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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 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.

_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.