Stagnation killed them. Those mad scientists, and Soviet society in general, never stopped being able to make those things. It's the fact they weren't able to be more efficient, to increase their output, to give better and more food to its population that was the poison pill.
The US took advantage by forcing them to increase military spending. Gorbachev tried to find a way out of stagnation and killed the whole thing instead.
soviet union was actually very good at providing basic needs (food, housing, education, medical care) to its population. in fact much better than even the US does right now. that is not the reason ussr collapsed
Source? As the person who spent good part of my life there, I would like to know more details. I do remember my parents waiting for an government provided apartment for 15 years though.
The cost part Quora gets really well, I have no problem with that. Since Soviet Roubles were worthless money anyway, it did not matter how much you paid for that.
What it does not say though, is that housing supply was extremely poor. There was extreme lack of decent housing, and people could be easily on a 10+ year wait list (as my parents were). There was practically only government provided houses (e.g. apartments), you could not buy land to build your house yourself (all land was nationalized and belonged to "people", i.e. government). So your option was to wait until you were given one. There was also virtually no secondary housing market, you could not buy an apartment since the supply was so low.
So while you waited for the gift from government, you either lived with your parents (if they had place), lived in "kommunalka" (shared apartment where each family got one room but shared kitchen, bathroom etc with other families), or rented a room from whomever you could find (which was not legal actually because it was deemed private entrepreneurship which was not allowed). Was not fun, believe me.
at no point did i say it was fun, or something to be emulated. my point was that post war ussr was good at providing bare basics. i still think my assessment is correct and i think population growth in eastern europe during those times vs now suggest im right. also the fact remains that the soviets built A LOT especially considering that imperial russia was very much an agrarian country. pretty much all the concrete jungles accross eastern europe is the work of socialist housing policies
At the time of Soviet Union's collapse, 70-80%+ of all housing stock belonged to the government. New independent countries privatized it all as fast as they could for peanuts (could get an apartment for the price of a Sony VCR), because their condition was horrible and there was no money for repairs in state budget.
> soviet union was actually very good at providing basic needs (food, housing, education, medical care) to its population. in fact much better than even the US does right now. that is not the reason ussr collapsed
You just have to look the refuges after the wall fell which were buying all the basic necessities in bulk, you know it's BS.
i probably should have made it clear that i was talking about post ww2 ussr. you know, the one that took away crimea from russia and gave it to ukraine. also the same ussr that gave national autonomy rights to almost every ethnic group within its borders (something unheard of in the west); actually this is the "atomic bomb" that putin said lenin placed under russia :)
Sick that you as a russian troll claims russia gave ukrainians indepence. They are fighting for their lives to be free of the evil russians raping and killing them. Do you deny that?
lol i actually have no connection to russia. but whatever helps you deal. i rather enjoy broadening peoples perspectives. dont worry though, if you were a putin fanboy i would have quite a bit to say too
and yes ... nato is bad. every imperialist organisation is bad. be it russian, american, chinese, or whatever
> sometimes you do wonder how USSR, with all these mad scientists and engineers, could ever go down
Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone docuseries by Adam Curtis gives a great answert to that.[1] While it may be factually inaccurate at times, it conveys the feeling those times better than anything else I've ever seen.
> sometimes you do wonder how USSR, with all these mad scientists and engineers, could ever go down
An oversimplification, as any explanation that’s not way too long for this forum would be, but: a decade long war in Afghanistan without an effective democratic outlet for frustration against the regime for the failure.
To be fair they were facing pretty much the entire rest of the worlds fight against "evil communism". It's more remarkable how far they got with essentially a new way of trying things.
It's not nonsense that during the cold war the US & allies put sanctions and trade embargos in place for the USSR & Warsaw pact countries, similar how we have with Russia today, meaning their goods had a limited export market, plus they had restrictions on high tech imports as well leading to the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal. Also, with the USD being the global reserve currency, the USSR & Co. were dependent on the USD for trade.
It's nonsense because it wasn't 'the rest of the world' and it is nonsense because plenty of the fight came from within the USSR. Ignoring that makes it an utterly meaningless statement. And that's before we get into parties resisting the USSR because it started wars with them.
Hey I just want to let you know that in my original comment I never mentioned the USSR, nor any other state or empire. The promotion of widespread fear of a potential rise of communism did happen, hence the the "evil" in quotes. I never expressed my opinion about any political ideologies nor did I want to have a discussion about that.
The US took advantage by forcing them to increase military spending. Gorbachev tried to find a way out of stagnation and killed the whole thing instead.