r/u_Plane_Importance_740

The disintegration of the Soviet Union not only destroyed the socialist economy and the social system but also inflicted colossal damage on the rich Russian culture and the language. The new ruling  class and its associates who took control of the country’s economy opened the door for uncontrolled penetration of English words in the Russian language under the pretext of necessity to introduce market economy and integrate with the Western world. Widespread use of English-sounding words led to displacement of original Russian words. Over the past three decades since Russia’s ruling class decided to break with their Soviet past, the language of Tolstoi, Pushkin, and Dostoyevski changed unbelievably due to wilful use of foreign language words. In the race to borrow English words, none in Russia’s upper class – government bureaucrats, political leaders, business people and even the scientists and academicians wanted to be left behind. 

Those, including us, who had the opportunity of learning the Russian language in the country of its origin during the Soviet era know the vitality of the Russian language lies in its words. Inject in it a foreign word and the sentence instantly loses its flow.  Let’s illustrate the process of the “weedification” of the Russian language. When we studied, the university area was called “студенческий городок or студгородок” (student township). Now, it is rarely used; the most common is the russified version of “campus” in the form of “кампус”. The place where we used to ride a bus was called “остановка автобуса”. Now it is the English word “Stop” written in Russian “Стоп”. When the MBA courses were first introduced in educational institutions, it was called "Магистр делового управления" (which is Russian)  at the beginning. Later it was renamed in its anglicized version “Магистр бизнес администрации (Master of Business Administration). “Investment” in the Soviet period was called “Вложение “, now it is borrowed from English “Инвестиция”.  “Покупка” (shopping in Russian) is now called in its English version “Шопинг”. There are hundreds of such examples. 

The Government had to step in with control measures to protect the Russian language from excessive foreign borrowing. The State Duma adopted a law in February 2023 which, among others, stipulates  that when using the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation, the use of words and expressions that do not comply with the norms of the modern Russian literary language is not allowed, with the exception of foreign words that have no commonly used analogues in the Russian language and the list of which is contained in the specified normative dictionaries. However, without provisions for enforcement with punitive measures for non-compliance, the law remains symbolic and there is little change on the ground. People’s mindset has to change, specifically the mindset that the more of the foreign words are borrowed, the greater is the chance for acceptance and recognition in the Western world. But it is unlikely to happen on its own. It requires an aggressive campaign in support of the usage of original indigenous Russian words. In other words, a new version of the Cultural Revolution needs to be launched to protect Russia from invasion of foreign culture and traditions. But it is hardly an option with the social and administrative system now present in Russia. 

The Soviet Union is not a reality at present. Yet it survives in the collective memory of millions of people inside and outside the country and continues to stir passions around the world. Where this memory rings the most is the Russian Federation, the former RSFSR, in which the Soviet Union quietly dissolved with all its institutions and all the glories that this internationalist state once symbolized. The Russian Federation became the legal inheritor of the Soviet Union minus its ideology. As discussed in the previous chapters, the USSR was created not only as a nation state but also as the centre of global proletarian revolution, which gave it immense global outreach. While as a state USSR’s stakeholders were its citizens, world working classes were stakeholders in its global outreach. For the latter group of stakeholders, the Soviet Union’s disintegration came as a net disaster. A large number of poor and exploited people in the developing world tied their hopes of emancipation with the existence of the Soviet state. Many of them passionately believed the dream for a classless, exploitation-free society would come true one day with the support of the Soviet Union.  

People who were born and grew up during the period USSR was in existence associate their memories with the role the country played on the global stage, with how it influenced and shaped international relations during the cold war era, and opened new horizons in science and technology, for example, space exploration.  People in many developing countries remember the Soviet Union through the prism of assistance it provided to their countries ranging from supporting their national liberation movements to providing wide-ranging economic assistance that helped build national capacities in crucial sectors of the economy. A large number of foreign citizens from developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America studied in the USSR as part of its solidarity with these countries in their socio-economic development through providing their citizens educational and training opportunities in its higher educational institutions. The Soviet Government established in 1960 a new university, famously known as the “Patrice Lumumba People’s Friendship University”, purpose-built to train students from developing countries. 

This group of foreign citizens had a unique opportunity to directly experience Soviet society by being a part of that society despite being foreigners. It was largely a result of acceptance by common Soviet people, the mainstream of the society. Immersion of foreign students in the Soviet society was facilitated by respective higher educational institutions by assigning dedicated groups of Soviet students to groups of foreign students who frequently organized various events to expose foreign students to different aspects of public life in the host country. These included trips to collective farms and state farms in rural areas, industrial units, schools, libraries, movie and drama theatres, summer resorts; celebration of national holidays; participation in subbotniks (voluntary labour) and many other events that provided opportunities for foreign students to closely interact with common Soviet people. Each of these encounters had its own charm. They were also wonderful opportunities for learning beyond classroom lessons. All of these left a deep imprint of that country and its people in the memory of the graduates (Vipuskniki) of Soviet higher educational institutions. Upon return home, no matter which country they were from, these graduates established alumni societies in their respective countries and continued maintaining close relationships  with Soviet alumni societies of other countries by organizing conferences, meetings, and other events. What continues uniting them even after the passage of five decades is the memory of unique experiences of living and studying in the Soviet country and many moments of feeling the warmth of friendship and solidarity transmitted during mingling with common Soviet people in numerous events. 

The Soviet Union’s disintegration sent a massive shock to the economies of many developing countries. The poor developing world lost a reliable friend in dealing with any unexpected emergencies. The principle of proletarian internationalism showed its best in USSR’s existence beyond its border, in its global outreach. Officially, the principle of proletarian internationalism in its global application was known as “fulfillment of international duty”. The overwhelming majority of citizens in developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have mostly positive views of the USSR and many cherish fond memories of the country. That positive view of their citizens also influences current policy making of their governments with regard to the Russian Federation, the inheritor of the USSR, in international relations. It was the key reason that the United States had limited success in building a global anti-Russia coalition in response to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine launched on 24 February 2022. Majority developing countries refused to enlist in the group of countries that the US cobbled together to impose punitive sanctions on Russia. 

But as we have discussed at the beginning, the USSR didn’t resonate with their citizens in the same way as it did with people from other countries. It was on display when more people took the side of counter-revolution led by Boris Yeltsin than those who supported the last-ditch attempt taken by a group of patriotic leaders during 18-21 August 1991 to protect the Soviet Union from disintegrating. In Russia, many people at that time became confused and were largely indifferent to rapidly unfolding political developments that were leading the country to an uncertain direction. Yet, they believed, based on past experiences, that the collective leadership of the CPSU would somehow bring the political turmoil under control and succeed in keeping the country together. But when eventually the Soviet Union fell apart, the response was mixed. While there was an undercurrent of sadness at the loss of a single great country which was also a superpower, many accepted it as a fait accompli and had no alternative but to sail with the wind. 

The reality that unfolded in the immediate aftermath was brutal. It was like a dream cherished and nurtured over the past seventy years shattered overnight. As we have discussed in the beginning, many of the third-generation Soviet citizens emotionally couldn't relate with their country the way their grandparents and parents did. Their understanding  of the virtue of living in a socialist society wasn’t entirely unquestionable.  It was balanced by growing difficulty the state experienced  in fulfilling their aspirations. Those aspirations long passed the threshold of the generation of their grandparents who were just happy with their status of proletariat transformed into collective owners that allowed them break free from abject poverty with their basic requirements fulfilled. As a result, socialism as a concept lost its original shine to the new generation of Soviet citizens. Many were open to changes, but few were prepared to see those kinds of changes that washed away their country. The new reality that dawned sharply contradicted all values and societal relations the Soviet Union stood for. The state which was omnipresent in citizens’ everyday life suddenly disappeared. People were forced to fend for themselves for which few were prepared. There was an enormous psychological toll on the society when the scale of betrayal by the leadership of the CPSU became apparent. Many leaders shed the ideals of socialism; chose to leave the CPSU in droves; changed colours and emerged as the new leaders of a changed country. 

Without any explanation for why it was so, people were told that the market economy was better than the planned economy. Liberal democracy was better than socialism and individualism was better than collectivism. All values, ideals that common Soviet people were born into and brought up were invalidated. In the vacuum that was created, lawlessness, crime and  criminal enterprises mushroomed. The country was set on course to degradation and moral bankruptcy.  Rural life centered on collective farms and state farms broke down when state support for these farms was withdrawn and the agriculture sector de-collectivized. The next big step toward dismantling socialism and demoralizing the Russian working class was privatization of the vast publicly-owned assets of the country – industrial enterprises and its natural resources, land, mines, etc. The scale of privatization and the way it was done was more about grabbing the country’s resources by a few who later emerged as a new class of super rich, known as oligarchs. 

When all production assets and capacities created through decades of socialist industrialization at enormous cost and collective sacrifices made by generations of the Soviet working class were sold or otherwise incapacitated, the country was effectively deindustrialized. It also had a tremendous impact on society.  It destroyed the bond that held its citizens together in a relationship of mutual support and interdependence symbolized by collectivism (one for all and all for one) that gave them confidence in the future. In all cities and towns, there were mills, factories and other publicly-run enterprises and facilities with a decent workplace for everyone. Every day, people used to wake up in the morning knowing that they had a place to go for work without having to bother about the whim of the employer and the prospect of being laid off. They used to ride public transit at a nominal cost where they could easily mingle with each other, spending time talking with each other and exchanging laughter and jokes. In a broad sense, Soviet society was equal, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t income gaps between different groups in the population. But those income gaps were small and far from creating social stratification into rich and poor. No one had a feeling of inferiority while mingling with each other. All public places used to bustle with life. Everyone had a sense of belonging to a greater entity for a great purpose which was the collective. It gave citizens a sense of security, confidence, and pride in their country. 

A key goal of privatization was to destroy the social bond, which was collectivism that drew millions of individuals in a relationship akin to a large family. It was the strength that was behind the miracle in socio-economic development that the Soviet Union accomplished in its brief lifetime. The ideologues of privatization had their target of eliminating societal ownership of all means of production. The ultimate goal was to rupture production relations which was characteristic of the socialized production system. They believed it would nullify the prospect of reverting back to socialism. Privatization, carried out like an economic blitzkrieg, drastically changed the society that took shape over the seven decades of socialist construction. Millions of ordinary working people were thrown out of their jobs. They struggled to find alternative livelihoods. Faced with the brutal reality of survival, many became self-centered, cynical and prone to drug and alcohol addiction. 

By the end of 1992, the country’s population was sharply divided into rich and poor. Almost half of Russia’s population was living below the poverty line. For post-Soviet Russia, the entire decade of the 1990s was a period of economic decline, sharp polarization of the society into rich and poor, and outbreak of violent inter-ethnic conflicts. Many citizens of the Russian Federation today look back at this period as a horror and nightmare. The political part of post-Soviet Russia’s enthusiastic embrace of the West, as has been discussed in introduction, also failed to materialize. All attempts by Russia to be a part of the West by finding a place in its security and economic alliances as an equal partner were rebuffed. Instead, the country was shown its place as a vanquished in the Cold War.  Earlier verbal promises that the Western leaders made to the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to not expand the NATO alliance that could pose a threat to Russia’s security were also broken. It was a tough lesson for the people of post-Soviet Russia. Many of them supported Boris Yeltsin to break free from communism and embrace liberal democracy and market economy in the hope of a better tomorrow from their perspective. But their illusions quickly evaporated against the reality of post-Soviet Russia’s slide into anarchy, degradation and economic decline. It ended in the melting down of its financial system at the end of 1990s. President Boris Yeltsin, whose popularity by that time hit the bottom, having realized that his time was over handed over power to his hand-picked successor, Vladimir V. Putin.  

The change of leadership at the beginning of the 2000s marked a turning point in the evolution of post-Soviet Russia. As we have indicated at the beginning, the second period was also about Russia’s coming back, rebuilding the society and reclaiming its status on the world stage. This part of the second period began with assumption of power by President Vladimir Putin. Contrary to the 1990s, this sub-period brought back hope, ignited optimism and charted a new path for independent  development. It sharply deviated from the course pursued by Yeltsin that effectively turned Russia into a vassal of the West. Yeltsin handed over to Putin a country lying in ruins, morally devastated, and Putin had to essentially start from zero. All he could marshal at the beginning of his rule were the nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union, the country’s status of permanent member at the UNSC with a veto power, and its abundant natural resources including oil and gas. Capitalizing on these three pillars of strength, the new leadership during its 23-year rule transformed Russia again into a world power, an independent power centre with the autonomy of strategic decision making and a credible counterweight to US dominance. The economy was revitalized. Yeltsin-era oligarchs wielding enormous control were suppressed and the state came back. It led to an expanding role of the state in a shift from market economy to state capitalism. 

But how relevant the Soviet Union is to the Russian Federation during the second period? How does an average citizen look back at the USSR?  In the immediate aftermath of the country’s disintegration, many people supported Boris Yeltsin, the leader of the counter-revolution. The  attitude to the USSR was mostly hostile. Rolling back its values, symbols, icons, wholesale denial of Soviet heritage; and an awkward aspiration to connect with the Russian empire negating the Soviet period became the cornerstone of the beginning of Yeltsin’s rule in post-Soviet Russia. The statues of the founding leaders of the Soviet state - Lenin, Stalin, Dzerzhinski and many others  - were dismantled in many places of the country. The citadel of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which bore the name of Lenin, the architect of the revolution, was renamed as “Saint Petersburg” (the city of Peter in German language). The zeal to reconnect with the glory of historical Russia symbolized by emperor Peter the Great was so primitive that the city’s Russian name immediately before the revolution “Petrograd (the city of Peter in Russian)” was ignored in renaming the city of Lenin (Leningrad). The names of dozens of Soviet cities, townships as well as thousands of streets were changed. Even the great Soviet writer, Maxim Gorky, wasn’t spared from this spree. Moscow’s central street bearing his name, Gorky Street, was also renamed. But time puts everything in its place. Thirty years later, many wonder whether committing those excesses were appropriate in the light of the lessons learned, particularly when gains were compared with losses. Nostalgia about the Soviet period grips a significant part of Russia’s population today. Many feel disappointed and pain at the loss of a great country, which was their Motherland. This feeling is unlikely to ever leave them. 

At the official level, too, there has been reassessment of the USSR. President Putin called the disintegration of the USSR a great tragedy for Russia. The President, in fact, echoed a sentiment shared by millions of citizens of his country. Soviet-era symbolic, rituals, and practices have also started creeping back into the mainstream of the society. As has been stated in the foregoing, the Soviet Union’s national anthem reworded by poet Nikita Mikhalkov is now the national anthem of the Russian Federation. The Soviet Union’s national flag is widely displayed alongside Russia’s tricolour. In many parts of the country authorities aren’t averse to local citizens’ initiatives to restore the glory of the past by erecting monuments to Lenin and Stalin. Since 2005 about one hundred monuments to Yosif Stalin have been erected in Russia. The Soviet Union’s emblem is still in place in many government buildings. The Soviet-era practice of fostering patriotism through “military-patriotic upbringing (военно-политическое воспитание)” has also come back. The State Duma took a decision in June 2022 to start an All-Russia movement of children and youth patterned on the Soviet era Pioneer organization. Most recently, the Soviet-era system of higher education which was discarded in favour of the Western system in a wild race to embrace the West has been restored. In short, wholesale rejection of the Soviet past has ended.   Many even dream of the seemingly impossible – getting back the Soviet Union.

The beginning of the end started when the Soviet Union derailed from the revolutionary path of waging a relentless struggle with capitalism to score the final victory of socialism over capitalism. That happened following the death of Yosif Stalin in 1953, the leader who ruled the country for three decades and transformed it into a kind of global power that was adored, respected and feared across the world. The global capitalist system during this period saw for it an existential challenge in the Soviet Union-led socialist system. The transition of power in the wake of Stalin’s death didn’t happen in the way that would have maintained continuity in the Soviet Union’s socialist construction both at home and abroad. 
Stalin didn’t have time to groom his successor although often he uttered preferences for several leaders. 

In that list, the name of Nikita Sergeievich Khrushchev, the leader who prevailed in the power struggle that broke out in the CPSU after Stalin’s death and succeeded in capturing power, was missing.  Having emerged as the top leader, Khrushchev turned his focus on consolidating his grip on power by killing and sidelining veteran party leaders who were close associates of Yosif Stalin. An abrupt break from Stalin’s course of development, dismantling his legacy and casting his three-decade rule  largely in a negative light became Khrushchev’s  main platform for setting a new course for the Soviet Union’s own development as well as its leadership in its global outreach. The 20^(th) congress of the CPSU held in February 1956 formalized this platform into a state policy that continued till the fall of the Soviet Union. .

This paradigm shift was a watershed moment for the global socialist movement as well as the Soviet Union’s own development. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party called it betrayal and broke ranks with the CPSU. It triggered the division of the world socialist movement which weakened the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism globally and benefitted the capitalist world. It also created a golden opportunity for the world capitalist system to sow seeds of further discord in the socialist camp and turn the ideological rivalry between the Soviet Union and China into outright hostility. It  caused further damage to the world socialist movement. The division of the world socialist camp also sowed discord in Soviet society paving the way for emergence of fault lines in the society of which we talked in the foregoing. The credibility of the CPSU leadership was called into question.  

Many equated official denial of the legacy of Yosif Stalin with delegitimizing the rule of the CPSU in the public eye. Many believe the decisions of the 20^(th) congress of the CPSU pivoted the country away from the revolutionary path. It triggered such changes in the economy and the society that actually set in motion the process of USSR’s disintegration. The opposite camp, the US-led global capitalism, took note of the fateful changes for the country that took place at the 20th CPSU congress. Discrediting the architect of the Soviet Union’s decisive victory over German fascism and tarnishing his legacy of state building by his own party came as a wonderful opportunity for the West to double down on its propaganda efforts to discredit the socialist system and drive wedge in Soviet society. As a result, the image of Yosif Stalin that was imposed on the society from the top was one of a cruel, blood-thirsty executioner. This image narrowed the essence of Stalin’s rule to killing many innocent people, torturing and sending people to labour camps (gulags) and ignored his contributions to building the USSR and transforming it into a superpower. 

 During the Stalin-era, the Soviet Union’s strength was perceived worldwide both economically and militarily. It was a counterweight to the world capitalist system not only in terms of military might but also economic power deriving strength from its centrally planned economy and societal ownership of the means of production. The Soviet model of economy demonstrated its superiority during the 1930s, the period of socialist industrialization when the capitalist world was mired in a deep recession. It demonstrated excellence during the WWII and also during the period of post-war reconstruction. The key source of strength of the centrally planned economy was the selfless labour of the working class, the spirit of mobilization, efficient supply chain management, strict discipline across the line of management of the production chain and accountability from production managers at all levels for outputs produced against consumption of resources; and above all, strict oversight to eliminate corruption, which was rare in those days. The state-controlled publicly-owned means of production were treated as truly belonging to the people serving in the interests of all. Government officials responsible for running the economy couldn’t think of themselves other than custodians of public property and managers of socialized production. The Soviet Union during Stalin’s rule didn’t have to rely on selling natural resources to generate revenues for funding its budget. In 1950, the share of oil and gas in the Soviet Union’s export trade was less than 4 percent. 

As we have noted in the foregoing, discarding governance mechanisms that Yosif V. Stalin put in place over the years including those to make the economy work for the benefit of the people and the country’s rapid socialist development robbed the planned economy of its advantage over the capitalist market economy. Khrushchev’s turn around drew a limit to the ideological battle between socialism and capitalism on the question of economy, which was not in favour of socialism. At that time, the key strength of the planned economy - mobilization and selfless labour of citizens - was approaching limits with the ending of the extraordinary times the country went through.  The challenge then was to find additional tools, sort of Marxist socialism’s own answer to sustain growth momentum of the planned economy and ensure its competitive edge over the capitalist market economy. 

That wasn’t an easy task. It required innovative thinking and bold leadership from the CPSU. Because the Marxist ideology has no ready-made answers on how to manage the economy after the proletariat conquers political power and private ownership of the means of production is abolished.  Immediately after the revolution, war communism was put in place as an approach to run the economy which was consistent with Marxism in letter and spirit. But the approach didn’t work because the consequences were contrary to expectations. The Bolshevik Government led by V.I. Lenin abandoned war communism in 1920 and introduced in its place New Economic Policy which was restoration of capitalism. It was billed as a necessary measure for an interim period to use capitalism to create the ground for building socialism, in other words, building socialism with the help of capitalism. After Lenin’s death, Stalin rolled back NEP and proceeded to build socialism through mobilization of domestic resources which he accomplished in the mid-1930s through socialist industrialization, Cultural Revolution and collectivization of agriculture. It was all about the Soviet experience of management of a socialized economy. 

But as indicated above, in the 1950s, there was a need to do more in terms of innovation of concepts and methods to upgrade those aspects that could sustain dynamic growth of the planned economy. These include, among others, supply chain management, rational consumption of resources, increasing productivity of labour, introduction of new technologies and production processes to remain globally competitive, etc. The Soviet Union then had everything needed to cope with this challenge - developed industrial base, formidable pool of scientific talent, a well-trained workforce with advanced skills and knowledge. But Nikita Khrushchev chose not to travel along this path.  Instead, he chose the one that he thought would be risk free to his leadership. It was bringing back concepts of capitalism in disguise using different names to run the economy. It was inherently contradictory because in the Soviet economy, private ownership, which is the engine of growth of capitalism, was non-existent and all productive assets and resources of the country belonged to the people. It did more harm than good because it deprived visible advantages of central planning over market economy. 

As expected, Khrushchev’s experiments to adapt capitalism to run the socialized economy ended in failure.  The turn-around impacted the morale of Soviet society and the cause of ideological struggle between socialism and capitalism globally. Ideologically, it was an acknowledgement that Marxism had little to offer apart from abolishing private ownership, nationalization and state-control of all productive assets and resources on behalf of the people and promoting the spirit of collectivism and self-sacrifice in the society. It was a major defeat on the ideological front also because it signalled Marxist socialism had exhausted potential for being a viable alternative to capitalism in the long term. Instead of developing Marxism from where Karl Marx left it to prepare the economic base for transition to communism, the doctrine was transformed into a kind of religious dogma under the pretext of defending the purity of Marxism from the attack of revisionists.  Khrushchev thus effectively lost the real ideological battle of socialism to capitalism. And probably, unknowingly, set the stage for deepening contradictions of Soviet society which for many years lay dormant to the point that the existence of the Soviet state would one day be threatened. Apart from the setback in the economy, Khrushchev’s paradigm change also demoralized politics by turning Stalin-era CPSU’s ironclad commitment to socialism into a sort of formality, a mere slogan. Honesty, devotion and dedication to Marxist socialism in CPSU’s rank and file were replaced by duplicity and double-speak. 

People quickly realized what party leaders utter in meetings and public gatherings, they don’t actually mean it. As a result, the CPSU took the turn to convert from being a party of passionate believers in the ideals of Marxist socialism to opportunity seekers with little faith in ideology and even hostile to it. With time the CPSU lost its original revolutionary character and became an administrative-cum-party bureaucracy. To get an entry into this system, the key requirement was membership in the party and the opportunists took this advantage. Gradually they moved upward in the party bureaucracy resulting in the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin at the helm of power in the mid-1980s. In the management of the economy, concepts of capitalism adapted to run industrial enterprises also introduced “greed” named as “material interest” (материалная заинтересованность) as an incentive for higher production. It also fostered a sense of ownership among officials who were responsible for management of socialized production.  

It was in stark contrast with the Stalin era, when government officials in charge of running the economy couldn’t think of themselves other than custodians of people’s property. The competition between the socialist camp and the capitalist camp that was visible in the outside world was in effect military confrontation for expanding each other’s sphere of influence. However, despite all these changes, the Soviet economy still grew. The Soviet Union had many achievements to impress the world and also for its people to feel proud. For much of the outside world, the Soviet Union continued to remain a success story despite all its internal weaknesses. How could this happen? 

The simplest explanation was “Inertia of motion.” The giant industrial, scientific and technical base that Yosif Stalin created and left behind in the beginning of the 1950s had enough residual strength to push the country along the path of glory, growth and prosperity. The major achievements that brought fame for the country in atomic energy, nuclear weapons and space exploration in the 1950s and onward were made possible thanks to the material and technical foundation created in the Stalin era. The declining contribution of the industrial sector to gross national income was compensated by rising share of export of natural resources, principally oil and gas. In its global outreach, the Soviet Union maintained its influence by supporting anti-colonial national liberation movements; promoting socialist revolutions where possible and patronizing local communist and leftist parties adhering to Marxist socialism. 

Despite heating up military confrontation with the US-led Western block, which reached climax in 1962 with the Soviet Union stationing nuclear missiles in Cuba, the Soviet Union also worked toward an accommodation with the West that wouldn't allow cold war turning into a real full blown war.  Following the Cuban missile crisis and the ouster from power of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964 in a palace coup, the new CPSU leadership headed  by General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev adopted a more conciliatory approach seeking an accommodation with the West. This approach was met with enthusiastic support from then Chancellor of West Germany, Willy Brandt, who unveiled his own “Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy)” and pressed ahead with the opening of  a new chapter in dealing with the Eastern bloc. 

As a result, a number of agreements were concluded that led to thawing of frozen relations  between the two sides engaged in the Cold War. This period, the end of the 1960s, is known as “detente” from the Western perspective” and “relaxation of international tensions (Разрядка международной напряжённости)” from the Soviet side. To further advance the process of easing hostility, which was the official foreign policy objective, the Soviet Government came up with a new initiative known as “Peaceful coexistence of states with different different social systems  (Мирное сосуществование государств с различным общественным строем)”.
 
Apparently, the Soviet Government’s effort to tone down the tensions and lower the risk of nuclear confrontation with the West looked like a responsible act in international relations during that period which benefited the world. But from the perspective of socialism’s victory over capitalism, which the USSR symbolized, it was a setback and another moment of defeat. Because the US-led Western alliance didn’t buy into the Soviet concept of “Peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems” . In contrast, it assiduously pursued  the goal of destroying socialism as an alternative to capitalism and the USSR as well. Interestingly, it is global capitalism led by the US which fought the true class struggle against socialism as opposed to the USSR, that was supposed to take the fight to capitalism and achieve victory for socialism following the rules of class struggle consistent with Marxist doctrine. 
 
If we look into the question which side had a bigger stake in detente, it was not the US and the Western alliance. It was the Soviet Union. For the Western alliance, detente was an opportunity to engage with the Soviet Union and the Eastern block and develop cooperation only in those areas that would give advantage to it in its cold war/class struggle with the Soviet Union. It included  arms control, cooperation in space exploration, and most importantly, launching psychological war against  the core values of the Soviet society using all opportunities of direct interaction with the Soviet civil society, which in the USSR  was known as people’s intelligentsia ( народная интелигенция) - academicians, scientists, representatives of art and culture, economists, etc. 

The goal of this psychological war  was to turn people’s intelligentsia as much as possible into anti-people’s intelligentsia. It was done by promoting dissidents, sowing suspicions in the society about supremacy of socialist values and the Soviet way of life. It fostered  a sense across the Soviet society that the socialist  way of life was inherently inferior to capitalism and the society of consumerism. Academic exchanges and visits by government officials, economists to Western institutions at different levels were used as opportunities to further discredit Marxist socialism. 

Most Soviet counterparts used to return home from such exchanges with their Western counterparts convinced that Marxist socialism exhausted its potential in the USSR and the future lies with capitalism. Soviet national culture, the brightest aspect of socialist construction in the USSR, was also infiltrated by local agents of Western pop culture and rock music. The broad consensus among a section of the ruling party elites  since the mid-1970s was  carrying forward the policy of peaceful coexistence  with the West to full integration with the West as an equal partner. But that was something the West was unwilling to do. Its goal was complete destruction of the socialist system and the Soviet Union which it accomplished in 1992 with help of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. 

However, as we have emphasized before, despite all its internal weaknesses and shortcomings, the Soviet Union’s destruction wasn’t preordained. It was the cowardly leadership that was in place then that wilfully gave up on its key constitutional duty – protecting the state and securing the welfare of its citizens.