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Thread: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

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    Default Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    I suppose that depends on what you think you know about the collapse, but it is a catchy title nonetheless of a very interesting piece from Foreign Policy that I thought some of you might be interested in.

    Essentially, the author argues that the Soviet Union did not fall because of Western pressure or internal economic and/or political collapse. He points out that Reagan's efforts in the third world were peripheral at best, the Kremlin knew that Star Wars type technology was decades away from being operational, the war in Afghanistan was not particularly costly, the Soviet system - while unsustainable in the long run - was far away from a critical economic collapse and was actually growing, and decades of repression had silenced all the regime's enemies. According to the author, all of the reasons we in the West usually attribute to the fall are wrong. In fact, in the early 80's, the communist regime was the strongest it had ever been in Russia and oversaw "the realization of all major Soviet military and diplomatic desiderata,". "We tend to forget," historian Adam Ulam would note later, "that in 1985, no government of a major state appeared to be as firmly in power, its policies as clearly set in their course, as that of the USSR."

    So what did cause the collapse of Soviet Russia? Conscience and a false sense of security. When Gorbachev and his supporters came to power, they were genuinely disgusted by the stagnation, corruption, and repression that had come to characterize the country. The regime was in such a strong position in Russia that he believed he could make serious reforms in an orderly way. However, the limited freedoms that his perestroika instituted opened the floodgates for rights activists at all levels to undermine the regime and the system, and Gorbachev did not have it in him to silence them in the traditional Soviet manner.

    LIKE VIRTUALLY ALL modern revolutions, the latest Russian one was started by a hesitant liberalization "from above" -- and its rationale extended well beyond the necessity to correct the economy or make the international environment more benign. The core of Gorbachev's enterprise was undeniably idealistic: He wanted to build a more moral Soviet Union.
    What do you guys think about the author's conclusion? It is quite heartening to think that even in the largest police state in the world, a leader emerged who was a good enough human being to put personal power aside for the betterment of his nation. At the end of the day, a regime that had achieved total and complete, even Orwellian, control over society was taken down from the inside. Big Brother could not silence the human spirit.
    Last edited by PanzerJaeger; 06-27-2011 at 11:58.

  2. #2
    Ja mata, TosaInu Forum Administrator edyzmedieval's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    I find it a bit contradictory that "firmly in power in 1985" and then when they opened the "floodgates" in less than 5 years they turned into a complete collapse. I mean, sure, everyone started protesting but that was the job of the huge repression system to take care of, and it did not look like they were very efficient.

    And internal economic collapse, that has to be mentioned. Soviet Union was a mess, and the fact that they were growing internally doesn't mean much since it can only be 2% growth and that's minimal when people is starving.
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    Shadow Senior Member Kagemusha's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    I have always thought it was combination of both forementioned factors. I thought that anyone with half brains knew about the "perestroika". It is a fact that Gorbatsov´s circle was not happy how Soviet Union was and were trying to reshape it. Another completely different question is did they actually want to destroy Soviet Union rather then remodel it.
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  4. #4

    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Kagemusha View Post
    I thought that anyone with half brains knew about the "perestroika".
    It's not so much a lack of knowledge about perestroika that the author highlighted, but a misunderstanding of the motivation behind it. In the West, or at least the US, the movement is often portrayed as a last-ditch effort to stave off economic collapse by introducing market reforms that ultimately failed to avert disaster. In reality, or at least the reality the article is trying to convey, the Soviet Union was very stable and perestroika was completely voluntary - driven by moral outrage, not economic necessity - and may have actually succeeded in Gorbachev's ultimate goals.
    Last edited by PanzerJaeger; 06-27-2011 at 12:00.

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    Clan Clan InsaneApache's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Interesting. In the 70s I had a friend who was serving with the BAOR http://baor-locations.co.uk/historybaor.aspx, and he told me that they used to listen in to the radio traffic from the various Tank/Guards/Shock armies opposite them.

    When I expressed an opinion that the Soviet forces posed a grave threat, he fell about laughing. He said that they had better start a war in the summer because the tank crews had drunk all the anti-freeze for their engines. True.

    Just a small example of Soviet life but one that seems to run right through the entire system. Take the hope away from people and they will respond likewise.

    The entire system was rotten and corrupt to the core. It was only a matter of time. Did 're-construction' hurry it along? Perhaps. But it was always going to fail. Socialist systems, whether national or international always do.
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    Senior Member Senior Member Fisherking's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    I would say that to a great extent the author is correct.

    Most of what you hear in the US and in the west is just trying to take credit for what happened.

    When you make liberal reforms you do open the door to revolution. Repressed people don’t miss what they don’t have or never had. When you show them things can be better you open the way for new ideas and movements to spring up.

    China almost lost it but good old brutal repression went a long way in silencing the opposition. That and a lack of free information. That is one of the reasons the Chinese Government maintains such strict control over the internet. It is still a ticking bomb however. As people become more affluent they also want more control over the things that threaten their economic security.


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    TexMec Senior Member Louis VI the Fat's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
    What do you guys think about the author's conclusion?
    Everything I thought I knew about the rise and fall of Gorbachev turns out to have been right.
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    Tovenaar Senior Member The Wizard's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Actually, if you read the minutes of the meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev from 1985 onward, you will see that SDI was again and again a major issue, which the Soviets were deeply worried about. Gorbachev consistently refused to believe that SDI wasn't a game-changer, as Reagan argued, because he rightly saw the implication in the project's claims, namely a complete unbalancing of power between the U.S. and the USSR. He was even mistrustful (at Geneva in 1985) of Reagan's offer to share SDI technology with Moscow. Of course, Reagan was largely bluffing but apparently Gorbachev had enough problems at home to worry about it.

    Really, it's an article in Foreign Policy. Not an academic journal. There are no footnotes and no sources. Only a few other authors are even mentioned, and some are in fact taken out of context (like Ulam). The author is arguing against what is more or less the consensus of an entire generation of Cold War scholars. My advice is to take it, not with a pinch, but with a big block of salt.
    Last edited by The Wizard; 06-28-2011 at 10:43.
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    Arrogant Ashigaru Moderator Ludens's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    it's an interesting article, thanks for posting. I agree with the points that Edyz raises (the economy was improving, but still in a bad shape; internal dissent may have been stamped out, but internal discontent was not), but it's still an interesting argument.
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    Tovenaar Senior Member The Wizard's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    A little something on Leon Aron... Pretty much says it all.
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  11. #11

    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Could me my memory is playing tricks, but didn't some Communist die-hards try to put Gorbichev under arrest and send in the army to crush protestors, and the army refused to cooperate? Surely a major reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union would be the unwillingness of the armed forces to obey that kind of order any more.

    Also it was quite hard to get reliable information about what was going on in the Soviet Union. I don't see why the author thinks its so amazing that the West didn't see the Soviet Union's collapse coming. We simply didn't have enough data to predict it. I don't know if we will ever have enough data to understand it.
    Last edited by Brandy Blue; 06-30-2011 at 05:35.
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    Old Town Road Senior Member Strike For The South's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    LOL, The coup was just for kicks
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    A coup for kicks? Gotta hand it to those Apparatchiks. "Let's get the troops to shoot some people, heh? Big joke!"
    In those simple times there was a great wonder and mystery in life. Man walked in fear and solemnity, with Heaven very close above his head, and Hell below his very feet. God's visible hand was everywhere, in the rainbow and the comet, in the thunder and the wind. The Devil too raged openly upon the earth; he skulked behind the hedge-rows in the gloaming; he laughed loudly in the night-time; he clawed the dying sinner, pounced on the unbaptized babe, and twisted the limbs of the epileptic. A foul fiend slunk ever by a man's side and whispered villainies in his ear, while above him there hovered an angel of grace . . .

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    Enlightened Despot Member Vladimir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Brandy Blue View Post
    A coup for kicks? Gotta hand it to those Apparatchiks. "Let's get the troops to shoot some people, heh? Big joke!"
    Russian humor is very dark.

    Somebody used the word "consensus" in this thread. I don't know who because I discarded everything else. The author's point may not have been to put forth a serious assertion, or to rewrite history, but to challenge mainstream thought and accepted paradigms.

    Consensus = Stagnation of thought. It's good to shake things up a while.


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    Sovereign Oppressor Member TIE Fighter Shooter Champion, Turkey Shoot Champion, Juggler Champion Kralizec's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    I always thought that it was a combination of factors - western pressure being on the bottom of the list.

    While internal dissatisfaction was an important factor (especially in the non-Russian republics, who seceeded en masse when they thought they could get away with it) I've always thought that economic troubles were just as decisive, if not moreso.
    I recall reading in a political science book I have laying around here somewhere (I'll see if I can find it) that the Soviets kept raising military spending over the years, faster than economic growth, to the point where it was more than half of the total GDP of the USSR. The USA's defense spending, while approxmately the same in real terms, was less than 7% of its GDP.

    I suppose that one reason why the sudden disintegration wasn't expected because there was a system-wide tendency to cover poor performance up, masking the true extent of the problems. With the coming of Glasnost these became more apparent, and the attempts to restructure the economy triggered the collapse. But that's just my hypothesis.

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    JEBMMP Creator & AtB Maker Member jirisys's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec View Post
    I always thought that it was a combination of factors - western pressure being on the bottom of the list.
    Just look at cuba really. Very crappy for life, yet has all the best doctors (and baseball players) in all America. Also, least analphabets per capita of America, possibly one of the highest in the world.

    I think the problem with the soviet union was that it was not socialist anymore, it was facisto-communist. Big ol' Stalin got the bling, and the prollies only got the ****ing.

    Well really, I think the problem with all harcore socialist/communist countries is that they eventually wind up to be facist despotic dictatorships.

    Lenin made it ahead, only for everyone else to **** up. You know, except the Gulag, Cheka, anti-semitism, Red Terror, etc.

    At least he wasn't a tyrant.

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    Sovereign Oppressor Member TIE Fighter Shooter Champion, Turkey Shoot Champion, Juggler Champion Kralizec's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by jirisys View Post
    Just look at cuba really. Very crappy for life, yet has all the best doctors (and baseball players) in all America. Also, least analphabets per capita of America, possibly one of the highest in the world.

    I think the problem with the soviet union was that it was not socialist anymore, it was facisto-communist. Big ol' Stalin got the bling, and the prollies only got the ****ing.

    Well really, I think the problem with all harcore socialist/communist countries is that they eventually wind up to be facist despotic dictatorships.

    Lenin made it ahead, only for everyone else to **** up. You know, except the Gulag, Cheka, anti-semitism, Red Terror, etc.

    At least he wasn't a tyrant.

    ~Jirisys ()
    Cuba's development was possible because of favourable trade agreements with the Soviet Union, who were propping up an ally in a strategicly important area.

    And Lenin certainly was a tyrant. Not in the same mass-murdering league as Stalin or Mao, but a tyrant nonetheless. Stuff like the red terror and the checka make for a pretty pretty huge "except". He's the one responsible for the centralized one-party state, wich is what enabled a dictator like Stalin in the first place.
    Last edited by Kralizec; 07-01-2011 at 00:18.

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    JEBMMP Creator & AtB Maker Member jirisys's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec View Post
    Cuba's development was possible because of favourable trade agreements with the Soviet Union, who were propping up an ally in a strategicly important area.

    And Lenin certainly was a tyrant. Not in the same mass-murdering league as Stalin or Mao, but a tyrant nonetheless. Stuff like the red terror and the checka make for a pretty pretty huge "except". He's the one responsible for the centralized one-party state, wich is what enabled a dictator like Stalin in the first place.
    Last part was a joke. Sarcastic.

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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir View Post
    Russian humor is very dark.
    I don't know about Russians in general, but allegedly Ivan the Terrible had someone's hat nailed to his head. That little joke might be considered, ahem, exceptionally robust.
    In those simple times there was a great wonder and mystery in life. Man walked in fear and solemnity, with Heaven very close above his head, and Hell below his very feet. God's visible hand was everywhere, in the rainbow and the comet, in the thunder and the wind. The Devil too raged openly upon the earth; he skulked behind the hedge-rows in the gloaming; he laughed loudly in the night-time; he clawed the dying sinner, pounced on the unbaptized babe, and twisted the limbs of the epileptic. A foul fiend slunk ever by a man's side and whispered villainies in his ear, while above him there hovered an angel of grace . . .

    Arthur Conan Doyle

  20. #20
    Enlightened Despot Member Vladimir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Brandy Blue View Post
    I don't know about Russians in general, but allegedly Ivan the Terrible had someone's hat nailed to his head. That little joke might be considered, ahem, exceptionally robust.
    He should have taken his hat off in the presence of the Czar. I always do.


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    Oni Member Samurai Waki's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    The Russians are masters of being perpetually unhappy about everything, mix liberally with vodka and you have a very dark sense of humor. Though I doubt that has anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russians like strong leaders, which Gorbachev was not, had a more brilliant (And perhaps stoic) leader wrangled in the Communist Party we'd still be facing off across the Berlin wall.

  22. #22
    Tovenaar Senior Member The Wizard's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir View Post
    Russian humor is very dark.

    Somebody used the word "consensus" in this thread. I don't know who because I discarded everything else. The author's point may not have been to put forth a serious assertion, or to rewrite history, but to challenge mainstream thought and accepted paradigms.

    Consensus = Stagnation of thought. It's good to shake things up a while.
    What nonsense. If you want to challenge the academic consensus, bring proper arguments. Leon Aron does not. Therefore, there is no question of "shaking things up" here, because he has nothing to shake things up with. Aron is in any case a very dodgy figure who has made outrageous and unsupported claims before, as the blog post I dredged up shows. I encourage you to read it before you make uncalled for claims about the merit of the consensus among historians.

    The article's claim to "know" what nobody is held to know (the "truth" about the collapse of the USSR) goes far, far beyond what it actually proves, which is very little indeed. The fact that Gorbachev challenged the traditional Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology within the Politburo is well-known and restating it here is no ground to challenge the consensus. It is important (the Politburo discussing the merits of communism is akin to the Pope asking his cardinals if god really exists, that is how poignant -- and ridiculous -- it was), but no more than an element, maybe even no more than an amusing footnote, in the whole process.

    Beyond that, Aron's claims that somehow the USSR was brought down because of a small group of cultural and artistic figures is unprovable. It smacks of Wilsonian idealism. Whatever the merits of that ideology, Aron makes no attempt to actually analyze it, to the detriment of his article. One is left disappointed, both at Foreign Policy for headlining the article with claims it cannot back up, and with Leon Aron for being a lousy scholar.
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    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by The Wizard View Post
    (the Politburo discussing the merits of communism is akin to the Pope asking his cardinals if god really exists, that is how poignant -- and ridiculous -- it was)
    That's a bad analogy because if the Pope believed God exists, he wouldn't be the pope or try to cover up the child-affairs of his cardinals/priests, but that's another topic...
    Or maybe it's a good one and it means that things aren't always what they pretend to be on the outside.
    Last edited by Husar; 07-03-2011 at 14:08.


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    Ja mata, TosaInu Forum Administrator edyzmedieval's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Even to this day I'm surprised that Gorbachev had such steel balls (yes, it deserves the uncensored word because it's that strong) to push forward with the reforms.
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by The Wizard View Post
    What nonsense. If you want to challenge the academic consensus, bring proper arguments. Leon Aron does not. Therefore, there is no question of "shaking things up" here, because he has nothing to shake things up with. Aron is in any case a very dodgy figure who has made outrageous and unsupported claims before, as the blog post I dredged up shows. I encourage you to read it before you make uncalled for claims about the merit of the consensus among historians.

    The article's claim to "know" what nobody is held to know (the "truth" about the collapse of the USSR) goes far, far beyond what it actually proves, which is very little indeed. The fact that Gorbachev challenged the traditional Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology within the Politburo is well-known and restating it here is no ground to challenge the consensus. It is important (the Politburo discussing the merits of communism is akin to the Pope asking his cardinals if god really exists, that is how poignant -- and ridiculous -- it was), but no more than an element, maybe even no more than an amusing footnote, in the whole process.

    Beyond that, Aron's claims that somehow the USSR was brought down because of a small group of cultural and artistic figures is unprovable. It smacks of Wilsonian idealism. Whatever the merits of that ideology, Aron makes no attempt to actually analyze it, to the detriment of his article. One is left disappointed, both at Foreign Policy for headlining the article with claims it cannot back up, and with Leon Aron for being a lousy scholar.
    I'm not particularly knowledgeable on the late Soviet Union, so I appreciate the bucket of water you've thrown on Aron's claims. One of the most interesting points in the article was his take on the Soviet economy, and I'm interested in your opinion on that specific element if you care to offer it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aron
    Indeed, the Soviet Union in 1985 possessed much of the same natural and human resources that it had 10 years before. Certainly, the standard of living was much lower than in most of Eastern Europe, let alone the West. Shortages, food rationing, long lines in stores, and acute poverty were endemic. But the Soviet Union had known far greater calamities and coped without sacrificing an iota of the state's grip on society and economy, much less surrendering it.

    Nor did any key parameter of economic performance prior to 1985 point to a rapidly advancing disaster. From 1981 to 1985 the growth of the country's GDP, though slowing down compared with the 1960s and 1970s, averaged 1.9 percent a year. The same lackadaisical but hardly catastrophic pattern continued through 1989. Budget deficits, which since the French Revolution have been considered among the prominent portents of a coming revolutionary crisis, equaled less than 2 percent of GDP in 1985. Although growing rapidly, the gap remained under 9 percent through 1989 -- a size most economists would find quite manageable.

    The sharp drop in oil prices, from $66 a barrel in 1980 to $20 a barrel in 1986 (in 2000 prices) certainly was a heavy blow to Soviet finances. Still, adjusted for inflation, oil was more expensive in the world markets in 1985 than in 1972, and only one-third lower than throughout the 1970s. And at the same time, Soviet incomes increased more than 2 percent in 1985, and inflation-adjusted wages continued to rise in the next five years through 1990 at an average of over 7 percent.

    Yes, the stagnation was obvious and worrisome. But as Wesleyan University professor Peter Rutland has pointed out, "Chronic ailments, after all, are not necessarily fatal." Even the leading student of the revolution's economic causes, Anders Åslund, notes that from 1985 to 1987, the situation "was not at all dramatic."

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    Senior Member Senior Member econ21's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    My gut reaction is to agree with the article: the USSR collapsed from a failure of will. (I'd also argue it was created by an act of will, but that's probably by a subject for another thread.) I don't think deterministic (e.g. economic) arguments are very plausible for explaining the timing of revolutions - the great revolutions of the past, if anything, often happened when economies were starting to improve and so expectations and energies were rising, rather than at their nadir when people were too focussed on economic survival to revolt. Nor should economic factors be relied on to explain the timing of the collapse of regimes - whether in the USSR, in Tunisia or Egypt. There is obviously a connection between economic stagnation or decline and regime change. But it's not mechanistic or exact.

    A comparison with China is very interesting. You could say that both the Chinese and Soviet leaderships by the late 1980s were analogous with Popes questioning the existence of God - they no longer believed in the Marxist-Leninist theory that provided the legitimacy for their rule. But in China, the leadership still had the will to impose their authority by force. In the USSR, it did not.

    The attitude of the military is also interesting. The Chinese army was probably more content with the status quo, as it was enjoying some of the fruits of China's growth (running its own enterprises). Whereas, the Soviet army was suffering from the USSRs stagnation and relative decline. So economics may again have played a role, but not necessarily a decisive one. In both cases, you could say the military ultimately followed the political leadership (the PLA fired on the students; the Red Army did not stand by the coup).

    And of course, Yeltsin played a pivotal role. Once the coup had failed, he could have ushered back in the reforming USSR of Gorbachev. Instead, he smashed it. The flipside of saying the Soviet Union collapsed due to a lack of will is to say Yeltsin broke it by an act of will. I think many Chinese looked at the immediate consequences and did not like what they saw. If Russia's economic decline was gentle prior to the fall of the USSR, it was precipitous afterwards.

  27. #27
    Enlightened Despot Member Vladimir's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by The Wizard View Post
    What nonsense. If you want to challenge the academic consensus, bring proper arguments. Leon Aron does not. Therefore, there is no question of "shaking things up" here, because he has nothing to shake things up with. Aron is in any case a very dodgy figure who has made outrageous and unsupported claims before, as the blog post I dredged up shows. I encourage you to read it before you make uncalled for claims about the merit of the consensus among historians.

    The article's claim to "know" what nobody is held to know (the "truth" about the collapse of the USSR) goes far, far beyond what it actually proves, which is very little indeed. The fact that Gorbachev challenged the traditional Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist ideology within the Politburo is well-known and restating it here is no ground to challenge the consensus. It is important (the Politburo discussing the merits of communism is akin to the Pope asking his cardinals if god really exists, that is how poignant -- and ridiculous -- it was), but no more than an element, maybe even no more than an amusing footnote, in the whole process.

    Beyond that, Aron's claims that somehow the USSR was brought down because of a small group of cultural and artistic figures is unprovable. It smacks of Wilsonian idealism. Whatever the merits of that ideology, Aron makes no attempt to actually analyze it, to the detriment of his article. One is left disappointed, both at Foreign Policy for headlining the article with claims it cannot back up, and with Leon Aron for being a lousy scholar.
    His claims might be nonsense but my comments are not. Consensus is heard mentality or groupthink by learned men, nothing more. It's used to marginalize opponents to the dominant paradigm. You stated that "[t]he author is arguing against what is more or less the consensus of an entire generation of Cold War scholars." You may dislike how he did it, but as you also stated, the article wasn't in a scholarly journal. It meets the standard.

    He does seem have a point about Soviet influence in the third world: Tactical success, strategic loss.
    Last edited by Vladimir; 07-05-2011 at 20:53.


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  28. #28
    Tovenaar Senior Member The Wizard's Avatar
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    Default Re: Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union is Wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir View Post
    His claims might be nonsense but my comments are not. Consensus is heard mentality or groupthink by learned men, nothing more. It's used to marginalize opponents to the dominant paradigm.
    You apparently have no knowledge or understanding of what constitutes an academic consensus.

    It is not built up out of passive, unquestioning agreement, you see, but out of unceasing debate. The way you portray it in no way conforms to reality, where every scholar has a different take on the same subject, uses a different set of sources (or analyzes the same sources differently), and always presents his own argument as in some way filling up some gap that previous scholarship had left open. An academic consensus therefore represents a distillation, an assessment if you will, of the views of hundreds of different authors, all of whom have a different opinion and who in some way disagree with each other. It is in a constant state of flux as it is always being added to or challenged in one way or another. Your representation of it as some kind of mind-numbing orthodoxy could not be farther from the truth.

    To return to the thread's subject, however, one must bring something worthwhile to take part in academic debate. I might add that the question of when the Cold War ended, and why, is very much an academic debate. Unfortunately Leon Aron does not bring the required baggage to the debate for one to consider him a serious participant. I therefore caution anyone reading the article not to take it or its conclusions very seriously at all. It's a very big claim for a very small article.

    Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
    I'm not particularly knowledgeable on the late Soviet Union, so I appreciate the bucket of water you've thrown on Aron's claims. One of the most interesting points in the article was his take on the Soviet economy, and I'm interested in your opinion on that specific element if you care to offer it.
    There is a reason that Paul Kennedy thought, in his well-known The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, that the USSR would be around for a long time, and would perhaps profit from the decline of American power (as he predicted it). This is because such figures as Aron cites were known, at least in estimate, in Western circles in the 1980s as well. Kennedy is representative in the fact that he (in 1987) said that while the USSR was strongly weakened by the immense percentage of its GDP going into military spending (>25% if memory serves), it would not even come close to collapsing. Four years later, he was proven wrong (as he was proven wrong with his predictions about the U.S. and about Japan).

    So yes, the Soviet economy wasn't doing that badly, relative to its own past. However, that past wasn't very rosy as is, and moreover, Aron conspicuously avoids the subject of Soviet military spending, which was completely out of balance relative to the general Soviet economy. Percentages of a quarter or more are not even sustainable during total war, much less during peacetime, as we can see in North Korea today. The Soviet Union's GDP growth was in fact driven by military spending, which explains the shortages in consumer goods (perennial during the entire Soviet period, because Soviet planners were always focused not on consumer goods, but on heavy industry). Its economy was in dire straits as a result.

    Of course, economic decline does not mean that collapse is imminent, much less inevitable. Such an argument would constitute economic determinism, of a sort even Kennedy (whose book is filled with it) avoided. No serious scholar, then, supports such an argument, and Aron thus misrepresents the academic consensus (for the sake of his own point, understandably). There must be other explanations, among which is the total demoralization of the Soviet leadership (which I think is a rightful characterization given how it began to doubt the country's very foundations) and people as described by Aron.

    The economic situation, however, remains a very important background to the general process, which cannot be ignored and which cannot be explained away. Neither does a monocausal explanation like Aron's contribute to the debate in any meaningful way. Such an explanation is essentially no different in its determinism than is pointing to the economy alone.
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