[Section Leader]

Fixed.

Nope.

If the US and the USSR had had a conventional conflict in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War (as Churchill wanted to do...) the USSR would have won, no question about it.

Not to mention that the US was only able to become so powerful because it was given a helping hand (ie. lots of gold, hard cash and most of our national secrets) by a certain obese leader in an unforgiveable act of treachery, the USSR achieved it all on its own.

[Wolfman]

the USSR achieved it all on its own.

Oh, you're trolling. I gotcha, carry on.

[Dr House]

Other: A smart leader who mostly managed not to fuck up an economy that was evolving well before the revolution already (though the Soviet economic system was fundamentally flawed and inefficient from the get-go, which ultimately lost Russia the cold war), and was very successful in turning Russia into a geopolitical heavyweight. Also a paranoid motherfucker that killed anywhere between several thousand and several million people more or less needlessly.

[Section Leader]

Oh, you're trolling. I gotcha, carry on.

You're the troll, Napoleon.

[stalker]

Other

Russia would have become a superpower one way or another in the 20th century had it been under the Tsars, constitutional monarchy, or the NEP.

Much of what Andropov says is simply wrong. In 1917 primarily enrollment in the Russian Empire was at around 80%. The Communists just piggy-backed off the Tsarist educational legacy and claimed it as their own achievement.

Inequality was actually very substantial in the Stalinist era, with the Gini index reaching a maximum in 1946. Living standards for workers in the 1930's and late 1940's were if anything lower than in the mid-1920's because so many more resources were going into heavy industrial investment and the MIC. It was only from the early 1950's that we see very fast improvements in everyday social and economic indicators.

The rabid anti-Stalinists who talk of tens of millions of victims of Communist are of course propagandists but the fact is Stalin represented forces deeply antithetical to Russian traditions and which resulted in the premature deaths of millions. Like Preston Cole I would not have hesitated to shoot Stalin if transported back in time to 1914 though of course for totally different reasons as I don't care for Romania.

[Andropov]

Other

Russia would have become a superpower one way or another in the 20th century had it been under the Tsars, constitutional monarchy, or the NEP.

Much of what Andropov says is simply wrong. In 1917 primarily enrollment in the Russian Empire was at around 80%. The Communists just piggy-backed off the Tsarist educational legacy and claimed it as their own achievement.

Inequality was actually very substantial in the Stalinist era, with the Gini index reaching a maximum in 1946. Living standards for workers in the 1930's and late 1940's were if anything lower than in the mid-1920's because so many more resources were going into heavy industrial investment and the MIC. It was only from the early 1950's that we see very fast improvements in everyday social and economic indicators.

The rabid anti-Stalinists who talk of tens of millions of victims of Communist are of course propagandists but the fact is Stalin represented forces deeply antithetical to Russian traditions and which resulted in the premature deaths of millions. Like Preston Cole I would not have hesitated to shoot Stalin if transported back in time to 1914 though of course for totally different reasons as I don't care for Romania.

-In 1917 primarily enrollment in the Russian Empire was at around 80%.

Totally absurd. 80% of Russia was made up of rural farmers. Where are you getting your information from?

When the Bolshevik Party came to power in 1917, they faced a crumbling empire infamous for its perceived backwardness and poor education system. In 1917, within the remaining Tsarist territories, an estimated 37.9% of the male population above seven years old was literate and only 12.5% of the female population was literate.

- Foley, Kerry. "Literacy and Education in the Early Soviet Union"

· By 1938, the 21 years of Soviet rule had brought about a 50% reduction in child mortality rate.

· The height of the average Soviet child in 1938 was one and a quarter inches greater than that of the average child in tsarist Russia.

· The weight of the average Soviet child was eleven and a half pounds greater in 1937 than in 1925.

· The chest expansion of the average Soviet child in 1938 was roughly 1 inch greater than that of the average child in tsarist Russia.

· Incidence of tuberculosis decreased 83% under Soviet rule up till 1938 and continued to decrease.

· Cases of syphilis decreased 90% by 1938 and continued to decrease.

· The death rate in 1937 in the USSR was 40% below the death rate in Russia in 1913 (implying a much higher life expectancy)

-Life expectancy increased from 32 in 1913 to 63 in 1956. The trend continued into the 1960s, when the life expectancy in the Soviet Union went beyond the life expectancy in the United States. Arguments are made that even without the October Revolution, Russia would have seen an equivalent increase in life expectancy as that accomplished by the USSR. This notion is questioned by data showing life expectancy at 35 in Albania and 32 in China in 1949.

Before the Revolution,76% of the people were illiterate, including 88%of the women. Virtually complete illiteracy prevailed among the indigenous populations of Siberia and Soviet Central Asia. Indeed, more than 40 languages had not been reduced to writing at all. Prior to the revolution, only 290,000 Russians possessed any kind of higher education, whereas the 1959 census reported that more than 13 Million citizens had some higher or specialized secondary education, and more than 45 million people had 7-10 years of education....Raising the literacy rate from 24% to 98.5% within the span of a single generation for more than 200 million people would be an achievement in itself if only one language were involved, to say nothing of the severe problems posed by a multilingual society....

To detail the massive character of the Soviet educational effort in Central Asia, the Uzbek Republic, which is the most advanced of the Central Asian areas today, as it was in pre-Revolutionary Russia, provides an apt illustration. Before the Revolution, only 2% of the population was literate. There were no native engineers, doctors, or teachers with a higher education. In short, Central Asia was no different in this respect from most of the colonial dependencies of the European powers, and worse off than many.

Today, in the Uzbek Republic alone, there are 32 institutions of higher learning, more than 100 technicums, 50 special technical schools, 12 teachers' colleges, and 1400 kindergartens. Nearly 2,500,000 children attend school, and more than 50% of its teachers have had some higher education...The rate of literacy is over 95%. The Republic before the Revolution possessed no public libraries: today there are nearly 5,000. The number of books printed in the Uzbek language in 1913 was 118,000;today it approaches 19 million. When this record is compared with that of Iran, Afghanistan, the Arab countries, the states of Southeast Asia, or even Turkey, all of which were at a comparable or more advanced level of educational attainment in 1914, the achievement is impressive...

In a remarkably short period of time the socialist state has succeeded in raising the material and cultural level of the entire population enormously, thereby laying a firm foundation for successful work in the field of public health” (Professor N. Propper-Grashchenkov, Assistant People’s Commissar of Public Health, in an article entitled ‘Public Health Protection’). The Soviet Union wiped out slums and provided both town and country with water mains, sewer systems and electricity. In addition to this, the quality and quantity of the foods available were increased beyond all recognition. The output of the food industry in the USSR in 1938 was approximately 6 times the output of the food industry of Tsarist Russia in 1913. Nutritious food was made available to the entire population, and its production and consumption increased constantly. Over the period of the second Five Year Plan, consumption by workers of fruits and berries increased three-fold, consumption of ham, bacon and other cured meats increased five-fold, and consumption of eggs increased two-fold. In 1938 the per capita consumption of protein was over 100g per day, compared with 35g in Germany. The national payroll in 1938 was three times what it was even in 1932.

At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, 37.9 percent of the male population above seven years old was literate and only 12.5 percent of the female population was literate. These low literacy rates dropped further in the turbulence caused by the Russian Civil War and in the famines, epidemics, and disorganization that followed from it. These same factors also caused a decrease in the general educational level in the country.

Beginning in 1922 Soviet authorities started implementing a far-reaching, large-scale educational program with the goals of universal education and eliminating illiteracy among adults. By 1938 the government had established a network of four-year elementary schools covering the Soviet Union, and seven-year schools for children in urban areas. In addition, whereas before 1914 there were almost no kindergartens in Russia, the Soviets rapidly developed preschool education, including kindergarten, as part of their national program. Education at these schools was traditional, and strict discipline was enforced. Soviet schools were especially strong in mathematics and the hard sciences but also stressed language, literature, and history, a big change from the tsarist schools, which taught only the fundamentals of reading and arithmetic.

In an attempt to help illiterate adults, the Bolsheviks launched an ambitious campaign between 1923 and 1927 called "Down with Illiteracy of Society," which depended on volunteers. Members of the Bolshevik youth organization, the Komsomol, were especially enthusiastic participants. One of its campaign posters said, "Literacy is the path to communism. The general census of December 1926 underscored the success of this campaign. For the first time in Russian history the majority of the population could read and write: 65.4 percent of males and 36.7 percent of females (above the age of seven years). By the 1939 census, 81.1 percent of Soviet citizens (age ten and above) were literate, and by the 1960s literacy was common to almost all of the Soviet Union's citizens. The most rapid increase occurred in the first ten years after the revolution, a remarkable feat for the Soviet Union.

I once again agree with Alexander Zinoviev- that the Soviet period brought with it the most massive and unprecedented lunge forward, a прорыв, in all areas of human affairs, never before seen in history.

It is [b]very unlikely the Tsarist system, so utterly corrupt to the core, as testified to by many witnesses, both foreign and domestic (a British WW1 envoy was shocked by how a Tsarist general asked British suppliers to "forget" their delivery of equipment for his soldiers and deliver the excess funds to him instead; there are hundreds of examples like this), would have achieved similar goals. Things do not simply "get better" or "improve" on their own, like some kind of natural law- things get better or worse depending on social and economic conditions.

[Dave]

Both

I think Andropov under-appreciates achievements already made during the Tsarist period and the negative effects totalitarianism have on a society. Liberal societies (by which I do not mean modern, degenerate left-liberalism) benefit from open political cultures in which all ideas and plans are subjected to criticism and scrutiny. Stanley Baldwin's quip about dictatorship being like a beech tree is very appropriate: impressive looking but nothing grows under it.

I am also not very impressed by the industrialization of the Stalinist period. Many other states have managed comparable or even superior rates of industrialization with less human dislocation.

This article, while narrowly about naval construction, highlights the advantages of an open intellectual climate and the disadvantages of totalitarianism: https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/385 ... ,-Milan-L-

[stalker]

@Andropov,

Totally absurd. 80% of Russia was made up of rural farmers. Where are you getting your information from?

You can have schools in rural areas too.

http://www.socionauki.ru/journal/articles/137487/

But starting from 1911 the primary education funding steadily increased and by 1914 eight million schoolchildren studied in 130 thousand primary schools, which constituted up to 60 % of school-aged children (Myatnikov 2005: 10).
But if consider the issue in details, the amount of school-aged children, studying in educational establishments significantly increased. Firstly, some of the children of the determined age group studied in comprehensive schools, in the first grades of high primary training schools and also in so-called unstructured schools (heders, mektebes, etc.). For example, as of 1913, 467,430 people studied in comprehensive schools of the Russian Empire (Report of Minister 1916: 38, 39, 73–75, 94–97, 119–121), 189,511 people studied in high primary training schools (Ibid.: 186–191). The statistics concerning some unstructured Islamic and Jewish schools is also important. Thus, as for 1913, the Russian empire numbered 9723 mektebes and 1064 Madrassas (Islamic schools) and the number of Jewish schools with 198,003 schoolchildren was 9248 (Ibid.: 186–191, 238). In other words, from 0.5 up to 1 million school-aged children studied in schools, excluded from the census. Besides, some children studied at home. Thus, at a minimum estimation, about 1 million children studied out of school at the day the census carrying out.
Secondly, more than one million children left school prior the end of education (in 1910 – 1,268,383 people according to the census data), about 0.5 million children ended the course of education at the age of 11 (Andreev 1916: 310).
Thus, the number of school-aged children can be increased by 2.75 million people. In other words, in 1914 almost 11 million people studied in educational establishments, unstructured schools and at home or 80 % of school-aged children.
The impact of the World War I on schools opening is hard to estimate, because of data shortage. Nevertheless, we can suppose that the funding of the public education in Russia remained on the same level, especially in 1914. As a result, from our point of view, by 1917 almost 85–90 % of children studied at school.
In support of the last thesis, we can bring in more arguments, concerning the literacy of recruits in Russia's army. Thus, Kharkovskaya Guberniya statistical survey contains the following data: in 1900 the number of literate recruits was 45.1 %, by 1910 the percentage had risen up to 66.7 % (Kharkovskaya Guberniya 1911). Samarskaya Guberniya zemsko-statistical reference book for 1914 contains the same data: 1899 – 35 %, 1912 – 65 % (Samarskaya Guberniya 1914). In Mogilevskaya Guberniya: 1897 – 39 %, at the early 20th century – about 50 %, in 1912 – 76 %, and in 1913 – 79 % (Mogilevskaya Guberniya 1914). Besides, the number of literate recruits was over 80 %.
Let us suppose that the increase of literate recruits number stayed static, then by 1914 the results would be the following: Kharkovskaya Guberniya – 75 %, Saratovskaya Guberniya – 70 %, Mogilevskaya Guberniya – 82 %.
Even if the data is exceptional, in other words not common for the whole country, the percentage of literate recruits in Russia by 1914 had to be approximately 65–70 %. But 1914 recruits left primary schools in 1904–1907 (due to World War I the men aged from 18 to 21 were called for a draft), it means the percentage of educated boys by 1914 had proportionally risen. To our mind, the raise can be approximately estimated at 20 %, in Mogilevskaya Guberniya, for instance, this percentage led to 100 % rate of schoolboys.
Taking into consideration all the aforesaid, we would like to mention that in 1894–1917 the primary education in Russia made a significant progress. Due to the efforts of the government which having drawn the conclusions from the First Russian Revolution, in 1908 adopted a 10-year program aimed at all-Russian education introduction. The process gained such a powerful impetus that, from our opinion, by 1917 the task had been completed.
During the Civil War, the primary education system suffered heavily. We can just mention as an instance that several dozen thousand of parochial schools were closed. The new teaching methodology met with a mixed reaction at the teaching staff. It took Soviet government more than 10 years to reorganize primary educational system and primary education became compulsory only in 1930.

The height of the average Soviet child in 1938 was one and a quarter inches greater than that of the average child in tsarist Russia.

http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2003/0129/tema02.php



According to Mironov's figures, a sustained increase in heights by cohort was not achieved until the mid 1930's.

[stalker]

Regardless, it's bizarre to just quote improvements and proclaim Stalinist superiority.

The comparison should not be that between (1) Russia in 1953 vs. Russia in 1917, which basically assumes that Russia would have remained static in that interval, but with (2) Russia in 1953 vs. Russia in 1953 had the Bolsheviks not come to power.

[Andropov]

There would be no Russia in 1953 if the Bolsheviks had not come to power; there would be a Reichskommissariat Moskau, a Reichskommissariat Ukraine, and a Reichskommissariat Ostland. Industrialization on the scale that it happened during the Stalin period was and is unprecedented, and without it, there is no chance whatsoever that Russia would have won the war.

Many other states have managed comparable or even superior rates of industrialization with less human dislocation.

Absolutely false. Provide evidence for this assertion- all the documents that I've seen have shown that no rate of industrialization has come close to what was achieved under Stalin.

Stalker: I'm not going to start a back-and-forth debate with each side presenting endless swaths of statistics which prove their position- I've done this too many times on the Russian internet when discussing the same topic and come to the conclusion that data exists supporting both positions.

It seems evident to me that a country as sparsely populated as Russia, with what was an overwhelmingly agrarian peasant population, would never have achieved the same quality of life under any regime other than an authoritarian socialist one.

Personally, I would have preferred it if the Tsar was not forcefully removed from power by the Februarite traitors and the incompetent cretin Kerensky never came to power- it was Kerensky's inability to deal with the major issues of the time which made the Bolsheviks increase in popularity and which helped them win the Civil War. But the course of events which unfolded meant only the Bolsheviks could bring the nation out of crisis, which they did, and much more, building the strongest country in Europe in 20 years, and then rebuilding it after the Great Patriotic War in less than a decade, bringing it to the status of second superpower of the world.

[stalker]

(1) Hitler probably would have been very unlikely to come to power if there were no Bolsheviks, although the Bolsheviks can hardly be blamed for that.

(2) Of rather greater relevance is that without the Revolution and Civil War, Russia wouldn't have lost 12 years in industrial development. It would have been a substantially more productive and powerful country in 1939.

[Andropov]

The Revolution was inevitable owing to the situation at the time- millions of deserters from the army, no longer willing to fight a war they no longer believed in, huge bread riots all across the country, crushing defeats by the Germans on the Eastern Front, inflicting mass casualties, and much more. The blame for all of this, in turn, lies with Kaiserite Germany, who was by far the most aggressive and war-seeking power in Europe at the time, and responsible for WW1. Germanics are a naturally expansive and aggressive people, tracing back to their Viking heritage. It is only a matter of time before they throw off this left-liberal mask they have on these days and start talking once again of lebensraum- and I fear this time, with a 20 year period of de-industrialization as rapid and extreme as Stalin's 20 year industrialization, Russia will not be ready.

[Section Leader]

The Swedes weren't very expansionist last time I checked.

[Andropov]

Just wait... Give it another 40-50 years.

[stalker]

The blame for all of this, in turn, lies with Kaiserite Germany, who was by far the most aggressive and war-seeking power in Europe at the time, and responsible for WW1.

No the blame lies with Russians, as per your first sentence.

It is only a matter of time before they throw off this left-liberal mask they have on these days and start talking once again of lebensraum- and I fear this time, with a 20 year period of de-industrialization as rapid and extreme as Stalin's 20 year industrialization, Russia will not be ready.

Nukes.

Just wait... Give it another 40-50 years.

Because they'll all be Mohammedans by then?

[Dr House]

Absolutely false. Provide evidence for this assertion- all the documents that I've seen have shown that no rate of industrialization has come close to what was achieved under Stalin.

Well one could cite the UAE's 22% average growth rate in the mid-2000s, but one would have to consider the fundamentally rickety foundations of this growth, which was essentially based on making Dubai a tourist mecca. On the other hand, Soviet Russia achieved a not-altogether-impressive peak GDP per capita of $14,000 per head and never did progress past that point, so the same has to be said of Stalin's industrial program.

[Dave]

Absolutely false. Provide evidence for this assertion- all the documents that I've seen have shown that no rate of industrialization has come close to what was achieved under Stalin.

The rate of industrialization was lower than that achieved in postwar Japan, the East Asian NICs, or China today. I also suspect it was lower than that of Italy after WW2. Stalin's industrialization was unprecedented at the time, but his great achievement was by cruelly extracting surpluses from the peasantry he was able to maintain an investment rate of one-third of gross domestic product. The postwar examples I cited achieved a higher investment rate and at lower human cost. South Korea's achievements in steel, given the small size of the country and its lack of natural resources, are far more impressive than those of the Soviet Union. The investment rate of China now is what, 44%?

You might counter that the circumstances were different because the postwar examples had access to world trade and foreign investment, but bear in mind that the Soviet Union before the Cold War was freely able to purchase foreign technology (which it did) and even solicit foreign investment (which it did).

Even before WW2 I'm not convinced the Soviet achievement was entirely unique, aside from its scale. Showa Japan accelerated its rate of industrialization in the 1930s (with little access to natural resources), Finland industrialized rapidly in the interwar period, and Estonia achieved spectacular growth in the 1930s.

[Political Interest]

Both

It was his rule which oppressed and murdered millions of the Soviet nations. Maybe he can be compared to Timur or Chinggis Khan. Even still under his leadership the Soviet peoples were able to fight away the fascist invaders from Germany who would rape, murder and enslave the men, women and children of these countries. Also he revived the Russian culture and saved the people from having to be ruled by Trotsky who would have destroyed everything.

Stalin was a historic figure and he should be seen in such a light. It is not possible to say he was a saint but had the Germans won then the planned fate was far worse. Yet his crimes must also not be forgotten.

I am grateful to the Soviet peoples for having expelled the fascists from Europe. Lithuania and Poland were occupied by Germany. Even still that is a victory of the people and not of Stalin.

[Unthinking Majority]

Andropov is still drunk of the Stalin cult-of-personality Kool-Aid many decades later. If such a maniac can be remembered so fondly by some former Soviets, I guess his propaganda was brilliant at least!

[Far-Right Sage]

I don't agree with Andropov's musings on Stalin in the least, but he was not a maniac but rather a cunning and quite impressive statesman. Not a politician in the sense of term conceived of today at all, but certainly a leader of men.

That said I feel no need to comment in depth as my anti-Stalinist, anti-Bolshevist, anti-Soviet, anti-Marxist views are well established.

I will say that the peculiar Georgian spared the Russian people a fate which would be far worse if Trotsky was ever allowed to grip the reins.

Interesting discussion.