This article is prepared in the context of studying the reasons why the USSR ceased to exist. It also examines the questions of whether there was an economic possibility of preserving the Soviet state at that time, as opposed to the well-known explanations of a conspiracy nature. As an alternative, the author analyzes the unclaimed by Soviet and post-Soviet authorities model of the gold miner V. Tumanov, who created the largest mining companies in the country, which, in addition to gold mining, laid thousands of kilometers of roads, created industrial facilities, airfields, and built residential settlements in the taiga. The reasons for the government’s lack of demand for such a model, which contradicts the voucher privatization of “national” socialist property adopted at that time, are also analyzed. The problem is also being discussed in connection with the radically changed geopolitical conditions in the world.

The general methodological basis of the study was the historical and legal method of legal doctrine, which involves the study and research (including in the theory of criminal law) of criminal law institutions, categories and norms in their historical development, as well as the dialectical method of cognition of phenomena, which involves their study in constant development, close interrelation and interdependence. In addition, general scientific (sociological-statistical, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction) and private scientific (formal-logical, system-structural) methods were used.