2 ms·

It's my understanding that the Soviet style organization is basically a continuation of the normal Soviet ultra-centralization-of-everything policies that exten

by bane 11y ago

It's my understanding that the Soviet style organization is basically a continuation of the normal Soviet ultra-centralization-of-everything policies that extended from the military organization to centralized hot water boilers in Soviet cities. The Soviet education system was pretty good, by WW2 it had turned a territory with <28% literacy (for Women it was ~13%) into an empire with >75% literacy. In later years the number was no doubt near 100%. It works to a point for command and control, but greatly reduces tactical flexibility and decision making. As we've also learned from the GWoT is that centralization makes it easier to disable an organization and that distribution of concerns can enable forces to be much more resilient to losses.

ptaipale 11y ago
> The Soviet education system was pretty good, by WW2 it had turned a territory with <28% literacy (for Women it was ~13%) into an empire with >75% literacy. Note that it was fairly easy to improve literacy by a lot, because the starting point was so low, after the reactionary and eventually dysfunctional rule in Russia proper. But of course the progress during Soviet rule was still quite remarkable. But already before that, Finland, where I live - what was a Grand Duchy under the tsar, a part of the empire but not part of Russia - had literacy rate 98 % in 1880. The duchy was self-governing within the empire, the central government just taking care of foreign and military policy. The tool to reach this was religious/church control of sexual lives: here you couldn't get a marriage permission unless you'd acquired enough literacy to read religious texts.
DrScump 11y ago
WW2 it had turned a territory with <28% literacy (for Women it was ~13%) into an empire with >75% literacy Sure, but I'm guessing that most of the tens of millions who died from starvation under Stalin were illiterate. That skews the counters a bit.

by bane 11y ago

ptaipale 11y ago

> The Soviet education system was pretty good, by WW2 it had turned a territory with <28% literacy (for Women it was ~13%) into an empire with >75% literacy. Note that it was fairly easy to improve literacy by a lot, because the starting point was so low, after the reactionary and eventually dysfunctional rule in Russia proper. But of course the progress during Soviet rule was still quite remarkable. But already before that, Finland, where I live - what was a Grand Duchy under the tsar, a part of the empire but not part of Russia - had literacy rate 98 % in 1880. The duchy was self-governing within the empire, the central government just taking care of foreign and military policy. The tool to reach this was religious/church control of sexual lives: here you couldn't get a marriage permission unless you'd acquired enough literacy to read religious texts.

DrScump 11y ago

WW2 it had turned a territory with <28% literacy (for Women it was ~13%) into an empire with >75% literacy Sure, but I'm guessing that most of the tens of millions who died from starvation under Stalin were illiterate. That skews the counters a bit.