6 ms·

Soviet bureaucracy wanted to transform itself into capitalist oligarchs by seizing and privatizing the state enterprises instead of creating an open, democratic

Soviet bureaucracy wanted to transform itself into capitalist oligarchs by seizing and privatizing the state enterprises instead of creating an open, democratic and scientific economic planning system. Trotsky was right.

Koshkin 6y ago
> Soviet bureaucracy wanted to transform Quite the opposite: soviet bureaucracy didn't want to transform anything, they were more concerned with maintaining the status quo for as long as they could. This is why the system turned out to be too rigid to withstand the pressures of the modern world. On the other hand, think about how much the planned economy would benefit from the wide-spread automation and access to modern computing and communications.
- mantas 6y ago
  What would planned economy do with hands not needed anymore? :) Even with totally unproductive economy, USSR had lots and lots of bullshit jobs just to keep people employed. What would USSR do with tons of unemployed people? Create fake jobs? Or what... let people find out what they'd like to do and let them start private initiatives?!?
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    No problem there: an efficient planned economy would have no trouble whatsoever also planning for bullshit jobs, efficiently. Incidentally, does not look like bullshit jobs were specific to the USSR, they are indeed everywhere.
    - chupasaurus 6y ago
      Incidentally, any amount of both plans and bullshit jobs in USSR hadn't produced enough goods to supply the food deficit. There could be no efficiency in a system developed by parties with personal interest.
    - ulzeraj 6y ago
      I fail to see how magic advanced computer power would solve the problem of economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth. Without prices there is no efficient distribution of resources.
      - thrownagain 6y ago
        The same way they do so within a single sufficiently large corporation, and the same way the market utterly fails in such a situation. See https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4385-failing-to-plan-how-ayn-rand-destroyed-sears https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4385-failing-to-plan-how-ay...
        thodin 6y ago
        Private companies are interested in getting real statistics, it was not like that in USSR. Even on largest auto-factory (AvtoVAZ) programmers were creating software with intentional bugs, so they can fix it later, during pre-programmed outages and get some bonuses. No one was interested in sending real statistics to Moscow, from head of local shop to head of large factory.
        Jtsummers 6y ago
        To be fair to those programmers, I've seen the same thing (or similar) in the US. It wasn't intentional bugs, but intentional delays in addressing them. That is, they sandbagged. They knew the fixes but didn't apply them so that they could hit monthly/quarterly/whatever targets. Or they knew they could knock out 100 features in a week, but that one feature would take 3 months. They'd mete out those 100 easy features over the three months so that they didn't appear stalled (they weren't, but management couldn't tell the difference between a stall and a hard problem).
        thodin 6y ago
        Ok, another example: out famous "Cotton Scandal": http://shorturl.at/fzLPU http://shorturl.at/fzLPU For more than 10 years thousands of party members from soviet republic of Uzbekistan were sending fake data to Moscow (this included corruption on many levels across the country) about production of cotton. Everyone was involved, from top to bottom, I don't see how creation of any network would help with that. In fact programmers across USSR were putting tools into the software for state companies to produce "fixed" results for central planning committee. And in central planning committee they were also corrupt :) (my relative worked there in 80s and I know how it was organized on basic level).
    - Shivetya 6y ago
      the issue has always been that there are far more people than you expect who wish to only consume hence why these states only worked for as long as they did because authoritarian governments have little in the way of limits when it comes to compelling people to work. you would need an excessive abundance to accommodate the large numbers of people who do not believe they must contribute. I am not saying they won't work and produce wealth, those that do will only do so for themselves
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      Let me know when you find an efficent planned economy. It certainly couldn't occur under all of the communist economically illiterate assumptions of a universal fair price as an implication of their labor based value fallacy. Treating dynamic supply-demand feedback as fixed moral imperatives is a reciepe for disaster. It seems that fixed assumptions of "always right" is the surest path to insanity and travesties. Snark tangent aside, the issue with the USSR wasn't so much the bullshit jobs as the squandering of the labor of those performing actually important jobs via lack of support. They took labor for granted as a free input and neglected efficiency, exactly like slave owners and feudal lords they accused capitalists of being.
  - wcarss 6y ago
    Self-directed initiatives need not be private -- that isn't some kind of big gotcha there, see for example: all open source work.
  - andi999 6y ago
    I read a while ago that in communist society there is usually a shortage of everything including labor (that also why females were encouraged to work soon after giving birth)
    - thodin 6y ago
      USSR invited a lot of Vietnamese and North Korean workers because of this problem.
    - myth_drannon 6y ago
      Nope, women were given a generous 3 years off work after birth. In general since all work was equally paid (sort of) and you could just choose your profession, it's possibly harder, more dangerous jobs had issues with filling up positions and you couldn't solve it in a capitalistic way of just paying more (or increasing immigration for cheap, slave labour). Too many people wanted to be writers, artists, etc.. and since there was no invisible hand of the market to force them into more needed profession the labour market was broken.
      - thodin 6y ago
        Not actually 3 years: 1,5 years since 1982 and 112 days before that. And if you stay at home you'll get only 30 rubles per month, it was a very problematic financial situation for many families. 3 years (1,5 years with payment and 1,5 years without) came only in 1989, when you had to spend many hours in long queues to buy anything for your child.
      - mantas 6y ago
        More dangerous and less comfy jobs were paid much more and/or given extra benefits. Apartments queues were much shorter in small purpose-built industrial towns in the middle of nowhere Dangerous jobs in bumfucknowhere (far north etc) were paid $$$$$ One couldn't be a writer or artist without attending university. And spots at university were limited. State needs X writers or artists in 5 years so that's how many spots are available this year. On top of that, being jobless was a crime. So you couldn't just pursue artsy stuff and leech off society either. Same for the rest of the labour market. Central planning wants to kickstart XYZ factory in 5 years? Suddenly related universities get spots in XYZ next fall. You want to do ABC instead? Tough luck. Either study XYZ or do some unskilled job for years till few spots in ABC become available.
- nahuel0x 6y ago
  The bureaucracy wanted to maintain the status quo (and his privileged position in it) but in the long run their interest as a caste were directed to restore capitalism, as they sat on a contradictory position (e.g., no inheritance rights). There was a big Trotsky-Burnham debate in late 1930's about this. The common idea of the soviet bureaucracy wanting only to keep the status quo made many in all sides of the ideological spectrum to be surprised by the USSR fast turn to capitalism.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  Cybersyn, then https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cybersyn https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cybersyn
- smsm42 6y ago
  If socialism and planned economy could ever work, massive automation, networking and computerization would be the way to do it, otherwise planning is plain impossible, especially on humongous scales USSR has to deal with. It seems to be the case that it can't work even then, the inherent deficiencies in the system are just too fundamental for the automation to fix, but it was certainly a valiant attempt and thinking to the right direction. Just not enough, because it never could be enough. Just as if you want to go to the moon, jumping is going the right general direction, just would never be enough.

Koshkin 6y ago

> Soviet bureaucracy wanted to transform Quite the opposite: soviet bureaucracy didn't want to transform anything, they were more concerned with maintaining the status quo for as long as they could. This is why the system turned out to be too rigid to withstand the pressures of the modern world. On the other hand, think about how much the planned economy would benefit from the wide-spread automation and access to modern computing and communications.

mantas 6y ago
What would planned economy do with hands not needed anymore? :) Even with totally unproductive economy, USSR had lots and lots of bullshit jobs just to keep people employed. What would USSR do with tons of unemployed people? Create fake jobs? Or what... let people find out what they'd like to do and let them start private initiatives?!?
- Koshkin 6y ago
  No problem there: an efficient planned economy would have no trouble whatsoever also planning for bullshit jobs, efficiently. Incidentally, does not look like bullshit jobs were specific to the USSR, they are indeed everywhere.
  - chupasaurus 6y ago
    Incidentally, any amount of both plans and bullshit jobs in USSR hadn't produced enough goods to supply the food deficit. There could be no efficiency in a system developed by parties with personal interest.
  - ulzeraj 6y ago
    I fail to see how magic advanced computer power would solve the problem of economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth. Without prices there is no efficient distribution of resources.
    - thrownagain 6y ago
      The same way they do so within a single sufficiently large corporation, and the same way the market utterly fails in such a situation. See https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4385-failing-to-plan-how-ayn-rand-destroyed-sears https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4385-failing-to-plan-how-ay...
      - thodin 6y ago
        Private companies are interested in getting real statistics, it was not like that in USSR. Even on largest auto-factory (AvtoVAZ) programmers were creating software with intentional bugs, so they can fix it later, during pre-programmed outages and get some bonuses. No one was interested in sending real statistics to Moscow, from head of local shop to head of large factory.
        Jtsummers 6y ago
        To be fair to those programmers, I've seen the same thing (or similar) in the US. It wasn't intentional bugs, but intentional delays in addressing them. That is, they sandbagged. They knew the fixes but didn't apply them so that they could hit monthly/quarterly/whatever targets. Or they knew they could knock out 100 features in a week, but that one feature would take 3 months. They'd mete out those 100 easy features over the three months so that they didn't appear stalled (they weren't, but management couldn't tell the difference between a stall and a hard problem).
        thodin 6y ago
        Ok, another example: out famous "Cotton Scandal": http://shorturl.at/fzLPU http://shorturl.at/fzLPU For more than 10 years thousands of party members from soviet republic of Uzbekistan were sending fake data to Moscow (this included corruption on many levels across the country) about production of cotton. Everyone was involved, from top to bottom, I don't see how creation of any network would help with that. In fact programmers across USSR were putting tools into the software for state companies to produce "fixed" results for central planning committee. And in central planning committee they were also corrupt :) (my relative worked there in 80s and I know how it was organized on basic level).
  - Shivetya 6y ago
    the issue has always been that there are far more people than you expect who wish to only consume hence why these states only worked for as long as they did because authoritarian governments have little in the way of limits when it comes to compelling people to work. you would need an excessive abundance to accommodate the large numbers of people who do not believe they must contribute. I am not saying they won't work and produce wealth, those that do will only do so for themselves
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Let me know when you find an efficent planned economy. It certainly couldn't occur under all of the communist economically illiterate assumptions of a universal fair price as an implication of their labor based value fallacy. Treating dynamic supply-demand feedback as fixed moral imperatives is a reciepe for disaster. It seems that fixed assumptions of "always right" is the surest path to insanity and travesties. Snark tangent aside, the issue with the USSR wasn't so much the bullshit jobs as the squandering of the labor of those performing actually important jobs via lack of support. They took labor for granted as a free input and neglected efficiency, exactly like slave owners and feudal lords they accused capitalists of being.
- wcarss 6y ago
  Self-directed initiatives need not be private -- that isn't some kind of big gotcha there, see for example: all open source work.
- andi999 6y ago
  I read a while ago that in communist society there is usually a shortage of everything including labor (that also why females were encouraged to work soon after giving birth)
  - thodin 6y ago
    USSR invited a lot of Vietnamese and North Korean workers because of this problem.
  - myth_drannon 6y ago
    Nope, women were given a generous 3 years off work after birth. In general since all work was equally paid (sort of) and you could just choose your profession, it's possibly harder, more dangerous jobs had issues with filling up positions and you couldn't solve it in a capitalistic way of just paying more (or increasing immigration for cheap, slave labour). Too many people wanted to be writers, artists, etc.. and since there was no invisible hand of the market to force them into more needed profession the labour market was broken.
    - thodin 6y ago
      Not actually 3 years: 1,5 years since 1982 and 112 days before that. And if you stay at home you'll get only 30 rubles per month, it was a very problematic financial situation for many families. 3 years (1,5 years with payment and 1,5 years without) came only in 1989, when you had to spend many hours in long queues to buy anything for your child.
    - mantas 6y ago
      More dangerous and less comfy jobs were paid much more and/or given extra benefits. Apartments queues were much shorter in small purpose-built industrial towns in the middle of nowhere Dangerous jobs in bumfucknowhere (far north etc) were paid $$$$$ One couldn't be a writer or artist without attending university. And spots at university were limited. State needs X writers or artists in 5 years so that's how many spots are available this year. On top of that, being jobless was a crime. So you couldn't just pursue artsy stuff and leech off society either. Same for the rest of the labour market. Central planning wants to kickstart XYZ factory in 5 years? Suddenly related universities get spots in XYZ next fall. You want to do ABC instead? Tough luck. Either study XYZ or do some unskilled job for years till few spots in ABC become available.
nahuel0x 6y ago
The bureaucracy wanted to maintain the status quo (and his privileged position in it) but in the long run their interest as a caste were directed to restore capitalism, as they sat on a contradictory position (e.g., no inheritance rights). There was a big Trotsky-Burnham debate in late 1930's about this. The common idea of the soviet bureaucracy wanting only to keep the status quo made many in all sides of the ideological spectrum to be surprised by the USSR fast turn to capitalism.
Apocryphon 6y ago
Cybersyn, then https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cybersyn https://hn.algolia.com/?q=cybersyn
smsm42 6y ago
If socialism and planned economy could ever work, massive automation, networking and computerization would be the way to do it, otherwise planning is plain impossible, especially on humongous scales USSR has to deal with. It seems to be the case that it can't work even then, the inherent deficiencies in the system are just too fundamental for the automation to fix, but it was certainly a valiant attempt and thinking to the right direction. Just not enough, because it never could be enough. Just as if you want to go to the moon, jumping is going the right general direction, just would never be enough.