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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

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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
    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.

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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

    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.

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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 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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    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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