In December 1991, the largest state on the planet, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), collapsed. In its place, 15 sovereign countries were formed. Until now, disputes about what caused this event and what is more in the collapse of the USSR - positive or negative aspects?
What are the advantages of the collapse of the USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an artificial entity. The republics that make up it were too different. These differences concerned literally everything: the level of development, the mentality of peoples, languages, religions. Such a state can be strong and united only under the conditions of some important unifying factor.
For example, during the Great Patriotic War, all citizens of the USSR had to fight a common external enemy - Nazi Germany.
In peacetime, for the USSR, such a unifying factor was the ideological and geopolitical struggle against the block of Western countries led by the United States. In the course of this struggle, the Soviet Union supported the so-called "People's Democracies" around the world, spending colossal resources on this. In addition, even more funds were spent on maintaining the balance of arms with the NATO bloc. There was a very real threat of nuclear war. Therefore, the collapse of the USSR and the rejection of the communist ideology led to the fact that the threat of a large-scale war with the use of weapons of mass destruction has sharply decreased, and this is an indisputable plus.
In the USSR, the economy was forced to "serve politics", and this led to a shortage of consumer goods - food, clothing, footwear, household appliances. After the collapse of the USSR, the concept of “commodity deficit” quickly disappeared.
The inhabitants of the USSR could not travel freely around the world. A trip abroad required the collection of a mass of documents, the passage of various commissions. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, travel abroad for sightseeing became commonplace for millions of its former citizens. This can only be viewed positively.
What are the disadvantages of the collapse of the Soviet Union
However, the collapse of the huge state also led to negative consequences. For many people, the following years were firmly imprinted in their memory as the "crazy 90s". Here and a sharp drop in living standards, and unfair privatization, which led to a colossal stratification in income, and rampant crime. In addition, smoldering hotbeds of interethnic conflicts immediately flared up in some places of the former USSR.
For example, a real civil war has raged in Tajikistan for several years.
In the USSR, for all its shortcomings, citizens had a high level of social protection. Now he is gone, which causes discontent and anxiety in many people.
