What contributed most to the fall of the Soviet Union?

[Stinky The Clown]

That fucking old actor standing there and demanding the wall be torn down was the LEAST contribution to the fall of the USSR.

I see two possibilities:

Overspending on Defense in general.

Spending in Afghanistan, specifically.

Communism, too, wasn't the issue. They would eventually have evolved to regulated, socialistic capitalism, sorta like where China's headed.



Does thinking about their fall put you in mind the US's situation today?

[Botany]

1. Communism, too, wasn't the issue

:rofl:

please it was a terrible system and doomed to fail

[Stinky The Clown]

2. When you stop laughing .... that isn't what I said.

I said it would have evolved to socialistic capitalism.

Yes, communism won't work. I agree.

[Botany]

5. I was in eastern europe in the late 1980s

and the state run economies were awful ..... and it sure didn't
look like it was evolving into anything.

I watched them "build a road" with premade squares of concrete brought out
on a truck ..... here we bring the concrete out in a mix truck and pour it into
forms .... i saw projects that were started and then the people just walked away
from the job.

Harry Trueman's George Kennan predicted that communism would fall under
it's own weight given time in the 1940s.

[RoyGBiv]

31. Generations ...

The rise of the post-WWII generation to roles of prominence, especially those who were not directly involved in the war itself, is one of the primary contributing factors to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The economy and over-spending on defense was a part of it, but that could have gone on indefinitely, at least in theory, with the right kind of leaders who were willing to let the country's infrastructure crumble and the people starve and freeze as long as they put up a good front to maintain their buffer and separation from the West. Economic concerns had always been a dire issue in Russia and other Soviet-bloc countries, but not until the Paranoid Generation was falling out of power did the beginning of changes to the system start.

Of course, that is an incredibly simplified version.

[readmoreoften]

38. Yeah, that's a description of a purely "economic" problem.

No one ever walks off the job in the US. :eyes:

[readmoreoften]

41. There is no such thing as "socialistic capitalism" and China is a totalitarian capitalist state.

Deng Xao Peng turned China into a capitalist state. There is no "communism" there. In fact, it is communists who are at the head of fighting for democracy there. China is nothing but a ruthless free-market economy overseen by a totalitarian government.

Sure you can try for "regulated capitalism" but "regulating capitalism" is utopian--business interests buy off politicians, buy media conglomerates to push ideology, and then do what they please. Why is capitalism "regulated" in Europe? Well, in part because socialists still exist there as an alternative possibility and if the people are treated well they WILL overthrow their governments.

[Mr Rabble]

23. Good thing it wasnt communism in Russia.

Russia was a totalitarian state with a state capitalist economy. To call Russia communist is like calling the US a free market system.

Neither is accurate, no matter how ofter it is repeated by the doctrinal system.

[readmoreoften]

37. Exactly. Socialism exists to be an international system. After Stalin it was a different animal.

Socialism is impossible when the resources of a nation are drained by defense.

[Mr Rabble]

39. Agreed. Its a propaganda victory just how the word is now viewed.

Unfortunately for many people even here, terms like terrorism and communism elicit jingoist fanaticism, and a reduction of thinking capacity.

[readmoreoften]

42. Yeah I love arguments about how capitalism "works." It works great for bankers.

Not so well for people, the environment, plant life, and animals. But hey! In the scheme of things what are "people, the environment, plant life, and animals?"

[madokie]

3. Pretty much what you think I agree with

and yes I do see some parallels with the US.

[roamer65]

4. The Afghan war and trying to keep pace with our accelerated military spending.

They couldn't do both at the same time for an extended period. Just like Iraq and Afghanistan will take us right down the shitter.

[randr]

6. Rock an Roll

Once a generation started hearing western R&R they could no longer feed them the same crap over and over again.
IMHO

[smoogatz]

7. Overspending on defense, especially given their internal economic

collapse: the USSR was basically a shell economy--the real economy was at a standstill, unable to provide for the basic needs of most Soviet citizens. They had nothing to trade and zero hard currency. They knew there was oil and gas waiting to be developed in Siberia, but they lacked the technology and couldn't raise the capital to do the basic exploration--let alone development. Their military was also a shell, mostly running on 1950s-era tech, without spare parts, fuel or trained personnel after the Afghanistan debacle. We're not quite in that boat yet, but your point is valid--the US is in very dangerous territory, indeed. We must restore our industrial manufacturing base and get our fiscal house in order. We must once again become a net creditor economy, rather than the world's biggest debtor economy.

[Occam Bandage]

8. Overspending on defense combined with an untenably sluggish economic model,

both of which were problems that were ignored until the crisis point, at which point they threw the economy into shock with overreaching reforms.

Percent discretionary spending isn't very useful in such a discussion. Military spending as percent of GDP would be, and frankly I have no idea how those stack up.

[rrneck]

9. The travails of empire. nt

[OhioChick]

10. Afghanistan. n/t

[ThomWV]

11. What contributed most? Probably fear of us.

It was the constant misapplication of limited resources in a effort to either defend against or out do in some way us, the USA. We of course were guilty of exactly the same thing.

[Idealism]

12. World War II contributed most

They lost 20 million people and were on the verge of bankruptcy. It is amazing that the USSR didn't collapse sooner. They had to get pack mules and horses to carry their artillery back from the front lines, you might recall.

[Champion Jack]

13. Rock n Roll and levi's

[marybourg]

29. Yes! nt.

[kentuck]

36. That was going to be my answer!

:-)

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

40. Yep.

As PJ O'Rourke (who was funny once) observed, the Soviet Bloc crumbled because people didn't want to wear Bulgarian suits and did want to watch Paula Abdul videos. And because Gorbachev was a humane and sane man who couldn't bring himself to keep propping up a system he knew would fail.

[FarCenter]

14. The USSR was brought down by years of mismanagement by elderly, incompetent politicians

Brezhnev and his Politburo of antique apparatchiks. Brezhnev was in power for about 2 decades, dying at age 78, and was followed by Andropov, 68, and Chernenko, 72.

Sort of like Bush's cabinet or the current US Senate.

Although Bush was younger, he acted more like the Korean War generation (Cheney's) than the Vietnam War generation. The people appointed to his first cabinet were actually older on average than Brezhnev's Poliburo.

The average age in the Senate is now over '65, and the old fossils will be a huge handicap to Obama in getting anything done.

[Traveling_Home]

15. Lack of Freedom, Lack of Upward Social Mobility, ..... nt

[Ikonoklast]

16. All of the above.

Afghanistan was just the last gasp of a moribund empire.

Which brings me around to our military, and their addiction to oil. They need it more than any other single institution in our government.

And they just may be willing to make us go to war for it.

[azul]

17. Demonetization by the US as the enemy, and vodka.

The excessive military funding for the cold war wasted their resources and energies. The government kept its power by keeping up its end of the contrived cold war.

The average Russian realized his helplessness in this military power corruption scheme and sabotaged the system by self-medicating for depression with vodka, which destroyed the country by leading to shoddy workmanship and health problems.

My wife went to East Germany a few times in the 60's and 70's and said everything was so drab and crappy and that people were starved for color.

[David__77]

18. It was a ruling class decision.

The party elites, who had coalesced into a new ruling class, decided that they didn't want the constraints of the appearance of socialism, so they did the whole thing in. Indeed, they have become enriched since then beyond anyone's imagination, plundering the birthright of the people. There was no popular uprising anywhere demanding this.

[stillcool]

19. I think they over-extended themselves...

with Afghanistan, with the United States help in arming "Al Quaeda".

[Captain Hilts]

20. An economic ponzi scheme. Inability to motivate people to work and produce anything worth buying...

I've got a dissertation for you to read!

You'll enjoy this link:

http://russianfun.net/russian-fun/more-bad-construction-from-russia/

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

43. There was an old Russian joke

I read back in the 1970s that went "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."

That is not the basis of a sustainable system.

[readmoreoften]

44. Yeah, the idea that socialism could be an "economic ponzi scheme" just goes to show that

the Soviet Union wasn't socialist.

[Captain Hilts]

48. VERY true!

[lunatica]

21. Corruption and lack of foresight may have been big contributors

The government was more like Stalinism than Karl Marx's and Lenin's Communism. Their ideals were intellectually based, but Stalin took over and being the archetypal dictator (Saddam Hussein admired and imitated him) who was basically cunning and shrewd but only cared about his power and not about the Soviet Union (a lot like the neocons). He was not a forward thinking or interested in what was best for the Soviet Union. When he took over he pretty much killed or banished the brains of the country to
Siberia. He got rid of intellectuals, of the top military brass and anyone he thought might pose a threat to him. He put his hand chosen thugs in charge. There was a complete lack of imagination or innovative thinking. The peasants were then forced to do what the goons told them to do, which destroyed food production because they were told what and how much to plant and then were forced to hand it all over to the government because the people running the show were clueless. A lot like Mao in China and the Great Leap Forward. It all looked good superficially but millions of people died of starvation.

1. Kill off or imprison the thinkers, the educators and the talented innovators of the country
2. Promote the remaining people who are of mediocre intelligence to head bureaus
3. Force the working class to prop up and do the work of maintaining bad policies such as the farmers
4. Rewarding people through military service and loyalty to the State and expand empire to fight the boogey man which is the type of mentality that thugs have. You see it in the Mafia, in the Bush Administration, in religious extremists and in people who have an average or less than average IQ (ie, Joe the Plumber who hates unions, social security, spreading the wealth and actually having to work for a living and Sarah Palin who can see Russia from her back porch)

Anyway, this is only part of the foundation for the collapse.

[Cirque du So-What]

22. It's likely that stagnant prices for crude oil played a role in the demise of the USSR

http://www.oilcrisis.com/reynolds/SovietDecline.htm

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Too many bosses with too much power. Same as what's happening here.

See Lord Acton's axiom for what happened, and is happening, next.

[screembloodymurder]

25. The price of oil.

When the oil price collapsed the USSR had no money coming in.

[libodem]

26. Anyone put being mouse-trapped in Afghanistan?

Gad, I remember thinking that the Soviet Union bombing women and children off the cliffs was the lowest form of humanity to crawl out of a swamp. I briefly dated a guy who said he was a gun runner, bringing weapons from the US, to the people of Afghanistan. I thought he was a hero. Now, I know it wasn't just haphazard humanitarians, it was organized secret US policy.

[tularetom]

27. They basically lost a generation in WWII

And when it came time for that generation to take a leading role in policy making, there was nobody to advocate the necessary reforms so the old thinking from the thirties lasted clear into the eighties.

And of course we all know it was Raygun's tough talk and advocacy of the SDI that scared them so bad they just folded like a cheap suitcase.

[applegrove]

28. Communism. Hasn't worked in China either. Communism doesn't work.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. You're right .... it doesn't. That's why it morphs into socialist capitalism

[applegrove]

49. Otherwise known as Liberalism.

[Kip Humphrey]

32. Satellite TV.. They began watching Leave it to Beaver reruns and just had to have some

western lifestyle that is.

[Taverner]

33. COMECON, but their obsession with military did not help

[Baikonour]

34. Afghanistan, definitely.

We need to learn from Russia's mistake (along with countless other failed attempts to invade Afghanistan by other empires) and get the hell out of there.

[cherokeeprogressive]

35. Sean Connery. After all, he gave us their best new weapon: The Red October.

[book_worm]

45. RONALD WILSON REAGAN!

:rofl:

[readmoreoften]

46. Is this red baiting an attempt to make us all "feel good" about the possible demise of capitalism?

What's the point? The Russians were far better off in their collapse then we will be. Their society was organized along train lines and they were used to working together. What do we have? A bunch of wannabe survivalists stocking ammo and planting gardens, bankers hoarding resources, and private corporations buying up water supplies. Oh yeah, let's talk about how the Soviet Union--a useless model after Stalin and a market economy after Kruschev--failed.

[Stinky The Clown]

47. You lost me .......

Do you have a point? Or at least a point of view?

[bobthedrummer]

50. Star Fleet Command n/t