Source
r/history•
_be_nice

To what extend should the Soviet Union's economic growth be bound to their expansion/swallowing of economies of other countries rather than its communism

Discussion/Question

The Soviet Union is advocated as the second fastest growing economy in world history (behind China).

I recently try to understand economic systems like capitalism and communism. In this regard I question myself (as being told from economic "experts") how much of USSR's success should actually be credited due to communism and not simply because it swallowed lots of countries and their economies which obviously increased its GDP.

Posted Mar 18, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

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[deleted]•

Your premise is flawed. The GDP of the Soviet Union did not grow faster than other economies, unless you cherry pick the trough of post-revolution early 1920's until the recovery of the 1930's.

If you look at the per-capita GDP of the USSR, it stayed at about 1/2 of Western Europe's and about 1/3 of the US's from pre-WW1 until the mid 1970's, when it fell even further behind. A well run economy would have caught up to the western economies, like Finland, Japan and other nations did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Soviet_Union#/media/File:Soviet_Union_USSR_GDP_per_capita.png

8
NDTCH•

This is probably the best post here.

People assume too quickly that the Soviet Union's economy grew quickly, more so than other economies, and they try to think of explanations depending on their political preference, but they do not stop to think "wait, is any of that actually true in the first place?" This is how you get a bad, artificial debate, lads.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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agrostisarchaeologist of new, week 15•

Actually, if you look at the territory of the USSR in relation to the territory controlled by the preceding regime (Russian Empire), you'll see that it was a net loss rather than gain. Poland and Finland were lost permanently. The Baltic countries and Moldavia were lost until WW2 (i. e. for the first ⅓ of Soviet history). Areas where the USSR expanded relative to the imperial period were a) Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia (formerly part of Austria-Hungary, held by Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania during the interbellum); b) Eastern Prussia (formerly part of Germany); c) Tuva (formerly an independent republic seceded from Qing China); and d) South Kuril islands and the southern half of Sakhalin. All of these were hardly important economically. Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia were a rural backwater, Eastern Prussia had been utterly destroyed in the war, and the Asian acquisitions were remote territories that required significant investment of labour and capital.

Upd.: As concerns economic growth of the USSR, I'd rather attribute it to the hard work put in by her people and to the natural riches of the land than to “communism”. (Even according to the official position of the Soviet government, communism was an objective rather than the actual practice of Soviet economy.)

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_be_niceOP•

Do I get close when I say it looked more like leftism -> a social democracy than communism (maybe the same as china which is said to be communism but seems to be a similar case to USSR).

So the state had ownership and used the money to aggressively push the economy but unlike communism where the workers should be or eventually become the owner - that just never actually happened? So to say it was communism is false (only targeted like you said).

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Kellymcdonald78•

The Soviet Union had a lot of significant structural differences from modern social democracies (which technically all modern democracies are). Countries like Sweden bear little resemblance to the Soviet Union

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MBAMBA0•

The Soviet Union is advocated as the second fastest growing economy in world history

By whom????

I mean, granted Lenin helped advance the nation quite a bit from an impoverished third world nation, but was never an international economic powerhouse. Lots of resources were put into the military but being a military power is not the same thing as an economic power.

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enfiel•

The economic growth came first and conquering Eastern Europe and Eastern Germany didn't reallly get them more than they lost during the German invasion. Since they refused to let the countries under their control get marshall help they had to support them, too.

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Pl0OnReddit•

I think it's a little of both.

The Soviets(and Chinese) should be credited with modernizing their societies. Do the means justify ends and would capitalism have been more efficient? That's endlessly arguable.

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SensRule•

The biggest factor is how far behind the economies were. If you are massively behind competing countries and modernize while having good spies to steal knowledge from the dominate countries you will grow quickly.

It is easy to move from 20% of modernity to 50% of modernity. Really hard to move close to equality.

I don’t think the Soviets were 2nd in hindsight. I think it is more Japan in the 50’s to 70’s and China 90’s to now. I do not think the Soviets ever matched those 2 major powers in growth and development at their best.

By the early 70’s Soviet knew they could not compete in technology or space or science. And all the secondary parts of an economy were not just a but behind but massively behind.

From post WWII the Soviets with huge Eastern European help stayed just a little bit behind the US in missiles and space and nuclear and military. They could not compete after that. Especially in wealth. Food, blue jeans, appliances.

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Pl0OnReddit•

Sure.

I'm saying you cannot deny these communist regimes raised standards of living and brought their people into modernity. There is a lot you can say about how it was done and how it could have been done.

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SensRule•

Really? I think it is more the story of how totalitarian regimes delayed their people into modernity.

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Pl0OnReddit•

Which is an argument you can certainly make.

I don't see any reason to discount the capabilities totalitarian regimes have if we simultaneously understand the costs.

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