Comment by samat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by samat | Hacker News Reader

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There is a popular myth that 'there was a mighty USSR and some enemies ruined it'.

The Soviet Union collapsed because of massively broken economy. That's just basic science. They exported oil and imported grain. Russia imported GRAIN for gods sake. Then oil prices collapsed. Next? They did nothing and just ate through the resources until they were no more.

And then 'evil liberals/evil west destroying the great country' happened, when finally USSR had no money to pay for the social obligations and for massive military.

This are the undisputed facts, supported by a vast trove of internal documents from the late USSR and first years of the Russian Federations.

A monograph by Egor Gaidar [1] is an excellent source referencing tons of the original documents.

Sorry for Russian, not sure this is available in English anywhere.

I get that it's easier to think that source of our problems is some evil mastermind and conspiracy. But think of the Occam's razor — this is explained much easier by sheer incompetency and stupidity and no checks and balances to mitigate them.

1. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Гибель_империи_(монография)

The truth is in between. Was USSR full of internal problems? Yes. Did USA and allies want USSR destroyed and actively work on? Also yes. Saying that Cold War and the arms race had absolutely no role in USSR collapse is either a blatant lie or incompetence.

Exactly. Had the west not interfered, the USSR would recover from the 80s crisis. Instead, they took advantage of its shortcomings and managed to break up the union: Gorbachev is considered by many Russians a traitor, but he was not the only western investment in toppling the Soviet Union.

Let's remind that full-on opening of the market was not what the west promised, but it's what they pushed for once the reforms passed a point of no return and they wouldn't take "no" for an answer. Propaganda is what won the cold war.

I think you miss a crucial fact here - large part of Soviet block was incorporated by force and wanted to get rid of their influence as fast as possible. Nobody misses USRR here in Poland.

Poland is a weird example since it doesn’t seem like they fit in the EU either, almost like an outcast.

But let’s look at other ex-Soviet countries. Territorial quarrels and dumb nationalism were unthinkable back then. Look at Azerbaijani and Armenians, ethnic Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine, Georgia...

If only we ("other ex-Soviet countries") could stop our "dumb nationalism" and go back to being nice "little-brother nations", speaking Russian, fighting Western imperialism together somewhere in Afghanistan after being drafted to glorious Red army... Those where the times, comrade!

Or you can compare countries from a similar regions that decided to stick close to Russia (Ukraine and Belarus) vs countries that decided to stick with the West (Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia).

> Also yes. Saying that Cold War and the arms race had absolutely no role in USSR collapse is either a blatant lie or incompetence.

USSR could've easily continued its existence if it went full "North Korean." Union's army had no problem to force populace to eat grass in case of a complete economic collapse.

I attribute the single most important contribution to Union's collapse to US funding exchange visits for hundreds of USSR's senior officials, and completely nullifying their will to struggle: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24728237

The very same thing has happened to China, and Xi is trying hard to undo it.

His message of absolute committment to, and inreversability of "opening up" don't mean anything to 99% of ordinary citizens.

Whom he addresses these messages to are not ordinary Chines, but elites whom he tries to convince to the best of his abilities to not to drop the ball on him, and the system.

> The Soviet Union collapsed because of massively broken economy.

Which was a direct consequence of surreal levels of corruption, incompetence, and double digit percentages of country's GDP coming, and going out of existence annually as a result.

If anybody are to call names, those would've been the most hardcore brezhneviks themselves.

> They did nothing and just ate through the resources until they were no more.

Those resources they ate through -- when were they accumulated? I find it hard to believe that they became a superpower by just coasting on the wealth that existed in 1917.

In 1917 they were in ruins.

in 1940 they went toe to toe with the worlds greatest industrial super power (or second greatest - depending how you count) in war and won.

The economic development achieved by the Soviet Union in the first half of its reign was incredible.

They made the best rockets, fighter planes, super computers.... But they never made a TV with a remote control.

> The economic development achieved by the Soviet Union in the first half of its reign was incredible.

That's a regurgitation of a great lie. Krusev indicated in his memoire that economic data of Stalin's years was defying kindergarden level arithmetics, was utter garbage, and he gave few convincing examples of that, and here, I would believe him.

Union's economy saw few ups, and downs during its existence, and those under Stalin, and Breznev were not ups by any extend of imagination.

The German army at the gates of Moscow, Stalingrad/Volgagrad, and Lenningrad/St Petersburg found it was no lie.

Do not rely on state propaganda, look at the results

German army mostly found that Union had more soldiers than they had bullets, and that wehrmacht got to Moscow on the fumes.

The "massive industrial advantage" was nothing not to be expected from the most resource rich country on the planet.

Yet, the country was, by all accounts, from both most staunch communist party sources, and contemporary anticommunists, completely incapable of running during the crisis, and "all in" strategy of manufacturing one gun, one tank, one shell, one plane in massive amounts was a result of desperation, not industrial might.

Very odd.

How is making more tanks, guns, and aeroplanes done on desperation and not industrial might?

I think ideology has gotten in the way of reason!

Up to 40% of the tanks that fought on the Russian side in these battles were supplied by the British. UK provided a huge amount of war material to the USSR that helped keep it in the war.

I do not think that is true. Maybe 40% of the types of tank.

Some facts from Wikipedia: At the opening of operation Barbarosa the Red Army had four to one advantage over the Nazis in tank numbers.

By 1941 lend lease tanks were 6.5% of Soviet tanks, about a quarter of medium and heavy tanks.

Where do you get "up to 40%" from?

Even if true my point still stands.

According t Alex Nove in 1900 there was not a metal lathe in all of Russia. They could de clinker locomotives, but not make a gear box. By 1941 they were out stripping the Germans.

That is the greatest economic achievement of the twentieth century.

(IMO the Bolsheviks were sadistic psychopaths, but credit where credit is due)

> According t Alex Nove in 1900 there was not a metal lathe in all of Russia. They could de clinker locomotives, but not make a gear box. By 1941 they were out stripping the Germans.

Again, you are regurgitating a myth.

I would not doubt the 4 to 1 outgunning of USSR vs. Germany. Indeed Union's army was incomparably materially superior due to decades long total dedication to military buildup, but that does not preclude the fact the industry was still barely going, and that this material advantage melted like butter within first months of war.

How about some evidence?

"probably" does not cut it.

The lie is the Soviets were bad economic managers. They pulled off the most incredible feat in industrialising their economy in less than fifty years, more liek twenty five useful years.

The millions of starved peasants, slaughtered "class enemies", exiled dissidents.... They were there too. Not pretty, not moral, not desirable, but incredible achievement nonetheless.

I am not sure, how in the context of such a system "efficiency" can be measured. But in raw capacity there has never been anything like it until the Chinese in the nineties and naughties with their own millions of starved peasants, slaughtered "class enemies", exiled dissidents....

in 1940 they went toe to toe with the worlds greatest industrial super power (or second greatest - depending how you count) in war and won.

Yes, by throwing ten million of their own citizens at the problem.

They won because Hitler ran out of bullets before Stalin ran out of targets.

And what was the alternative? The German’s objective was to literally clear the land out for German settlers. By killing everyone inhabiting those lands. For soviets it was a matter of giving at least some chance of survival to women and children they were trying to protect. Imagine all those soldiers who knew they had to sacrifice their lives. And you try to reduce their bravery to being “Stalin’s targets”.

We're not talking about what should have been done, but at how efficient the USSR was.

It. was. not at all.

I mean, how do you quantify that? I’d love to see the study measuring USSR efficiency.

They were incredibly efficient at big industry

But never could make consumer goods. When the economy had to pivot to a consumer lead one, they found that all the economists with different ideas had been shot....

You seem to forget that oil became an increasingly important resource. And the USSR had a LOT of oil. Look at how Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Norway developed, and then look at the USSR.

> Egor Gaidar [1] is an excellent source

This is published in English as [1] Yegor Gaidar, "Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia".

TLDR is maybe this [2] write-up of a talk, 8 pages, very interesting.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia...

[1] https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/20070419_Gaid...

Keep in mind that Gaidar is one of the most controversial figures in Russian history.

Would be interested in links discussing this, if you know good ones (in English!). Who's the anti-Gaidar one should read to see his opponents point of view?

Sadly I don’t know any serious economist who would oppose him. But yes, he was demonized by state run media in the last years and hence is a controversial figure.

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