Home >> Former USSR >> Russia  Email  Print Collapse of the USSR - Figurative Meaning Dimitri Kolb - 5/29/2007 There are different explanations of the sudden collapse of what used to be one of two superpoewers of 20th century. Economists blame the weakness of Soviet economy. Americans believe it is due to the Afghan war and Ronald Reagan, who called the USSR the "Evil Empire". Russians blame Mikhail Gorbachev.
All those reasons are true to some extent, however, neither of them can explain why the country, not too poor and seemingly stable, broke apart so fast. Many countries experienced worse problems in their history and did not collapse. Russians were neither ruthless conquerers nor cruel occupants. Some republics of the USSR had once joined Russia voluntary for political reasons, other were re-captured by Russians from other empires. Many of those republics were themself multi-national entities and experienced problems with their minorities. However, almost nobody hesitates in the right of those republics to be independent countries, whereas almost everybody claims that USSR was an artificial entity.
The differences of the lifestiles were also not the reason for the collapse. Actually, from Ukraine to the Far East, from Lithuania to Georgia, majority of population lived similar life stile, understood common language and did not feel much hatred towards each other. Soviet Union rather subsidized its European republics than exploited them. Colleges in large cities had reserved vacancies for minorities. I asked my wife, and she argued that the Soviet people existed, because we all had friends from different national origins and we never had any problems communicating with each other. And suddenly all collapsed. The author offers his own explanation, which is figurative but non-contradictory.
Suppose, Soviet people really existed. Every people must have its forefather, a symbolic figure from whom the people originates. In Russian it is especially clear, because the Russian equivalents for "forefather", "family", "people" and "motherland" all have the same root. The forefather of Jews was Abraham; other nations probably have similar real or mythical persons in their history. The forefather of the Soviet people was Lenin. It was never stated openly, but it was implied. Children learned poems about kind and wise "grandfather Lenin". From songs we knew that we all were the children of Revolution, and that Revolution was created (born) by Lenin. At this point, there should be no doubts.
However, there was something very unique about the founder of the Soviet people. In 1917 the power in Russia was usurped by the radical fraction of the Social-Democrats who called themselves "Bolsheviks". Almost all leaders of the party, who had lead the revolution, were later officially called "the enimies of the people". Their leader, Lenin, was announced to be "eternally alive". The body of that "eternally alive" lay in the coffin, supposedly imperishable. Who is he, the leader of "the enimies of the people", lying in the coffin, not dead and not alive? By this description, it can only be a vampire.
There are other indications that bolsheviks were associated with the revived dead. They called themselves "Red", and explained that it was because of blood (though did not specify whose blood). The Russian verb that bolsheviks used for "rebel" is the same as one used for dead coming to life ("vosstal"). The metaphor of sucking the blood was widely used by bolsheviks - according to them capitalists used to suck workers' blood, but the revolution was supposed to revert all the unjustice done before. Lenin died from the stroke, but the communist legend said that he was shot by a special kind of bullet. Red fighters hit enemies with sabers, for which they used a synonym suspiciously similar to Russian equivalent for "fangs" (klinki-kliki). That was unlike the Russian military tradition to praise the "fine fellow bayonet"; clearly, "fine fellow bayonet" is rather a property of alive men, whereas vampires have fangs.
And the final logical conclusion in this theorem - a vampire cannot be the forefather, because he cannot be a father. Thus, the soviet people, supposedly originating from a vampire, could not exist. And the state established by a vampire can be nothing but the "Evil Empire". It collapsed immediately as soon as it became possible, and its inhabitants rushed to leave the empire for less comfortable but more humane national states. Nobody wants to be a descendant of a vampire. The Great Experiment on producing an artificial nation with an eternally but incompletely alive forefather ended in failure. And it may be a lesson for those who wants to build a nation: never choose a vampire to be your founding father.
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