What contributed most to the fall of the Soviet Union?

[Carl]

Boring day on the island but a few interesting contortions in this one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5109397

Stinky The Clown  (1000+ posts)          Sun Feb-22-09 12:56 PM
Original message
What contributed most to the fall of the Soviet Union?
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That ******* old actor standing there and demanding the wall be torn down was the LEAST contribution to the fall of the USSR.

I see two possibilities:

Overspending on Defense in general.

Spending in Afghanistan, specifically.

Communism, too, wasn't the issue. They would eventually have evolved to regulated, socialistic capitalism, sorta like where China's headed.



Does thinking about their fall put you in mind the US's situation today?

Botany  (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-22-09 01:07 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. I was in eastern europe in the late 1980s
   and the state run economies were awful ..... and it sure didn't
look like it was evolving into anything.

I watched them "build a road" with premade squares of concrete brought out
on a truck ..... here we bring the concrete out in a mix truck and pour it into
forms .... i saw projects that were started and then the people just walked away
from the job.

Harry Trueman's George Kennan predicted that communism would fall under
it's own weight given time in the 1940s.
     

Ruh roh....can`t let that kind of thinking stand.

Mr Rabble (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-22-09 02:17 PM
Response to Reply #1
23. Good thing it wasnt communism in Russia.
   Russia was a totalitarian state with a state capitalist economy. To call Russia communist is like calling the US a free market system.

Neither is accurate, no matter how ofter it is repeated by the doctrinal system.

I don`t care who you are that is just insanity right there.

Idealism (1000+ posts)          Sun Feb-22-09 01:38 PM
Response to Original message
12. World War II contributed most
   They lost 20 million people and were on the verge of bankruptcy. It is amazing that the USSR didn't collapse sooner. They had to get pack mules and horses to carry their artillery back from the front lines, you might recall.

Well good ole FDR gave uncle Joe a boost after that one didn`t he.

FarCenter (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-22-09 01:43 PM
Response to Original message
14. The USSR was brought down by years of mismanagement by elderly, incompetent politicians
   Edited on Sun Feb-22-09 01:44 PM by FarCenter
Brezhnev and his Politburo of antique apparatchiks. Brezhnev was in power for about 2 decades, dying at age 78, and was followed by Andropov, 68, and Chernenko, 72.

Sort of like Bush's cabinet or the current US Senate.

Although Bush was younger, he acted more like the Korean War generation (Cheney's) than the Vietnam War generation. The people appointed to his first cabinet were actually older on average than Brezhnev's Poliburo.

The average age in the Senate is now over '65, and the old fossils will be a huge handicap to Obama in getting anything done.

Yep all 58 or so out of 100 of them being dems.

azul  (272 posts)         Sun Feb-22-09 01:53 PM
Response to Original message
17. Demonetization by the US as the enemy, and vodka.
   The excessive military funding for the cold war wasted their resources and energies. The government kept its power by keeping up its end of the contrived cold war.

The average Russian realized his helplessness in this military power corruption scheme and sabotaged the system by self-medicating for depression with vodka, which destroyed the country by leading to shoddy workmanship and health problems.

My wife went to East Germany a few times in the 60's and 70's and said everything was so drab and crappy and that people were starved for color.

David__77 (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-22-09 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
18. It was a ruling class decision.
   The party elites, who had coalesced into a new ruling class, decided that they didn't want the constraints of the appearance of socialism, so they did the whole thing in. Indeed, they have become enriched since then beyond anyone's imagination, plundering the birthright of the people. There was no popular uprising anywhere demanding this.

Words escape me.

lunatica  (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-22-09 02:10 PM
Response to Original message
21. Corruption and lack of foresight may have been big contributors
   The government was more like Stalinism than Karl Marx's and Lenin's Communism. Their ideals were intellectually based, but Stalin took over and being the archetypal dictator (Saddam Hussein admired and imitated him) who was basically cunning and shrewd but only cared about his power and not about the Soviet Union (a lot like the neocons). He was not a forward thinking or interested in what was best for the Soviet Union. When he took over he pretty much killed or banished the brains of the country to
Siberia. He got rid of intellectuals, of the top military brass and anyone he thought might pose a threat to him. He put his hand chosen thugs in charge. There was a complete lack of imagination or innovative thinking. The peasants were then forced to do what the goons told them to do, which destroyed food production because they were told what and how much to plant and then were forced to hand it all over to the government because the people running the show were clueless. A lot like Mao in China and the Great Leap Forward. It all looked good superficially but millions of people died of starvation.

1. Kill off or imprison the thinkers, the educators and the talented innovators of the country
2. Promote the remaining people who are of mediocre intelligence to head bureaus
3. Force the working class to prop up and do the work of maintaining bad policies such as the farmers
4. Rewarding people through military service and loyalty to the State and expand empire to fight the boogey man which is the type of mentality that thugs have. You see it in the Mafia, in the Bush Administration, in religious extremists and in people who have an average or less than average IQ (ie, Joe the Plumber who hates unions, social security, spreading the wealth and actually having to work for a living and Sarah Palin who can see Russia from her back porch)

Anyway, this is only part of the foundation for the collapse.
 

You describe a century of leftist dictatorship and then say it is what conservatives believe.
That is a feat of idiocy that is beyond description.

tularetom  (1000+ posts)        Sun Feb-22-09 02:25 PM
Response to Original message
27. They basically lost a generation in WWII
   And when it came time for that generation to take a leading role in policy making, there was nobody to advocate the necessary reforms so the old thinking from the thirties lasted clear into the eighties.

And of course we all know it was Raygun's tough talk and advocacy of the SDI that scared them so bad they just folded like a cheap suitcase.
   

Tells you a lot about the thought patterns and belief systems these cretins have.

[TheSarge]

Stinky The Clown  (1000+ posts)          Sun Feb-22-09 12:56 PM
Original message
What contributed most to the fall of the Soviet Union?

This guy:




And these words:

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

http://www.reaganlibrary.com/reagan/speeches/wall.asp

[DumbAss Tanker]

Idealism (1000+ posts)          Sun Feb-22-09 01:38 PM
Response to Original message
12. World War II contributed most
   They lost 20 million people and were on the verge of bankruptcy. It is amazing that the USSR didn't collapse sooner. They had to get pack mules and horses to carry their artillery back from the front lines, you might recall.

 

They lost those 20 million people to an army that primarily used horse-drawn artillery and supply wagons, idjit.

[Odin's Hand]

3 Main Causes:

1) The Reykjavík Summit showed our hand to Gorby and scared him shitless.

2) Chernobyl's effect on some of the most fertile farmland, fisheries and watersheds in the U.S.S.R. and its loss to the energy grid.

3) The Stinger missile's damage to the VVS in Afghanistan.

[formerlurker]

The number one reason for the fall of the Soviet Union is the Reagan military buildup (most importantly our stealth technology).    There were various other reasons, but this was the driving factor.

Competing with our military will be China's downfall also.


Next.

[blitzkrieg_17]

DUmmies still in mourning over their beloved Soviet Union, since 1991.

[franksolich]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Ukrainian military guy, on the train from Lvov to Kharkov.

Allegedly, he had been involved in talks between Russia and Ukraine, in 1992, to come to an agreement about splitting up Soviet military resources between them.  It might, or might not, have been true; he had plenty of stripes on his uniform, and later when I showed his "business card" to Ukrainians, they immediately recognized the name and said yeah, he was pretty big.

Anyway.

I asked him, in a kind and unhurtful way, on what he thought caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He said it was Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" proposal.

He said the "Star Wars" proposal was so advanced, so expensive, so state-of-the-art, so complicated, so big, that while there was no doubt American "ingenuity" could build it--and would build it--the Soviets knew it was way beyond their own capabilities, even if they devoted 100% of all of their resources to building one.

And so, internally, they just folded.  It was too much, and they couldn't match it.

I arched my eyebrows.

I told him "Star Wars" had been a bluff.

I explained American politics to him; that oftentimes a president has to ask for more than what he reasonably expects to get, so that during "negotiations" with the other side, things get pared down to what he actually wanted in the first place.

I said a lightbulb had burned out in the men's restroom at some U.S. Naval facility in Galveston, Texas.

But the defense budget was tight, and we had all these Democrats and liberals yelling-and-screaming about "wasteful military spending."  There was no money to replace the burnt-out lightbulb.

If Reagan had asked simply for a new appropriation for a new light-bulb, during "negotiations" with Vast Teddy and Tipsy O'Neill, he wouldn't have gotten it; he would've had to settle for much less.

And so he asked for "Star Wars," so that the Democrat obstructionists in Congress would give him at least a new light-bulb in that men's room.

I dunno if he believed me or not; we were using a translator between the two of us, and some things might have gotten distorted during that--I say that, because for some reason the officer thought I was an American in the book-publishing business, and he wondered if there was a market in the west for a book about those Russian-Ukrainian arms negotiations of 1992.

Poor guy.

One meets such interesting people by chance and accident.

[MrsSmith]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Ukrainian military guy, on the train from Lvov to Kharkov.

Allegedly, he had been involved in talks between Russia and Ukraine, in 1992, to come to an agreement about splitting up Soviet military resources between them.  It might, or might not, have been true; he had plenty of stripes on his uniform, and later when I showed his "business card" to Ukrainians, they immediately recognized the name and said yeah, he was pretty big.

Anyway.

I asked him, in a kind and unhurtful way, on what he thought caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He said it was Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" proposal.

He said the "Star Wars" proposal was so advanced, so expensive, so state-of-the-art, so complicated, so big, that while there was no doubt American "ingenuity" could build it--and would build it--the Soviets knew it was way beyond their own capabilities, even if they devoted 100% of all of their resources to building one.

And so, internally, they just folded.  It was too much, and they couldn't match it.

I arched my eyebrows.

I told him "Star Wars" had been a bluff.

I explained American politics to him; that oftentimes a president has to ask for more than what he reasonably expects to get, so that during "negotiations" with the other side, things get pared down to what he actually wanted in the first place.

I said a lightbulb had burned out in the men's restroom at some U.S. Naval facility in Galveston, Texas.

But the defense budget was tight, and we had all these Democrats and liberals yelling-and-screaming about "wasteful military spending."  There was no money to replace the burnt-out lightbulb.

If Reagan had asked simply for a new appropriation for a new light-bulb, during "negotiations" with Vast Teddy and Tipsy O'Neill, he wouldn't have gotten it; he would've had to settle for much less.

And so he asked for "Star Wars," so that the Democrat obstructionists in Congress would give him at least a new light-bulb in that men's room.

I dunno if he believed me or not; we were using a translator between the two of us, and some things might have gotten distorted during that--I say that, because for some reason the officer thought I was an American in the book-publishing business, and he wondered if there was a market in the west for a book about those Russian-Ukrainian arms negotiations of 1992.

Poor guy.

One meets such interesting people by chance and accident.

 

[franksolich]

This guy was dead serious about that, Mrs. Smith.

He seemed circa 50-55 years old, and this was in the mid-1990s.

He was a high-ranking officer, a something-general, meaning that he had probably gone into the Soviet military when he was circa 16, 17, years old, and so he had seen a lot of things over the years.

He was dead serious when he commented about the sudden and abrupt and utter collapse of morale inside the Soviet military, secret police, and Politboro when "Star Wars" was proposed.  He said something similiar with "a mountain collapsed into a hole; we were done, finished."

[DumbAss Tanker]

Frank, having been through that era, back at the dawn of time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and serving at a rather large procurement command, when I was a mid-grade captain, Reagan was assuredly not bluffing about Star Wars, he had a real vision for it, not merely as a negotiating ploy.

Now, getting Congress and a heavily-taxed public (as they saw it at the time anyway) to go along was another story of course, and top end of the very best military aerospace engineering achievable was at the very lowest end of what would have made it even somewhat effective.  Very extensive - and expensive - R&D work proceeded on a number of avenues with every intention of producing systems that could be fielded, and the Soviet technical intelligence appraisal of them, as the Ukrainian gent probably intended to communicate to you, was that if developed to production and fielded, the best of the systems would indeed upset the applecart of the balance of terror, or the Mutually Assured Destruction.

The Soviet appraisal was not that we would completely nullify their weapons, far from it.  They did see it as a situation where we would preserve enough of our nation and government structure while the last of the very small surviving population of European Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine would be fighting each other over the last edible rat west of the Urals.  They - and we - thought it would take us close to the breaking point to really field these systems, but that it was absolutely impossible for them to do so.

There was a risk that the more amoral, or paranoid, elements of the Soviet regime might see the time as their last best chance for a first strike themselves ... seen as an opportunity on the part of the amoral, while the paranoids would fear we might be willing to do a first strike on our own part and accept losing a third of our population to permanently take out the USSR so that their only chance was to strike first. 

The Afghanistan debacle, and growing civil unrest in the Warsaw Pact countries over the unrelenting, protracted, and apparently-unjustified state of near-war both took a huge toll as well.  Undirected "Cultural Imperialism" played as large a role as Reagan's policies on that front.   

[formerlurker]

Americans are building it, and Star Wars was not entirely a bluff and definitely a vision.  The ultra-paranoid Soviets could not handle the thought of a stealth fighter flying over the Kremlin completely undetected.   

Soviet Union collapsed because of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and a Pope John Paul III.   Any student of history will tell you that (actual history, not revisionist history that is).

 

[franksolich]

.....Reagan was assuredly not bluffing about Star Wars, he had a real vision for it, not merely as a negotiating ploy.....

They - and we - thought it would take us close to the breaking point to really field these systems, but that it was absolutely impossible for them to do so.

Yeah, I thought so, but at the time of the hours'-long conversation, I was just really tired, and didn't want to talk and "listen."

Usually in real life, my making a preposterous comment shuts the other person up, but it didn't in this case.

What you said in the second statement quoted above, agrees with what he said.

I still have his "business card," buried among the debris of socialist souvenirs, but as it's kept in storage, and not here, I can't quote it.  He was something-general, and "Director" of "Strategic Studies" at the Ukrainian equivalent of West Point.

He really wanted to do this book, about Russian-Ukrainian negotiations over the splitting of Soviet military resources in 1992, and had this notion I was connected with the publishing business.

It was probably a confusion in translation; such happens all the time, even in English-to-English.  I tried to dissuade him from this perception, coming close to but not quite saying there was probably no "market" in the west for such a book.

It was an odd situation, a military higher-up and franksolich together, he traveling in very straitened circumstances, and myself in much elevated circumstances.  A woman in Kiev had gotten me my train ticket, which I myself could not have afforded, and he, not being paid since Ukrainian independence in August 1991, could scarcely afford better than what he had, for himself.

As I said, one meets the most interesting people, acquires the most interesting souvenirs by chance or accident, than by design.  Which is why, buried with that "business card" among other debris of a misspent life, there is a china teapot that used to belong to George Bernard Shaw, given me by a very old man who had been a contemporary and friend of his.

Not to get off-topic, but I find this characteristic among Republicans and conservatives to be most endearing and enriching.....this idea that it's better just to go out into the world to see what's there, rather than going out with "plans" about whom one is going to see, and notions about what's there.

[jinxmchue]

Stinky The Clown  (1000+ posts)          Sun Feb-22-09 12:56 PM
Original message
What contributed most to the fall of the Soviet Union?

Space debris.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Actually, the gentleman's story would very likely have a keenly-interested audience, albeit not a mass-market one, in professional military, diplomatic, and national security studies circles.

[Thor]

Another thing that aided in the downfall of the Soviet Union was Afghanistan & Bin Laden. One needs to keep that in mind.........

[franksolich]

Another thing that aided in the downfall of the Soviet Union was Afghanistan & Bin Laden. One needs to keep that in mind.........

Of course; there were many reasons, and this guy mentioned them; his second-biggest reason was rampant corruption.

But he was at all times very emphatic it was mainly because of "Star Wars," because the idea shook the "establishment" (the Kremlin, the military, the secret police) clear to its foundations, destroying their hopes and morale, leaving nothing.

[dutch508]

 

They lost those 20 million people to an army that primarily used horse-drawn artillery and supply wagons, idjit.

More like lost 48 million people in total. 18 million military losses is a fairly conservative estimate.

[Vagabond]

Americans are building it, and Star Wars was not entirely a bluff and definitely a vision.  The ultra-paranoid Soviets could not handle the thought of a stealth fighter flying over the Kremlin completely undetected.   

Soviet Union collapsed because of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and a Pope John Paul III.   Any student of history will tell you that (actual history, not revisionist history that is).

 

The first mention of a SDI type system actually came from the minds of the sci-fi writers of the seventies who envisioned such a system and then realized that it was short term doable.  They sent a letter to either Ford or Carter asking that such a system should be developed and fielded arguing that a ballistic missile shield is no more threatening than a bulletproof vest, neither is intended as an offensive weapon.

In the sixities, someone had the idea of using a set number of our missiles and launching them into the likely path of Soviet Missiles in the thought that close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear explosions.  The thought was to detonante a nuke near an incoming Soviet nuke and either destroy it or disable it's electronics to prevent it from exploding.

[Wayne]

                 VODKA????

[The Village Idiot]

These people are morons.

The USSR could not even feed itself most of the time, because a command economy and no private incentives does not care if it feeds its people are not. Then they tried a military build up when most of their 'jobs' were non-value jobs like digging holes and filling them up again.

It was destined to fail. It just took 70 years of state slavery

[franksolich]

Actually, the gentleman's.....

You know, I thought about this.

To call the guy a "gentleman" is not too far off the mark, at least from the impression I got.

Most of the socialists, military, and police were notoriously greedy and corrupt, but there were some--very few, but they were there--whom one could call "professional" and "ethical."

At the time I was there, the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants were crumbling, things getting worse and worse every day, although the nadir wasn't reached until circa a year after I left.  (After which it got better, but now is in swift decline again.)

Everybody, it seemed, was on the take.

But there were a few sterling exceptions, such as the very blond major in the secret police who, along with his very blonde wife and very blonde daughter and very blond son, circa 35 years old, the one who took me deep inside the "forbidden zone" encircling Chernobyl.

Absolutely incorruptible, almost Jesuitical in his morality.

Because of the overwhelming poverty, even the military and police higher-ups suffered a loss of income, or no income at all; most of them surviving off bribes and other sorts of corruption.....but not all.

There were exceptions, such as this something general, who even reduced to fifth-world poverty, maintained their professionalism and their dignity.

It was reminescent of the White Russians in exile, between the two world wars, many of whom were venal and corrupt, but some of whom, even reduced to street-cleaning and trash-hauling in Belgrade or Paris, retained a certain nobility.

[MrsSmith]

These people are morons.

The USSR could not even feed itself most of the time, because a command economy and no private incentives does not care if it feeds its people are not. Then they tried a military build up when most of their 'jobs' were non-value jobs like digging holes and filling them up again.

It was destined to fail. It just took 70 years of state slavery

They also outlawed religious freedom, causing the Mennonites to move here...with their hard red winter wheat, the best possible crop for much of our semi-arid Midwest.  When the government is overwhelmingly stupid, selfish and short-sighted, other countries win.  (I just hope ours isn't going too far that way by now.)

[Zeus]

How Reagan won the Cold War
By Fred Kaplan

Posted Wednesday, June 9, 2004, at 7:29 PM ET

So, did Ronald Reagan bring on the end of the Cold War? Well, yes. Recently declassified documents leave no doubt about the matter. But how did he accomplish it? Through hostile rhetoric and a massive arms buildup, which the Soviets knew they couldn't match, as Reagan's conservative champions contend? Or through a second-term conversion to detente and disarmament, as some liberal historians, including Slate's David Greenberg, argue?

This is an uncomfortable position for an opinion columnist (and occasional Cold War historian) to take, but it turns out that both views have their merits; neither position by itself gets at the truth. Reagan the well-known superhawk and Reagan the lesser-known nuclear abolitionist are both responsible for the end of that era—along with his vital collaborator Mikhail Gorbachev.

[AllosaursRus]

The number one reason for the fall of the Soviet Union is the Reagan military buildup (most importantly our stealth technology).    There were various other reasons, but this was the driving factor.

Competing with our military will be China's downfall also.


Next.

Not if the Big "O" has anything to do with it!

[AllosaursRus]

Of course; there were many reasons, and this guy mentioned them; his second-biggest reason was rampant corruption.

But he was at all times very emphatic it was mainly because of "Star Wars," because the idea shook the "establishment" (the Kremlin, the military, the secret police) clear to its foundations, destroying their hopes and morale, leaving nothing.

Exactly! We are seeing the same thing happenning to us!

While the Fat Cats who control the oversight, live in the PentHouse, they make laws to milk the average worker! Take a look at Rangel, Dodd, Shmucky Shumer, Nancy the vampire Pelosi, Harry the "Real Estate Mogul" Reid, and others.

The rules don't apply to them, yet they are the one's writing the rules!

I rest my case!