From Reform to Ruin in the USSR

To summarize: the post is phrased in terms of an existing controversy about whether Gorbachev was "powerless" in the face of the bureaucracy (and how much he feared a coup), but concludes he wasn't. Instead, the author thinks Gorbachev was quite powerful, but focused on the wrong things, specifically on political reform instead of economic reform. Critical economic reforms like price reform was abandoned, and at the same time state enterprise reform caused fiscal problems that left the center weak. At the same time, political reform ended up empowering regions ("republics" meaning nationalities), which ended up wrestling fiscal control of the center. Eventually (this part is uncontroversial) the RSFSR ended up with more power than the center and dissolved the USSR.

The Soviet Union began to collapse the moment it abandoned Lenin’s NEP. If they had reintroduced it in the 1960s, after recovering from World War II, they could have quickly caught up with the West—perhaps even surpassed it. In many ways, China is the successful version of the USSR.

>Gorbachev’s reforms began with the aim of resuscitating the Soviet economy. But instead they brought ruin, destroying the Soviet economy along with Soviet state capacity. This did not occur because Gorbachev was “helpless” and trapped by entrenched interests, but rather because he proved to be a well-intentioned reformer with great power that was used in a reckless manner.

I’ve always wondered how the world would look like without the Bolshevik revolution

As soon as all hope of ever achieving Communism was lost - and that was clear by XXVth Party congress in 1976 when it got all but replaced with so-called &quot;advanced Socialism&quot; - Soviet Union was done: keeping the system of thorough socioeconomic absurdity and repression in all spheres of life was impossible without giving people a greater goal to strive for. Without that, the question of &quot;what are we suffering for&quot; had no answer.<p>In addition, the elites realised how poorly they were treated compared not just to the leading, but even to the capitalist nations of similar per capita GDP - that is, mediocre ones - and wanted to change that. Seriously, speaking of economic grievances, no one had more to complain about but the Soviet elites. Those who in America, had Learjets and beachside villas, had to make do with bugged apartments and black Volgas in the Soviet Union and they rightly saw it as unfair.<p>Both problems could be &quot;fixed&quot; with 1937-style repression IN ADDITION to 1933-style famine (because Soviet Union depended on food imports and the West won&#x27;t give them in case of a new Purge), but Gorby had no balls for that sort of thing in 1987, and thank God he didn&#x27;t.<p>Simply put, there was no way to fool too many people, increasingly well-educated and capable of critical thinking, for too long a time. Communism ended because it&#x27;s time was up.

Incidentally, a strongly held view by the CCP is that Gorbachev &quot;lost&quot; the USSR due to his lack of consolidated political power and it&#x27;s a &quot;mistake&quot; that they are most desperate to avoid, and explains in part Xi&#x27;s rise to unquestioned supreme leader with complete control within the party and over the provinces. (An interesting case is point is how they stripped down Bo Xilai, the CCP Secretary for Chongqing once he became too popular with his constituents--now serving life in prison.) To borrow from Islam, &quot;there is no God but the CCP, and Xi is his prophet.&quot;

&quot;If this view is correct, one lesson for those seeking to understand reforms in China today is that the leader, his competence, and his perceptions of how to enact reform can, at times, prove even more important than the underlying realities of bureaucratic politics or structural issues.&quot;<p>Short version:<p>&quot;Deng Xiaoping thought Mikhail Gorbachev was an idiot&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022-08-31&#x2F;mikhail-gorbachev-met-deng-xiaoping-1989-changed-history&#x2F;101390172" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abc.net.au&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022-08-31&#x2F;mikhail-gorbachev-met...</a>

Living through the end years of USSR and beginnings of centrifugal coming apart of everything was pretty crazy. As a child seeing necrologies for Brezhnev, then Andropov, then Chernenko on TV with somber music and black ribbons, I remember thinking - woah, why are they dying. Gorbachev was a breath of fresh air, and he did as soft of a landing for that disastrous country as anyone could have wished for. The aftermath was still a disaster, especially considering what is happening now. The worst kinds of people came to power, the grabbiest, least compassionate, just general scum. They completely destroyed what Russia could have been, stole everything they could and set the country back on the terrible cycle of poverty, war and bloodshed.

Chernobyl contributed to the collapse. It caused people to panic and it exposed the weaknesses of the system and created a breach of the Iron Curtain.<p>It completely ruined any hope glasnost had to succeed.