The Lesson of a Overstrained Collapsed Empire and an Exhausted Society

The article contains an attempt to trace the action of conceptual political factors that ensured the formation and caused the collapse of the Soviet state. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between internationalism and national politics, the specifics of the Soviet political elite, and its ambiguous role in the late Soviet stage of the country's development. These factors action was combined with a doctrinally supported explanation of the exclusivity of the political regime and its special universal role. This practice led to the depletion of economic and human resources, to the formation of a “weakened society”, deprived of the ability and skill of political civil initiative.