1) Historical reasons. After the Eastern European countries came to power, they all copied the Soviet model and were basically controlled by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union forced the eastern European countries to be consistent with it in their domestic and foreign policies. In fact, Eastern European countries have no right to independence.
② Internal reasons. Economically, most countries have developed slowly, the reform has not achieved much, and the gap with western European countries has widened. Economic difficulties led to economic crisis, which triggered political crisis and ethnic contradictions. Politically, due to the serious destruction of democracy and legal system, the political parties and governments in eastern European countries are divorced from the masses.
③ Soviet factor. Gorbachev's reform loosened the eastern European countries, and his program of building "humane and democratic socialism" and "new thinking" of foreign policy promoted the reorganization, division and transformation of various parties in eastern Europe.
④ Western factors. Western countries tempt and pressure Eastern European countries through various means such as loans, trade, technology and ideological infiltration, and urge them to move closer to the West and "peacefully evolve" towards capitalism.
There are many reasons for the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but there can only be one fundamental reason. There are countless books about the causes of the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but almost all of them look for problems from its superstructure, and rarely from the economic base. The root cause of the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe lies in the nonstandard economic system, and the problems existing in the superstructure are only phenomena, not the root cause.
First of all, it must be made clear that the economic system of a society is the material basis for social existence, development and change, and the superstructure is determined by and serves the economic basis, not the other way around. As long as the economic foundation of a society is established and operated according to law, the original economic system will continue even if there is dynasty change and regime change, and will not change with regime change. Take China as an example. Although the feudal society that lasted for more than 2,000 years experienced many dynasty changes, it did not fundamentally shake the natural economic foundation of self-sufficiency. That is to say, from Qin and Han Dynasties to Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, it has changed more than ten times, but the self-sufficient natural economy has remained unchanged, essentially unchanged. This is because the self-sufficient natural economy was still an advanced economic form at that time, and there was no more advanced economic form, so it could only continue the existing economy as the material basis of society. It was only at the end of the Qing Dynasty that the emergence of capitalist mode of production produced a new bourgeoisie. After overthrowing the feudal rule, it provided political guarantee for the great development of the new economic form, and China society gradually changed from a feudal society to a new social system. The Revolution of 1911 is different from previous dynasties. It no longer regards the continuation of self-sufficient natural economy as the material basis for the existence and development of the new regime, but regards the development of capitalism as the economic basis for the existence and development of the new regime. This is a fundamental change, bringing China society into a new era and opening a new era. From then on, it drifted away from the feudal society and became closer and closer to the new society.
How can the economic foundation of a society be established and operated in accordance with the law?
In other words, it must be based on a certain level of productivity development. Productivity is the most fundamental material basis for the existence and development of any society. Man depends on nature to survive, but he is not satisfied with the gift of nature, and nature can not fully meet human needs. In the process of contact with nature, human beings gradually understand the nature, essence and law of natural things from shallow to deep, and find out what kind of existence it is. On the basis of understanding, I will study the ways and means to turn it into something useful to people, and then actually turn it into something useful to people through production practice, and turn things from things themselves into things useful to me. With the continuous improvement of natural science and technology, productivity will rise to a new height, and each high productivity will naturally generate a corresponding production relationship and become its own form of existence. When productivity is improved to a qualitative change, new and higher relations of production will follow. This is a natural development process. Only when the new economic component touches the interests of the authorities will the authorities suppress it, and the owners representing the new economic component will rise up and resist, forming a struggle between the old and new political forces. This kind of struggle always ends in the final victory represented by the new economic elements in history. After the establishment of the new political power, it will protect the new economic components, make them develop greatly, gradually replace the old economic components as the leading economic force, and the social form (system) will also undergo qualitative changes, and the new society will replace the old society. This is the legal development process of human society.
What about the "new era" initiated by the October Revolution?
The economic foundation of Soviet-style socialism was not established in accordance with the above-mentioned laws, but was re-established on the basis of Marx and Engels' "imagination" of the future new society by using reverse thinking and abolishing private ownership through the violence of proletarian dictatorship. In Marx's vivid view, the economic foundation of Soviet-style socialism was not conceived by capitalist society, but pieced together by the violence of proletarian dictatorship. Capitalist society should be the matrix of socialist society, and proletarian revolutionary violence can only play the role of "midwife". Its task is not to destroy capitalist society, but to help capitalism liberate socialism from the womb. The old and new society should be a mother-child relationship, not an enemy-enemy relationship. Soviet-style socialism is not like this. It regards capitalist society not as its mother, but as its enemy. It was dismembered and reassembled to form a highly centralized planned economy on the basis of unified public ownership. Obviously, this is not a natural process of social development, but a product of people's subjective creation, and it is an artificial society. That is to say, the economic foundation of Soviet-style socialism has deviated from the universal law of social development since it came into being, and it is a strange and deformed society, which determines that its life span cannot be long.
The society created by violence can only be maintained by violence. Therefore, as the main body of superstructure, state power has replaced the function of economic base and directly engaged in economic activities, and state-owned enterprises have become popular. However, the economic foundation and superstructure of society are two levels of problems, each of which has its own functions and cannot be confused or replaced. Only by mutual cooperation and coordinated action can society develop in an orderly manner. The results of the direct participation of state power in economic activities are as follows: firstly, forced labor prevails, which greatly inhibits the intellectual and enthusiasm of workers; Secondly, subjective planning can not be consistent with ever-changing economic activities, and the national economy is seriously unbalanced, resulting in frequent shortage-type economic crises. Under the threat of violence, forced labor can also achieve certain economic effects in a certain period of time; In the case of serious imbalance in the national economy, individual economic sectors will also get great development, such as heavy industry and military industry. However, this situation will not last long, and once forced labor is relaxed, production will decline; The unbalanced national economy is like a cripple. Even if the spirit is strong and the speed is fast in a short time, it is impossible to persist for a long time, and it will soon be exhausted and stagnant. This was the case in the Soviet Union under Stalin. After his death, his shortcomings were soon exposed. During the ten years of turmoil in China, the establishment was overthrown, forced labor was relaxed, and the national economy was on the verge of frequent collapse. All these fully show that political power, as a concentrated and organized violence in the superstructure, can only serve the economic base, and can never replace its role. Otherwise, it will inevitably disrupt the normal operation of the economy. Soviet-style socialism belongs to this type and is an abnormal social form.
As a deformed social form, Soviet-style socialism also shows contempt and exploitation of agriculture. Agriculture is an industry that produces human means of subsistence and belongs to the basic industry of the national economy. The demand for means of subsistence is the first demand of human beings. Although other industries other than agriculture are also needed by human society and indispensable for improving people's living standards, their development is based on how much surplus labor agriculture can provide. Only when the means of subsistence created by agricultural labor are surplus except the agricultural population can other industries exist, and the more surplus products provided by agriculture, the more other industries can develop. This truth is discussed in detail by Marx in the third volume of Das Kapital. Therefore, only by consolidating the agricultural economy can a country lay a solid foundation for the development of other industries. If economy is the material basis of social existence and development, then agriculture is the foundation and the first cornerstone of social existence and development. This cornerstone is not solid, and other undertakings will collapse sooner or later. Soviet-style socialism adopted a very wrong policy on this issue. First of all, traditional agricultural operators, landlords, emerging agricultural operators and rich peasants are all deprived and suppressed, forming a situation in which individual workers dominate the country; Then all the peasants were deprived of the means of production, making them "people who have no other property except their own labor". The emergence of this situation makes the vast number of agricultural workers, as Marx said, "in any social and cultural state, they have to be slaves for others who possess the material conditions of labor", and farmers have also become slaves of the state, thus forming this modern state slavery. Compared with slavery in history, the situation of farmers is even more miserable-because serfs still have personal freedom, slaves in slave society can also be owned by different slave owners, while slavery in Soviet socialist countries makes farmers the only slave owner, losing any personal freedom and being only "gears and screws" and "taming tools". This is a great retrogression in history, which has greatly hurt the production enthusiasm of agricultural workers. In addition, the implementation of the policy of subsidizing agriculture with industry and realizing industrialization on the basis of damaging agriculture has led to the extreme backwardness of agriculture, and the grain output cannot meet the normal needs of the people. Famine has repeatedly occurred, tens of millions of people have starved to death, and even the tragedy of "cannibalism" has occurred. It is precisely because the first cornerstone of society is so fragile, and because people's basic means of subsistence are so lacking, even though the satellite flew into the sky, the red flag still landed. When the most basic means of survival of a Lian Guomin regime can't guarantee the supply, what is the necessity of this regime and this society? It is inevitable to be abandoned by the people. On this point, Gaidar disclosed it in detail in the book Death of the Empire, so I won't repeat it here.
From the above three aspects, the economic foundation of Soviet-style socialism, whether it is its production process, operation mode or the condition of the first cornerstone, is contrary to the universal law of the development of human society, and its superstructure cannot be normal. This is the root cause of the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as other reasons.
In the long Middle Ages, the replacement of dynasties failed to get out of the maze of autocracy and beat around the bush again and again, which lasted for more than two thousand years, either because the economic base at that time did not change qualitatively or because no new economic components appeared. The fundamental reason for the loss of political power in the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is that the long-established vested interest groups stubbornly adhere to the subjectively created economic system, the economic system reform has been delayed in establishing a new economic system, and its political power and economic foundation have been abandoned by the people. Contrary to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, China, a revolutionary of the older generation, represented by the chief designer, was generally impacted during the ten-year turmoil. Therefore, after coming out again, they made a profound reflection and resolutely decided not to "take the Russian road" but to "take their own road" and implement the new policy of reform and opening up. At the same time, the founding fathers "retired" with generous treatment, which further eliminated the ideological and political obstacles to reform and opening up and gradually abolished the highly centralized planned economy. Establishing and constantly improving the new market economic system not only makes the private economy develop by leaps and bounds, but also changes the original social nature of the state-owned economy through restructuring and listing. In this way, China * * * has a new economic base, and naturally retains its dominant position. As long as we persist in the great cause of reform and opening up and break through the obstacles set by new vested interests (new bureaucratic bourgeoisie and powerful bourgeoisie), China's dominant position will continue and it will not repeat the mistakes of the Soviet Union and the East in the foreseeable future.