the standards of his regime—domestic political atmosphere. The dramatic deterioration of relations between the Lukashenko regime and the West after the brutal suppression of large-scale protests in Belarus following the deeply compromised August presidential election, and especially now after the forced landing in May of a passenger plane in Minsk and illegal detention of a prominent Belarusian dissident, has limited space for geopolitical maneuver between Russia and the West.

The relationship with Belarus is a challenge for Putin: a hard intervention to subdue Lukashenko has been out of the question as it would make a mockery of the union state and of the concept of Eurasian integration. Closer ties may at times be problematic too, considering his record for brutality that rivals that of Putin. The relationship with Ukraine is also highly problematic for the Kremlin, albeit for entirely different reasons. However, the war has accomplished something that few had thought would be possible—a long-term antagonism between two nations with close historical, cultural, ethnic, and other ties.

Moldova suffered a brief but nonetheless traumatic conflict with Russia-supported separatists in the early s. The conflict has been extinguished, albeit not settled, but Moldova remains a distant prospect when it comes to closer geopolitical alignment with Russia. As a result of its historical, trade, commercial ties, and military and security cooperation with countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, Russia still retains the capacity to project power and influence in both regions.

First, China has emerged as a strong competitor to Russia in the realms of trade, investment, technology, and infrastructure development. Second, beyond China, Russia confronts a crowded playing field in both regions—the EU, the United States, and Turkey—and more nationalistic leaders who resent its heavy-handedness and inability to deliver on its promises. Many of the countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus rely on remittances from migrant labor in Russia, but its attractiveness as an economic or geopolitical partner has diminished.

Third, Russia and the regional institutions it has created—such as the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the EAEU—are not set up to tackle the major problems afflicting all countries in both regions—including poor governance, corruption, lack of accountability, transparency and the rule of law, and poverty and economic underdevelopment.

What is more, Moscow has shown little interest in helping them. Moscow has not been able to recruit new members since , and the union has suffered from internal divisions. This remains the case and is likely be true for the indefinite future. Contrary to conventional wisdom, its position in Europe has experienced a significant deterioration following its aggression against Ukraine in Russia has persistently failed to take up opportunities for better relations with Europe, where its crude attempts at interference and blatant lies have frustrated leaders for years.

In the economic sphere, through its internal reforms the EU has reduced Russian leverage in energy trade. The Kremlin may have been successful in stirring up populist and nationalist sentiments within some European countries, but it has failed to weaken transatlantic institutions.

The union was founded on democratic ideals and shared European values—alien ideas to a country where those values have never taken hold either in its politics or society. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov once remarked that Western Europe has always sought to deprive the Russian people of the right to have their own faith and identity.

Russia has always resisted that perceived threat to its sovereignty. For most of Europe, maintaining a moderately civil relationship with Russia is an unavoidable burden rather than a source of opportunity.

The Kremlin has tried to reestablish its influence in the region. It has relied on a wide array of tools—subversion, propaganda, influence operations, trade, energy, disinformation, and support for populist and nationalist movements—to secure its foothold and undermine the Western Balkans momentum toward integration with the EU and NATO.

Russia was unable to prevent Montenegro and North Macedonia from joining NATO in and respectively, even after an attempted coup in the former with involvement by Russian operatives in Russia is and will remain a European—rather than an Asian—power. Its other economic, military, security, and diplomatic interests in the region are of much less importance, and it will invariably subordinate these—and its relationships with other Asian countries—to the paramount importance of maintaining and strengthening its relationship with Beijing.

These ties, however, remain underdeveloped at best and strained at worst. Ties with South Korea tell much the same story. Russia has been more active in Southeast Asia over the past several years, but the results have been disappointing. There has been a slight increase in expanding arms sales, trade, and energy cooperation with several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—Russia provided the region with 26 percent of its arms between and with 61 percent of those sales going to Vietnam.

Russia has achieved important gains in the Middle East over the past decade. By reversing the course of the Syrian civil war and saving a long-standing ally, Russia sent a message to other Middle Eastern regimes that it is a reliable partner.

Russia has established a long-term military and naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, but is hardly the only major actor in Syria, where it has to contend with Iran and Turkey, as well as a residual U.

These goals remain distant and will require a great deal of balancing and accommodation on the part of Russia to achieve. A picture taken on March 1, , shows a member of the Russian military police standing guard between the portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad R and Russian President Vladimir Putin L hanging outside a checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus. Moscow has reportedly supplied weapons, mercenaries, and even combat aircraft to the LNA, but with little success, as its attempts to capture Tripoli have been stymied by Turkish-backed pro-government forces.

That, however, remains a distant prospect. While our parents—many of whom had lost faith in The Party—skeptically discussed the flaws of the Soviet Union, over tea in their kitchens; school children all over the country, in their identical uniforms—itchy brown wool dresses with black aprons for girls, and brown or navy blue suits for boys— studied a school curriculum and participated in youth programs designed to instill appreciation for communism and reverence for its leader, our dear Vladimir Ilyich Lenin—dedushka grandfather Lenin, as we were taught to refer to him.

We were told we lived in the best country in the world, and as kids we thanked grandfather Lenin for our happy childhoods—yes, we wholeheartedly believed our childhoods were happy. Somewhere among my recollections is the exciting memory of receiving an exotic fruit from my grandmother—a banana—which sat in the kitchen cabinet for days, ripening in the dark.

Other flashbacks depict our family gathered after work, watching figure skating on an old black-and-white television, and grandmother making blinis. Despite grim greyscale pictures from kindergarten in which no one—students, teachers, the mandatory portrait of Lenin on the wall—is smiling the memories are happy.

I also recall an even greater happiness, one instilled from the outside. We were made to feel blessed to be born in a magnificent country, with leaders that were of the finest quality.

We felt bad for those with the misfortune to be born in other nations. As an ordinary Soviet child, I was raised from pre-school to be a patriot, a proponent of The Party and a worshipper of Lenin.

I grieved for our general secretaries—Brezhnev, Yuriy Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko—as they each passed away, one after another, over the course of two and a half years in the early s. When Brezhnev died, our teachers told us that a great leader had just passed away and we were supposed to feel sad.

Together with my five year-old peers, I sat in mandatory silence, listening to the powerful sound of sirens coming from a nearby plant, trying to evoke sorrow within myself. As part of our early education, we absorbed the Soviet propaganda with the watery, boiled milk we were made to drink at school. On one occasion, a teacher showed us a newspaper with a photo depicting skinny children in striped robes walking in a straight line.

She told us that western media had published the picture, declaring them impoverished Soviet youth being treated like prisoners, when in reality the kids were on their way to a swimming pool in their bathrobes. At that point in my life I had never even seen a pool. I also thought about the fact that, in kindergarten, we were not treated as prisoners. Sure, we had to line up and obey, and were deathly afraid of our teachers, but we had toys and were allowed to play and have fun on occasion.

In my Soviet childhood, and especially in elementary school, yelling, physical punishment and harsh language were not extraordinary. To build a bright future we needed to be tough and efficient. For many of us far behind the iron curtain, communism and its rituals—salutes, slogans, flag ceremonies—in some ways replaced religion.

By kindergarten, I learned that we were supposed to be atheists. One girl told me that she did. In elementary school things became more serious. Like all first-graders, I joined the Little Octoberist organization—think a communistic version of the American Cub Scouts—which, a couple of years later, fed into the Young Pioneer organization, which in turn would open the door to becoming a Komsomolets. Then, as a grown up, one would become a full-fledged member of the Communist Party.

Joining these organizations was not technically mandatory, but in my entire childhood I heard of no one who refused joining them. Later, as an adult, I came across a few brave souls who managed to decline entrance, but they are rare exceptions.

As Young Pioneers, we participated in patriotic marches and frequent ideological ceremonies, which replaced regular school classes. Often, I was one of them. Year after year, we commemorated the deaths of young communists that gave their lives either helping the Bolsheviks after the revolution in , or fighting Nazis during WWII.

During obligatory annual parades, each class was assigned a military division, dressed up in a corresponding uniform, sang military songs and marched. All of this marching took practice, so we marched at camp in the summertime, and during school hours the rest of the year, occasionally gathering after school or on weekends.

In my music school, where I practiced the violin a couple of times a week, in addition to the music of Tchaikovsky and Mozart, we learned ideologically charged pieces about our Fatherland, hero-pilots and dead soldiers of WWII. They were included in every vocal or instrumental program or performance. Instead of Mickey Mouse, we were raised on stories about politically active children—little Soviet heroes. A major role model for Soviet kids was Pavlik Morozov, a martyr of the s.

As part of our school curriculum, we discussed the young martyr, praising his bravery and loyalty to communism, absorbing his story through poems and schoolbooks. I also brought my political influences home with me. At a stationary store I bought a portrait of young Lenin and pinned it over my desk in my bedroom.

The entire family of five—my parents, my aunt, my grandmother and I—shared a small two-room apartment where the family cooked, entertained, studied, sewed, knitted, occasionally hosted out-of-town guests and, somehow, managed to reproduce.

Everyone in my family slept on pullout sofas, pullout chairs and cots. Every morning the beds were put away and the furniture covered with slipcovers. At some point my aunt got married and moved out to live with her husband and his parents, which gave us some breathing room until my little sister arrived shortly after. Meanwhile, I slept in the living room on a pullout chair next to a sofa which, at night, converted into a bed for my parents.

Though party leaders and those close to the administration enjoyed immense privileges, millions of people had a very low quality of life. Andrei Morozov, who runs a string of bakeries in Kaluga, says some of his most popular items are favorite old Soviet "pirozhni" snacks, as well as old-fashioned cream-filled waffle cones, big "romovaya baba" confectionery buns, and little "eklar" pastries that used to be available in Soviet street kiosks.

I don't tell people what to buy, they tell me what they want. And these old recipes, that recall an earlier life, are really popular," he says.

For more than a decade after the Soviet collapse, public regrets about it were officially viewed as an irritating vestige that would gradually disappear. When Vladimir Putin came to power, he outflanked his Communist opponents by adopting the old anthem and praising Soviet achievements. But he also made no secret of his contempt for the ideological obsessions and dysfunctional economics that drove the USSR to ruin. Some experts suggest that changing times may be leading the Kremlin to seek closer identification with that contradictory Soviet heritage.

For one thing, it might not hurt to remind the Russian public that the USSR once held its own in decades-long military and political competition with the outside world. And as the economic prosperity of the earlier Putin-era fades, a renewed emphasis on higher ideals might help to distract people, as long as it can be controlled.

The Soviet Union was a more effective welfare state, a military superpower, where there was far less economic uncertainty and inequality than people experience today. So, this generates nostalgia" which can be harnessed by authorities, he says. Critics say the Kaluga exhibit is one-sided and misleading, because it omits mention of the chronic shortages, endless lineups for basic necessities, isolation of the country, and often brutal suppression of dissent.

But mostly they sound disappointed and baffled by the persistence of pro-Soviet public moods. Orlov of Memorial. If we have to talk about it, I just wish we could speak the whole truth. This exhibit in Kaluga is just part of the truth, at best. Already a subscriber? Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.

My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. But you know what? We change lives. We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides.