Why the Soviet Union Fell?

**Danny** · August-28-13, 01:12 PM

It's been over 20 years since the Soviet Union fall. Is it because of years of authoritative ethnic cleansing, ecomonic problems that led to western import assistance, upside down government powers that led to promoting and demoting certian leaders? It is because of United States very strong diplomatic deterance that will be mutially insurred. A sudden loss the keeping up the nuclear and space arms race? Or a sudden social cultural and religious revolution not only in their empire but also in their satellite nations as well? Does the collapse of Soviet Union means that the social experiment of Communism fails and Capitalism wins? Surely other remaining communist nations of North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and China are doing well.

Any thoughts?

**rb336** · August-28-13, 01:18 PM

In order of importance:
1) the Polish pontiff emboldened the solidarity movement
2) their war in Afghanistan, which we prolonged by arming and training the Taliban and a scion of the bin Laden clan - with absolutely no consequences to us
3) Glasnost
4) Military coup against Yeltsin

**Jimaz** · August-28-13, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by Danny

... and Capitalism wins?...

Thanks for the chuckle.

Yay! Where is our prize? ROFLMAO!

**Gistok** · August-28-13, 02:32 PM

Danny go back and read about how well North Korea is doing....

**Danny** · August-28-13, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

Danny go back and read about how well North Korea is doing....

They're doing well for Kim Jong un while other North Korean suffer under his supreme God-like power.

**Jimaz** · August-28-13, 09:19 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

Originally Posted by Danny

... and Capitalism wins?...

Thanks for the chuckle.

Yay! Where is our prize? ROFLMAO!

Our capitalist ideology went to Disneyland and all we got was this lousy global economic meltdown T-shirt.

**Papasito** · August-29-13, 08:33 AM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

Originally Posted by Danny

and capitalism wins?

Thanks for the chuckle.

Yay! Where is our prize? ROFLMAO!

We taught China how to beat us! Yay!

LOVELY, SWEET COMMUNISM!! <3

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY

Five years ago, I wrote about the unknown Holocaust in Ukraine. I was shocked to receive a flood of mail from young Americans and Canadians of Ukrainian descent telling me that until they read my column, they knew nothing of the 1932-33 genocide in which Josef Stalin's Soviet regime murdered seven million Ukrainians and sent two million more to concentration camps.

http://www.ukemonde.com/genocide/margolisholocaust.html

So has the extermination of the Don Cossacks by the communists in the 1920s, the Volga Germans in 1941 and mass executions and deportations to concentration camps of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians and Poles. At the end of World War II, Stalin's gulag held 5.5 million prisoners, 23% of them Ukrainians and 6% Baltic peoples.

Almost unknown is the genocide of two million of the USSR's Muslim peoples: Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Tajiks, Bashkirs and Kazaks. The Chechen independence fighters who today are branded as "terrorists" by the U.S. and Russia are the grandchildren of survivors of Soviet concentration camps.

Add to this list of forgotten atrocities the murder in Eastern Europe from 1945-47 of at least two million ethnic Germans, mostly women and children, and the violent expulsion of 15 million more Germans, during which two million German girls and women were raped.

**ghettopalmetto** · August-29-13, 09:15 AM

Ronald Reagan pushed the Berlin Wall over with his left pinky. From there, it was a slippery slope for the U.S.S.R.

Just kidding.

I'm sure there were a host of factors at work. Through our American eyes, I think we have a tendency of viewing the Soviet Union as equivalent to "Russian", when nothing could be further from the truth. The Baltic republics--Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania--have completely different ethnicities, languages, cultures, and religions. They did not appreciate their lands being appropriated to the U.S.S.R. as mere spoils of war, especially after they had each gained independence after World War I. This resulted in a long period of underground resistance, which Stalin violently squashed. The former puppet state of Poland, while not a part of the U.S.S.R., was in a similar position.

We in the West were too busy patting ourselves on the backs to pay attention. Of course, Soviet repression of media didn't help matters much.

The KGB Museum in Vilnius [[housed in the former Lithuanian headquarters of the KGB) has an excellent and extensive exhibit on the Partisanas Lietuvos, known as the "forest fighters".

These underground movements swelled for decades, sponsored by academics and clergy. The Gdansk shipyard strikes of 1970, the 1978 visit by Pope John Paul II to Poland [[as well as his visit to then-Soviet Lithuania), and Solidarnosc helped embolden the people in the region.

There are other factors too, such as economics, Gorbachev's loosening of restrictions, and such. It's a long, complicated, and bloody history. The peoples of that region have fascinating histories and cultures, and it's quite impressive to see them "reborn" within the past 25 years or so.

To simplify, let's just say that self-determination persevered and won out.

**ghettopalmetto** · August-29-13, 09:20 AM

Originally Posted by Danny

Surely other remaining communist nations of North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and China are doing well.

I'm not sure what you mean by "doing well". China's economy is going to implode under its disparity of wealth, corruption, and demands for rising wages, which will cause work to go to lower-wage nations like Vietnam.

Vietnam, on the other hand, has had inflation somewhere around 18%. An average person in Vietnam is lucky to earn $5 a day. I'm not sure I'd consider that "doing well".

**rb336** · August-29-13, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

I'm not sure what you mean by "doing well". China's economy is going to implode under its disparity of wealth, corruption, and demands for rising wages, which will cause work to go to lower-wage nations like Vietnam.

Disparity of wealth is the real problem, unwillingness to pay workers a better wage is the result - just like us

**poobert** · August-29-13, 12:19 PM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

Ronald Reagan pushed the Berlin Wall over with his left pinky. From there, it was a slippery slope for the U.S.S.R.

Just kidding.

I'm sure there were a host of factors at work. Through our American eyes, I think we have a tendency of viewing the Soviet Union as equivalent to "Russian", when nothing could be further from the truth. The Baltic republics--Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania--have completely different ethnicities, languages, cultures, and religions. They did not appreciate their lands being appropriated to the U.S.S.R. as mere spoils of war, especially after they had each gained independence after World War I. This resulted in a long period of underground resistance, which Stalin violently squashed. The former puppet state of Poland, while not a part of the U.S.S.R., was in a similar position.

We in the West were too busy patting ourselves on the backs to pay attention. Of course, Soviet repression of media didn't help matters much.

The KGB Museum in Vilnius [[housed in the former Lithuanian headquarters of the KGB) has an excellent and extensive exhibit on the Partisanas Lietuvos, known as the "forest fighters".

These underground movements swelled for decades, sponsored by academics and clergy. The Gdansk shipyard strikes of 1970, the 1978 visit by Pope John Paul II to Poland [[as well as his visit to then-Soviet Lithuania), and Solidarnosc helped embolden the people in the region.

There are other factors too, such as economics, Gorbachev's loosening of restrictions, and such. It's a long, complicated, and bloody history. The peoples of that region have fascinating histories and cultures, and it's quite impressive to see them "reborn" within the past 25 years or so.

To simplify, let's just say that self-determination persevered and won out.

Good summation. The fall of the Soviet Union is interesting and complicated, and happened in a series of events. I think we're just getting close to fully understanding it. I wrote about it a bit in college.

The fact that stands out is that as a UNION itself, it was mostly a bunch of unwilling Republics cobbled together under Russian hegemony. That fell apart for the reasons above.

If you're looking for an "easy" answer as to why communism fell, centrally-planned economies are, predictably, wildly inefficient. When you look at China and Vietnam, their success, while still being relatively brutal dictatorships, was bringing in heavily capitalist and market-oriented reforms. The Soviet economy was sluggish and heavily slanted against consumer products.

The Chinese people are pacified, to a degree, with their material prosperity. In the Soviet Union you really only had the nomenclatura, the party cronies, prospering as what could be considered a tiny middle class. When Gorbachev loosened restrictions on personal freedoms, there was a wave of discontent, both nationalist and economic.

Really the only reason North Korea has survived is that it is probably the most brutal police-state the world has known.

What is most interesting is the new phase we are entering. Many of the former Soviet Republics, Russia being the most notable, are not democracies at all, but corrupt dictatorships, albeit essentially capitalist. The wealth is spread around more, certainly, but also heavily concentrated in the hands of very few. It begs the question: which was preferable, this modern, still-brutal oligarchy or Soviet-style communism? Interestingly, the Russian people, when polled, majority see the fall of the USSR as a tragedy.

**jackie5275** · August-29-13, 09:13 PM

I remember people getting mad at the gov't over food shortages & rationing. The price of oil there decreased which was a factor in their economy taking a hit at the same time. Perestroika was being practiced by the gov't leaders in the late 80s too.

**JBMcB** · August-30-13, 09:36 AM

Once Perestroika hit, and people realized that the guy working for himself selling apples out of a cart on the corner was making a better living than they were at a state-run factory, it was pretty much all over.

Alas, the power structures of socialism are more akin to corporatism than capitalism, and the corrupt organizations of the state just went private.

**Ray1936** · August-30-13, 10:19 AM

Russian men only want their vodka. Mainly because most Russian women look like Russian men.

**Papasito** · August-30-13, 10:46 AM

Overall, the Russian people look like a lot of fun. They do stupid things like Americans do, they are mortal, they like to party, and have a good time. They have their rednecks and city folk just like we do. I bet if we removed Governments from much of the world, the regular people would probably get along just fine

**MikeM** · August-31-13, 03:07 PM

They borrowed too much money from the west and couldn't pay back the debt.

**Danny** · August-31-13, 08:40 PM

Have you forum members watch the SMURFS?

Those cute little blue elves just 3 apples high represent communism.

1. The Smurf society is a fully achieved classless commune with no economic regionalism. Each Smurf works together for common good and for survival.

2. Each Smurf has their own names that represent their own skills. Briany Smurf is intellectual. Farmer Smurf is the leader of agriculture.

3. Every Smurf wears the same white pants and hat so they don't have to be individuals.

4. The Smurfs don't have no leader, but they have a premier like father named Papa Smurf. He makes sure that every Smurf does his duties and share equally with the masses. He wears a RED hat and pants to show his communist abilities and has a white beard that represent the founder of Communism KARL MARX.

5. The word SMURF doesn't a definition, but someone who interpret Smurf socialist culture put the meaning into the acronym: Soviet Men Under Red Father or Socialist Men Under Red Father.6. The Smurf do have enemies. The prime enemy is Gargamel who represents capitalism. To all communists and Smurfs. Gargamel is a greed of free enterprise and dislikes classless culture. Gargamel plans to either eat the Smurfs or turns them into gold. This represents the destruction of communism.

The main point of the story is media teaching our youth that communism can overcome capitalism. I used to watch the Smurfs when it was on NBC saturday morning cartoon line up in the 1980s. If was older back then and done my research of the Smurfs. I should have petition NBC to pull the show off the air right away.

**GOAT** · September-02-13, 09:23 AM

U.S.A was able to finally influence the cost of oil. They kept the price artificially low to which the USSR couldn't make any money [[even with their inept satellite nations); this caused them an economic collapse due to borrowing more and more from the western banks.

Doesn't the above kind of sound like China [[minus the oil but use manufacturing instead) and the USA? Borrow until you can't afford the payments...then bye-bye!

**oladub** · September-02-13, 08:48 PM

It was the Wendy's ad-

**ghettopalmetto** · September-02-13, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by Papasito

Overall, the Russian people look like a lot of fun. They do stupid things like Americans do, they are mortal, they like to party, and have a good time. They have their rednecks and city folk just like we do. I bet if we removed Governments from much of the world, the regular people would probably get along just fine

You've met very different Russians than I have. The Russians I've met fall into two types: wealthy tycoons who party and whose trophy women are dressed for the nightclub at 9:30 AM; and grouchy, temperamental, world-weary peasants that want nothing to do with non-Russians. Neither type is particularly engaging.

**rb336** · September-02-13, 10:50 PM

There are or were apartment buildings built and paid for by the US government for Russian "defectors." The result, of course, was the rise of the Russian mob in Brighton Beach. The same thing happened in Miami with the Cubans

**ronaldj** · September-05-13, 05:56 PM

Weird reference. Checkout books by W. Bruce Lincoln. He seems to have made his career writing about the Russians and their society.I have not done any reference work regarding his academic background. The book I am currently reading is "In War's Dark Shadow" describing the time before the Bolshevik Revolution. Dense and bouncy but describes the society quite well and what let up to communism and its eventual downfall. Do not hurt your head. I do not know how far he goes.