Article about the decline and fall of the USSR

[Larry]

Some of you might be interested in an article about the decline and fall of the Soviet Union.  The article is not terribly long, but I've given some of the highlights below.  It has no footnotes, so it's impossible to tell what authority the author relies upon to support some of his conclusions.  And I find a few of his conclusions puzzling.  But I thought it worthwhile to pass it along.  Much of this information will be known to those of you who are familiar with post-war Soviet History, but you might find a few items of interest.

The author concludes that the economic decline of the USSR began during the Brezhnev era and the perestroika reforms introduced by Gorbachev failed to stop it.

In the Soviet Union, the managers at various production plants were protected from international competition, and they had no competition from within the Soviet Union. Their thinking was not geared to consumer choice, and without a free market they had little notion of what was in demand and what was not. Rather than consumers, bureaucrats were deciding what was to be manufactured. And at the center of the Soviet economy, planners could not keep up with the changing needs of various areas, which resulted in poor economic co-ordination, sometimes seen in the form of metal goods rusting away at railway sidings.

I recall during one of my Russian history classes at university the professor told us that none of the wheat harvests in the entire history of the Soviet Union had equaled the harvest of 1913, a fact that is especially shocking given the advances in mechanization and fertilizer use that occurred in subsequent years.

The agricultural sector of the Soviet economy was also functioning inefficiently. Under Brezhnev, most farming remained collectivized, with four percent of the Soviet Union's arable land being farmed on the side, as privately owned plots -- with this four percent producing around twenty-five percent of the Soviet Union's agricultural output. Before World War I, Russia had been one of the greatest food exporters in the world, but now it had become one of the world's greatest importers of food.

The author spends a good deal of time on Gorbachev's attempts to improve the country's economy.

A part of Gorbachev's plan to improve the economy was to reduce military spending. He believed that the Soviet military was absorbing too much wealth and scarce resources, and he believed that one way to reduce military spending was to make an arms agreement with the United States.

The author mentions that high Soviet officials were perplexed that the economic reforms Gorbachev had introduced were not achieving the success that similar reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping in China had achieved.

By the end of 1989 each of the Soviet republics had acquired its own parliament, with its own president. But tensions in the Soviet Union had increased. The declining economy was producing strikes by labor -- something that would not have been tried under Stalin. There were episodes of ethnic violence, with people in some of the Soviet republics blaming their misery on the Russians. In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia a move toward independence was underway. All those years of Russian control had failed to erase a desire for self-rule among these peoples.

I had no idea that each Soviet Republic had established its own parliament in 1989.

I remember in 1989 - 1991 my friend Steve and I walked to the newsstand every day to get a cup of coffee and copies of the New York Times to read what was happening in the USSR and the satellite countries.  We found all the changes incredibly surprising. 

In July, 1990, Yeltsin convened the Russian Republic's Supreme Soviet and called for economic sovereignty for the republic, in other words, taking control of the economy away from Gorbachev. Other republics wished to follow suit. The Ukraine called for the return of all Ukrainian soldiers from the Soviet military and the creation of an independent Ukrainian military. In the new atmosphere of freedom and democracy, the Soviet Union was unraveling.

The Communist Party was split between reformers and conservatives, and both were critical of Gorbachev, who was trying to steer a middle ground between state control of the economy and free enterprise. Gorbachev spoke of his belief in socialism and of his being a Communist. He was holding Lenin's New Economic Policy of the early 1920s as his model for what should be done. [note]

http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch33-2.htm

[Halo]

The article appears to have been written by a commie apologist, and is full of inaccuracies (I only read the first two pages).  Stagnation began under Khrushchev, not Brezhnev.  Under Brezhnev, the economy was artificially inflated by high oil and gas prices. 

There was never any desire by leaders to have a "prosperous nation" for the benefit of the people (rather, they wanted it for the benefit of the CPSU),  alcoholism was encouraged in Ukraine in the 1970's (my husband remembers the campaign, though by then, alcoholism was already a huge problem in Moscow and Leningrad), and Andropov did not launch a campaign against alcohol.  He did unleash the "osvopozdyoniye", who would go to theatres, restaurants, etc., to determine if people should have been at work.  It was general, not directed at alcoholics.  But they had no power.  One of my husband's coworkers was in line to buy cheese when he was approached and asked "Why aren't you at work?"  He asked "Are you the police?"  When the answer was "No.", he answered "Then f--- off.  Why aren't you at work?"

In the Soviet Union, the managers at various production plants were protected from international competition, and they had no competition from within the Soviet Union. Their thinking was not geared to consumer choice, and without a free market they had little notion of what was in demand and what was not. Rather than consumers, bureaucrats were deciding what was to be manufactured. And at the center of the Soviet economy, planners could not keep up with the changing needs of various areas, which resulted in poor economic co-ordination, sometimes seen in the form of metal goods rusting away at railway sidings.

I agree with this, largely, though it is not entirely accurate.

I recall during one of my Russian history classes at university the professor told us that none of the wheat harvests in the entire history of the Soviet Union had equaled the harvest of 1913, a fact that is especially shocking given the advances in mechanization and fertilizer use that occurred in subsequent years.

The agricultural sector of the Soviet economy was also functioning inefficiently. Under Brezhnev, most farming remained collectivized, with four percent of the Soviet Union's arable land being farmed on the side, as privately owned plots -- with this four percent producing around twenty-five percent of the Soviet Union's agricultural output. Before World War I, Russia had been one of the greatest food exporters in the world, but now it had become one of the world's greatest importers of food.

When you kill everyone who knows how to work with land and livestock, this is the inevitable result.  Pre revolutionary levels of production still do not exist.

A part of Gorbachev's plan to improve the economy was to reduce military spending. He believed that the Soviet military was absorbing too much wealth and scarce resources, and he believed that one way to reduce military spending was to make an arms agreement with the United States.

I read this to my better half.  His comment "The writer is a complete idiot who knows nothing about Gorbachev."  Like most former Soviets, he has no respect for Gorbachev but unlike most, his survival depended on understanding "their" mentality and predicting "their" next move.  In October 1990, he told me (while he was fishing along the banks of the river, out in nature, with no one around - I was there for company) that the USSR would collapse before the end of 1991.

Gorbachev was chosen by the KGB to implement the reforms the KGB wanted.  They did want an arm's treaty and a reduction in military spending.  In fact, shortly after the collapse, a KGB officer in the analytic section was interviewed and stated it worked with Khrushchev, he didn't understand why it didn't work with Gorbachev.

The author mentions that high Soviet officials were perplexed that the economic reforms Gorbachev had introduced were not achieving the success that similar reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping in China had achieved.

China was still a largely agrarian society.  The USSR was not.   Growth comparable to China's occurred in the USSR under Stalin.

By the end of 1989 each of the Soviet republics had acquired its own parliament, with its own president. But tensions in the Soviet Union had increased. The declining economy was producing strikes by labor -- something that would not have been tried under Stalin. There were episodes of ethnic violence, with people in some of the Soviet republics blaming their misery on the Russians. In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia a move toward independence was underway. All those years of Russian control had failed to erase a desire for self-rule among these peoples.

Part of this was planned, to turn the population against Gorbachev.  The KGB knew him so well, they predicted his reaction.  Remember the tanks in Vilnius?  The beatings?

I had no idea that each Soviet Republic had established its own parliament in 1989.

Ukraine and Belarus did have their own parliaments before 1989.

In July, 1990, Yeltsin convened the Russian Republic's Supreme Soviet and called for economic sovereignty for the republic, in other words, taking control of the economy away from Gorbachev. Other republics wished to follow suit. The Ukraine called for the return of all Ukrainian soldiers from the Soviet military and the creation of an independent Ukrainian military. In the new atmosphere of freedom and democracy, the Soviet Union was unraveling.

The Communist Party was split between reformers and conservatives, and both were critical of Gorbachev, who was trying to steer a middle ground between state control of the economy and free enterprise. Gorbachev spoke of his belief in socialism and of his being a Communist. He was holding Lenin's New Economic Policy of the early 1920s as his model for what should be done. [note]

No he wasn't trying to steer a middle ground.  NEP  was intended to save the Revolution, and included korenizatsiia, or "indigenization".  That did not happen in the 1980's.  My own view is the KGB were trying to "flush out" quiet dissenters.

I lived in Ukraine during so called "glasnost'".  I know exactly how much party, and KGB control of the society, still existed in Ukraine, because I was subjected to the latter's attention extensively.  It wasn't all bad - anytime I wanted a gypsy cab, it was on the street, often waiting for me, and sometimes, they wouldn't even accept money.

[Halo]

From the article -

As a part of freedom to express oneself, Gorbachev started releasing political prisoners. The Soviet Union's most outspoken dissident, Andrei Sakharov (the father of the Soviet Union's hydrogen bomb) was allowed to return to Moscow from the city of Gorky, where he had been exiled for speaking out against Soviet troops being sent to Afghanistan. The Gorbachev regime allowed more openness in newspapers and on television. Gorbachev's popularity with the Soviet masses was rising.

Gorbachev was never popular with the Soviet masses.  He has an accent that is irritating to almost every ear, and his “photo ops”, widely published in the West, were staged with apparatchiks, evident to the average Soviet by his dress.  It is true, from about mid 1987, more issues were discussed in newspapers and television, and by 1990,  in Kiev, even films on the Holodomor were allowed, however, real freedom of expression did not exist, not in the sense it does in the West.  In September of 1990, I was in Kiev when a large student protest was held, organized by Komsomol leaders.  We had a relative who wanted to attend.  My husband asked him “Who organized this protest?”  Something clicked in the relative’s head, and he skipped it.  Though peaceful, there were mass arrests at the protest.  Of course, the leaders were not arrested.

The coup was a shock to Russians, who saw their nation as something different from what they thought was a Latin American banana republic, and many of them went into the streets to protest. Their cry was for the protection of what people in the United States believed they had never had: democracy. Yeltsin stood with people who were in the streets against the coup. Ideologically, the masses were much respected in the Soviet Union. Military men were easily persuaded to side with Yeltsin and the people in the streets. Coup leaders did not believe in the coup to the extent that they would commit themselves to a military takeover. Gorbachev's turn to the right and the coup were colossal failures. Gorbachev pretended to be liberated, and Yeltsin was more of a hero, overshadowing the hapless Gorbachev. (See book review on Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Leaders.) In triumph, Yeltsin, by presidential decree, banned the Communist Party in the Russian Republic and seized all its property.

In the weeks before the coup, the news from Moscow had many pieces glorifying Pinochet and his turn around of the Chilean economy.  My husband said at that time, he knew a coup was being planned, he told me so cryptically in a call (because they were monitored).  I don't think it was completely unexpected by non believers who paid attention.

People in the US were correct.  Russians never had democracy. 

The coup leaders did commit to military takeover.  That is well documented.  The alpha units called in, however, refused to follow orders.  They were gathered in a gym outside Moscow, and when the order came, they all lay on the floor, their hands behind their backs. 

What the coup leaders failed to do was stop all communications.  Radio was cut across the USSR, but not completely within the Russian Federation.  The RSFSR’s KGB was loyal to Yeltsin, not the CPSU, so they took orders from Yeltsin during the coup.  Yeltsin ordered RSFSR radio stations to broadcast news of the coup, and asked Muscovites to take the streets, which is what they did.  That is why the coup failed.

Tanks surrounded Kiev, and for 2 days, my husband was followed everywhere he went, and told to go only to work and directly home by man he had never seen, and who disappeared when the coup failed.  The man also told him “they” would “take care of scum like him, as they had failed to complete the job in 1917”.   I described this in more detail on another forum.  A decade after the coup, he read similar accounts made by prominent artists, mostly filmmakers (minus the 1917 reference).

[JayH]

Larry--interesting post again.
Halo-- very interesting to read your story and comments here--I will read later on another forum.
Let me tell you a story-- in 1985 I was in a place right on what was then the east German border-- complete with barbed wire,control towers and heavily manned border crossing  post.The river and water in the bay were under high alert surveillance from both sides.There was a contest to get any attempted swimmers from the water first.Quite a tense environment for a guy from the other side of the world to see, and of course--of great interest to me.
Cutting a long story short-- through some German friends  -I met a guy who was extremely knowledgeable and politically aware. In discussing the German situation--he said to me that Germany would be reunited-- and soon. Needless to say I was sceptical as to how this might happen--he assured me it would be peacefull(in relative terms) and that the USSR would break up.From that point on I took and even greater interest than I already had-- but at the time-- I thought him more deluded than realist -as some of what he said seemed like science fiction to me at that time.
 In 1987 I returned there ( I had reasons to be there that did not relate to anything discussed here) and on meeting with my friends I asked about the guy I had met previously. We met again that night for dinner. That night and in several subsequent meetings ( discussion was 90% politics/economics/world situation) we revisited the previous topic. One day when we looking at the border post-- he stopped me  and said that all this will end very soon.In the way that one is polite to someone being crazy--I said how? Basically -- he laid out to me almost precisely what was to unfold-- both for Germany and the USSR and Eastern Europe in general.As it turned out--his specific area of expertise was well placed to know this -- but the fact it happened in that way he outlined some years in advance has never stopped amazing me.It certainly makes me read the history differently.
There is more to this story-- but enough for now.

[mendeleyev]

What the coup leaders failed to do was stop all communications.  Radio was cut across the USSR, but not completely within the Russian Federation.  The RSFSR’s KGB was loyal to Yeltsin, not the CPSU, so they took orders from Yeltsin during the coup.  Yeltsin ordered RSFSR radio stations to broadcast news of the coup, and asked Muscovites to take the streets, which is what they did.  That is why the coup failed.

An important point by Halo.

That communications scenario would be replayed again in "Gray October" 1993 where there was an attempt to take over the new democratic government.


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/VO72S5mI6II" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/VO72S5mI6II</a>