this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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You can read up on Soviet Democracy on Wikipedia. I believe counter-revolutionary parties were outlawed, but given that they still liberalized, it can be seen that it wasn't an inflexible, unchanging monolith.
How much do you actually know about how life in the soviet union worked? Have you talked to people who lived there, have you read dissertations about soviet life originating from post-soviet countries? Because I can tell you that what the wiki writes is correct on a theoretical level, but that's not how it worked in practice. I'd like to link you the document but it hasn't been digitized, and it wouldn't be in English, but for instance did you know that in Estonian the soviet election procedure there's stated that vote verification comes from the voting station committee, not from the person casting the vote. That means the committee at the voting station said when you voted. That left the door open to easily cast whatever votes the party wanted into voting box. All the voting slips where soon destroyed after the voting making it impossible to verify who you actually voted for.
While on a superficial level the "democracy" worked from bottom up, the reality is that unless you toed the party line (much like it is right now in the US) you couldn't get into politics. The harsh truth is that at a certain level the party dictated who is a part of the party and who isn't, there was no democratic discourse. I don't even know who our elected officials were during the soviet era because everyone knew it was a farce and nobody cared about those puppets.
And finally, in case you just ignore what I've said let's look at history. If there really was soviet democracy in the soviet union, why was perestroika and more specifically glasnost necessary? Why did Gorbachev run a slogan of democratization? Why is it that when people were given actual democratic elections the previously unopposed communist candidates didn't make the cut? Why did Perestroika lead to the dissolution of the union?
I certainly know much less than I want to! I enjoy learning about history. I do know that there was corruption, especially at the Politburo level. I don't believe every election was a sham though, just like I don't believe every US election is a sham.
As for Perestroika and Gorbachev, the majority of the USSR, 77% I believe, voted to retain the USSR. It was the aforementioned Politburo that dissolved it. Gorbachev in general wanted to cool relations with the US, as the public was growing weary of the Cold War and constant fear, just like Reagan did in America. Additionally, there was a lack of luxury commodities that Soviet citizens were wanting from the western countries, so there was an internal, public push for international trade.
It's a bit of a complicated issue.
Of course it's a bit complicated when you say nonsense like that.
The overall count doesn't matter because part of Perestroika was to give the states more autonomy. The central authority had been weakened and the states decided to leave. It's not about how many people wanted to stay in the union, it's about the states who decided they're better off fending for themselves than to be in the union. The secessions are what put the final nail in the coffin.
At that point that was more of a formality than someone actively trying to kill the union. The union was already dead.
Why it is true that is not the reason for Perestroika. The real reason for Perestroika the era of stagnation and Gorbachev hoped Perestroika would help the USSR out of its economic slump. In that sense Gorbachev didn't want just cool relations with the US, he wanted good relations because he hoped the US would bail out the USSR.
Not just a lack of luxury commodities, a lack of commodities. A lot people during that period resorted to black market deals because the union was unable to provide for the people. My grandfather bartered home-made alcohol for manure so he could fertilize the land to grow food. My father recorded cassette tapes and bartered them for clothes and other electronics. It was the only way to get what you need because the stores were largely empty.
You seem to be versed in historical revisionism, I suggest searching for the actual history of the union. If it starts sounding like the things I've mentioned you're on the right track.
First off, I aprreciate your point of view, anecdotes from your father and grandfather are valuable additions. However, I do have some questions.
Why would 77% of 145 million votes on the 1991 Soviet Union Referendum voting to retain the USSR not matter? If the states decided to leave against the will of the people, is that not an anti-democratic measure? Like, if the supermajority of people wish to maintain the union, why is it justifiable for the states to go against that? I am probably missing something on that matter, which is why I am asking you.
As for the economic slump, I am aware. The "second economy" was huge at the time, as you already stated. I still, however, would need to know more why the majority voted to retain the Union. I understand that clothing choices were especially bad, and interestingly enough I remember reading that US Jeans were especially desired but either there wasn't a Soviet counterpart or the US Jeans were especially desired.
Do you have any suggestions for books or further reading? Statistics and wikipedia pages only paint a partial picture, after all, and if those are historical revisionism then I am curious what we can trust as historical fact. A lot of what you have said backs up what I have read, though, so I am curious what parts were embellished and which parts weren't.
First of all, the referendum wasn't to continue the USSR of the old, it was a referendum for essentially a new union. That new union was supposed to give other states a lot more autonomy. So the vote was actually for something very different to what the union had been up to Perestroika. Also that 77% didn't contain all of the union, The Baltic states, Moldova and few more states refused to participate in the voting. Baltic states in particular had their own referendums where people voted to secede from the union. Some of the states were already in the process of leaving and the rest decided to secede when the new union treaty fell through.
I'm going to use this point to explain how the majority also doesn't represent everyone. There have been talks about Catalonia wanting to secede from Spain for decades now. I'm sure if someone polled Spain as a whole the majority would be against Catalonia seceding. However, the whole of Spain does not represent Catalonia. Catalans represent Catalonia and based on the 2021 vote 51% supported independence. It's likely that in the near-future we will see Catalonia pushing to secede from Spain. Would you consider that secession attempt unjust? I think if a certain culture wants to be independent then their decision to become independent is justified.
It's not that the statistics or wikipedia are inherently revisionist, it's that people often take those things and present them in a revisionist way. Like with the 77% wanting to stay in the union. The number isn't wrong, but it's presented to mean something else than what it was. Revisionist present it like every region in the union wanted the union to continue as it was. Except as I've already explained, that wasn't the case. It was only the parts of the union who agreed to vote and the vote was for a new union not the continuation of the old one.
As for books, I don't really have any books to suggest. Most of the books I've read in the past have been in my native language and as much as I checked they haven't been translated to English. That said I did come across this monograph that piqued my interest: "Soviet Postcolonial Studies: A View from the Western Borderlands". I don't have the capacity to get into it right away, because it seems like a hard read, but it will go into my backlog.