What Is the Most Common Bourgeois Explanation for the Collapse of the Soviet Union?

[Ilyich]

I'm writing a persuasive paper on the fall of the USSR for school and I need a counter-argument. I'm a bit stuck. There are many explanations put forth by liberal historians for the collapse of the soviet Union and I'm not sure which one to argue against.

[ed miliband]

well... what do you think is the "proletarian" explanation for the collapse of the soviet union..?

[Ocean Seal]

Socialism doesn't work, big government kill incentive. No one works and that's why it collapsed, and social parasites take advantage of big government programs.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.... After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.

TEH ECONOMICS PROFESSOR DID IT. HE DID IT, IT'S SO SCIENTIFIC THAT A PROFESSOR AT AN UNSPECIFIED UNIVERSITY DID IT!!!!!

[Os Cangaceiros]

It was a society constructed on bullshit. Nothing worked in the national "planned economy" but people deluded themselves because they were fearful of omnipresent state repression against any dissent (which loosened up a bit post-Stalin but never totally went away). But after decades of economic and literal warfare (during the Cold War), and popular dissent in socialist bloc nations, the communist bureaucracy decided to get their beaks wet in some of this capitalism stuff. Because booze, coke, high-end prostitutes and Caspian Sea caviar was way better than the sickeningly dull "socialist culture" bullshit they'd been forced fed throughout their lives.

^I think that about covers the standard non-communist explanation for the USSR's fall

[Ilyich]

well... what do you think is the "proletarian" explanation for the collapse of the soviet union..?

The most reasonable sounding "proletarian" explanation I've heard has the section of the bureaucracy that would benefit most from the collapse of the Soviet Union (mid/low-level party, state, and government leaders) helped bring about its fall to acquire property. Of course, that is only partly true. How did a relatively small group of bureaucrats destroy a superpower? Why did some sections of the bureaucracy oppose the breakup and others support it? What did the August Coup have to do with anything? How did the bureaucracy come to porer in the first place? etc. These are relevant questions that must be dealt with. I have some basic ideas on how to answer them and others.

Yeah, wrong answer, I know. I have little idea what I'm talking about. That's mostly why I posted here.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I have some notes from a class about Europe that I took in college, I'll type the part I have about the USSR's collapse and maybe that'll help you:

THE USSR

* Collapse of the USSR
-1989-1991: a "protracted death"
- Growing inflation
- Rise of nationalist sentiment within the Soviet republics
- Difficulty pinpointing where Gorbachev stood between reformists and conservatives
- 500 Days Program: Gorbachev's plan for a market economy. Abandones it days later due to pressure from conservatives

* The Baltic States
- Pressure mounting in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, with calls for secession
- January 1991: Soviet forces clash with Lithuanians, resulting in 13 dead
- Lithuanian developments prompt similar clashes in Latvia and Estonia
- Gorbachev eventually stops all attempts to prevent the Baltics from secceding
- The Gulf War further undermines the USSR at this time, in the economic sense due to instability in the oil rich Middle East

* USSR in crisis
- Soviet economy ceases to function
- March 1991 referendum:
>Vote on creating a series of sovereign republics
>Boycotted by Baltics, Armenia, Moldova, Georgia

* Rise of Boris Yeltsin
- Yeltsin's rise as president of Russian Federation
- Gorbachev's efforts to preserve the union
>Vote on a new union treatee

* August 1991 Coup
- "State Committee for the State Emergency in the USSR" (coup group name)
- The "old guard" initiated the coup prior to signing of new union treaty
- The men who launched the coup sucked at it. It lacked all the elements of any successful coup
- The coup had NOTHING to do with ideology; they were merely upset about their diminished power
- Yeltsin and huge crowd defends capital from coup; military and police reluctant to act. The coup fails miserably.




(The August coup really was a joke. I remember hearing in class that some nonsense about the decreasing "morality" of the Russian population was one of the listed concerns of the people who initiated the coup. There was nothing at all about preserving glorious Marxist-Leninist thought or any nonsense like that)

[Althusser]

It's all right here.

[freehobo]

It's all right here.

I think you will find that bourgoise opinions on why the USSR failed are a little more diverse than Randianism.

http://www.nowandfutures.com/large/O...ent-Nozick.pdf

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[GoddessCleoLover]

I'm writing a persuasive paper on the fall of the USSR for school and I need a counter-argument. I'm a bit stuck. There are many explanations put forth by liberal historians for the collapse of the soviet Union and I'm not sure which one to argue against.

Argue against the "free marketeers", since their theories completely fucked up Russian in the 90s. IMO the major reason for the Union's collapse involved the failure of the Soviet regime to handle the national question. If you accept this premise then you have a basis for refuting the free marketeers.

[freehobo]

It was a society constructed on bullshit. Nothing worked in the national "planned economy" but people deluded themselves because they were fearful of omnipresent state repression against any dissent (which loosened up a bit post-Stalin but never totally went away). But after decades of economic and literal warfare (during the Cold War), and popular dissent in socialist bloc nations, the communist bureaucracy decided to get their beaks wet in some of this capitalism stuff. Because booze, coke, high-end prostitutes and Caspian Sea caviar was way better than the sickeningly dull "socialist culture" bullshit they'd been forced fed throughout their lives.

^I think that about covers the standard non-communist explanation for the USSR's fall

I think this is quite similar to many communists' views on why it failed too, isn't it? "It was constructed on bullshit, repressive state capitalism, not real communism, communism doesn't have a state" etc. I'm intrigued that the bourgeois arguments are so similar to the proletarians.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I think this is quite similar to many communists' views on why it failed too, isn't it? "It was constructed on bullshit, repressive state capitalism, not real communism, communism doesn't have a state" etc. I'm intrigued that the bourgeois arguments are so similar to the proletarians.

Some of us on the Left are sufficiently open-minded to admit that bourgeois intellectuals made some valid arguments about the Union. They also made their share of errors IMO, in particular over-emphasizing the economic issues when IMO what doomed the Union's existence was its failure to resolve antagonism among the nationalities.

[freehobo]

Some of us on the Left are sufficiently open-minded to admit that bourgeois intellectuals made some valid arguments about the Union. They also made their share of errors IMO, in particular over-emphasizing the economic issues when IMO what doomed the Union's existence was its failure to resolve antagonism among the nationalities.

That's actually my view as well, the soviet republics were ethnic divisions, more or less, when they had an opportunity they quickly asserted independence. So less of an economic issue than an ethnic one.