Abstract: The subject of the presented work is the assessment of the US national intelligence regarding the events in the period after the August 1991 crisis in the USSR and the prospects for its development within the framework of the model of the new Union Treaty against the background of centrifugal trends. The key theses included in the approved version of the report of the US intelligence community are characterized as the object of the work. The main attention is paid to the issue of inter-republican relations inside and outside the USSR during the search for consensus when concluding a confederate treaty. The methodology of the work consists of the basic principles of scientific cognition (historicism and objectivity) and special historical research methods: descriptive, comparative, historical-systemic, statistical and problem-chronological. The novelty of the research is determined by the approach in which the causal links between the analytical efforts of the CIA and their true goals are searched, as well as historical sources, many of which are involved in scientific circulation for the first time. The article emphasizes that, according to the CIA's erroneous assessment, the scenario of "confederation" as a result of the collapse of the USSR was less likely due to the unwillingness of many ex-Soviet republics to cede part of their political sovereignty and power to the government of the confederation. It turns out that, according to American analysts, Ukraine was a key player in the domestic political arena outside the RSFSR, which had a huge nuclear potential on its territory. This, in turn, predetermined the fate of this country for decades to come and laid the foundation for the emergence of interstate contradictions with Russia. It is noted that the intelligence community of the United States proposed, in cooperation with other Western countries, to influence the development of events in the territory of the former USSR either according to the scenario of "confederation" or according to the scenario of "free association" with the transfer of issues on defense and arms control to the Russian government.

Abstract: Based on the revealed declassified documents, the paper examines previously unknown sources about the attempts of the American government to support various programs of dissent, freedom of speech and mass media in the USSR and countries where the pro-Soviet regime was supported. The subject of the study is the content of foreign intelligence published and declassified documents describing specific US measures to implement covert actions in Afghanistan in order to counteract the influence and strengthen the position of the USSR, as well as support centrifugal trends in the Soviet Union through the organization and financing of programs to support dissent, the development of radio broadcasting, increasing radio coverage areas, assistance in the publication of Samizdat literature, etc. The object of the work is the documentary correspondence of the US President and key figures of the American establishment on the use of resources for the implementation and promotion of anti-Soviet activities. The article reveals previously unknown details of the preparation of options and the implementation of approved programs of covert actions to discredit the Soviet regime as part of the military campaign in Afghanistan, as well as inside the USSR.
The sources allow us to highlight the activities of the US Special Coordinating Committee for the preparation of this strategy. The authors draw attention to the complexity of solving financial issues in the American administration, as well as the size of US financial injections to support destructive forces in the Soviet Union. Such evidence from very authoritative sources significantly expands the source base in the scientific coverage of the facts of the implementation of subversive activities of the United States against the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s.

Abstract: The research subject of this study is the reciprocal influence of the problems of food supply and the social stability of the Soviet state with an analysis aiming to establish the relationship between the onset of the provision crisis and the massive politicization of economic processes in the USSR on the part of society during the examined period.The article is directed at studying the degree of impact the unfulfilled consumer expectations had on the social perception of power by the population of the Soviet Union during the agrarian crisis of the early 1970s.Particular attention is paid to the interaction between the government and society on questions of food supply, as well as the alleviation of the provision crisis through imports.The methodological basis of this work is founded on the basic principles of scientific knowledge - objectivity and historicism, which allowed the authors to study the evolution of the population's mass consciousness in a dialectical relationship with the era's phenomena. Upon implementing the above-mentioned principles, a number of both general scientific and specific historical research methods were applied (historical-situational, historical-comparative, historical-systemic, and statistical methods). The scientific novelty of this work is its attempt to reflect on the course of the socio-political development of the USSR under the influence of changing internal and external factors caused by the consumer crisis.The authors note that under difficult conditions, the authorities of the USSR and the CPSU Central Committee were forced to meet the social needs of the population in order to maintain a certain level of food provisions, as well as to support welfare. Evidence supports that increased social payments and higher wages in the early 1970s temporarily reduced the population's discontent with the Soviet political regime. The authors conclude that the concentration of the population’s attention on the low level of meeting their urgent needs was the basis of social inversion and the revision of the Soviet government approval index.