During the Cold War, the Soviet army was the most powerful armed force in the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet army led the way in 13 indicators of the power of strategic weapons. After Gorbachev came to power in 1985, in order to conform to the reform of the new thinking, he began to implement the policy of disarmament and withdrawal from 1988. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the total strength of the Soviet Army fell to about 4.25 million, and the size was reduced. But even so, the Soviet armed forces were still among the best in the world, still holding the premier steel armored clusters and strategic nuclear weapons, which were beyond the reach of ordinary armed forces.
However, when the Soviet regime was on its way to collapse in 1991, the Soviet army of more than 4 million troops failed to save the country in times of crisis. From 1989 to 1990, there were frequent conflicts in Armenia, Azerbaijan and other countries, and Lithuania and other countries showed signs of breaking away from the Soviet Union. In 1990, after the end of the 28th CPSU Congress, Gorbachev's reforms were almost completely out of the way. In May 1991, Gorbachev and the leaders of the 15 republics reached an agreement to sign the Treaty of the New Union, transforming the Soviet Union into a "new Soviet Union", which turned the Soviet Union into a "loose confederation".
The situation in the Soviet Union is getting more and more dangerous every day, and the Soviet army, which has a large number of generals, is still unable to turn the tide. In late 1991, with the frequent occurrence of domestic events, the crisis faced by the Soviet regime became more and more serious. On August 19 of that year, in order to save the fate of the Soviet Union, a group of Soviet elders planned the August 19 Incident and sent a group of elite Soviet troops into Moscow. However, under the propaganda offensive of Yeltsin and others, the elite Soviet troops such as the "Taman" division that entered Beijing quickly changed their positions, resulting in the failure of the operation. After the end of august 19, the process of disintegration of the Soviet Union was further accelerated, and finally collapsed completely on December 26, 1991.
Why, then, did the Soviet army fail to save the Soviet regime? In fact, this has a lot to do with the proliferation of historical nihilism in the late Soviet Union. As the saying goes, strong fortresses are breached from within. To some extent, the disintegration of the Soviet Union is not so much a successful case of the "peaceful evolution" of the Eastern countries by the Western world as a heavy lesson for the superpowers to ignore their own shortcomings and mistakes and move towards collapse. From another perspective, we will analyze the reasons why the Soviet army failed to save the regime.
The implementation of the "new thinking" reform has caused confusion in the ideological field
After Gorbachev came to power in 1985, the Soviet Union began to implement "new thinking" reforms. "New thinking" is nominally reform, but in the russian word, it is more like "reconstruction." It stands to reason that reasonable and correct reforms could help the Soviet Union reverse its decline. However, soon after the implementation of the "new thinking" reform, it gradually deviated from the right direction. Among them, there is naturally a "peaceful evolution" of Western countries at work, but it also has a great relationship with Gorbachev and others whose thinking is incorrect and their means are not smart. From 1987 to 1989, with the support of the West behind the scenes, a large number of so-called "symposiums", "salons", "lectures" and other public opinion organizations sprung up in the Soviet Union. These organizations do not take the science knowledge as their duty, but on the contrary take pride in deliberately smearing the Soviet Union and exposing the "black curtain" of the Soviet Union, which has greatly confused the ideological field.
In the face of the confusion in the field of public opinion, Gorbachev and others not only failed to correct it in time, but also encouraged unhealthy trends. After the 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1990, the reform of the Soviet Union almost completely changed direction. Due to excessive democratization and openness, the Soviet ideological field was also more difficult to control. By August 1990, more than 90,000 "parties" of various names had sprung up in the Soviet Union, 20 of which called themselves "national parties." By 1991, the CPSU controlled only 1.5 per cent of the country's newspapers. Taking advantage of this chaotic situation, some "agents" supported by the West took control of the Soviet Union's propaganda tools, and then smeared and denied the history of the Soviet Union to a greater extent, making the situation even more difficult to control. Thus, by 1991, the domestic situation in the SOVIET Union was quite chaotic.
Historical nihilism caused serious harm and greatly disintegrated the cohesion of the Soviet army
In fact, as early as 1956, during the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the signs of historical nihilism in the Soviet Union had already emerged, and Khrushchev completely denied Stalin at the conference that year. By the late 1980s, Gorbachev had further expanded this idea and claimed to "restore historical justice." How did they "restore historical justice"? It turned out that they had almost negated all the heroes of the Soviet Union. In their theory, Lenin was a "spy sent by the Kaiser," Dzerzhinsky was an "executioner," Zoya was an "arsonist," and everything Stalin did was "wrong." This kind of "historical justice" violates the principle of dialectics and is inherently an injustice. Under this kind of thinking, the conviction of the Soviet people naturally wavered.
Historical nihilism had a negative impact on the Soviet people and was also a terrible cause in the Soviet army. After this idea spread within the Soviet army, many Soviet officers and soldiers abandoned their identification with the Soviet regime and turned to their identification with their own national members. As a result, in the mid-to-late 1980s, many nationalist paramilitary organizations appeared in the Soviet army, and some soldiers no longer obeyed the orders of their superiors. For example, in 1988, when a major earthquake struck Armenia, Armenian soldiers in the Soviet army spontaneously returned to their hometowns to participate in reconstruction work. On the Battlefield in Afghanistan, some Uzbek and Tajik soldiers even stood with the "Muslim brothers" of Afghanistan. In the spring of 1990, seven member states failed to complete their conscription missions, and the situation was very bad.
At the time of the August 19 incident, many Soviet soldiers were at a loss and did not know whether to defend the Soviet Union
When there was a wave of conviction in the Soviet army, Yeltsin, Kravchuk and other Western officials took the opportunity to win over the Soviet officers and men of their own nationality to expand their influence. On one occasion, when Yeltsin was visiting the Tula paratrooper station, he told commander Grachev: "When your legally elected Russian leader is threatened with his life, will you lead the troops to protect him?" The answer was, "Yes." Relying on a similar approach, Yeltsin was supported by ethnic Russian officers and men of the Soviet army, and Kravchuk was supported by ethnic Ukrainian officers and men of the Soviet army. The Soviet armed forces, formed by the multi-ethnic cohesion of the Soviet Union, disintegrated under this "propaganda offensive".
The long-term confusion in the ideological field has shaken the conviction of the vast number of soldiers and civilians, and Gorbachev's practice of frequently letting the Soviet army "carry the pot" after the Rust incident has intensified the contradictions between the army and the political circles. Multiple factors intertwine and ultimately have serious consequences. At the time of the August 19 incident, although the elite Soviet army, including the "Taman" division, entered Moscow, a large number of Soviet soldiers were already in a confused state of mind. Some officers and men lacked confidence in carrying out their tasks, some officers and men did not understand the nature of the incident, some officers and men did not know what the significance of their actions was, and some officers and men had doubts about the future of the Soviet state. Taking this opportunity, Yeltsin once again launched a "propaganda offensive", which eventually prompted the "Taman" division and other units to change their positions.
Overall, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a complex process involving many aspects. Among them, the proliferation of historical nihilism in the Soviet Union was also an important reason for the disintegration of the cohesion of the Soviet army and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. After the August 19 incident, the speed of the collapse of the Soviet Union was further accelerated, and it was difficult for the Soviet army to do more. Eventually, on December 25-26, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed completely.