Collapse of USSR

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Why did the USSR fall?

1) It had class relations of production, i.e. it was a class society in the eyes of workers whose wages had been stagnating (social inequality) to feed the bureaucrats' military machine since WW2, creating slight workers dissatisfaction and emotional detachment from the Soviet system since it increasingly did not represent the working class' direct material interests. General social/wealth inequality became more and more.
2) The bureaucrats pulled more and more power to themselves, seeking to consume more and more of workers' surplus labor and became dreary with the socialist system which did not allow exploitation.
3) Imperialist propaganda. The US and its "NGO" network published several magazines and propaganda works with conservative ideology that were distributed among the intelligentsia and ruling elite of the USSR; making clear to the already dissatisfied bureaucratic ruling semi-class that capitalism would provide them with more "freedom" to enrich themselves.
4) Imperialism. The US initiated the arms race which led to the decision making minority class of bureaucrats using up over 35% of the country's GDP for military production to keep with the arms race, effectively bankrupting the country similarly to capitalist banks speculating away profits that the economy relies on for investment. Hence debt was increasingly used in all socialist countries to fulfill workers' demands for consumer products until lending became too expensive and state insolvency loomed; just like in Greece now with the IMF forcing austerity and forcing collapse, like threatens in all advanced capitalist states now.

5) One needs to see the big picture: After Stalin's war success, people became increasingly dreary of the Stalinist war time system and wanted consumer products. There was constant democratic pressure for consumer goods, so state operators of all socialist state decided to make an agreement between the political class of bureaucrats which wanted a strong military and workers who wanted consumer goods by taking on debt to fulfill both social aspirations; living beyond their means in effect. Bad top-to-bottom profit oriented management also was a large and central reason to the bad development and progress, technological advancement of the basis of the eastern economies and of the USSR. The Socialist countries collapsed in the end because of indebtedness, but that debt was effect of serious internal semi-class contradictions on top of foreign imperialist pressure.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Not to mention that since the very beggining of the revolution, the Bolshevik government worked to stop the progress of socialism, and eventualy doomed the revolution.

[RedHammer]

Wonderful analysis, comrade. I love reading your economics/history threads.

If I may ask, what books or sources do you recommend? Or use?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Wonderful analysis, comrade. I love reading your economics/history threads.

If I may ask, what books or sources do you recommend? Or use?

Mainly i go through a lot of database sites like cia.gov, US census, german government statistics, UK governments statistics, FED statistics, ECB statistics, wikipedia, google articles and some books to gain a more complete picture. Persistence is though my main source.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

The underlying central problem in the USSR was in fact that of revisionism; of the increasing focus on capital accumulation, anti-socialisation, competitiveness of enterprises. But(!) this revisionism did not come out of anything, it came from a social conservative, hierarchical, Soviet militarist culture contrary to collective, communist ideology. Essentially, the goal for a new 21st century communism needs to be to build a truly equal society, from the household relations to open society, equality between men and women (notice the USSR had mainly men in its public functions and party) and to impose a collective and equal culture on society. This is really the main thing, to focus on building a collective and equal participatory socialist society where "everyone will be a bureaucrat so no one can be a bureaucrat"(Lenin, 'State and Revolution').

[Peoples' War]

Not to mention that since the very beggining of the revolution, the Bolshevik government worked to stop the progress of socialism, and eventualy doomed the revolution.
How so? Surely, you can solidify your claims against the Bolsheviks.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

How so? Surely, you can solidify your claims against the Bolsheviks.

Of course I can, I will answer this in your profile, as to not cause a discussion with multiple people.

[m1omfg]

5) One needs to see the big picture: After Stalin's war success, people became increasingly dreary of the Stalinist war time system and wanted consumer products. There was constant democratic pressure for consumer goods, so state operators of all socialist state decided to make an agreement between the political class of bureaucrats which wanted a strong military and workers who wanted consumer goods by taking on debt to fulfill both social aspirations; living beyond their means in effect. Bad top-to-bottom profit oriented management also was a large and central reason to the bad development and progress, technological advancement of the basis of the eastern economies and of the USSR. The Socialist countries collapsed in the end because of indebtedness, but that debt was effect of serious internal semi-class contradictions on top of foreign imperialist pressure.

Actually since 1956 the economy was far more consumer goods based than under Stalin.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Actually since 1956 the economy was far more consumer goods based than under Stalin.

That is what i tried to communicate.

[Die Neue Zeit]

One needs to see the big picture: After Stalin's war success, people became increasingly dreary of the Stalinist war time system and wanted consumer products.

Stalin's era was simply that of "socialist primitive accumulation."


There was constant democratic pressure for consumer goods, so state operators of all socialist state decided to make an agreement between the political class of bureaucrats which wanted a strong military and workers who wanted consumer goods by taking on debt to fulfill both social aspirations; living beyond their means in effect.

You're exaggerating the role of debt here: the Soviets didn't have much debt during the 1980s. Now, the Eastern European regimes, on the other hand...

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Stalin's era was simply that of "socialist primitive accumulation."



You're exaggerating the role of debt here: the Soviets didn't have much debt during the 1980s. Now, the Eastern European regimes, on the other hand...

We can call Stalin's era whatever we want, but in the end Soviet proletarians wanted higher wages to compete with western consumer lifestyle and not watch the military and MoP budget eat up their surplus.

The final thing that killed the USSR and all socialist countries, was no one at the world bank lending to the USSR and IMF pressure to reach its terms to pay back its debts. Gorbachev needed a large loan, and he was very angry when no one lent to the USSR in its crisis because it meant an inevitable collapse on its debts since it could not pay them back. It doesn't matter how much debt a country has, Japan for instance has over 200% of its GDP in debt and capitalists will lend to it so long its economy doesn't completely collapse. The USSR had around 20% of its yearly GDP in debts, but it had no growth to pay the debts back and even though it could have reformed with more loans, the western countries were not going to give a new loan to it without conditions. The famous IMF

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

The 20th century socialist countries in the end lived "beyond their means" because their capital growth figures could not serve the interest rates on their accumulated debts, much less pay back the actual debts themselves.

[Robespierres Neck]

Gorbachev & Yeltsin.

[Positivist]

Of course I can, I will answer this in your profile, as to not cause a discussion with multiple people.

I do not mean to be invasive of your privacy, but why do you want to avoid a discussion with multiple people?

[m1omfg]

We can call Stalin's era whatever we want, but in the end Soviet proletarians wanted higher wages to compete with western consumer lifestyle and not watch the military and MoP budget eat up their surplus.

The final thing that killed the USSR and all socialist countries, was no one at the world bank lending to the USSR and IMF pressure to reach its terms to pay back its debts. Gorbachev needed a large loan, and he was very angry when no one lent to the USSR in its crisis because it meant an inevitable collapse on its debts since it could not pay them back. It doesn't matter how much debt a country has, Japan for instance has over 200% of its GDP in debt and capitalists will lend to it so long its economy doesn't completely collapse. The USSR had around 20% of its yearly GDP in debts, but it had no growth to pay the debts back and even though it could have reformed with more loans, the western countries were not going to give a new loan to it without conditions. The famous IMF

It was not about aspiring to Western consumerism. Under Stalinism (I mean real, pre-1953 Stalinism) people barely ate anything more than basic nutrition (that is, except for the 1932-1933 and 1948 famines when they ate nothing). "Anti-revisionists" are fools, because while Khruschev, Brezhnev etc. were corrupt, Stalin was far worse. Even Stalinist sycophants like Molotov admitted that people started to live much, much better under Khruschev. Besides, the debts didn't really start until the late 1970s so this is not an argument. Even so, debts are better than total austerity. As many people in ex-Eastern Bloc and ex-Soviet countries say, under Brezhnev/(insert name of local gensec of the party here), we were in debt but we lived well. Now we are in even bigger debt and live badly.

The present day Europe has huge debt yet many people are struggling. Those funny rightwingers who say European Union is like the Soviet Union are wrong, EU is much worse.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I do not mean to be invasive of your privacy, but why do you want to avoid a discussion with multiple people?

It is easier when you are just arguing with one.
Not to mention that if I started the discussion here, it would flood the thread.

[Psy]

The final thing that killed the USSR and all socialist countries, was no one at the world bank lending to the USSR and IMF pressure to reach its terms to pay back its debts. Gorbachev needed a large loan, and he was very angry when no one lent to the USSR in its crisis because it meant an inevitable collapse on its debts since it could not pay them back. It doesn't matter how much debt a country has, Japan for instance has over 200% of its GDP in debt and capitalists will lend to it so long its economy doesn't completely collapse. The USSR had around 20% of its yearly GDP in debts, but it had no growth to pay the debts back and even though it could have reformed with more loans, the western countries were not going to give a new loan to it without conditions. The famous IMF
Yet why did the USSR have to service its debt, what could the IMF do if like Gorbachev like Lenin simply told the banks to sod off because the USSR (then revolutionary Russia) won't pay?

Yes it would have pissed off banks but a true anti-capitalist party shouldn't care about the feelings of bankers, and just have made Comecon into a totally isolated economy from the rest of the world. Yes the bankers won't lend any more capital but the Comecon nations already had means of production they never needed their capital as the Comecon had the capacity to produce capital itself without interacting with the rest of the world.

[RedMaterialist]

i've posted before on this, but here goes again:

the soviet state was something absolutely new in history: a proletariat dictatorship, maybe degenerate and corrupt and bureaucratic, etc. After 75 yrs of political rule there was no class left to suppress, the capitalists were gone, only the bureaucracy under gorbachev was left. A bureaucracy, strictly speaking, is not a class, it can, however, be used as a machine or a technique of class rule When a state no longer has any class to suppress it will collapse, just like marx and engels predicted.

however, the su did not collapse in a vacuum, it was surround by capitalism. When the state disappeared, the capitalists moved in immediately and began buying up Russian property.

A state cannot exist without class suppression. Its sole reason for existence is class suppression.

I don't pretend that it is well thought out, etc. but it is better than any reason i have seen so far.

[Andropov]

All good points by the original poster.
All these reasons helped contribute to the collapse of the SU.
There were other factors indeed such as the problems with population demographics which stemmed from WW2.
Another major factor in the fall of the SU was the class composition of the Party, in latter years there was an increase in white collar membership of the Party who's material interests were questionable.
You also had some inherent problems within the system such as inefficiency, theft and corruption.
The theft which fed into the black market within the SU also increased the amount of those engaged in private enterprise which changed their material interests and created an under current of discontent and support for liberalising the economic system for private interests.
Then you had disasters such as the Virgin lands scheme and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan which all weakened the state.
But the primary point being is that all of these were problems within the SU, but none of them were insurmountable, indeed the SU overcame worse obstacles in its time but the death blow came with the appointment of Gorbachev. His rise to prominence was helped by many of the material conditions on the ground which came from these problems the SU faced but under his leadership he exacerbated the problems and accelerated the collapse instead of addressing the problems and initiating solutions.
The SU faced many problems but Gorbachev was the man who threw petrol on the proverbial fire.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Agreed that there were many factors leading to the demise of the USSR. I think some of what happened was the petering our of the Bolshevik legacy. During the time Stalin led the CPSU, with the slaughter of the most conscious political elements in the party, the whole society became depoliticized. People probably knew that the history they were taught was grossly fictionalized, but real political discussion was not tolerated. History and politics became sterile, boring narratives from a bureaucrat's imagination. This was mitigated by WWII, where the country rallied to defeat the Nazis.

And finally, but probably primary, was the lack of revolution in advanced countries of the west. The fact that the USSR managed to exist for so long and have so many accomplishments, in spite of terrible non-revolutionary leadership, speaks to the underlying strengths of a planned collectivized economy. But the nationalism of the stalinist bureaucracies always undermines the revolution at home. Until 1924 no one spoke of developing socialism in one country (please no out-of-context quotes from Lenin in response) The pretense of detente, people's fronts, and peaceful coexistance was and continues to be a counterrevolutionary lie. The primary failure of the leadership of the USSR was to spread the revolution.

[Raskolnikov]

I think it was moreso the party becoming so degenerated at this point that they simply did not care - they did not even try to impose the March Referendum, they simply let the idea idea of a union of peoples to be held together.