4 ms·
the most important immediate causes were a) that it could not feed itself and had to buy food imports with hard currency, and b) that it acquired its hard curre
by nyolfen 6y ago
the most important immediate causes were a) that it could not feed itself and had to buy food imports with hard currency, and b) that it acquired its hard currency by selling oil, which became unsustainable during the 1980s
- p_l 6y agoOften omitted part of the reason for that was that it had to build itself up, in rather hostile conditions, from much worse state than "the west". Even former Russian partition of Poland, to this day considered (for a reason) a backwards place, was one of the most modern areas of the Russian Empire. Then when post-WW2 the expected disarmament didn't come... well