Why was the Soviet Union so poor?

[Blanquist]

Were there good economic reasons or were they mostly political?

Russia is the worlds richest country, by far, in terms of all of it's resources; they have nearly everything, a leader in oil, gas, timber, diamonds, gold, nickel, palladium, etc etc.

With 'socialist' methods why weren't they able to guarantee a high standard of living for their citizens?

Why did Eastern Europeans live better than the Russians? And they were poor as well.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Deleted the other thread of this topic so we don't have two threads of the exact same nature going around.

[Blanquist]

Deleted the other thread of this topic so we don't have two threads of the exact same nature going around.

Thank you, that was very quick.

[Koba Junior]

There is some controversy as to whether the Soviet Union really was as poor as is commonly accepted. Waiting in line for bread is a very popular symbol of the Union's poverty, but waiting in line for basic necessities is something that was also occurring in the United States of America, a country that has, for a long time, proudly claimed to have the highest standard of living in the world. My position is that the Union was not impoverished, but immature planning methodologies and worldwide social upheaval disrupted the economy.

[Blanquist]

There is some controversy as to whether the Soviet Union really was as poor as is commonly accepted. Waiting in line for bread is a very popular symbol of the Union's poverty, but waiting in line for basic necessities is something that was also occurring in the United States of America, a country that has, for a long time, proudly claimed to have the highest standard of living in the world. My position is that the Union was not impoverished, but immature planning methodologies and worldwide social upheaval disrupted the economy.

Quality of life was pretty low for most people. Living in Moscow was a prize, and even there things were not great at all. Must less so in second and third-tier cities.

Also, why was there a shortage of basic nessesaties? What was the economic reason for it? They could send a man into space but had to use toilet paper that felt like thin cardboard.

[Nox]

It was a capitalist country so obviously there were a lot of poor people, just like there were many poor people in America.

[Arlekino]

Almost every single family had second house in country side is calling "Dacha". We never starve quality of life was better than now I am assure about that. I am sick to listening that USSR so poor.

[Koba Junior]

Also, why was there a shortage of basic nessesaties? What was the economic reason for it? They could send a man into space but had to use toilet paper that felt like thin cardboard.

Consider that the part of the world about which we're writing was, technologically and industrially, backwards. They hadn't had much in the way of development with regards to productive capability. Consider, also, that an entirely new system of production and distribution was put into place as the result of a revolutionary overthrow.

[Blanquist]

Almost every single family had second house in country side is calling "Dacha". We never starve quality of life was better than now I am assure about that. I am sick to listening that USSR so poor.

Bullshit.

Dacha's were a sign of privilege and the hallmark of bureaucrats. Only a select few had such luxuries.

[Zealot]

Considering that Russia was stepping out of Feudalism and was able to continuously rebuild itself after constant war, I would call the USSR an economic powerhouse.

E: Keep in mind that the USA was hardly touched during WW2 whereas the Soviet Union lost many workers and buildings etc. The US tried to extend the Marshall Plan to the USSR to help them rebuild but they rejected it, as they should have, and went about it themselves.

[Astarte]

How poor was it really though? Guaranteed healthcare, guaranteed place to live, guaranteed job, guaranteed off time, etc ... A lot less poor compared to the Tsarist epoch and modern Russia, thats for sure...

Seems like living standards and life expectancy peaked in the Khrushchev years and then began to wane during Brezhnev and stagnation.


Life expectancy and infant mortality
After the communist takeover of power the life expectancy for all age groups went up. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. This improvement was used by Soviet authorities to prove that the socialist system was superior to the capitalist system.[7]
The trend continued into the 1960s, when the life expectancy in the Soviet Union went beyond the life expectancy in the United States. The life expectancy in Soviet Union were fairly stable during most years, although in the 1970s went slightly down probably because of alcohol abuse. Most western sources put the blame on the growing alcohol abuse and poor health care, and this theory was also implicitly accepted by the Soviet authorities.[7]
The improvement in infant mortality leveled out eventually, and after a while infant mortality began to rise. After 1974 the government stopped publishing statistics on this. This trend can be partly explained by the number of pregnancies went drastically up in the Asian part of the country where infant mortality was highest, while the number of pregnancies was markedly down in the more developed European part of the Soviet Union. For example, the number of births per citizens of Tajikistan went up from 1.92 in 1958-59 to 2.91 in 1979-80, while the number in Latvia was down to 0.91 in 1979-80.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Soviet_Union

[JAM]

The myth of USSR and Eastern Bloc's poverty is something that I always took for granted since everybody said the same thing all over again (at least here in Portugal the harsh life of the East was something never questioned) until I decided to search myself for the real numbers.

And what this numbers say? They say for example that the PIB per capita in the Baltics (inside USSR) was higher in 1973 than in any other eastern bloc country and actually higher than in western countries like Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece and very close to Italy. Even after the integration of these countries in EEC the PIB per capita in the Baltics remained at the same level of them in the bad year of 1990.

They also say that the PIB per capita in USSR grew more than in any other country in the World during the 30's.

The Human Development Index of the Eastern Bloc were also high.

You probably won't believe in what I just said, so already expecting that I'll give you the numbers and you can see it yourself:

www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_02-2010.xls

[#FF0000]

Bullshit.

Dacha's were a sign of privilege and the hallmark of bureaucrats. Only a select few had such luxuries.

damn son.

you know like

rasyte lived in the ussr right

[El Oso Rojo]

Bullshit.

Dacha's were a sign of privilege and the hallmark of bureaucrats. Only a select few had such luxuries.

Think this guy is from the former USSR, Don't tell him bullshit.

[Prometeo liberado]

It was a capitalist country so obviously there were a lot of poor people, just like there were many poor people in America.

Ya, I get it all ready. The SU was not, never was and could never be a socialist country. This thread is about relative wealth as compared to the west. A post like yours is the def. of trolling. The OP asks "why was the SU poor?" Not what economic and political "ism' drove it to resemble the poverty of the west.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

It was a capitalist country so obviously there were a lot of poor people, just like there were many poor people in America.

^This, I would say it was due to numerous reasons like it's parasitic bureaucracy, economic sanctions, it was a quickly developing nation, various historic events and so on.

[Ocean Seal]

It wasn't particularly poor strictly speaking on a world scale. But no it was a state-capitalist country in isolation with a considerable lag behind the west to start so yeah, it didn't have a USA standard of living.

[Igor]

Bullshit.

Dacha's were a sign of privilege and the hallmark of bureaucrats. Only a select few had such luxuries.

dacha has nothing to do with privilege or luxury, and only in the west are they considered something only oligarchs have. i seriously wouldn't be surprised if something like from quarter to half of people living in bigger russian cities had one, they're not necessarily mansions but simply summer cottages further away from the city. sure, spending vacations on dachas isn't really something the poorest could afford but it was still very popular among the working class.

[Blanquist]

damn son.

you know like

rasyte lived in the ussr right


Think this guy is from the former USSR, Don't tell him bullshit.


dacha has nothing to do with privilege or luxury, and only in the west are they considered something only oligarchs have. i seriously wouldn't be surprised if something like from quarter to half of people living in bigger russian cities had one, they're not necessarily mansions but simply summer cottages further away from the city. sure, spending vacations on dachas isn't really something the poorest could afford but it was still very popular among the working class.

God damn you people are stupid.

Sorry, I try to be civil but that's really some moronic shit.

Rastye says "Almost every single family had a dacha", Rastye lived in the USSR, therefore 'almost every single family had a dacha.'

Why doesn't Rastye back up his claim after I called him out on his obvious bullshit? His next post was "How poor was it really though?" He basically admits the dacha claim is bullshit and moves on to other questions and points.

But no, you guys are too thick to understand that.

'Almost every single family had a dacha?' Anyone with a brain can tell this is bullshit, everyone who lived in the USSR knows it is bullshit.

But no, please go on, provide some proof of this baseless claim. If you don't know, and can't think, then it's best to just shut up and investigate it or leave it alone.

[Q]

Hillel Ticktin has a convincing explanation why the USSR remained relatively poor and could indeed not have been otherwise. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/russiai-theories-soviet-t168685/index.html)

Happy watching :)

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

So, aside from shacks in Russian forestry, what else did Russians enjoy?

[#FF0000]

God damn you people are stupid.

this means a lot

a lot

tons

coming from you.


Rastye says "Almost every single family had a dacha", Rastye lived in the USSR, therefore 'almost every single family had a dacha.'Someone who's lived it has slightly more credibility than you. A lot of people have more credibility than you, though, which is why I'm so willing to accept Rastye's version of things over yours, as unreliable as anecdotal things like that are.


Why doesn't Rastye back up his claim after I called him out on his obvious bullshit? His next post was "How poor was it really though?" He basically admits the dacha claim is bullshit and moves on to other questions and points.Probs because this is the internet and she has better things to do.


'Almost every single family had a dacha?' Anyone with a brain can tell this is bullshit, everyone who lived in the USSR knows it is bullshit.
Except Rastye apparently.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Anyone with a brain can tell this is bullshit, everyone who lived in the USSR knows it is bullshit.

Blanquist is full of bullshit.

[Deicide]

So, aside from shacks in Russian forestry, what else did Russians enjoy?

Cars, swimming, clubs, art galleries, museums, cinemas, sports, TV, radio, concerts, ice rinks, smoking, cafe's, restaurants, operas, etc, etc. everything most people do now...


'Almost every single family had a dacha?' Anyone with a brain can tell this is bullshit, everyone who lived in the USSR knows it is bullshit.

Fraid' not.

Pretty much anyone could get a ''dacha'' in the Lithuanian SSR. You simply applied for land outside the city, you'd be placed in a queue just like you would if you were applying for a house. Once you get the land, you can do whatever you want with it. Some people built small houses or ''dachas'' on their land.

[The Young Pioneer]

I'm sorry, but isn't Blanquist that guy who started the thread one time about how he'd read soooo many USSR textbooks?

OP, If that claim is true, why don't you know more about their economy and standard of living? I'm sure such books would discuss extracurriculars (i.e. dachas), medical care, education, etc. etc. etc. in their books from that time.

How gullible ARE we gonna be, here, comrades?

[Deicide]

Waiting in overnight queues for toilet paper, mayonnaise, oranges, peas and sausages was the highest qualitative achievement of the highest qualitative stage of marxism: Marxism-Leninism.

[Yefim Zverev]

Soviet People were rich in heart...

[NorwegianCommunist]

I would say it's because WWII hit the biggest parts of USSR really hard.
A lot were destroyed and not build up again over night.

But when it comes to the dachas; Today, almost eveybody have it, and I think it was the same in the USSR but I read in a book that it's something that runs through families (parents gives them to their children) and that families and friends usually borrows them to other people they know.
I read that in a book on how to get to know Russians or something and there was written a lot about dacha =)

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

God damn you people are stupid.

Sorry, I try to be civil but that's really some moronic shit.

Rastye says "Almost every single family had a dacha", Rastye lived in the USSR, therefore 'almost every single family had a dacha.'

Why doesn't Rastye back up his claim after I called him out on his obvious bullshit? His next post was "How poor was it really though?" He basically admits the dacha claim is bullshit and moves on to other questions and points.

But no, you guys are too thick to understand that.

'Almost every single family had a dacha?' Anyone with a brain can tell this is bullshit, everyone who lived in the USSR knows it is bullshit.

But no, please go on, provide some proof of this baseless claim. If you don't know, and can't think, then it's best to just shut up and investigate it or leave it alone.

My family had a dacha in the USSR too, Blanquist. The real question is why you are so full of shit.

Dachas were very common. I don't have any stats to back this up, just personal experiences from growing up.

To address the bigger point -- the USSR was not as "horribly poor" as you would like to think. It's quite true that the USSR was not as wealthy as the United States or various Western European countries. It was similar to the rest of Eastern Bloc - per capita poorer than East Germany but wealthier than Poland, Romania, and so on.

In case you didn't know, the Russian Empire and the rest of what became the Eastern Bloc were always much poorer than the Western nations even before then, and still are now.

Up until the Stagnation Era of the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet Union enjoyed some of the fastest economic growth in Russian history. Tens of millions of people were lifted out of poverty each decade, so that the USSR was actually a model for Third World nations attempting to modernize.

Now, look at what happened to the Russian economy during Gorbachev's reforms and after the dissolution of the USSR.

You might also want to check up on how Russia compares with the West now, so you can stop trolling and draw a real comparison.

[NorwegianCommunist]

In that book I read it said that people calls it dacha no matter how big or small house.
Some only are the size of a shed. but it's called a dacha only to get away from the city life and to live on the country and eat more fruite or vegetables.
So having a dacha doesn't make a family "less poor"


I have also read a Putin biography and he said that he lived in a home were one apartment were split in tree smaller unit that were shared with other families.
not even a kitchen.
This was in Leningrad (St. Petersburg)
This was a few decades after the war, but still this was normal at the time.

[Deicide]

Soviet People were rich in heart...

And what the fuck does that mean?

[Rusty Shackleford]

from what ive heard, breadlines and rationing only existed during times of war and reforms.

[Yefim Zverev]

And what the fuck does that mean?

People do not only feel that they live and be happy by playing computer games, eating mayonnaise and drinking cola and smoking marijuana and living in villas which have heart shaped swimming pools.

[Invader Zim]

this means a lot

a lot

tons

coming from you.

Someone who's lived it has slightly more credibility than you. A lot of people have more credibility than you, though, which is why I'm so willing to accept Rastye's version of things over yours, as unreliable as anecdotal things like that are.

Probs because this is the internet and she has better things to do.

Except Rastye apparently.


Actually, he's right. Anecdotal evidence, when contradicted by statistical evidence, has about as much value as a chocolate teapot.

About 20 seconds on google provided this:

"Based on these data, it appears that dachas are a common phenomenon — about one urban family in four has one, with the incidence fairly stable across cities."

While taken from survey immidiately after the fall of the Soviet Union, there seems little reason to believe that the incidence of Dacha availability was higher two years earlier, certainly not to the extent that 75% of families suddenly could no longer afford to own a dacha.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02673039608720854

[NorwegianCommunist]

I have also heard that bread lines only existed during the war.
I watched a documentary about Stalingrad and Leningrad and the bread rations were down to 125 gram of bread for a worker.
Even lower for unemployed.
Meat was luxury during the battle of Stalingrad.

[m1omfg]

USSR was not "poor" at all. And Eastern Bloc was even less poor. My father saved enough money to buy an analogue Roland synth from a foreign currency shop for his band and that was 1980s Czechoslovakia. Every year they went on a holiday to Yugoslavia. Starvation? Yeah that is why they had to remove his gall-bladder because of too fat diet. And yes they had a small dacha in the mountains. By the way Rasyte is not from an elite class at all, and she knows well what she is talking about.

If you define "poor" as being poorer than American middle class suburbs then 99.9999 percent of all human beings everywhere who ever lived were poor. YOU are the fucking anomaly, hell, even the USSR is a big anomaly, having the average person about 15x richer than most people who ever lived. If USSR is poor then what the fuck British India with the life expectancy of 21 was? The "rich" Roman empire had infant mortality so sky high that the average life expectancy was just 18 years.

Toilet paper? There were queues sometimes when there was an accident in the factory, but everybody managed to buy toilet paper, and 90 percent of the time there would not even be a queue. You are fucking aware that only 20 percent of worlds population HAVE toilet paper right? Plus, you aware that homes in the Eastern Bloc had flush toilets and showers right? Most people in the world dont even have pit latrines. Sure compare your Xbox laden luxury, the fact is that for each Western person there are estimated 50 third world slaves somewhere in East Asia and Africa.

[Arlekino]

How we are poor? I came from working class family I grow up in working class areas block of flats, we had "Dacha", almost every week I went to theatres, cinemas, almost every single Saturday restaurants, disco, food always on the table. Everybody had TV, radio, Fridges, I can't understand what is that question why Soviet Union so poor?
Oh I see it was black market from capitalist commodities like Jeans.

[m1omfg]

How we are poor? I came from working class family I grow up in working class areas block of flats, we had "Dacha", almost every week I went to theatres, cinemas, almost every single Saturday restaurants, disco, food always on the table. Everybody had TV, radio, Fridges, I can't understand what is that question why Soviet Union so poor?
Oh I see it was black market from capitalist commodities like Jeans.

Mostly because Western people like to be partonizing and go "omg these pple dont have mangoes and xbox" instead of having respect and admitting a person can have a good life despite not living in "Western capitalist paradise". It is something that capitalist elites manipulate people with, basically "YOU LIVE IN LUXURY EVEN IF YOU HAVE 4 ROOMATES AND LIVE ON RAMEN PEOPLE IN THE USSR EAT DIRT AND HAVE TO SACRAFICE THEIR FIRSTBORN INFANT TO THE DARK GOD STALIN".

[Arlekino]

Well I do remember in Soviet times constantly building schools, kinder gardens, houses, culture centres, road works all the time. Now freedom of Lithuania hahah stop everything nothing is going on. No culture events no parties because most of can't afford, So please don't tell me we are poor is pure propaganda.

Almost every working family could go on holiday in Soviet union countries which are was 15 countries. I used travelled a lot of with my mum. I have been in Russia many times, Ukraine, Georgia in Soviet times now I am sorry I can't afford it holidays.
Factories used provided free holiday they provided for me holiday seaside when my son born for free. My mother used to go every year far east holidays because she was deaf so from all soviet union all deaf people went to this place to enjoy free holidays and this what govermant gave to us for free.
Can you get it now like that?

[m1omfg]

No you cannot live like that now, yet media will tell you how you are blessed with capitalism and "free competetion".

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I think a more relevant question is: why are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other former USSR republics so poor today?

[honest john's firing squad]

eating mayonnaise and drinking cola
oh sorry, how bourgeois of me.

[Yazman]

Moderator action:

I don't want to see any more flaming of Blanquist or any more flaming coming FROM Blanquist. Some of y'all have been treading a thin line here and if I see one more insult I'm going to lay the smack down!

Also, I don't want to see any more worthless posts like the one just above this. Honest John's Firing Squad, if you have something to contribute, then do so, but if all you're going to do is post a sarcastic one-liner, don't bother to post at all. If you think it's a bad post then give it a negative rep point. That's what they are for.

Next flames I see get infracted, this goes for spam as well.

[aristos]

I think a more relevant question is: why are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other former USSR republics so poor today?

Because of capitalism?

[m1omfg]

oh sorry, how bourgeois of me.

You could buy mayonesse in the Eastern Bloc and each EB state produced its own local version of cola - like GDR's Vita Cola, Yugoslav Cockta, or here Czechoslovak Kofola. Kofola is still popular, very good, and contains half as much sugar as Coca Cola + it has a lot of herbal flavoring.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Because of capitalism?

That´s not really an explanation, more of a reductionist abstraction.
I think it would be more useful to look at the economic history and contemporary situation of these countries and seek to understand their place within the global capitalist system therefrom.

[Strannik]

Some ideas:

- Wasn't USSR effectively cut off of world economy? It's obvious that our living standards had in some respect be lower than that of states with access to the greater part of world economy.
- A lot of available resources were directed into state defence.
- Even taking that into account, USSR did very well in basic production and heavy industry. Russia is a wealthy country. However, it had no effective system for producting commodities and mananging technical/cultural progress. Commodities that are associated with "wealth" are not produced by massive industrial armies - they are produced by smaller groups and individuals; but such a system would have meant that the central bureaucracy had to give up some of its power. Not only their personal egoism prevented that - also the fact that USSR considered itself to be under siege (not an unfair assessment) and in such a situation giving up control means you have lost.

In short - it seems to me, that USSR's "industrial army" system was very good at getting out of poverty and destruction after war. Better than West, in fact. But it was unable allocate its produced wealth wisely. I do not want to defend market socialism, necessarily, but I think that USSR failed because it was unable to develop a socialist counterpart of "civil society". It failed the transition from war economy into peace economy.

[JAM]

That´s not really an explanation, more of a reductionist abstraction.
I think it would be more useful to look at the economic history and contemporary situation of these countries and seek to understand their place within the global capitalist system therefrom.

Perhaps this can give some light about it:

Ukraine SR GDP

1973 - 238.156
1990 - 311.112
1999 - 127.046

Ukraine GDP per Capita

1973 - 4.924
1990 - 6.027
1999 - 2.567

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Blanquist, I don't know if I'm on the right track with this, but perhaps you were referring to the state dachas (or "gosdachas")? That would certainly corroborate your claim of them being a symbol of the bureaucracy.

[Psy]

In short - it seems to me, that USSR's "industrial army" system was very good at getting out of poverty and destruction after war. Better than West, in fact. But it was unable allocate its produced wealth wisely. I do not want to defend market socialism, necessarily, but I think that USSR failed because it was unable to develop a socialist counterpart of "civil society". It failed the transition from war economy into peace economy.

The US never transitioned away from a war economy, and the USA still has a permanent arms economy that fueled the long boom after WWII.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Cars, swimming, clubs, art galleries, museums, cinemas, sports, TV, radio, concerts, ice rinks, smoking, cafe's, restaurants, operas, etc, etc. everything most people do now...


Alright, so I barely remember anything so (not my post, living in the USSR), could you provide some proof that every single, average, working class family or person enjoyed these and that isn't just anecdotal testimonies? I'm not being an ass, I'm genuinely curious, my family forever *****es about things which is probably due to being Romani as opposed to being Russian.

[m1omfg]

Romani as in Romanians or Romani as in Roma? Because Roma in 2012 Slovakia live like this http://www.endy.sk/wp-content/uploads/lunik_ix_kosice.jpg . 80 percent of Slovak Roma don't have employment. So if you're Roma, then sorry, but your people had it horrible pretty much under every regime (there were more employed Roma before 1989 through).

If you're Romanian then blame Caucescau, who was anti-USSR by the way, and even recieved a knighthood from the British Queen who revoked it in 1989.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Romani as in Romanians or Romani as in Roma? Because Roma in 2012 Slovakia live like this http://www.endy.sk/wp-content/uploads/lunik_ix_kosice.jpg . 80 percent of Slovak Roma don't have employment. So if you're Roma, then sorry, but your people had it horrible pretty much under every regime (there were more employed Roma before 1989 through).


I mean't Romani as in Roma or "gypsy." Not only do I remember hearing about shit working and living conditions but also assimilation policies which restricted traditional Romani cultural freedom.

[Deicide]

Alright, so I barely remember anything so (not my post, living in the USSR), could you provide some proof that every single, average, working class family or person enjoyed these and that isn't just anecdotal testimonies? I'm not being an ass, I'm genuinely curious, my family forever *****es about things which is probably due to being Romani as opposed to being Russian.

I don't see how I'm supposed to provide ''evidence''. The former ''Socialist'' states varied, quite significantly in some cases. I can only tell you what the Lithuanian SSR was like.

[Sputnik_1]

And what the fuck does that mean?

Well, apperently it means that we should all shut the fuck up and stop claiming what already belongs to us, cause, after all, we are "rich inside". You know, the sort of bullshit that they tell you so you don't get angry and don't do something unexpected like a revolution or something.

[m1omfg]

I mean't Romani as in Roma or "gypsy." Not only do I remember hearing about shit working and living conditions but also assimilation policies which restricted traditional Romani cultural freedom.

Then I'm sorry, but living conditions were always horrible for Roma in Eastern an Central Europe, indeed, most Roma live in extreme poverty, and much lower than average. Nowadays Roma can get murdered in the street so... don't blame the communists. I don't know of a country where Roma aren't treated just as bad as Aborigines in Australia or reservation Native Americans. Sorry, but this is a much deeper problem, resulting from deeper prejudices and conflicts than "evil soviet dictatorship". You write about your parents working in bad conditions, horrible, but most Roma at least here in Slovakia, which is a richer country than post-USSR states like Ukraine etc., don't have any jobs. Nobody even gives them jobs and if you want to see the true horribleness of conditions where Roma live now see this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjv8cmxBlMo . I doubt that in your parents neigbourhood rats infested the whole street each night.

[m1omfg]

To put it in shorter words, if Roma were second class citizens in the USSR, then they'd be like ninth class in present day Eastern and Central Europe and twelvth class before communists.

[Rafiq]

Perhaps this can give some light about it:

Ukraine SR GDP

1973 - 238.156
1990 - 311.112
1999 - 127.046

Ukraine GDP per Capita

1973 - 4.924
1990 - 6.027
1999 - 2.567

Those countries collapsed, and fell on their asses. For example, in '73, things could no longer function the way they have been. Collapse was inevitable.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Then I'm sorry, but living conditions were always horrible for Roma in Eastern an Central Europe, indeed, most Roma live in extreme poverty, and much lower than average. Nowadays Roma can get murdered in the street so... don't blame the communists. I don't know of a country where Roma aren't treated just as bad as Aborigines in Australia or reservation Native Americans. Sorry, but this is a much deeper problem, resulting from deeper prejudices and conflicts than "evil soviet dictatorship". You write about your parents working in bad conditions, horrible, but most Roma at least here in Slovakia, which is a richer country than post-USSR states like Ukraine etc., don't have any jobs. Nobody even gives them jobs and if you want to see the true horribleness of conditions where Roma live now see this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjv8cmxBlMo . I doubt that in your parents neigbourhood rats infested the whole street each night.

Actually, only some of the members in my family had jobs, the rest just bartered and traded various items, entertained, odd off the books jobs, some other things I rather not discuss and so on. This is probably why I view the USSR in such a way because I have heard nothing but horrific and horrible things from everyone in my family and family friends and community back home. I however do get your point about it not necessarily having to do with Communists in particular more so just the region in general which why I rarely go back considering the last time I did, I got in a fight on the train with some drunk fascist asshole.

As for the video, that's awful but I do remember hearing stories of some of my older cousins and shit killing rats for supplemental food sources. Kind off topic all of this. I just have it hard grained into me that the USSR wasn't all what some here crack it up to be, personal bias and so on.

[black magick hustla]

i imagine some cities/regions/ssrs were richer than others. obviously living in east berlin was much more different than living in some collectivized farm shithole. this is the same for relatively industrialized capitalist countries too. the fact that the ussr collapsed implies that whatever shit they had wasn't sustainable though.

[A Marxist Historian]

That´s not really an explanation, more of a reductionist abstraction.
I think it would be more useful to look at the economic history and contemporary situation of these countries and seek to understand their place within the global capitalist system therefrom.

Actually, it's not an abstraction at all.

the USSR, which was not nearly as poor as current day bourgeois propaganda likes you to think, suffered one of the hugest economic collapses in all history when it was decollectivized. This collapse was, in the most literal possible sense, due to the transformation of the economies of the post-Soviet states into capitalist economies, and the fire sale of everything not nailed down and much that was to whoever happened to be standing there with a few American dollars when the system collapsed.

And the human consequences were even more dire than the raw economic figures, cutting the GNP in half and so forth. Wage rates dropped by half too, for those employed, that is assuming they got paid at all, which often stopped happening. And life expectancy for men dropped by ten years.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Those countries collapsed, and fell on their asses. For example, in '73, things could no longer function the way they have been. Collapse was inevitable.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

In '73 not only could things keep functioning the way they had, but they did so, for twenty years!

It is true that, over the long term, collapse of the Stalinist system was inevitable. You can't build socialism in one country, even one as big as the USSR. And especially not if it is starting from a significantly inferior socioeconomic starting point, certainly the case with Tsarist Russia vis a vis western Europe, the USA and even Japan.

But the USSR actually did pretty well in the '70s relatively speaking, due to the huge defeat the rival superpower, the USA, suffered in Vietnam. In fact the smugness and self-satisfaction of Brezhnev's bureaucrats seeing themselves on top of the world was a big factor in the economic decline that started setting in in the late '70s.

BTW, the capitalist system wasn't doing that great back then either. In the '80s, a lot of folk in America, including officials of the Reagan administration and the CIA, thought that the USA was losing the Cold War. The collapse of the USSR came just in time for America, which was getting very seriously into economic trouble under Bush Sr., which is why you had LA 1992 and the surprising election of Clinton.

From the 1930s through the Krushchev years and even into first few years of the Brezhnev regime, the USSR almost always had higher economic growth rates than its American rival.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Bullshit.

Dacha's were a sign of privilege and the hallmark of bureaucrats. Only a select few had such luxuries.

Rasyte exaggerates a bit, but dachas were far from only the property of a select few.

Of course, not all dachas were created equal. The bureaucrats had fancy semi-mansions, ordinary workers would have simple little country cabins.

-M.H.-

[Arlekino]

Dacha only simple example how we are so poor if we had second houses with plot of land some even could sell in local markets vegetables and fruits. Countryside was busting with economical prospects. Government used provide houses for families if they wish to settle in countryside and work in collective farms. We could say Soviet Union is not workers paradise, there was some issues and problems like few commodities we could not have as western world. I am sure in western media showed peasants wearing not modern trousers or shirts and there you are poor so poor.
Dramatisation about Soviet Union so poor is highly propaganda.

[ComradeOm]

the USSR, which was not nearly as poor as current day bourgeois propaganda likes you to think...I see a lot of these weasel words in this thread. It doesn't really matter what "current day bourgeois propaganda" says, living standards in the USSR were indeed relatively poor when compared to those of their rivals. Not 'third-world basket case' poor but still possessing consumption norms well below those of the US or Western Europe

[A Marxist Historian]

I see a lot of these weasel words in this thread. It doesn't really matter what "current day bourgeois propaganda" says, living standards in the USSR were indeed relatively poor when compared to those of their rivals. Not 'third-world basket case' poor but still possessing consumption norms well below those of the US or Western Europe

That, given history and context, is not an honest comparison. Compare the USSR to countries at equivalent levels of economic development in the year 1917, and you have a fair test. In 1917, even a country like Spain was considerably ahead of Tsarist Russia. Russia was certainly ahead of China or India, but clearly behind any other European country, and far behind Western Europe. It was a truism back then that the farther east you went the poorer the country, and Russia was the easternmost European country, clearly poorer even than western fringes of Tsarist Russia like Poland etc.

I think looking at Latin America is probably the best equivalent. Comparing the USSR to the USA or France is absurd.

Especially with what happened to the USSR in WWII, with some 26 million people dead and the whole western half of the country, where most of the industry was, in ruins. Accentuating the disparities. A lot of Europe got messed up in WWII, but nowhere nearly as devastatingly as the Nazi occupied western quarter of the USSR.

-M.H.-

[Rafiq]

M.H. When capital was destroyes in Russia, WWII, this, like in the U.S. And Britian generated realitively large economic growth. Khrushchev never 'created' good living conditions, he merely adjusted his policies to the inevitable postwar growth, something Old Stalinism couldn't account for.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[A Marxist Historian]

M.H. When capital was destroyes in Russia, WWII, this, like in the U.S. And Britian generated realitively large economic growth. Khrushchev never 'created' good living conditions, he merely adjusted his policies to the inevitable postwar growth, something Old Stalinism couldn't account for.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

In a capitalist country, destroying capital lowers the organic composition of capital, increasing profit rates. Trying to see that mechanism working in the USSR is the ultimate economic absurdity.

If anything, after WWII with reconstruction going on the last thing any Soviet planner would be worrying about is whether some sort of a paper profit could be registered in the books. "Profit" up, down or sideways meant absolutely zip.

Huge physical destruction made economic construction harder not easier. What made rapid Soviet economic growth possible after WWII was the moral effect on the Soviet working class of the victory over Hitler, as a result of which they believed in the system and in Stalin and put their backs into it. For a while...

And then when doubts began to develop, Khrushchev came around with his reforms and his ending the worst abuses of Stalin and Stalinism and his promises to return to Lenin and Leninism. This led to another big growth spurt.

But when people got tired of Khrushchev, especially after the strikes in the Donbass and shooting of strikers in 1962, you had Brezhnev, and in the atmosphere of cynicism and corruption economic growth naturally slowly ground to a halt.

In a workers state, which is what the USSR was, even though bureaucratically deformed, what determines economic growth rates is, ultimately, how the workers feel about their own industry and their own state.

-M.H.-

[ComradeOm]

I think looking at Latin America is probably the best equivalent. Comparing the USSR to the USA or France is absurdDid the Soviet leadership consider itself to be rivals with Columbia or Chile? Or did it explicitly set out to "catch and overtake" the US and Western Europe?

The premise of the entire Soviet experiment, and the raison d'etre for its apologists, was that the USSR was supposed provide an alternative model to that of the capitalist West, not merely its semi-colonies. If it were to be the latter then there was no need for a revolution at all...


Especially with what happened to the USSR in WWII, with some 26 million people dead and the whole western half of the country, where most of the industry was, in ruins. Accentuating the disparities. A lot of Europe got messed up in WWII, but nowhere nearly as devastatingly as the Nazi occupied western quarter of the USSRWhatever the excuses - and it does seem perverse to blame the Nazis for deficiencies in Soviet economic policy - the inescapable reality is that after several decades the USSR was still unable to provide its citizens living standards on par with those in the West. And that fact, critical in assessing the demise of the Union, should not be airbrushed or excused away

[m1omfg]

"Western living standards" will eventually exterminate the human race when we will run out of resorces so why the fuck are they "necessary"? Everybody should have education, food, job, leisure, emotional and intellectual satisfaction, anything more is an extra. USSR and the satellites never claimed they have more luxury than the imperialist states, they were competing on grounds of what is desirable, moral and sustainable, what is right, not what will allow our fucking asses to become fat and failures like most of todays Western youth. If there was a socialist revolution in the West then the standards would be higher than Western anyway.

My grandparents have shelves full of books from many famous world authors, can a present day American teen say the same? Fucking hamburgers or iPads don't enrich your life. It would require a fucking miracle for USSR to become higher in "living standards" than the US given its underdevelopment in 1917.

USSR was never poor. It is your precious fucking "Western paradises" than prevent a socialist revolution and suck away the lifeblood of this world causing 14 million people to starve to death every year. Your lifestyle is a crime against humanity and not a human right.

[ComradeOm]

It would require a fucking miracle for USSR to become higher in "living standards" than the US given its underdevelopment in 1917So what was the point of 1917? Overthrow the Tsardom, survive the Five Year Plans, see off the Nazis for... what? The pleasure of waiting months for a washing machine? Of queuing hours for basic foodstuffs and necessities?* Or even the labour barracks and squalor of the Stalin years?

There's a lot of revisionism in this thread, in the sense of people accepting that the USSR could never surpass the Western economies. Yet that was the explicit claim made by generations of Soviet leaders; that was the promise that underpinned Soviet rule from 1917 and decades beyond. How strange to see the USSR's modern apologists channel the ennui of the 1980s in giving up on surpassing the West and accepting relatively mediocrity as 'good enough'. In doing so they, like their apparatchik counterparts, abandon the fundamental promise of communism: that it will make people's lives infinitely better by ushering in an age of abundance

Still doesn't answer why, though. If the only alternative to capitalism was actually just living in some puritan barrack-communism that wasn't even a marginal improvement over capitalism, well, why have a revolution at all? And, on that, who are you to say what the ideal level of consumption is?


*As an aside, one of my favourite anekdoty from the 1960s goes as follows:

Yuri Gagarin's daughter answers the phone. 'No, mummy and daddy are out,' she says. 'Daddy’s orbiting the earth, and he’ll be back tonight at 7 o’clock. But mummy’s gone shopping for groceries, so who knows when she’ll be home.'

[Rafiq]

Comradeom, any attempt to build socialism would have ended up a failure with those conditions, regardless of what soviet leaders used to spout out. Isolation, Sabatoge, Paranoia, etc.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[Ismail]

Lenin and Stalin both noted that socialism would bring higher living standards. As did Hoxha. As did anyone.

The difference is one between demagogy and a simple fact. Whereas Khrushchev, for instance, declared that the USSR would engage in "peaceful coexistence" and thus "peacefully" outpace the West due to the "natural superiority of socialism," not to mention that Khrushchev declared the USSR would reach communism by 1980, Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha didn't make false promises. Industry would be built, agriculture would assume higher levels of productivity, culture would be raised, and in this way living standards would rise. The problem was one of resources, something a fair bit easier in the USSR than in Albania, but in both cases all-around improvement was made. Anyone could learn that illiteracy was eradicated in the USSR and Albania within less than three decades. Anyone could read about how access to culture practically exploded for the common person, and how culture assumed a much more meaningful character (I've known tons of Russians who tell me that in Soviet times being a bibliophile was practically the norm, not a weird exception), etc.

The undue weight attached to living the "good life" was used to justify all sorts of rightist policies. "Consumer socialism " or "goulash socialism" in the GDR and Hungary, the opening up of trade and debt to the West, imitation of Western culture and standards (which assumed grotesque forms at times), and the emphasis on consumer goods instead of the construction of the means of production which would genuinely allow for the improvement of the entire national economy. Of course doing the latter was quite important since Russia, Albania, etc. were in obviously far worse shape in this matter than, say, capitalist USA, France, Britain, etc. were.

Speaking of matters in general it's a bit absurd, then, to compare the USSR with the USA in terms of living standards without taking into account the far worse position the latter was in in 1917. Likewise Albania with its life expectancy of 38, literacy rate of 10% and overwhelmingly agricultural economy (which nevertheless required constant outside grain to avert famine) became a country with a life expectancy of 76, a literacy rate of practically 100%, self-sufficiency in agriculture, complete electrification, and unprecedented access to education, health-care and culture by 1985. Even by the 1960's great progress had been made in all fields.

To quote Hoxha, speaking to Albanians from abroad who had left the "old Albania" in the 1900s-1930's,

"How greatly this Albania of ours has changed! True, the time has been short and we do not boast about the progress we have made but the truth is that changes are great. You, in particular, understand these changes correctly, because you compare the situation with what it was before. Of course, you do not compare these things with the palaces which you see in the centre of Ankara, in the Champs-Elysees of Paris, or with the sky-scrapers of New York, which were not built in 25 years, but began to be built centuries ago with the sweat, blood and the sufferings of the working people for the benefit of the magnates, the wealthy, the millionaires. Looking at Albania from this correct angle, the differences within 25 years are like the difference of night from day." (quoted in James S. O'Donnell, A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha, p. 243.)

[A Marxist Historian]

Did the Soviet leadership consider itself to be rivals with Columbia or Chile? Or did it explicitly set out to "catch and overtake" the US and Western Europe?

The premise of the entire Soviet experiment, and the raison d'etre for its apologists, was that the USSR was supposed provide an alternative model to that of the capitalist West, not merely its semi-colonies. If it were to be the latter then there was no need for a revolution at all...

Whatever the excuses - and it does seem perverse to blame the Nazis for deficiencies in Soviet economic policy - the inescapable reality is that after several decades the USSR was still unable to provide its citizens living standards on par with those in the West. And that fact, critical in assessing the demise of the Union, should not be airbrushed or excused away

What difference does it make what the Soviet leadership "considered itself to be"? What matters is economic reality, not what bureaucrats dream. What is truly remarkable is that Soviet economic growth was so high that such notions didn't look totally insane. This is because, and only because, the USSR was a workers state, making truly remarkable social progress possible.

If Russia had been still capitalist, the living standards of the people would have been vastly lower by the '80s and '90s than they were under Gorbachev etc. In fact, that's not just an assertion, we have strong empirical evidence. Because, when the USSR went capitalist, living standards dropped like a rock, millions of people died, probably more than in the Ukrainian famine, and life expectancy for men dropped by a decade.

If the USSR had somehow survived as a more or less healthy workers state in isolation all the way to the 1990s, would the living standards have been higher? No doubt. Would they have been equal to those in the West? Of course not.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

So what was the point of 1917? Overthrow the Tsardom, survive the Five Year Plans, see off the Nazis for... what? The pleasure of waiting months for a washing machine? Of queuing hours for basic foodstuffs and necessities?* Or even the labour barracks and squalor of the Stalin years?

There's a lot of revisionism in this thread, in the sense of people accepting that the USSR could never surpass the Western economies. Yet that was the explicit claim made by generations of Soviet leaders; that was the promise that underpinned Soviet rule from 1917 and decades beyond. How strange to see the USSR's modern apologists channel the ennui of the 1980s in giving up on surpassing the West and accepting relatively mediocrity as 'good enough'. In doing so they, like their apparatchik counterparts, abandon the fundamental promise of communism: that it will make people's lives infinitely better by ushering in an age of abundance

Still doesn't answer why, though. If the only alternative to capitalism was actually just living in some puritan barrack-communism that wasn't even a marginal improvement over capitalism, well, why have a revolution at all? And, on that, who are you to say what the ideal level of consumption is?


*As an aside, one of my favourite anekdoty from the 1960s goes as follows:

Yuri Gagarin's daughter answers the phone. 'No, mummy and daddy are out,' she says. 'Daddy’s orbiting the earth, and he’ll be back tonight at 7 o’clock. But mummy’s gone shopping for groceries, so who knows when she’ll be home.'

Life in the USSR only a marginal improvement over Tsarist mass murder and extreme poverty, and/or Nazi genocide?

If the Whites had won the Civil War, Jews would have been exterminated with great thoroughness, a large fraction of the working class would have been murdered as well (the Whites in the Donbass managed to murder something like about a third of all coal miners during the Civil War, despite nasty economic consequences) and peasants would be still starving to this day, shot down like dogs when they tried to defy the noble lords. At best, Russia would look like Mexico, more likely like Bangla Desh.

And 26 million Soviet citizens died during WWII, most directly or indirectly through Nazi mass murder and deliberate starvation, and of course battlefield deaths. Nazi think tanks were discussing during WWII whether to turn all Russians into slaves, or simply kill them all after they got finished with the Jews (this is described in the interviews in Studs Terkels famous "The Good War," among other places, if you want a ref.

And, oh yes, without the USSR, Hitler's Thousand Year Reich would have likely become a reality, unless America got the bomb first and turned all Europe into radioactive rubble. But, OTOH, the Nazis were ahead of America in rocket research, so...

This was an averted holocaust. Frankly, your dismissal of the tremendous value for the human race of the existence of the USSR almost border on holocaust revisionism.

-M.H.-

[Deicide]

One way to get a dacha or land faster in the Lithuanian SSR was to bribe someone in the bureaucracy with alcohol, food, and rubles.

[ComradeOm]

What difference does it make what the Soviet leadership "considered itself to be"? What matters is economic reality, not what bureaucrats dream. What is truly remarkable is that Soviet economic growth was so high that such notions didn't look totally insane. This is because, and only because, the USSR was a workers state, making truly remarkable social progress possibleA workers state that could apparently never aspire to living standards in the West? I think you're missing the point somewhat. If the best that Russia could hope for - after decades of suffering - was having an economy that would not look out of place in Latin America... well, then it was all for vain

And (pffft) the Soviet Union couldn't even keep up with the likes of S Korea or Japan (barely industrialised backwaters in 1913) when it came to living standards. What's the excuse for that?


If Russia had been still capitalist, the living standards of the people would have been vastly lower by the '80s and '90s than they were under Gorbachev etc. In fact, that's not just an assertion, we have strong empirical evidence. Because, when the USSR went capitalist, living standards dropped like a rock, millions of people died, probably more than in the Ukrainian famine, and life expectancy for men dropped by a decadeWhat a stupid statement. More people died in 1991-94 than 1931-35? Really? Or are you telescoping out time periods to make flawed comparisons?

Even then the idea that Russia was returning to a 'natural' level of living standards is nonsense. The demographic disaster of the 1990s was the product of the shock/impact of the collapse of the Soviet system. Arguing that this somehow 'proves' that a capitalist Russia would have been poorer is nonsense. Why couldn't Russia have followed, say, the above mentioned S Korea or Japan?


Life in the USSR only a marginal improvement over Tsarist mass murder and extreme poverty, and/or Nazi genocide?No, over the capitalist economies that we're comparing it to. But hey, don't let that restrict you from broadening the discussion to include wars or atrocities or absurd comparisons with Holocaust denial. I mean it's not like this is a discussion on the USSR's failures to provide decent living standards for its citizens or anything...

[Igor]

If the Whites had won the Civil War, Jews would have been exterminated with great thoroughness, a large fraction of the working class would have been murdered as well (the Whites in the Donbass managed to murder something like about a third of all coal miners during the Civil War, despite nasty economic consequences) and peasants would be still starving to this day, shot down like dogs when they tried to defy the noble lords. At best, Russia would look like Mexico, more likely like Bangla Desh.

Leaving rest of your points intact (while I do consider USSR to have been capitalist, the point about how it shouldn't be compared to the West remains valid.) I'm going to have to say this is stupid.

There's really no way of telling what would happen had the "whites" won because they were an extremely loose coalition united pretty much only by their opposition to Bolsheviks. You're pretty much listing the absolute worst case scenarios, while in truth nothing that drastic probably would've happened. After initial violence and white purges that took place everywhere where the revolution was suffocated, I find it very unlikely that this genocide empire of yours would've taken place. It didn't anywhere else. It probably wouldn't have taken place in Russia. Whites were your standard bourgeois republicans, nationalists, monarchists and yeah, some pretty extremist fellows who would've started a genocide without blinking their eyes first. That's really how most anti-communist movements looked like in Europe, yet really no mini-holocausts took place.

Also are you seriously saying that a country that was industrializing itself very rapidly by 1910's which was on its read to becoming actual industrial powerhouse well before the revolution would look like Bangladesh today? Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world? Do you know what Bangladesh looks like today and what it looked like in early 1900's? I really don't think you do. The fact that a country that's globally one of the most well-off and industrializing and has been a dominant economic powerhouse for centuries could transform into one of the poorest third world economies in only a few decades only because they didn't get a socialist revolution is absurd beyond words, to be honest. You guys are seriously underestimating Tsarist Russia, it wasn't a vast desert of misery until the Bolsheviks came to electrify it out of nothing. Tsarist Russia was globally compared pretty damn, even if it had a lot to catch up with Western Europe. There's no way economy of contemporary White Russia would be so underdeveloped that we'd be having fucking 21st century peasent revolts where people would be "shot down for opposing their lords". For a "Marxist historian" it's pretty hilarious for you to assume Russia would just never develop at all if it didn't get its revolution and instead remain economically in the 1910's for eternity.

[A Marxist Historian]

A workers state that could apparently never aspire to living standards in the West? I think you're missing the point somewhat. If the best that Russia could hope for - after decades of suffering - was having an economy that would not look out of place in Latin America... well, then it was all for vain

And (pffft) the Soviet Union couldn't even keep up with the likes of S Korea or Japan (barely industrialised backwaters in 1913) when it came to living standards. What's the excuse for that?

Because of a concept that I had the misimpression that you were familiar with, namely that it is impossible to build socialism in one country.

If an isolated workers state could aspire to equal living standards as those in the west, and a much higher level of social equality too, then Trotsky was dead wrong with his fool notion that you can't build socialism in one country, and all the Stalinists who poo poo that are right.


What a stupid statement. More people died in 1991-94 than 1931-35? Really? Or are you telescoping out time periods to make flawed comparisons?

No. Best estimate for 1931-35, is Wheatcroft's, of four and a half million. A million and a half of which, his guesstimate for Kazakhstan based on almost nothing, as Kazakhstan had no censuses, is almost certainly far too high.

It's tough to even find estimates by demographers of the death toll under Yeltsin, as this is something deeply embarrassing for our capitalist rulers. And it would be very strange to stop with 1994, as the death toll continued and even mounted till Yeltsin left the scene, at which point Putin carried out a few minor reforms that at least slowed the death toll down--but did not stop it. The Russian population continues to shrink to this day.

Whereas the one good thing about Stalin's forced collectivization program is that, unlike Yeltsin's capitalist restoration--it ended in 1933. And in fact in purely economic terms was highly successful, greatly increasing total food production. From 1934 on the famine was over, and peasant living standards gradually crawled upward, reaching a fair amount of prosperity under Khrushchev and later, with far, far more food produced than in the 1920s or earlier, and certainly a higher standard of living.

Anyway, the best estimate I could find, which is only the death toll in Russia alone, leaving out Ukraine and the other ex-Soviet republics, all of which except the Baltic republics being even worse than Russia, was three-four million in Russia alone in the 1990s. I am certain that if you include the other republics, and realize that the death toll resulting from the reinstitution of capitalism in the ex-USSR still continues, it is surely considerably higher than the death toll from compulsory collectivization at this point.

This estimate was from a quite anti-communist and right wing, but fairly honest demographer named Steven Rosefielde.


Even then the idea that Russia was returning to a 'natural' level of living standards is nonsense. The demographic disaster of the 1990s was the product of the shock/impact of the collapse of the Soviet system. Arguing that this somehow 'proves' that a capitalist Russia would have been poorer is nonsense. Why couldn't Russia have followed, say, the above mentioned S Korea or Japan?

Japan was an industrial power already by the late 19th Century. That's why they beat Russia in 1905. And South Korea would be just as poor as the Phillippines or Burma or whatnot, except for (1) the radical land reform carried out by Kim Il Sung during his brief occupation of the South, which Syngman Rhee's CIA controllers were clever enough not to reverse and (2) the absolutely huge amount of money the US poured in to South Korea for decades, as it was the literal frontline in the Cold War.

And also, and this applies to both Japan and South Korea, that for decades the US let the Japanese and South Koreans export their goods to the US duty free and raise high tariff barriers vs. the US. This utterly unique and unusual policy had everything to do with the Cold War, and would never have been conceivably possible except for the Chinese Revolution of 1949.

No, over the capitalist economies that we're comparing it to. But hey, don't let that restrict you from broadening the discussion to include wars or atrocities or absurd comparisons with Holocaust denial. I mean it's not like this is a discussion on the USSR's failures to provide decent living standards for its citizens or anything...[/QUOTE]

Yes, the democratic disaster of the USSR was due to the shock of--what?--the forcing of capitalism down the throats of the Soviet people. As an argument that the Soviet system was not superior to capitalism that is very strange indeed.

And, by the way, you did not have a return to some "normal" living standard in capitalist Russia. Despite everything, society in general and even current Russian living standards are far, far higher than in Tsarist Russia. Why? Because not all of the immense social progress created because of the Bolshevik Revolution have been reversed.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Leaving rest of your points intact (while I do consider USSR to have been capitalist, the point about how it shouldn't be compared to the West remains valid.) I'm going to have to say this is stupid.

There's really no way of telling what would happen had the "whites" won because they were an extremely loose coalition united pretty much only by their opposition to Bolsheviks. You're pretty much listing the absolute worst case scenarios, while in truth nothing that drastic probably would've happened. After initial violence and white purges that took place everywhere where the revolution was suffocated, I find it very unlikely that this genocide empire of yours would've taken place. It didn't anywhere else. It probably wouldn't have taken place in Russia. Whites were your standard bourgeois republicans, nationalists, monarchists and yeah, some pretty extremist fellows who would've started a genocide without blinking their eyes first. That's really how most anti-communist movements looked like in Europe, yet really no mini-holocausts took place.

Also are you seriously saying that a country that was industrializing itself very rapidly by 1910's which was on its read to becoming actual industrial powerhouse well before the revolution would look like Bangladesh today? Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world? Do you know what Bangladesh looks like today and what it looked like in early 1900's? I really don't think you do. The fact that a country that's globally one of the most well-off and industrializing and has been a dominant economic powerhouse for centuries could transform into one of the poorest third world economies in only a few decades only because they didn't get a socialist revolution is absurd beyond words, to be honest. You guys are seriously underestimating Tsarist Russia, it wasn't a vast desert of misery until the Bolsheviks came to electrify it out of nothing. Tsarist Russia was globally compared pretty damn, even if it had a lot to catch up with Western Europe. There's no way economy of contemporary White Russia would be so underdeveloped that we'd be having fucking 21st century peasent revolts where people would be "shot down for opposing their lords". For a "Marxist historian" it's pretty hilarious for you to assume Russia would just never develop at all if it didn't get its revolution and instead remain economically in the 1910's for eternity.

Tsarist Russia totally collapsed. The industrialization of its last few decades was based on sand.

Yeah, maybe Bangla Desh sounds excessive, but White victory would have resulted in chaos and mutual mass murder between the different reactionary factions, quite likely dragging Tsarist Russia down several levels on the historical scale. Pre-WWI Russia would probably be better compared to, say, Mexico. But after a few decades under White rule, I wouldn't be surprised if it looked more like Bangla Desh.

We don't have to speculate about whether or not Whites would have carried out mass murder if they won. They did carry out mass murder. The usual estimate for the number of Jews murdered during the Russian Civil War is a couple hundred thousand, mostly by the Whites, who pioneered the sort of mass killings the Nazis later made famous. They killed far more than petty peasant or Ukrainian nationalist pogromists.

And the Jews were far, far from the only victims.

The best historian of the Russian Whites, Peter Kenez, wrote an article in which he described them as "the ideological vanguard of Nazism." The Hitlerite theory of "Judeo-Bolshevism," Hitler's ideological explanation for the Holocaust, was devised by Russian White exiles in the Nazi ranks, not Hitler himself.

And was upheld, by the way, even by the "liberal" elements in the "White coalition," notably Milyukov's Kadets, who before the Revolution were Rooseveltian liberals with a considerable Jewish membership, but by the end of the Civil War were all for exterminating the Jews and all other possibly revolutionary elements.

-M.H.-

[Hexen]

It's because Russia didn't go through the proper transition procedure (Feudalism --> Capitalism --> Socialism --> Communism) which what screw up everything.

It was previously a feudal agricultural society unlike a industrial capitalist society like Marx originally intended. It's equivalent of of jumping ahead of the procedure guidelines.

[A Marxist Historian]

It's because Russia didn't go through the proper transition procedure (Feudalism --> Capitalism --> Socialism --> Communism) which what screw up everything.

It was previously a feudal agricultural society unlike a industrial capitalist society like Marx originally intended. It's equivalent of of jumping ahead of the procedure guidelines.

That was exactly the opinion of Martov and the Mensheviks, in pretty much so many words. That's why they opposed the Revolution and thought that Russia should have stuck with capitalism and the rule of the bourgeoisie.

-M.H.-

[mykittyhasaboner]

The people living in the SU were poor eh? How about now? Are people better off with McDonalds and oligarchy? Are they any more "rich" with Putin pulling the strings and Gazprom makin millions? i don't think so.

If one's definition of...not poor...is "middle class" families in the US then the entire world has been poor for all of history. Save for a few rulers and propertied classes.


It's because Russia didn't go through the proper transition procedure (Feudalism --> Capitalism --> Socialism --> Communism) which what screw up everything.

Your treating historical materialism as a rigid dogma with this kind of stagist "procedure". What makes you think all societies go through the exact same process? Take the US for example, it was never "feudal". The US came to be through colonization and world market development. Both of which being responsible for the end of feudalism.


It was previously a feudal agricultural society unlike a industrial capitalist society like Marx originally intended. It's equivalent of of jumping ahead of the procedure guidelines.Firstly, Russia was not really "feudal" as serfdom was legally abolished much earlier in the 19th century, and Russian capital was well developed (not in comparison to say, France, of course) by 1917.

What Marx "intended" is anything but what you describe. Marx was an advocate of abolishing capitalism in favor of communism. This was more probable in western Europe during his life time. Marx certainly was not out to determine how history was to be made according to his "procedures".

[Ismail]

Albania, which was far more backward in 1944 than Russia in 1917, destroyed the economic basis of lingering feudal relations in the countryside within two years and by 1960 industry made more income than agriculture.

I don't really know how the revolutions in the USSR and Albania "screw[ed] up everything" just because feudal relations were a significant factor in economic and social life. In fact in Albania the peasants were considered "brainwashed" by "decades of communist propaganda" since the Party of Labour got most of its support from the peasantry in the first bourgeois election held in 1991. In Russia after 1991 there were and are still bastardized collective farms which many peasants continue to rely on.

As Sheila Fitzpatrick and other authors have noted, the Russian working-class of the early 20th century was, on the whole, actually more politically-minded than its West European counterparts at the time who "benefited" from reformist trade union politics and the beginning of welfare policies.


We don't have to speculate about whether or not Whites would have carried out mass murder if they won. They did carry out mass murder. The usual estimate for the number of Jews murdered during the Russian Civil War is a couple hundred thousand, mostly by the Whites, who pioneered the sort of mass killings the Nazis later made famous. They killed far more than petty peasant or Ukrainian nationalist pogromists.

And the Jews were far, far from the only victims.

The best historian of the Russian Whites, Peter Kenez, wrote an article in which he described them as "the ideological vanguard of Nazism." The Hitlerite theory of "Judeo-Bolshevism," Hitler's ideological explanation for the Holocaust, was devised by Russian White exiles in the Nazi ranks, not Hitler himself.

And was upheld, by the way, even by the "liberal" elements in the "White coalition," notably Milyukov's Kadets, who before the Revolution were Rooseveltian liberals with a considerable Jewish membership, but by the end of the Civil War were all for exterminating the Jews and all other possibly revolutionary elements.

-M.H.-Reminds me of this quote:

"The total figures of [Cheka] executions, published in 1921, were as follows. In the first half of 1918 [before the Red Terror] they were 22, in the second half some 6,300, and for the three years 1918-20 (for all Russia) 12,733. When it is remembered that in Rostov alone about 25,000 workers were shot by the Whites upon occupying the city, not to speak of many other towns, the Red terror will fall into rather more just perspective."
(Andrew Rothstein. A History of the U.S.S.R. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1951. p. 106.)

[Raskolnikov]

What's more to be questioned is the line 'proper transition procedur'..What is the 'proper'?

Marxism-Leninism, aka Scientific Socialism, does not bind itself to dogmatic practices. There are rules and guidelines to (say) forming the vanguard party, how to deal with the masses and so forth.

But that took trial and error, Revolutions and analyzing what worked and what did not work. The fact the Bolshevik Revolution did not take in the place of an Imperial Capitalist Super-Power showed us the potential the third world and the peasantry have in a revolution as reserves for the proletariat.

Were there problems? Yes - dealing with the peasantry, collectivization (Mark Trauger describes most of the rebellions the peasantry made after 'Dizzy with Success' made its debut were based on confusion, a sense of repression and corruption. Most of these were handed peacefully.), revisionism and various, various other things.

But these arose out of the contradictions posted by Socialist Society when one has thrown the shackles off in a feudalist nation. (Which was losing more and more forms of Feudalism - the kulaks seem more like a development to Capitalism and Westernization. Though I may be wrong and hold a more Feudalist function)

Problems would arise if a revolution happened in America concerning the contradictions between the white labour aristocracy, and the Proletariat Africans, chicanos, Asians and Proletariat Whites (whilst they still apart of the labour aristocracy, they can be identified with a Proletarian status).

Which arise because of the contradictions of Capitalism. These contradictions we must solve.

[Oulian]

I think a more relevant question is: why are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other former USSR republics so poor today?

Belarus doesn't have much to offer.
Kazakhstan is anything but poor! If you look at their ressources it is for sure one of the most important countries in the world.


Kazakhstan is a growing economic power with a strong resource base. The country has 3% of the world’s raw materials and a natural resource base of over $300,000 per capita, which is among the highest in the world and is twice the level of Russia and higher than Australia. Oil plays a big role in Kazakhstan. With nearly 40 billion barrels in reserves and 2 percent of global production, the country has the world’s ninth largest proven reserves and is among the 20 largest oil producers. It has 4% of the global iron reserves, 8% of the world’s zinc reserves and 4% of the world’s chrome reserves.

Kazakhstan is not poor, but the differences between the high and low classes are HUGE. Why? It's the result of the aggressive capitalism the country adopted. Just look at the president Nazarbayev, his wealth is more than outrageous and beyond any man's dream. Kazakhstan is deeply corrupted and that is why the lower classes are so poor there.