Propaganda, stupid (or not so stupid...) leader just amplified that. With more sane leaders and less propaganda things could very well turn very different. China is a perfect example here.
North Korean Military.
- Thread starter F-15 Eagle
- Start date
Why not? Given much higher starting level, if USSR developed to same extent as China in the last 20 years - USSR would be 5 times as powerful as US and soviet citizens would be 2 times richer than US citizens.
I disagree. The Soviet economy was in large subsidized by oil and gas revenues. While the enterprises that made no profit were not a problem (closed economy means that money rotates, essentially leaving the overall profit at 0), many were running in the negatives. Dealing with that would take a lot of work. China had no industry, the USSR had industry that needed reform work. China also had much larger population and better relations with the West, making trade and the import of manufacturing processes an easy thing. Finally the USSR was still entangled in an international diplomatic mess as a result of the Cold War, with many regimes that were created as anti-Soviet, or maintained anti-Soviet postures to please the U.S. Anyways we've gotten miles off topic, does anyone actually have any valid statistical info on the DPRK military?
USSR economy was subsidized by VERY small amount by Oil & Gas revenue. USSR exported 1/3 of current ex-USSR countries export - and that for much more diversified export and economic.
In planned economic enterprises shouldnt make any profit - any profit made generally means bad (or rather incomplete) planning.
Not really.
1976 - last year USSR published export data for oil - whole USSR exported ~140m ton.
2006, Russia alone exported ~ 300m ton. Other CIS countries probably exported almost as much.
1976 - USSR consumed 3/4 own oil produced.
2006 - Russia consumed ~ 1/3 oil produced. Other CIS countries consumed even less oil...
For gas we will have even worse picture.. For metals - USSR almost didnt export them, everything was consumed for the benefits of own citizens - ex-USSR - exports most metals produced...
Now tell me which economy is based on natural resources export - and which was not...
2006, Russia alone exported ~ 300m ton. Other CIS countries probably exported almost as much.
1976 - USSR consumed 3/4 own oil produced.
2006 - Russia consumed ~ 1/3 oil produced. Other CIS countries consumed even less oil...
For gas we will have even worse picture.. For metals - USSR almost didnt export them, everything was consumed for the benefits of own citizens - ex-USSR - exports most metals produced...
Now tell me which economy is based on natural resources export - and which was not...
I have read both your post
With great respect to russian, but I would like to state some reasons to explain why soviet cannot copy the chinese road
1st why china attracts many invester in early 80s is simply because we have the world lowest salary and world's most diligent workers. Given into consideration that Soviet's GDP per capita is much higher than China, you can not be that attrative in the eyes of foreign invester.
2nd Chinese goverment gave many policy privilege to the foreign invester---they actually made the tax charging on the foreign invester comparatively lower than even native enterprises. In soviet, these actions will soon be labled as selling soviet to capitalist and most people would not agree.
3 Soviet was already a superpower, which means she has global strategic territory both in the form of realm and in the form of prestige. China at that time can say: market economy is good and lose nothing. But once soviet announce the same context, she will be deemed as surrendering to the west.
In that condition soviet will lose all her satelite states and international prestige. And that condition will also encourage the people to further question on goverment's validity and destroy the goverment prestige in people's mind
To conclude, If I compare china to a old car at that time, soviet is an old but high speed train. you can turn a car once you want to drive onto another road, however, for a train, a sharp turn means derailment.
In history, there is alot of example to illustrate the idea that in a country with great policy momentum，A sharp reform would only make the regime collapsed quicker. this problem is not only about the political but also about the society
BTW: it seems to me that the political form in russia is OK, at least you manage to build up an almost balanced society neither too left nor too right.
your election also makes the mechanism of feedback a closed circle , which means the citizens has a legal pipe to express their attitude and influence the public policy with respect to their different weight.
tired of western brainwashing about either democratic or nodemocratic, I thought your current political form is well suited for your social progress.
Last edited:
my words are wasted```
what I try to demonstrate is that the china's situation allow it a consistent reform while the situation in russia do not allow
If everything is so simple like PC game, where you change the national policy with a click, there won't be revolution anymore.
The soviet forms a dead lock himslef. (without reform, economy cannot sustain, but if they reform, the political system will collapse even sooner) only by revolution this dead lock can be resolved
russia's peace revolution can be considered to be a success. and I think current form of russian(right now, not 10 years ago) political architecture is open and sustainable.--government's authority is strong enough to push forward social and economical reform while still too weak to undermind the social balance.
The problem of course being that modern Russia is subsidizing industry by the formation of government concerns. While foreign investment is fairly major, so is the drain of funds. Finally inflation makes the rise in real wages much smaller then it appears to be.
Chrom do you have sources please? Thanks.
Chrom do you have sources please? Thanks.
There were no black economy in USSR to speak of. Contrary, in most cases various state enterprises reported somewhat higher output than in reality. Planned system was only partially inefficient - in some case in was awfully inefficient compared to West, in other areas much more effective. Most problems were in light industry, consumer goods and consumer service area. Big heavy industry, transport, medicine, social relations, children education and training - were better in USSR.
Ruble is not backed by gold or anything. Since US dollars goes bankrupt in later 60 and abandoned gold relations - i think no major currency in the world is backed by gold or anything similar.
P.S. Of course, no direct comparison between China and USSR possible. I just wanted to stress one thing - slow reforms (no revolution) is almost always better for any country economy than rapid, revolutionary reforms.
Which sources?
haha indeed.
:There are some payable sources - f.e. this book is good one http://books.google.de/books?id=Mvf...Mt9QRbx&sig=2_xSf3TghF6G2EEcBWBvldS8Vu4&hl=en
However, some basic facts about USSR / Russia can be found in open internet - f.e.
http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Russia/Oil.html
Ozzy Blizzard
New Member
My 2c...
The USSR could not have gone down a similar path to PROC. As has been stated above the soviet union could not have emulated chinese growth because they would not have the same growth mechanism. PROC's economic rise is based on western demand and cheap manufacture. USSR's economic ineficiency + a relatively high standard of liveing & social benefits meant that even if the cold war thawed and Moscow allowed large scale western investment (which was never, ever going to happen) the USSR would not have become the wests manufacturing base. Claiming that the soviet union would look like PROC today if a few decisions had been made differently or less propaganda had been used is compleatly inaccurate IMO.
Swerve got it right, by the 80's economically the USSR was a basket case, even if GDP growth was high. Internal economic inefficiencies were starting to tell by the 80's, which pretty clearly illustrates the incapability of central planning to handle a large and sophistocated, 20th century economy.
The USSR could not have gone down a similar path to PROC. As has been stated above the soviet union could not have emulated chinese growth because they would not have the same growth mechanism. PROC's economic rise is based on western demand and cheap manufacture. USSR's economic ineficiency + a relatively high standard of liveing & social benefits meant that even if the cold war thawed and Moscow allowed large scale western investment (which was never, ever going to happen) the USSR would not have become the wests manufacturing base. Claiming that the soviet union would look like PROC today if a few decisions had been made differently or less propaganda had been used is compleatly inaccurate IMO.
Swerve got it right, by the 80's economically the USSR was a basket case, even if GDP growth was high. Internal economic inefficiencies were starting to tell by the 80's, which pretty clearly illustrates the incapability of central planning to handle a large and sophistocated, 20th century economy.