Why did the Soviet economy stagnate?

[UnknownPerson]

Why did the Soviet economy stagnate from the 70s and later on?

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

Because the ruling class stopped caring

[Jose Gracchus]

chapter5_stalinistcapitalism.pdf (http://www.lrp-cofi.org/book/chapter5_stalinistcapitalism.pdf)

http://libcom.org/library/paresh-chattopadhyay-marxian-concept-capital-soviet-experience

The USSR basically adopted a centralized mobilization-based economy, based on extrinsic growth and rapid industrialization. Once the capacity for simply new inputs of labor and waste of resources had largely been expunged, y'know, no more peasantry to rob and force into factories, no women to work while having to still be subordinate in the home, etc., the economy began to decline. It was unable to improve productivity and produce intensive growth.

[a rebel]

It also didn't help that the money they did have was being used to build the military to intimidate the west.

[manic expression]

It also didn't help that the money they did have was being used to build the military to intimidate the west.
It wasn't being built up for intimidation, it was being built up for legitimate self-defense. The "nuclear gap" was something like 16:1 in favor of NATO throughout the Cold War.


The USSR basically adopted a centralized mobilization-based economy, based on extrinsic growth and rapid industrialization. Once the capacity for simply new inputs of labor and waste of resources had largely been expunged, y'know, no more peasantry to rob and force into factories, no women to work while having to still be subordinate in the home, etc., the economy began to decline. It was unable to improve productivity and produce intensive growth.
So you think that the peasantry and women doing housework provided the economic impetus for the 1930's industrialization drive? For the rebuilding of the USSR after WWII? For the economic growth of the 1950's? Yeah, sure, the Moscow Metro was built entirely with the tears of peasants... :rolleyes:

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

the economy began to decline. It was unable to improve productivity and produce intensive growth.

It never actually declined, however; growth stagnated in the sense that it hovered in the vicinity around 1%, which meant that the U.S. GDP growth of around 3% average put it ahead.


It wasn't being built up for intimidation, it was being built up for legitimate self-defense. The "nuclear gap" was something like 16:1 in favor of NATO throughout the Cold War.


Apart from the fact that military spending as percent of GDP was not all that much higher than the U.S., the SSSR had considerably more nuclear missiles than the U.S. for a while around late 70's and early 80's, whereupon both begun to drop with the SALT II agreements.

[UnknownPerson]

It never actually declined, however; growth stagnated in the sense that it hovered in the vicinity around 1%, which meant that the U.S. GDP growth of around 3% average put it ahead.



Apart from the fact that military spending as percent of GDP was not all that much higher than the U.S., the SSSR had considerably more nuclear missiles than the U.S. for a while around late 70's and early 80's, whereupon both begun to drop with the SALT II agreements.

As far as I know, even now, Russia has more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined.

[Jose Gracchus]

It wasn't being built up for intimidation, it was being built up for legitimate self-defense. The "nuclear gap" was something like 16:1 in favor of NATO throughout the Cold War.

Which means it was a losing competition, good thing Moscow kept open its options with international support for revolution...oh wait


So you think that the peasantry and women doing housework provided the economic impetus for the 1930's industrialization drive? For the rebuilding of the USSR after WWII? For the economic growth of the 1950's? Yeah, sure, the Moscow Metro was built entirely with the tears of peasants... :rolleyes:

I know your preferred debate tactic is to "misread" your opponents and then give irrelevent replies aimed at strawmen. What I said is the Soviet economy was almost entirely based on extensive growth, meaning it depended on things like simply growing the size of the labor force, or the number of factories, and not increasing the productivity or capital intensivity of production, and technological improvements were very poorly expanded across all sectors of production.

I absolutely believe accomplishing the collectivization of the peasantry provided the profit that Stalin could use to hire the Kochs' daddy and other bourgeois specialists to build industrial equipment in the USSR, and freed up very large quantities of labor power being wasted on small plot production and urbanized and proletarianized it. The USSR's collectivization was primitive accumulation.

[RichardAWilson]

There was no room for internalized innovation in the U.S.S.R.

Furthermore, corruption, waste and managerial inefficiencies were a drag on overall production.

Central Planning often became too rigid, preventing equilibrium in the markets and leading to shortages for goods people demanded and surpluses for the goods that people didn't need.

In addition to inefficient central planning and a low rate of innovation, it's worth mentioning that a large share of the Soviet-Economy was squandered on the Armed-Forces. The Soviet-Union didn't need thousands of nuclear warheads. The Armed-Forces became an organization imbedded in the nation: One which offered privilege and prestige and one which created aggregate demand for the state's industrial sectors and production.

[Ingraham Effingham]

Because Drago got his ass beaten by Balboa

[manic expression]

Which means it was a losing competition, good thing Moscow kept open its options with international support for revolution...oh wait
Good thing that's exactly what happened with Cuba and other areas.


I know your preferred debate tactic is to "misread" your opponents and then give irrelevent replies aimed at strawmen. What I said is the Soviet economy was almost entirely based on extensive growth, meaning it depended on things like simply growing the size of the labor force, or the number of factories, and not increasing the productivity or capital intensivity of production, and technological improvements were very poorly expanded across all sectors of production.

I absolutely believe accomplishing the collectivization of the peasantry provided the profit that Stalin could use to hire the Kochs' daddy and other bourgeois specialists to build industrial equipment in the USSR, and freed up very large quantities of labor power being wasted on small plot production and urbanized and proletarianized it. The USSR's collectivization was primitive accumulation.
You cry foul when I use your own logic to illustrate how absurd your claims are. You specifically cited women working at home and the "theft" of the peasantry as examples of how the Soviet economy developed. That was you. Not me...you.

And they are both utterly absurd arguments, as I demonstrated, and as your lack of a response further demonstrates beyond any real doubt. You are positing that the peasantry in 1930 held the resources necessary to power the most intense and steep industrialization campaign in the history of the world...and what do you provide as evidence? That you "absolutely believe" it. Well, there's a surprise.

As for the growth of the labor force and the increase in factories...those are as much signs of Soviet economic growth and success as they were instruments of it.


Apart from the fact that military spending as percent of GDP was not all that much higher than the U.S., the SSSR had considerably more nuclear missiles than the U.S. for a while around late 70's and early 80's, whereupon both begun to drop with the SALT II agreements.
In terms of actual warheads, that's not true. See the graph here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race#Mutual_Assured_Destruction_.28MA D.29). The USSR never had more warheads than the US at any given point in the Cold War. In terms of total tonnage of equipment, then yes. At any rate, the fact remains that the USSR was pursuing military spending as a legitimate form of self-defense.

[Jose Gracchus]

Good thing that's exactly what happened with Cuba and other areas.

The pro-Moscow CP, the Partido Socialista Popular, had ministers in the Batista government, and the focos were sheltered by Mexico before their attempt to overthrow the government. Castro did not turn to Moscow's support until the U.S. began waging unceasing economic and political war against him. Point of fact is Fidel actually never formally inaugurated a ML-model state and declared Marxism-Leninism until after the Bahia de Cochinos incident. The Soviet state had a "peaceful coexistence" line during this entire period. Try again.

When you talk, I know you think it is profound. All you ever reveal is how you have never read a book.


You cry foul when I use your own logic to illustrate how absurd your claims are. You specifically cited women working at home and the "theft" of the peasantry as examples of how the Soviet economy developed. That was you. Not me...you.

Not how the Soviet economy worked. You cherry pick claims you don't understand in isolation from their context. I used to think this was because you are pathologically dishonest. I have come around to the impression it is simply because you're a fucking moron and you don't know what "extensive" means.

The Soviet state was dependent on marshaling labor resources committed to low-productivity agriculture or social labor (like women sequestered in domestic labor, not that this is a good thing, but Soviet policy ended up with women occupying double burdens of work and domestic care) into industrial production in order to increase growth. Once unused reserves had been tapped, the Soviet economy began to stagnate with shocking rapidity. The Soviet economy was incapable of increasing labor productivity generally, and of translating technological improvements across all sectors. This is straight from the horse's mouth of Soviet economists and bureaucrats in the 1970s.

What's your explanation, besides IT WUZ ALL ZE IMPIRALIZM


And they are both utterly absurd arguments, as I demonstrated, and as your lack of a response further demonstrates beyond any real doubt. You are positing that the peasantry in 1930 held the resources necessary to power the most intense and steep industrialization campaign in the history of the world...and what do you provide as evidence? That you "absolutely believe" it. Well, there's a surprise.

It is your stupidity that reveals itself. The depression of living standards among both the peasantry and working class, while extracting agricultural production at costs at or below the cost of production, allowed for foreign sales that provided enough hard currency to pay for a massive influx of industrial technology and tools and expertise the Soviet Union could not amass domestically. This is not really even remotely a controversial claim in the history of the Soviet economy.


As for the growth of the labor force and the increase in factories...those are as much signs of Soviet economic growth and success as they were instruments of it.

My point is simply that USSR was duplicating the feats that advanced capitalist states had already done in the 18th-19th centuries. Increasing the intensivity of agricultural production, allowing a net influx of the population into the cities, driving down labor costs and increasing the total labor pool, allowing for the finance of industrialization. Stalin used the state to force what took them a hundred years in fifteen. This is openly admitted.


In terms of actual warheads, that's not true. See the graph here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race#Mutual_Assured_Destruction_.28MA D.29). The USSR never had more warheads than the US at any given point in the Cold War.

What strategic value is a warhead in a factory unmated to a delivery system? It has no military value and would be rendered useless in any realistic exchange scenario (do not cite current figures of warheads in warehouses in the U.S., because the U.S. maintains surplus delivery systems that in an event of crisis the warheads currently inert could be rapidly consolidated into a larger force - furthermore a larger inert warhead stockpile is necessitated today by the increasing age of the deployed weapons). You are actually providing yet more evidence for the profligate waste and aggrandizement of privileged industrial sectors at the expense of the whole of the state that characterized much of the late Soviet economy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/US_and_USSR_nuclear_stockpiles.png

Nice graph chief. Shows the USSR's (later Russia's) stockpile to exceed that of the U.S. from about 1978 to 1997.


In terms of total tonnage of equipment, then yes. At any rate, the fact remains that the USSR was pursuing military spending as a legitimate form of self-defense.

Why did the USSR build a space shuttle in the 1980s? Give me any plausible reason. (Hint: dick measuring)

[manic expression]

The pro-Moscow CP, the Partido Socialista Popular, had ministers in the Batista government, and the focos were sheltered by Mexico before their attempt to overthrow the government. Castro did not turn to Moscow's support until the U.S. began waging unceasing economic and political war against him. Point of fact is Fidel actually never formally inaugurated a ML-model state and declared Marxism-Leninism until after the Bahia de Cochinos incident. The Soviet state had a "peaceful coexistence" line during this entire period. Try again.
More anti-socialist BS. The USSR provided support to the Cuban Revolution as soon as it was requested...that, and only that, proves you're full of hot air. The Soviet Union, evidently enough, was ready and willing to come to the aid of socialist revolutions and working-class struggles around the world. I know how much that makes you mad. But we might as well continue, and note that Fidel only waited to declare himself Marxist-Leninist because it would have been suicide to do otherwise. He held his cards close to his chest and fooled the imperialists (including you, decades on :lol:). That's why he's a revolutionary leader while you're a parrot for imperialist propaganda.


When you talk, I know you think it is profound. All you ever reveal is how you have never read a book.A book would explain to you the difference between "talking" and "typing". :laugh:


Not how the Soviet economy worked. You cherry pick claims you don't understand in isolation from their context. I used to think this was because you are pathologically dishonest. I have come around to the impression it is simply because you're a fucking moron and you don't know what "extensive" means.More and more childish insults. But hey, if it's all you can do then it's natural you keep doing it.


The Soviet state was dependent on marshaling labor resources committed to low-productivity agriculture or social labor (like women sequestered in domestic labor, not that this is a good thing, but Soviet policy ended up with women occupying double burdens of work and domestic care) into industrial production in order to increase growth. Once unused reserves had been tapped, the Soviet economy began to stagnate with shocking rapidity. The Soviet economy was incapable of increasing labor productivity generally, and of translating technological improvements across all sectors. This is straight from the horse's mouth of Soviet economists and bureaucrats in the 1970s.So again, you think that women working in domestic labor (note, the ONLY example you brought up) powered the industrialization of the 30's? The rebuilding of the USSR and Eastern Europe after WWII? Yuri Gagarin's rocket ship? Your argument, again, collapses under the weight of its own foolishness.


What's your explanation, besides IT WUZ ALL ZE IMPIRALIZMSo eager to change the subject of your own incompetence, I see. Not going to work, but thanks for illustrating how little confidence of your ultra-left lies you possess.


It is your stupidity that reveals itself. The depression of living standards among both the peasantry and working class, while extracting agricultural production at costs at or below the cost of production, allowed for foreign sales that provided enough hard currency to pay for a massive influx of industrial technology and tools and expertise the Soviet Union could not amass domestically. This is not really even remotely a controversial claim in the history of the Soviet economy.What "depression of living standards"? By the early 50's, Soviet living standards were rivaling that of the capitalist nations, an absolutely unheard-of turnaround from just a few decades prior. Further, your argument is that all of this was powered chiefly by party workers stealing shovels and oxen from the peasants in 1934 and by women working domestically. It's truly laughable how little you've supported your outlandish claims...and it's natural, because you can't.


My point is simply that USSR was duplicating the feats that advanced capitalist states had already done in the 18th-19th centuries. Increasing the intensivity of agricultural production, allowing a net influx of the population into the cities, driving down labor costs and increasing the total labor pool, allowing for the finance of industrialization. Stalin used the state to force what took them a hundred years in fifteen. This is openly admitted.:lol: And what were they supposed to do? Skip the whole industrialization part of human development? Click their heels together and get straight to the highest phase of communism?


Nice graph chief. Shows the USSR's (later Russia's) stockpile to exceed that of the U.S. from about 1978 to 1997.Well, if you can't even read a wikipedia article:

Strategic nuclear missiles, warheads and throw-weights of United States and USSR, 1964-82[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race#cite_note-8)[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race#cite_note-9)

Warheads
USA -------- USSR

1970 3,900 1,800
1972 5,800 2,100
1974 8,400 2,400
1976 9,400 3,200
1978 9,800 5,200
1980 10,000 6,000
1982 11,000 8,000


Why did the USSR build a space shuttle in the 1980s? Give me any plausible reason. (Hint: dick measuring)Because space exploration means human progress. The Soviet Union was into that kind of thing.

[Jose Gracchus]

More anti-socialist BS. The USSR provided support to the Cuban Revolution as soon as it was requested...that, and only that, proves you're full of hot air. The Soviet Union, evidently enough, was ready and willing to come to the aid of socialist revolutions and working-class struggles around the world. I know how much that makes you mad. But we might as well continue, and note that Fidel only waited to declare himself Marxist-Leninist because it would have been suicide to do otherwise. He held his cards close to his chest and fooled the imperialists (including you, decades on :lol:). That's why he's a revolutionary leader while you're a parrot for imperialist propaganda.

Yeah whatever helps you sleep at night. Enough bullshit out of you: Was or was not the Moscow-aligned CP represented on the Batista cabinet? Was or was not the USSR's line "peaceful coexistence"? Of course the USSR offered to sell shit to the Cubans, they needed currency and were business to make money. What you don't include is how the COMECON bloc wanted to pressure Cuba into remaining primarily a sugar monoculture, as evidenced by the fact that the loss of the guaranteed above-value sugar contract with the USSR practically destroyed the old Cuban economic model, paving the way for Raul's march to Dengism.


A book would explain to you the difference between "talking" and "typing". :laugh:

OMFG LOL ROFL


So again, you think that women working in domestic labor (note, the ONLY example you brought up) powered the industrialization of the 30's? The rebuilding of the USSR and Eastern Europe after WWII? Yuri Gagarin's rocket ship? Your argument, again, collapses under the weight of its own foolishness.

No, I said that driving the living standards of the peasantry and working class down, while forcibly extracting the agricultural produce to sell on foriegn markets, raised the money to import capitalist machinery and expertise to industrialize the economy. After that structural growth was accomplished by further mechanization of agriculture and campaigns to recruit ever more workers into ever-more 1950s-tech factories. They were unable to make use of intensive modes of growth outside the military sector and goods for the nomenklatura (where open competitive bidding was employed).

Driving women out of the home and into the factory (but not socializing their domestic burden, as Marx and Engels' provided) was another method of extensive growth.


So eager to change the subject of your own incompetence, I see. Not going to work, but thanks for illustrating how little confidence of your ultra-left lies you possess.

And I'm the one who resorts to petty insults? You've done nothing but repeat yourself and bring up nothing. At least I actually generate a substantive reply to your "arguments."


What "depression of living standards"?

RLY? The sources listed above document all this, but if you prefer...

Without further adieu (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1780465&postcount=19):


In fact I've done some digging into my own Wheatcroft papers and found the below chart in The First 35 Years of Soviet Living Standards (my excel reproduction of course). Unfortunately this paper does not extend as far as the Khrushchev years but it does compare the Stalinist reforms with the NEP (and pre-NEP) period. The chart graphs the rise and fall of food consumption in Soviet households through KCals per day and is based on Wheatcroft's investigations (drawing heavily on Soviet nutritional surveys). There is obviously a large chunk of data missing during the famine years as TsSU, which conducted the studies, was abolished in 1929 and not resurrected until 1932 (as TsUNKhU). Its pretty safe to say however that consumption did not increase during these 'missing' years :glare:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/GreaterDCU/Misc/Calories.jpg
KCals consumed per day for Soviet workers and all peasants
(Not visible - peasant value for 1913 is 2913)

Its pretty clear from the above that nutrition in Soviet households improved pretty sharply during the NEP period only to crash down again with the collectivisation programme. Omitting the first period (ie, pre-1933) presents the appearance of continuous growth - only when the entire timeframe is accounted for does it become apparent that post-1933 the regime was only climbing out of a hole of its own making. Comparing 1939 consumption figures to those of 1913 reveals that Soviet workers and peasants were consuming almost 6% and 19% less calories, respectively, in 1939 than they had been before WWI. When we do the comparison to 1927/28 the difference is even more marked - a 23% decline for peasants and a whopping 30% for workers!

I didn't bother including the data stretching to 1953 because its pretty sketchy and contains a lot of blanks. There is however data for that year - 2488 and 2912 for peasants and workers respectively. Doing the same comparison (to 1927/28) shows that workers were 25% less well off (in terms of daily calorie consumption) than at the height of the NEP period and that peasants were 'merely' 19% worse off

So much for rising daily calorie consumption...

Real nice that the Stalinist industrialization depressed living standards below those of the Civil fucking War


By the early 50's, Soviet living standards were rivaling that of the capitalist nations, an absolutely unheard-of turnaround from just a few decades prior.

There was inadequate housing prior to Khrushchev so this is an incredible claim. How could living standards be as high as the West when consumer goods had yet to be made any priority of production?


Further, your argument is that all of this was powered chiefly by party workers stealing shovels and oxen from the peasants in 1934 and by women working domestically.

No, by transferring labor from pre-modern and relatively unproductive sectors of the economy to modern ones, while basically robbing them of labor by reducing real remunerations and purchasing power. Like I said, analogous to primitive accumulation.


It's truly laughable how little you've supported your outlandish claims...and it's natural, because you can't.

I do not know of any serious economic work which challenges it. Some Stalinists might have a lot of apologia and disinformation about the precise conditions under which the forced industrialization and collectivization occurred, but most justify it extrinsically on ideological (expanding state ownership) or historical (must defend USSR from imperialists ASAP) grounds.


:lol: And what were they supposed to do? Skip the whole industrialization part of human development? Click their heels together and get straight to the highest phase of communism?

No, socialism in one country is revisionism and preposterous. Industrialization of 'the nation' is a bourgeois program (especially founded on a depression of the immediate producers' living standards in order to increase state revenues so you can pay the Koch brothers' daddy to build oil refineries).


Well, if you can't even read a wikipedia article:

Strategic nuclear missiles, warheads and throw-weights of United States and USSR, 1964-82[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race#cite_note-8)[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race#cite_note-9)

Warheads
USA -------- USSR

1970 3,900 1,800
1972 5,800 2,100
1974 8,400 2,400
1976 9,400 3,200
1978 9,800 5,200
1980 10,000 6,000
1982 11,000 8,000

The warheads deployed by the USSR on actual delivery systems exceed that of the U.S. I do not see why the U.S.'s left over 1960s warheads in warehouses is some backbone of strategic supremacy or relevent as something that needs to be 'defended against'. You must be a lying moron, since this column is available right beside the one your posted.


Because space exploration means human progress. The Soviet Union was into that kind of thing.

The state was broke by this point and the STS design was economically retarded, weighed down by unnecessary and never-used DOD requirements for absurd cross-range to enable polar orbits for satellite deployments. This required heavy delta wings which ruined the economy of the "reusable" design. Worse yet, the USSR had run the numbers themselves and concluded the figures being projected publicly by the U.S. for the Shuttle had to be fictitious...so they went ahead and copied their mistakes... The Soviet military sector demanded its almost exact replication (though with some improvements, but it made no sense for us, and even less sense for them). The Soyuz system was more than serviceable (consider it is more economical than any alternative today, and outlasts the Shuttle now) and it was far more important to keep Mir afloat.

[Jose Gracchus]

Also, it is hilarious one would contend the Soviet economy is oriented around production of "use values" when the scientific body responsible for tracking workers' subsistence in basic dietary terms is abolished during a period of substantial economic change. Curious, no? How could the plans have any scientific basis without that knowledge?

[manic expression]

Yeah whatever helps you sleep at night. Enough bullshit out of you: Was or was not the Moscow-aligned CP represented on the Batista cabinet? Was or was not the USSR's line "peaceful coexistence"? Of course the USSR offered to sell shit to the Cubans, they needed currency and were business to make money. What you don't include is how the COMECON bloc wanted to pressure Cuba into remaining primarily a sugar monoculture, as evidenced by the fact that the loss of the guaranteed above-value sugar contract with the USSR practically destroyed the old Cuban economic model, paving the way for Raul's march to Dengism.
More sidestepping. The pro-Moscow CP has little to do with how the USSR supported the Cuban Revolution when support was requested. In fact, your obsession with this tangent just shows how little you care about the history of the matter.


OMFG LOL ROFL
Nice comeback. :lol:


No, I said that driving the living standards of the peasantry and working class down,
Then why did living standards go up across the board?


Driving women out of the home and into the factory (but not socializing their domestic burden, as Marx and Engels' provided) was another method of extensive growth.
Yeah, so we're back to "women working domestically built the Moscow Metro and rebuilt Minsk".


And I'm the one who resorts to petty insults? You've done nothing but repeat yourself and bring up nothing. At least I actually generate a substantive reply to your "arguments."
And now, for your "substantive reply":

OMFG LOL ROFL


RLY? The sources listed above document all this, but if you prefer...

Without further adieu (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1780465&postcount=19):
Wow, using the period of collectivization, which likely saw one of the greatest amounts of internal instability which directly hampered food production, is now the measuring stick of the Soviet Union itself. That's absolutely insane. Collectivization and industrialization constituted an incredibly sharp period of struggle...the results of this, however, led to living standards that after WWII were comparable to un-bombed US standards. That's what you won't ignore, though, because you'd rather bash the USSR for doing what it needed to do to collectivize production (gasp! horror!) and create an industrial society (gasp! horror!).


Real nice that the Stalinist industrialization depressed living standards below those of the Civil fucking War

The collectivization process was, in many ways, a Civil fucking War.


There was inadequate housing prior to Khrushchev so this is an incredible claim. How could living standards be as high as the West when consumer goods had yet to be made any priority of production?
Look at life expectancy, infant mortality, access to doctors, housing (yes, it wasn't ideal, but after the Wehrmacht's gay romp through eastern Europe you can't expect too much, and the USSR's response to this was quite extraordinary), security and so on and so forth and it's quite clear.


No, by transferring labor from pre-modern and relatively unproductive sectors of the economy to modern ones, while basically robbing them of labor by reducing real remunerations and purchasing power. Like I said, analogous to primitive accumulation.
Ah, so the shovels and oxen confiscated from kulaks were magically turned into T-34s.


I do not know of any serious economic work which challenges it.
And apparently, you don't know of any that doesn't.


No, socialism in one country is revisionism and preposterous. Industrialization of 'the nation' is a bourgeois program (especially founded on a depression of the immediate producers' living standards in order to increase state revenues so you can pay the Koch brothers' daddy to build oil refineries).
Socialism In One Country isn't something I cosign, but I do support the industrialization process along with every single other communist in the world. Industrializing the USSR was necessary, necessary and necessary, immediately so. Again, what was the Soviet Union supposed to do? Skip industrialization? You have no answer to this because there is none other than what the workers of that country did.


The warheads deployed by the USSR on actual delivery systems exceed that of the U.S. I do not see why the U.S.'s left over 1960s warheads in warehouses is some backbone of strategic supremacy or relevent as something that needs to be 'defended against'. You must be a lying moron, since this column is available right beside the one your posted.
Since you keep bringing up these delivery systems, care to point out where they were?


The state was broke by this point and the STS design was economically retarded, weighed down by unnecessary and never-used DOD requirements for absurd cross-range to enable polar orbits for satellite deployments. This required heavy delta wings which ruined the economy of the "reusable" design. Worse yet, the USSR had run the numbers themselves and concluded the figures being projected publicly by the U.S. for the Shuttle had to be fictitious...so they went ahead and copied their mistakes... The Soviet military sector demanded its almost exact replication (though with some improvements, but it made no sense for us, and even less sense for them). The Soyuz system was more than serviceable (consider it is more economical than any alternative today, and outlasts the Shuttle now) and it was far more important to keep Mir afloat.
Oh, man. Mistakes are made in the course of space exploration. I guess we should scrap the whole idea. :rolleyes: Ultra-left wisdom strikes again.

By the way, who is the "us" you refer to?

[Arlekino]

Stagnation started in Gorbochov's era. As well I do remember well working class felt disappointed when we so bureaucratic elite or communist party members got more commodities than workers. So corruptions started from higher officials but leaded to working class as well. Stealing from factories, giving bribes to doctors. Black market jeans, some albums of ABBA. We had to get good relationship with shop assistant to get better things. For example collective farm official had bigger house than worker. As myself experience as well those stagnations long queues for food but that was on Gorbochov times.

[Psy]

The problem was uneven development where some sectors where ahead of the west like the Zelenograd electronic labs that built the first industrial computer (computer engineered for industrial production control) yet decades later GOSPLAN was still planning with by hand as the mass production of mainframes was far behind the west and resources never shifted to newer technology due to the red tape to get new designs mass produced.

[UnknownPerson]

The pro-Moscow CP, the Partido Socialista Popular, had ministers in the Batista government, and the focos were sheltered by Mexico before their attempt to overthrow the government. Castro did not turn to Moscow's support until the U.S. began waging unceasing economic and political war against him. Point of fact is Fidel actually never formally inaugurated a ML-model state and declared Marxism-Leninism until after the Bahia de Cochinos incident. The Soviet state had a "peaceful coexistence" line during this entire period. Try again.

When you talk, I know you think it is profound. All you ever reveal is how you have never read a book.



Not how the Soviet economy worked. You cherry pick claims you don't understand in isolation from their context. I used to think this was because you are pathologically dishonest. I have come around to the impression it is simply because you're a fucking moron and you don't know what "extensive" means.

The Soviet state was dependent on marshaling labor resources committed to low-productivity agriculture or social labor (like women sequestered in domestic labor, not that this is a good thing, but Soviet policy ended up with women occupying double burdens of work and domestic care) into industrial production in order to increase growth. Once unused reserves had been tapped, the Soviet economy began to stagnate with shocking rapidity. The Soviet economy was incapable of increasing labor productivity generally, and of translating technological improvements across all sectors. This is straight from the horse's mouth of Soviet economists and bureaucrats in the 1970s.

What's your explanation, besides IT WUZ ALL ZE IMPIRALIZM



It is your stupidity that reveals itself. The depression of living standards among both the peasantry and working class, while extracting agricultural production at costs at or below the cost of production, allowed for foreign sales that provided enough hard currency to pay for a massive influx of industrial technology and tools and expertise the Soviet Union could not amass domestically. This is not really even remotely a controversial claim in the history of the Soviet economy.



My point is simply that USSR was duplicating the feats that advanced capitalist states had already done in the 18th-19th centuries. Increasing the intensivity of agricultural production, allowing a net influx of the population into the cities, driving down labor costs and increasing the total labor pool, allowing for the finance of industrialization. Stalin used the state to force what took them a hundred years in fifteen. This is openly admitted.



What strategic value is a warhead in a factory unmated to a delivery system? It has no military value and would be rendered useless in any realistic exchange scenario (do not cite current figures of warheads in warehouses in the U.S., because the U.S. maintains surplus delivery systems that in an event of crisis the warheads currently inert could be rapidly consolidated into a larger force - furthermore a larger inert warhead stockpile is necessitated today by the increasing age of the deployed weapons). You are actually providing yet more evidence for the profligate waste and aggrandizement of privileged industrial sectors at the expense of the whole of the state that characterized much of the late Soviet economy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/US_and_USSR_nuclear_stockpiles.png

Nice graph chief. Shows the USSR's (later Russia's) stockpile to exceed that of the U.S. from about 1978 to 1997.



Why did the USSR build a space shuttle in the 1980s? Give me any plausible reason. (Hint: dick measuring)


Here's another graph, and this one shows that Russia has much more nuclear weapons than the US right now. Most of the graphs I've seen also seem to show that Russia has far more nuclear weapons (from Wikipedia as well):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/US_and_USSR_nuclear_stockpiles.svg

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

The problem was uneven development where some sectors where ahead of the west like the Zelenograd electronic labs that built the first industrial computer (computer engineered for industrial production control) yet decades later GOSPLAN was still planning with by hand as the mass production of mainframes was far behind the west and resources never shifted to newer technology due to the red tape to get new designs mass produced.

It deserves mention that part of the reason for this was a specific kind of corruption and organisation that basically sought to mimic capitalist competition, whereby the various industrial ministries and enterprises were not unified and in some areas worked against each other; this was for example why there was no coherent development of a nation-wide communication grid (like an internet); instead there were separate independent networks associated with the separate industrial- and associated ministries, which exacerbated problems relating to information relay. There were at times temporary pushes for cybernetics and computerised planning, but they came to avail in the internal power-struggles that so much came to dominate Soviet politics, partly as a result of its inherently flawed political structure; in turn exacerbated during the Stalin and Khrushchev-eras, where the competing interests of the subordinate ministries were juggled in disunity to favour of the central administration's strength.

[Rooster]

Stagnation started in Gorbochov's era.

.... wut?


Black market jeans, some albums of ABBA. These brought down the USSR? :confused:


We had to get good relationship with shop assistant to get better things. For example collective farm official had bigger house than worker. As myself experience as well those stagnations long queues for food but that was on Gorbochov times.Those queues didn't begin nor end with Gorbochov.

[Paul Cockshott]

It deserves mention that part of the reason for this was a specific kind of corruption and organisation that basically sought to mimic capitalist competition, whereby the various industrial ministries and enterprises were not unified and in some areas worked against each other; this was for example why there was no coherent development of a nation-wide communication grid (like an internet); instead there were separate independent networks associated with the separate industrial- and associated ministries, which exacerbated problems relating to information relay. There were at times temporary pushes for cybernetics and computerised planning, but they came to avail in the internal power-struggles that so much came to dominate Soviet politics, partly as a result of its inherently flawed political structure; in turn exacerbated during the Stalin and Khrushchev-eras, where the competing interests of the subordinate ministries were juggled in disunity to favour of the central administration's strength.
I think you may be wrong there. Whilst there were multiple different computer design centers some of the designs like the BESM series were competitive with contemporary western ones. When a central decision was taken to standardise on the Unified Range, the independent design intiatives were stiffled and the technology started to lag seriously. In an area like computing it is better to have several different centers coming up with different independent designs since one can not know in advance which is going to be best.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I think you may be wrong there. Whilst there were multiple different computer design centers some of the designs like the BESM series were competitive with contemporary western ones. When a central decision was taken to standardise on the Unified Range, the independent design intiatives were stiffled and the technology started to lag seriously. In an area like computing it is better to have several different centers coming up with different independent designs since one can not know in advance which is going to be best.

I was not referring to such things, however, but rather the fact that some of the communication networks that were laid down, some quite extensive, were not being connected to one another, and consequently they were unable to form the basis for a planning-related information transfer, and where the major ministries were engaged in political battles over who got the most support and official sanction; it was not my intention to suggest that having several design bureaus doing same things differently was a bad idea.

[Jose Gracchus]

More sidestepping. The pro-Moscow CP has little to do with how the USSR supported the Cuban Revolution when support was requested. In fact, your obsession with this tangent just shows how little you care about the history of the matter

Revolutionaries need support BEFORE the Revolution, not just when Moscow can be assured of national interests being secure.


Nice comeback. :lol:

Stupidity doesn't deserve a meaningful response. I'm glad you think being like OMG IM NOT TALKIN IM TYPIN FOO LOL is a substantive reply.


Then why did living standards go up across the board?

I demonstrated they did not. We're talking about the Stalinist period, I repeatedly noted this as being the period characterized by forced collectivization/forced industrialization/primitive accumulation. Thereafter extensive growth was still the major means of improving growth, though without coercive means. Obviously living standards did not decline throughout the entire Soviet period.


Yeah, so we're back to "women working domestically built the Moscow Metro and rebuilt Minsk".

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying Soviet growth throughout its existence was composed of increasing the supply of labor without significant technological advancement (capital intensivity) or labor productivity. The Western capitalist states had long entered modes of intensive growth. The USSR could not maintain growth once all remaining labor reserves (like women outside the workforce previously reserved to the domestic sector, and farm labor) had been consumed.


And now, for your "substantive reply":

OMFG LOL ROFL

I'm sorry you think IM NOT TALKIN IM TYPIN DUMMIE requires a dissertation. Let's be serious, you'd just deliberately ignore what I say and reply with some idiocy.


Wow, using the period of collectivization, which likely saw one of the greatest amounts of internal instability which directly hampered food production, is now the measuring stick of the Soviet Union itself. That's absolutely insane. Collectivization and industrialization constituted an incredibly sharp period of struggle...the results of this, however, led to living standards that after WWII were comparable to un-bombed US standards.

Firstly, I'm just pointing out that the USSR paid for industrialization on the back of deep repression and lowering of standards of living of the working class, which pretty much underscores the fundamental antagonisms between the immediate producers and the authorities, similar to a bourgeois society.

Secondly, I never denied living standards rose against after this process. I think it is merely damning in of itself. Of course, you're backpedaling since you explicitly denied living standards collapsed (below Civil War levels!) to finance industrialization.

Thirdly, post proof that living standards for workers on average was at the same level of the United States in the 1950s.


That's what you won't ignore, though, because you'd rather bash the USSR for doing what it needed to do to collectivize production (gasp! horror!) and create an industrial society (gasp! horror!).

Because the means and nature of how it did so cannot be reconciled with a conception of the working class itself in power, doing the organizing, unless you have some sterile un-Marxist conception where some paternalistic authority doing things on behalf of the workers is identical to the workers doing it themselves.

To quote Soviet Workers and De-Stalinisation (Filtzer):

"A decree of 28 Dec 1938 reaffirmed that absentees would be summarily dismissed and evicted (together with their families) from factory housing; moreover subsequent rulings extended the decree to any worker arriving just twenty minutes late, who would be classed as a truant. When, despite its harshness, this law had little effect, the the regime, in June 1940, declared both truancy and job-changing criminal offences. Truancy was punishable by a period of corrective labour of up to six months at the workers' original enterprise, with up to 25% loss of pay. Quitting one's job without the authorisation of factory management made the worker liable to imprisonment for two to four months. In addition, according to the decree of 28 Dec 1938, job-changers and those fired for truancy were to lose most of their pension and disability benefit rights"

Such wonderful socialist measures!

How is this relevant? Well if fundamental antagonisms existed between labor and the conditions of labor, as in a bourgeois society, we would expect a tendency toward crisis as the exploiters of labor must contend with the struggle of labor against their exploitation.


The collectivization process was, in many ways, a Civil fucking War.

More than the actual Civil War against the Whites? You telling me the immediate producers were a "threat" to the "socialist" state? More than the White Terror and intervention?


Look at life expectancy, infant mortality, access to doctors, housing (yes, it wasn't ideal, but after the Wehrmacht's gay romp through eastern Europe you can't expect too much, and the USSR's response to this was quite extraordinary), security and so on and so forth and it's quite clear.

Of course it improved, I never denied that. The question is why it declined, and its because the USSR couldn't get out of the "shovel more workers into the 1950s factories" model. It could not distribute technological improvements throughout productive sectors, it could not resolve the antagonisms and contradictions within production (such as informational and incentive asymmetries, where the planners were kept in the dark by industrial management who horded resources and consumer durables never properly responded to consumer demands), and it could not improve labor productivity.


Ah, so the shovels and oxen confiscated from kulaks were magically turned into T-34s.

No unpaid labor from workers and peasants, produce acquired below cost and sold abroad for profits, invested into factories and mines, produced T-34s later.


And apparently, you don't know of any that doesn't.

Have you cited a single source? Of course not. You never do.


Socialism In One Country isn't something I cosign, but I do support the industrialization process along with every single other communist in the world. Industrializing the USSR was necessary, necessary and necessary, immediately so. Again, what was the Soviet Union supposed to do? Skip industrialization? You have no answer to this because there is none other than what the workers of that country did.

I didn't say that. It'd be one thing if the immediate producers had democratically and non-antagonistically resolved the necessity of protecting workers' power, but that's not what happened. And its obvious to anyone with a brain who reads the history of the political system, the fact living standards fell below their lowest point in the Civil War when at times over half the state was occupied with near-fascists, and the draconian labor discipline and punitive coercion used as documented in the citation above. This was exploitation.


Since you keep bringing up these delivery systems, care to point out where they were?

Column, far right, reads "launchers". What do you think that means, potato guns? You really are a fucking imbecile. If the working class is to depend on "professional revolutionaries" like you, God help it.


Oh, man. Mistakes are made in the course of space exploration. I guess we should scrap the whole idea. :rolleyes: Ultra-left wisdom strikes again.

I just pointed out the Soviets DID THE CALCULATIONS ON THE SHUTTLE, AND RESOLVED THEMSELVES OUR NUMBERS WERE WRONG AND IT MADE NO SENSE. So obviously the next move should be LOL LETS DO IT OURSELVES LOL


By the way, who is the "us" you refer to?

Americans. Is it controversial to suggest that the STS was a wasteful expenditure perpetrated on the American public by the DOD and bourgeois government for the aggrandizement of politicians and defense contractors? Hence "it made no sense for us"?

[28350]

guys can you please stop dissing each other?
it's pretty boring to sift through and not constructive in answering OP's question

[Jose Gracchus]

I answer the man's questions, and he replies in a deliberately dishonest and obtuse fashion. I've provided at least 4 sources. He's provided a wiki graph, and omitted the parts he hoped others wouldn't look up. I don't want to knock this off-topic, but there's only so much I can do faced with professional propagandists.

[manic expression]

Revolutionaries need support BEFORE the Revolution, not just when Moscow can be assured of national interests being secure.
So what did you expect? To have Soviet troops deployed to the Sierra Maestra in 1956? When support was requested, support was given...that's all you need to know to know you're wrong. The USSR supported socialist revolution. Funny that when Soviet troops did liberate workers in Europe, you complain about it. You criticize the USSR when it does and your criticize it equally when it doesn't.


Stupidity doesn't deserve a meaningful response. I'm glad you think being like OMG IM NOT TALKIN IM TYPIN FOO LOL is a substantive reply.
It is by your standards, unfortunately.


I demonstrated they did not.
No, you looked at a short period of special instability and extrapolated an insane conclusion about 60 years of history from that of only a couple.


That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying Soviet growth throughout its existence was composed of increasing the supply of labor without significant technological advancement (capital intensivity) or labor productivity. The Western capitalist states had long entered modes of intensive growth. The USSR could not maintain growth once all remaining labor reserves (like women outside the workforce previously reserved to the domestic sector, and farm labor) had been consumed.
That is what you're saying, because you're repeating the same debunked example time and again. Women outside the workforce did not power the Five Year Plans. Further, like I already said, an increasing supply of labor and productive capacity were signs of economic growth, not merely instruments of it.


I'm sorry you think IM NOT TALKIN IM TYPIN DUMMIE requires a dissertation. Let's be serious, you'd just deliberately ignore what I say and reply with some idiocy.
If that makes you feel better...


Firstly, I'm just pointing out that the USSR paid for industrialization on the back of deep repression and lowering of standards of living of the working class, which pretty much underscores the fundamental antagonisms between the immediate producers and the authorities, similar to a bourgeois society.

Secondly, I never denied living standards rose against after this process. I think it is merely damning in of itself. Of course, you're backpedaling since you explicitly denied living standards collapsed (below Civil War levels!) to finance industrialization.

Thirdly, post proof that living standards for workers on average was at the same level of the United States in the 1950s.
First, it was always going to be a challenge to industrialize and collectivize the whole country. It was a struggle...but one that accomplished its goals and represented incredible, unrivaled progress for the workers. You keep complaining that living standards didn't go up from the start, but this is pure fallacy because that wasn't in the cards. Either the workers industrialized their society through immense effort and sacrifice OR the Revolution would have failed. There weren't any other choices.

Second, that standards rose after this process justifies the entire process. It's not damning that living standards fell in a time of famine and civil strife, it's a testament to the dedication of the USSR to the progress of the workers.

Third, here are two examples...on life expectancy (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/yeltsin-healthier-than-the-average-russian-1365525.html):

By the late 1950s it was actually higher than the US, at 69.

On literacy (http://library.by/portalus/modules/english_russia/readme.php?subaction=showfull&id=1190296667&archive=&start_from=&ucat=22&):

The general census of December 1926 underscored the success of this campaign. For the first time in Russian history the majority of the population could read and write: 65.4 percent of males and 36.7 percent of females (above the age of seven years). By the 1939 census, 81.1 percent of Soviet citizens (age ten and above) were literate, and by the 1960s literacy was common to almost all of the Soviet Union's citizens. The most rapid increase occurred in the first ten years after the revolution, a remarkable feat for the Soviet Union.


Because the means and nature of how it did so cannot be reconciled with a conception of the working class itself in power, doing the organizing, unless you have some sterile un-Marxist conception where some paternalistic authority doing things on behalf of the workers is identical to the workers doing it themselves.

To quote Soviet Workers and De-Stalinisation (Filtzer):

Such wonderful socialist measures!

How is this relevant? Well if fundamental antagonisms existed between labor and the conditions of labor, as in a bourgeois society, we would expect a tendency toward crisis as the exploiters of labor must contend with the struggle of labor against their exploitation.
Wait, so because people weren't allowed to show up late and quit jobs unexpectedly without any consequence...it's just like capitalism? That's silly, such measures were quite firm but they did address the real problem that the Soviet Union faced in increasing production when it was needed most. Maybe you propose a system of "show up to work if you feel like it", but somehow I don't think it would have gotten as much done.


More than the actual Civil War against the Whites? You telling me the immediate producers were a "threat" to the "socialist" state? More than the White Terror and intervention?
It's not a matter of "more than this or that", it's a matter of how much it disrupted agriculture and all-around production. The effects were far-reaching and heavy. Of course all of Soviet society was affected by it because it was veritable civil strife.


Of course it improved, I never denied that. The question is why it declined, and its because the USSR couldn't get out of the "shovel more workers into the 1950s factories" model. It could not distribute technological improvements throughout productive sectors, it could not resolve the antagonisms and contradictions within production (such as informational and incentive asymmetries, where the planners were kept in the dark by industrial management who horded resources and consumer durables never properly responded to consumer demands), and it could not improve labor productivity.
Sure enough, the economy didn't decline because they ran out of peasant gold.


No unpaid labor from workers and peasants, produce acquired below cost and sold abroad for profits, invested into factories and mines, produced T-34s later.
Yeah, except for the "unpaid labor" part (most of it wasn't) and the "below cost" part (nice to see you encouraging the invisible hand of the market). Other than that, Soviet industry destroyed Nazism, liberated much of Europe, established socialism there and then rebuilt the whole thing. Not too shabby.


I didn't say that. It'd be one thing if the immediate producers had democratically and non-antagonistically resolved the necessity of protecting workers' power, but that's not what happened. And its obvious to anyone with a brain who reads the history of the political system, the fact living standards fell below their lowest point in the Civil War when at times over half the state was occupied with near-fascists, and the draconian labor discipline and punitive coercion used as documented in the citation above. This was exploitation.
Collectivization isn't exploitation, it's necessary to any socialist construction. The anti-Soviet sabotage from reactionary layers of the peasantry, coupled with subpar harvests in the preceding years, dealt a dire blow to the whole of Soviet society. This was also when industrialization began hitting its stride, and so that (while entirely necessary) only made things harder. Lastly, collectivization was agreed to through the processes of the vanguard party and the Soviet state. Just about everyone to the right of Bukharin was in support of such a measure. Suffice to say you can't call something exploitation just because you tell yourself it looks like it.


Column, far right, reads "launchers". What do you think that means, potato guns? You really are a fucking imbecile. If the working class is to depend on "professional revolutionaries" like you, God help it.
Nice job ignoring the number of actual warheads...again.


I just pointed out the Soviets DID THE CALCULATIONS ON THE SHUTTLE, AND RESOLVED THEMSELVES OUR NUMBERS WERE WRONG AND IT MADE NO SENSE. So obviously the next move should be LOL LETS DO IT OURSELVES LOL
It was a matter of trying to get it right. Exploration is never a 100% thing, much of it is trial-and-error. You get a promising idea and you try to make it work.


Americans.
Not Americans, the imperialist US state.