Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

The End of the Soviet Union

Atyeo

14:13 / 28.06.04

Hello everybody.

This is my firstest ever post on this fine site.

Apologies if this has been covered before but I have thinking recently - why did the Soviet Union collapse.

Was it the choice of the Russian people?
Did the US price the USSR out of the world market?
Were the US/Saudis with there cheap oil able to choke the Soviet economy to death?

Any thoughts?

Ray Fawkes

14:53 / 28.06.04

Briefly:

- The Soviets did quite a good job of choking their own economy. The causes of the collapse, in summary:

- Disastrously poor economic policy and rampant corruption in government leading to seriously mismanaged resources & widespread poverty - exacerbated by the diversion of massive funds into military expenditure in an attempt to keep pace with the United States

- extreme dissatisfaction among the citizenry precipitated by economic conditions as well as ongoing oppression of basic freedoms & legacy terror tactics perpetrated by government upon them

- Gorbachev's glastnost and perestroika reforms, attempting to open the pathway to economic revitalization by creating encouragement of open exchange of ideas - leading to vocal protest against oppressive conditions

- basically: economic collapse + relaxation of oppressive force + long-suffering citizenry = revolution.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:09 / 28.06.04

You could also look at it in terms of poor information flow; the notion that "there are no castles Bolsheviks cannot storm" (which translated in Stalin's era as "if you can't meet the targets set, however unrealistic, you're a saboteur", and eventually became "if you can't do what's asked of you or if you've inherited a department which can't do anything it claims to be able to, tell no one and divert blame") so throroughly disrupted the central government's ability to do anything at all that the country just didn't work.

It's a problem any number of modern nations suffer from, and it's one with which the US will become intimately acquainted if there isn't a change of culture at the top. The Bush White House has a distinct tendency to ignore reality and accuse anyone who tries to reintroduce facts into the discussion of being anti-American.

lekvar

02:15 / 29.06.04

No no no no no. Weren't you paying attention? Jeez, everybody knows the Soviet Union collapsed because the were Evil. And they couldn't withstand the power of Western-style Rock-n-Roll and bluejeans.

flufeemunk effluvia

14:10 / 29.06.04

<threadrot>I love how the War On Terrah is basically a war on the Truman Doctrine...</threadrot>

grant

14:48 / 29.06.04

Actually, I think there may be more to that rock-n-roll & blue jeans thing than one might expect. I definitely got the sense that America cornered the pop culture market while the Soviets were busy being collective. Definite victory in morale, I think.
Of course, I grew up here, in America. Anyone from Eastern Europe or elsewhere have a different perspective?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:40 / 29.06.04

Interesting point. When I went to East Berlin in the early eighties, what struck me was the lack of bright colours. East Berlin was the showcase of the Soviet Bloc, and there was pastel everywhere, and shades of brown and grey. Either Soviet Bloc culture didn't make people feel like wearing bright colours, or the economy/infrastructure couldn't provide them. I think probably a bit of both - standing out definitely wasn't something your average citizen wanted to do.

As to whether it's a victory for Capitalism... too early to tell, but it seems to me to be a victory for kleptocracy. I'm not a big fan of Capitalism, but it would be better if people didn't cheat all the damn time.

Sir Real

17:11 / 29.06.04

This may be threadrot, but I love this quote and don't get to use it often enough. It's from the most recent William Gibson book and the charecter is a contemporary Russian and it goes a little like this:
"Everything Lenin told us about Communism was a lie and everything he told us about Capitalism was true."

Add Your Reply