Почему рухнул советский социализм. Рецензия на книгу китайского автора о крахе советского социализма. Лу Айго. Советский Союз. Причины распада и уроки. Саньлянь шу дянь, Пекин, 2025（路爱国. 苏联崩溃的原因及教训. 三聯書店, 2025)

Why the Soviet Socialism Collapsed? The review of the book by the Chinese author on the Crash of Soviet Socialism. Aiguo Lu. The causes of the collapse of the USSR and its lessons. Sanlian shu, Beijing, 2025. ( 路爱国. 苏联崩溃的原因及教训. 三聯書店, 2025)

Vladimir Popov

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: There is no shortage of research in China on the collapse of the USSR and Soviet socialism, and on the lessons of this collapse for China. A review article on the achievements of Chinese Sovietology (Zuo Fengrong, 2022) states that experts generally acknowledge Gorbachev's direct responsibility for the collapse of the USSR, but do not attribute it solely to the "betrayal" of a few leaders. Rather they expose the flaws of the Soviet model – inability to stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of the people, the slowdown in economic growth and the decline in efficiency - factors that make it impossible to believe that the collapse of the Soviet Union was not an accident. "Scholars have shown that it was precisely the CPSU’s loss of popular support that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union", – writes Zuo Fengrong (2022). Against this background, the book under review stands out sharply. Lu Aiguo proves the exact opposite – it was not the Communist Party that lost the support of the people, but the people who lost control over the leadership of the Communist Party and the state. The author's main idea is that the USSR collapsed not because of internal problems, although there were plenty of them, but because of a change in the course initiated by the elite, because of a "wormhole in the heart," to use a well-known Chinese idiom that roughly corresponds to the Russian "a fish rots from the head."

Keywords: Soviet socialism; collapse of the USSR; lessons for China; economic competition of socialism and capitalism; public opinion and the elite in democracies and autocracies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H40 I38 O43 O57 P20 P51 P52 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-05-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis
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