Author Topic: How USSR Collapsed (Read 562 times)

Ike 2K# · « **on:** January 14, 2003, 05:35:10 PM »

Give reasons on how did USSR Collapsed (give hard facts and let your ignorance, and jokes out just for this thread)

funkedup · « **Reply #1 on:** January 14, 2003, 05:38:16 PM »

OK I'm letting my ignorance out:

Soviets had no concept of economics. They made up for it with hard work motivated by either patriotism (Great Patriotic War) or fear (of barbaric leaders like Stalin). Once these motivations were gone, the inferiority of their economic practices caused inevitable failure.

john9001 · « **Reply #2 on:** January 14, 2003, 05:39:48 PM »

to quote a line from a old song.."people everywhere just want to be free"

hawk220 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 14, 2003, 05:46:16 PM »

The Internet became available to more and more and the free exchange of information.. communism's mortal enemy, helped bring them down.. also.. they ran out of money trying to 'one up' the US

qts · « **Reply #4 on:** January 14, 2003, 06:22:42 PM »

Fundamentally, it was a change of attitude in the West. We decided to stand up to bullies. It started with the Falklands in 1982 and later with the American invasion of Grenada; then the West started supplying the Mudjahideen (sp?) in Afghanistan, causing the Red Army to be shown for what it really was; while Reagan made use of the Soviet leaders' paranoia and outspent them on defence (aided to a small degree by Mrs T buying Trident) greatly assisting in the collapse of the Soviet economy. Of course, if you believe the Mitrokhin Archive, the SU was largely governed by paranoia.

emodin · « **Reply #5 on:** January 14, 2003, 06:31:40 PM »

Economic woes:
1) Too much money spent on weapons over consumer goods

2) In his move to try to combat alcohol abuse, Gorbachev shot himself in the foot by limiting vodka (and iirc most alcoholic) production, thus denying a large amount of state revenues from the taxation of alcohol (consumption did not decrease due to the reactionary increase in black market alcohol). This increased economic problems.

Political change:
1) In order to try to give the economy a boost, Gorbachev started opening up the Soviet Union both politically and economically by giving more rights to people to express their views as well as giving some people the right to start their own capatilist-stle businesses

2) Along with greater expression, mistakes that were made by the government were actually admitted to, such as the Chernobl disaster

3) For the first time since the October revolution, the people stood up against the coup d'etat. What sealed the fate of the Soviet Union was the fact that the military backed the protesters.

Obviously there is more to it than this, but these are some of issues involved.

miko2d · « **Reply #6 on:** January 14, 2003, 06:40:44 PM »

None of the above. Soviet was not an economics-based society. The socialist non-market system certainly cannot satisfy people's various needs in an efficient, let alone optimal way - but there was a simple solution for that. We were told what our need where. If you live in prison, you can actuall plan successfully.

The resources were there. The enforcement was there and the nuts were not even close to being tightened all the way. People were not dying of starwation and even if they were, it woulod not have caused any political upheaval.

The strenght of the west would have mattered only if one side desired to attack another which was not the case. Whatever standing up to soviet bullies the west did, the population had no idea about it. As far as we knew, the peace in Afghanistan was being prosecuted successfully with undisclosed but minimal casualties and could continue to be conducted in the same way for generations.
There was certainly no internet access and few shortwave radios - successfully jammed at that.

Basically, SU did not have to crumble for natural reasons like economic collapse or extinction of population. Not for centuries, et least. The living conditions were far better than N. Korean or Cuban and the people were used to 70 years of oppression rather than mere 30 or 40.

The truth is that M. Gorbachev decided to tinker with the system and play liberal as early as 1986 rather than go back to stalinist methods and kind of released it from above. It was very gradual with people cautiously trying the limits of what they could say or do without getting whacked.

Of course Reagan and Thatcher deserve all the praise they get. But Soviet Union certainly toppled by itself.

miko

emodin · « **Reply #7 on:** January 14, 2003, 07:13:25 PM »

I totally agree with you, miko. My opinion is that Gorbachev loosened state control in an attempt to combat what he saw as a stagnating economy/society. In the end, when he thought he had gone too far, he tried to reverse what he had done, but it was too late.

MrLars · « **Reply #8 on:** January 14, 2003, 07:50:20 PM »

Corruption helped kill Communisim in a big way...unfortunatly, corruption isn't specific to just Communisim and the collapse of the USSR hasn't stoped the corruption there one bit.

Should be a lesson learned but corrupt politics is self perpetuating no matter what political ideal you subscribe too.

Ike 2K# · « **Reply #9 on:** January 14, 2003, 11:06:03 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by MrLars
Corruption helped kill Communisim in a big way...unfortunatly, corruption isn't specific to just Communisim and the collapse of the USSR hasn't stoped the corruption there one bit.

Should be a lesson learned but corrupt politics is self perpetuating no matter what political ideal you subscribe too.

yep, especially during the period of stagnation (Leonid Brezhnev was the president of that time)

i also heard that some of brezhnev's relatives were in monetary scam.

Ike 2K# · « **Reply #10 on:** January 14, 2003, 11:08:11 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by emodin
I totally agree with you, miko. My opinion is that Gorbachev loosened state control in an attempt to combat what he saw as a stagnating economy/society. In the end, when he thought he had gone too far, he tried to reverse what he had done, but it was too late.

gorby reacts slow as a snail. he could have withdraw his troops as early as 86

ZZTop · « **Reply #11 on:** January 14, 2003, 11:13:32 PM »

The Premier ran out of toliet paper.

ygsmilo · « **Reply #12 on:** January 15, 2003, 12:15:13 AM »

The fall of the Soviet State started after the first bottle of Coke Cola was sold in Moscow. It was all over after that.

Ike 2K# · « **Reply #13 on:** January 15, 2003, 12:17:18 AM »

did that happen during the gorby times?

john9001 · « **Reply #14 on:** January 15, 2003, 12:27:37 AM »

rock and roll destroyed the USSR