Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?
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- Опубліковано 23 кві 2017
- April 5, 2017
In this lecture, William Taubman, professor of Political Science at Amherst College and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, sheds a light on how Mihail Gorbachev undermined the Soviet system in pursuit of his dream of the democratized country.
I came home from school during these days, threw down [my books and sat down with my grandparents who raised me. Grandma said "don't leave. You're watching history taking place."
I was mesmerized, as i had been around that time and earlier, watching what happened to Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife and also a velvet revolution. I had become just so curious, nearly obsessed. And finally when I was ready, I started to travel to former Soviet Bloc countries. It was the people, .of course who kept me going back. I ended up marrying a Czech Native. Our greatest, most anticipated journey was to Russia in 2019. Alas, I am very concerned that we shall never finish out the sojourn.
I wish with all my heart that a peace comes soon. I hope for diplomacy. Because I surely love that part of the world and its peoples.
За всю историю человечества, мира никогда не было и никогда не будет. Так как основная причина этого безобразия природные ресурсы. У некоторых стран их слишком много , у других мало. А и есть те у которых кроме песка и камней ничего больше нет, даже вода только дождевая.
@@tolyamochin4066 Это не совсем верно; мир сейчас более распространен, чем когда-либо в нашей истории, несмотря на недавнюю войну в Украине. Войны заканчиваются, когда обе стороны больше не имеют разных ожидаемых результатов от продолжения борьбы в своих умах, то есть когда закрывается разрыв в переговорах.
@@tolyamochin4066 Do you think putin is in Ukraine for resources? I really don't believe he is there for that reason, maybe it could be a secondary reason.
The reasoning which makes most sense to me, is that an independent, and culturally similar state close to Russia is a threat to the kremlin, especially one that allows its citizens some degree of political participation. So, when Ukraine started to leave russia's influence in 2014, putin tried to bring it closer to Russia again, sending little green men into Crimea. He saw the movement of Ukraine's people to the west as a direct threat to his control in Russia. Then, in 2022, he believed the russian military could overwhelm Ukraine's once again and take Kiev this time. Of course, he seriously miscalculated.
Funny that no one reads my truth……very strange
You can't have a meaningful discussion about why Soviet Union collapsed without a through understanding of how Soviet economics functioned and how the Politburo & Republic governments interacted.
** Thorough** understanding ; )
I totally agree with you, by the way - this is definitely far too simple, but of course it's a one-hour lecture at a university, so we can't really expect much more than we got, given the decidedly degraded state of American University education. Political correctness, telling "the story" has superceded critical thinking, coming to your own conclusions based on research and an objective view of the history. We are witnessing the protracted death of the United States as it was, and the "new" America... well, ,,born from the garbage'' pretty much sums it up.
Soviet economics don’t function.
@@darbyohara I remember shopping at GUM the supposed grand “universal” department store on Red Square, at peak Soviet Union in 1979, supposedly the Utopia that Stalin broke all those millions of eggs for, the great omelette of the new way humans should really live. To say there was not much to buy is an understatement, it was as appealing as the stuff the alcoholics lay out for your delectation on the fringes of Brick Lane. I bought a shirt, blue with rectangles of dark red and orange, it sort of looked like an abstract stained glass window. Paying was so convoluted, and took an age, meanwhile they wrapped the shirt in paper so coarse, you could have sanded wood with it. The shirt lasted less than a year.
@@SeiiTaiShogun1 hey. the great American Empire is dying and the People's Republic of China is rising
@@fabiojr8082 agree on China rising but the American empire will not fall like the ussr ,they heave economy what the ussr never head !
6:41 -- "Hardly anyone foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union, maybe almost no one." I hear this so often from Western scholars. However, I made an extended visit to Bulgaria in 1981, where I was told again and again that the Soviet Union would collapse, and that it was just a matter of time. The reasons I was given were 1) that the system was profoundly inefficient and was steadily running itself into the ground, and 2) that nobody believed in the original communist vision. Everyone believed it was pure b.s.
That's what Eastern Europeans saw and believed back then and it was a correct assessment.
Bulgarian here, still when the time the soviet union collapsed and the leader at that time Todor Jivkov announced that it's the end of the Soviet Union for 3 days nobody could actually believed and everyone was scared to speak because everyone believed it's hidden agenda to find all western traitors....
So communism was unpopular with about half the people, but that's the same for capitalist dictatorships too. So that doesn't explain the collapse.
I mean capitalism is unpopular at the moment, but it doesn't mean it's gonna suddenly collapse.
The USSR collapsed because of external pressure mounted by the US, in terms of the arms race. The USSR believed Reagan was serious about a Star Wars and 'winning' a nuclear war
The USSR blinked first, thank god they did.
Before WW2 in Poland Communists never got more than 6% of votes. In August 1917 elections in Russia they got roughly 1/4 of votes. Communist ideology was too loony even for Russians.
I don't trust polls in such countries, either conducted by communists or capitalists. Such countries are ultimately corrupt and are not capable of creating functioning democracies. I mean democracy is beginning to falter in the West, let alone Russia and Poland. The fact is governments are rarely popular under any system.
That communism was unpopular doesn't explain why it collapsed. It had enough means to stay in control.
For whatever reason, Gorbachev refused to crack down, refused to deploy the iron fist that sustains control in 2nd and 3rd world countries.
The collapse of communism didn't come about via people power, but rather a vacuum in state power. I think we'd have to conclude that Gorbachev was not a communist. Rather he was a Liberal, whose own power predictably collapsed, given Eastern Europe is not naturally Liberal.
Thanks for the talk , enjoyed listening to it all . 🇬🇧
Soviet Union did not collapse, it went bankrupt. It could not feed itself and became completely dependent on oil and gas prices. In 60x it was already clear it is falling behind, but high prices of oil and gas in 70x kept it afloat with out any changes and when they went down in late 70-80x it went bankrupt in 90x.
When visiting a farm in Canada in the early eighties an impressed Gorbachev (who was I believe the top agricultural man in the USSR at the time) asked the farmer "who gets you up in the morning?". When he saw the well maintained farm machinery he asked "do they trust you with this equipment?"
In Windsor , Ontario, a visit to Eugene Whelan"s farm. Absolutely correct!
@Jake Johansson Maybe he knew it was not a collective farm but for someone unfamiliar in a practical sense of Western farming he easily transferred his Soviet mindset. Soviet emigres to the U.S. chose New York City to settle in because they thought that was where the consumer goods were, just as Moscow had the monopoly on supplies of sausages. They also thought the New York Times as the largest newspaper was an American Pravda providing the official government line.
@Jake Johansson I'm sure the USSR students were given an unbiased account of the difference between "capitalistic" farming and collective farming. I'm sure they gave a balanced account of the necessity of eliminating the kulaks (those class enemies who might have owned an extra cow).
Brilliant comment. "Who gets you up in the morning,?" says it all. Cuts to the quick as to why Capitalism works and Socialism dies not.
@@dennisweidner288That is an insult to hundreds of millions of ordinary Soviet citizens who woke up every morning, just like every human on Earth, to earn for living, send their kids to school, take care of their elderly parents, enjoy sunshine, meet their friends and colleagues, etc. Growing up in a family of a man of power, he viewed these people as a cattle, not human beings with souls and free will. It was not his father and grandfather, local strongmen, who made these people to wake up every morning. It was people's natural desire to contribute to their community, raise their children, enjoy talking to neighbors and strangers, and other natural causes, not the directives of the Communist Party, heads of collective farms or state enterprises.
I love how we have so many professors and Drs in the comments of all these lectures..
Yep! Hard to Believe.
yet they have 90 min lecture on how it was planned by the J
well, this ' specialist ' does not impress me addressing the topic of the ussr fall...
I lived in communist Poland in 1980. Everyone there saw the coming collapse of the Soviet Union.
Great, in Romania we didn't see it until December 89.
Poland put the ax to the system, other countries maybe not that much and hence just followed suit - just asking myself.
Because Gorbachev tried to change the political system before the economic system. China learned from this.
China has never changed the poilitical or economic system. 8000 students were killed in 1989 in Peking for demanding democracy.
@@DipakBose-bq1vv Well they have, just not towards a more democratic society..
Exactly, China gave economic freedom to its people, though in a controlled way, but the political change either will come later or not at all.
@TheDoubleLibra I get what you mean. My point was that average Chinese citizens can start their companies, own property and earn money. These weren't available previously in China and in Soviet.
@@DipakBose-bq1vv They've changed the economic system a huge amount. And many soldiers were killed by the 'protesters' before the 1989 crackdown.
This is an amazing video, thank you. Living in Mexico in the late 80s it was such a bizarre period to watch the USSR just crumble in a matter of months
The main question stays, how much the US embassy really paid to Gorbachev Yakovlev Bobkov team to destroy the USSR. Russian intelligence officers estimate the bribe to be close to $1 billion cash in 1991 money.
Thank you for uploading and sharing.
1:07:12 Effectively Gorbachev was not a social democrat, he was a socialist who wanted to reform socialism and not end it. Social democracy is based on capitalist economy that social democrats tax to provide extensive social services. Gorbachev was not trying to introduce capitalism.
@@erikvynckier4819 he still is..
Exposé formidable. Merci pour la diffusion !
Great lecture, thank you! A bit disappointed about the lack of the answer to the question in the title - "why?". I think this question was not really answered. The lecture rather was focused on Gorbachev and the question "how?", which is not "why". We all know how it was, especially those of us who lived through it inside collapsing USSR. How is not that interesting. Why is. I was hoping to hear some interesting thoughts on that "why" question.
My thoughts exactly.
They'd have to thank Jimmy Carter for his Afghan plans and that's not allowed.
Did this guy seriously just ask why the USSR put a man on the moon 10 years before US? And no one in the room corrects him? At the end of the answer he says "they did it". (59:00) Holy shit.
I'm glad someone else caught that besides me, I was wondering if I woke up in an alternate universe! As far as I know the USSR NEVER put a man on the moon. They did put a satellite in orbit some months before us however and kicked off the space race.
@@c-5899
It may have been so strange to hear Taubman thought he misheard
14:09 Soviet economic problems were so severe that even if the Party poured most of the resources previously used by military into producing consumer goods, it wouldn't have helped. It would just produce more of the same poor goods. Collective farms would be just as unproductive. Factories would have see little improvement, because their machinery was mostly bought in the West for hard currency and that was extremely short. People would have no incentives to do a good job either. Etc., etc.
The system was the problem
Source - I made it up. You people are laughable. "The Soviet Union failed because they lacked profit incentive!" 🤡🤡
It's been many years since I've seen a grown man have a Gorbasm. It must be true love.
21:11
@@DavidErdodyeven his face is flushed. If I had been there, I'd have yelled, "get a room!"
Zdeněk Mlynář (pronounced Zdenyek Mlynahrzh) His son became a conservative (anti-communist ) politician in the 1990s in the Czech Republic.
The term "conservative" depends on context and is focused on skepticism of reformist politics, regardless of what the local status quo happens to be. Thus what was "conservative" in the post-Communist states of eastern and central Europe in the 1990s wouldn't have qualified as conservative in the US at the same time.
I still can’t pronounce it..
I enjoyed the mention of the whole, "the SU went against human nature" argument. Western societies simply incentivize human greed and then regulate that to (hopefully) mitigate harmful and wreckless business. The SU tried to regulate everything so it goes perfectly. It's easier to try and control whats already there (greed) rather than centralising all power and controlling everything with absolute strength.
Second law of thermodynamics in action! Great video. I will see it again and I will recommend it.
really a relief to hear a speaker that is both so clearly intelligent and humble. many of the lecturers i've seen lately are very intelligent, very eloquent speakers, but when it comes to answering questions they can't resist treating the audience like they're beneath them. taubman seems like good and earnest person
eee
You're right, nice to see I agree
Taubman's presentation gave a good summary of the theories that try to explain why the Soviet Union was the way it was and offered some explanation why it eventually failed. He seems to have a bias that the Reagan Administration should not get credit for its demise. His main explanation for the demise of the USSR is Gorbachev. He makes the point that by introducing "Glasnost" and other reforms that Gorbachev opened to the door to forces that undermined the communist regime and eventually led to its and destruction.
Professor Taubman did a great job of presenting the facts. One can see why he has succeeded as a professor of political science specializing in Russian affairs. Being a biographer of both Khrushchev and Gorbachev he probably has imbibed a bit too much of the "great man theory of history" . To be more precise that history is moved more by great individual actors than by forces in a particular society.
The weakness of Professor's Taubman's presentation lies in his inability to recognize or an unwillingness to admit that societal forces, namely the stagnating economy, created the conditions that demanded a reformer of the Gorbachev type. Gorbachev is not a Vaclav Havel who was a dissident with a program who was able to come to power and implement his reform program. Gorbachev was an honest apparatchik who wanted to make the communist system work. He never really understood that a totalitarian system cannot be reformed. They can only be abolished or maintained.
Professor Taubman during the questioning period concedes that Reagan's policy of colluding with the Saudis to lower the price of oil was devastating to Gorbachev in his attempt to enact economic reform. In essence the lower price drastically cut the Soviet central budget. This contradicts his earlier comment that Reagan had little to do with the implosion of the USSR. Professor Taubman did not address how Reagan's increase of military spending and the launch of the Star Wars Program affected the Gorbachev regime. It must have had an effect on military strategy and allocation of resources that had to have a strong negative economic impact.
Most telling was Professor Taubman's critique that during Bush I there were doubters in his administration about the sincerity of Gorbachev and an unwillingness on the part of the West to give Gorbachev the financial resources to preserve a reformed confederation of sovereign states . He takes it for granted that it was somehow in the interests of the West in general and the USA in particular to have a revamped Soviet Union. Given the fact that the USSR broke up peacefully that case seems hard to make.
Dr. Taubman did concede that had Gorbachev not tried his reforms then it is likely that the USSR would have limped along and eventually had an explosive collapse similar to Yugoslavia.
In conclusion, the Taubman lecture was quite useful and he offered interesting insights and asides to the many factors that contributed to the demise of what Ronald Reagan called "The Evil Empire"
My main disagreement in the good professor's analysis is that it's rather obvious that many factors played a role in the demise of the USSR just as there were many factors that played a role in the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Having been a student and later in the 1990s an executive for an American Fortune 500 company in Russia it was rather obvious that a multiplicity of factors created the conditions for a reformer like Gorbachev to be chosen to try and save a sinking ship. One cannot discount the enormous efforts and investment in blood and treasure that the West made from the Truman Administration in 1947 up and through the Reagan-Bush administrations first to contain the USSR and then to bring it down. Reagan upped the ante to Gorbachev by increasing his military spend hoping to bankrupt the Soviets and by using its power to deny the Soviets badly needed revenue by getting the Saudis to over produce oil and drop the price. In addition, the Reagan Admin had invested much money and effort to undermine the Soviets in Poland. Thus, while Gorbachev certainly played the key role he did not destroy the USSR all on his own.
Professor Taubman, along with many other professors of a liberal bent in the USA, seem to regret that the USSR was not saved albeit in a reformed and social democratic manner. If that is really his regret then he needs to make the case how American and European security would have been enhanced by that. Moreover, that desire ignores the legitimate desire of the non-Russian population of the old USSR to realize their self-determination. Certainly from the position of the USSR's former vassals in Central and Eastern Europe the fall of the USSR was nothing to regret.
In conclusion, the Taubman talk is excellent and deserves the investment in time to listen to it. He is very engaging and quite well informed.
The professor was not only determined not to give Reagan credit for the demise of the Soviet Union, but he was also determined to deny Reagan ANY credit, despite the obvious impact of Regan's policies. Gorbachev was obviously the key player, but so many liberal Americans are determined to write Regan out of history. Also, notice how he ignores Capitalism, its functioning in America, and its absence in the Soviet Union.
Too long, didnt read
@@planetcaravan2925 YOUR FREAKIN’ LOSS, Brother.
Блестяще. Коротко, ёмко, по существу. Спасибо)) вы очень взешенны и объективны.
The Soviet Union did not break up peacefully. Wars in Georgia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan point to the opposite. Later wars in Chechnya also attest to this reality. Hell, Yelstin almost annexed Crimea in 1993
The Soviet Union was a country run by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
THAT'S Hilarious!!!! Soo True, Comrade!!
Gee's when you get right down to it in 10 words. The Soviet Union was a horror show.
@@GeorgeSemel
USSR was theater of absurd....
@@ssmusic214 Was one of the theaters musicians.
Jimmy Carter and his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, induced the Soviets into the Afghanistan War to bankrupt their treasury. Reagan had ZERO to do with it. When oil collapsed in 1983, the USSR was bankrupt. This was well before Reagan tripled USA debt. Conservative propagandists pretend Reagan's drunken-sailor spending was to defeat the USSR. Except, the Soviets never responded one red cent to Reagan's spending.
Republican con-artists like to say "Ask the Soviet leaders who had most effect on the Soviet collapse.". As if the same people that spent their nation's treasury on military adventurism are going to tell you the truth and blame themselves. Soviet military spending as percent of GDP was about 25% for at least 20 years. The US spent about 8%. Again, Reagan had ZERO to do with anything concerning the collapse of the USSR. That is complete Republican invention.
Great audio
Could this guy possibly love Gorbachev more? He was a humble peasant; grandson of the most powerful man in his city. His grandfather was a wonderful man; describes him beating workers to produce. He got into university without trying; that's what powerful party members children get. His proximity to Gorbachev has clouded him from obvious truths.
Yeah he really didn't even try to hide his affinity for Gorbachev
He loves sucking that Gorbacock.
OK to be a fanboy, there is enough negative to balance it.
Like the Afghanistan withdrawl, it was coming, could have been worse.
Remember, all these guys grew up under Stalin.
Missing most important concepts…. But i guess this is the best lecture one can give in a western university without getting fired from the university. 😮
Please recommend some books. I’m trying to learn how the Soviet Union died and from what I can tell, most of it is propaganda.
What’s missing?
you mean warped Soviet propaganda.
USSR dependend on stable foreign currency all the time, but in the end of USSR it had to recredit in foreign banks. As soon as baltic states proclaimed independence, foreign banks stopped their credit lines, since USSR was no longer single entity.
DID it collapse or did it just change its name to avoid lawsuits?
I can summarize the cause of the fall of The Soviet Union.... The Soviet Union collapsed due to isolation from the western countries, especially economic isolation.. You have to keep in mind that the west is not only the U.S., it's mainly the U.S. and western Europe...
Let me put in another way, if the U.S. and Europe would have traded with Russia the way they have done with China, than Russia would have become an economic power house... but the truth of the matter is that The west did not trust Russia and wanted to isolate them until their eventual demise, which eventually happened. Just think about it this way: Why do you think that China, ( A large communist country, like the USSR was), has become an economic power house? The simple answer is that the U.S. and western Europe let it be by dealing with them economically and technologically.... People erroneously think that China is a threat to the U.S. and that China became an economic power house by themselves.. This is not true at all... If the U.S. saw China as a threat they would eventually cut off China from the economic game from the west and the U.S. would choose another country or countries to deal with economically... The argument would be about the debt we have with China, the answer is that we would pay it off eventually....China would suffer more from the economic isolation and it would throw them back to their economic levels of the 1960s & 1970s when 90% of their people were living below the poverty level and even in starvation...
Russia is not China. There is a long-standing hatred between Western civilization and Russia. Simply put-have diverged in worldview (reached long).
I’m afraid that he’s not going to mention the collapse of oil prices. But still very interesting presentation so far.
1.24.00 oil was a big issue.
1:03:17 - He specifically mentioned Reagan working the Saudis about that. Next time listen all through, or just listen more carefully.
Soviet Union was modeled on Tsar Empire. Absolute theological monarchy was replaced with Collegial theological secretarialism. Tzar was replaced with General Secretary, Orthodoxy with Communism and people with working people. They end up rebuilding same thing only using different methods and materials.
Taubman seems very sad that the US did not prop up the Soviet Union at the end. I wish that Professor Marshall Goldman was still around to give a more clear headed explanation of what happened.
YES.
my father always said ussr would" collapse from within" .he said the people wont stand for it. .that was about 1975
As did mine, he worked hard to see it would for our Gov.
that can be said about any country that cannot be invaded
- the usa will fall from within
- China will fall from within
- India will fall from within
All of then are unable to be invaded due to nuclear weapons and geography.
The economic independence demand of Estonia which led to political autonomy which led to republics declaring independence; collapsed from within and west failed to rescue USSR because economically sound open USSR is a direct challenge to Western power.
Very interesting!
Ah classic academia. Never forget to roast your visiting lecturer's discipline while introducing him.
Gorbachev ignored the lessons of the New Economic Policy (NEP) of Lenin whereby capitalism was largely re-introduced to revive a collapsing economy wrought by doctrinaire socialism (nationalizing the means of production). The economy revived and the NEP had to be scrapped. The only thing preventing the Soviet Union from turning into Venezuela was the tolerance of a black market economy and the system of allowing farmers their own small private plots of land.
Nice lecture, thanks!
The how and why vodka, played such an instrumental role in Russian politics
In March of 1991, at a reception in Moscow, Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale, spoke with Professor Vadim Zagladin, first deputy director international department of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee & asked, “When did you (the ruling elite) conclude that the Soviet Union was unsustainable?
Zagladin replied, “1978”.
Did you ever meet and/or communicate with Zagladin.
Beijing doesn’t need your opinions, and brics nations is unison.
This is a very instructive and enjoyable presentation. Professor Taubman has, of course, written the definitive biography of Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he interviewed eight times in the space of a decade. So, he has obtained his perspective with a deep engagement with the central player in the dissolution of the Soviet Empire. I also enjoy Werner Hertzog's recently released documentary on Gorbachev, which was very moving. It poses the question of whether Mr Gorbachev is one of history's most tragic figures.
Now he's dead
Will Putin fall into the same Category after reestablishing all the Christian Churches in Russia? The lie about killing three Astronauts, then staging the Lunar Landing in Area 51 on earth, then demolishing the World Trade Centers with Drones substituting for airliners while killing the passengers on the ground at the same time as people were jumping to their deaths or be cooked alive, while steel beams are being melted below them, then the first responders and firemen dying from 53:25 breathing in the toxic smoke, not to mention the war Of Terror sweeping through 7 countries consecutively, firing the generals who didn’t play ball, yadda yadda Yes Yadda, & killing all the Innocent people along the way, seems more tragic, would you say possibly Satanic?
he is cause he didnt want the dissolution of the ussr but it also couldnt continue through the same path. it is worthy of a oppenheimer-esque movie
Gorby was avatar, chosen by Andropov and Yakovlev to be hitman of USSR. It is KGB who sold the country for cheap..
"Evil Empire" is the best description of USSR anybody ever came up with!
Then Reagan' renounced it in Moscow. 😉.
If you read the book you would notice Raegan had no ceherency in his stance on the USSR.
@@napoleonbonaparteempereurd4676
LOL! Difference between Andropov and Gorbachev is beyond your intelligence level.
@@ssmusic214
Anyone who studies this period would know Reagan had no coherent stance on the USSR.
"We seek friendhsip with the Soviet leadership" he says in public and then a few weeks later
"Evil Empire"
"We want to live in peace with the Soviets" while he reignites the arms race.
"Our sons have never fought one another" he says. Wrong. US troops invaded Russia in 1918 during the intervention.
@@napoleonbonaparteempereurd4676 Child!
Reagan was THE ONE who FINALLY DID SOMETHING about that cancer on the body of mankind.
AND HE WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.
Presence of US troops in Archangelsk and FAR EAST REPUBLIC in 1918 never resulted in fighting with bolshevik army.
@@ssmusic214
Many Presidents before Reagan challenged and damaged the USSR.
Harry S Truman is the prime exsample.
The US troops were nonetheless involved in a war AGAINST the Bolsheviks.
They fought with one another in war.
ua-cam.com/video/1mC1bmzbgxY/v-deo.html
Kruschev even made a point of poiting this out.
Excellent!
Great talk and Q&As but the number one immediate reason for the break-up of the Soviet Union is missed. The state overly depended on the fear of state violence to keep the edifice in tact. And this is linked the first theory posited - that communism runs against human nature. It was Gorbachev's unwillingness to use violence which allowed the state to disintegrate.
If Gorbachev had succeeded in doing what this guy wanted it would not have been better.
This guy clearly regrets that the USSR fell, and talks as though Gorbo wanted to see the end of the USSR, even though he described how Gorbo tried to keep it together as late as he could, as it was spinning apart. The guy describes Gorbo as an elite who lived a life full of lies. Based on this talk, Gorbo whispered how the system was full of lies to his Czeck freind in college, and wrote and talked openly how he was devoted to it from his childhood on. A guy full of lies all his life, in a system so full of lies, corruption, and threatened State violence that it simply tore apart due to all of its incredible, monstrous basic aspects. The guy said at the start of his talk, that some think the system simply fell apart once the threat of State violence was taken away. Then the guy says that such an explanation was too simple. Um - no - it seems spot on, based on the talk he gave right after he said it was too simple. Oy!
I was watching RU1. When I saw Ludmilla Tourischeva crying, I knew it was over.
Taubman onstage from 4:04 - you're welcome ⚒️
SKIP INTRO BUTTON: 4:00
Odd at the center of so many wonderful things, there's a brood of self-chosen.
You can't have a meaningful conversation about the collapse of the Soviet Union without asking: Who are you?! And what are you doing here?!
Excellent presentation of Gorbachov.
There is such television in the west that if it had been held in the USSR at one time, there would be no perestroika.
With reference to my earlier comments ( 5 days ago), I may add that another reason the collaps was not foreseen by the western world is that thinking and reasoning within a totalitarian regime is completely different. When your contacts with the SU consists of people like Arbatov and Burlatsky it is logic that you have no clue about what really is happening in the SU. Burlatsky for instance was considered to be a reformer while he was everything except a reformer.
In the 1988 - 1991 period there were specific moments that contributed to the collaps of the SU. As the professor mentioned there was a shortage of basic products,, especially food products were systematically in short supply. To address this major problem that could also effect stability, it was decided that a meeting of the Central Committee be organized in March 1989. It would be the first time in the history of the SU that the most powerful organization of the country would come only together to plan and make fundamental decisions concerning the future of the agrocomplex.
This Central Committee meeting took place in the period 12 to 17 March 1989. The progressive groups aimed for a decision about private farming but realized that a decision about this sensitive subject might be one bridge to far and therefore pushed the idea that a fast track to stimulate food production was to extent the liberties of dacha farming. Already a large portion of horticultural and agricultural products were already produced in dacha’s and even hard core communists were interested in the idea to stimulate the production in Dacha’s to a give a fast boost to overcome the food shortages. They thought that for instance doubling the dacha acreage would double the dacha production. The Central Committee indeed decided that dacha (private) farming should be stimulated. The following week in the Supreme Sovjet fundamental questions were asked about private farming related to for instance specific financing, specific machinery, storage facilities , and more important one start asking questions about land ownership . A discussion that was impossible (subversive) before the CC meeting and another nail in the coffin of the communistic system. On the opening day of this Central Committee meeting (12 March 1989) an editorial concerning the meeting was printed on the front page of Izvestia. It was the first time for this government paper to have an editorial directly related to a sensitive political subject written and signed by a foreign diplomate. It surprised me that non of the so-called Sovjet watchers took notice of my contribution that also got the blessing of the government.
I appreciate your analysis, and you’re way more knowledgeable than I… However, I still think this boils down to capitalism v Socialism.. Private industry v the State.. infrastructure, land mass, and yes, agriculture..
Everything is more expensive, harder to move, and more time consuming..
@@jacobjones5269 Socialism must not be equal to "state administration"
An important reading.
Good doc
8:00 The list of reasons "Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?"
I visited the Soviet Union for three weeks. The stores were almost empty of consumer goods. I went to Gum in Moscow, which was the equivalent of Macy's. There consumer goods were of very very poor quality. The Russian workers got paid no matter how well they worked.
Don't understand why the speaker dismisses Reagan and Star Wars as playing a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union when he later cites the arms race with the US as one important cause of said collapse.
Interesting lecture. I've studied the decline and break-up of the soviet union from an economic perspective and could probably deliver a lecture about half as good and interesting as Taubman, but I'd argue that economic causes fed into and amplified the political ones.
It would make for an interesting debate, but Taubman referred to distorted economic performance, and this is but one facet of the overall soviet economic model.
He also mentioned Korolev, a brilliant rocket scientist whose talent was wasted whilst imprisoned by a jealous and untalented colleague called Aleksandr Yakovlev (not Gorbachev's mate, a former ambassador to Canada). Do this enough, and this stifles ambition, creativity, and rewards political loyalty and reliability.
Repression also erodes trust, which Taubman refers to indirectly.
During the 19th Century there was a lot of technological progress and people fell in love with the idea of "Science". Everything had to be "Scientific". Socially you had a number of Utopian Societies that were created on the basis of someones ideas with Marxism being one of the most successful at gaining adherents.
Talk of "Dialectical Materialism" being "Thesis opposed by Anti-thesis and yielding Synthesis" which became the new Thesis - sounded impressive to a lot of ignorant people.
The growth of large factories with legions of poorly paid, over worked - workers - led to a lot of resentment on the part of the have not's who were open to ideas about how they would "seize the means of production".
Under the leadership of the Communist Party they would form a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" that of course would run things in a benevolent manner until they achieved True Communism - "From each according to their ability. To each according to their need".
Lenin created the means for political control where in you had a Central Committee below which were such as Regional Committees and Local Party Representatives. According to Democratic Centralism information would flow up from the Local and Regional Party Members to the Central Committee who would make a decision - then the decision would flow down to the Regional and Local levels where it would be implemented. During the first phase - there was freedom of opinion to some degree but once a decision was made - it was to be implemented without further discussion.
Five Year Plans were popular where it was decided what the nation would do - but - these plans were to inflexible and thus didn't work. The problem was that a Centrally Planned Economy just wasn't flexible enough to handled the constantly changing economics of the real world.
The other thing was that people who no longer owned anything had no incentive to work on the collectives but - they were allowed small plots they could grow crops on themselves. These small plots became where much of the food was grown - and - led to a black market in things the State Economy failed to provide.
An example of central planning was if they were going to make 500 cars - they would make 500 sets of wind shield wipers - not anticipating that they would wear out. Thus, you had car owners who routinely took their wind shield wipers off every time they parked their car and locked them up - because if they didn't - they wouldn't be there when they got back.
Those in the west could see that this type of Centrally Planned Economy was doomed to failure and felt that all the needed to do was Contain the spread of Communism until if fell of it's own weight.
Another factor in this was that while the first generation revolutionaries were true believers - as each generation passed, people believed less and less in the ideology until not even the party members believed it.
Gorbachev tried to reform things but since the system itself was basically flawed - there was no fixing it.
When the Communists went away - the Black Market - which had become the Real Economy as opposed to the State Run Economy - came out into the open - but it was being run by people who had been criminals under the old regime and still were criminals. Russia became a Kleptocracy, a nation of thieves run by thieves and that is where things are today.
It's all vastly more complicated than that and this is a simplistic version but - it is in general what happened.
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All this is correct - when you take away the famous "checks and balances" of democracy, you're going to get thugs in power anyway. Marxism is, as you imply, at root a 19th ideology that has never caught up with the times. My main objection to it, though, is that it is, as a code based on violent revolution,
fundamentally murderous.
@@Maelli535 Yes.
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I tuned out after five minutes. Seems so simplistic and self evident. Like a high school lecture. Geo-politics and sociology are much more complex.
You may not have notice but an hour or 2 isn't enough to summarize a 500 page book.
@@napoleonbonaparteempereurd4676 No. He didn't notice. Because - like most twits - he thinks 5 minuters is enough to judge a two hour lecture. And his much more complex understanding of geopolitics and sociology has ALL Come from only watching the first 5 minutes of any lecture - that's all he needs because he's a genius.
As for the beginning guy he was talking about..I just call him Nikita...
I was following things then as they happened. More than anything, the people in charge of the Soviet Union just became demoralized and couldn't morally justify their reign. That and the security forces refused to shoot their own people.
Doesn’t sound much diferent than the gun policy in the States with largest gulag incarcerations and homocides. Politicians convincing the uneducated of their own country to commit violence and turn on their own.
It was the elimination of the idiotic tax and regulatory dictates concerning the oil industry during the Reagan administration that brought down the price of crude oil and natural gas that finished the Soviet Union - oil and gas were the only hard cash exports they had . Those same de-regulatory actions wiped out the economys of Oklahoma ,Texas and Louisiana and triggered the banking crisis of the late eighties and early ninetys. I traveled to east Germany in 1990 visiting the town of Bernburg, Anhalt where was stationed a Soviet armored brigade - who were without all their tanks - Gorbachev had sold them all to Saddam Hussein.
I'm not surprised. And sitting comfortably in his SF Bay area Presidio location given to him by the US military for a "Non Profit" NGO. That came within 4 years of Gorby's leaving power. How many people remember that?
@@gm4321 Revolution eaten form inside out by bureaucrats living in Dacha's. Drinking good wine and driving shinny automobile.
@@kimobrien. Agreed. Morality is the essential issue. Bad morality ruins any proposed system.
it was cutting the life support, not the cause of its sickness.
@fireson23 It still has never left 2nd world status even with being second largest economy.
Only someone at a place like Wellesley, would say Gorbachev is thought of as a "Hero" in the United States.
Gorbachev was liked here because you could see he had a brain
dear introducers, please keep introductoins to 30-60 seconds, not 4 minutes.
great work!
A Wellesley lecturer on the fall of communism? How humorous.
i concur r.g. wachendorf
@@8634StJamesAve idk, 20 people have liked it so i think you're incorrect. just because you disagree doesnt mean anyone else does
Lovely change from the usual rabbits to the right of Genghis Khan.
BINGO.
How do they keep from crying?
"The first time I met President Reagan I told him this story. I felt free to tell him everything. I told him of the brilliant day when we learned about his Evil Empire speech from an article in Pravda or Izvestia that found its way into the prison. When I said that our whole block burst out into a kind of loud celebration and that the world was about to change, well, then the president, this great tall man, just lit up like a schoolboy. His face lit up and beamed." -Natan Sharansky ........Leftists hate the fact that Reagan helped end the Soviet Empire
The Holly Triple Alliance. St Ronald Reagan, St Margaret Thatcher and St John Paul the II. They has their flaws internaly in the managend of ther countries and the church in the later, but they stood together against the URSS, and subverted and destroyed his ideological legitimacy. They were not just anticomunist fear mongers, they called communism inmoral and stupid and showed why. They were adamant in defending the moral and intelectual superiority of the West. And they did.
@@ricardosoto5770 The USSR fell mostly due to internal decision. Mainstream consensus.
My friend it's a myth that any of those men ended the USSR.
Thatcher did nothing.
The Pope helped undo Communism with the CIA subversion in Poland, not USSR.
Reagan retracted his "Evil Empire" qote during a visit to Moscow and softened his stance on the USSR.
@@napoleonbonaparteempereurd4676 The URSS was doomed from the start. Central planned economy, Lenin policies on nationalites..those were the slow burn bombs that destroyed the URSS. But had not Maggie T, Ronnie or the Polish Pope stood clearly against the Soviet Union, the dismantling of the Soviet Empire would had been far slower. The nationalistic and anti communist (in the fact of rejecting a planned economy and single party rule) movement in easter europe that spread to the soviet Baltics.... was inspired by the election of a Polish Pope. Military and ideological competition with the US and Nato unde Reagan and Thatcher was a heavy burden on the Soviet Economy. When the party chiefs of Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine got the consensus of ending the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union was already dead in the water. The internal consensus was to scuttle it.
@@napoleonbonaparteempereurd4676 The internal consensus came out of the blue? They just woke one morning and said, we have to dissolve the URSS? Also, the subversion of Poland did spread to the URSS, Im friendswith one of the first prime ministers of the new Baltic Republics. The fact the got the guts to challenge the URSS and to declare ilegal the Miolotov Ribbertropp pact secret protocol, came after seen the success of the Poles and other movement they inspired in Eastern Europe. He, who is a historian by profession, told me that in a dinner. One the Baltic Republics were independent de facto, the stage was set for Russia, Ukraine and Belaruss disolving the URSS.
THIS.
Why is the audio so jickey in so many of these videos?
The EU.....
"But the USSR was not a real superstate".....
Maybe because centralization of power will end up with your liberty at the mercy of whoever is ruthless enough to seize power
Very interesting topic. I really wish I could be in the meeting and raised some questions for discussing, especially for the comparing of the cases of USSR and PRC. In this case some important internal factors could not be comparable. China didn't swallow any countries but lost Out Mongolia after the 2nd world war.
and Tibet ; p (sorry a bit irrelevant comment...
The Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse long before Gorbachev took charge. The arms race, and a flawed economy based on forced labour with unrealistic targets led to the economy tanking. He tried to radically change the way the world saw the USSR, but the ball was in motion and eventually the collapse happened, unavoidable because of years of bad decisions and the corruption and mismanagement by the politburo
It wasn't "on the brink of collapse." Stagnation, and falling futher behind the West? Sure, but not collapsing. Educate yourself.
It wasn't "on the brink of collapse." Stagnation, and falling futher behind the West? Sure, but not collapsing. Educate yourself.
The Economist proved that the a command economy like the Soviet Union was impossible because there wasn't time to make that many decisions. They proved that the system had to fail.
American propaganda will never mention how Putin takes on NATO with soviet equipment let alone the ones Ukraine is using from the time of Gorbechev. Wasn’t NATO that disarmed Ukraine of nukes? Sounds communist to me. SleepyJoeGulags
Seems like too much government, no matter what kind of government it is, ALWAYS gets in the way of social mobility and progress.
Mikhail "Superpower Slayer" Gorbachev. He was a nerd who earnestly and honestly rose to power with naive ideals. His ideals destroyed his Nation largely peacefully and bloodlessly. He wasn't a genius politician, but he successfully served his role in the Destiny of Humanity, even if he himself didn't plan to do that.
He lost his power in August. And he lost his life in August.
That's right. Andropov wouldn't allow this sh*t to happen.
@@ruftytufty468 The Soviet Union was never intended to be a nation rather it was originally a federation of peoples who would have the right to self determination up to and including their own state. What couldn't be reformed was the bureaucracy as the trade unions still exist and Cuba continues to be a workers state. Capitalism has NOT solved its problems as can be seen today.
Peacefully? The war in Ukraine, transnistrian war, the war in Armenia/Azerbaijan, wars in Georgia and civil war in Tajikistan that killed 100,000 people are all results of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
An honest man who was known under the name of Mishka the Envelope for the bribes he used to take before becoming a president.
@@Ktaurus26Add here the Chechen war, ethnic cleansings in Central Asian republics, victims of terrorism in Dagestan and other locations of Russia, etc. So far, only 4 republics our of 15 avoided mass-scale loss of human lives caused by the fall of USSR: the Baltics and Belarus.
Re: the question at 1:24:00 the Soviets did not put a man on the moon ten years before we did.
Lecture starts at sharp 5:30
This bloke has kept Reagan's contributions and foresight far from consideration. Other authors have carefully described the sweet, daring and complex forces bearing upon the Soviet Union, and Reagan is right there, squeezing the pressure points at his appointed time in history. Reagan's "national security decision directives" were timely, opportunistic and decisive. Gorbachev and Reagan were ready for each other.
Reagan was only one of many, many causes of the collapse. It was doomed to collapse from the start.
@@owlnyc666 Well, your remarks are a step in the right direction, acknowledging Reagan as you do. But as far as being doomed from the start, Reagan seems to be the only one (at the time), who believed that it was inevitable,, and a good nudge would accelerate it. His critics enjoyed saying, "It was inevitable" after the collapse, yet none of those critics predicted it.
When everyone is entitled to everything, no one is responsible for anything.
Gorbachev did great work going by his heart!
Gorbachev had the right ideas with Perestroika and Glasnost, but he was rushin' things.
😂
Well, that wasn't insightful.. No real explanation or analysis at all. Just a description of events and personalities.
Then you weren't really listening, were you? Taubman explores some of the psychological factors rather nicely, which is a contrast to and an augmentation of some of the usual viewpoints. Gorbachov WAS definitely naive in many ways, and had virtually no expertise in macroeconomics, and that was all part of the story. What were you expecting - the Marxist dialectical explanation? - that had already proven to be a failure, I'm afraid.
It does seem like almost everyone in the room, including the speaker, was rooting for the Soviet Union. You can't expect much in the way of incisive thinking in a roomful of true-believer cultists.
and even those descriptions have little to nothing insight, only anecdotes from not very credible friends of the author
Exactly, hes just rambling about Gorbachev's life
I listened closely and heard the same as Patrick. If I listened really closely I heard regret the Soviet Union collapsed. Light on analysis, heavy on opinion.
one word to answer this question, CORRUPTION!
@царь царь царь You are kidding? Nomenklatura ! Brezhnev had the largest car collection in the world. If you were a member of the Communist party , you had privilige. If not, too bad....
@царь царь царь It was common knowledge . He was receiving them as gifts from Western leaders. Are you saying that the USSR had NO elite? BTW, I am forced to always check my facts .
@царь царь царь Really? So there was never membership in the Communist Party? I see....I cannot make up stories as I saw with my own eyes and ears , how Communist officials lived and thought during their single party rule. BTW, your avatar says everything , as you seem to believe so strongly in a moral, economic, social and political abject failure. Pravda indeed.
@царь царь царь In the "corrupt" West, if you had a plumbing problem, you would look up as many plumbers you wanted and discuss a price and a schedule . In the "non-elitist worker"s paradise, you had to call the plumbing ministry where they would send someone of their choosing , who would decide , when and how much it would cost (50% to the worker, and 50% to the apparatchik that answered the phone). If you complained....you waited even longer.
@царь царь царь What about Ceaucescu , for example?
idk, seems to me it went through it's 4th turning. (there's no reason to believe every country is on the same generational time line)
Who is the most important? The leader who created a nation(Lenin)? The leader who made the nation reach its peak(Stalin)? Or the leader who destroyed the nation(Gorbachev)?
I argue all 3 are equally important. But the man who helped the nation reach peak will be the most respected as power talks more.
In my opinion the Soviet Union collapsed by itself.
The system was rotten and even if they tried to improve it it did not work out. In the end it was goods (also food) shortages, many emigrating, the population no longer believed the regime...
This is one of the few comments worth a Dollar on this thread. Well done.
Taubam has gotten to a point where he is too pleased with himself and his view of the world. This lecture gives a great view of how Taubam thinks the world should work, plenty of criticism of those with whom he does not agree but a dearth of serious analysis.
I would be even more critical. His opinion on history and the world in general is close to being a series of clichés
I really enjoyed this lecture. Are there anymore similar to this one?
Hélène Carrère-d'Encausse and Emmaluel Todd, both in France, also predicted the dissolution of the USSR. Let us not reduce the world to the anglosphere !
Note: the soviet union would call liberals right, because they would be seen as right of their leftist stance. Liberals, traditionally were middle of the road!!
johnnyscifi
And the US calls Bernie Sanders far left even though he would be considered middle of the road or centre-left in most parts of Europe because the entire US political spectrum has shifted so far to the right.
johnnyscifi The US government and media referred to people like Boris Nemtsov as “liberal”, despite him playing a pivotal role in implementing shock therapy during the 90’s, despite being told not to by actual liberals in Russia. This is the faction the elite here like to ignore to then pretend it was the communists vs Yeltsin in the 90’s and there were no other choices to bring freedom to Russia.
Yeltsin, Nemtsov, Chubais, Gaidar - convenient to the western elite during the 90’s, despite there being actual progressives.
Khordokovsky, Nemtsov (when he was alive), Sobchak, Lebedev, Browder - convenient to the western elite in the present, while real progressives in/from Russia are again ignored because they are not convenient to our elites.
Long story short, our governments and corporate media like to distort those words in Russia and so does the Putin regime along with our chosen puppets. It’ll be the damn day when our corporate media shows their legitimate activists and they get invited to speak at talks.
Oners82
On the eve of Raegan a pouplist weighted in that "The US had gone so far to the right that you couldnt recognize it anymore!!!"
I agree
Ka Gala
Shock therapy in russia during the 90's? That sounds horrifying!!!
Please tell me more about this
Ka Gala
Generation X are also called the last soviet generation. Sad, very sad
Good for insight into Gorbachev. That's all.
You can’t have a meaningful discussion about why the Soviet Union collapsed if you don’t analyse the question of Empire
Rocky Balboa ended the Cold War when he defeated Ivan Drago in 1988. He showed that if he could change, and the audience could change....then EVERYONE could change.
hear. hear! And the 1980 Miracle on Ice was the first domino to fall toward the end of the Cold War.
its been a long time but i have to say he wins. So much talk so little to offer
It collapsed for the same reason the British, French and other European empires collapsed. That's just what they do.
The military cost of mantaining an Empire outweight the economic beneficts of keeping an empire in the end.
Every nation collapses eventually , it's just interesting to examine why.
Because people wanted to go home (different countries) and the loans were paid off.
The corporation that was the USSR went defunct.
I recommend the book The Last Empire , by Plokhy