[Maxim Litvinov]

The Soviet union collapsed because people were sick and tired of communism since it couldnt provide them with good services or plentiful goods.

It would be a theory, except it doesn't account for why it collapse in the late 1980s, rather than the early 1980s, or 1970s, or 1960s or 1950s.

Could have been, but he just inherited the problems that were there to begin with and that came to a head while under his watch.

No. Problems didn't just "develop" a bit under Gorbachev. Gorbachev ushered in a radical and transformational agenda which brought all sorts of new problems.

Russian legislature, what about it?

Wrong. Duma is the legislature.

Had you looked at that shopping list, you would see I do not look at one point/source or person.

Actually, most of your material seems from Gaidar or similar. The Chernyaev quote on grain, for instance, which is the closest you come to implying a problem with grain, has the first hit on Google as this thread and the second as Gaidar's article on Grain and Oil. It's not really particularly balanced.

Maxim Litvinov, it would be nice if you showed where you get said information

It's rather hard for me as I'm not going through this information for the first time. But we'd do best to focus on whether the problems that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union were primarily a product of pre- or post-Gorbachev moves.

Your position seems to be that despite the Soviet Union having been around for 70 years with all the systemic problems that meant it was destined to have a "crap economy", that somehow magically the economy became unsustainable in the late 1980s and led to collapse. My position is that something BIG happened in the mid-1980s in the form of Gorbachev's reform agenda, that they went above and beyond what was necessary and caused a collapse.

[Kman]

It would be a theory, except it doesn't account for why it collapse in the late 1980s, rather than the early 1980s, or 1970s, or 1960s or 1950s.

Because it takes time for people to become disillusioned with a political system and it takes time to get rid of a totallitarian political elite.

[Maxim Litvinov]

In short, your theory is nothing much changed to bring about the Soviet Union's collapse, but it was just "normal wear and tear" that saw it eventually go under.

You can believe that if you want. I wouldn't expect anyone else to believe it though seeing as there was pretty deliberate and monumental endogenous political change happening from the mid-1980s until the collapse.

[MB.]

As far as I'm aware, the late Soviet Union, prior to Gorbachev's attempt to reinvigorate the Prague Spring movement, was a gerontocratic kleptocracy. Reliance on black market for goods largely undermined Soviet manufacturing at the local (micro) level, however, the USSR continued to export throughout this period at the macro level (weapons, resources, energy, technology and vodka being obvious examples):

In 1972, the PepsiCo company struck a barter agreement with the then government of the Soviet Union, in which PepsiCo was granted exportation and Western marketing rights to Stolichnaya vodka in exchange for importation and Soviet marketing of Pepsi-Cola.[6] This exchange led to Pepsi-Cola being the first foreign product sanctioned for sale in the U.S.S.R.[7]

Like many european countries of this period (east & west) the transition to post-industrialism was stalled because of rust-belt industrialization held over from the 1950s and 60s.

The union devolved into the Commonwealth of Independent States as a result of Gorbachev's progressive national and economic reforms, but by this point it was no longer possible nor desirable to put humpty-dumpty (ie, the Russian empire) back together again, again.\

and that came to a head while under his watch

I think this is a sound structural point, at least insofar as there were always inefficiencies in the Soviet economy and these became particularly evident during the rapid computerization taking place around the word, but it also undervalues the agency of Gorbachev and the new socialist movement.

[1] [KFlint] originally said that people went cold and hungry in the USSR. You now say that they had to import grain. This is a big difference. Many of the most affluent countries in the world do this. You are still yet to follow through with your erroneous 'cold and hungry argument'.

Yes. Importing grain and falling oil prices does not equate a 'cold and hungry' populace.

the Soviet leadership were by no means forced into these policies and there were quite a number of hardliners who would have been content to avoid them and continue along the same path.

Absolutely.

Russia did this as a first step to gain control over the oil fields in the Middle East.

Wasn't that the plot of Red Storm Rising?

I was not aware that the USA had any desire to do so. It was a mutual distrust that led to a policy of mutual destruction, the key word there being mutual.

Alliance and US military planners had been planning for war with the Soviet Union since 1945 at least (I'm not suggesting everyone expected war, but certainly some very senior people did). Admittedly, Stalin was also expecting a conflict shortly after the defeat of Germany and Japan (although, again, not everyone in the politburo expected or desired war: Malenkov & Khrushchev being obvious examples here). Senior officials in the DoD and state department, not to mention elected officials in the house and senate continuously argued that the USSR was a major military threat the US and that more funds needed to be appropriated for defense totally out of proportion with Soviet capabilities. The concept of "mutual destruction" indeed was really an artifice on the part of the US based on poor intelligence figures, at least until the 1980s. The USA was by far the leader in terms of aggressive policies aimed at the USSR- for example, in 1961 when the USSR had I believe four or at any rate, < 10 ICBMs the US had already developed several ABM systems and possessed a thermonuclear superiority of staggering proportions. Certainly, rhetoric from the USSR leadership fueled an atmosphere of distrust as did actions such as the Berlin blockade and the invasion of Hungary, however, these events tended to have more to do with domestic power politics within the USSR and between its client states than from any desire to actaully engage in war with NATO. The Soviet Union was reacting to the US after Sputnik, rather than preempting US developments. It is worth noting Clockwork Rat's point, that before WW2, the situation was also continuously one of hostility towards the USSR.

So again, if you want to blame the cold war on a state, the US is the obvious candidate. Much of this had to do with power politics and fear of domestic dissent from socialist 'agitators' rather than from any actual or even perceived military threat from the USSR.

[Social_Critic]

Clockworkrat:

Unlike Mr Ted Talbot, I'm neither a communist nor an intellectual with expertise in this matter. I'm merely a refugee from communism. I guess you could say I was living inside the monster while you guys theorized about the nature of its digestive juices.

Just a personal observation, which I can't support with wads of data or anything like that: The Soviet Union collapsed when the coup leaders tried to kick out Gorbachev, who was in the Crimea trying to take a few days off. Things in Moscow were quite confused, but people were quite energized by perestroika and all the other winds of freedom. So when the tanks rolled into Moscow, and Yeltsin decided to stand up to them, and the troops decided to support the people, the thing hit the fan, and here we are. A friend of mine called me at the time, held the phone out to the window, and started screaming "That's the sound of tanks firing at the White House, the party rats are going down!" (or something like that). He was over by Kievskaya station, and I told him to get inside the bathtub, because it sure sounded like large caliber weapons. And so the USSR ended, with the tanks firing on the White House, and blowing those neat black holes into it. I think people in those days were a bit scared about what would come next, but I thought it was the greatest show on earth.

A friend of mine who was in the Duma, told me he heard from a guy who knew Yeltsin very well that the old man hated communism so much, he would have done anything to get rid of it, and he saw the failed revolt against Gorbachev as a golden opportunity. Yeltsin was also quite impulsive, and was drunk half the time. It could be the USSR fell because Yeltsin had something to drink earlier that morning, and was feeling rowdy. I made this sort of concise, shrinkin a longer event into a few sentences. It could be shorter: The USSR fell because it sucked.

[The Clockwork Rat]

Yeltsin certainly did hate the collectivised state; it prevented him from getting his riches which he now has.

Weren't perestroika and glasnost introduced to try and regalvanise the economy and morale by encouraging people to engage in discourse at to the foci of production, and to encourage whistle-blowing of corrupt officials? It's somewhat ironic (hur hur hur) that the people who benefited most from the privatisation laws were the ones who encouraged them, and were likely going to be taken down by the new whistle-blowing policies.

[Maxim Litvinov]

S_C: I didn't think any tanks fired at the White House in 1991. Are you making it up or confusing it with 1993 when Yeltsin had tanks fire at the White House?

I made this sort of concise, shrinkin a longer event into a few sentences.

You seemed to make it rather imaginary and trivial.

[Social_Critic]

I did "voluntary labor", ordered to do so by my communist party masters. We did as much as possible to do as little as possible. Tried to eat as much of the food we were asked to gather, and didn't really care if we left it on the ground to rot. My father was asked to do "voluntary labor" in the field. He was a very educated man, thought it was a good opportunity to get out in the sun. He did miss the days off, and he got upset when he went back to his regular job and found out the party geniuses had asked people to come in from elsewhere to do "volunteer labor" where he worked, and they had ruined some of the equipment.

Overall, it was a good way to bolix things up and make fun of the government - nobody doing volunteer work really cared for it. And this is the reason why those regimes disappear, eventually the people make sure everything runs down as much as possible. Like they say, you make believe you pay us, we'll make believe we work.

[The Clockwork Rat]

Yeah, the apathy of the population, and the distancing of the nomenclature was something that Gorbachev attempted to address, but Yeltsin and his buddies grabbed this and twisted it to their own gain.

Perestroika came too late

[Social_Critic]

Yes, Perestroika came 70 years too late. The system was a non-starter from the beginning. This is why they are gone, it's called social darwinism, I think. The soviet communists were trilobites.

[Ombrageux]

One has to separate the different aspects of the Soviet collapse:
1) The collapse of the Communist and Russian-aligned regimes in Eastern Europe, which was inevitable without periodic Soviet crackdowns. This is analogous to the dismantlement of the Western colonial empires after the Second World War.

2) The collapse of the Soviet Union as a State. This was not inevitable but always a strong possibility as with all multinational States. The same pressures were on the Soviet Union as there were/are in Yugoslavia, Belgium, Canada or Iraq. It might (might) have been avoided had Gorbachev held truly democratic elections for the Union first at the Republics second. As it stood he refused to have himself elected as a president and, having no mandate, he gradually lost power to Yeltsin and the other Republic presidents.

3) The collapse of "Communism" as an economic system. It is very unclear what Gorbachev wanted there. He might have demilitarized the Soviet Union and installed limited privatization of certain sectors. He wanted some sort of "Communism" in theory. This aspect did not "collapse" directly as a consequence of economic inefficiency or disenchantment, but rather from the power grab of the Republics which led to total economic chaos. No central planning was possible when each Republic was going their own way and the Russian Republic in particular. (This has more to do with ethnic conflict and national democracy than it does with the economic system as such.)

4) The collapse of the Communist Party dictatorship. No doubt this would eventually, as all dictatorships do, but this isn't simply up to poverty or wealth. Ofter wealth and a rising middle class can destroy a dictatorship, while countries as different as North Korea and Singapore have maintained despotic regimes. In any event, the post-Soviet Republics did not democratize immediately. Many were or still are under the rule of the same old kleptocrats, now stripped of ideology or supranational interest, and now with local personality cults and ethnic politics.

[The Clockwork Rat]

From the article I linked to in the OP:

It is important to note that the aspects of the Tsarist state which made the Bolshevik take over of power possible also made it extremely difficult to proceed with the revolution. Bettelheim’s, very simplistic, view is the conventional perspective on 1917.

"The October insurrection put an end to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and established the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia. It thus enabled the proletariat to form itself into the dominant class in order to continue the revolution, carry out the tasks of the democratic revolution and take the first steps towards socialism." (Bettelheim, 1976, p.91)

However, in Bettelheim's passage, the very fact that he suggests that the proletariat's initial tasks must be to pursue the "tasks of democratic (i.e. bourgeois) revolution" implies the lack of, or at least an extreme immaturity of, the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", which we are informed the working class has overthrown. By definition, this must have been an embryonic bourgeoisie, but what of the working class? One can surmise this as also being a nascent class, in that classes are social groupings operating in relation to each other.

The major dichotomy in the Russian situation was the existence of localised pockets of modern industry organised on capitalist lines and set among the general context of the absolutist Tsarist state structure. The working class was numerically tiny, and recently drawn from the peasantry but, but with some power bases.

Lane argues that the Tsarist government itself played a major role in the implementation of capitalism into Russia and exercised a correspondingly major degree of control over the embryonic bourgeois class.

"A modern economic system was largely 'imported' by the government, it did not grow out of an indigenous capitalist class - and that class was under the tutelage of the state. The political formations did not conform to a classical Marxist situation. The government, not the bourgeoisie played the dominant role in the industrial development of capitalism which in turn promoted the growth of the proletariat." (Lane, p.11)

It is important to stress 1917 as a ‘working class’ revolution with a small and embryonic working class because it explains a disposition which became ingrained, and which reinforced the effects of productive forces theory, for actions to be taken on behalf of the working class. In contrast to Bettelheim, and in general agreement with Lane, Anderson suggests a rather more complex interpretation of the revolutionary process in 1917.

"Tsarism in Russia outlived all its precursors and contemporaries, to become the only Absolutist State in the continent to survive intact in the 20th Century". (Anderson, p.328) The necessary consequence of this durability of the Tsarist regime for the Bolsheviks was that:

"The Russian Revolution was not made against a capitalist State at all. The Tsarism which fell in 1917 was a feudal apparatus: the Provisional Government never had time to replace it with a new or stable bourgeois apparatus". (Anderson, p.359)

The failure of the German (and Hungarian) revolutionary upsurges was not just momentous, as regards European history, but, much more directly, to the development of the Revolution in Russia itself. Productive forces theory ideally fitted the circumstances of an isolated revolution because without raising the level of productive forces all would be lost

Precisely due to the extremely adverse circumstances that conditioned the aftermath of 1917: civil war, economic disruption, famine, etc., the Bolshevik regime was forced to implement extremely repressive measures in order to maintain its rule. These measures tended to further narrow the social basis of the regime, which had already lost many of its best supporters, from a small initial pool, in the fighting. The suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion by the early Bolshevik regime was, in Trotsky's words, "a tragic necessity." (Lenin and Trotsky, 1978) The Bolsheviks had no choice; they had to recreate the working class. The new working class had to be drawn from the peasantry with its lack of craft narrowness, but also with its rural prejudices.
The inauspicious situation meant that many procedures had to be enacted in the early Soviet Union, which were inimical to the building of socialism. Productive forces theory was strongly represented in early positivist, (Second International), interpretations of Marxism and, as already mentioned, this tendency was reinforced by the pressing material circumstances. (Carchedi, 1987, pp.5-6)

It is quite clear with the benefit of hindsight, from the experiences in both the Soviet Union and China, that simply raising the level of productive forces without really revolutionising the relations of production is doomed to failure. In particular the masses have to be drawn into the real decision making processes in order to achieve the high level of political consciousness necessary for socialism to be built. The idea that the proletarian state is the bourgeois state turned on its head is entirely incorrect. The bourgeois state relies for its continued existence on only a narrow stratum of oppressors, whilst for its survival the proletarian state must undertake the massive task of bringing the mass of people to political consciousness. As Luxemburg puts it in a criticism of Lenin:

"Socialism in life demands a complete spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois class rule. Social instincts in place of egotistical ones, mass initiative in place of inertia, idealism which conquers all suffering, etc., etc. No one knows this better, describes it more penetratingly, describes it more stubbornly than Lenin. But he is completely mistaken in the means he employs. Decree, dictatorial force of the factory overseer, draconic penalties, rule by terror – all these things are but palliatives. The only way to a rebirth is the school of public life itself, the most unlimited, the broadest democracy and public opinion. It is rule by terror which demoralizes." (Luxemburg, p.70)

There is a substantial element of truth but also a potential element of idealism in Luxemburg's analysis if taken in conjunctural terms. She is writing as if there was no Civil War and famine in the period (1918) on which she is commentating, when it is difficult to see how anyone could have ruled except by the exercise of force. Nevertheless, initial habits die hard and command methods remained when they were no longer necessary for the imminent survival of the Bolshevik regime. Luxemburg's analysis takes on an added relevance when we note that policies such as one-man management, piecework, and Taylorist work practices have no chance of drawing the masses into the 'public life' which she enumerates. Such practices decompose the working class and are bourgeois modes of labour organisation. (Sirianni, p.147)

That important opportunities were missed is illustrated by the extraordinary initial development of the Soviet economy, a development which cannot be explained in bourgeois economic terms of material self-interest. It can only be explained by the fact that Soviet citizens were prepared to make tremendous sacrifices for the future of socialist construction. As Hoffman mentions, "even anti- Stalinist liberals were to describe the Stalinist system as one of totalitarian democracy in order to acknowledge the popular enthusiasm it had aroused." (Hoffman, 1990, p.16) This reliance, actually partial reliance, on the masses was time limited. In the 1920s:

"Stalin had nothing else to rely on except the masses, so he demanded all out mobilization of the party and the masses. Afterwards when they had realized some gains this way, they became less reliant on the masses. (RCP, 1981, p.4)

I think that this statement is probably true and if so it is important in that it is essential to realise that a massive increase in the productive forces, which will of course be significantly different productive forces than those in capitalist societies, can only be initiated and maintained as a result of revolutionising the relations of production.

Having said that there was an element of idealism in Luxemburg’s passage it is absolutely essential to note that my hesitation is only specific and conjunctural. Socialism does demand a "complete spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois class rule", nothing else can create a socialist society and this cannot be done simply by raising the productive forces so that peoples work and life experience is essentially similar to that of capitalism. Of course, socialism is a transitional society and can therefore only be defined in dynamic terms, is it moving forward to a non-alienated and non-antagonistic society or not?

In short, a society created on the basis of a forces of production theory will inevitably socialise a strata of ‘capitalist roaders’ precisely because the mode of production encompasses many of the same constituent elements.

By the Seventh Congress in 1935, the Comintern was dead for revolution. The 'united front against fascism and war' required, "- a social-chauvinist alliance of the Comintern with the allied imperialists; - a subordination of the interests of the international proletariat to the exigencies of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union." (MLPC., p.1)

This meant that opportunities for advances, such as in Spain, were thrown away as armed insurrection was sacrificed to making deals with 'democratic' imperialist powers. (RCP, 1981a p.32) (Of course, there was a relationship between the Comintern and its fraternal parties, after all the Comintern line appears to have been influenced by the French Communist Party.) (MLPC, p.3), By 1941 Harry Pollitt was suggesting that:

"The Churchill government is the representative of national unity for the fulfilment of the aims of the British-Soviet Pact, of the United Nations and victory over Hitler." (CUO, 1972, p.6)

As the document says, "such a policy was an outright sell-out of the independent role of the Communist Party." (p.6) In the sense of non-reliance on the masses, then, there was a similarity between Soviet internal and external policies. The demise of the International Communist Movement meant that the Soviet Union received little solidarity from abroad. In addition, the marginalisation of Marxism in the imperialist countries meant that the bourgeoisie there had little to fear from their 'own' working class.

On the military and intelligence fronts, the USA intervened heavily in order to support and indeed create anti-Soviet forces. (Blum, 1986) The consolidation of the Soviet Union always suggested that imperialism would have had to be subject to a decisive military defeat. Any attempt to construct socialism will need to seriously confront this. The theory of 'peaceful coexistence' was adapted from Lenin and integrated into the "overall revisionist outlook" as an attempt to side-step this issue. (Clark, p.10)

The post-war encirclement of the former socialist bloc by imperialism, exemplified by the Cold War, meant that the USSR was forced to sustain a massive arms expenditure.

By 1981-1985 the growth rate of the Soviet economy, obviously on a larger total economic base, was 3.3% compared with 11.2% in 1951-55. (Samary, 1988, P.13) In order to increase the level of consumer goods and spend money on arms the Soviets withdrew capital from long-term investment: in 1978/79 it was only 1%; in 1980 - 0.5%. Estimates on the amount of the Soviet budget allocated to military expenditure vary considerably from 11% of GNP in the 1976-80 10th year plan, (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.144), to CIA estimates of 15% of GNP. (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.89)

If many ostensibly civilian projects, (e.g. space research), which have considerable military implications are included in the calculations then the percentage of the Soviet economy devoted to military spending of one kind or another may have been much higher. The low productivity of Soviet labour did not allow the Soviet Union to compete with the world economy on favourable terms. This low productivity, and this is where a profound connection between the internal and external life of the Soviet Union existed, could only have been boosted by the energy and initiative of the masses. Such an input was not forthcoming.

This was fatal because the limits of the Soviet economy as regards growth via extensive surplus value had been reached, and a move to the intensive accumulation of surplus value was necessary. In the absence of relying on the masses the leadership of the USSR was forced to look to advanced technology as a short-term palliative. (Hence, the importance of Western attempts, led by the US, to prevent the export of advanced technologies to the Soviet Union.). This could have been partly offset by internal technological innovations but, as noted above, these tended to be stifled.

I don't disagree that the social relations were flawed in the USSR, but I massively disagree on the cause of this. You claim that it is due to the inherent nature of collectivist economies, but I claim that, with historical backing, it was due to capitalist-bourgeois intereference that led to the deformation of relations.

[Social_Critic]

I don't disagree that the social relations were flawed in the USSR, but I massively disagree on the cause of this. You claim that it is due to the inherent nature of collectivist economies, but I claim that, with historical backing, it was due to capitalist-bourgeois intereference that led to the deformation of relations.

I agree fully. As a veteran who survived the workers' paradise, I can vouch it was our deeply felt capitalist and burgeois feelings which interfered with our ability to function within a communist society, and deformed our relations with the party nomenklatura. This is why so many of us were focused on stealing and corruption. Being an honest fella, I decided it was better to seek a better life elsewhere. Which I did.

I know it must be extremely painful for communists around the world to rationalize why communism fails all the time. Having lived in a communist society, this was a subject we discussed when we could, because after all it was our skin in play. We weren't into scholarly discussions, we mostly focused on "why the hell has it failed so badly"? and also "what's the best way to get out"? The system was so repressive, nobody gave a thought to "lets throw the bums out of office". Having had so many years to think about it, I can conclude again, "it failed because it sucked". I know Dima got mad at me because I shrink history so much. So I could add Poland-Afghanistan-Chernobyl-Lower oil profits. This is why it went to hell in the 80's, it was a perfect storm.

[Smilin' Dave]

I agree fully. As a veteran who survived the workers' paradise, I can vouch it was our deeply felt capitalist and burgeois feelings which interfered with our ability to function within a communist society, and deformed our relations with the party nomenklatura. This is why so many of us were focused on stealing and corruption. Being an honest fella, I decided it was better to seek a better life elsewhere. Which I did.

I know it must be extremely painful for communists around the world to rationalize why communism fails all the time. Having lived in a communist society, this was a subject we discussed when we could, because after all it was our skin in play. We weren't into scholarly discussions, we mostly focused on "why the hell has it failed so badly"? and also "what's the best way to get out"? The system was so repressive, nobody gave a thought to "lets throw the bums out of office". Having had so many years to think about it, I can conclude again, "it failed because it sucked". I know Dima got mad at me because I shrink history so much. So I could add Poland-Afghanistan-Chernobyl-Lower oil profits. This is why it went to hell in the 80's, it was a perfect storm.

'
This idea of Communism being fundamentally contradicted by human nature doesn't explain why the Soviet Union didn't fail much sooner, or why it achieved so many successes in addition to its many failures. Passing off everyone who disagrees with you as a Communist is even more lazy than your purported explanation. Your 'well I was there so I would know' thing is kind of ruined by your earlier inability to distinguish between the August Coup and the 1993 storming of the White House.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Indeed. It reminds me of when I was travelling on the train back from Perm with Gorbachev on the eve of the 27th Party Congress and he told me that "Christ Was A Socialist".

[Smilin' Dave]

Indeed. It reminds me of when I was travelling on the train back from Perm with Gorbachev on the eve of the 27th Party Congress and he told me that "Christ Was A Socialist".

Lets be fair, this might be more of a glinert thing than an Eddier1 thing...

[Maxim Litvinov]

Ah, memories. So many real ones from PoFo, so many fake ones from the Soviet Union...

[Ombrageux]

I think SC has a point. The command economies wouldn't have been able to get by without the black and grey economies. There is something to be said for market-based price mechanisms.

[Smilin' Dave]

I think SC has a point. The command economies wouldn't have been able to get by without the black and grey economies. There is something to be said for market-based price mechanisms.

Precisely. The caracature of the Soviet Union being run by dogmatists in a strict top-down economy however, as portrayed by SC, isn't really right. The black/grey market has been described as tolerated as part of the 'little deal' with Brezhnev. Market-based pricing mechanisms were experimented with. Food grown in private plots was sold in small markets. Managers of enterprises turned to the tolchak (I might have that spelt wrong) to acquire the parts they couldn't get. But even this doesn't adequetely explain the continued function, and achievements, of the system. I mean the grey market didn't produce the tokamak reactor did it?

[Maxim Litvinov]

The two problems with S_C's position are:
[1] (as just elaborated) it can't account for the persistence of the system for 7 decades if it says a command economy is extremely and fundamentally flawed.
[2] It tries to evaluate a socialist command economy from the perspective of "success" under a liberal market economy and on a level playing field with some of the biggest, most successful liberal market states. Comparing consumer goods or GDP is not a viable fair comparison between command and non-command states, just as comparing areas where Soviet command economics excelled - such as industrial production or social inclusion - isn't fair. We should also keep in mind that we're comparing a basketcase that wasn't in the G20 in 1910 and be mindful of changes in Russia's economics since rather than pretend things were tickety-boo before Soviet economics stepped in.

Producing world class technology to put the first person in space isn't too much of an achievement in 40 years if you were where the US was in 1921. From where Russia was in 1921 though, it is a monumental achievement.