Theories on the collapse of the USSR - Page 7 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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'Cold war' communist versus capitalist ideological struggle (1946 - 1990) and everything else in the post World War II era (1946 onwards).
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By Ombrageux
#13728105
I am not saying that Gorbachev would have necessarily survived the "fire" of semi-democratic Union-level and/or presidential elections. As the Soviet Union's last dictator, however, he was in a strong position to manage these elections in such a way that he could remain dominant (see Putin today and indeed the plethora of "illiberal democracies" in the world).

However, that is beside the point. If he were a statesman, an institution-building and not a power-clinger, he would have attempted to create things that could outlast him. Even if he were to lose such elections, to a Yeltsin or a more respectable figure (e.g. some Putin-Medvedev style thing..), it would have given the leadership real legitimacy and given the executive real power in bullying the bureaucracy into reform.

Of course it's very easy to player Monday morning quarterback with historic giants! :lol:
By Smilin' Dave
#13728110
Ombrageux wrote:As the Soviet Union's last dictator...

The Soviets didn't have anything like one man rule after Khrushchev... and really even Khrushchev got pulled back into line by the rest of the Politburo on occasion. I think this is an important distinction to make because you seem to cast Soviet failure to reform as one of 'dictator clining to power', when it was a lot more complex than that.

Ombrageux wrote:If he were a statesman, an institution-building and not a power-clinger

On the foreign policy scene Gorbachev was quite the statesman though? I'm unclear why you don't think glasnost and perestroika were not insistution building policies. They certainly were not intended to be temporary NEP-style. Gorbachev's most 'power clingy' policy, uskorenie, didn't have any detrimental impact on the political or economic structure (it didn't work either but hey) so I think that suggesting that this behaviour was the doom of them all doesn't really add up.
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By ozone
#13747446
Gorbachev, Kruchyov and Boris Yeltsin, they all caused the implosion of my everdearest Union of Soviet Socialist Republic..Gorbachev provoked Kruchyov into a fit. Kruchyov retaliated with an attempted coup... Gorbachev was also provoked into a fit and loosened controls and opened the press. The result was an uncontrollable populace who littered Red Square. Boris Yeltsin also provoked Gorbachev. Gorbachev retaliated by expelling him the Communist Party. It embittered Yeltsin and swore to bring down Gorbachev, Kruchyov and the Communist Party of USSR..The rest was history..It was a terrible accident..That was how I analyzed everything..

Off-topic ramble redacted - SD
Last edited by ozone on 04 Jul 2011 02:09, edited 4 times in total.
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By Potemkin
#13747453
I think ihofidel has nailed it. How could the rest of us have been so blind as not to see the truth?! :eek:

Thank you, ihofidel. As always, your calm, insightful analysis has enlightened us all. :)
#13793565
I know this thread has been kind of dead for a while, but since it's still in the top 10, I might as well share my analysis.

I think at the root of the collapse was the inadequacy of the socialist system in fulfilling the needs of a modern state. I don't claim to know why exactly it failed (and here, if someone can fill in for me, please do so), but I do think that its failure was clearly manifest. The collapse of the state occurred when the system hit a dead end and there was simply no other way out.

The economic problems seem to have begun as early as 1960s, when the growth began to slow and various attempts at market-oriented economic reforms were made (e.g. the Liberman reform). For the most part, these attempts were short lived, silently abandoned due to the (legitimate) fear of destabilizing capitalist influence on the integrity of the state, as well as its ideological inconsistency with the Soviet doctrine. The reforms that were carried out were far insufficient and led to very short term gains. In 1970s the problems began to rapidly accumulate. Economic growth slowed again and in some Warsaw pact nations even sank into the negative by the end of the decade. In places where economic growth persisted, it did so at the cost of further declining labour efficiency and rising economic imbalances. The agricultural sector, for example, was a complete mess, requiring the largest grain basket in the world to import food from the West rather than being able to feed itself. The economic planning and distribution system began to visibly malfunction, causing critical shortages in many sectors, particularly consumer goods, leading to the infamous queues at product stores. As a consequence, the influence of the black market began to rapidly rise, creating a shadow economy and further depriving the state of the means of accurate economic monitoring and control. A radical reform or collapse of the system might have occurred right there and then, had it not been for the highly favorable international situation in the 1970s. The economic problems in the OECD countries (which were not anywhere near as severe as the Soviet problems, but they were problems nonetheless) as well as the social backlash of the Vietnam/Algeria wars allowed the Soviets to reach a detente with the West, giving them the opportunity to avoid having to engage in particularly costly arms races or military adventures. At the same time, the rising prices on raw materials, particularly oil, thanks to the Arab oil embargo and later the Iranian revolution, allowed the Soviets to continue exporting their main naturally abundant commodity and maintain a semblance of economic tranquility and even growth. When even that became insufficient in the 1980s, the eastern bloc countries resorted to the humiliating practice of excessive capital borrowing from the Paris Club of the OECD. Unlike China or Vietnam, for the Soviet leaders it was clear that Marxism was the very foundation of the state, without which the state could not exist. Therefore, they did their utmost to avoid having to face the reality that their ideology was going bankrupt.

In the meantime, the ethics of the population shifted. These could be partly blamed on the seeping cultural influence of the West, which physically could not be entirely contained, as well as on the natural changes in the human environment, such as the lengthening of lifetimes, rising cost of education and of labour, slowing rate of population growth, general improvement in literacy and wellbeing of the population, etc. This change in ethics had many practical implications for the eastern bloc, such as the decline of the revolutionary zeal and trust in state institutions, rising cynicism, rising value of human life, increasing individualism, and nationalism. All these things could be equally said of the capitalist world as well, and the capitalist world struggled with all of them in the same time period - some even predicted a crisis of democracy. But ultimately, it turned out to be much better equipped at dealing with them than the socialist East. When combined with the economic failures of the East, the results of the changing ethics were particularly disastrous as they led to rapidly increasing cronyism, bribery, alcoholism, and a general disrespect for the State and its ideology, exemplified by the large number of political jokes which emerged during that time period, all pointing to the inadequacy of the socialist order. There weren't nearly as many biting political jokes during the Khrushchev's Thaw.

Even the military situation progressively worsened. Every new war plan drawn up by NATO perceived less and less threat from the Warsaw Pact. If in the beginning of the Cold War, the Allies could only realistically hope to halt the Soviet invasion with the use of nuclear weapons, by the 1980s, they were much more confident in their ability to not only halt but repel the Communist forces using conventional weaponry. There was a relatively high demand for Soviet weaponry among countries who could not afford to buy western equipment for economic or political reasons, but the combat performance of the Soviet weapons was for the most part sub-par. Furthermore, the rise of nationalism and individualism meant that the Soviet state could no longer hope to maintain control of any territory by military means alone. If in 1956 it was possible for the Soviet army to enter Budapest alone and take control of the country despite active public resistance, in the 1980s this would have been a suicide mission. The troops would refuse to fire, the resistance would be overwhelming, the domestic pressure would be great, and the international outrage would be unbearable. Already in the year 1980, the Soviet KGB under Andropov admitted that the practice of armed intervention in the near abroad was effectively over as the consequence of intervention would be a total disaster. This was the real end of the Warsaw Pact, from there on it was just a matter of time.

So, on all fronts - in military, economic, and social spheres, the Warsaw Pact states (as well as USSR-aligned Yugoslavia) in the 1960s/1970s were losing control and rotting on the inside, all the while trying to maintain the appearance of normality. The Soviet Union was a paper tiger, and this became obvious in early 1980s, when the OECD countries began quickly recovering from their economic troubles and jumping back into the Cold War with fresh energy. The oil prices collapsed, the national debt began to reach worrying levels, while the arms race gained new momentum, and add to it all, the Soviets had a misfortune of getting stuck in a costly and bloody mess in Afghanistan. The Warsaw Pact economies were about to enter a deep recession, and the only possible end to the recession was radical reform. To avoid a catastrophic economic collapse, the communist states urgently needed more western credit and economic assistance. They could not afford any confrontation that could lead to even minor sanctions or armed conflicts against NATO-backed agents. Therefore, the Cold War was over. Now, with no more Cold War and no more Warsaw Pact, what is left? The USSR itself. But like the others, it simply could not afford pissing off the West, plus, as mentioned before, its army had become incapable of enforcing order in areas where it was not wanted. And in the circumstances of economic downfall, ideological bankruptcy, and the lack of credible Soviet military threat - there was nothing left that could tie the Soviet republics together in a union. All the Soviet Republics and their formerly socialist leaders saw this. Therefore, all the republics richer than Russia, especially those on its western border, began to quickly pursue independence and demand entry to the safe heavens of the EU and NATO. The republics poorer than Russia, close to it culturally, or far away geographically from EU and NATO could still be persuaded to stay in, but why would Russia want this kind of union? The union of 8 poor nations leaching on to and demanding subsidy from the Russian economy, while flooding it with immigrants and having an absolutely disproportionate degree of control over its politics (e.g. equal representation for each republic in the upper house of Soviet parliament regardless of their population, territory, or economic size) - it's the last thing the Russian people wanted. It's the last thing any country would want. Therefore, when it became clear that there was simply nothing the Union authorities could do to convince the richer republics to stay in, Russia silently declared itself independent and the Soviet Union was over. Russia then actually encouraged many states to adopt separate currencies, border controls, and militaries, as soon as possible.

Notice that I used very few actual names of prominent political figures in my analysis. That is because I don't believe that particular leaders were of much importance to this. What happened had to happen, regardless of what any particular individual wanted. Unfortunately, I don't think that the Soviet Union had a chance of survival even if the radical economic reforms had been introduced much sooner. Maybe though, at least the post-collapse economic hardship might have been not as painful as that of 1990s.
By Andropov
#13987222
Social_Critic wrote:So each helicopter pilot and his crew got their decals, went out, put them on their machine, and that was it. To them, the Soviet Union was dead. And not one of them protested, or shed a tear. They were sick and tired of it. I went into my cabin, and had a drink, and toasted. So indeed it was easy for the Soviet Union to die. Nobody cared for it, as far as I know.


"as far as I know"- quite right, as you know nothing. Your worthless anecdotes are meaningless. 80% of Soviet citizens voted for the maintenance of the USSR in 1991.

Today, the percentage of people who regret the fall of the Soviet Union in Russia and Ukraine make up an overwhelming majority. Soviet society, for all its flaws, was based on values of brotherhood, friendship, and honesty. People felt themselves genuinely part of something greater than themselves. Watch a video of Soviet life anywhere from the Stalin period to the early 1980's; the people have a look of purposefulness, of destiny on their faces. What is modern Russia based on? Pursuit of individual interests above all else? The New Soviet Man, who built his country from ruins in the Great Patriotic War, flew to space, and achieved the best education system in the world, is now no more. And what has replaced it? The New Russian Man? He is not a man, but a primal beast, concerned only with wealth, power, and sensual pleasure.

The prevailing attitude today in the countryside of Russia and Ukraine, outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev, is that the fall of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe of ineffable proportions. Living standards have still not reached Soviet levels. Not a single factory has been built since the fall. Education and medicine are being systematically dismantled. Do you know who is paid the least in modern Russia? Doctors and teachers. If this is not a sure way to lead a nation to its grave, I don't know what is.

I highly advise you not to spout your propoganda to a former citizen of the USSR today, or else you will find yourself the next day in the hospital on life support. It may seem like I am exaggerating nostalgia for the USSR, but I'm not. For the last 20 years, there was a propoganda campaign to tell Russians that their woes are the result of a "transitional period" from Socialism to Capitalism. Now, with the rise of the internet, people are finally waking up to the vulgar robbery their country has been subjected to since the fall.

I would not be surprised to see massive civil unrest in Russia and elsewhere in the former USSR. What is needed is a new Lenin, and a new revolutionary vanguard party, to channel the people's anger into action, and finally bring to an end the misery of the last 20 years of soulless, inhuman bourgeoisie hegemony.
#15151021
Pikachus point about how the USSR couldn’t enforce its interests even if it wanted offers a different characterization to Gorbachevs approach of not crushing opposition. And the economic downfall playing a part in the weakening of their military power is not something I’ve seen as explicitly stated.

Does paint a good picture of the likely inevitability of the USSRs collapse. Although Gorbachevs policies perhaps could’ve been done as to not leave Russia so fucked by Yeltsin afterwards.

I do wonder about the hardliners though who attempted a coup despite the point of the nomenklatura being so cynical about socialism if not simply unbelievers.
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