From Reform to Ruin in the USSR • Hacker News Board

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#91

Post by danmaz74 » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

Yeul wrote: post #65

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...

It was Eltsin who listened to American advisors, not Gorbachev.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#92

Post by anovikov » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

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.

China had limitless almost free labor. Soviet Union had a deficit of labor by late 1960s already, and again by late 1970s - in 1974 they did a temporary fix by liberating the peasants which helped for a few years until those ran out, too. Chinese way could NOT work in the Soviet Union, they never had that alternative. The window of opportunity when they had sufficient labor reserves to try it was way too short - some years in mid-1960s - before then, they still suffered from consequences of WWII losses - and even if tried then, that would've been a botched effort just for not having enough time. Chinese didn't get almost anything out of their economic opening for the first ~15 years remember. China remained dirt poor through mid-1990s.

Their only opportunity to truly fix things was to accept Marshall plan, and thus finish with Communism and introduce private properly and democracy, after WWII. But personal ambitions of the leadership prevented that.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#93

Post by D_Alex » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 3:06 PM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #61

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" ha…

>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.

The Soviet Union endured a most destructive war, and then had economic warfare waged against it by its former allies. Kind of hard to compete under such circumstances.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#94

Post by anovikov » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

D_Alex wrote: post #93

anovikov wrote: post #61

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" ha…

>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. The Soviet Union endured a most destructive war, and then had economic warfare waged against it by its former allies. Kind of hard to compete under such circumstances.

I'm not speaking about overall economic level. I'm speaking about inequality. Which was low in the Soviet Union and top 1% - which was also the most educated class and had the best access to information too - could not miss the fact that they were badly underpaid compared to their capitalist counterparts, even from poor capitalist countries. There was just not enough inequality.

And also, their lives were full of risks compared to capitalists who could at worst bankrupt their companies and walk away to their beachfront villas, Soviet elites that misstepped, ended up in Gulag.

Elites in the end, were the most intrinsically anti-Soviet part of the Soviet society: they had a lot to gain from the collapse of the System, and they indeed, did gain a lot when it happened.

One thing that Politburo could do to extend the life of the Soviet Union was to be softer on the elites by letting them freer access to foreign currency, facilitate their freedom of travel, owning foreign property and investments, and so on. They couldn't escape after all - they had no skills to make good money in the West.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#95

Post by watwut » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

Muromec wrote: post #88

watwut wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really worked was that people were not invested in jobs. It was dead end, you dont care, dont have ambitions and try to go home as soon as possible. The 3 year maternity leave stayed after communisms ended, free kindergarten stayed. But capitalism made the work feel less of "sleepy dead end" for everyone. Otherwise said, people stopped having kids when economic opportunities opened up.

I actually lived through the whole thing and I don't agree with your take. The hard drop in 90ies has more to do with the soviet system collapsing and taking away the floor than with capitalism opening up the top. It was a time of struggle where some more adaptable people ripped the benefits, but for everybody else it was a very tough time. Instead of working 9 to 5 and going home a lot of people had to work 2 or thr…

Childbirth did not went up all that much even as economic conditions got better. Largest driver of children in communism were really people checked out of public and professional life, retreating to hobbies and family.

Your options to climb the ladder inside the system were severely limited, especially if you was young. Communism and working in communism was sleepy and having ambitions was negative - just about the only way to use ambitions was to be political, denounce who you have to denounce and do the dirty work for the state.

> You could always be a head of something or go by the party route to have more nice things or have friends to bring stuff from the west too.

Of course that implies comfort with a lot of dirt and amorality. Yep, some people did that. Everybody knew what being party meant and some of these people are still the sleaziest politicians out there. Not everyone had stomach for that.

Plus, you could not do this if you was from the wrong family.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#96

Post by mlinhares » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 6:16 PM UTC

pqtyw wrote: post #76

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'm not sure if most African countries that were friendly with the Soviets did that well either.

They didn’t. Aligning with any one of the powers was a terrible decision for countries in Africa and Latam, the best path would have been to be friends with everyone and not take sides.

Re: From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

#97

Post by Eliah_Lakhin » Wed, Mar 05, 2025, 12:28 AM UTC

pqtyw wrote: post #80

Eliah_Lakhin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> develop such an enormous landmass Why would that matter? Australia and Canada are doing reasonably well regardless of the overwhelming majority of their territories being empty "wasteland" (economically). If anything relatively low population coupled with huge amounts of natural resources per capita is one of the best positions to be in. >relinquish part of its global influence and territory By in and large their r…

It works as long as a country primarily spends its income on internal development. Today's Russia is a relatively prosperous country with high living standards, at least in big cities. Perhaps these standards are even higher than in some EU countries. And they are certainly higher than at any point in Soviet history.

However, to a large extent, this is the result of cutting expenditures on projecting Soviet influence abroad. The Soviet Union had enormous spending on subsidizing friendly regimes and their economies around the world, as well as maintaining a military presence. The same applies to some former Soviet republics that the USSR had to subsidize for decades.

I think we are observing similar processes in the United States today. They are attempting to cut spending and perhaps even reduce their military presence simply because they cannot afford it in the long term without sacrificing their own prosperity.