Did the USSR have a chance of surviving in the 1980s?

Avoid Gorbachev political reforms is the main thing

Yep, follow the Chinese way of economic, but not political reforms. That would probably make it. And, of course the economic reforma should not be of the crazy type followed in Russia in the 1990s.
 
The underlying problem for a command economy is how you ensure that the centre gets accurate information. Soviet systems were remarkably poor in in-built cross-checks, relying instead (to a large extent) on sending saboteurs to the gulag.

eg even in post-Soviet times the requests for foreign currency, and the counterpart ruble payment went to different departments at the central bank, so that any checks were only carried out after the foreign currency had been paid out.

I wonder why they went to different bank departments?

A command economy is always going to have a problem with being overwhelmed by information flows, and it makes sense to me that information overload was part of why the late Soviet system struggled to control the patronage networks. That said, I don't think the system has to be "crony communist" any more than a free market capitalist system needs to be crony capitalist. The patronage system was part of the inheritance from the Tsarist period, and survived the end of the Soviet system.

So eliminating or reducing the power of these networks is a way to make room for more productive information flows.

fasquardon
 
@fasquardon
2qabv3.jpg
 
Maybe if Gromyko got the Premiership instead of Gorbachev. He knew that the USSR needed reform, though more gradual ones that the ones Gorbachev was proposing.
 
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Maybe if Gromyko got the Premiershipninstead of Gorbachev. He knew that the USSR needed reform, though more gradual ones that the ones Gorbachev was proposing.

Grim Grom seems to have had the power and respect to take the job if he wanted it. Have you found any good biographies of him? Any good summaries of his outlook and opinion on the problems of the day? And how ambitious was he? As far as I can see, Gromyko was much like Kosygin and Suslov, a formidable man who was a genuine servant of the Revolution and utterly uninterested in the top job.

But I know comparatively little about Gromyko.


This warmed my heart, it really did. Just because I am a tidal wave of forceful opinion doesn't mean I am right though. I may think I am right, but new sources could cast what I think I know in a very different light.

I mean, in the time I've been studying Soviet history I've substantially changed my views on the Great Patriotic War, on Stalin and on Kosygin and my understanding of the Soviet economy is always evolving.

fasquardon
 
I wonder why they went to different bank departments?

Because the central bank had a separate special department for dealing with foreign currencies, and nobody had thought through the process to identify how to stop fraud before it happened.

See similar issues with the whole rouble payment system before the fall of communism, as the authorities struggled with the distinction between roubles as a bookkeeping system for a command economy, and roubles as money.

"In principle yes, but in practice no" seems a good description of how many parts of the Soviet system "worked".
 
I can see no flaws in this Khrushchevian deviousness.

Except that this was a joke which would not make sense in a real life: what's the sense in having "opposition" like that?

So from your perspective, the system was running on inertia for close to 400 years?

To start with, 1990 - 1700 = 290, not 400. Then, I did not say that it was all the same all the time, just that approach to the reforming was quite often the same. As for the "inertia", there could be numerous analogies to describe its behavior for the last couple decades. For example, car without the brakes going down the hill or something of the kind. The current model was based upon the oppression, absence of a free market and an attempt of a complete control from top to bottom. Did not work 100% like that at any time but by the end "quantity turned into quality" and the things became too bad to ignore or repair.

And was there a noticeable decline in the quality of medical services at any point? If so, how did it manifest? I've read that from the 1960s on, there was a real shortage of doctors.

There was shortage of everything and as far as quality is involved, ask your dentist to do root canal without anesthesia. Perhaps you'll get a general idea.

*Divert water from northern European Russia to the Ukraine and southern Russia - one of the major bottlenecks for agriculture in the European Black Earth region is that water is so variable, so while such a water diversion is bad for the wetlands of the European Sub-Arctic, for the Soviet economy (and Soviet trade balance)

The projects to this effect had been proposed but their impracticality became too obvious even to the Soviet leadership.

*Get over the feelings of technological inferiority - the Soviet Union wasted enormous amounts of resources copying the West (generally using technology they'd stolen) or stealing technology with the intent to copy it (the KGB had the largest and most successful industrial espionage racket in history going - most of the fruits from that languished in file cabinets because not enough engineers and scientists in the relevant fields had the requisite clearances to go through what the KGB had stolen to figure out what was worth implementing) in every case I am aware of (except perhaps the atom bomb program) the Soviets would have been better to simply fund R&D projects that started only with the knowledge that a thing was possible, instead, when obtaining foreign technology (which the Soviets must do, since the rest of the world has more brainpower than any single country or empire) buy what the foreigners are willing to sell

On this specific subject I can tell you that as far as the Soviet electronics and computers were involved by the end of the 1980's it was impossible even to copy the advanced models and the "original" mini-computers (at least those invented in the Northern Donetsk) were a complete disaster. BTW, the process of stealing did not necessarily had the KGB involved: you were buying the original computers and then copying them and their software. The problem was that you'd need to have a supporting elements base (oops), that there would be a need to figure out how to copy software of the microprocessors, etc.

Most of the snipped are fantasies which sound good but rather unrelated to the realities of the SU.
 
Except that this was a joke which would not make sense in a real life: what's the sense in having "opposition" like that?

I was being ironic.

The projects to this effect had been proposed but their impracticality became too obvious even to the Soviet leadership.

One of the papers I have in my massive pile of Sovietology is a history of these water diversion projects - the Siberia-Central Asia project was still at the pipe dream stage, but the Northern Europe-Southern Europe water diversion project looked like it had come very close to happening in the early 80s and if the Soviet Union had continued for a few more years, could very well have happened.

I suspect it would have cost much more than budgeted (because infrastructure is always more expensive than people think, whether they are Westerners, Easterners, Southerners or anyone who isn't a really top-level project manager, but who hires them? they always tell people that what they want to do will be expensive!), but in narrow economic terms (assuming they were off by the average of projecting the total cost to be 1/6th of the real cost), it would likely have been somewhat profitable. In wider ecological and economic terms, yes, this is going to be completely impractical. The loss to the North European wetlands will be more than the gains to the Ukrainian collective farms.

I can try to hunt down where the paper is online if you'd like to read it.

To start with, 1990 - 1700 = 290, not 400

Sorry, conflated Peter I with Ivan IV there...

Then, I did not say that it was all the same all the time, just that approach to the reforming was quite often the same.

Ahh! OK, yes, I understand you.

That is an interesting point. I've never tried to compare different periods of Russian reform with each-other. I'll have to look into this.

There was shortage of everything and as far as quality is involved, ask your dentist to do root canal without anesthesia. Perhaps you'll get a general idea.

My understanding is that during at least the early parts of Brezhnev's tenure things were tight but at least available in sufficient quantity to assure reasonable standards compared to Western Europe at the time (not that Western Europe was great by modern standards). Then there was a decline in outcomes (especially in terms of shortening male life expectancies and rising infant mortality rates) during the 70s and that over the early 80s things were starting to get a little better, then during the late 80s things got really bad.

Did you see ups and downs like this? Or was the inadequacy pretty constant?

On this specific subject I can tell you that as far as the Soviet electronics and computers were involved by the end of the 1980's it was impossible even to copy the advanced models and the "original" mini-computers (at least those invented in the Northern Donetsk) were a complete disaster. BTW, the process of stealing did not necessarily had the KGB involved: you were buying the original computers and then copying them and their software. The problem was that you'd need to have a supporting elements base (oops), that there would be a need to figure out how to copy software of the microprocessors, etc.

Soviet computers in the 70s and 80s are a great example of the technological inferiority complex driving uneconomic decisions. Dumping their old computer technology (until the late 60s, the Soviets were actually leaders in the design side, though software and scale of production lagged far behind the US) to steal IBM's designs looked like a very sensible decision, because even if they were copying less advanced IBM mainframes, they could steal all that software from the US! But copying the software, as you say, turned out to be harder than expected and the USSR just ended up with copies of really old US technology much too late for the effort to be worthwhile. The Soviets ended up in a position where by the end of the 80s they were more than a decade behind the US even on the design side.

It may be impossible for the Soviet computer industry to consolidate around a couple of standard models (as I understand it, in the Soviet Union it was actually a benefit to the customer if they bought a computer that was incompatible with anything their competitors had, there was a perverse incentive to have too many models), but if it were possible to chose a very few domestic designs as standard models then likely the gap between East and West would have been narrower than OTL. Of course, a more competitive Soviet mainframe sector is still going to lag behind computer development in the rest of the world, but perhaps less so this way?

Most of the snipped are fantasies which sound good but rather unrelated to the realities of the SU.

Just because of the usual "how do you change something when the system is rotten and the heads of the people making decisions are rotten too?" Or do you see other ways in which my grasp of the realities inside the Soviet Union seems lacking?

If we're all making memes in this thread:

Please don't. Especially since I feel this particular entry over-exalts my book-learning and under-values the contributions of the other participants in this thread.

fasquardon
 
Very strictly speaking, the USSR did survive the 1980s, it was formally dissolved on December 26, 1991. Distinctly, the second year of the 1990s, is not the 1980s.
 
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One of the papers I have in my massive pile of Sovietology is a history of these water diversion projects - the Siberia-Central Asia project was still at the pipe dream stage, but the Northern Europe-Southern Europe water diversion project looked like it had come very close to happening in the early 80s and if the Soviet Union had continued for a few more years, could very well have happened.

Ecological results of the Soviet experimenting already had been disastrous. Some of the best agricultural lands ended up under water as a result of creation the huge hydro power plants. Ditto for a significant climate change as a result of creation of the similar artificial "sea" for Bratskaya hydro power plant. Isolating Kara Bugaz Gol from the Caspian Sea produced results opposite to the expected and Sea of Aral pretty much disappeared. One may only guess what the further experiments in this area would produce.

That is an interesting point. I've never tried to compare different periods of Russian reform with each-other. I'll have to look into this.

Both Petrian and Communist reforms had been based upon the similar assumptions/principles/<whatever>:

(a) An idea that a state must work as a clockwork with government "knowing better" what should be done and how it should be done.
(b) For the great purpose the population is expendable.


My understanding is that during at least the early parts of Brezhnev's tenure things were tight but at least available in sufficient quantity to assure reasonable standards compared to Western Europe at the time (not that Western Europe was great by modern standards). Then there was a decline in outcomes (especially in terms of shortening male life expectancies and rising infant mortality rates) during the 70s and that over the early 80s things were starting to get a little better, then during the late 80s things got really bad.

More or less, yes. Nikita did a lot to destroy the agriculture both on the governmental (stressing extensive usage of the chemicals, putting resources into expanding the agricultural lands instead of trying to improve productivity, insanity of the corn program, etc.; basically, you name it and he did it) and individual level (cutting the personal plots). Breznev's regime picked up from this point and continued along the same lines even if with less of the "innovations" except for the seemingly good ideas like providing collective farms with the cash advances (true to the rule of the thumb, this killed incentive to work).

Soviet computers in the 70s and 80s are a great example of the technological inferiority complex driving uneconomic decisions. Dumping their old computer technology (until the late 60s, the Soviets were actually leaders in the design side, though software and scale of production lagged far behind the US) to steal IBM's designs looked like a very sensible decision, because even if they were copying less advanced IBM mainframes, they could steal all that software from the US! But copying the software, as you say, turned out to be harder than expected and the USSR just ended up with copies of really old US technology much too late for the effort to be worthwhile. The Soviets ended up in a position where by the end of the 80s they were more than a decade behind the US even on the design side.

Let's don't go into that area: I was part of it and can tell that pretty much everything was done wrong as far as the independent development was involved. You can start with the wrong incentives for the designers and go all the way to the inadequate level of electronic industry or even production of the peripheral devices, discs, etc.

Don't know why are you getting fixated on the mainframes: in 1980's most of the industry had been (supposedly) using the mini-computers.

If you don't mind me saying so, the problem with your "proposals" is not that they are illogical or foolish but a genuine unwillingness to grasp a fact that on certain stage of a general deterioration of a society the problem is not just incompetence on the top but an overall stagnation on all levels. Few sincere enthusiasts were not capable of changing things even on a local level because such a thing would be immediately producing a negative reaction from everybody else and cheating was OK.
 
Ecological results of the Soviet experimenting already had been disastrous. Some of the best agricultural lands ended up under water as a result of creation the huge hydro power plants. Ditto for a significant climate change as a result of creation of the similar artificial "sea" for Bratskaya hydro power plant. Isolating Kara Bugaz Gol from the Caspian Sea produced results opposite to the expected and Sea of Aral pretty much disappeared. One may only guess what the further experiments in this area would produce.

Yeah, the Soviet "war against nature" was horrific. And I don't use the world lightly.

More or less, yes. Nikita did a lot to destroy the agriculture both on the governmental (stressing extensive usage of the chemicals, putting resources into expanding the agricultural lands instead of trying to improve productivity, insanity of the corn program, etc.; basically, you name it and he did it) and individual level (cutting the personal plots). Breznev's regime picked up from this point and continued along the same lines even if with less of the "innovations" except for the seemingly good ideas like providing collective farms with the cash advances (true to the rule of the thumb, this killed incentive to work).

And the trends in the area of medicine in particular?

(And I didn't know that Khrushchev reduced the size of the private plots.)

Let's don't go into that area: I was part of it and can tell that pretty much everything was done wrong as far as the independent development was involved. You can start with the wrong incentives for the designers and go all the way to the inadequate level of electronic industry or even production of the peripheral devices, discs, etc.

I won't twist your arm, but I'd LOVE to hear more of what was going on in Soviet computing in the late 70s and the 80s.

Don't know why are you getting fixated on the mainframes: in 1980's most of the industry had been (supposedly) using the mini-computers.

I'm fixated on mainframes because I'm looking at the late 60s and the 70s (the period I know more about), when the Soviets bet heavily on the ES EVM clone of the IBM 360/370.

If you don't mind me saying so, the problem with your "proposals" is not that they are illogical or foolish but a genuine unwillingness to grasp a fact that on certain stage of a general deterioration of a society the problem is not just incompetence on the top but an overall stagnation on all levels. Few sincere enthusiasts were not capable of changing things even on a local level because such a thing would be immediately producing a negative reaction from everybody else and cheating was OK.

Yeah, I'm an optimist. That's not to say that I don't see the issue of apathy and social deterioration and that I've not considered that it may be the true underlying cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. But was it the cause of the collapse happening in 1991? I think other factors are more important in determining the "when" - like for example the generational change-over and before that the damage done to the Soviet Union by so many of the people running it (not just the very top leadership, but also people in more humble ranks) being too old to do their jobs effectively.

But maybe the real answer to "why in 1991?" is "because that's when the underlying society had reached its limit." I find it hard to believe that was true after Brezhnev died this was more true than the time after Stalin died, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

fasquardon
 
Bless your hearts, guys, but most of you are trying to make the Soviet Union - a shotgun marriage based on bullying, sadism and wholesale murder - survive by being a kinder, smarter and more economically viable machine? That's like saying hockey would be more popular if the puck glowed. They tried that. It didn't work. That's the point.

What would have made the Soviet Union survive was what worked in the first place: bullying, sadism and wholesale murder. It's not as if the thin-lipped pale-blooded stooges in the KGB and the thick-skulled paramilitary goons somehow became more humane and got in touch with their sensitive side and did not want to kill, maim and torture. It's just that they were no longer sure the regime had their back. They were quite willing to put a bullet into the nape of any longhair or ethnic troublemaker, but hesitated because the system was sending very mixed messages. The soldiers were not quite sure the government would reward them if they shot into the crowd, and the officers in charge of them thought long and hard about potential jail terms and nooses. It wasn't the 1950s any more, never mind the 1930s. The repressive organs were hesitant.

Also, people give too much credit, or blame, to Gorby for wrecking the whole thing. Consider for a moment how Gorby ended up in power in the first place? Someone, somewhere, probably with blue stripes through his shoulder straps had to put a marker down and approve his candidacy. The Soviet Union was in such a state that the idea of reform sounded great even to those grayhairs who pined for the good old days when they could just shoot anyone merely for looking Jewish.

In 1987, Yeltsin, a hillbilly from the Urals, with a finger missing due to smashing a grenade with a hammer for fun, is the political lord and master of Moscow, because once again someone vouches for him and thinks reform is necessary. And he then proceeds to criticize the Party at an open session. Just stands up and calls everyone in charge greedy bastards. His punishment? He gets criticized for four hours by other Party delegates.

...

Somewhere Stalin sarcophagus moved from his banging his head against it in rage at hearing that.

Yeltsin then stabs himself with scissors, almost killing himself. He is rushed to the hospital and given the finest care.

Oh, and when he gets better, he then gets drunk and falls into the river, almost drowns, shows up at a press conference (!) late and accuses the regime of having him kidnapped and thrown off a bridge. And they actually deny it!

And somewhere around here, he gets a trip abroad! To the United States of America! Where he lectures!

What is the moral of the story to the KGB apparatchiks there?

As to the economy. The Soviet economy sucked. Period. But look at Venezuela. That thing is still going somehow, all logic, common sense and bad juju to contrary.

If you "want" the Soviet Union to survive into the 21st century, then start killing, beating and jailing. It sure worked the first time around.
 
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