17.12.2023, Rostov
The elite of the late Soviet Union abandoned communist ideology and the Soviet past in order to achieve legitimization in front of the West, said head of the Department of Philosophy and History of the Fatherland at Rostov State Transport University (RSTU), Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Vladimir Takhtamyshev, in a commentary for the Rossa Primavera news agency on December 14.
Takhtamyshev noted that at the late stage of the USSR’s existence, the country’s top leadership abandoned communist ideology in favor of the concept of “global civilizational development.” However, in his opinion, this concept does not envision a worthy place for Russia.
“According to it, Russia can only be considered as being on the outskirts of civilizational development due to the lack of democracy, private property, market and civil society,” the professor explained the point of view from which Russia is viewed by the West.
Takhtamyshev added that the Soviet elite did not limit itself to abandoning ideology. In order to please the West, it also abandoned its Soviet past and condemned it.
“Entering the global civilization (actually the Western civilization) implied the Soviet elite’s rejection not only of the ideology it espoused, but also of its Soviet past. This rejection consisted in condemning what was called Bolshevism. The elite tried to achieve legitimization in front of the Western ruling entity by renouncing its ties to Bolshevism and through its derogatory criticism,” the professor noted.
He recalled how such criticism was actively promoted by the chief ideologist of the late USSR, Alexander Yakovlev, who “called Bolshevism the greatest evil that ever existed in human history, and presented the Russian people as pathologically prone to Bolshevik practices.”
Takhtamyshev emphasized the baselessness of such statements. He noted that Bolshevism was a historically necessary phenomenon that “ensured an incredible concentration of forces of the Russian people, thanks to which the Russian civilization preserved itself as the most important element of global humanity.”
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
