第7章 克里姆林宫：铁幕1985 随笔/クレムリン：「鉄のカーテン」1985年のエッセイ/Kremlin: The Iron Curtain 1985（2/2）

しかも、これらの国の経済は、ソ連への依存度が高かったのである。

思想的にも、ソ連の正統派マルクス・レーニン主義は新自由主義を克服できなかった。 その点、新自由主義は、冷戦時代のように、マルクス・レーニン主義とその思想的優位性を競う必要がなく、資本主義の共産主義社会が実現不可能なユートピアの青写真であることを証明すればよかったのです。

考えてみれば、経済が停滞インフレに陥り、深刻な社会問題が完全に噴出する前に、ソ連は内部から自壊したのである。 その後、ロシアのオリガルヒによる民営化の時代がやってきた。

バルト三国を除く旧ソビエト共和国は、1990年代に入ってから、すべて災害に見舞われた。

ソ連の崩壊は確実に起こるかもしれませんが、ゴルバチョフが政権を取る前のアメリカの学者は、ソ連は単に停滞しているに過ぎないと見るのが普通でした。 最も悲観的な予測は、2010年にソ連で深刻な社会問題が勃発するというものだけだった。

1988年のリチャード・ニクソン元アメリカ大統領の著書「戦争のない1999年」でも、1991年にソ連が崩壊することは気づかなかった。

ソ連崩壊の前から、米英仏の一部の指導者は、ソ連の崩壊は良い意味ではなく、ソ連の人々にとっては悲劇であり、米国にとっては過ちであるかもしれないと気付いていた。 ソ連崩壊後、ライバルのいなかったアメリカは、わずか30年で腐敗・退化し始めました。

米国の新自由主義的な思想・価値観は、東アジアのナショナリズムとの限られた組み合わせの中で、イスラム教や社会主義に勝つことができず、米国の富裕な資本家階級が中間層やプロレタリアートを食い物にするようになり、1％の富裕層が社会全体の富の20％以上を所有するようになり、30％に...。

例えば、冷戦が2010年まで続いていたとします。 では、アメリカの選挙は今のような結果になっていたのでしょうか？ 想像することができます。

いずれにしても、ソ連の崩壊はいずれ起こるだろう。 しかし、ゴルバチョフは、主ではないにしても、事前にその責任を負っていた。 それはプロパガンダであり、結果を推し量るプロセスであり、彼の前任者の責任に転嫁することもできない。

どの国にもそれぞれの社会問題があり、適格な支配者はそれを解決し、凡庸な支配者はそれを先送りし、無能な支配者はそれを作り出す。 しかし、導火線に火をつけて、社会問題という爆弾を自爆させてしまった人たちを何と呼べばいいのか。

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It was a high probability that the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union was a small probability event.

From the time Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech to the end of the Cold War, the probability of the Soviet Union winning the Cold War was not high. The United States had long controlled the countries of Latin America and gained a monopoly of interests and resources. All leaders and guerrillas in Latin America, with the exception of Cuba, who tried to recapture national interests from U.S. corporations were largely overthrown and suppressed by various means, regardless of morality or ability or ideology.

This was the case with Abens in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, Jaime Roldos in Ecuador, Torrijos in Panama, Noriega, Ortega in Nicaragua, and conversely, even dictators like Dulivaré and Pinochet could rule the country if the dictators in Latin America were willing to defend U.S. corporations. Therefore, it is almost impossible for the Soviet Union in Latin America to intervene in the U.S.-dominated trade system and exert its influence.

The countries of Western Europe and East Asia were also difficult to succeed for various reasons, while these countries were the first to complete the original capital accumulation and industrialization, and the Soviet Union was not able to do anything in the face of the technical and trade barriers of the Economic Cooperation Organization. The situation in Southeast Asian countries was similar to that of Latin America, where the Communist Party of China was responsible for assisting and guiding the communist revolution before Deng Xiaoping. The Soviet Union also had no influence to intervene.

As for Africa, the situation was even more stupid. Under Brezhnev the Soviet Union gave free or low-interest aid to African countries all year round, but this did not amount to much, especially when the United States also gave hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to African countries. The idea that the Soviet Union could help influence another country for decades through aid is laughable.

It is important to note that when the Soviet Union was in financial difficulty it could not count on these African countries.

So, what about the Eastern European countries? This has to be judged from two aspects. On the one hand, in terms of control, the Soviet Union was quite successful in controlling the Eastern European countries.

Economically the Eastern European countries all entered the Soviet ECCU system for unified marketing by the Soviet Union, which allowed the Eastern European communist countries not to worry about trade at all. At the same time, the Soviet Union divided the industrial chain so that each Eastern European country was responsible for a part of the industry. This allowed the Eastern European countries to grow well in the early years of the Cold War and to experience a period of pain if they wanted to leave the ECCU system or transition to a market economy.

Poland, which historically had the smallest share of state-owned enterprises after the Eastern European upheaval, also had serious economic problems. Even so, all the Eastern European countries had different degrees of human trafficking and other criminal problems and brain drain. In the case of the three Baltic states, the only ones that developed sufficiently after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their total population and territory were small enough to receive a significant amount of foreign capital for their rapid development. Even so, comparing the negative population growth of the constituent republics before the collapse of the Soviet Union with the present is still a grim situation.

Militarily, the Soviet Union had military bases in all Eastern European countries except Romania and Bulgaria, and these bases were manned by Soviet troops and intelligence agencies of the Eastern European countries to ensure Soviet control over them. Politically, with the exception of Romania, all Eastern European countries required Soviet approval for personnel appointments and removals. Among them, the Bulgarian Communist Party (which did not even have its own partisan units during World War II...) was the most loyal to the Soviet Union because it was directly supported by the Soviet Union. The East German Communist Party was also more loyal to the Soviet Union due to persecution by Nazi Germany and Soviet support, while Czechoslovakia was more loyal to the Soviet Union due to the pre-WWII Munich Agreement and betrayal by the Western Allies, as well as being a traditionally pro-Russian Slavic state. Hungary and Poland, on the other hand, had a delicate relationship with the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, the communist rule in Eastern Europe was a failure. First of all, due to historical legacies, the populations of Eastern European countries largely viewed the communist regimes as Soviet puppet regimes (and in a sense, rightly so). At the same time, the Soviet Union\u0027s highly hegemonic interference and internal control of its allies made even the regimes it supported resist, whether it was the traditionally pro-Russian Czechoslovakia or the traditionally anti-Russian Poland, both of which were brutally interfered with by the Soviet Union because of internal and diplomatic issues.

In terms of ideology and internal affairs, if the Eastern European countries were to gain, they would need national and ethnic solidarity, and the reality was that, with the exception of the Romanian Communist Party, none of them were properly integrated with their own nationalism. And Ceausescu, the leader of the Romanian Communist Party, lost the support of his people through his misguided policies of fertility and austerity, and his family dictatorship.

In addition, as far as the economies of these countries were concerned, they were highly dependent on the Soviet Union.

Ideologically, Soviet orthodox Marxism-Leninism could not overcome neoliberalism either. In this respect, neoliberalism simply did not have to compete with Marxism-Leninism as it did in the middle of the Cold War for that ideological superiority; it was enough for it to prove that the communist society of capitalism was an unattainable utopian blueprint.

Under the influence of various factors, the Soviet Union disintegrated itself from within before the economy fell into stagnant inflation and before serious social problems had completely erupted. Then came the era of privatization by Russian oligarchs.

All the former Soviet republics except the three Baltic states fell into disaster in the 1990s.

The collapse of the Soviet Union may be certain to happen, but before Gorbachev came to power, U.S. scholars usually saw the Soviet Union as merely stagnant. The most pessimistic predictions were only that serious social problems would erupt in the Soviet Union in 2010.

Even in 1988, the book \"1999 Without a War\" by former U.S. President Richard Nixon did not realize that the Soviet Union would disintegrate as early as 1991.

Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, some leaders in the United States, Britain and France realized that the collapse of the Soviet Union might not mean good, rather it might be a tragedy for the Soviet people and a mistake for the United States. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States, which had no rival, began to corrupt and degenerate in just thirty years.

The neo-liberal ideology and values of the United States were unable to defeat Islam and socialism with a limited combination of East Asian nationalism, and the wealthy capitalist class of the United States began to plunder the middle class and proletariat, with the richest 1% owning more than 20% to 30% of the total wealth of society...

Suppose, the Cold War lasts until 2010. So, could the U.S. elections have turned out the way they are now? We can imagine this.

In any case, the collapse of the Soviet Union will probably happen eventually. But Gorbachev was ahead of that point, even if he was not primarily responsible. It is propaganda and the process of derivation of results cannot be shifted to the responsibility of his predecessors either.

Every country has its own social problems, and qualified rulers will solve it, mediocre ones will delay it, and incompetent ones will create it. But what do we call people who light the fuse and let the bomb of social problems blow up their own?