Because even if their was a full scale thermonuclear war a lot of people in bit the USSR and USA would survive. Fallout and radiation isn't as dangerous as the media bileaves it to be. Neutral countries would be fine once they sort out their import problems.
Could the USSR work well enought on its orthodox form to be a pleasant place in modern day?
- Thread starter Gukpard
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marathag
Banned
While I don't believe WWIII would be full bore Sagan Nuclear Winter, you would see a replay of 1816 at minimum.
But Fallout from more than a thousand Megaton class H-Bombs hitting cities is nothing to easily shrug off.
Actually, all my posts on this thread were so far focused on a pessimistic scenario (i.e. a scenario in which the USSR is somehow magically unable to fix it's internal economic problems). However I don't really think that's fair, the Soviet people had a legion of bright economists in it's ranks and with a party and state leadership that is ready to listen to said economists, the Soviet Union could not only economically survive but in fact thrive.
To quote from Robert C. Allen's "Farm to Factory: A Renterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution":
"The Soviet Union grew rapidly from 1928 to about 1970 by accumulating capital and creating industrial jobs for people otherwise inefficiently employed in agriculture. The strategy of building up heavy industry and the use of output targets and soft budgets were effective in doing this. The growth rate dropped abruptly after 1970 for external and internal reasons. The external reason was the Cold War, which diverted substantial R&D resources from civilian innovation to the military and cut the rate of productivity growth. The internal reason was the end of the surplus labor economy: unemployment in agriculture had been eliminated and the accessible natural resources of the country had been fully exploited. A new strategy was needed. The Soviet leaders responded to these changes by squandering vast sums on retooling old factorics and by throwing additional fortunes into Siberian development. It was as if the United States had decided to maintain the steel and auto industries of the Midwest by retooling the old plants and supplying them with ore and fuel from northern Canada instead of shutting down the Rust Belt and importing cars and steel from brand-new, state-of-the-art plants in Japan supplied with cheap raw materials from the Third World. What the country needed was a policy to close down old factories and shift their employees to new, high-productivity jobs, reductions in the use of energy and industrial materials, and increased involvement in world trade.The interpretation of the Soviet decline offered here is the reverse of the analyses that emphasize incentive problems and the resulting failure of managers to act in accord with the plans. On the contrary, the plans were implemented; the problem was that they did not make sense."
With the innevitable end of the arms race and with the party and state leadership solving the country's internal economic problems, productivity growth might well have gone up to 1.5% a year once again, which in turn could well have caused overall GDP growth to increase to 4% a year. And I haven't even mentioned the scientific-technical revolution and the introduction of computers and cybernetics into the system of economic planning yet. A Soviet analogue to Cybersyn (which is really only a matter of time. There actually was a computer network that linked universities and factories across Leningrad in OTL) would've greatly streamlined the process of economic planning and would've minimized "management errors". As for the claim that such a system would innevitably suffer from GIGO problems, I don't think so. The state security and control commisions could gain insight into any transaction between factories and civil institutions with the click of a mouse, therefore any falsification could easily be tracked down. I think it is fair to say that such an improved system of economic planning could well have created an addtional 1% of GDP growth annually. So if the party and state leadership was able to fix the countries economic problems, the USSR could well (and realistically) have archieved GDP growth rates of 5% a year.
Now, let's do some math (yeay). Let's put this number into my model used before on this thread, while also reducing population growth somewhat (a reduction from 0.8% a year in the early 1980s to 0.6% a year in the 1990s and 2000s seems reasonable, considering rising living standarts).
In 1989 the Soviet Union's GDP amounted to 2.0 Trillion US Dollars. GDP per Capita amounted to 7.078 US Dollars.
In 2013 the countries of the former Soviet Union had a combined GDP of 2.75 Trillion US Dollars. GDP per Capita amounted to 9.503 US Dollars.
Now, considering the optimistic (but still very realistic) sceanrio outlined above, let's say that the annual average GDP growth of the USSR between 1989 and 2013 would've amounted to 5%. Let's assume that the annual average population growth rates would've amounted to 0.6%. The total population in 1989 amounted to 286.7 Million. If we stick with these estimates, the hypothetical GDP of the USSR in 2013 would have amounted to 4.4 Trillion US Dollars. The hypothetical population in 2013 would have amounted to 328.0 Million. The USSR's hypothetical GDP per Capita would have amounted to 13.414 US Dollars (which would imply an annual average GDP per Capita growth rate of 3.75% a year between 1989 and 2013. Such a rate of growth is not unrealistic, considering that East Germany had archieved an annual average GDP per Capita growth rate of 4.0% between 1950 and 1973).
To conclude:
In 2013 in OTL, the total population of the FSU amounted to 289.4 Million. GDP per Capita amounted to 8.700 US Dollars.
In 2013 (using this more optimistic but still realistic model), the population of the USSR would've amounted to 328.7 Million. GDP per Capita would have amounted to 13.414 US Dollars.
Living standarts would've been significantly higher than in OTL in such a scenario. In 2013, the USSR would've ranked 4th in terms of largest countries by GDP, behind the USA, China and Japan.
To quote from Robert C. Allen's "Farm to Factory: A Renterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution":
"The Soviet Union grew rapidly from 1928 to about 1970 by accumulating capital and creating industrial jobs for people otherwise inefficiently employed in agriculture. The strategy of building up heavy industry and the use of output targets and soft budgets were effective in doing this. The growth rate dropped abruptly after 1970 for external and internal reasons. The external reason was the Cold War, which diverted substantial R&D resources from civilian innovation to the military and cut the rate of productivity growth. The internal reason was the end of the surplus labor economy: unemployment in agriculture had been eliminated and the accessible natural resources of the country had been fully exploited. A new strategy was needed. The Soviet leaders responded to these changes by squandering vast sums on retooling old factorics and by throwing additional fortunes into Siberian development. It was as if the United States had decided to maintain the steel and auto industries of the Midwest by retooling the old plants and supplying them with ore and fuel from northern Canada instead of shutting down the Rust Belt and importing cars and steel from brand-new, state-of-the-art plants in Japan supplied with cheap raw materials from the Third World. What the country needed was a policy to close down old factories and shift their employees to new, high-productivity jobs, reductions in the use of energy and industrial materials, and increased involvement in world trade.The interpretation of the Soviet decline offered here is the reverse of the analyses that emphasize incentive problems and the resulting failure of managers to act in accord with the plans. On the contrary, the plans were implemented; the problem was that they did not make sense."
With the innevitable end of the arms race and with the party and state leadership solving the country's internal economic problems, productivity growth might well have gone up to 1.5% a year once again, which in turn could well have caused overall GDP growth to increase to 4% a year. And I haven't even mentioned the scientific-technical revolution and the introduction of computers and cybernetics into the system of economic planning yet. A Soviet analogue to Cybersyn (which is really only a matter of time. There actually was a computer network that linked universities and factories across Leningrad in OTL) would've greatly streamlined the process of economic planning and would've minimized "management errors". As for the claim that such a system would innevitably suffer from GIGO problems, I don't think so. The state security and control commisions could gain insight into any transaction between factories and civil institutions with the click of a mouse, therefore any falsification could easily be tracked down. I think it is fair to say that such an improved system of economic planning could well have created an addtional 1% of GDP growth annually. So if the party and state leadership was able to fix the countries economic problems, the USSR could well (and realistically) have archieved GDP growth rates of 5% a year.
Now, let's do some math (yeay). Let's put this number into my model used before on this thread, while also reducing population growth somewhat (a reduction from 0.8% a year in the early 1980s to 0.6% a year in the 1990s and 2000s seems reasonable, considering rising living standarts).
In 1989 the Soviet Union's GDP amounted to 2.0 Trillion US Dollars. GDP per Capita amounted to 7.078 US Dollars.
In 2013 the countries of the former Soviet Union had a combined GDP of 2.75 Trillion US Dollars. GDP per Capita amounted to 9.503 US Dollars.
Now, considering the optimistic (but still very realistic) sceanrio outlined above, let's say that the annual average GDP growth of the USSR between 1989 and 2013 would've amounted to 5%. Let's assume that the annual average population growth rates would've amounted to 0.6%. The total population in 1989 amounted to 286.7 Million. If we stick with these estimates, the hypothetical GDP of the USSR in 2013 would have amounted to 4.4 Trillion US Dollars. The hypothetical population in 2013 would have amounted to 328.0 Million. The USSR's hypothetical GDP per Capita would have amounted to 13.414 US Dollars (which would imply an annual average GDP per Capita growth rate of 3.75% a year between 1989 and 2013. Such a rate of growth is not unrealistic, considering that East Germany had archieved an annual average GDP per Capita growth rate of 4.0% between 1950 and 1973).
To conclude:
In 2013 in OTL, the total population of the FSU amounted to 289.4 Million. GDP per Capita amounted to 8.700 US Dollars.
In 2013 (using this more optimistic but still realistic model), the population of the USSR would've amounted to 328.7 Million. GDP per Capita would have amounted to 13.414 US Dollars.
Living standarts would've been significantly higher than in OTL in such a scenario. In 2013, the USSR would've ranked 4th in terms of largest countries by GDP, behind the USA, China and Japan.
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ferdi254
Banned
And again Alexniko I have to state a single fact. The GDP of the eastern states was artificially inflated. The phenomenal 4% growth in the GDR simply did only exist for some reasons.
1. The GDR was calculating one Mark east being equivalent to one Mark west. It was not as 89 did clearly show it was 1:3.
2. The GDR was calculating too high prices. A Trabi for 10,000 East was valued at 10,000 West while in reality it’s value was less than 2,000.
3. Said Trabi could only be sold because no other cars could be bought by average people in the GDR (the Bonzen of course had their Volvos). The GDR had no competition from the West inside the Comecon.
Result: The GDR was only kept economically alive by loans from the West and Zwangsumtausch (forced exchange of currency) and literally selling of political prisoners.
The infrastructure was in shambles, the environment an unmitigated disaster.
The average GDR citizen was living on a standard of living akin to FRG Sozialhilfe (social relief) and the economic disparity was higher (!) than in the FRG.
With very few exceptions the GDR had no competitive industry compared to the FRG.
These are the facts.
1. The GDR was calculating one Mark east being equivalent to one Mark west. It was not as 89 did clearly show it was 1:3.
2. The GDR was calculating too high prices. A Trabi for 10,000 East was valued at 10,000 West while in reality it’s value was less than 2,000.
3. Said Trabi could only be sold because no other cars could be bought by average people in the GDR (the Bonzen of course had their Volvos). The GDR had no competition from the West inside the Comecon.
Result: The GDR was only kept economically alive by loans from the West and Zwangsumtausch (forced exchange of currency) and literally selling of political prisoners.
The infrastructure was in shambles, the environment an unmitigated disaster.
The average GDR citizen was living on a standard of living akin to FRG Sozialhilfe (social relief) and the economic disparity was higher (!) than in the FRG.
With very few exceptions the GDR had no competitive industry compared to the FRG.
These are the facts.
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I'll just quote @ObssesedNuker's post on this very thread.
I know of a number of great books and papers which's authors explain in detail how one can analyze the economic performance of socialist countries based on indicators like GDP and GNP with reasonable accuracy. If you're interested feel free to ask.
Yeah, now it's getting flat-out redicolous. The GDR, like all socialist countries, made most it's foreign currency profits through exports to the capitalist camp. Many West German companies imported products from the GDR and sold them in the FRG under different names. Among the most common imported goods were furniture, textiles, radios, typewriters, hairdryers, washing machines and refrigerators, to name just a few. Products from the GDR were well respected for their good quality and their low price. Again, a topic about which a lot has allready been written.
Now, don't get me wrong, tourism (especially from the FRG) was an important source of foreign currency for the GDR. Yet 1.) it was not the main source, and 2.) a lot of countries rely on the tourism industry. The GDR was not special in that regard.
Do you have a source for that? And by the way, you just claimed that the economic conditions in the GDR can not be measured accurately. And now you're contradicting yourself in the most redicolous way possible, i.e. by claiming that the lowest in West German society lived about as good/bad as the average East German citizen. Sure. Millions of people in todays Germany can barely pay their rent or pay for basic medical treatment.
I'm not saying that everything was perfect in the GDR. But you're allways making the same claims, I allways refute them, and then you just refuse to answer. That's how it went on a number of threada on this forum.
As for the environmental situation, yeah it was pretty bad, but it was not worse than it had been in the US during that time. In 1989, CO2 emission per Capita amounted to around 20 tons in the United States. In the GDR during the same year it amounted to around 19 tons.
And on the GDR's infrastructure, yeah it was inferior to that in the FRG, however compared to the world average (or even the European average) it was very good.
Source? I've never heard anyone seriously claim this, even to the most anti-communist people I know this would sound like a joke. Erich Honecker made 6.000 Mark per month, lived in a house with 200 square meters, and ate Magie canned soup. Sure he and the rest of the state and party leadership had privileges compared to the average East German citizen, and this fact (rightly) outraged many people in 1989. However the privileges were IN NO WAY comparable to the heavy social injustice that existed (and still exists) in the FRG.
Yeah, I've allready answered to that.
Not really. Come on, prove me wrong and I will change my position..
Come on, CO2 emissions are important but they are in no way the be-all, end-all of environmental damage, especially in the 1980s when few major economies were making any effort to control them except more or less by accident. What about mercury emissions, sulfur emissions, particulate emissions, toxic waste disposal, land use changes, and so on and so forth? Those have a much more obvious (and immediate) effect than CO2, and were the focus of Western environmental efforts from the 1970s until really the 2000s or so (albeit with global warming becoming increasingly significant over the 1980s and 1990s). And let's not compare only to the United States, which has been relatively dirty, but to West Germany, Britain, Japan, France...
ferdi254
Banned
Alexniko are you serious? Actually I could write a long and detailed refuse of all your accounts but I am sure it will not change your mind so why bother.
For everybody just looking at the deatails. Germany had to spend 2 trillion Marks on the GDR infrastructure and economical damage after 1989. The industry just vanished after it got serious competition.
And I notice you never even tried to answer to currency matters.
And yes the average GDR citizen had basic housing, food and nothing else. That was social aid in the FRG. And Just have a look of a road map of 45 and one of 89 and tell me what are the differences in the GDR that were not paid for by the FRG. Go on!
Just tell me who got rid and who paid for it in Bitterfeld?
And yes according to your thinking a Trabi was worth 10,000 Marks which it was not.
Have you ever even heard of the Werra? That river was saltier than the North Sea when it left the GDR.
Ever heard of the dying Thuringia forests due to brown coal being burned?
The GDR was on all measurable accounts far below the FRG.
For everybody just looking at the deatails. Germany had to spend 2 trillion Marks on the GDR infrastructure and economical damage after 1989. The industry just vanished after it got serious competition.
And I notice you never even tried to answer to currency matters.
And yes the average GDR citizen had basic housing, food and nothing else. That was social aid in the FRG. And Just have a look of a road map of 45 and one of 89 and tell me what are the differences in the GDR that were not paid for by the FRG. Go on!
Just tell me who got rid and who paid for it in Bitterfeld?
And yes according to your thinking a Trabi was worth 10,000 Marks which it was not.
Have you ever even heard of the Werra? That river was saltier than the North Sea when it left the GDR.
Ever heard of the dying Thuringia forests due to brown coal being burned?
The GDR was on all measurable accounts far below the FRG.
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So? One can create a planned economy where economic units have to make a profit and can go out of business (exposing their workers to financial insecurity and the risk of losing homes and starving). As the Japanese did... Mostly. (One can argue they've been too adverse to allowing corporations to fail in the last 40 years.) My point is, it is worthwhile to not over-generalize the lessons of why the Soviet Union went down the drain.
fasquardon
So, I'm not an economist or an expert on Soviet history by any stretch, but are we talking about the modern Soviet Union being on par with China, in terms of being an economic powerhouse with a relatively good standard of living (i.e. access to consumer goods) for its population, but still with a repressive government? How about if the Cuban revolution is butterflied away (Castro is killed by the CIA or the Mob/Somoza's government), and Khrushchev instigates glasnost/perestroika like reforms in the 60's/70's to break with the legacy of Stalin? Or at least allows more free market competition, like Deng Xiaoping did in China without doing away with the KGB/Gulag system. Maybe like the Chinese, their attitude would be one where the people will be happy if they have a higher standard of living, better housing, higher wages, etc. that they'll become more devoted to the State. I don't know how this would have happened with a divided Europe, West/East Berlin and Germany. But if there are less military tensions, then this could have happened.
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I would assume not, because the Soviet Union reached the same par that China is at now in the 80s.
fasquardon
No.
The problem with the centrally planned economic model is the lack of market-based pricing.
Without this, you do not have prices to regulate supply and demand.
Using computers will not help this.
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Ah yes prison labour economies are abject failures like China or the United States.
I feel like thinking the Soviet system as this single unchanging monolith that eventually burned itself out due to redundancy is too much of a generalization. What would be considered as the orthodox form of the USSR, anyway? The strategies and policies of economic development between Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev are all so different that I think taking one period of it and making it the entire representative of the system would be a flawed approach.
The framework of Soviet economic policy has been overwhelmingly dependent on whoever was General Secretary. And there was a massive difference between the General Secretaries on how much bottom-up reforms and innovations would be tolerated.
Lenin's policy was OG Dengism (albeit the insistence that it was temporary, the policy outlived him), Stalin's was the primacy of the planned economy and the expansion of heavy industry at any cost, Khrushchev's was in pragmatically decentralizing economic decision-making, Brezhnev was a return to softened form of Stalinism and Gorbachev was a return to a more radical angle on Khrushchevism.
In the end, it seems like even if the tenures of people such as Khrushchev and Lenin might be flawed in it themselves, the degree of openness and feedback they would pragmatically tolerate from the Soviet populace could have guaranteed far better response feedbacks on economic planning, that in turn might prevent the Soviet economy from ossifying like it did under Stalin and Brezhnev. And thus, in order for the USSR to survive and be tolerable, there needs to be a General Secretary that can guarantee that feedback from the populace, which in turn might make the government's economic development strategies far more rationalized.
The fact that the ensurance of rational feedback was entirely dependent on the General Secretary shows a big fundamental flaw in the system. But a few lucky choices in moderate leaders for several decades might put that problem at the back of the people's concern, albeit not solving it entirely.
The framework of Soviet economic policy has been overwhelmingly dependent on whoever was General Secretary. And there was a massive difference between the General Secretaries on how much bottom-up reforms and innovations would be tolerated.
Lenin's policy was OG Dengism (albeit the insistence that it was temporary, the policy outlived him), Stalin's was the primacy of the planned economy and the expansion of heavy industry at any cost, Khrushchev's was in pragmatically decentralizing economic decision-making, Brezhnev was a return to softened form of Stalinism and Gorbachev was a return to a more radical angle on Khrushchevism.
In the end, it seems like even if the tenures of people such as Khrushchev and Lenin might be flawed in it themselves, the degree of openness and feedback they would pragmatically tolerate from the Soviet populace could have guaranteed far better response feedbacks on economic planning, that in turn might prevent the Soviet economy from ossifying like it did under Stalin and Brezhnev. And thus, in order for the USSR to survive and be tolerable, there needs to be a General Secretary that can guarantee that feedback from the populace, which in turn might make the government's economic development strategies far more rationalized.
The fact that the ensurance of rational feedback was entirely dependent on the General Secretary shows a big fundamental flaw in the system. But a few lucky choices in moderate leaders for several decades might put that problem at the back of the people's concern, albeit not solving it entirely.
They would never enjoy the efficiencies of the capitalist free market system BUT:
1. with much lower military spending,
2. and a continuation of NEP policies in the agricultural area and for small businesses,
3. and with no expensive subsidies for off shore basket cases like Cuba, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, etc.
4. and with a management system focused more on skill sets and less of blind loyalty
5. and without the massive destruction caused by WW 2 and the Stalinist agricultural policies..........
I think that they could have produced a decent material lifestyle for their population - certainly much better housing that in the historic situation and probably much better diet and recreation. But they would never have Western civil liberties.
The DDR had a reasonable per capita GDP (the highest in the Eastern Block) and it suffered from the looting of its industry after WW2, constant brain drain to West Germany, very few natural resources. But it had a reasonably competent leadership and iron discipline enforced by the Stasi. If you remove the incentives of the free market, you have to substitute something else to get people working and shaping up.
1. with much lower military spending,
2. and a continuation of NEP policies in the agricultural area and for small businesses,
3. and with no expensive subsidies for off shore basket cases like Cuba, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, etc.
4. and with a management system focused more on skill sets and less of blind loyalty
5. and without the massive destruction caused by WW 2 and the Stalinist agricultural policies..........
I think that they could have produced a decent material lifestyle for their population - certainly much better housing that in the historic situation and probably much better diet and recreation. But they would never have Western civil liberties.
The DDR had a reasonable per capita GDP (the highest in the Eastern Block) and it suffered from the looting of its industry after WW2, constant brain drain to West Germany, very few natural resources. But it had a reasonably competent leadership and iron discipline enforced by the Stasi. If you remove the incentives of the free market, you have to substitute something else to get people working and shaping up.
Old East German joke: "Sir, your car is stuck on a piece of gum...."
Do you have a source for this? Sorry to restart the thread over something so minor, but I heard something about the Trabant sucking today and it stirred my memory.
Definitely sounds like something the Soviets would do.
Derek Pullem
Donor
Define "work"?
I believe it might work as well as say Cuba (probably slightly better if it retains economic dominance over the puppet states) but no way will it compete with the West. So like Cuba there will be a large minority (majority?) who are better off than the previous regime but those who are most creative / talented will have more opportunities in the West. So the Iron Curtain comes down (or in Cuba's case the US sanctions) to keep the people in the system.
What will kill the planned economy is computing and communications. Once the people has access to mass communications then they will know that the West can (not for everyone though) deliver a better life. And the system crumbles.
China's totalitarian state works because it games the Western system and wins enough to keep the bulk of its people content. If the USSR is wedded to its ideological purity then unless they go full on North Korea they can't maintain their system in the face of global communications.