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The
ruling circle grew increasingly aware of the looming crisis, but its
self-centered interests prevailed over the strategic interests of
the country. Some sporadic and timid attempts at reform were still
periodically launched, but all this had little or no effect. It
became common practice to juggle figures and to massage statistics
to simulate nonexistent success. Such “creative accounting” was not
regarded as something reprehensible. Systematic falsification of
economic data and bogus, fraudulent statistics in economic plans,
reports, and accounts became widespread. |
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Deceit and whitewash at all levels were now the chief mode of the
functioning of the administrative apparatus. The low living
standards for millions of people, the absence of any incentives to
raise labor efficiency, and a sharp increase in the alcohol
consumption level were all signs of decay and disaffection within
Soviet society. The country came face to face with a crisis of the
entire socioeconomic system that the ruling elite refused to
acknowledge or see. Moreover, the authorities sought to divert
public attention from real problems by massive propaganda of
militarism and by pushing the country into reckless military
adventures, such as the war in Afghanistan.
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In
this parlous state the Soviet Union entered the 1980s and the time
to meet the party’s “solemn promise” made in 1961 that in 1980 the
Soviet people would live under communism. Obviously, the promise was
not and could not be kept. Soviet ideologists had to use all their
ingenuity to explain away the embarrassment, and they came up with
the neat idea of “developed” or “mature” socialism. This was
presented as an indefinitely long stage of historical development.
The implication was that the promised land of communism was no
longer at hand and that generations of Soviet people should now be
prepared to stick with “developed” socialism for as long as it takes
to reach communism:
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The
extensive experience of socialist and communist construction in the
USSR incontrovertibly demonstrates that our advance to communism is
being accomplished through the stage of a developed socialist
society. This is a necessary, natural, and historically long period
of the formation of the communist system. This conclusion was drawn
and elaborated by the Party in recent years and, unquestionably, it
should be duly recorded in the Party Program.
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The state’s propaganda system tried hard to persuade the Soviet
people of the correctness of party doctrine, but its attempts were
now increasingly met with cynicism and derision. In the conditions
of mounting deficit, which affected practically the entire consumer
goods and services sectors, and which was further aggravated by the
abnormal distribution system, skewed in favor of the privileged
nomenklatura, many Soviet citizens began to question the proposition
that the Soviet system did indeed offer an alternative model of
economic development and social justice to that of capitalism.
Soviet leaders became unable to persuade the population that the
bright future of communism would ever arrive. A popular joke of the
time posed a question: “What sort of a job should you take, so as
never to be unemployed?” The answer was characteristic of the
disdain in which people now held party promises: “Climb up the
Kremlin wall and watch for the approach of communism.”
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