19.02.2023, Aleksandrovskoye.
The Russian Federation was able to keep oil prices from falling and avoid a shortage of goods, which became a major problem for the Soviet Union during the years of Mikhail Gorbachev’s rule, said philosopher, political scientist, the leader of the Essence of Time movement Sergey Kurginyan on February 10 in the program Conversation with a Sage on the Zvezda radio.
William Casey, the head of the US intelligence during the Ronald Reagan administration, “managed to convince the entire Arab world that oil prices should be lowered,” as a result – oil prices dropped catastrophically, recalled Kurginyan.
The oil prices drop and the problems it caused to the Soviet economy became one of the reasons for the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, noted Kurginyan. However, the Russian fuel and energy sector survived.
“What is happening now? As we can see, nothing similar is taking place. The successes of our foreign trade system; our very specific murky system of operations within the fuel and energy sector; our intelligence; our foreign policy as a whole have led the Arab world not to act with servitude towards the US as before … In short, oil prices did not tumble and our fuel and energy industrial sector passed the test,” said Kurginyan.
In the current confrontation with Russia, the US was betting precisely on the collapse of the Russian economy, counting on a fall in oil prices and a sharp weakening of the ruble, added the expert. However, this did not happen and “the dollar-ruble exchange rate was preserved,” noted the political scientist.
Another major problem of the late USSR turned out to be an artificially created trade deficit, when, for example, as a result of unbalanced pricing and profiteering in the tobacco market, cigarettes disappeared from the shelves.
“There is nothing like that. Prices are set by free markets, nothing is sold from under the counters, and there are plenty of goods on the shelves. Their prices are rising. It’s very, very bad, but it’s not catastrophic,” said Kurginyan.
At the same time, despite the significance of the commodity deficit and problems in foreign trade, the determining factor in the collapse of the USSR was the actions of the country’s leaders, and primarily Gorbachev, stressed Kurginyan.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
