Gorbachov admitted in a speech in 1999 that his goal was to destroy communism.

"The purpose of my life was the destruction of communism, the intolerable dictatorship over the people. I was fully supported by my wife, who understood the necessity of this even before I did. It is for this purpose that I used my position in the party and in the country. That is why my wife kept nudging me along to work to higher and higher positions in the country. When I was personally met with the West, I realized that I could not retreat from the goal. And to achieve it I had to replace the whole leadership of the CPSU and the USSR, and in all socialist countries. My ideal at that time was the way of the social democratic countries. The planned economy did not allow people of the socialist camp to realize their potential. Only the transition to a market economy would enable our countries to develop dynamically."


The economy of the Soviet Union was doing relatively well in the mid-1980s, when Gorbachov first came to power. The economy was in fact doing better than it had been in the late 1970s/early 1980s. There were no prevailing conditions of consumer dissatisfaction, as is usually claimed. It wasn't as if the leaders were seeing increased public unrest aimed at the regime (this is according to the memoirs of Soviet reformers themselves). But nonetheless Gorbachov undertook radical disastrous reforms in 1987 that ended up sinking the Soviet Union. It was these reforms, and not the system itself, which was flawed and caused the collapse. Gorbachov and his group of reformers were highly ambitious - and the standards which had been acceptable to previous leaders were not acceptable to them.

The failure of reforms cannot be replaced on special interests within bureaucracies, because in virtually all cases established bureaucracies dissolved or were restructured without a word of protest. This is even true with military restructuring. So then we can only conclude that the problem stemmed from market mechanisms coexisting with command mechanisms.

The market reforms were not compatible with command mechanisms that existed, and many of the more radical policies were repealed in 1988 or so, but they had already unleashed political turmoil. He intensified this turmoil by doing things like replacing Kazakh and Ukrainian ministers with Russians, fueling nationalist animosity towards the Union. He also replaced experienced, competent people like Gromyko with morons like Shevardnadze.

Ultimately the final collapse of the Union was the result of a drunken pact between Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich in December of 1991.

I assume from this not being a personal message that all are free to comment?

As pointed out, Gorbachev did throw a wrench in it intentionally, but a problem with the system in general was how easily it was manipulated by the highest levels of party leadership. Stalin would often do things specifically to punish groups or regions that fell out of favor with him via the economy. Now, for several decades after Stalin, things went relatively well, but it was always exposed to the potential of leadership using it for their own agendas.

oh. the fascist vs the communist.

lovely.

"2. What changes would you make?"

I wouldn't have made many changes in the Soviet Union. The socialist economies in eastern Europe were more vulnerable due to their reliance on western credit for many development projects. The USSR had low debt and sizable (and increasing) hard currency reserves. The eastern European countries had taken loans from private western banks and were hard hit by debt crisis in the early 1980s. These banks stopped loaning money, or at least decreased their lending, leading to problems.
The economic malaise in the west made it difficult for these countries to gain currency reserves through their exports. These countries also didn't have the resource base of the USSR - particularly with regard to energy - and energy prices had been rising. Poland was the hardest hit by these debt problems, because they didn't export much of anything and relied heavily on imports. So we see the Solidarity movement causing a ruckus in the early 1980s. This kind of political turmoil began to spread.

So in conclusion, the changes I would have made mostly pertain to overreliance on foreign credit and an overreliance on imports. Had the eastern European countries avoided the debt problems of the 1980s, political turmoil would not have occurred. The Soviet Union largely stayed within their means, and this worked. Of course they were helped by the fact that they had huge resources.

"but a problem with the system in general was how easily it was manipulated by the highest levels of party leadership."

Is it any more or less difficult to make radical changes to economic policy in capitalist systems though? Obviously Franklin Roosevelt was able to make serious changes to how economic policy was run in the US during the 1930s. Nixon essentially unilaterally took the US off the Gold Standard. If anything you can say it is more difficult in the Soviet Union, because it is essentially leadership by committee (Politburo). You have to have many more people on board before you can implement these kinds of decisions. Every Soviet leadership group has to deal with holdovers from the previous leadership group who opposed their changes. For example, Gorbachov couldn't get rid of Ligachev. Had he been able to neutralize all of his critics, there would have been no coup in August '91.

Putin33 do you live in Russia?

I recommend the novel "Red Plenty" for this discussion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/07/red-plenty-francis-spufford-ussr

The way the Soviet economy was planned is regretable, I shall elucidate later.

spyman, he's said it before I believe that he's an American

Let me word that better. I believe that he has said he is an American

No, I do not live in Russia and never have.

Also, I mistakenly said Ligachev was a holdover from the Chernenko/Brezhnev people. That's not quite right. Ligachev was initially a Gorbachov ally who ended up turning against his reforms. However, when Gorbachov first came to power (through a coup of sorts, he won the election for General Secretary by one vote - and someone who would have definitely voted against him - Shcherbitsky, was out of the country at the time), he had comparatively few allies. There were a number of 'old guard' Chernenko/Brezhnevites he had to deal with. The last Brezhnevite - Shcherbitsky, was only removed from the Politburo in 1989. And even after that, as I said before, Ligachev remained a focal point of Leninist opposition to Gorbachov. After Ligachev's defeat, Gorbachov had to deal with opponents like Kryuchkov, Shenin, and Yazov - who eventually launched a coup against him.

I'm not sure you understand the New Deal and how it happened. It's true that FDR drafted most of the legislation with assistance from a small brain trust, but it was enacted by Congress and some parts of it were struck down by the Supreme Court. While Roosevelt spearheaded the movement and took more direction of it than was typical of a US President at the time, he still had to get it through. Which is why some portions of it were rather racist, such as Social Security not applying to certain types of agricultural or domestic workers (fields that were predominantly black). That was done to get past the "Southern Veto", as a condescension to the power that the Southern Democrats had. Truman's goal of making this more encompassing caused the Democratic party to split, with three ostensibly Democratic candidates running for President in 1948, which is in turn why the Chicago Tribune felt very comfortable stating that DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN for the famous photo op. That's also why most southern states, who previously were strongly Democrat, became strongly Republican.

Quite a bit of it was not enacted by Congress at all, but implemented by Executive Order. One of the more obvious examples is when Roosevelt confiscated large amounts of gold and prohibited people from holding over a small amount of gold with EO6102. Another example occurred even before he was inaugurated, when he shut down the banks.

But the overall point is that drastic changes have occurred in economic policy even in democratic countries. This is more true in parliamentary democracies, where any blocked legislation leads to new elections and the opposition can do little to stop anything from going through that the Prime Minister wants. But it's even true in American-style Presidential democracies in some cases. If a President comes to power with sizable support, chances are his party in Congress is also going to win big - which means they will be able to implement significant reforms in a short period of time. The Democratic Congress of 09-10 was able to more productive than any since the Great Society [and you're slightly incorrect in your timetable for southern support for the Republicans, which did not begin on a large scale until the mid-1960s with Goldwater]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1952
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1956
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960

The largest parts of it, such as the National Recovery Act, did go through Congress. Social Security, and most of the things that we associate with the New Deal, were passed by Congress. The bank holiday is still hotly debated as a question of whether or not he overstepped his bounds, with the consensus being that he did.

I'm not debating that largescale changes in economy can happen in theoretically democratic countries, I'm just positing that the former USSR's mechanisms took less people to enact them. Stalin did a lot of things with the economy that were short-sighted and punitive, like creating a famine in the Ukraine. While a presidential candidate with widespread support can bring a lot of like-minded people to Congress to assist him, it still requires more people to go along with it than the Politboro did. In just about every vote that's at all contested, a few people vote against their party line. And there's been cases of legislation pushed forward by one party that the sitting President, of the same party, has vetoed.

The USSR's economy was a joke.
The central command system had a huge emphasis on production and making the quota. This forced the factories to lie about production, demanding to many resources and undermeening their successes, for the purpose of being assigned a smaller quota then what they could possible build.

The other issue was what to produce, factories had their quota's measured in tons of goods produced, this meant that their was a higher demand for heavier, larger objects and smaller demand for lighter, smaller objects.

A primary example of this is a steel factory, the factory would intentionally produce a surplus of say steel bars and a deficit of smaller items like screws just so they could brag about making the quota.

The other issue was quality of goods, in market economies there is a higher demand for high quality goods, as they sell for more. In command economies there is a high demand for cheap goods, so achieving the quota is possible. This meant that, using the other example in my econ textbook, cars in the western world were getting better, faster, safer, more comfortable, while the cars in USSR were getting worse, cheaper, slower, more dangerous, less comfortable.

The command economy's don't work for their is no competition, no demand to do better then your neighbor. If you look at the only area of the economy that the USSR did succeed was military. Their bombs were better then America's, more destructive then America's and cheaper then America's. Why were they able to achieve this? They had competition, they had a market to influence their decisions.

Now my third question to you is why the username? Putin isn't communist so why no use a more fitting name like Stalin?

"I'm not debating that largescale changes in economy can happen in theoretically democratic countries, I'm just positing that the former USSR's mechanisms took less people to enact them. Stalin did a lot of things with the economy that were short-sighted and punitive, like creating a famine in the Ukraine. While a presidential candidate with widespread support can bring a lot of like-minded people to Congress to assist him, it still requires more people to go along with it than the Politboro did. In just about every vote that's at all contested, a few people vote against their party line. And there's been cases of legislation pushed forward by one party that the sitting President, of the same party, has vetoed."

Except the NRA was put into action by executive order (later ruled unconstitutional). And sorry I have to disagree with your characterization of Soviet decision-making. Also while you may have a general point about the American presidency, parliamentary governments are not burdened by internal divisions within the government. If the Prime Minister proposes a policy, it is law. If there is sufficient opposition to block it, new elections are held. In the UK these days, the Prime Minister doesn't even have to do as much as consult his cabinet.

And even in the case of the US presidency, some pretty draconian policies were implemented by executive order (in total Roosevelt issued 3,723 EOs) - the most notorious of which was EO9066, pertaining to the internment of people of Japanese descent. I also don't think anyone can really say that decisions on issues pertaining to foreign and military policy are constitutionally a collective matter when it comes to the United States. They are, in fact, collective matters when it comes to the Soviet Union. The best example of which is the intense debates that took place before the USSR finally committed troops to the defense of Afghanistan.

In the USSR few decisions were ever made by one individual. No single Soviet leader could "veto" a law passed by the legislature. No Soviet leader had their personal authority written into any constitution or law, like the dictators of Italy and Germany. On the contrary, the Soviet government explicitly frowned upon individuals making decisions by themselves. Decision-making in the USSR lacked the decisiveness and swiftness of an individual dictatorship.

And when it comes to that favorite bugbear Stalin, several things must be pointed out. Stalin was not the President of the Presidium nor even a cabinet official in the government, nor was he president of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He was General Secretary. The idea that he could singlehandedly direct all decisions made in the vast Soviet governing apparatus from that position is far-fetched.

Furthermore, even his critics admit that Stalin never sought attention and recognition for himself.

"Stalin does not seek honours. He loathes pomp. He is averse to public displays. He could have all the nominal regalia in the chest of a great state. But he prefers the background. He is the perfect inheritor of the individual Lenin paternalism. No other associate of Lenin was endowed with that characteristic. He lacks culture, but he absorbs knowledge. He is rough toward, his enemies, but he learns from them." (Isaac Don Levine, 1929).

He didn't write long winded fantastic tales embellishing on his supposed role in the October Revolution like Trotsky. He was content being a figure in the background. That's how the entire Soviet leadership was, it was a collective body, not a group of individuals. The General Secretary essentially existed to carry out the orders of the Central Committee. The person holding that position worked at the mercy of the Central Committee and could be dismissed by it at any time - this is precisely what happened to Khruschov in 1964.

You bring up the famine (which I've discussed ad infinitum here, but oh well) - the famine was not the result of a 'punitive' action. The famine was not local to Ukraine, where kulak resistance was greatest. The famine was widespread, and affected Kazakhstan, the Caucasus, West Siberia, among other places. Places which did not have significant resistance to collectivization experienced famine, because there was widespread crop failure. Little known fact, but the prosecutor of the USSR - Andrei Vyshinski, had hundreds of thousands of kulaks released from prison and their voting rights restored, and the NKVD was thereby prohibited from arresting anyone without consent from the prosecutor. A Ukrainian historian, considered the 'leading Ukrainian historian' by Ukrainian nationalists - Mikhail Hrushevsky, does not make any mention whatsoever of a deliberate man-made famine (punitive action). Instead he rightly says that "A year of drought coincided with chaotic agricultural conditions, and during the winter of 1932-1933 a great famine, like that of 1921-1922, swept across Soviet Ukraine". (Hrushevsky, 1986). Yes excesses occurred against kulaks, but this was not pre-meditated policy of starving Ukrainians.

"Now my third question to you is why the username? Putin isn't communist so why no use a more fitting name like Stalin? "

I'll answer this first and get to the rest later. I try not to wear my politics on my sleeve. Previous experience doing that has led me to believe it's a bad idea. I admire Vladimir Vladimirovich a great deal. He's a judo black belt. He attends motorcycle festivals. He sings. He drives formula one cars. All-around badass.

So your not going to mention his political side. Nationalizing most corporations, the corruption of his government etc etc

He's done quite a bit to eliminate corruption, going after oligarchs, enforcing the law, etc. He inherited a country that was totally dysfunctional for a decade. They couldn't even collect taxes. He has implemented a large number of bold reforms to set Russia on the right track in terms of the rule of law.

The inferior quality of Soviet produced goods is exaggerated to a certain extent. Soviet steel was high quality enough to efficiently exploit their oil and natural gas resources with pipelines constructed in extreme weather environments in which any cracks would be a disaster. Soviet machinery steadily increased as a proportion of their overall exports, even to the West. Soviet technology and knowhow was of sufficient quality that they were able to export nuclear energy technology to other countries like India. The Soviets did make a short-sighted decision in the late 1960s to start copying foreign computer technology (because of the impressive IBM computers put out at the time), even though at the time the Soviet computer industry was on par with the West. Planners felt that making tweaks to existing western technology would be cheaper and more effective than investing in the homegrown industry. This policy backfired.

But you can't deny that the car industry and other such consumer goods was well behind the US.

Putin has increased corruption, he had nationalized corporations, killed CEO and others who speak against him, stolen money from the treasury to pocket it. Turned a central nation into a left wing nation. The list goes on.

If anything, the irony here is that Russia is possibly the best example of a working oligarchy. Putin might be the first among them, but he is merely the leader of the people that run Russia. He couldn't do what he is doing without fairly broad support amongst the technocracy and even the people. (The joke from John Stewart was "Russia today had an election. The result: They decided to go with the dictatorship")

I find it amusing that you have so much bad to say about the only functioning example of your preferred form of government.

But I am also not surprised, either.

What I find amusing is that:
1) you still don't know what an oligarchic meritocracy is
2) Putin is far from my ideologies, last time I checked, Putin is left wing and I am right wing.

Kid, being a little snot might win you points in Junior high, but it just makes you look like a little kid.

What you're doing is a transparent rhetorical trap. You ask me to define a term, and then say I'm wrong. Easy points.

Russia is an oligarchy at the moment (with some democratic facades out front). You claim that is the best form of government.

If this is wrong, you need to explain exactly how (a nice paragraph on the practical details of your ideal government would be nice).

I'm the snot?

Your to one calling me a kid when I know more on the topic about you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

I am a supporter of Oligarchic Meritocracy. Putin is far from that. Also you clearly don't know how to read, as i answered your question in the second part.

One could make the argument that Communism in its ideal form would be a meritocracy. Certainly in the "dictatorship of the proletariat" phase, the best and the brightest are supposed to guide the working classes into a classless utopia.

So yes. I think a Communist(Putin can feel free to disagree, of course) could be classified as a supporter of an "Oligarchical Meritocracy" as you put it.


I'm also still waiting for your little paragraph explaining the practical application of your political theories.

To put it simply Right Wing Oligarchic Meritocracy (you should surely know from our Winston Churchill debate that I am right wing). I don't have the time to write my paragraph right now. But maybe some time in the future.

I'm confused as to where we're talking about me and where we're talking about Vladimir Putin. If the claim is that Vladimir Putin is leftwing, that's not at all true. United Russia is a center-right party. Putin has implemented a 'flat tax', a darling of the conservative movement. Social security taxes are highly regressive. Inequality is increasing. Taxes on oil companies have been reduced. The inheritance tax has been eliminated. That said, his policies have drastically reduced the number of Russians who have to spend all of their income on the bare essentials of life (it's now under 10%).

"Certainly in the "dictatorship of the proletariat" phase, the best and the brightest are supposed to guide the working classes into a classless utopia."

I would agree with this for the most part, although I don't like the term 'oligarchy' (because traditionally it has referred to rule by the aristocrats/patricians/nobility). But the Central Committee in particular is supposed to be comprised of the best industrial leaders, best experts on nationalities, best experts on agriculture, best experts on distribution, etc. The rule of the Communist Party of China is essentially a technocracy, and it seems to work.

I support to Communist Party of China.
But I guess the article I read on Putin in Macleans was western propaganda, it talked about how left wing he was.

Somebody should inform the CPRF/Other Russia about his leftwing credentials.