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From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

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Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#51

Post by simion314 »

mlinhares wrote: post #50
simion314 wrote: post #27

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. 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.

So why not put the effort to make it clear what is your point? Because if you go back at the entire thread , you can see we are trying to explain to communists or soviets that in fact USSR collapse was great for Eastern Europe and not a tragedy.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#52

Post by _DeadFred_ »

kamaal wrote: post #47
EdwardDiego wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alway…

I wonder how this plays out in the future in the US as differences in tax collected versus returned tax dollars continue.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#53

Post by _DeadFred_ »

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…

Is this the same dynamic that keep a sizable Christian population in the middle east during Ottoman times but their population's decimation in recent times?

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#54

Post by _DeadFred_ »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #32
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapse of the Soviet Union as it was was inevitable. Gorbachev recognized it and tried to do something about it. Given the gargantuan challenge, Gorbachev's odds of success were not great to begin with. At least he was wise enough to shepherd its demise peacefully. In any case, the world without the Soviet Union is undoubtedly a better place.

> In any case, the world without the Soviet Union is undoubtedly a better place. Is it, though? Putin's Russia is no better than the Soviet Union - in some ways worse. It's essentially a mafia state run by one thug. One could imagine a different scenario where Gorbachev would have been able to land the plane in a bit more of a controlled fashion and stayed around to transition to something that would look more like a…

Imagine if the US hadn't gone in and come up with 'voucher privatization' which essentially created the oligarchs (and which in my mind seems to have been designed so that investment groups could take over but the mechanism got co-opted by the oligarchs).

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#55

Post by _DeadFred_ »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #19
danielodievich wrote: post #13

Living through the end years of USSR and beginnings of centrifugal coming apart of everything was pretty crazy. As a child seeing necrologies for Brezhnev, then Andropov, then Chernenko on TV with somber music and black ribbons, I remember thinking - woah, why are they dying. Gorbachev was a breath of fresh air, and he did as soft of a landing for that disastrous country as anyone could have wished for. The aftermath…

That seems a pretty standard aftermath to any revolution, with few exceptions. No matter how well intentioned the revolutionaries are, it is the most ruthless who end up seizing power.

I think the US pushed 'Voucher privatization' creating a system (in my mind intended to empower US investment takeovers) co-opted by horrible people turning them into Oligarchs is very specific and not standard at all.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#56

Post by euroderf »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #32
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapse of the Soviet Union as it was was inevitable. Gorbachev recognized it and tried to do something about it. Given the gargantuan challenge, Gorbachev's odds of success were not great to begin with. At least he was wise enough to shepherd its demise peacefully. In any case, the world without the Soviet Union is undoubtedly a better place.

> In any case, the world without the Soviet Union is undoubtedly a better place. Is it, though? Putin's Russia is no better than the Soviet Union - in some ways worse. It's essentially a mafia state run by one thug. One could imagine a different scenario where Gorbachev would have been able to land the plane in a bit more of a controlled fashion and stayed around to transition to something that would look more like a…

> in a bit more of a controlled fashion

The guiding intellectual principle in the US at the time w.r.t. the economy of the ex-USSR was "You can't cross a canyon in two leaps". This was what passed for intelligent thought.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#57

Post by vkou »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #43
vkou wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

Yes, it's almost like allowing a president to be above the law, or to appropriate power that is contrary to legislature and the constitution is bad for democracy.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#58

Post by tetromino_ »

soco wrote: post #45
Analemma_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The nationalism was always there. At first, it was strongly suppressed. Stalin in 1941 found it expedient to suppress it less (to try to motivate the population to fight Nazi invaders). Brezhnev in the 1970s found it expedient to suppress it even less (to try to motivate the population to not succumb to Western cultural influences). Then Gorbachev pulled out the control rods even further and it exploded.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#59

Post by darthrupert »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #32
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapse of the Soviet Union as it was was inevitable. Gorbachev recognized it and tried to do something about it. Given the gargantuan challenge, Gorbachev's odds of success were not great to begin with. At least he was wise enough to shepherd its demise peacefully. In any case, the world without the Soviet Union is undoubtedly a better place.

> In any case, the world without the Soviet Union is undoubtedly a better place. Is it, though? Putin's Russia is no better than the Soviet Union - in some ways worse. It's essentially a mafia state run by one thug. One could imagine a different scenario where Gorbachev would have been able to land the plane in a bit more of a controlled fashion and stayed around to transition to something that would look more like a…

For those who lived in the occupied areas like Poland, it certainly is.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#60

Post by fuzzfactor »

ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #5
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.

The collapse of the Soviet Union as it was was inevitable. Gorbachev recognized it and tried to do something about it. Given the gargantuan challenge, Gorbachev's odds of success were not great to begin with. At least he was wise enough to shepherd its demise peacefully. In any case, the world without the Soviet Union is undoubtedly a better place.

Gorbachev said that one of the things that shocked and demoralized him was when he visited Houston and took a trip to one of the typical supermarkets, a locally owned one not part of any nationwide chain or anything.

When he saw that average Americans were enjoying consumer choices well beyond anything the highest echelons in the USSR could attain, he was never quite the same after that.

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