Sanctions. Stalin's model of survival. Part 1
The events related to the sanctions against Russia are perceived by many as a sensation. In fact, the country is no stranger to confronting them. In the history of the USSR, the West has always threatened with sanctions. In 1917, the Entente countries declared an economic and naval blockade of revolutionary Russia. We can say that over the 74 years of the existence of the Soviet Union, this blockade did not stop, if we do not take into account the period of the Great Patriotic War …
The concept of "imposing sanctions" has existed in our world for many hundreds of years. Countries have always tried to put pressure on their neighbors by non-military means. Politicians believe that the economic impact is much more effective in influencing the decisions of certain states and is less dangerous.
If we turn to history, then from ancient times we can see that economic restrictions or blockades became the reasons for explosive situations, uprisings, unleashing civil, international wars, and civil strife. This was caused by mercantile interests. The reduction in the import of goods contributed to the preservation of its own market.
American whip
For America, which uses sanctions more often than others, they have long been the main instrument of its foreign policy. Sanctions significantly aggravate the situation, prompting compromise. Over the past 15 years, the United States has applied an embargo against 20 countries around the world, thus declaring an economic war, which is one of the varieties of the Cold War. In some cases and on individual continents, the aggressive use of the Cold War techniques, as a kind of militaristic instrument, changed one state of war to another, transforming it into a “hot” form, creating a kind of synergy.
The impact on unwanted sanctions is carried out consistently, thoughtfully and purposefully. Recent studies by the Organization for International Investment have shown that the process of imposing sanctions is not only of a state nature, but also based on local US authorities, we are talking about such megacities as New York and Los Angeles. Of course, in this case, small states such as Burma, Nigeria, Indonesia, Cuba and even Switzerland suffer, forced to agree to the recognition of claims to their financial structures, forcing Swiss banks to open access to information about some of the contributions made by the Nazis, and the transfer of customer data tax authorities of America, Germany, France.
Leavened patriotism or mentality?
The events related to the sanctions against Russia are perceived by many as a sensation. In fact, the country is no stranger to confronting them. In the history of the USSR, the West has always threatened with sanctions. In 1917, the Entente countries declared an economic and naval blockade of revolutionary Russia. We can say that over the 74 years of the existence of the Soviet Union, this blockade did not stop, if we do not take into account the period of the Great Patriotic War.
Were the Russians really so careless and are they about all the attempts of the West to have a negative economic impact on the country? If we turn again to the history of the last 100 years, then there is a clear tendency to the fact that in the conditions of an artificially created deficit and cutting off Russia, and earlier the USSR, the country's internal economic policy radically changed from foreign economic communications. Such a turn of affairs always did her only good, strengthening the state.
This is especially observable if the head of the state was a leader with a developed olfactory vector, all of whose aspirations and abilities, fully consistent with his specific role, were aimed at preserving the integrity of the state.
Sanctions are always new opportunities for urethral Russia, not taken into account by the skin West. Here we are talking about the difference in global problems and shortages, and not about the lack of light industrial goods. If the European states had not put pressure on the young Soviet republic, isolating it from the entire outside world, perhaps Stalin would not have carried out the industrialization of the country in the shortest possible time. Here the West, not understanding and not taking into account the colossal mental differences, without knowing it, undoubtedly, had its positive influence on the development of Russia.
All his attempts to distract the Soviet people from starting the construction of a new life by means of an economic blockade received the opposite reaction. By focusing on these very shortages and deficits, the Soviet government was able to create a new program for the restoration of the national economy in all directions simultaneously. The main element in it was ideology, the very idea of creating a "society of the future", for which people first died on the fronts of the Civil War, and then gave all their strength, carrying out industrialization in the country. The first five-year plan, adopted in 1929, the five-year plan of Stalin's industrialization, gives impetus to the development of the forthcoming power of the state, making the USSR the second largest industrial power in the world even before the war.
There is no need for a Russian person to learn patriotism. The Russian begins to feel it sharply at the moment when the homeland is in danger. In the event of a national threat, the collective psychic of the people wakes up, and it rallies around its leader. This feature of the urethral-muscular mentality of Russians, unknown and not clear to Western analysts, is clearly visible today in connection with the events in Ukraine. Russians, apolitical and peaceful by nature, are not ready to stay away from what is happening in Kiev, in the South-East or in Crimea.
How many times have the world been told that Western sanctions in Russia are not a decree
The retaliatory sanctions and actions of Russia are designed to sober up and reason with Western politicians. However, those, forgetting their history, forget the blunders and blunders that their predecessors made. Everything looks as if the West has forgotten how to wisely calculate its steps and is losing its political olfactory sense. The long-term serene, prosperous life of the rulers of Europe and America dulled their political instincts, otherwise they would have calculated the possible actions of Russia in advance, and would not have pushed it into the arms of China with their sanctions.
Western analysts and Sovietologists might assume that Russia will be the least impressionable country in relation to the American and European blockade. It is much easier for it to find a sales market, at least in the person of the same China, which is ready for major investments in the economy of a neighboring country, than in Europe, for example, a new supplier of resources, for which most of the infrastructure will have to be changed. All this will bring a serious dissonance to the market economy of the West, which is already experiencing unemployment and crisis.
The Stalinist Model of Survival in an Economic Blockade
The development of the Stalinist model of the economy should be considered in several directions: mobilization and militarized, socially oriented.
The current situation with the sanctions imposed against Russia is in some way reminiscent of much of what was happening in the 1920s. After the end of the Civil War, simultaneously with the restoration of the destroyed country, there was a struggle on the political sidelines for a place at the helm of the state. It continued, expressed in one form or another, including repression, almost until the Great Patriotic War.
“Although the West was in crisis, it nevertheless continued to exert economic pressure on the USSR. The political goals of destroying, or at least weakening, the Soviet Union prevailed over the task of getting the capitalist economy out of the crisis as soon as possible. This was evidenced by many economic actions of the USA and European countries. Let's remember that back in 1925 the West declared a golden blockade against the USSR. The Soviet Union was prohibited from purchasing any goods, including machinery and equipment, with gold. This could only be done by selling its natural resources to the West, including grain. Later, the West banned the import of timber and lumber, oil and oil products from the USSR, leaving only grain. In 1930, restrictions on imports from the USSR were imposed by France, in 1930-1931. - USA. April 17, 1933an embargo on 80% of Soviet exports is declared by Great Britain”[1].
Industrialization. Creation of the material and technical base of the country
All these actions of the West led to the fact that in the late 1920s. in the USSR, a new form of economic management began to take shape - centralized. Planning became its foundation. The system of foreign trade of the USSR was revised.
The centralized management of the economy, the planned nature of the economy, the state monopoly of foreign trade, the state currency monopoly, and the banking system are signs of the Stalinist economic model.
The country, which did not have its own machine-building production, spent foreign exchange reserves on the purchase of machinery and equipment. This should also include the costs of all kinds of services of Western specialists related to design, staff training, copyright for technical ideas. According to some reports, about 30 thousand foreign employees, engineers, foremen and even skilled workers from the USA, Belgium, Germany, Italy were involved in international programs of those years.
The absence of their own specialists was made up for by training their own personnel at the opening workers' faculties, most of which were located in Moscow and Leningrad. Having barely learned to read, young men and women, natives of the national outskirts, from peasant or working families, went to the cities to receive education. At the workers' faculties, training took from 3 to 4 years and made it possible to prepare for future studies at the university. Thus, from the semi-literate Russian population in the shortest possible time, their own professional cadres were prepared, capable of replacing foreign representatives in all industries.
Such a state educational program helped the new Soviet man to reveal his own natural abilities, indicating the possibilities for their realization. Young men and women with any set of naturally given vectors, growing up under the conditions of the priority of the general over the particular, had the opportunity to develop their properties as adequately as possible through the recognition of the environment and the joint realization of a common dream, filled themselves with the happiness of realization for the benefit of others. This is the secret of the joyful, open faces of the people of that generation.
Stalin's economic miracle
It was the time of training engineering and military personnel, when people with a skin vector found full use of their abilities. Their timely preparation allowed the Soviet Union not only to form its own engineering and technical corps, but also ensured the implementation of the Stalinist economic model, which was called the "Stalinist economic miracle" and brought the USSR to second place in the world after the United States.
“In terms of the total gross domestic product and industrial production of the USSR in the mid-1930s. came out on top in Europe and on second place in the world, losing only to the USA and significantly surpassing Germany, Great Britain, France. In less than 3 five-year plans, 364 new cities were built in the country, 9 thousand large enterprises were built and put into operation - a colossal figure - 2 enterprises a day! " [2].
Perhaps, for the first time in the entire existence of the Russian state, any citizen received an incentive to realize his natural destiny as accurately as possible: skinheads - in technology and military affairs, spectators - in art and medicine, analgesics - in science and education, urethralists and sound specialists - in flying., the future of rocketry and space exploration, and people with a muscle vector were creating strong working dynasties.
Stalin's "economic miracle" lasted over 30 years, not only leading to industrialization, but also consolidating Soviet society in a single impulse for a common goal. In the post-war period, the country was restored and faster than all other European powers, participants in World War II, returned to the pre-war level.
Here it is necessary to recall the creation of a nuclear shield by 1949, which became vital in the context of new economic and political sanctions by the West and the Cold War declared by it.
Economic planning in the USSR regulated the need for personnel, for the number of specialists in various fields. The customer for the personnel was the state, it knew exactly where there was a need for young specialists. Students from the first year were prepared for future work and position. This was the merit of the Stalinist model of the economy.
The departure from it into the so-called market relations clearly indicates degradation in the economic sector. Universities train specialists who are not in demand. It resembles "making goods to a warehouse". Or they, specialists, occupy positions that do not correspond to their professional training. Thus, the time and money spent by students and professors on education in higher education are thrown to the wind.
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List of references:
- V. Yu. Katasonov, Doctor of Economics n. "Economics of Stalin"
- V. Yu. Katasonov, Doctor of Economics n. "On the Stalinist economic miracle"
