"brings up unpleasant memories of Soviet times."

[onodera]

johncmcleod
Thanks.

[Sir Og]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Lastly, the collapse of the SU occured due to very a variety of very complex cultural, sociological, political, and economic factors. Don't try and explain it's collapse in two sentences, or simply throw it off as "the triumph of the free market economy." When I wrote my big paper on the topic, I remember there being about 5 or 6 very major factors that historians all pointed out, and they were all internal, by the way. Reagan didn't do it nor was it "bankrupted."

I'll give you a very short answer of how I answered the question. During the post world war II years, the SU witnessed and incredible amount of economic growth and turnover in the political system. The country was rebuilt after the war, industrializing happened at a dizzying pace, and the fortunes of many were greatly improved. Individual economic self-betterment was greatly possible, and many historians point out the similarities between the American and Soviet 'dreams' of the 1950s. In the SU during that time, it was very possible to rise from a peasant farmer to a high-ranker official (Khrushchev is an example, though from an earlier period). Another important factor was that the government was so convinced of the superiority of socialism that it believed it could beat the west in every way, military and economically. During the Kitchen Debate, Khrushchev famously promised to build better washing machines than the Americans. They believed that the USSR could have a better consumer economy than the United States. This was obviously a hopeless belief, as a centrally planned economy has no hope of being able to manage a huge and complex consumer economy.

The result was the generation of the 70s had great expectations for economic growth and individual self-betterment. They expected to enjoy a great deal of improvement like the generation before it. They also expected high quality consumer goods. But by the 60s and 70s, there was no where for the economy to go. The USSR was sufficiently industrialized and developed, and what else could they do if they already provided the basic needs for the people and already had the base for their agricultural and industrial economies. There was no economic growth, and there wasn't really anywhere to go in terms of individual self-betterment. You couldn't climb through the ranks of the economic and political ladder like you could in the past. And very importantly, consumer goods were awful. They were hard to get and poor in quality, to the great disappointment of the populace. The generation of the 30s certainly wouldn't have cared, they would have been very happy with the living the state provided. But the new generation expected better than simply the means to survival. Additionally, the bureaucracy became increasingly ineffective, bloated, and isolated from the people. The government, until its fall, was run by the WWII generation, a bunch of old completely ineffective old men who didn't allow anyone else to take part in the political process.

The result? The ideological supremacy the SU enjoyed in earlier years completely disappeared. Earlier generations believed in the ideals of the government and what the textbooks said, but it all was a complete joke to everyone by the end, and no one seriously believed in "building socialism" anymore. The government completely lost legitimacy and people became fed up with their lives and jobs. Productivity plummeted and alcoholism reached incredibly high levels. The people were entirely disenchanted with every aspect of their society. It was going to fall apart sooner or later, and after Chernobyl, Gorbachev began to open up the country. Then, the SU completely collapsed overnight. No one expected it to be that fast and historians still are at a lost to explain how quick it happened, but the lesson here is perhaps how important governmental legitimacy is and how quickly a government can fall if they people want it removed.

QFT

Lancer take notes!
Here is a guy who knows what he is talking about instead of just sounding like a propaganda slogan.

[Dinner]

Let's face it. Everyone like to make nastalgia for the past but there was a reason so many people cheered when Soviet troops pulled out of eastern Europe and there was a reason why so many Soviet citizens cheer when the Soviet Union was dissolved. The past was not all peaches and cream.

[Dinner]

Nice post johncmcleod. That said I do believe the military arms race with America played a key factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the mid 1980's the USSR was spending 50% of GDP on the military in order to maintain parity with the west. You simply can't maintain such levels and that was a huge factor in the economic difficulties the Soviet Union faced. They just couldn't maintain that level of military investment and keep up with the economic needs of their people.

[Lancer]

The important thing is not why the Soviet Union fell, the important thing is that it did fall.

That's why Putin is so sad at times. Because NATO is about to put forces in Poland and maybe even the Ukraine. That means that the Russian tanks are no longer 72 hours from the Rhine and victory. It also means that there are a dozen more small states with long memories between it and domination of europe. Just ask Saras about that.

Lots of people say that Reagan did that, but it's not true. I did that and all the guys from all the countries that took time out from their lives to stand guard on the frontiers of freedom and that forced the Sovs inward upon themselves and not outward upon those they wished to conquer.

[Dinner]

I think the Soviets self destructing from the inside had more to do with the outcome then anything Reagan did. True, the arms race played a part but it had been going on for 35 years before Reagan showed up.

[Lancer]

Outcome? You mean Solidarity and the tearing down of the wall etc?

[Propaganda]

Really, it had a lot to do with Khrushchev and Brezhnev, with Khruschev's industrial reorganization, and Virgin Lands campaign, to Brezhnev's increasing military outlays, industrial reorganizations in '70 and '73, elimination of the MTS and doubling of pay to agricultural workers draining the budget, and giving autonomy to enterprise directors which allowed them to not adhere to the 5-year plan, and basing plan goals on profit motive rather than gross output, all had led to the collapse of the USSR.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Nice post johncmcleod. That said I do believe the military arms race with America played a key factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the mid 1980's the USSR was spending 50% of GDP on the military in order to maintain parity with the west.

Absolutely. They may have talked about making consumer goods, but they made a choice to make military goods instead. There was no real commitment to consumer goods at all. The Soviets were commited to Imperialism.

[Lancer]

Not true! When they got old they put agitators in T-62 turrets and painted them white. Whalla! Washing machine. Incl a nice piece of hemp rope and you had a split level washer/dryer.

[Dr Strangelove]

The thing is, whether or not the Soviet promised the people that they would produce more consumer goods Soviet doctrine considered consumerism to be decadent. It was sort of like the Roman Catholic Church promising to produce more birth control pills or Saudi Arabia promising to produce more beer.

Speaking of which, the other main problem with the USSR was the rampant alcoholism. It's fairly well established that in his last decade Breshnev was nearly paralyzed by his drinking habits. Gorbachev tried to reverse the trend via brute force - and lost. Under Yeltsin, himself excluded, the drunks were turned out of the bureaucracy and into the streets.

[johncmcleod]

originally posted by Oerdin:
Let's face it. Everyone like to make nastalgia for the past but there was a reason so many people cheered when Soviet troops pulled out of eastern Europe and there was a reason why so many Soviet citizens cheer when the Soviet Union was dissolved. The past was not all peaches and cream.

The past certainly wasn't all peaches and cream, I wasn't trying to say that at all. And yes, the people definitely did cheer for the fall of the SU in the 90s, which like I said had become very unpopular. However, I think they were cheering because they were hoping for a better alternative. Whether or not that has come, that's up for you to decide. Though my knowledge of Russia and the former Soviet satellites post USSR is pretty bad, I'd contend that things haven't gotten too much better.

originally posted by Oerdin:
Nice post johncmcleod. That said I do believe the military arms race with America played a key factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the mid 1980's the USSR was spending 50% of GDP on the military in order to maintain parity with the west. You simply can't maintain such levels and that was a huge factor in the economic difficulties the Soviet Union faced. They just couldn't maintain that level of military investment and keep up with the economic needs of their people.

Thank you! As for the military spending, yeah, it probably sped up the process, but I think the fall would have happened with or without heavy military spending. I also don't think the USSR increased military spending all that much in the 80s, and any increases were due to the war with Afghanistan and not because of an arms race with the US. When you have enough nukes to destroy the world several times over, arms races aren't all that important, and though Reagan made a lot of speeches his SU policy really wasn't any different than most the presidents before him. Also, by the 80s, most of the Soviets realized that WWIII with the US probably wasn't going to happen. But if you have some statistical data on military spending in the USSR that shows otherwise though, please post because I'd like to see it. I never got access to good statistical data on the USSR's economy.

originally posted by Kidicious:
Absolutely. They may have talked about making consumer goods, but they made a choice to make military goods instead. There was no real commitment to consumer goods at all. The Soviets were commited to Imperialism.

originally posted by Dr Strangelove:
The thing is, whether or not the Soviet promised the people that they would produce more consumer goods Soviet doctrine considered consumerism to be decadent. It was sort of like the Roman Catholic Church promising to produce more birth control pills or Saudi Arabia promising to produce more beer.

Speaking of which, the other main problem with the USSR was the rampant alcoholism. It's fairly well established that in his last decade Breshnev was nearly paralyzed by his drinking habits. Gorbachev tried to reverse the trend via brute force - and lost. Under Yeltsin, himself excluded, the drunks were turned out of the bureaucracy and into the streets.

Well don't treat the SU like it was a single entity and that its attitudes and policies were the same from 1917-1991. Yes, originally consumerism was considered an evil product of capitalism. But by the 50s and 60s, attitudes on a lot had changed (when in history has an authoritarian government denounced its previous leader with such power and influence as Stalin? the Khrushchev era saw a complete reversal in a lot of attitudes, including the condemnation of many aspects of Stalinism), and there was a commitment to bring consumer goods to the people since the other needs had been taken care of. The SU was also so convinced in its superiority that they thought they could beat the west in consumer production.

They were hopelessly misguided. The centrally planned economy of the USSR did bring undeniable benefits by its peak in the 50s and 60s-it connected a gigantic area of many nations and ethnic groups (perhaps moreso than any empire in history) while industrializing at an incredibly fast rate and maintaining high levels of productivity, and most importantly, provided the basic needs for its entire populace. High crime rates, poverty, malnutrition, disease and poor health care, substandard housing, and all of those other nasty products the free market can bring, were non-existent. However, a centrally planned economy in many ways simply cannot compete with a successful capitalist one in terms of the production of consumer goods and the existence of a highly diversified and complex economy. When some of the soviet ministers visited the United States in the 80s, they couldn't believe the complexity of the American economic system. You must have an amazing 5 year plan, they said. Fact is, a free market allows for an incredibly complex consumer economy, one that can't be effectively created and managed by central planning.

[Dinner]

There is no doubt that the war in Afghanistan did suck up most of the USSR's increased military budget. I honestly don't know the figures and I'm trying to remember back to articles I read in the early 1990's (right after the fall of the USSR) but the intervening 17 years have made things a bit foggy.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
They were hopelessly misguided. The centrally planned economy of the USSR did bring undeniable benefits by its peak in the 50s and 60s-it connected a gigantic area of many nations and ethnic groups (perhaps moreso than any empire in history) while industrializing at an incredibly fast rate and maintaining high levels of productivity, and most importantly, provided the basic needs for its entire populace. High crime rates, poverty, malnutrition, disease and poor health care, substandard housing, and all of those other nasty products the free market can bring, were non-existent. However, a centrally planned economy in many ways simply cannot compete with a successful capitalist one in terms of the production of consumer goods and the existence of a highly diversified and complex economy. When some of the soviet ministers visited the United States in the 80s, they couldn't believe the complexity of the American economic system. You must have an amazing 5 year plan, they said. Fact is, a free market allows for an incredibly complex consumer economy, one that can't be effectively created and managed by central planning.

The military burden of the USSR was huge up until the late 80s. The reason they couldn't produce consumer goods is because they didn't try. To produce consumer goods you need to invest in research and development just like you do in military goods. You also have to devote resources like oil to it. If you don't do that you can't make consumer goods.

The USSR was spending almost as much on its armed forces as the United States up until mid-1980s, and the Soviet military burden was still 12.3 percent in 1990.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/eloranta.military

[Propaganda]

How can anyone still espouse the value of free markets? Has history not be a lesson to you? Remember the 1930s or even the last 8 years?

How can you support an economic system that drives you to spend, so you still have a job tomorrow? Or one that bails out bad actors, with your money, because of their recklessness and greed, while you barely make ends meet?
Is it so you can have a car, a yellow house with a white picket fence, or three HDTVs? Don't you think that this is antithetical to our life's' purpose, and even paradoxical?

I can honestly say that I miss the Soviet Union because I had a rich social life, with apartment blocks of friends who my family and I considered family, and we were better off without all the crap you people in the US consider to be a "necessity".