At approximately 7.39 pm local time on the 25th of December 1991 the official flag of the Soviet Union, ever kept billowing atop the Kremlin in Moscow, was lowered. Some six minutes later the Russian tricolor was hoisted in its place. The following day Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet premier, confirmed the almost unbelievable news that the Union was officially dissolved.
So came to an end one of humanities great experiments, a conglomeration of vastly proud and independent states that had been brought together through the ravages of war, starvation, barbaric unfettered cruelty, and the moral collapse of the one final European Empiric dynasty untouched by any form of democratic government.
The possibility of this new and improbable union came about through the auspices of a most unlikely grouping of misfits, adventurers, political and social extremists, all inspired by the very dry and improbable ideas propagated in the writings of one obtuse intellectual whom was exiled from his homeland for his entire adult life, for daring to imagine such an inclusive and unilaterally fair system of economic government was possible or practical.
As turns out the theories suggested by Karl Marx have exactly the same weaknesses as all other political and economic designs. They rely upon the good intents and wishes of mankind, and as we all know humanity is the least species to be relied upon for selflessness and unbiassed application and implementation. Quite expectedly the practice of public ownership necessitated the construct of a hierarchy, and that pyramid of power rapidly produced the self-same deficiencies as every other bureaucratic design, the most egregious being the professional political operative. All such functionaries are by nature, self-serving, egotistical, self-absorbed, somewhat narcissistic. For it is those characteristics that make an individual useful as a figurehead, elected or self-proclaimed.
I remember the day of that fall intimately, for ‘twas an experiment in cooperation most worthy, but certain of eventual failure. Not all good notions succeed. Some fail woefully.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 