The Soviet Economy, Explained
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- Опубліковано 15 січ 2025
- Recently, I watched a video by a popular UA-cam channel about the economy of the Soviet Union. I have long been interested in how Soviet society worked. But sadly that particular video failed to scratch the itch. It felt a bit watered down. So I figured I would make my own.
For generations, the Soviet Union grew faster than every other developing country except one. But once that strategy ran its course, the Soviets failed to adapt and things fell apart. It is a challenge that every country has to face at one time or another in the process of its development.
In this video, I want to look at the rise and decline of the Soviet Economy.
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I loved the video, how about the future of Russian economy? I think it is still very reliant on resources as oil. Would love to learn more about it from you!
A video on china's dependence on australian iron ore, and the difference with the Japanese steel companies of the 90s
I would love a video on laos’ development strategy
those chineese theories about soviet economy and collaps at 1:30 .. that sounds extremly interesting
There's actually a profound link between the early Soviet Five Year plans and East Asian economies. Nobusuke Kishi visited the USSR in 1929 and was quite impressed with their model of rapid industrialization, with a focus on heavy industry. As Minister of Industrial Development in Japanese-occupied Manchukuo, he was able to try out this model with ruthless disregard for Chinese workers. However, unlike the USSR, the Manchukuo model harnessed the talents of private capitalists, albeit under state guidance. A Korean serving in the Japanese Army in Manchuria witnessed this rapid development. His name: Park Chung Hee, future authoritarian President of South Korea. His Five Year plans for the South Korean economy closely resembled Kishi's Manchukuo plans. Future video on this topic?
"Right arm was overworked and they needed to pump with their left"
Story of my life
Should have expected that. But i didnt.
with me it is the left arm that is overworked lol wink wink since i am lefty
You all shall go trought the Institution of marriage. Including the author.
@@lamaahruloma4270 for sex the first months till marriage.. And a few others after.. Children.. And again.. A sexless life.
Hahahah
As a longtime student of Soviet history and economics, I congratulate you on this video essay. This is an outstanding resource. "An economy is more than a sum of numbers and outputs. It is a representation of the life and livelihood of its inhabitants," and the words that come after at the very end, is eloquently put.
i think its a message we have to learn from these days, in our own economy
@@george867 We should learn from Soviet economy? You must be joking :-)
@@DeltaStar777 hey man around 60% of soviet citizens wanted to keep the union together. Even voted but they don't teach you that in school.
@@izzycheechoo5793 A vote, or a poll, proves nothing economically. Disparate concepts you're linking together here.
@@Cincy32 sure the soviet unions economy was stagnant. It also says alot when modern Russian miss the soviet unions everyday stability. Compared to how it was after it fell.
Are you saying civil opinion doesn't matter?
Superb. Never knew this aspect of Russian recent past. Thank you
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The Soviet Union enterred into economic trouble in mid 1950s.
Many don't know this, but Soviet workers were required to use 1/12th of their annual income to buy government bonds. In '56 and '57 it came to be understood that by '63 the amount owed to the people by the government would exceed the amount taken from the people's mandatory bond purchases. The government would not only run into a funding shortfall needed to sustain itself, it would be unable to repay the people what was owned in full, and the amount owned would only grow larger over time.
Looking for solutions, rather than understand this as a finacial problem in need of a financial solution, the gov't decided to appeal to the people's emotions. 'Please donate your bonds to the gov't that has done so much for you. It's your patriotic duty' was the proposed solution accepted. Before this was announced nationally, the gov't decided to test this appeal with some workers to assess their response. It was soundly rejected. 'You forced us to buy these. We expect repayment.'
The government announced it would end the mandatory purchase of these bonds for most workers. Further, it would suspend repayment of the bonds for 25 years. It would also not pay interest on the sum owed during these 25 years.
Because the government was the maker and seller of almost everything, it had the opportunity to set prices. Some things, such as basic consumer goods like food, were set artifically low. Utiliies were not charged by use but a flat fee. The government was losing money hand over fist with these. However, it could profit from the sale of other consumer goods of which there was pent up demand: home appliances, TVs, radios, cameras, and autos for example. But, production was so meager people had to wait years for these items, so what could have been profitable for the government wasn't. Soviet workers were cash rich but with little to buy readily beyond the basics.
To make up for the loss of revenue caused by the end of bond purchases, the government resorted to gambling: a national lottery. The prizes were not cash but hard-to-get consumer items such as automobiles. Delivered to the winners with no wait. The lottery proved quite popular.
Another example of mismanagment was the publishing of magazines and newspapers. You, a consumer in a capitalist country, might think subscribing to periodicals is a very easy task. You sign up, soon thereafter your subscriptions arrive, and you pay at the contracted schedule. Soviet people loved magazines. Especially popular ones were for children, travel, nature, hobbies, and the like. Popular magazines were almost impossible for people to obtain through subscriptions. Demand greatly exceeded supply. People would even queue at the post office the night before subscriptions were opened to get their name on the list. Often the postal employees would themselves subscribe to the most popular magazines before opening the doors, so people who had queued through the night failed to get their names on the subscriber list. Highly sought after magazines had value. They were used to obtain favours, as an medium of exchange (a surrogate currency), and even as away to represent one's clout.
Because all publications, subscriptions, and distribution were handled by the state, it used its power to decide not only what was printed by also how many copies would be published through the allocation of resources such as newsprint, ink, access to printing presses, etc. It also forced people to subscribe to several unwanted magazines to obtain a more popular title. A result was influential gov't ministries, for example the military, were provided an abundance of resources to print its newspaper Red Star and magazines. Not only were these sold to service members, there were piled high at newsagents' kiosks throughout the country for sale to everyone else. With little demand by anyone else. Red Star was one of most printed daily newspapers in the country. It had very few buyers vice its authorised publishing run. But it continued to be provided resources at the expense of others newspapers and magazines, ones people actually wanted and ones the government could have earnt a profit.
This video glosses over rather quickly just how bad the government was. Here in Romania they took loans in order to modernize the industry, which they did rather poorly. When the oil embargo hit, our economy tanked because most of the investments weren't really viable. This story happened all over the eastern block. No, the Soviet Union was not based on sound economic theory and the fact that the experiment ended up failing in every single country that it was tried in proves it.
This was pretty insightful, thank you
All those newspapers became Soviet toilet paper since real toilet paper was not a consumer item the government prioritized.
Well said. Without authentic demand and authentic supply, everything unravels and turns into garbage.
they went into economy trouble since the beginning and they just applied a patch
those chineese theories about soviet economy and collaps at 1:30 .. that sounds extremly interesting
My understanding is their main theory is it was caused by the quick introduction of democracy. Which is why they never reformed politically, only economically.
@evilabed, I think you are right on this point but not totally correct. Deng xiaoping thought that Gorbachev was naive in trying to open up economically and politically at the same time and same goes for the rest of the Warsaw pack. He believed that you can do one at a time but not both at the same time. And economically Deng uses a bottom up approach whereas the Soviets used a top down approach, this can be seen in the special economic zones in China. The SEZs were experimental areas for such economic reforms to look at the social impact. On the military side China curbed the budget for 30 years. And now they are entering their 2nd phase which is moving into the Hitech sector and poverty alleviation and military modernisation . These are some of the differences with the Soviets.
It boils down to perestroika would not work and politically Gorbachev was a fool for believing Americans would help Russia post dissolution. You have to understand what kind of life Deng had lived through to see why he thought that way. Joined the party early on and stayed even as many were hunted down by kmt. He was purged three times by Mao because he did not agree with Mao's economic policies. The great leap forward did immense amount of damage to the economy. Also cultural is actually a grass root political movement. This also influenced his final decision in cracking down the tiananmen square protesters
@@EvilAbed "democracy". You mean bourgeois liberalism.
That's why Bruce Lee once said: "Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water".
Another great video. I didn't look at the creator tag and thought i fell into the apologist "ushanka show" channel and thought "oh boy im in for a wild vid of nonsense." However, asianometry delivers a well researched and presented video. Thanks.
Yay, thank you for this. I was always interested in the soviet union economy and nobody ever talked about it.
Could you please do a video on WW2 Era German economy as well?
Check out the struggle to save the soviet economy if you’re interested
@@fishingoutofwater Thank you.
Excellent work. I had the same itch but no time or resources to do the research on my own like you did, thank you.
Ding-dong, russian here.
I was growing up in late USSR, and it was a nightmare.
Shop that sell nothing, media that telling crap, people that tries to control your every single step..
Nightmare
Soviet here. late USSR control every single step ? :) r u insane?
@@galreserve2322 мдя… это тяжело когда сам не в состоянии прочитать то, что написал
Was it any better after they imposed capitalism cold turkey overnight?
Sounds like Russia in the 90’s under Yeltsin
@@inbuckswetrust7357
Тебе есть что по факту возразить,или ты просто зашел воздух испортить?
It is tiring to not have honest discussion about the Soviet Union as a study subject, it is a vast and heated topic. A lot of it comes from hate and political propaganda. I appreciate your honesty and respect opinions even on the controversial subjects.
comes from hate and political propaganda. Yeah cataclysmjc system failure can do that. See how S.Korea, Singapore countries with far less resources arent seen through the same lenbs, why ? They survived the 20th century.
Great video, I like the fact that you analyze it in a fairly unbiased way.
It’s hardly unbiased lol. Clearly the intent is to make excuses for the communist party.
I love how you cover a wide array of random topics which attracts your curiosity. Kinda how my mind works too 👌🏽
Thanks for the very interesting video!
I have one comment about the last part, that hints to the fact that life in USSR was not happy. I was born in the 90s in Latvia, my birth certificate has Hammer and sickle on the cover(LOL). And honestly I had the same feeling as you, lucky not to live in the soviet time. BUT during my life I have met many people telling good stories about thier youth in USSR, how they enjoyed traveling through the biggest country on earth, how everything was cheap and the people were friednly and life was safe. Those stories were not from polytical patriots, but reather simple people that were not communists. Its facinating to me, but it seems that life in 60-80s, that was usually described in the stories was rather HAPPY and nice. These people really had a good time. All of those stories were from the people living in the cities, I must clarify. There was happy life in cities it seams. Check out this soviet video about RIGA, capital of Latvia from 1976, its very interesting to watch ua-cam.com/video/4F77csxjoFU/v-deo.html
There was a big competition between the USSR and the West, therefore to this day its very hard to find unbiased opinions. Dont treat mine as unbiased, stay sceptical, stay curious ;)
As a western European socialist it is scary how brainwashed I am about the USSR, now I wish it was still here because one thing I know for sure, capitalism isn't the answer
USSR wasn't an ideal country and it had its own problems which actually got really bad by the end of 1980-s when principles of Socialism had degraded. But if you compare e.g. 1970-s and 1990-s you'll see that 90% of population was driven into utter poverty and thus life in USSR looked like paradise from 1990-s. Since 1991 the country is plunging into sh@t deeper and deeper. I am afraid within next few years we will see the final act of that tragedy. Hopefully, it is gonna be only Russia and a handful of other countries like Ukraine and Belarus who gonna suffer but not the whole humankind. I feel sympathetic towards Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, etc but unfortunately it's consequences they have to deal with. I was ready to defend my country from Yeltsin's dictatorship in October 1993, in June 1996, in August 1998 - Google what happened that time in Russia - but people of Russia were so passive that nothing could be changed.
@@GetFochD brainwashed?
OTOH people will tell those stories of the good old times regardless of where they live, and regardless of how good those old times actually were.
@@ShinyProspect Brainwashed accuse others in being brainwashed. In a nutshell. A few thousand years ago we had a socioeconomic formation called tribalism. Then it changed to slavery (which was actually a huge step forward). Then, ~1000 years ago it changed to feudalism (which was another huge step forward), and finally 500 years ago feudalism changed to capitalism (which was another huge step forward). My timeline is more related to Europe as other regions and even particular countries have their own timelines. Anyway what makes me wondering is that why people think that capitalism is the final formation. In 1967 Karl Marx published the first volume of his book "Das Kapital" where explained fundamental problems of capitalism and that they could be resolved by moving to socialism. Russia tried to build socialism and it was very interesting and valuable experience. Strictly speaking it failed but without going into getails (briefly, by 1980s socialist principles in USSR degraded almost completely) we can say that it was successful cause it was the first attempt. E.g. it took capitalism 300 years or so to become a dominant system in the World. Why do you think socialism should work straight away ? Especially taking into account that socialism is much more complex system.
This was an excellent (and impressively nuanced) overview of the Soviet economy. I was very impressed.
Please make that video about Chinese views of the USSR.
I'd love to see that video.
@@concept5631 It would be fascinating. Apparently how the USSR collapsed is a big topic of study in the CCP cadre training school.
@@domtweed7323 I'd imagine China would want to avoid that by any means necessary.
@@concept5631 Yes, exactly.
@@concept5631For example by releasing a deadly virus to stifle competition from the West🤔
This is well done. A subject matter I never fully exposed myself to but subconsciously always wondered.
I was born in the Soviet Union in 1973 and lived there for 17 years, a few months shy of its collapse in August of 1991. From my personal experience, from people around me, my peers and stories in the streets I have concluded that human beings need incentive to strive and to prosper. This was evident back in the Soviet Union where you were paid the same regardless of how well you worked and this is evident in the west today in the form of malicious compliance to authoritarian bosses and work environments. Yes, the Soviets accomplished alot in many spheres but it was done in a rough, crude, forceful manner and many real successes came from actually going against the system in such fields as science and technology. Thank you so much for your quality work!
"Malicious compliance" - Oh yes, I am afraid this is more evident by the day.
I think diversity matters in an economy. So some large private or shareholder owned corporations, some co-ops, natural monopolies like energy owned jointly by customers, workers & govt who elect a CEO; small business, etc.
you got benfits if you were a hard worker, guess the economie was really in the shit when you entered the work force.
@@durfdurffigan8680 Nah, you got nice stuff if you were well connected and for example had a buddy at a store to inform of shipments and maybe set aside the stuff that always ran out.
Someone who hasn't worked a day in Soviet Union talks about how work there was paid, really?...
Soviet economy was extremely different in different decades.
A sick social experiment by true believers.
@@thursoberwick1948 unlike capitalism, duh
@@OliverFlinn Whataboutery is not a defence.
@@OliverFlinn ... it's also not a binary choice between two abusive and materialist systems as KM claimed.
@@thursoberwick1948 its not whataboutism. Both systems are fucking dogshit. But, in theory, communism is the best possible choice
I read a paper written by a college student, pretty much saying that during the early years until the 70's the USSR had a limited free market. Small shops and medium size manufacturing. Such as consumer goods like furniture, clothing, etc. Heavy industry was obviously nationalized. But, even in the 70's when it was banned a lot of the old owners would create "co-ops" as a way to hide what it really was. Not 100% sure how true it is though. I'd have to read through it Gain and check some sources.
If that is true ot would have been under kruschevs reign. Under Stalin noone would've dared try to do something like that. Stalin would never allow enterprices not owned by the government to spring up
From the 20th congress of the CPSU (1956) onward the economy became veeery different from the kind of economy that "build" the soviet union
@@WurrzagsMorkyMischeif and what is an «artêlj»? Ah. The thing that was fought against during corn man time, Chruŝôv. But, obviously, you know better, after all you even understand how to write this languge better than I, right?
Yes, there was a transfer period of New Economic Policy, and then a lot of consumer goods were produced by cooperative enterprices, such as almost all toys and about 40% of furniture. Even the horrible terrible collective farms were, well, collective and operated on the same conditions, selling their production on the local fairs as well as to the state for fixed prices.
@@SMT-ks8yp The New Economic Policy began in 1919 and ended in 1923. This "paper by a college student" got its dates wrong by almost exactly 50 years!
The US policy of “containment” of the USSR stemmed from several factors. For one thing, there was indeed a “Communist International” emanating from Russia devoted to the international spread of Communism. Another factor was the US government’s belief that the USSR’s economy would necessarily require Roman style conquest of other countries in order to sustain itself.
"Another factor was the US government’s belief that the USSR’s economy would necessarily require Roman style conquest of other countries in order to sustain itself."
Literally capitalism
@@d3th2m3rikkka You must either be 18 years old or have the IQ of someone who is 18 years old.
@@d3th2m3rikkka edgy boi, I hope you feel good now for talking bullshit
@@d3th2m3rikkka uh no when has capitalist nations like Korea invaded anyone
"Literally capitalism"
No, thats not 'literally capitalism'. Thats possibly the most ridiclous description pf capitalism I've ever heard.
The US thought the communists where going to try and spread communisim internationally because thats literally what the communists where doing - many major communist figures wanted to make war on Europe to force them to become communist after the Bolshevik revoloution.
Suprisingly balanced, most videos about Soviet Union are either propagandistic horror shows or just as propagandistic hagiographies. Great work!
As for your thoughts at the end, funny enough I am happy to be born in Soviet satelite Polish Peoples Republic instead of pre-war capitalistic regieme. Thanks to it we now have free health care, higher education and industrialised country. Both my parents would have zero chances for social advancement in pre-war Poland, but in socialistic regieme got masters degrees despite being from poorest of pesantry. Authoritarianism was definitly bad, but overall socialistic legacy is mixed bag.
I guess its true,something good can be gotten out of a bad thing
Well, as someone born born and raised in Slovakia and now living in the Netherlands, I despise soviet invasion of my homeland. I feel that soviets stole a great future from under my feet. Of course, there was a sizeable gap in wealth between Netherlands and Czechoslovakia before WW2, similar to current gap in nominal gdps per capita. However, 41 years of communist rules caused deep scars on society that Slovakia is still reeling from today. It is not only about the lower income and less wealth, it is also about how people think and how the country looks. Most Slovak cities are hideous remnants of soviet planning. Delipidated roads are a result of culture where everyone is trying to grap as much money as possible. Corruption is rampant, as it was during socialism. You can either learn to live with all the bad things in post socialist countries, or move out and settle in a different country, thanks to the EU its dead simple.
@@jozefpavlik3195 yes the soviet invasion, fascism was the invader, communism was the liberator
As a Hungarian, I feel the same. Socialism solved the housing issue, gave free education, free healthcare. Nowadays, its a trend, to say only the negatives, while forgetting, that it actually had many benefits, just as every economic system.
Looks like "free" is just another word for "socialist" after all. In reality nothing is free of course, the cost of producing the services is just carried by the taxpayer collective, instead of the individual user.
Very nice Video. Showed me some new perspectives. Thank you
Very informative video, learned a lot from this 👍
This was very well done, I don't know much about economics but I understood fairly easily, thank you
Good points. Some of my family had their farming land taken away in the Soviet Union for not wanting to work on a commune. Some escaped, others were sent to Siberia with only what they could carry. Some died from starvation and the cold. The sad thing is I see similar government policies in the places they fled to.
Good
@@Stalin_Did_Nothing_Wrong Lot's of Soviets starved due in part of my family suffering. I guess something good did come out of it.
@@12vscience I can see the rabid fascism and genocidal tendencies did not fall far from the tree
"My family didn't want to lose their ability to exploit peasants and lose their profit motives" Fixed it for you.
@@matthewguess74Still thinking a 19th century philosophy from a slob grifter Marx is the answer almost 200 years later huh? Lot of folks just like you fill the unmarked graves, now that's a good commie.
All these are very informative - great work!
You made an interesting point early on when referring to conditions in Russia just prior to the revolution: “Things weren’t that much worse than everywhere else.”
The DIFFERENCE ended up being the Kaiser sending Lenin back to Russia WITH enough money to start a newspaper - which became Pravda(spelling).
That’s right, Imperial Germany, specifically Wilhelm II, started the most well known communist newspaper of the 20th century.
Any proofs of money receiving by Lenin?
Great vid.
The oil industry sucked in tremendous resources in roughly the '75-'85 period because not only did new wells need to be drilled, basically everything needed to support them had to be constructed as well - roads, railways, pipelines etc - as the new wells were east of the Urals in previously undeveloped areas.
The guy in charge of this mega project BTW was the same person as the guy played by Stellan Starsgard in the TV series "Chernobyl".
Ah yes. Comrade Scherbina…
Hi great video.
I am also looking for more detailed information on the economic system. I learned that factories had to manage budgets (so not a complete "command economy), sales, with subsidies. I would like to know more about the management of soviet companies, how the public projects were run, how the political power interfered.
Regarding the technological gap, how about the importance of specialization, as it happened in the West (US, Europe and Japan sharing technologies through commerce) but not possible with USSR which had to invent everything (technologies and management methods) although they did a lot of industrial espionage?
Poor USSR and it's socialistic satellites... With population of over half a billion people and limitless natural resources, socialism wasn't able to stay competitive to "western" world.
@@ivoivanov7407 The USA and Western Europe still had more population, more technologies at the start of the USSR and control over the resources of the rest of the world (South America, Africa and most of Asia) with a lot of access to warm seas.
I am not defending the USSR and communism, it is just a fact that it started over a more backward country than the West.
Good thinking, good approach. 99% of the people here expressing their opinions have no idea what they are talking about, merely repeating something they heard on tv 20 years ago.
there isnt a whole lot more to know really. basically it was just like today, where the managers mismanaged often due to acquiring their positions through inheritance rather than merit. the way the world was back then really couldnt provide the environment for anything but top down economies to happen. we still only have top down economies but the means for intelligence is available to enough people now that there isnt any reason to keep things that way. especially if we want to become a space travelling species instead of a "look how much shiny toys i have to play with until i collapse my environment with entirely wasteful behavior" species
USSR had peoples that receive good education in Russian empire, also infrastructure. Without this Soviet industrialisation wasn’t be possible
A Few Other Key factors:
The Demographic impact of WW2: While USA benefited from the post war Baby Boom that undergirded the economic growth of the second half of the twentieth Century, USSR and Russia today struggled to cope with the impact of depopulation with around 20million Soviet deaths during WW2.
The Devastation of all Industry 1914-21 and WW2: WW1 devastated Western Imperialist Russia. The Civil War impacted nearly the entire country, it was a mobile war that carried devastation to all industrial regions. WW2 completely annihilated European Russia. Germany not only stripped Russian Factories and Infrastructure of anything or worth, they enacted a scorched earth policy of destroying all infrastructure and salting/poisoning agricultural lands as they retreated.
Capital and the impact of Bretton Woods: Bretton Woods established the US Dollar as the primary and near exclusive mode of international trade. While Western Europe and the US Economy could rebuild with ready and cheap access to US Dollars, the USSR and Eastern Bloc was restricted and did not have anything like the supply of Capital the Western Industrialised economies had.
A key factor you forgot : the soviets also implemented the scortched earth policy in 1941 - 1942 when the german attacked
@@Spido68_the_spectator what is the difference if it was soviets or Germans? You are right but why make the point. OP was just making the point that the scorched earth did damage. And Germans definitely did more damage than Russians to their own land. So I guess yeah they did do it while retreating but USSR moved factories to east and didn’t try to annihilate their own land rather just deny Germans access. Germans wanted to completely destroy
Well he did fail to mention that the USSR stripped occupied territories of most of their heavy industrial infrastructure (things like rolling stock, tooling machines etc) at the end of the war, so they still managed to get loot of their own in the end to mitigate what Germany stole.
Yes, very important factors.
USSR economy was devastated after WWII but had to produce similar amounts of military good (tanks, planes, etc) as USA. Also, sponsor nations in Eastern Europe (also much more devastated by the war than Western Europe, domain of USA) and parts of Africa/Asia.
But USSR economy was in worse shape, and with similar expenses - it couldn't do it all and develop after WWII.
Why does a communist countfy need "capital"?
Unsustainable imports of food and consumer goods using hard currency from unrelaible oil exports? Sounds awfully familiar.
Greetings from Venezuela.
YIKES!
great video - much more deeper than the other video from the other channel as you mentioned!
Can I ask you for the sources you used? I've been looking for a balanced historical account of the Soviet economy.
ua-cam.com/video/zTDvLmEBESY/v-deo.html
I was quite familiar with what he says in the video because I have read about it on Quora. Numerous experts write on a variety of Soviet Union-related topics there. I believe he got it from there or got it in part from experts who also write there
John 3:16
King James Version
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Amen 🙏!!
@@emmanuelgabion2534 Quora isn't exactly a source of trusted information.
@@reclusiarchgrimaldus1269 It's hilarious when someone with their internet handle "A-10 Warthog" - by any and all accounts a weapon of murder, quotes some dumb ass section of the bible about giving life. I can only assume this is a joke and not a serious cultist, because surely even the smoothest of christian brains would realize the problem.
Great video, really appreciate your thoughts!
While this video does a good 17-minute breakdown as to the history, I think Basic Economics does a really good job of breaking down the long-term failure. Mind you, at a quarter hour short of a full day's runtime, it has plenty of opportunity to go into detail a great number of times, but the examples therein are incredibly eye-opening.
The Soviet Union had a ton of great minds. This is true, no doubt. But an economy is always changing, and there's no degree of static knowledge that is going to "cut it" in perpetuity. Even thousands of brilliant minds cannot win out over millions of vendors, suppliers, workers, employers, and consumers making and adjusting their economic decisions across millions of different possible fields.
For what it's worth, the Soviet Union lasting 75 years needs proper context. Marx described the American economy, at just over the 150 year mark, as being in "late capitalism", its final stages. That economy has survived and even thrived in the 80 years since that announcement. Essentially, an economy run by a disparate mass of private actors has been dying for longer than its centralized, organized replacement existed from birth to death.
From what i believe, desperation causes inspiration. Less likely to waste anything you have.
Hungarians didnt have computers, when they got smuggled in, people had to use Floppy discs and they were VERY RARE so you couldnt get rid of a disc if it broke.
You had to work around it.
Thus hungary had some of the best IT when Hungary joined the west
The USA would have had revolution were it not for the progressive reforms. Marx did not account for capitalists making just enough concessions for people to think things were still running smoothly.
Late stage capitalism? They where just getting started 😂
Just watched this after having watched a lot of your recent videos and you've improved noticeably in your editing/speaking since this video :)
I appreciate you for giving a down to Earth, calm and professional explanation for the average Joe. There's just too much clickbait mainstream political manure, this was a breath of fresh air.
thanks for this, great video
Thank you for this one. I've listened to a few videos on the Soviet economy, and I appreciate your balanced and simple overview looking at it.
God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)
Excellent video. I'd just say one thing: when you said oil going from $3 a barrel to $12 a barrel "was a big thing back then", it would still be a big thing now. You're thinking about it as rising $9 in price, which isn't a big deal, but you should instead think of it like this: in a matter of days, oil prices *quadrupled* , that kind of price change would scare anyone straight.
To put it in perspective, Brent Crude was trading at $98 a barrel when I was writing this. Imagine that price going to just under $400 without warning and in the span of just a few days. People the world over would drop dead of heart attacks the moment they heard it.
This was an interesting video if I could make a suggestion can you make a video about the Warsaw part members and former soviet union's transition from communism to capitalism. Thanks for all the amazing videos you put out
I've just looked at the rest of your videos, your workload, work-pace and quality are honestly amazing.
Please add subtitles for every video, as a non native in english is easy to follow what are you saying if there is subtitles. It will increase the QoL of many viewers.
My friend, almost all vids in UA-cam carry subtitles, Asianometric's as well. Just activate them clicking in the icon with "cc" in it
Thank you for this wonderful video. Very objective and in depth.
A better made analysis than the popular youtube channel that is referenced. *Cough* Economics Explained *cough*
Thanks for sharing this insight.
Only from Asianometry would I not have expected the answer to be "cuz Socialism, 'Murica won yeeeeehaaaaw". Good job!
Lol. Something like that only applicable to East and West Germany, or North and South Korea. Same people, same culture, living in similar geographical situation, and, above all, same starting point.
So why East Germany and North Korea lags behind West Germany and South Korea? Cuz communism sucks, capitalism FTW yeeeeeehaaaaw. Lol.
Yeeeeehaaaaaw!
@@ihl0700677525 It is important to only compare countries with similar histories, this is something that pretty much everyone misses. However, even with this there are some elements you are missing. First, in the case of Germany: 1. Before World War 2 West Germany was already significantly more developed than East Germany. This does not only deal with infrastructure (much of which was destroyed in the war), but also education of workforce and skilled labour. 2. East Germany had harsher war reparations to pay compared to West Germany. 3. West Germany had more access to both a greater number of trading partners and more advanced trading partners than East Germany did. These 3 factors alone can easily explain differences in wealth by the 1990s of the 2 regions. Even with this East Germany was still one of the richest countries of the world (relatively speaking). Secondly, not all communisms/socialisms are the same (just call them planned or command economies). For example the system and decisions in East Germany, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba may all be very different from each other. It doesn't matter what system you have, if it is led by a bumbling dictator with too many psychopathic traits the results may not be very good in the end. At that point less of the blame is on economic system, and is more of a matter of lack of rule of law.
@@ajones3038 One party state... authoritarian regime
@@Kabodanki Authoritarian / one party state status does not determine the prosperity of a country. It is more complex than that.
This is UA-cam at its best. Thank you asianometry.
4:39 you said that the soviet economy was starved of capital but soon after you said stalin heavily invested but where this capital came from?
Stalin basically turned lural areas to an internal colony and then took all crops,then exported them to get hard currency.Those who resisted were labeled as culaks and enemies of the people and there were send to the gulags to be used as free labor.Then he used the hard currency to buy machinery and pay foreign experts to teach Soviets how to use it.Because of the Great Depression there were many Westerners willing to sell equipment to the Soviets,especially American firms.
@@Arhiroukounas Which is exactly how the capitalists expropriated the peasants in the Enclosures and the Laws of Settlement which regulated the movement of people within the United Kingdom.
There actually wasn't so much difference between of capitalism and that of the Soviet Union. Certainly not as much as capitalist apologists would like everyone to believe.
"Many eighteenth-century commentators and some historians, have argued that this system of settlement and removal effectively restricted the movement of working people, tying them to a single parish and contributing to the exploitation of their labour by local employers. Adam Smith expressed a common elite concern when he lugubriously declared: "There is scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who has not in some part of his life felt himself most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived law of settlements".9 Many later historians of the poor law have largely agreed, or recast the issue in terms of judicial oversight and control of pauper migration."
www.londonlives.org/static/Settlement.jsp
What an awesome and ballanced video with very good conclusion!
Thanks!
I don't know, I think I watched the same 'other video' as you did, and I feel like it provided several pretty heavy predictors based on incentives, ones that have pretty much been borne out in how the soviet economy developed and collapsed.
In particular I feel it did a very good job in rooting the soviet union back in the medieval past and how the peasantry in russia took a disastrous turn in comparison with their counterparts in the west; feudalism ending in europe definitely had its benefits in encouraging bottom up innovation.
And I think that it really had predictive power even heading on to the present. The russia/ukraine debacle is a simple measure of how poorly information is flowing in the russian economy, and how much of a western lifeline has been given to russia. The fact that these theoretical principles can be directly applied just points to their validity. An economy's life blood is its flow of information and its ability to self-correct - get too top-heavy and things go out of whack; get too decentralized and things can get out of whack as well. Its a delicate balance that needs to be kept, and the soviet union definitely did a bad job of it.
Totally agree - in fact I think that “other video” led me to this - I feel both presentations are excellent but this one more optimistic and paints it all a little too positive. Lifting a society out of poverty always makes your numbers look good as the rate of change is impressive… but what next? And that’s where it all failed. Rapid improvement at the start of any initiative, like anything is always easier as your starting base is so low. Collectivisation was an absolute unmitigated disaster and the holodomor a man made famine. Totally disgraceful and crime against humanity; 2-6million people literally starved who were the same folk producing the grain itself that Stalin then sold off to the west to find industrialisation. How was that a success?
@@drgeorgek What is the "other video" that is referenced if I may ask?
@@Mineav I’m only assuming here - as only clues were provided - but I think it was this: ua-cam.com/video/S3Jkqqlpibo/v-deo.html
@@drgeorgek Thanks, I think that's probably it as well. Almost finished watching it, and I think both videos add good perspectives with a lot of truth in the subject matter. This one is a little more indepth though, and found it more interesting because of all the details.
@@drgeorgek if you still interested in the topic you might want to try a youtuber call hakim spesifically ua-cam.com/video/nGm0u3UHDZM/v-deo.html
Suddenly, this video is getting very relevant.
Two questions:
1. Where did you get your numbers on pre-WWI incomes and economic composition in different countries? I'm looking for some sources for my own research and I'd love some pointers.
2. What is that picture at 11:45 representing America's "military-industrial complex"?
It's Foster City, California
@@haha69sexnumber interesting... Looks like it has nothing to do with the defense industry then, am I right?
@@wilsonli5642 Wikipedia says it's part of Silicon Valley so it could be Defense involved
Great video, very informative,
At its basis was coercion just like in all socialist countries.There was never any referendum as to whether anyone even wanted socialism.What a disaster on every level at least for the people.
excellent work
That's actually wrong. Soviets invested two times more money and resources into agriculture than into the military, and still they had to import food from the 1973 just not to starve do death. That's how inefficient the collective agriculture was
What a good nuanced video!!
their massive housing program is something to admire
Honestly I love their housing program, sure there could be improvements like housing quality, public transportation connections and others but the overall layout and idea is fantastic.
Many things are to admire but we're not allowed to do so in the free world 🤫
Admire their housing.. have you ever been to Russia and witnessed their soul sucking concrete tombs aka apartments? If you admire that, you should move there, be great for you.
There housing are depressing as fuck
What a great channel!!!! Congratulations!
Good video, but I didn't hear you mention one of the key problems USSR faced after WWII. As a direct result of the Bretton Woods Conference the Soviet Union's currency, the ruble, was no longer accepted by the Western powers. Their money became practically worthless and couldn't be used directly to purchase dollars, or other Western currencies.
All those rich people don't want to see a real socialist country do good, because then in the west we start looking at the burgeois with weird eyes
That applied equally to British Sterling and all other currencies. All countries, even today, need a $ supply to trade in commodities
@@GetFochDNo one is stopping your socialist paradise. You can start your own commune any day you want. Then you'll understand why Westerners that want things like food clothes and not being cleansed for "wrong thinking" don't engage in your 19th century slob philosophy.
@@GetFochDnah they cannot do good even with all the resources they have
really good. thank you!
I don't think it's controversial to say command and control economics doesn't work, at least efficiently. Especially at a large scale. I mean even most corporations gave it up internally for more liberalism and a hands off approach. But honestly it sounds good. If we didn't study history one might even think of it as a scientific approach to economics, yet in practice it just doesn't work.
That's the sort of nonsense people get taught in schools. There is always a balance in managing large organisations - whether states or private corporations - between centralised coordination and local autonomy, with the optimal balance varying wildly between industries and circumstances. Fighting wars takes mostly central control. Educating your population takes (somewhat unintuitively) mostly central control to get it out of the hands of uneducated parents. Surprise, surprise those were two areas where the Soviet Union proved spectacularly competent.
It is much more complex question than "command and control economics doesn't work" - if that was so how come the Soviet Union was seen as such a threat?
Great video, you do great overviews that are to the point.
I’m interested to know more about how the monetary system worked during this time period. Did the Soviet Union create their own money or did they borrow from international bankers? How did the central bank work in relation to the government? Did they use a gold or silver standard or was it fiat?
Thanks for this video. I really enjoy a lot.
Nice conclusion 👌
If you ever feel like making a video on the economic recovery of the Eastern European countries after the Cold War, I'd be grateful!
Very good, realistic, sober and nuanced.
It would be really interesting to see an economic comparison between the Soviet Union and CCP China between 1920 and 1970. Both countries had huge population bases capable of innovation, both got pummeled by WWII, both governments committed horrible atrocities against their own people, and both instituted highly destructive policies. But it seems like the Chinese people suffered worse and ended up poorer. Is this actually the case? Did they start out poorer? Was the CCP of that era more 'effective' in crushing feedback mechanisms that insure against humanitarian & economic disasters?
Simple. Soviet has large natural resources reserve compare to it's population. China is the opposite, large population with limited resources. Soviet made lots of money by selling oil to the West especially during 70th oil crisis era.
Different stages of development. Post-feudal Rossijskaâ Impêriâ versus the century of absolutely normal business policies in what you call China.
Interesting question.
In Stephen Kotkins excellent biography of Stalin, he describes USSR as getting something for the enormous brutality of Stalin's collectivization of the land campaign: the money to buy factories, machine tools and expertise with which to industrialize the USSR on a large scale in a handful of years.
And that industrialization allowed USSR to defend itself from German invasion in 1941, and then beat Germany along with the Brits and United States in 1945. But the largest part of the job of breaking the Germans was done by the USSR and the weaponry that was the product of that industrialization, even though the Brits and United States added markedly to that by supplying military equipment to USSR.
China, by contrast, kept huge numbers of Japanese troops occupied before and during WWII, but didn't defeat the Japanese in that war.
Perhaps these are measures of the differences between USSR and China during that period.
Good narration.
Which was the developing country that grew faster then the ussr?
japan
but no one can beat USSR economic downfall
great video!
Goes to show that just because it sounds nice doesn't mean it's actually good
Their entire history in a nutshell. It often became better when it moved away from its "ideals".
Short but sweet. Thanks.
One of the issues I've never seen discussed is that the Soviet Economy really couldn't generate speculative investment credit in the way that Capitalist economies do, so they were always quite limited in investment terms.
exactly. The soviet economy quite literally had to come up with new capital in the form of new land and people. Capital generation is very important and that’s partly why to sustain itself it consistently expanded its borders
On the contrary, the Soviet economy suffered from drastic overinvestment which caused enormous diminishing returns. The Soviets were simply pissing money at problems to solve issues instead of increasing efficiency
@@KaiserFranzJosefI drastic overinvestment in the wrong things in other words?
@@MrLukealbanese When an economy cannot stimulate intensive growth. I.e increase productivity and resorts to simply continuing extensive growth, when none is really possible, it is basically pissing away money. I'm not gonna presume to understand what Soviet planners thought they needed to invest in but one can certainly say whatever investments they were doing weren't working by the late 1960s. Agriculture received a gigantic investment and returned basically none of it. A characteristic feature of these investments is the preference for horizontal development as opposed to the more complex and somewhat abstract vertical development. So the Soviets would quite easily build a massive industrial park but usually failed to make it more efficient
Thank you for this video
I think Brazil is not that far a parallel for the Soviet Union from this point of view, but for us liberalization was even worse economically than the exhaustion of the early push for modernization. We have started to de-industrialize and fall into the resource trap after that, partly because of a lack of planing and foresight. Similarly, I think one could say that the soviet leadership did lack understanding and foresight, although their ideological trap was of an entirely different nature.
I'm from Colombia but I'm just confused on how to compare the success/failure of Soviet system with Latin American system. Even though we live and have lived in harsh conditions, things have gotten much better over time, and we have never experienced brutalities as massive wars, extreme famines, or hardcore political repression. Even Pinochet was an angel compared to Stalin. Colombia has a long history of war and internal conflict due to American drug trafficking, but death toll is at much 250.000 people (a third of them at hands of guerrilla fighters), but not 6, 10, 30 million deaths.
This gonna sound idiotic, but maybe communism is bounded to fail from the start, because "capitalists" will try their best to stop it, and communist leaders will try their best to overcome those challenges, which leads us into hunger, militarization and repression. Communism might work in an isolated system but not in real life, or we will need the capitalist elite to become communist which is what's happening with Joe Biden, from qanon perspective.
Or China, from a more realistic perspective. China has already the highest GDP PPP in the planet. Let's see what happens.
The world wars and the cold war hurt communism a lot but they also were flawed in their own way
Brazil and the USSR are cases so far removed, i dont understand how you can begin to compare them.
@@MAM-pd9mx how is Joe Biden a communist lmao
@@MAM-pd9mx acabas de decir que en latinoamérica "no han habido demasiadas" hambrunas, dictaduras terribles y guerras???? Bro eso lo dirás porque eres de Colombia y ya estás insensibilizado xdd perdón por el chiste latam pero realmente no creo que ha latam le hayan valido la pena todas las dificultades que ha tenido en el siglo 20 si se supone que lo que hay ahora es la recompensa xd
Well presented! I'm no fan of the Soviet union or it's horrific legacy, but it's nice to see a nuanced look into the workings of it all without "communism BAD" being screamed in your ear every 5 seconds.
True but what can you take away from this video other then "Communism VERY bad". I mean, I knew the soviets handled things in a sloppy way, and leveraged their power to cover their asses when need be, but WOW...
Golden Point - The price of oil affects all prices and the cheaper Oil is, the good it is for the whole economy.
Your best video, among plenty of good ones, in my opinion. ^^ Thank you.
I wonder, you sound American but are interested in Asia. Have you ever been to Asia or are you living there or are you of Asian descent? What piqued your interest in this region initially? And what are your main fields of expertise? Are you a historian or economist? :)
PS: Sorry if I appear prying; I don't mean to. I am just very curious. One doesn't see an American well-versed in past and present across the ocean everyday. :)
I live in Asia, yes. Thanks for watching!
He is a Tawainese educated in the west
Americans are just as educated as anyone else on the past and present. Go ask a random French person about deep Russian or Chinese history and he'd know nothing about it either. Unless, of course, specifically interested in it, which is the same for an American as it is for a German or anything else etc.
I think the economy of the Soviet Union can be looked at not from an ideological point (whether pro or anti communist) but from a perspective that encompasses all the nuances of the economy and how it affected Soviet people.
Agreed. The Soviet Union was the first socialist experiment and communist movement on a state level. It's intellectually dishonest to point out failures of the Soviet Union and attribute them to socialism or communism. There are many forms of socialism, and many of their failures can be attributed to post-Stalin revisionism.
You're actually wrong about the command economy in 1918 and the NEP being new in 1921. See Lenin's 'The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government', which does not argue for a command economy, but rather the restoration of the economy after the war and revolution, improvement of technique, the use of bourgeois experts etc. It was the civil war that enforced war communism, the command economy, grain requisitions etc, it was not a political choice.
Later, after the civil war, the same policy was resumed, with private businesses operating as before, but with the establishment of ever larger cooperative wholesale and retail organisations that slowly edged out the capitalists from agriculture with competition. Much the same happened in industry, which was dominated by small commodity producers all the way up to the end of NEP, though the commanding heights and large-scale industries were in public hands, but not being operated as the keystone of an overarching plan. All these producers were gradually forced out of business by competition from large-scale publicly owned enterprises.
Added on edit: the five year plan was not Stalin's idea. It was the result of lengthy discussions in the party, trade unions, soviets and all parts of organised society.
thank you
I mean sure there may have been discussion about the five year plan but like everything in stalinist russia it was his dessision to make. Others may have had problems with the plan or thought it was'nt gonna work but if Stalin wanted it then it happened, those disagreeing would've been wise to shut their mouths and not disagre with him, because that was a good way to catch a bullet. And also communism was supposed to start with capitalism before transitioning to communism. I find it ironic that communism hated capitalism yet knew it needed it to actually function
@@WurrzagsMorkyMischeif Stalin wanted contested multi-party candidates in elections, but was defeated in a vote of the Politburo. So why didn't he simply kill his opponents and impose it? Because he didn't have arbitrary power, as you imagine he did.
You think that because it is what you've been told by propaganda. And while you have obviously not bothered to investigate this yourself, you retain utter certainty that you are right! However, you are not right, not at all!
What great videos!!!!!!
Oil per barrel went from 3 to 12….back then that mattered. Still does. Sure going up 9$ wouldn’t do too much now but if it quadrupled say from where it is now ~130 to 520$ per barrel then there would be war.
Thank you for this!
It would be interesting to compare the social situation of the Soviet Union and other starting communist countries like China and smaller communist countries (that actually were trying to get to communism and not just installed new people) to understand better the much higher success of the Soviet Union compared to other countries
Edit: things like educated people, specialists I don't really know tbh that's the thing here
USSR had scientific base and infrastructure from Russian empire. Stalin had railways to transport all needed to build factories and scientists to develop them. Mao in China didn’t have this
For such a short video, its a very nice and balanced overview. I get really annoyed with sensationalist videos with some anecdotes about inefficient planning. The story you tell here is very well founded in the political and historical factors. Well done 👌
I like your video but I have to disagree on your try of a rebuttal to the Soviet Union overlooking important economic principles.
The Soviet Union did fail exactly because this and you even brought the examples. In the early phases of the soviet union incentives did exist (pure terror, excitement for a new society, special trophies and gifts for high productivity) but ultimately these failed.
There simply was no incentive to close down bad running companies / industries, no investors wanting to make money and investing in new industries, nobody you could complain to about the bureaucracy and simply speaking wealth was binary - you were either successful and had your own house, car and western goods or you belonged to the 98% of the population who didnt. Very few incentives to grow and none to for the rich and powerful to go beyond their current status.
After the early (forced) successes simply the Soviet Union stopped really exploring its potential and every new year the difference to the West grew.
My grand uncle build wartburg cars in Eastern Germany (the highest quality communist cars) and they started out good but by the 80s where simply outclassed in every regard. He said that even some small changes every engineer in the plant knew where necessary couldn’t be implemented since the deciders had no incentive to change anything.
i tend to agree.
the real slapping a sticker on things is saying it was built on sound economic principles without any details.
@@mcs699 or he's playing the middle of the road fallacy, finding baseless nice things about the soviet union just to seem more nuanced and fair
Great video, but you have to do something with the background noise from the computer.
The main point you fail to address on the soviet/socialis/marxist economy is that without a market system, error accumulation in capital investment never gets resolved (because none of the actors finds any benefit in admitting wrong) and that toxicity ends up eventually affecting every aspect of the economy. When they where trying to catch up to the west by coppy-pasting what the market had shown to actually work in the west, everything was super efficient and streamlined. As soon as they had to figure out what worked or not without market forces, the system was done.
Excellent explanation, thank you!
Interesting that the fall in oil prices destroyed the economy of the USSR. I had always accepted the view that the Soviet spending on the arms race was what bankrupted them.
Those famous 8,9 per cents of annual post war GDP that bankrupt countries.
You simply cannot compare the pseudo post-colonial world with the periphery and say «the latter guys just need jEkonomikal iniciative». Simply compare the lenght of the railroad systems of US-of-A and ÛSSR. Don't see a difference?
Major events are never monocausal - the arms burden was a strain on the system but without other big strains would not have caused collapse. They were spending a lot more of the national income on arms in the 1960s, when they were at their fastest growing, than in the 80s when living standards started to fall. The line that it was Reagan's arms buildup that did it is pretty much pure Republican propaganda.
Collectivization and heavy militarization are THE two key reasons for the regime's collapse. It is extremely clear when talking with old people.
Another interesting video with pictures and pacing that I really enjoy. The "We all should learn from it instead of slapping a sticker on it and calling it a dud". So true.
However, like your comment on watching someone else's video about the subject, I find myself at a loss on some aspects.
The intertwining of economics and social manipulation by those with the most power was not really touched upon to the extent I think it deserved, and the related emotional manipulation control of the education and "publicly" available sources has a strong influence on the economic paths that leaders chose. How information is controlled is perhaps the most major force to this day of how people and the economies are controlled and seeing that evolution in Russia over the centuries would have been extremely interesting.
Perhaps China, I mean the CCP, could learn much from that.
Yeah we should learn from communism, learn the great failings of it and make sure that humainty never plunges into such a deep pit of moral, social , political and economical repression and depravity ever again
Hey I am a huge fan of all your work, and I was wondering, what's the story with your channel image of the deer? Not quite able to tell if its a statue or if you were lucky enough to actually get close up to a deer... Or it could just be a stock image lolol? Just a curious question from a fan. Cheers!
Sika deer - easily get accustomed to people and will just come up and flirt, they also absolutely love photobombing. Hold on a sec, maybe he did a vid on these deer, you should check.
They were also economically and industrially subsidized by all Warsaw Pact satellite states
So my take away from this:
- The Soviet economy could have worked if they invested more in consumer goods.
- They should have planned more in modernisation their equipment.
- Sharing military technology to civilian sector are good. And don’t over invest in the military.
- Don’t rely on natural resources.
This is the first time I see a non academic Soviet economy video without the usual anti communist/socialist bias. A rare one.
Well if you understood the video then you already know communism is bad. Jesus I can't believe it's controversial to even say that
@@shreyvaghela3963 I am not trying to be politically correct. It just that I find blaming economic failures on political ideology alone overly simplistic. What I am interested in is the actual mechanics that resulted in the collapse. It is very hard to find non academic resources of this kind in English.
@@shreyvaghela3963 and i can't believe there are still morons in 2021 who claim communism is bad.
it still has some anti-communist bias but it's not the maker's fault. He does rely after all on western sources (and hence, considers a lot of lies and grotesque exaggerations as facts. In particular when he believes "millions" died in famines. Famines did occur, but such numbers were never reached, as the SU was doing whatever it could with the means it had to alleviate them, including rationing the whole country to provide food to the bad-harvest-stricken regions)
@@denxero literally genocide apologist lmaooo