Celsus

Well David, uh... thanks I guess. I don't share your optimism about capitalism however--but we can save that for another day. Russian history seems prone to historical revionism, along with German history, because people have such an emotional or ideological dependence on something that backs them up. To be fair, most Marxists are not the propagandist types we get too much of here, and Marx made many important contributions to sociological and historical analysis. I'd add economic analysis to that, but sadly, economists have forgotten him. Have you seen my critique here?

Joel

Vorkosigan

Likewise. As one of the more sophisticated anti-communist zealots here, one who has nothing but praise for the U.S. intervention in Italy after WWII to keep the Communists from coming to power through the democratic process, a lot of the less sophisticated types look to you to supply them with their much-needed anti-communist ammunition.

moon, you're too far behind here to dredge up past failures...

Unfortunately for you, you have picked the wrong subject to make an attack on. Let's examine the historical record, shall we? While you pick out one or two facts, let's try to look at the whole picture. First of all, though, I just want to point to an example of your mendacity.

Mendacity! That's a good one.

By my calculation, there were 8 more years in the 1930's after 1932.

Ummm...there were SEVEN more years.

1 1933
2 1934
3 1935
4 1936
5 1937
6 1938
7 1939

Nitpicking, but there it is. But never mind that....

Given that the years of 1931-32 were marked by a famine that left probably a million people in the USSR dead from starvation, it would seem pretty likely that when I said that Russia had experienced unprecedented growth in the 1930's, that I was not talking about the period from 1928-32.

Well, you said 1930s. Last I checked, that including the food rationing that did not end until 1935 and the collapse of the agricultural system. It is not difficult to rapidly industrialize, if you shoot a lot of people, forbid them from spending money, compel them to collect in the cities, force them to build factories and dig mines at gunpoint, and then order them to produce (while exporting the grain they need to stave off famine, in 1932, to purchase the German machine tools -- a huge chunk of German engineering exports that year -- to tool up the factories). The real trick is to do it without all those things. But that requires capitalism.

Let us then look at the decade of the 1930's, a decade, let us keep in mind that was marked by a world-wide depression.

By all means...

Therefore, Russia's development is all the more remarkable, as it was accomplished almost entirely in isolation from the rest of the world.

Actually, it quite resembles Taiwan's in the 1950s, which was also marked by isolation from the outside world, the export phase not beginning until about 1960.

In any case, the USSR was "almost entirely in isolation" from the outside world. There was quite a vigorous trade with Germany, exchanging strategic materials for advanced industrial goods, which continued right up to the invasion. In the 30s German machinery imports account for some 40-50% of Russian imports, while Russian exports accounted for about 20% of German imports (note that German trade, under Hitler's autarky policies, was about 1/2 of pre-WWI level). Russian industrialization would have been impossible without imports of advanced machinery from abroad, one reason for the collapse of the economy in WWII, and for its slow productivity growth afterward. In other words, the USSR's trade, far from being a small factor in isolation, was absolutely essential for its growth.

To quote from Trotsky's
Revolution Betrayed,

Now there's a reliable source! Trotsky!

The USSR went, in a decade, from being a backward agriarian-based economy to a world industrial power. It had progressed from producing 2.6% of world production in heavy industry in 1913 to 13.7% in 1937.

Alas, even if we take these figures as true (can you produce a better source than Trotsky??) industrial production rises are comparative in nature. The west had a vast unused capacity -- there was a depression, as you pointed out -- and this skews such comparisons upward.

Of course, in academicspeak, Soviet output figures for the 1930s "are extremely controversial." In ordinary language they are what we would call "bullshit." For example, many studies show that Soviet gains were no better than the UK or Germany.

A better comparison is to look at the performance of the economy during the war, when the Soviet economy completely collapsed and only supplies from the US enabled the war effort to keep going.

Don't mistake it; it was an amazing achievement in its own way. But the industrial base Stalin created was inefficient and unproductive.

Here is an old post on this topic from WWII-L:

• POSTER 1: I don"t think that lack of supply from the West should be regarded as a significant factor in 1946. Allied materiel supplies were quite important in 1941 and 1942, though the actual share of any armaments supplied was never above 10% of the retained production capacity in any single category (fighter planes, trucks & steam locomotives are a possible exception). This share dropped dramatically by 1943 as the production
  capacities evac"ed to Urals and beyond went up to speed. It was certainly down to a fraction of 1% in 1944-45.
  
  POSTER 2: This is, unfortunately, now increasingly known to be Russian propaganda -- a maskirovka that has been hugely successful in the west until the truth started to come out in the late 80's and early 90's. The Russians were in a hole -- they relied on the US for --
  
  100% of their Trucks
  60% of their AvGas
  90% of their Locos and Rolling Stock
  100% of their waterproof Telephone Wire (and, since non-waterproof telephone wore is 100% useless in the field, this means they relied for 100% of their Field Telephone Wire on the Allies).
  They largely fed and clothed their army with allied food, uniforms (or cloth), and boots for the entire war.
  Almost 100% of their Tank and Aircraft Radios
  25% of their overall ammo and explosives requirements for the entire war [Vorknote: recent figures are twice this]
  A significant number of combat aircraft, tanks, and infantry weapons.
  At least one Soviet Army (US Corps equivalent) was entirely US equipped (or pretty close to) in 1944, evidently (according to photographic and written reports) right down to US smallarms for the most part. For the aircraft and tanks, perhaps 10-20% of the total they produced during the war were provided by the allies.
  
  In short, it would have required several individual and pretty major miracles for the Soviets to survive without all those goodies.

Here's another post:

• This is indeed, true. However, many also overlook the American contribution to the Soviet war effort in the form of Lend-Lease. In addition to the thousands of aircraft sent were the 5,000+ M4 Shermans, 77,900 Jeeps, 151,000 light trucks, 200,000+ Studebaker trucks, 58% of all Soviet aviation gasoline, 53% of all explosives, nearly half of their wartime aluminum, copper and tires. Perhaps more importantly, 56.6% of all their railroad rails came from the USA. They recieved better than 1,900 locomotives as compared to the 92 they manufactured domestically. They also recieved 11,075 railroad cars as opposed to the 1,087 they managed to build. This is not listing the huge volume of other equipment they were sent. How about rations(food) ? The USA sent enough food to provide every Soviet soldier that served, 1/2 lb. of canned meat every day for the entire war (Spam! Ugh !).

But consider this: these enormous figures represent only 2% of the US food supply. At the same time, Russians young, old, and infirm starved, as they were already on the edge due to Stalin's agricultural policies. The USSER could not feed itself. The overall fall in consumption was greater than in Japan, an island nation more or less completely blockaded after 1943. To put it another way, using 1940 as a base of 100, national income was at 88 in 1944, industrial output at 104, armaments production at 254, and ag output at 54. In other words, all USSR production gains were in armaments after 1940, and those only in selected areas, and all exaggerated. Even before that, the 1937 Five Year Plan concentrated on armaments at the expense of even other industrial sectors.

BTW, both posters recommend Blood on the Snow, 1997, and say that anything before the 1990s is basically useless. The outstanding achievements of the USSR were, basically, propaganda mercilessly exposed by the German Army. Some of you must be wondering about the legendary movement of factories to the Urals -- this too is another Soviet myth exposed when the State fell. Never happened.

There is nothing even remotely comparable in world history. While the anti-communists like Vorkosigan like to point to examples like South Korea, they use the facts in a very deceptive manner. South Korea did not pull itself out of the Middle Ages to become a world power.

Russia was not a world power either. For one thing, it had a hopeless Navy, and the Air Force was crap until the first MIG jets came out in the 1950s. Just consider the amazing achievements of the Finns flying outmoded Brewster Buffalo aircraft (outdated when the war began) and decimating the Russian Air Force until 1944 with those planes! By constrast, expert Japanese fliers butchered those planes. Russia was a European power with a huge army, but no matching economy. No power projection capability, and as we saw, the economy marched backward after 1975. It could not sustain even a cold war with a real economy, let alone a hot one.

It merely capitalized on a huge influx of capital and expanded its economy.

You bet. And they did it without collectivizing agriculture, murdering hundreds of thousands and destroying the agricultural industry, and butchering the middle class. What Stalin did was reduce consumer demand to the point where a huge surplus developed that could be invested in industry. I don't know S. Korean policy offhand, but in Taiwan they did it by pricing differentials between the industrial and agricultural sector, and taxes. 22% of the value of ag output was transferred to industry that way.

While its economy did grow, it wasn't that much to start with, and in no sense has South Korea become a world power.

moon, South Korea had not much of an industrial base (Tsarist Russia had been a developing country that had a small industrial base) and what was there was destroyed in the war. Both Koreas. So any gains there are especially amazing. Quite true, as you pointed out, North Korea held its own with South Korea until about 1970. But then, alas, South Korea took off, and North Korea nosedived. Today S Koreans have 13 times the income of the fellow countrymen in the socialist utopia.

It was, and is, essentially a colony of U.S. imperialism, relying on the U.S. for its defense, unlike the USSR, which had to face unrelenting hostility from every capitalist state.

Poor Russia. Since it was dedicated to the destruction of those states, you can hardly blame them for being hostile to it.

In any case, look at living standards in S. Korea now, and at their best in the old USSR. South Koreans all have computers, travel abroad, have TVs, things that actually work.....and Russians? Don't make me laugh.

Facts are difficult things.

Yes, especially if you think the USSR is a success.

All of the anti-communist ravings about how "communism doesn't work" cannot erase the facts about the incredible growth of the Soviet economy.

As we have seen, the "incredible growth" has turned out ion many ways to be a myth invented by the Russians themselves, mercilessly exposed by German armies. Don't get me wrong, there's no question the USSR rapidly expanded its industrial base. But get me better numbers, eh?

Now that capitalism has been restored, and the economy has taken the opposite direction, namely in catastrophic collapse, the capitalists flail about for some explanation that does not have anything to do with the failure of the market economy. It must be because of the lack of "law and order," never minding the fact that the USSR is crawling with cops, and the state security apparatus has suffered no decline. Or corruption...yeah, that must be it! So, there was no corruption under the Stalinist regime? Or, what, corruption only happens in capitalism? Or what?

Russian economic collapse is not due to some inherent defect of capitalism, moon -- otherwise, we'd see economic collapse in all capitalist states-- but to a whole constellation of factors. Corruption is only one problem among many, alas for Russia.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

moon asks us to compare these

Cuba vs. Guatemala
$1500 vs $3,000

Russia vs. Brazil
$4,000 vs $6,100
here is one list from the CIA factbook.

You can get all kinds of numbers, but basically, most measures show that for the countries you picked, the bad capitalists do much better than the socialist utopias.

A better comparison might be the two sugar colonies of Taiwan and Cuba. Both are small islands off the coasts of major powers, and both were agricultural colonies owned by technologically backward powers in the 19th century. But today....well, their not even close. Not only are the Taiwanese about 10-15 times richer than the Cubans, but they also have a much better health care system.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

BTW, the econ figures in the Russia post above are from Milward's classic War, Economy and Society: 1939-1945.

Vorkosigan

Amen-Moses

Actually it was just over 4,000 and that compares with 50,000 T34's built up to 1945 alone. So it represents less than 10% of their tank force (not to mention that the T34 was the superior vehicle!).

Although 4,000 sounds like a lot of tanks in reality some of the major engagements resulted in losses near that figure.

In comparison a total of 49,000 M4's were built of which 17,000 went to British forces. I think Russian production was an incredible acheivement given the circumstances and I doubt whether a capitalist system under similar circumstances could have done better.

Amen-Moses

emphryio

Especially towards Payne, Echidna, Beyelzu

You seem unaware of the main reason there are no existing positive examples of socialism.

You really might want to look over the following links all concerning the book, Killing Hope by William Blum.

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/CIAtimeline.html

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Bl...Hope_page.html

Some of you seem in sore need of reading this. It's apalling and fantastic to consider but... The main reason there is no positive examples of socialism is American imperialism.[

emphryio

Seriously, any politically minded person should at least be aware of what is said in the first link I gave. They should also understand this link (and the other) are only incomplete summaries of CIA interventions against even liberal governments.
(They are other less bloody examples.)

I particularly think the following quote is interesting concerning the ridiculous defense that all of this was done because of the worldwide communist conspiracy.

Me and Me

Facts that the cheerleaders of Capitalism ignore.

1. The vast majority of Capitalist countries are poor, have very little medical coverage for their citizens, and very little if any education for their citizens.

2. The handful of successful capitalist countries such as France, German, Japan, U.S., England etc are countries that had a huge head start and was able to build up vast wealth from other countries resources and other peoples labor.

3. Even the handful of Capitalist countries have uneccassary high percentages of illiterate and amount of citizens that have no health care at all and or live below the poverty line.

4. The countries that were colonial empires are still the leaders of todays economy and what you could call the few successful capitalist regimes. And the colonized and enslaved peoples are still in the poorest of societies and still are in debt to the "successful" capitalist regimes and still have most of their resources go to the west instead of going to themselves.
JUST AS IT WAS UNDER COLONIALISM.

What is the "Golden Calf" of capitalism supposed to have accomplished? Where is all the democracy that the cheerleaders tell us about? Where is all the PEOPLE living better because of practicing capitalism?

The Cheerleaders on this board like to equate the failure of communist countries to the failure of Communism the system. Yet the cheerleaders refuse to go by their own standards when examining capitalism and refuse to equate the failure of So many capitalist countries to Capitalism the system. Why the double standard? What else do you expect out of the know nothing "Lapdogs" right David. LOL

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Amen-Moses
Actually it was just over 4,000 and that compares with 50,000 T34's built up to 1945 alone. So it represents less than 10% of their tank force (not to mention that the T34 was the superior vehicle!).

Yes, this is often claimed. But Russian elite armored formations were equipped with Shermans, not T-34, which had reliability problems, one of the many results of Russia's poor productivity levels. In fact, the Russians equipped large formations with all-US equipment, right down to the small arms. That may have been for administrative purposes, however. All told, the Brits and US sent about 12,000 tanks to Russia, equal to about 10% of production (at official Russian figures. Actual figures were probably lower). Of course, many of these, especially the British tanks, were inferior vehicles.

The US sent about 8,000 tanks, including 4,000 Shermans of various marks.

In any case, the Russian Army could not have functioned without US trucks or US rolling stock, so Russia was utterly dependent on US in order to survive.

In comparison a total of 49,000 M4's were built of which 17,000 went to British forces. I think Russian production was an incredible acheivement given the circumstances and I doubt whether a capitalist system under similar circumstances could have done better.

You mean like in Germany? But Russian and German tank and aircraft production were not so far apart. Of course, the Germans acheived this and did not have to give up production of cars, trucks, etc. Heck, the Germans did not convert to a war economy until well after it began, one of Hitler's little plans for keep the German people from objecting.

echidna

See now this would be funny if it weren�t so tragic. From Killing Hope, Blum lists several sections such as :

Cambodia 1955-1973

Then I would suggest that Blum should also add an appendix :

Hope victorious � Cambodia 1975-1979 (Pol Pot�s genocide of 1 � 2 million Cambodians)
Hope tries again � Cambodia 1979 � 1993 (Vietnamese overthrow of Khmer Rouge & 15 years of Vietnamese socialist utopia)

You see, Blum so conveniently omits all the remaining well known historical facts regarding conditions and atrocities in all other communist / Marxist nations. The allies committed many atrocities during WWII. Does this then mean that the allies should have yielded to Hitler ? Of course not. No one claims the US side of the Cold War was lily white, anything but. Has Blum ever heard of the Komitet Gosuderstvennoy Bezopasnosti ? Do you think for a second that a balanced argument might be required, or would that complicate things too much ?

During the Cold War there was more than ample reason to oppose communism. The promises of socialist utopia which socialists inevitably quote ad nauseam about Nicaragua, Chile, Grenada and so forth was NO DIFFERENT to the promise of socialist utopia promised during the October Revolution, during Mao�s rise to power, during Pol Pot�s rise, during Castro�s rise, Tito, and for that matter those other great socialists of this century, Hitler and Mussolini ...

Does the left have ANY evidence that any violent socialist revolution would not have swayed the same way as all the others ?

Of course not. What cracks me up is that diehard Marxists, when presented with the facts over various communist countries, ignore them with a wave of the hand saying, �well didn�t end up really socialist�. Because what traps the left, is the fact that each violent socialist uprising started with a promise of socialist utopia, and each ended in something which EVEN THE LEFT acknowledges, was far from perfect, in fact was anything but.

Now, the anti-communists have the precedent of every communist country initiated from a violent socialist uprising to demonstrate that communism was to be opposed. The left have � well ... nothing, �there hasn�t yet been a true socialist state�.

Last time I checked, most of us live in the real world. We make judgements based on information & judgement. Part of that judgement is drawn from the wisdom of precedents. One doesn�t walk into a lamppost 8 times hoping that maybe the ninth will be different, that maybe the ninth time the lamppost will miraculously jump out of you way. One makes a judgement and acts, knowing that inaction is as much an action, as action itself.

Of course moon et al, are still there banging away at the lamppost, complaining bitterly about the global conspiracy which prevents lampposts from avoiding pedestrians, and suppresses the truth that they really can move, no, trust me on this, they can, ow �