Question - About the USSR

[Moondog]

Could the USSR still be a major player in the world had it not been involved in the cold war arms race with the United States? Would it have thrived for just a number of years, or forever?

[Chiak47]

Too much corruption.That happens when only a "few" are allowed to rise to the top.

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from Chiak47 on 5:25 am on Mar. 26, 2003
Too much corruption.That happens when only a "few" are allowed to rise to the top.

not true, all women and minorities in the USSR had equal oppurtunities to become party memebers and to take a role in their government. The USSR had more women in the government than the united states ever had. There were women state deputies for at one time or another for almost all of the autonomous regions and republics.

[Chiak47]

Man in a jar,

Where the fuck did women come into this?
Pussie whipped bastard.Get fucked

Thank you,
Purged

[redstar2000]

"What-if?" type questions are always very difficult.

The disproportionate allocation of resources to the military in the USSR was a natural consequence of the necessary effort to resist U.S. imperialism.

So, in a way, what you're really asking, Moondog, is what the USSR would have been like if the United States hadn't existed or had gone in a social democratic direction rather than towards the cold war and McCarthyism.

What I'm saying is that historical questions are full of variables...tug on one part and you end up with a whole bunch of things that would have had to have happened in order for your proposed variable to have happened.

Chiak47, in his rather simple-minded way, is quite right about the endemic corruption of the Brezhnev-Gorbachev era. It was probably nearly as bad as the United States then, and now, under capitalism, may actually exceed the corruption in the U.S. Hard to believe, but definitely quite possible. :cheesy:

His "explanation" is ludicrous, of course...which is to be expected. It appears that there was some degree of low level corruption in the central Asian soviet republics all through the Stalin era; after Stalin's death, it slowly and then more rapidly began to spread throughout the USSR.

When the Bolsheviks won the civil war, it seems that they did not take central Asia very seriously, in revolutionary terms. They imposed soviet-style institutions on these areas, provided schools for women, but did little or nothing to break up the clan-based social structure. In those places, corruption was not "a bad thing", it was the normal way of "doing business."

It took quite a long time for the rot to spread, but spread it did. Too bad.

But there are lessons there, even for those of us who live in late-capitalist countries and are most likely to become directly involved in socialist/communist construction.

It's not enough to just change the legal norms of the old society. The cultural foundations must be demolished. Corruption must be resolutely opposed...even to the point of the death penalty. It is, perhaps, our worst enemy after the victory of the revolution. Treating it in a casual way is a lengthy but certain method of suicide.

:cool:

[canikickit]

It's not enough to just change the legal norms of the old society. The cultural foundations must be demolished. Corruption must be resolutely opposed...even to the point of the death penalty. It is, perhaps, our worst enemy after the victory of the revolution. Treating it in a casual way is a lengthy but certain method of suicide.

Yeah, I think you are absolutely right. Corruption is the biggest cause of problems in all governments. It's part of my own problem with communism as an idealogy. I also happen to live in the most corrupt state in the EU, according to an EU study. Which is nice. We also have the second largest disparity in rich and poor in the world after.....well, guess.


Where the fuck did women come into this?
Pussie whipped bastard.Get fucked

I thought I would quote this so we could have a good laugh at how misogynistic our friend is.