It’s considered among knowledgeable circles that the creation of the Russia we know of today was largely the work of the “Chicago Boys” type group of economists who were sent to liberalize the Russian economy through “shock therapy”.
There are lots of well researched stories that show they did stupid badly thought of things such as, famously, handing over stocks in major companies to its workers, instantly making them shareholders.
That sounds fine in theory. But with poverty at their throat workers simply sold their sto luck to the first person who asked. Often these were people with “connections” or some money stashed away or criminally-funded “entrepreneurs”, who with some barebones organisation and planning could quickly scoop up billions of dollars worth of stock and take a controlling position in major companies by buying them cents for a dollar.
Thus the oligarchs were born which quickly led to the kleptocratic Russia we know of today.
Liberal minded and educated Russians realised western economists were annihilating their country. One well known Russian independent magazine called the newly rebuilt Russia a “neoliberal dystopia”. Which more and more I think of as quite accurate.
This seems demonstrably untrue: "Thus the oligarchs were born which quickly led to the kleptocratic Russia we know of today"
Oligarchs have been a mainstay of Russian society since at least the time of Peter the Great when one of his main policy positions as Tsar was reducing the influence of the oligarchs (then called Boyars).
Plus, Russia under Soviet rule was unbelievably kleptocratic and corrupt.
Most Russian oligarchs today trace their wealth back to the acquisition of shares in 1991, often with the help of loans from banks run by friends.
Larry Summers, when he was "advising", didn't make a secret of the fact that he didn't really care who "owned" most Russian assets provided it was in private hands.
> Larry Summers, when he was "advising", didn't make a secret of the fact that he didn't really care who "owned" most Russian assets provided it was in private hands.
I really don’t see the connection particularly considering the new oligarchs post-Soviet period appear to be more intimately connected to organised crime than any soviet heritage power structures
That doesn't sound like looting, though, unless the new shareholders were all US citizens? And was it their plan all along to make the factory workers sell their shares to oligarchs?
It is still a very popular theory here in Germany that factory workers should be given shares in the companies they work for. Personally I think it is misguided and anti-freedom: obviously it would be better to just give them more money, with which they could opt to buy shares or other things.
But seeing the popularity of the idea, I think people could be forgiven for actually implementing it?
most of the issues of Russia of today (and the rest of eastern europe/ussr) stem from communism and its planned economy. during the latter days of the soviets the amount of graft/corruption was incredible. the factories would churn out garbage 24/7. while regular folk had no heating and electricity. this led to even more corruption and an individualist mentality post-breakup.
the west might have contributed to this downfall, but 1. this downfall was completely normal and partly expected and 2. the main culprits can be found among the populations of russia and eastern europe.
I think all you’re saying is true but I wonder whether the West shouldn’t have been more careful when we were called upon to help these countries transition away from planned economies.
people from eastern europe were waiting for the americans to come and save them since 1947.
unfortunately the west was pretty much destroyed after ww2. but even in 1989 there was still hope that the soviet nightmare would finally end. and it did, thankfully.
unfortunately we’ve been left with the russian mafia state to deal further blows to the region.
The famines in the USSR were partially caused by US trade embargoes on the USSR preventing them from buying modern farming equipment and grain supplies.
That's not to say the USSR itself bore no blame. They definitely did, but the US did everything it could to ensure that system would collapse.
That doesn't sound very convincing - after all people didn't starve before Russia had modern farming equipment. Something else must have changed. The invention of modern farming equipment is unlikely to have caused existing farming methods to become less effective.
Also, it seems unlikely to me that Soviet planning relied on buying farming equipment from the USA. Weren't they rather too proud for that?
Did the USA also deny to sell them food?
Edit, since YC doesn't allow me to write more comments: yeah ok maybe people were starving before that, the point was, the US did not cause that. Maybe their superior technology could have helped, but that is not the same as blaming them for causing the famine. If the US hadn't invented those machines, Russians would have starved all the same, and there would have been no US to blame for it. That is what I meant.
As for trade embargoes, I am not a fan. But I can also not blame the US for wanting to curb the spread of communism, which is decidedly not a harmless ideology. So I guess trade embargoes tend to be a first step, preferred to actual war.
Also not convinced that communists would have loved to trade. Wasn't everything Western frowned upon? You could get into jail for listening to Jazz music? That doesn't sound very open minded to me, and not a good basis for trade. I think they wanted to show that they could do better than capitalism, and to rely on capitalist products would have been an admittance of failure.
> after all people didn't starve before Russia had modern farming equipment.
Yes, they did. You don't know your history or are deliberately ignoring parts of it.
Russia and the Russian Empire was always struggling to produce enough food due to the nature of its landscape. Barely any of it is suitable for farming.
This is the main reason Russia always tries to expand westward (that and its lack of warm-water ports for trade). It's simple self-preservation. I'm not excusing some or all of the horrible shit they've done to pursue this goal either, but it is understandable. The US did exactly the same when it swarmed over North America wiping out or subjugating every Native tribe it encountered.
The arable land in Russia is incredibly slim and was mostly situated on its western countries bordering Europe. Most of Russia and many of its satellite states during the USSR is and were unsuitable for farming.
On the subject of US/NATO trade embargoes, the US did a similar thing to Cuba and some South American states for decades for no good reason other than 'communism bad!'.
Trade embargoes used as a tool to fight an ideological war by weakening the target country's economy, thereby discrediting its economic model by artificially limiting supplies of grain and efficient farming equipment.
All they ended up doing was hurting the regular people who probably couldn't have cared less what system they were under. They were too busy trying to live their lives.
There was nothing in the Soviet system that prevented it from trading with the west from an ideological standpoint either. The refusal to trade came from the west; and the only reason trade with the west was hindered was because the US wanted to fight an ideological war by undermining its enemies economies.
The reality is, the so-called free-market champion that is the United States engages in market distortion to eliminate rivals all the time. The best example recently was the Iraq War. That was a response to Saddam Hussein's plan to stop trading oil in dollars and switch to Euros instead.
I feel like you are deliberately ignoring information that doesn't satisfy your world view.
Thankfully, I don't get my information on world history from Wikipedia.
I read history textbooks written by actual historians and on this particular subject, I speak with people who lived through it on a regular basis and spend time in former Soviet states; they are my extended family through my partner.
You, clearly, have spent no time in any former soviet states and I'd wager you've never spoken to an Eastern European native.
I have no wish to continue talking to someone who can't post anything substantial.
> but the US did everything it could to ensure that system would collapse.
a system that killed as many people as the nazis deserved a lot more than just a revolution and some oligarchs.
i don’t think you truly understand the long term damage the soviets did in eastern europe. it’s been literally apocalyptic. and the effects are still felt today.
My partner grew up in Poland and Ukraine and lived there through the collapse of the USSR and I've spent plenty of time in both countries. Believe, me I know how much they fucked up.
That doesn't change the fact the US engaged in market distortion and economic coercion on ideological grounds.
If that fact makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you inform your representatives, because they are still doing it to weaker nations that don't dance to the American tune today.
It might surprise you to hear as well that there are quite a few things people in Eastern Europe miss from the Soviet days. The heavy focus on community, childcare, free healthcare and and quality education in the trades and higher professions for example.
My partner and her family hate how individualistic and self-serving people can be in the west. There's basically no solidarity that compares to what they had in that system. That doesn't mean they want to go back to it, it just means there are lessons that we can learn from that system to improve our own.
Make no mistake, the USSR did some things right. It's mistakes do not erase them. Don't hold them to a standard you are not willing to hold your own country to, because the failings of capitalism and the lives lost due to those failings each year are legion.
To think otherwise is nothing short of ideological fundamentalism.
Posting something more substantial than "they deserved it" would be appreciated.
"there are quite a few things people in Eastern Europe miss from the Soviet days."
The people who were lucky not to end up in jail, Gulags, banned from good jobs or made to work in the coal mines, you mean. Who were lucky to be allowed to go to university and take on an interesting job.
Survivor bias might play a huge part here.
Of course there were people who benefited from the system.
You mention "quality education in the trades and higher professions for example." - what percentage of the population got to enjoy that?
Community - as long as you didn't dissent, I guess? What if you didn't approve of everything the government did? Then community turned into people spying to you and ratting you out to the secret police?
Childcare and healthcare are available in non-communist countries, too. Besides, childcare meant being forced to give up your children at three months, so that you could go back to working and doing your part for the common good.
> You mention "quality education in the trades and higher professions for example." - what percentage of the population got to enjoy that?
All the examples I gave were freely available even to the regular workers. I've spent enough time in Poland and Ukraine to know I'm getting this information from people who actually lived through this. Primary sources.
Most wouldn't go to university, sure, but that is also true of the west. Not everybody goes to university, some become labourers or take up a trade.
Free child care, free healthcare, free education. Even free psychiatric help (something we sorely need in he west). The quality of this varied greatly sure, but it was freely available. These are basic socialist principles that are practices even by enlightened western nations today (just not the US, obviously). These were pillars the USSR was built on.
The fact that it had colossal failings elsewhere does not detract from this.
> Can you give some specific examples?
I already did.
I'm not denying the system was highly corrupt and many people suffered, but you are denying even basic truisms that you could confirm yourself if you got out of your bubble or read some history books.
The things I am saying are not excusing the horrible things the system engaged in. It would be interesting if you held your own country to the same standards as well. It wouldn't come out as clean and shiny as you think.
You are arguing from the perspective of someone who thinks there was literally NOTHING positive about the system at all. You are deliberately ignoring what I am saying and your responses in this thread have been little more than "I disagree because the USSR was bad".
This is just pure fundamentalism and I'm not going to continue arguing with an ideologue. It's wasted effort.
I know people were not just allowed to go to university. A friend of mine crossed into West Germany in 1989. He wouldn't have been allowed to study in East Germany. He then studied Mathematics in West Germany.
A friend from Poland told me how everything had seemed hopeless and she had no real perspective for her future life, until "the miracle happened" (her words) and borders and restrictions were lifted.
I think the friends you have may have been from very privileged circles in those countries, if their memories are so positive.
Childcare, I also mentioned the background: women were supposed to contribute their share of work for the common good. Meanwhile they had to give their kids to the childcare to start with their early indoctrination.
Health Care: sure, it is a good idea. But I don't think the people who were sent to Siberia or the coal mines received good health care. So at the end of the day, it wasn't really free for everybody, just for the people who sucked up to the system. Which is also a price.
> The famines in the USSR were partially caused by US trade embargoes on the USSR preventing them from buying modern farming equipment and grain supplies
what are writing about? pre 1947?
the USSR wanted nothing from the “filthy capitalists”.
“There were no major famines after 1947. The drought of 1963 caused panic slaughtering of livestock, but there was no risk of famine. After that year the Soviet Union started importing feed grains for its livestock in increasing amounts.”
>and particularly from Russian magazines that were covering the events at the time.
Why would those those magazines have particular credibility?
Post-Soviet collapse was a shit show, but it was never going to be anything bug a shit show. They were trying to rebuild a corrupt, decrepit Soviet economy as a modern market-based economy, while at the same time building, from scratch, a modern functioning judicial and a democratic political system.
The US didn't loot the former Soviet Union; Harvard and their chosen oligarchs did. Harvard basically admitted they did this in a lawsuit[1]. It's one of the worst things done in the late 20th century; was basically genocide for a quick buck.
The US media, being part of the sinister Harvard axis, of course, didn't report it, but people in Russia (the Exile guys, Russians) certainly know about it, which is why they elected a brute like Putin to keep Harvard economists and their oligarch orcs from destroying the place further. You can find stuff; even Schleifer's wiki page alludes to it. Unvetted example: http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_m...
Two books every American should read:
1) Godfather of the Kremlin (the author of this book was assassinated)
2) Casino Moscow
It seems like we are both being downvoted for stating historical facts. Sad state of affairs here at HN and honestly a bit jingoistic to think US intervention in Russia was somehow “enlightened”.
Probably because these are not "historical facts". I mean, genocide? Harvard University tried to exterminate the Russian people? Who knew a bunch of academics had that kind of power...
Of course, this also neatly ignores the responsibility of Russian politicians for their own country, which was hardly under foreign occupation at the time.
The economic policies Harvard (and to be fair, the Clinton administration, whose fixers put Yeltzin in power in 96 -talk of interfering in elections: overt, boasted about even, and gone down the memory hole) inflicted on Russia in the 90s literally killed millions of Russians.
So, yes, "basically genocide" is an appropriate choice of words.
That article starts with "Under supervision of Harvard mafia Russian economy has all but collapsed" - sorry, whatever bad things Harvard people did, I think the Russian economy was already collapsed or collapsing. That is allegedly why they opened up to the West.
Any more balanced sources?
Edit: since rate limiting prevents me from further replies, in response to the comment below: the quote specifically mentions the "Russian economy", not just looting of assets owned by the state.
Russian/Soviet economy was definitly not collapsing or at least nowhere near a quickly. Afaik quality of life and income collapsed during the 90s far faster than it ever had during the Soviet Union.
That sounds like a pretty harsh reduction of quality of life to me.
And how are the Russians doing today? Better or worse than during the Soviet Union?
Are we getting an accurate picture of Soviet Union days, or do we only get to see the shiny side, with poor people brushed under the carpet, sent to Siberia or dead?
Your claim was "Afaik quality of life and income collapsed during the 90s far faster than it ever had during the Soviet Union." - so you are making a claim about the time before the 1990ies, which I refuted with the example of Ukrania.
Edit: as for the article, it doesn't seem to support the claim that the (allegedly US inspired) "shock therapy" in the 90ies was the cause for all the hardship or the deaths. It mentions economic problems in the 80ies and the "shock therapy" preventing a famine in the 90ies.
Nevertheless, I find it all very interesting. But a lot of the articles that have been mentioned in the comments sound a bit like apologist of socialism. A lot of finger pointing and blaming seems to be going on, and I don't necessarily find it all immediately trustworthy. Even to this day, many people are still around who believe Socialism was better. Any article making such claims should provide a lot of data to support it. Mere claims of "person x sad that and then everything went downhill" are not sufficient.
I think you are being carried away by things I didn’t say.
I don’t think communism under the USSR was better than any law abiding capitalist society. In fact it was objectively worst. But what happened in Russia in the 90s was brutal, reducing lifespans of the average Russian and bringing back poverty that I don’t believe was at all common in the 1980s USSR. It was unfettered Capitalism with no regard for the rule of law, and privatisation was placed above everything including legal and political precepts. The result was a dystopian nightmare that led to Russians accepting autocracy under Putin as a viable alternative. And it was all done under the aegis of American Economist who were sent over to “help”.
It may be as you said, it just isn't reflected in the article you linked to. That's all I said.
I would also be careful because there seems to be a lot of finger pointing and many people being eager to blame other people to distract from their own failings. I wouldn't believe anything that is written about it at face value.
Also you changed the goal post, now you compare to the 1980s, not all the time of the Soviet union. That's veering into "no true Scottsman" territory.
I'm sure there were many people in the 80ies who lived a dystopian nightmare in Russia, too. We just don't hear about them, because they were locked away and eventually died.
It does not matter whether the Russian economy was booming or in deep trouble - the issue that is being discussed is the looting of assets owned by the state.
