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The Soviet Union consistently had the highest GDP growth in the 20th century with a centrally planned economy. Russia transformed from a backwoods feudal mudpit

The Soviet Union consistently had the highest GDP growth in the 20th century with a centrally planned economy. Russia transformed from a backwoods feudal mudpit into a global superpower. Some aspects of China's economy today are still centrally planned, and they continue to have excellent growth. I'm not saying every aspect of the economy should be planned; but the opposite -- giving complete lead to the anarchy of production -- has proven to be disastrous for average working people.

_dain_ 5y ago
Ten million corpses here, ten million corpses there, pretty soon we'll be making _real_ progress!
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Which brand of industrial capitalism are you advertising here? /s
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
freemint 5y ago
I think any effort to demonstrate the viability of planned economies based on past non-democratic planned economies is doomed to fail as people won't easily accept a dictatorship. Any future implementation will need to trade with the non planned world (as trade is the best deterrent from being attacked by other democracies) and it needs to be democratic both in the workplace and in governance of the state.
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  > won't easily accept a dictatorship. What would they do in case they were in a ditatorship? I'm of the opinion that democracy in governance is something akin to a farce. Without money, it falls apart.
  - freemint 5y ago
    I am talking about new dictatorship coming in. Disinvest, leave the country, general strikes, social resistance, protests.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Democracy is a farce, authoritarianism is a tragedy. Take your pick.
beaconstudios 5y ago
the growth in GDP in the Soviet Union was impressive, but I get the strong impression that the social and economic life within was oppressive, to say nothing of the bouts of political madness like Lysenkoism that have a much greater potential to kill people when they're scoped to the entire country's productive capacity rather than one business or one constrained democracy.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  First, the GDP growth estimates of the Soviet Union were consistently overestimated by both Soviet sources (for obvious reasons) and by Western sources (to justify more military spending). After the 60s when all of the low-hanging industrialization fruit had been picked, stagnation set in and mediocrity reigned. They never managed to transition to a high value-add economy. Example: their microchip industry never even came close to matching the West or Japan. By the end stages, the Soviet industrial base was kept alive by subsidies, a ward of the state. It was so inefficient and mismanaged that the finished products were worth less on the world market than the raw materials used to make them, i.e. the Soviet economy literally destroyed value rather than creating it. They could only keep the lights on because they got lucky and found gas and oil. Second, even supposing we take the fraudulently high GDP figures at face value: it wasn't worth the cost. The economy was made for man, not man for the economy. To achieve these years of "high GDP growth", they built a system of state terror and industrialized slave labor. Yes, slave labor, there is no better term for it. Millions of people were kidnapped (under the farcical pretense of lawful arrest) and sent to work in slave labor camps in remote corners of Siberia. Their unpaid work in mines, logging camps, farms, and factories undergirded the entire Stalinist economy. A significant fraction of these unfortunates simply died of overwork or starvation or disease, if they weren't deliberately shot. Millions of Ukrainian peasants starved as their grain was confiscated. Millions of Chechens and Kazakhs and Jews and Koreans and sundry other ethnic groups were scooped out of their homelands and scattered to the other end of the continent if they were lucky, or into mass graves if they were unlucky. It was a completely rotten system, indefensible in every way except for the consolation prize that it managed to defeat another totalitarian system that was slightly more evil (but only after allying with it and launching a joint war of aggression against the helpless country between them). But I'm sure we'll hear more from the Durantys of the world about how it never happened and it was a long time ago and it wasn't real socialism and they all deserved it anyway.
Vitaly 5y ago
Stop with this bullshit. USSR showed growth, it never showed actual great economy. The growth was only impressive so long as it was in a process of getting shit together. Educating population, building basic road infrastructure, etc. when you are in a shithole, you can show impressive growth for a while while getting to a basic level. They never figured out how to actually prosper.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  Education and basic road infrastructure are severely behind in the US. I think a lot of people look at billionaires flying to space and believe that means the US population is advanced. Sadly, it isn't true. We are lagging in important areas.
- droptablemain 5y ago
  A great example of "moving the goalposts." "Educating [the] population" and "building basic infrastructure" is something we're doing a pretty shoddy job of in the U.S., so the attempt to minimize the significance is pretty disingenuous. What's your criteria for a nation to "actually prosper?" Hyperdriven, rampant, and mind-numbing consumerism? More millionaires? At the expense of the laborers of which colonized nation?
  - i4004 5y ago
    > Hyperdriven, rampant, and mind-numbing consumerism? More millionaires? Based > At the expense of the laborers of which colonized nation? Given I worked in one of such "exploited" "colonized" nations for 2 years I'd say people were pretty happy with the rise of higher wages, better infrastructure including education, access to quality goods, and the creation of new jobs and industries.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    So prosperous and happy they had to build a wall to keep people out. Oh, wait.
- malermeister 5y ago
  >educating population, building basic road infrastructure, etc So things a not centrally planned economy like the US is failing miserably at? You made a case against your point of view without even realizing it.
sk2020 5y ago
You’re thinking about Peter the Great. The Czar. Also, if you think you can get credible reports from Pravda, about a country with Potemkin villages of all things, then I don’t think you’re looking very critically at that information.
jonahbenton 5y ago
And average working people were so well off in the USSR that they never tried to leave, lamented its fall, etc... /sarcasm When you write comments like the above it reads like you are unfamiliar with history, with original sources. My view: all power distribution systems are more or less the same- the people who care about power fight for it, where the in-groups of the winners do quite well, and the people who don't don't and tend to suffer. This is true in the US, in Russia now, in China, you name it. There are many metrics by which average working people in the US suffer, the US jails dominated by black men who have done nothing wrong are abhorrent and shameful, etc etc etc, but like with many things this is an exercise in least bad. Many, many systems- including ANY explicitly centralized power structure- are going in the end to be more bad. The US is remarkably decentralized, and that is its blessing and saving grace, the suffering of those who are not in aside. In the end, central planning does not survive any good intentions of its originators. Power consolidation becomes the ends of any next generation. And then you think it is bad being alive as an out group in the US? At least they are alive.
- droptablemain 5y ago
  | "unfamiliar with history, with original sources." Tales of expats explicitly lean toward the negative, creating a sort of survivor's bias, amplifying the negative presentation despite the fact that there were many more people who had positive experiences. This happens with Cuban expats as well, despite the millions of people that are supportive of the Cuban government; the perspective of those who "escaped" gets amplified into the mainstream Western discourse. For further justification, see the high rates of Soviet nostalgia that currently exist in Russia, as well as the majority who lived under the Soviet system saying that life was better back then.
  - credit_guy 5y ago
    > he majority who lived under the Soviet system saying that life was better back then. They were at least 30 years younger. Healthier, stronger and better looking. But if you have a chance, can you ask them if they remember how many hours per day they were spending in line to buy food?
  - 5y ago
cscurmudgeon 5y ago
> Russia transformed from a backwoods feudal mudpit 1. Wouldn't high growth be easy starting from near zero? Almost always growth slows down when you become fully developed. 2. What is Russia's growth now? 3. You leave out one of the reasons for the collapse of USSR: the failing economy. > But the opposite -- giving complete lead to the anarchy of production -- has proven to be disastrous for average working people. Average working people are much better in the US than in USSR or Russia almost by any objective measure. You leave out North Korea, Venezuela etc. All centrally planned.
- kragen 5y ago
  > You leave out North Korea, Venezuela etc. All centrally planned. You've clearly never been to Venezuela.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    I have. Planning is different from execution.
panick21 5y ago
Even a 3rd grader knows that 'growth' is relative to a base. So if you literally start from almost nothing in 1920 because of a civil war, of course you are gone have pretty good growth. That doesn't mean its comparable to nations like the US or Britain. In fact, economic trends were going better during Russian Imperial regime. The 'feudal mudpit' was in a extreme growth phase. In fact part of the reason for WW1 was the German plans were looking at Russia and seeing how soon they would be overtaken. But I guess they just didn't know that it was a 'feudal mudpit'. And of course Russia was never feudal in the first place so I suggest a history book. > feudal mudpit I see you are repeating the same old Soviet Propaganda nonsense. Funny how the Soviets literally financed the first 10 years of their rule with systematically exploiting the wealth produced by that 'feudal mudpit' when they sold of much of the wealth of church and the whole cultural heritage of the country. Imperial Russia built a massively large and massively successful weapons industry before and during WW1. In fact Russia did amazingly well and by 1917 was able to seriously equip the largest army in Europe with competitive weapons and keep them in the field. Its a total misconception that Russia was not a first rate economy power. The literally fought Germany, Austria and the Ottoman with almost no supplies from outside. Unlike Soviets, they didn't have massive amounts of British and later US supplies flowing in. Russia already WAS a global super power. Many people even back then realized that most likely the world would be heading into a situation where Russia and the US were the two major powers, both in Britain and Germany. These very factories is what helped the Reds win the Civil war and is the bases for the next 10-20 of growth back to old level. From there massive peasant exploitation that literally killed 20-30 million people allowed them to buy massive amounts of tools and machines from the West. Often buying Western plants and 1 to 1 rebuilding them in the Soviet union. Additional measure they used where making a deal with the Germans, where Germany was secretly using Soviet land as training ground for the army and building factory for weapons that were not allowed by the West. A great way to extract industrial goods and plans from Germany for payment and also systematically stealing every single German economics secret. This operation is actually far larger then we knew until recently and was going on from 1922. That policy didn't work out so great for them.
EGreg 5y ago
True, highest GDP growth despite the second world war and losing 30 million people, and having to bail out other countries w Warsaw Pact while competing w countries that got help from the Marshall Plan Although to achieve this system, they literally had a civil war that killed 20 million people — more than Russia lost in the entire WW1 — destroyed thei GDP, and after all was said and done Lenin instituted the “NEP” which brought back private property and allowed Russia’s GDP to bounce back. In his own words — they weren’t ready for full socialism back then. This may have quietly continued if Stalin hadn’t taken over and started collectivizing everything again and making five year plans, and shooting all the newly minted high ranking officials. Stalin with all his central planning couldn’t see Nazi Germany coming a mile away, arming the rhineland, taking over countries. Instead he struck a deal to divide Europe. Then sat for three days in shock as the Germans and Vlasov army blitzkrieged Russia. Stalin was probably the worst leader Russia ever had. Most people killed. Least preparation for WW2 or fucks given, or just total incompetence.
southerntofu 5y ago
> highest GDP growth GDP fails to measure the most important factors of life (freedom, happiness, equality). It also fails to capture environmental concerns: industrial growth is like cancer growth... impressive but not desired. > Russia transformed from a backwoods feudal mudpit into a global superpower. Russia was already a global superpower before 1917. Their imperialism spread so far and wide their political police (Okrana) cooperated regularly with the political police in France (Sûreté de l'État) to hunt down the anarchists. Also, how is creating more global superpowers a good thing? If your end goal is to do away with capitalism and imperialism, how is creating a new Empire (or whatever brand of "republic" you call it) helping in any way? > Some aspects of China's economy today are still centrally planned Yes, they're producing tons of stuff (why? do we need all of that shit?). Yet they have some of the most grueling pollution problems on our planet, and still have plenty of poverty. How is that a role model? To be fair, i'm not saying western neo-colonial republics are any better: we are facing the very same issues here in France. > giving complete lead to the anarchy of production -- has proven to be disastrous for average working people Unregulated business has proven to be disastrous, but that can hardly be called an anarchy, as there is still strong powers (capital) dictating what should be produced and how resources should be allocated. Anarchy of production and distribution sounds great. What's wrong with self-organized workers cooperatives producing what we need, and sharing according to anyone's needs?

_dain_ 5y ago

Ten million corpses here, ten million corpses there, pretty soon we'll be making _real_ progress!

southerntofu 5y ago
Which brand of industrial capitalism are you advertising here? /s

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

freemint 5y ago

I think any effort to demonstrate the viability of planned economies based on past non-democratic planned economies is doomed to fail as people won't easily accept a dictatorship. Any future implementation will need to trade with the non planned world (as trade is the best deterrent from being attacked by other democracies) and it needs to be democratic both in the workplace and in governance of the state.

vagrantJin 5y ago
> won't easily accept a dictatorship. What would they do in case they were in a ditatorship? I'm of the opinion that democracy in governance is something akin to a farce. Without money, it falls apart.
- freemint 5y ago
  I am talking about new dictatorship coming in. Disinvest, leave the country, general strikes, social resistance, protests.
- simonh 5y ago
  Democracy is a farce, authoritarianism is a tragedy. Take your pick.

beaconstudios 5y ago

the growth in GDP in the Soviet Union was impressive, but I get the strong impression that the social and economic life within was oppressive, to say nothing of the bouts of political madness like Lysenkoism that have a much greater potential to kill people when they're scoped to the entire country's productive capacity rather than one business or one constrained democracy.

_dain_ 5y ago
First, the GDP growth estimates of the Soviet Union were consistently overestimated by both Soviet sources (for obvious reasons) and by Western sources (to justify more military spending). After the 60s when all of the low-hanging industrialization fruit had been picked, stagnation set in and mediocrity reigned. They never managed to transition to a high value-add economy. Example: their microchip industry never even came close to matching the West or Japan. By the end stages, the Soviet industrial base was kept alive by subsidies, a ward of the state. It was so inefficient and mismanaged that the finished products were worth less on the world market than the raw materials used to make them, i.e. the Soviet economy literally destroyed value rather than creating it. They could only keep the lights on because they got lucky and found gas and oil. Second, even supposing we take the fraudulently high GDP figures at face value: it wasn't worth the cost. The economy was made for man, not man for the economy. To achieve these years of "high GDP growth", they built a system of state terror and industrialized slave labor. Yes, slave labor, there is no better term for it. Millions of people were kidnapped (under the farcical pretense of lawful arrest) and sent to work in slave labor camps in remote corners of Siberia. Their unpaid work in mines, logging camps, farms, and factories undergirded the entire Stalinist economy. A significant fraction of these unfortunates simply died of overwork or starvation or disease, if they weren't deliberately shot. Millions of Ukrainian peasants starved as their grain was confiscated. Millions of Chechens and Kazakhs and Jews and Koreans and sundry other ethnic groups were scooped out of their homelands and scattered to the other end of the continent if they were lucky, or into mass graves if they were unlucky. It was a completely rotten system, indefensible in every way except for the consolation prize that it managed to defeat another totalitarian system that was slightly more evil (but only after allying with it and launching a joint war of aggression against the helpless country between them). But I'm sure we'll hear more from the Durantys of the world about how it never happened and it was a long time ago and it wasn't real socialism and they all deserved it anyway.

Vitaly 5y ago

Stop with this bullshit. USSR showed growth, it never showed actual great economy. The growth was only impressive so long as it was in a process of getting shit together. Educating population, building basic road infrastructure, etc. when you are in a shithole, you can show impressive growth for a while while getting to a basic level. They never figured out how to actually prosper.

SantalBlush 5y ago
Education and basic road infrastructure are severely behind in the US. I think a lot of people look at billionaires flying to space and believe that means the US population is advanced. Sadly, it isn't true. We are lagging in important areas.
droptablemain 5y ago
A great example of "moving the goalposts." "Educating [the] population" and "building basic infrastructure" is something we're doing a pretty shoddy job of in the U.S., so the attempt to minimize the significance is pretty disingenuous. What's your criteria for a nation to "actually prosper?" Hyperdriven, rampant, and mind-numbing consumerism? More millionaires? At the expense of the laborers of which colonized nation?
- i4004 5y ago
  > Hyperdriven, rampant, and mind-numbing consumerism? More millionaires? Based > At the expense of the laborers of which colonized nation? Given I worked in one of such "exploited" "colonized" nations for 2 years I'd say people were pretty happy with the rise of higher wages, better infrastructure including education, access to quality goods, and the creation of new jobs and industries.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  So prosperous and happy they had to build a wall to keep people out. Oh, wait.
malermeister 5y ago
>educating population, building basic road infrastructure, etc So things a not centrally planned economy like the US is failing miserably at? You made a case against your point of view without even realizing it.

sk2020 5y ago

You’re thinking about Peter the Great. The Czar. Also, if you think you can get credible reports from Pravda, about a country with Potemkin villages of all things, then I don’t think you’re looking very critically at that information.

jonahbenton 5y ago

And average working people were so well off in the USSR that they never tried to leave, lamented its fall, etc... /sarcasm When you write comments like the above it reads like you are unfamiliar with history, with original sources. My view: all power distribution systems are more or less the same- the people who care about power fight for it, where the in-groups of the winners do quite well, and the people who don't don't and tend to suffer. This is true in the US, in Russia now, in China, you name it. There are many metrics by which average working people in the US suffer, the US jails dominated by black men who have done nothing wrong are abhorrent and shameful, etc etc etc, but like with many things this is an exercise in least bad. Many, many systems- including ANY explicitly centralized power structure- are going in the end to be more bad. The US is remarkably decentralized, and that is its blessing and saving grace, the suffering of those who are not in aside. In the end, central planning does not survive any good intentions of its originators. Power consolidation becomes the ends of any next generation. And then you think it is bad being alive as an out group in the US? At least they are alive.

droptablemain 5y ago
| "unfamiliar with history, with original sources." Tales of expats explicitly lean toward the negative, creating a sort of survivor's bias, amplifying the negative presentation despite the fact that there were many more people who had positive experiences. This happens with Cuban expats as well, despite the millions of people that are supportive of the Cuban government; the perspective of those who "escaped" gets amplified into the mainstream Western discourse. For further justification, see the high rates of Soviet nostalgia that currently exist in Russia, as well as the majority who lived under the Soviet system saying that life was better back then.
- credit_guy 5y ago
  > he majority who lived under the Soviet system saying that life was better back then. They were at least 30 years younger. Healthier, stronger and better looking. But if you have a chance, can you ask them if they remember how many hours per day they were spending in line to buy food?
- 5y ago

cscurmudgeon 5y ago

> Russia transformed from a backwoods feudal mudpit 1. Wouldn't high growth be easy starting from near zero? Almost always growth slows down when you become fully developed. 2. What is Russia's growth now? 3. You leave out one of the reasons for the collapse of USSR: the failing economy. > But the opposite -- giving complete lead to the anarchy of production -- has proven to be disastrous for average working people. Average working people are much better in the US than in USSR or Russia almost by any objective measure. You leave out North Korea, Venezuela etc. All centrally planned.

kragen 5y ago
> You leave out North Korea, Venezuela etc. All centrally planned. You've clearly never been to Venezuela.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  I have. Planning is different from execution.

panick21 5y ago

Even a 3rd grader knows that 'growth' is relative to a base. So if you literally start from almost nothing in 1920 because of a civil war, of course you are gone have pretty good growth. That doesn't mean its comparable to nations like the US or Britain. In fact, economic trends were going better during Russian Imperial regime. The 'feudal mudpit' was in a extreme growth phase. In fact part of the reason for WW1 was the German plans were looking at Russia and seeing how soon they would be overtaken. But I guess they just didn't know that it was a 'feudal mudpit'. And of course Russia was never feudal in the first place so I suggest a history book. > feudal mudpit I see you are repeating the same old Soviet Propaganda nonsense. Funny how the Soviets literally financed the first 10 years of their rule with systematically exploiting the wealth produced by that 'feudal mudpit' when they sold of much of the wealth of church and the whole cultural heritage of the country. Imperial Russia built a massively large and massively successful weapons industry before and during WW1. In fact Russia did amazingly well and by 1917 was able to seriously equip the largest army in Europe with competitive weapons and keep them in the field. Its a total misconception that Russia was not a first rate economy power. The literally fought Germany, Austria and the Ottoman with almost no supplies from outside. Unlike Soviets, they didn't have massive amounts of British and later US supplies flowing in. Russia already WAS a global super power. Many people even back then realized that most likely the world would be heading into a situation where Russia and the US were the two major powers, both in Britain and Germany. These very factories is what helped the Reds win the Civil war and is the bases for the next 10-20 of growth back to old level. From there massive peasant exploitation that literally killed 20-30 million people allowed them to buy massive amounts of tools and machines from the West. Often buying Western plants and 1 to 1 rebuilding them in the Soviet union. Additional measure they used where making a deal with the Germans, where Germany was secretly using Soviet land as training ground for the army and building factory for weapons that were not allowed by the West. A great way to extract industrial goods and plans from Germany for payment and also systematically stealing every single German economics secret. This operation is actually far larger then we knew until recently and was going on from 1922. That policy didn't work out so great for them.

EGreg 5y ago

True, highest GDP growth despite the second world war and losing 30 million people, and having to bail out other countries w Warsaw Pact while competing w countries that got help from the Marshall Plan Although to achieve this system, they literally had a civil war that killed 20 million people — more than Russia lost in the entire WW1 — destroyed thei GDP, and after all was said and done Lenin instituted the “NEP” which brought back private property and allowed Russia’s GDP to bounce back. In his own words — they weren’t ready for full socialism back then. This may have quietly continued if Stalin hadn’t taken over and started collectivizing everything again and making five year plans, and shooting all the newly minted high ranking officials. Stalin with all his central planning couldn’t see Nazi Germany coming a mile away, arming the rhineland, taking over countries. Instead he struck a deal to divide Europe. Then sat for three days in shock as the Germans and Vlasov army blitzkrieged Russia. Stalin was probably the worst leader Russia ever had. Most people killed. Least preparation for WW2 or fucks given, or just total incompetence.

southerntofu 5y ago

> highest GDP growth GDP fails to measure the most important factors of life (freedom, happiness, equality). It also fails to capture environmental concerns: industrial growth is like cancer growth... impressive but not desired. > Russia transformed from a backwoods feudal mudpit into a global superpower. Russia was already a global superpower before 1917. Their imperialism spread so far and wide their political police (Okrana) cooperated regularly with the political police in France (Sûreté de l'État) to hunt down the anarchists. Also, how is creating more global superpowers a good thing? If your end goal is to do away with capitalism and imperialism, how is creating a new Empire (or whatever brand of "republic" you call it) helping in any way? > Some aspects of China's economy today are still centrally planned Yes, they're producing tons of stuff (why? do we need all of that shit?). Yet they have some of the most grueling pollution problems on our planet, and still have plenty of poverty. How is that a role model? To be fair, i'm not saying western neo-colonial republics are any better: we are facing the very same issues here in France. > giving complete lead to the anarchy of production -- has proven to be disastrous for average working people Unregulated business has proven to be disastrous, but that can hardly be called an anarchy, as there is still strong powers (capital) dictating what should be produced and how resources should be allocated. Anarchy of production and distribution sounds great. What's wrong with self-organized workers cooperatives producing what we need, and sharing according to anyone's needs?