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> The socialist downfall of countries are all unique, but follow similar paths The PRC just surpassed US GDP on some measures, whereas in the 1940s it was a we

> The socialist downfall of countries are all unique, but follow similar paths The PRC just surpassed US GDP on some measures, whereas in the 1940s it was a western and Japanese occupied backwards basket case. Is that the downfall you mean? Or do you mean Russia, which couldn't win a war with the Japanese in 1905, never mind Germany a decade later? The New York Times columns of 1918 said Mr. Lenin's government would fall any day now. What actually happened is as Europe and the US fell into depression in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing. It repelled an attack by a military alliance of virtually all of continental Europe in 1941 and Red Army soldiers planted the red flag in 1945. Then it launched the first satellite, man in space etc. After becoming a superpower, the central committee of the CPSU decided to pack it in in the late 1980s, and attune itself to the economic and political system of the rest of the world. Even Molotov never believed in "socialism in one country", and he was the one proclaiming it. Some downfall, foreign-dominated backwaters rose to become world superpowers.

guard-of-terra 10y ago
> in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing It (The USSR) was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives. Because it was too busy selling gold and wheat to buy industry from Americans (that's who built all those plants). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor I think I'd skip an industrialization like that.
- rangibaby 10y ago
  > I think I'd skip an industrialization like that. Then you could enjoy Holodomor every day thanks to the unfortunate fact that you happened to occupy some prime Lebensraum. Stalin was a mass murderer, but he ultimately made or allowed the correct strategy to put the USSR in a position to defeat Germany, which was a pretty good trick (to put it lightly).
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE
    - Aloha 10y ago
      Arguably the social policies of Nazi Germany likely would have kept the birthrate high for another 2-3 generations, after that.. its hard to say. Alternative histories of Germany winning the war are many, and interesting (and scary) though experiments.
      - guard-of-terra 10y ago
        Nobody got 2-3 generations in their position, I think they could only aim for a half generation of high-ish birthrate. That's what USA got, and it was arguably less urbanized to begin with. They'll still have massive debt and huge costs of security and investments in freshly acquired "lebensraum". Honestly I think they'll crumble anyway.
    - rangibaby 10y ago
      Your first paragraph is "the Nazis didn't have enough coal to burn 6M Jews"-level dishonesty. They would have found a way to populate all that sweet, sweet land, like any colonizer in the past or present. I agree with the second one. The "spoils" claimed weren't much compared to the destruction inflicted on their country and people. That has nothing to do with my original comment though.
      - guard-of-terra 10y ago
        Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. I see rapid decolonization. Japanese leave rural areas and northern territories. Russians fled Central Asia, pushed off Caucasus, large swaths of land become anthropic deserts. French in no position to colonize Africa anymore, if anything they're getting colonized. Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "sraum". Arguable, Polish and Balts skip their countries for greener pastures. If anybody in EU will be lacking room they can move there any minute.
- astrodust 10y ago
  In the 1930s the US was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
  - knowaveragejoe 10y ago
    Do you really not see the difference between these two events?
    - astrodust 10y ago
      I'm trying to draw parallels here, that sometimes shit happens. Russia's mismanagement of agriculture notwithstanding, sometimes you're up against forces you can't control.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        There's a hell of a big difference between an inadvertent result of ill-considered agricultural practices and a deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation.
        pastProlog 10y ago
        If there was a "deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation" happening, I'm sure I could look in the New York Times archives of the period and read about that. If I consult the archives, the reporters going through the Ukraine said reports of that were false. Also, all of Europe had a bad crop that year, I guess the Soviets were controlling the weather?
        astrodust 10y ago
        There's a lot of hyperbole on both sides here. The Soviets at the time claimed Americans were starving by the millions, and of course Americans claimed the Soviets were starving by the millions. Of course this is a point too subtle to work on Hacker News. The data on both sides is wobbly to the point of being undependable. Until modern social security systems kicked in the number of people living in the US was largely a hypothetical quantity, especially in far-flung rural areas, the very sort of which were impacted by the Dust Bowl. The 1930 census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census seems to be fairly comprehensive, but you have to wonder how far into the wilderness these people were willing to go to tabulate who was living in the extreme edges of the American frontier.
- pastProlog 10y ago
  > I'd skip an industrialization like that That's how the British empire industrialized (in India, Ireland) etc. The western countries bordering Ukraine had food shortages the same year the Ukraine did, no mention of that. Also if you read New York Times during this period, the reporters travelling the Ukraine said there were no famine conditions - the Times said this, not Pravda.
seibelj 10y ago
The China during the Cultural Revolution was not a success. Millions were murdered, people starved, and a terrible stain marks that period of China's long history. It was the pro-capitalist reforms that turned China into the success it is today, and as China starts to falter with it's unmanageable debt and unproductive, government-directed parts of the economy, the reforms will inevitably be capitalist, pro-market solutions that remove the state and promote competition. So yes, some economies can succeed despite their socialist, government-controlled economic policies, but when things start to fail, solutions all point to the markets.
- pastProlog 10y ago
  > solutions all point to markets It's amazing how this merry-go-round of meaningless and misleading language gets echoed in an echo chamber unquestioned. The USSR had markets just like the US did. You go to the store, you see radishes and milk, you buy radishes with your rubles at this market, you go to another store, you buy the blue shirt instead of the tan one with your rubles. The markets are the same. What do I have to twist my thought process around to think they are not the same. Not to go off on another tangent, but that store could be privately or state owned in Russia. Just like liquor stores and post offices can be state owned in the US. The transistor and Internet was created in the US by government spending and government granting of monopolies (read the MCI lawsuit papers) The ARPAnet and NSFnet were not allowed commercial traffic until the 1990s. Then there is the Federal Reserve, NSF, DARPA, bank bailouts - the US economy has been government-directed since WWII, as Warren Buffett's father pointed out in Congress back when that all started.
  - seibelj 10y ago
    It always amazes me when people vehemently defend the USSR and similar, especially in a place like HN. The USSR was nothing like the United States. You did not start a "radish and milk" store in the USSR without approval from the government. To argue that the USSR was anything remotely close to a free market is absurd and a dangerous reinterpretation of established history. I'm afraid you have very skewed, incorrect understanding of facts and of human nature.
knowaveragejoe 10y ago
It can be argued that the PRC has done as well as they have by not only embracing free market principles but by turning a blind eye to their own industries essentially cheating on the global stage. The west in general has done similar things but at nowhere near the scale.

guard-of-terra 10y ago

> in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing It (The USSR) was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives. Because it was too busy selling gold and wheat to buy industry from Americans (that's who built all those plants). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor I think I'd skip an industrialization like that.

rangibaby 10y ago
> I think I'd skip an industrialization like that. Then you could enjoy Holodomor every day thanks to the unfortunate fact that you happened to occupy some prime Lebensraum. Stalin was a mass murderer, but he ultimately made or allowed the correct strategy to put the USSR in a position to defeat Germany, which was a pretty good trick (to put it lightly).
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE
  - Aloha 10y ago
    Arguably the social policies of Nazi Germany likely would have kept the birthrate high for another 2-3 generations, after that.. its hard to say. Alternative histories of Germany winning the war are many, and interesting (and scary) though experiments.
    - guard-of-terra 10y ago
      Nobody got 2-3 generations in their position, I think they could only aim for a half generation of high-ish birthrate. That's what USA got, and it was arguably less urbanized to begin with. They'll still have massive debt and huge costs of security and investments in freshly acquired "lebensraum". Honestly I think they'll crumble anyway.
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    Your first paragraph is "the Nazis didn't have enough coal to burn 6M Jews"-level dishonesty. They would have found a way to populate all that sweet, sweet land, like any colonizer in the past or present. I agree with the second one. The "spoils" claimed weren't much compared to the destruction inflicted on their country and people. That has nothing to do with my original comment though.
    - guard-of-terra 10y ago
      Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. I see rapid decolonization. Japanese leave rural areas and northern territories. Russians fled Central Asia, pushed off Caucasus, large swaths of land become anthropic deserts. French in no position to colonize Africa anymore, if anything they're getting colonized. Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "sraum". Arguable, Polish and Balts skip their countries for greener pastures. If anybody in EU will be lacking room they can move there any minute.
astrodust 10y ago
In the 1930s the US was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
- knowaveragejoe 10y ago
  Do you really not see the difference between these two events?
  - astrodust 10y ago
    I'm trying to draw parallels here, that sometimes shit happens. Russia's mismanagement of agriculture notwithstanding, sometimes you're up against forces you can't control.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      There's a hell of a big difference between an inadvertent result of ill-considered agricultural practices and a deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation.
      - pastProlog 10y ago
        If there was a "deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation" happening, I'm sure I could look in the New York Times archives of the period and read about that. If I consult the archives, the reporters going through the Ukraine said reports of that were false. Also, all of Europe had a bad crop that year, I guess the Soviets were controlling the weather?
        astrodust 10y ago
        There's a lot of hyperbole on both sides here. The Soviets at the time claimed Americans were starving by the millions, and of course Americans claimed the Soviets were starving by the millions. Of course this is a point too subtle to work on Hacker News. The data on both sides is wobbly to the point of being undependable. Until modern social security systems kicked in the number of people living in the US was largely a hypothetical quantity, especially in far-flung rural areas, the very sort of which were impacted by the Dust Bowl. The 1930 census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census seems to be fairly comprehensive, but you have to wonder how far into the wilderness these people were willing to go to tabulate who was living in the extreme edges of the American frontier.
pastProlog 10y ago
> I'd skip an industrialization like that That's how the British empire industrialized (in India, Ireland) etc. The western countries bordering Ukraine had food shortages the same year the Ukraine did, no mention of that. Also if you read New York Times during this period, the reporters travelling the Ukraine said there were no famine conditions - the Times said this, not Pravda.

seibelj 10y ago

The China during the Cultural Revolution was not a success. Millions were murdered, people starved, and a terrible stain marks that period of China's long history. It was the pro-capitalist reforms that turned China into the success it is today, and as China starts to falter with it's unmanageable debt and unproductive, government-directed parts of the economy, the reforms will inevitably be capitalist, pro-market solutions that remove the state and promote competition. So yes, some economies can succeed despite their socialist, government-controlled economic policies, but when things start to fail, solutions all point to the markets.

pastProlog 10y ago
> solutions all point to markets It's amazing how this merry-go-round of meaningless and misleading language gets echoed in an echo chamber unquestioned. The USSR had markets just like the US did. You go to the store, you see radishes and milk, you buy radishes with your rubles at this market, you go to another store, you buy the blue shirt instead of the tan one with your rubles. The markets are the same. What do I have to twist my thought process around to think they are not the same. Not to go off on another tangent, but that store could be privately or state owned in Russia. Just like liquor stores and post offices can be state owned in the US. The transistor and Internet was created in the US by government spending and government granting of monopolies (read the MCI lawsuit papers) The ARPAnet and NSFnet were not allowed commercial traffic until the 1990s. Then there is the Federal Reserve, NSF, DARPA, bank bailouts - the US economy has been government-directed since WWII, as Warren Buffett's father pointed out in Congress back when that all started.
- seibelj 10y ago
  It always amazes me when people vehemently defend the USSR and similar, especially in a place like HN. The USSR was nothing like the United States. You did not start a "radish and milk" store in the USSR without approval from the government. To argue that the USSR was anything remotely close to a free market is absurd and a dangerous reinterpretation of established history. I'm afraid you have very skewed, incorrect understanding of facts and of human nature.

knowaveragejoe 10y ago

It can be argued that the PRC has done as well as they have by not only embracing free market principles but by turning a blind eye to their own industries essentially cheating on the global stage. The west in general has done similar things but at nowhere near the scale.