Wrong, because you say so? Nice way to turn the tables
You do not need to read through it all, juts hit "CTRL F" type in "economic" and get the quick information. Besides the same can be said for you, your arguments are the opposite of my take on things, I see you as wrong. I however took the initiative to provide sources.
Since you seem to be lazy though: All that follows comes from previously listed sources. The information below does not follow a strict time-line, but covers the broad strokes in regards to my, tosh...I mean posts.
Yegor Gaidar: a Soviet and Russian economist, politician and author, and was the Acting Prime Minister of Russia from 15 June 1992 to 14 December 1992 wrote:The result of the disastrous agriculture policy implemented between the late 1920s and the early 1950s was the sharpest fall of productivity experienced by a major country in the twentieth century.
Russia could not feed its people on their own thus they needed to export oil for grain. The USSR was feeling the hurt from as early as the 1950's, this was summed up by the Soviet premier, Aleksey Kosygin who ordered the oil refiners to produce more oil.
Aleksey Kosygin wrote:Please give three million tons above the planning level. The situation with the bread is awful
By 1975, the Soviet Union began having serious problems with the output of new oil wells: much higher investment was needed for the current operations to get the same output. Those wells were going dry and when the price of oil went higher so did the Soviet percentage points, however the oil was an unstable resource.
Oil, which accounted for 60% of export revenues, was becoming costlier to produce as Soviet engineers, operating on short-term Communist Party commands to increase immediate production, turned to recovery techniques that wasted oil and damaged pipelines. Disorder and mismanagement in the oil industry, as a result of Gorbachev's failed economic reforms, compounded the problem. Strikes and martial law in Azerbaijan, the main supplier of oil-producing equipment, left the Siberian oil fields short of spare parts and production came to a halt.
These reforms actually caused the Soviet economy to deteriorate, as unprofitable private enterprises were subsidized by the state, and the lack of state oversight of supply lines resulted in shortages of food and clothing, which were unknown even under Brezhnev. These crises seriously undermined the legitimacy of the government.
The real trouble started when Russia used its reserve oil to start the war in Afghanistan, the occupation drained economic resources and dragged on without achieving meaningful political results. Russia did this as a first step to gain control over the oil fields in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia saw this coming and in 1979 they lifted the embargo on the United States, in order to gain American protection. After Saudi Arabia stopped capping oil prices and took the lead in oil sales, Russia was losing over 20 billion a year and without that money, they were in trouble.
The Soviet leadership decided to adopt a policy of ignoring the problem in hopes that it would somehow wither away. From 1985 onwards, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the policies of glasnost and perestroika in an attempt to modernize the country and make it more democratic.
General Nikolai Leonov wrote:First there was a visible decline in the rate of growth, then its complete stagnation. There was a drawnout, deepening and almost insurmountable crisis in agriculture. It was a frightening and truly terrifying sign of crisis. It was these factors that were crucial in the transition to perestroika.
However, this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements. Gorbachev's reforms enabled the creation of an entirely new political class in Russia and the other Soviet republics. This rising political class included the very men who were directly responsible for the dissolution of the union. Populists like Boris Yeltsin rose to prominence in this period, as did nationalists in other Soviet republics who sought greater independence from Russia.
Instead of implementing actual reforms, the Soviet Union started to borrow money from abroad, while its international credit rating was still strong. It borrowed heavily from 1985 to 1988, but in 1989 the Soviet economy stalled completely.
The money was suddenly gone. The Soviet Union tried to create a consortium of 300 banks to provide a large loan for the Soviet Union in 1989, but was informed that only five of them would participate and, as a result, the loan would be twenty times smaller than needed.
Yury Maslyukov: Chairman of the State Planning Committee wrote:We understand that the only source of hard currency is, of course, the source of oil. . . . If we do not make all the necessary decisions now, next year may turn out to be beyond our worst nightmares. . . . As for the socialist countries, they may all end up in a most critical situation. All this will lead us to a veritable collapse, and not only us, but our whole system
Nikolai Ryzhkov: Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR wrote:The Soviet Foreign Trade Bank guarantees are needed, but it cannot provide them. . . . If there is no oil, there will be no national economy.
In the meantime, the Soviet Union started to have severe food shortages, and grain deliveries were not being made to large cities.
Anatoly Chernyaev: Aide to Mikhail Gorbachev wrote:If the grain cannot be obtained somewhere, famine may come by June. . . . Moscow has probably never seen anything like that throughout its history--even in its hungriest years.
Russia scrambled for loans, for food and coal was scarce due to having worker shortages and resources. Falling oil production not only hurt Soviet exports, but also created enormous pressure to increase coal production. But the coal industry, too, was plagued with strikes. Over the course of 1990, the Soviet system was starved of coal by major mine strikes that escalated into rampant unrest in the Donetsk and Western Siberian coal fields.
Still other problems conspired to make matters worse. The notoriously inadequate Soviet computers failed to keep track of rolling stock and warehouse inventories, with the result that thousands of freight cars filled with coal, fuel, food, and other commodities were stolen or more often lost and left to rot.
Russia only survived because De Beers Consolidated Mines provided a $1 billion loan using Soviet diamonds for collateral. In the end, however, international lending did not fix the existing fundamental problems and the loan did nothing but extend the life of the terminally sick Soviet system.
The USSR fell from 1985 to 1991, hard. Russia still has its problems, but is doing better.
[1] Their economy was 'crap' - supported and correct.
[2] People went hungry and were cold - supported and correct.
[3] Russia didn't export - supported and correct.
[4] Smaller parties took what power that was left in the central government - supported and correct.
[5] Russians started importing more basic staples from overseas - supported and correct & rather important as it contributed to money going out, when none was coming in.
[6] Russians didn't have money left - supported and correct.
Maxim Litvinov, Where are
you inventing this fantasy society from?