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From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

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Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#41

Post by dh2022 »

tehjoker wrote: post #25
krapht wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really easy when you can talk to living people today who experienced the ussr in the 80s and compare to the average Western experience at the same time.

tell me more about the western experience in mississippi or a burned out husk of a town outside of an urban center. the west isn't just what's on TV shows and the rich area of new york city

I lived in Romania in the 80s. I also visited Huntington, WV. At that time it was one of the poorest cities in the US. Believe me: quality of life in Huntington was in order of magnitude better than Romania in the 80s. I visited the most happening place in Huntington: an all you can eat buffet. Poor people in America eat all sorts of food from all over the world. In the 80s Romania we ate chicken feet (tacimuri) or pigs feet (adidasi). Poor people in America have electricity and heating. In 80s Romania we had neither.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#42

Post by insane_dreamer »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #36
insane_dreamer wrote: post #30

Incidentally, a strongly held view by the CCP is that Gorbachev "lost" the USSR due to his lack of consolidated political power and it's a "mistake" that they are most desperate to avoid, and explains in part Xi's rise to unquestioned supreme leader with complete control within the party and over the provinces. (An interesting case is point is how they stripped down Bo Xilai, the CCP Secretary for Chongqing once he b…

But Putin has complete power of Russia similar to Xi has in China and has had for a couple of decades at least.

Right. He and Xi adopted similar approaches. In China this took the form of "rooting out corruption" (sound familiar?), where, coincidentally, all those who were "corrupt" ended up being those with the power to challenge Xi.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#43

Post by insane_dreamer »

vkou wrote: post #38
UncleOxidant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Putin has complete power of Russia similar to Xi has in China and has had for a couple of decades at least.

That's because Yeltsin set the groundwork for him, in his 93' coup. Where he, as president, dramatically overstepped his constitutional authority, the Russian parliament started making impeachment noises, so he ordered to army to seize it. The mid-level commanders that carried out his orders were rewarded with wealth and power. The ones that didn't got purged. Russia came out of that coup and constitutional crisis wi…

Hmm, it's almost like allowing a president to consolidate too much power in the Executive Branch can have terrible consequences. If only there was a lesson we could learn from this ...

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#44

Post by briantakita »

vkou wrote: post #40
slt2021 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USSR had a lot of issues, and surprisingly, the same issues are plaguing the USA today: 1. Geriatric leadership of 80+ y.o. dudes clinging to power 2. Loose fiscal policy and huge deficit. Soviets were subsidizing communist regimes around the world and spending everything on military build-up and arms race 3. Bloated and inefficient bureacracy that became its own class (Nomenklatura) 4. Inefficient economy 5. Militar…

So, by any objective metric, #2, #3, and #4 have nothing in common between the two nations, and by the late 2010s, Afghanistan was a historic footnote that everyone stopped giving a shit about. The US is incredibly successful at exporting about half of the pain from its fiscal policy to other nations, (given that the dollar is the world's reserve currency), not the other way around. It's economy is incredibly product…

> Which somehow convinced ~49.8% of the country that the richest man in the world somehow has their interests at heart.

Well...when you consider the competition you get what you get. In this case the richest man in the world positioned to be the "savior" from the previous regime.

> its bureaucracy is roughly the same size to that of other developed nations.

Slashing the bureaucracy is not the full story. Basically, most Americans have umbrage against the previous regime. So the enemy of my enemy is my friend...or at least useful.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#45

Post by soco »

Analemma_ wrote: post #22
pavpanchekha wrote: post #4

To summarize: the post is phrased in terms of an existing controversy about whether Gorbachev was "powerless" in the face of the bureaucracy (and how much he feared a coup), but concludes he wasn't. Instead, the author thinks Gorbachev was quite powerful, but focused on the wrong things, specifically on political reform instead of economic reform. Critical economic reforms like price reform was abandoned, and at the…

The post mentions parallels to the Qing Dynasty, but I want to elaborate on that a little more: whenever an authoritarian system which derives its authority from something other than nationalism (Imperial authority for the Qing, Communist ideology and the Party for the USSR) tries to modernize and liberalize, the danger is that this awakens slumbering nationalism which tears the system apart faster than it can safely…

I wonder, did that nationalism need so little time to get such a powerful force? I mean, Gorbachev was not that long in office, so maybe it was there all along just barely kept in check.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#46

Post by soco »

hinkley wrote: post #6
fuzzfactor wrote: post #2

>Gorbachev’s reforms began with the aim of resuscitating the Soviet economy. But instead they brought ruin, destroying the Soviet economy along with Soviet state capacity. This did not occur because Gorbachev was “helpless” and trapped by entrenched interests, but rather because he proved to be a well-intentioned reformer with great power that was used in a reckless manner.

Eastern Europe has almost twice the population of Russia. Would anyone here care to assert that more people would be better off today if the Wall had not fallen?

Eastern Europe is not one state, just as the European Union is not a state. The consequences are visible: the way forward needs endless negotiations and gets endless adjustments, stuff gets implemented slowly and chaotic, so really, the comparison cannot hold.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#47

Post by kamaal »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #39
esafak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a problem with discontent nations. If you offer freedom before redressing grievances, they will choose to leave.

How many of their grievances are freedom related though?. Could be economic freedom, religious, intellectual, social etc. Also, I'd argue giving your citizens freedom of movement is critical if you're going to implement necessary but drastic economic reforms, it gives the bourgeois, who often end up leading revolutions in despotic states, an option to exit stage left instead of putting on camo and moving to the jungl…

>>How many of their grievances are freedom related though?

If people think they are better off economically as a region they will leave. This might look like a economic problem, but its actually a political problem. It literally deals with the fact that who gets to collect and keep taxes, and later plan how to spend that money.

>>Education not controlled by politicians is dangerous to authoritarian regimes.

Its always a mistake to assume that people don't know if conditions elsewhere are better, or there own conditions are worse.

Just because people put up with bad governments, it doesn't mean they will not rebel later. Really it all depends on the situation, and time.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#48

Post by hinkley »

soco wrote: post #46
hinkley wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eastern Europe has almost twice the population of Russia. Would anyone here care to assert that more people would be better off today if the Wall had not fallen?

Eastern Europe is not one state, just as the European Union is not a state. The consequences are visible: the way forward needs endless negotiations and gets endless adjustments, stuff gets implemented slowly and chaotic, so really, the comparison cannot hold.

Quite a bit of it was in the USSR or under their thumb.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#49

Post by vkou »

briantakita wrote: post #44
vkou wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, by any objective metric, #2, #3, and #4 have nothing in common between the two nations, and by the late 2010s, Afghanistan was a historic footnote that everyone stopped giving a shit about. The US is incredibly successful at exporting about half of the pain from its fiscal policy to other nations, (given that the dollar is the world's reserve currency), not the other way around. It's economy is incredibly product…

> Which somehow convinced ~49.8% of the country that the richest man in the world somehow has their interests at heart. Well...when you consider the competition you get what you get. In this case the richest man in the world positioned to be the "savior" from the previous regime. > its bureaucracy is roughly the same size to that of other developed nations. Slashing the bureaucracy is not the full story. Basically, m…

> Basically, most Americans have umbrage against the previous regime.

80% of all of features in Word are useless to me, but for each user, it's a different 80%.

The same with government. There isn't a person alive that doesn't have issue with some part of it, but start going down the list, and you'll very quickly discover why so many parts of it are important, and why you shouldn't delegate picking and choosing to an unelected billionaire narcissist with no skin in the game, no consequences for bad behavior, and most of all, no legal authority to make any of those arbitrary choices.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#50

Post by mlinhares »

simion314 wrote: post #27
mlinhares wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference is that if you were a US friend in Europe or Asia it would be an improvement, if you were so in Latin America or Africa it would be pretty bad.

>I think the main difference is that if you were a US friend in Europe or Asia it would be an improvement, if you were so in Latin America or Africa it would be pretty bad. Romania was a neighbor of USSR and was part of the Europe that was under USSR domination, so countries that were not neighbors with USSR like India might cry about USSR death while all ex-USSR countries are still in danger from Ruzzia's imperialis…

You completely missed the point here, there is 0 mention of the USSR in my comment.
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