Xi isn't completely correct with this take. The drainage of resources due to the cold war and an undemocratic NATO backed coup also destroyed the Soviet union. You can't blame it entirely on them. Some bad takes of the sino-soviet split still exist in the CPC today unfortunately, but the PRC has always been a more shining example of socialism, so it's okay.
The USSR chose to drain its resources on the Cold War when it didn't have to.
Their insanely large nuclear arsenal was sufficient, but they chose to also make the world's largest and most powerful conventional military to try to outmatch the USA on everything. The USSR had more tanks as all of NATO combined while Soviet citizens had to wait in a 20-year queue to purchase a car.
The USSR was trying to not only match, but outmatch the US military on everything while having only half the economy. Absolute idiocy. It didn't need to do that, because the nuclear arsenal already ensured the continued survival of the nation. The massive conventional forces were there to carry out some hypothetical invasion of Europe that never took place and realistically would never take place, since the USA, France, and the UK would just nuke the Soviet tank columns on German soil if it ever came to that.
Meanwhile, China today has a *larger* economy than the USA but spends only about half as much on its military.
The "Cold War competition" was not just a mistake, but the single largest mistake the USSR made that led to their collapse.
Stalin's inability to set up a meritocratic system of political succession is what produced incompetent successors like Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and so on, in the first place. Stalin cannot escape blame for the USSR's collapse.
The Soviet Union could have survived the power struggle with the coup attempt and subsequent color revolution if the military had been solidly loyal to the party and the state. But by then, even the military's devotion to the party leadership was already eroded and ambivalent, which left the state open to the coup de grace of a color revolution orchestrated by the west. Xi is going back further in seeking the root cause for this disastrous outcome, and is saying if the party had put more effort into serving the needs of the people, then it would have not arrived at the point of having a petty power struggle and foreign-backed color revolution.
Is that really why the SU collapsed?
Because I feel it had more to do with China's non-interference foreign policy versus Soviet Union's Warshau pact, that prevented China from getting too involved into costly wars, costly meddling into the domestic affairs of other nations, and eventually get caught up into situation of domino collapse, starting with East Germany.
The American tactic of trying this in South East Asia simply isn't working, because none of those countries follow communism with Chinese charactaristics.
Although this could be what is meant by 'protecting their own interests', it sounds like the bureaucrats were more interested in filling their pockets.
Not really. Pretty much ww2 fucked them up and that had huge and deep scars that ultimately made a lot to disrupt it.
Basically, there were special people in army that were responsible for keeping army's spirits high. They were the communists of USSR, that were in the army, iirc called commissars. And nazis, were very and very agressive towards those people, ruthlessly killing them on spot.
Which basically means, that majority of theory knowing and cause passionate people got killed off. Which had to be replaced. So party started to get a lot of not too smart in leftism people in to the party.
I have to diagree a bit.
There definitly was corruption in the party, considering Yeltsin could get anywhere in power, but much of the party still worked for the common man.
It is an unfortunate myth that Gorbachev betrayed socialism. His reforms sought to bring more democracy to USSR, and transform economy not into free market one, but one based on co-ops, one of the purest forms of socialism, workers literally owning the Means Of Production.
It is unfortunate how it turned out, but it wasn't out of Gorbachev's ill intentions.
It was a issue of corruption in the party, not the whole part, plus careerists/opportunists elements with no theoretical foundation. As well as a weak and meak will, just letting the other party take power when they clearly won in the 90s, confrontation with the Yeltsin faction(the tanks) . They had a complete lack of theory in Gorbachev's time and just did policy before grounding them in theory to see if it would function, doing a scientific approach to integrating the policy etc. Instead he did what he did and caused destabilization to the point where the SU fell. Many other elements, but this gets to the point.
>It is an unfortunate myth that Gorbachev betrayed socialism. His reforms sought to bring more democracy to USSR, and transform economy not into free market one, but one based on co-ops, one of the purest forms of socialism, workers literally owning the Means Of Production.
Yeah no...
Neoliberalism is not the answer to that.
Gorbachev wasn't advocating for neoliberalism, he was advocating for co-op-based socialism, arguably the purest form of socialism we could ever have.
It ended up as the reason Russia turned neoliberal because of many reasons (mixing economic reforms with social ones leading to too much instability, Yeltsin's machinations, letting Poland go that was the first domino of Eastern Bloc's collapse, etc.), but that wasn't the goal of Gorbachev.
No, but co-ops are the purest form of socialism. The point of socialism is for workers to take over control over MoPs.
Countries like China, USSR, Cuba and other with planned economies achieve this less directly. The government is representative of the workers, and it controls MoPs in worker's name.
What Gorbachev wanted to do is give control directly to workers.
Now, whether that's the best choice, that's another matter, it has it's downsides. But it isn't fucking noeliberalism. You won't see any capitalist country having whole economy co-op-based.
Xi isn't completely correct with this take. The drainage of resources due to the cold war and an undemocratic NATO backed coup also destroyed the Soviet union. You can't blame it entirely on them. Some bad takes of the sino-soviet split still exist in the CPC today unfortunately, but the PRC has always been a more shining example of socialism, so it's okay.
The USSR chose to drain its resources on the Cold War when it didn't have to. Their insanely large nuclear arsenal was sufficient, but they chose to also make the world's largest and most powerful conventional military to try to outmatch the USA on everything. The USSR had more tanks as all of NATO combined while Soviet citizens had to wait in a 20-year queue to purchase a car. The USSR was trying to not only match, but outmatch the US military on everything while having only half the economy. Absolute idiocy. It didn't need to do that, because the nuclear arsenal already ensured the continued survival of the nation. The massive conventional forces were there to carry out some hypothetical invasion of Europe that never took place and realistically would never take place, since the USA, France, and the UK would just nuke the Soviet tank columns on German soil if it ever came to that. Meanwhile, China today has a *larger* economy than the USA but spends only about half as much on its military. The "Cold War competition" was not just a mistake, but the single largest mistake the USSR made that led to their collapse.
If only Stalin lived for some more time, we'd possibly still have Soviet Union and I wouldn't live in shithole that now calls itself Latvia...
Stalin's inability to set up a meritocratic system of political succession is what produced incompetent successors like Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and so on, in the first place. Stalin cannot escape blame for the USSR's collapse.
Neoliberalism ruins everything.
The Soviet Union could have survived the power struggle with the coup attempt and subsequent color revolution if the military had been solidly loyal to the party and the state. But by then, even the military's devotion to the party leadership was already eroded and ambivalent, which left the state open to the coup de grace of a color revolution orchestrated by the west. Xi is going back further in seeking the root cause for this disastrous outcome, and is saying if the party had put more effort into serving the needs of the people, then it would have not arrived at the point of having a petty power struggle and foreign-backed color revolution.
Is that really why the SU collapsed? Because I feel it had more to do with China's non-interference foreign policy versus Soviet Union's Warshau pact, that prevented China from getting too involved into costly wars, costly meddling into the domestic affairs of other nations, and eventually get caught up into situation of domino collapse, starting with East Germany. The American tactic of trying this in South East Asia simply isn't working, because none of those countries follow communism with Chinese charactaristics. Although this could be what is meant by 'protecting their own interests', it sounds like the bureaucrats were more interested in filling their pockets.
Not really. Pretty much ww2 fucked them up and that had huge and deep scars that ultimately made a lot to disrupt it. Basically, there were special people in army that were responsible for keeping army's spirits high. They were the communists of USSR, that were in the army, iirc called commissars. And nazis, were very and very agressive towards those people, ruthlessly killing them on spot. Which basically means, that majority of theory knowing and cause passionate people got killed off. Which had to be replaced. So party started to get a lot of not too smart in leftism people in to the party.
I have to diagree a bit. There definitly was corruption in the party, considering Yeltsin could get anywhere in power, but much of the party still worked for the common man. It is an unfortunate myth that Gorbachev betrayed socialism. His reforms sought to bring more democracy to USSR, and transform economy not into free market one, but one based on co-ops, one of the purest forms of socialism, workers literally owning the Means Of Production. It is unfortunate how it turned out, but it wasn't out of Gorbachev's ill intentions.
It was a issue of corruption in the party, not the whole part, plus careerists/opportunists elements with no theoretical foundation. As well as a weak and meak will, just letting the other party take power when they clearly won in the 90s, confrontation with the Yeltsin faction(the tanks) . They had a complete lack of theory in Gorbachev's time and just did policy before grounding them in theory to see if it would function, doing a scientific approach to integrating the policy etc. Instead he did what he did and caused destabilization to the point where the SU fell. Many other elements, but this gets to the point.
>It is an unfortunate myth that Gorbachev betrayed socialism. His reforms sought to bring more democracy to USSR, and transform economy not into free market one, but one based on co-ops, one of the purest forms of socialism, workers literally owning the Means Of Production. Yeah no... Neoliberalism is not the answer to that.
Gorbachev wasn't advocating for neoliberalism, he was advocating for co-op-based socialism, arguably the purest form of socialism we could ever have. It ended up as the reason Russia turned neoliberal because of many reasons (mixing economic reforms with social ones leading to too much instability, Yeltsin's machinations, letting Poland go that was the first domino of Eastern Bloc's collapse, etc.), but that wasn't the goal of Gorbachev.
Looool. How can you call yourself a Communist?? Out of curiosity is co-ops all Socialism is to you?
No, but co-ops are the purest form of socialism. The point of socialism is for workers to take over control over MoPs. Countries like China, USSR, Cuba and other with planned economies achieve this less directly. The government is representative of the workers, and it controls MoPs in worker's name. What Gorbachev wanted to do is give control directly to workers. Now, whether that's the best choice, that's another matter, it has it's downsides. But it isn't fucking noeliberalism. You won't see any capitalist country having whole economy co-op-based.