Where did the Soviet Union go wrong?

Comments ( 6 )

1. Troy says

   Spellbound is right, the Bolsheviks didn't exactly sail for a smooth ride in 1918. Just look at the first years of government in the 1920s, they had to artificially upgrade production and after the Russian struggle in Europe and later the Civil War they inherited a country in shambles that was on top of everything not industrial enough to support socialism.

   They immediately went to war with Poland. After the treaty of Riga they had to pay monetary compensation to the Poles and overall lost many privileges over the land.

   The terms of the New Economic Policy were met with hostility and suspicion at best by the peasant population and of course this ended in famine and revolts. Later persecution of the Kulaks. Overall I guess we can all agree that the NEP was successful in increasing agricultural production but at a very high human cost. Besides, the young Soviet nation was not able to live up to the expected goals of Lenin and later Stalin.

   I think what marked the Soviet Union for complete disaster was the legacy of Stalin. Not so much his death but the obligation he left to his successors to reconcile the poverty and the crimes committed against the population with the "Shinning" future they were promised. Yes, they advanced technologically and industrially, and many people did live a plentiful life, but the soviet dream was never fulfilled and people were not stupid, they were aware that repression and the hegemony of the communist party was not part of the deal. It is very hard to sell the idea of staying loyal to a state that persecutes and censors its population. Perhaps if the crimes of Stalin had never been addressed the Union would have lasted longer but certainly not forever.

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2. (o_o) says

   Well a communist economy isn't as strong or resilient as a socialist and capitalistic economy. The Government can't decide everything economically as efficiently as the people could. On that note, the USSR was expanding, bulking up the military, and fighting wars to compete with the US for power. The US could handle the stress of competition, the Soviet economy buckled.

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3. Lord Infamous &h says

   they didn't nuke the crap out of afghanistan

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4. Spellbound says

   It all began to go wrong in 1918 when the Left Socialist Revolutionaries walked out of government in protest at the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
   This was compounded in 1921 with the policy of Democratic Centralism – meant to be a temporary measure during the Civil War, this policy allowed for some debate, but only until the Politburo had made a decision, then all organs of the party had to toe the party line. Coupled with this policy was the ban on factions, again a Civil War measure that some (notably Trotsky) claimed was meant to be temporary; this had the effect of banning any groupings that were not officially (after 1928 this means Stalin) sanctioned.

   The seeds of the destruction of the Soviet Union were planted in 1928 with the first Five Year Plan. This laid out the economic direction of the country, and was rigidly adhered to for the next 60 years, even when the plans were clearly failing to meet industrial, international and consumer demands.

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5. taterjonny says

   Good Start?????? How many people died to accomplish this wounded form of government???

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6. John says

   Communism (or socialism of you prefer) is in itself flawed. The Soviet Union was based off of communism. It forced the economy to go against the laws of supply and demand, thus driving it into the ground, killing the country. Having a single party in power doesn't help either

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