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From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

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Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#61

Post by anovikov »

As soon as all hope of ever achieving Communism was lost - and that was clear by XXVth Party congress in 1976 when it got all but replaced with so-called "advanced Socialism" - Soviet Union was done: keeping the system of thorough socioeconomic absurdity and repression in all spheres of life was impossible without giving people a greater goal to strive for. Without that, the question of "what are we suffering for" had no answer.

In addition, the elites realised how poorly they were treated compared not just to the leading, but even to the capitalist nations of similar per capita GDP - that is, mediocre ones - and wanted to change that. Seriously, speaking of economic grievances, no one had more to complain about but the Soviet elites. Those who in America, had Learjets and beachside villas, had to make do with bugged apartments and black Volgas in the Soviet Union and they rightly saw it as unfair.

Both problems could be "fixed" with 1937-style repression IN ADDITION to 1933-style famine (because Soviet Union depended on food imports and the West won't give them in case of a new Purge), but Gorby had no balls for that sort of thing in 1987, and thank God he didn't.

Simply put, there was no way to fool too many people, increasingly well-educated and capable of critical thinking, for too long a time. Communism ended because it's time was up.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#62

Post by Muromec »

Eliah_Lakhin wrote: post #28
MaxPock wrote: post #14

The Soviet Union began to collapse the moment it abandoned Lenin’s NEP. If they had reintroduced it in the 1960s, after recovering from World War II, they could have quickly caught up with the West—perhaps even surpassed it. In many ways, China is the successful version of the USSR.

A huge part of China's success stems from the fact that Nixon opened up U.S. markets to China, along with U.S. investment capital. It was a key strategic decision made by the United States to counter Soviet influence in Asia. China's reforms were merely an adaptation to the new opportunities that arose from this shift. Another important factor was China's significantly larger population compared to the Soviet Union,…

>After WWII, significant male losses and the effects of the second demographic transition led to continuous population decline.

Wait, but this simply isnt true. USSR population grew continiusly until the 90iez.

The was the "war echo" in this growth, but it wasn't declining.

You cant really beat 3 year maternity leave and free kindergarder from the age of 3.

All that really worked and beinf a single mother was normalized too, because of distorted gender ratio.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#63

Post by Muromec »

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…

It transitioned into a demicracy a-okay, the problem was -- russians never had any kind of democracy and it quickly descended into oligarchy, from which they overcorrected to dictatorship quite willingly.

Every other ussr and soviet-aligned country got it going somehow.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#64

Post by Muromec »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #54
UncleOxidant wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

That happened in all other countries too. Ukraine had oligarchs, Chezchia and Romania have them. Its just russian oligarchs got hold on infinite money glitch which is oil production and the country overcorrected by going full dictatorship

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#65

Post by Yeul »

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…

Gorbatsjov listened to American advisors. The Chinese were watching and never made the same mistakes.

Opening up the economy so that Western piggus can take over everything and corrupt the nation with their DMARKS and Dollars? What were they thinking...

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#66

Post by Muromec »

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 ...

Take a look at provisional paragraphs of Ukrainian constitution. They are at the end and are quite interesting

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#67

Post by flyinghamster »

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 see a parallel with the breakup of Yugoslavia as well. In spite of his authoritarianism, Tito was a popular, legitimate war hero, and Yugoslavia had notably more personal freedom than the typical communist regime. But there wasn't anyone who could truly replace him; once he was gone, the old nationalist tensions that had always bubbled under the surface boiled over, and everything flew apart.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#68

Post by Yeul »

Muromec wrote: post #63
UncleOxidant wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It transitioned into a demicracy a-okay, the problem was -- russians never had any kind of democracy and it quickly descended into oligarchy, from which they overcorrected to dictatorship quite willingly. Every other ussr and soviet-aligned country got it going somehow.

Nobody cares about democracy though. People want jobs, supermarkets, houses and cars.

The Americans actually understood this which is why they focused on the economy when they helped Japan and Europe to rebuild after the war.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#69

Post by throw-the-towel »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #60
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.

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.

Are you sure that was Gorbachev and not Yeltsin? There's even a famous photo of the latter at an American store.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#70

Post by Muromec »

Fricken wrote: post #10
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…

History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme... it rhymes with "Afghanistan"

In the same timeline Mustafa Nayem, a son of Afghani emigree is a person who started the Euromaidan revolution and became an MP after its success.
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