Why the Soviet Union failed - my hypothesis

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This would be in the period after Stalin had been a declared ally of Hitler and supported his conquest of Poland etc in order to increase the Soviet sphere of influence, no? Stalin's regime, which was still sending goods trains TO Germany at exactly the same time as Hitler was sending Panzer divisions the other way? Western Europe was hardly likely to jump straight into bed with Stalin.

A degree of cynicism towards such a regime is not unsurprising. Yet despite this cynicism, the Soviet army still received thousands of tons of military equipment to prosecute their war against the Germans, from the west. Convoys crewed by Western European crews sailed through the worst of conditions to give the Soviets tanks. That certainly qualifies as "support" and quite a lot of it. The Normandy landings were a) in Normandy and b) a remarkably lucky rushed job in order to keep Stalin happy. That is pretty supportive in anyone's book.

However, in great part due to American pressure, huge chunks of Europe were surrendered up to the Soviets, not out of any military requirement, but wholly to keep Stalin "On Side". Turns out that the leaders of Western Europe were right to be cynical. Maybe they SHOULD have withdrawn their support?

Similarly, the most hardcore right-libertarians and capitalists seem to lack the empathy to see that not everyone wants to live in a society where money is the measure of everything, competition is encouraged even where the spirit of cooperation may be more advantageous for all parties, etc.

There are downsides to privatizing everything, commercializing every actvity and moment, and seeking to compete for ever more wealth and status. It degrades aspects like romance, art, science, etc.

The Soviet Union never achieved communism. It was a nasty mishmash of idiotic totalitarian viciousness and pandemic corruption combined with frightful inefficiency in vital basic economic sectors. I don't know if communism is a viable form of government. I don't know if capitalism is, in the long run. As communistic attempts always seem to end in nasty totalitarianism, so capitalism tends towards vicious plutocracy. Perhaps people cannot govern themselves sensibly.

If you wanted to be anyone you had to join the Communist Party. As a result, the Communist Party contained careerists, not communists. Later, some of them realised they could steal everything under market ideology so they ran with it.

It's the same problem China had that Mao identified, that is that a new ruling class would always crystalise and that revolutions like the Cultural Revolution ended up being necessary. This is destabilising and the Chinese authorities, protecting themselves, took a strong stand against such things.

A bit more honesty I think is necessary that there will be authorities, and to should be directed in a constructive, not a destructive way as it is under the comprador or fundamentalist free market models. It could be useful to have outlets for different kinds of beliefs in the system but make sure that a set of socialist principles be adhered to and to encourage mass participation to keep the authorities from deciding that they'll just plunder everyone.

Socialism ultimately depends on the ordinary people - progress was achieved through mass movements and society must strongly establish taboos against rapacious behaviour. In the USA, the promotion of Ayn Rand has taken things in the wrong way - rapaciousness is celebrated, greed is good, and things are slowly falling apart.

Stalin asked for help from western Europe to save Czechoslovakia, but Chamberlain was hoping that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union. So Stalin responded to this by approaching Hitler for the pact that gave the USSR time and space, particularly when considering the destructive behaviour in the form of the purge of generals that happened as a result of German intelligence activity and NKVD paranoia directed from Stalin himself.

I do agree. Unregulated capitalism is no better. I'm fairly content with the current system, though it does need some major overhauls and adaptations.

Viable human government puts certain basic demands upon individuals and this probably has more to do with tradition and culture than formal legal documents. When there is a sense of ownership of each participating individual in the proper function of government there is a reasonable chance that a decent government might evolve. It requires an intelligent and well informed citizenry, something that most if not all present governments attempt to prevent. In totalitarian states such as China the government can openly suppress awareness such as that which an open internet provides. In current democratic states the monstrous growth of secret operations under the false cloak of national security has done great damage to the openness required for good government and the threats against citizens who expose propaganda and outright lies of government and corporate attacks on proper government actions is an internal social infection that is rapidly destroying any semblance to a proper democracy. Beyond that, the plutocratic control of almost all sources of valid information and the wild distortions of truth by these institutions keeps the populace uninformed and stupid. Children are not properly educated to examine and analyze information as a moldable uninformed public is to the advantage of those in control. In the end, it all leads to disaster but in the interim those in control can lead a high life.

Money is the measure of everything. That's already a given. The next question is just how price insensitive we should be on certain things. The issue is that nobody has a limitless wallet, so we do have to account for things. (Note: I am not arguing against the perceived incommensurability of values so much as expressing a cynicism towards the practical incommensurability due to the necessity of a human willingness to engage in trade-offs)

Additionally, most libertarians are pro-cooperation in as far as I can tell. Libertarians are anti-government. However, often libertarian language of contracts is to see those as cooperative agreements. Libertarians also generally believe in freedom of association, which usually entails cooperative association.

Every activity and moment is to some extent commercialized. That doesn't mean anything about "competing for more wealth and status" though, as libertarians tend to be tolerant of various different desires.

Finally, I really kind of think that our normal socially liberal policies already make marriage into a market. Both parties are seeking the best mate they can get, and engaging in increasingly sophisticated and technical methods to find this, such as dating sites. Art has itself often been private, and used to glorify some patron, so I would think that open patronage with free expression of artistic talent would be an improvement. Even further, science itself has often been both practical, but also arbitrary, so I am not sure what gloriousness you are trying to pull on here.

Really, I don't see a real objection to libertarianism in your post NeantHumain. Rather, I get the feeling that you believe that libertarianism is a much crasser political philosophy than you like for being more relativist and practical on the "values", but frankly, I would think this same objection could be made by a social conservative with as much validity, despite the fact that we both disagree strongly with that social conservative's ideals as any bit relevant. As such, I have difficulty taking this kind of argument seriously, particularly given that you are jousting with a strawman.

EDIT/NOTE: I am not claiming that libertarianism has no values of its own, or anything else like that. Instead, libertarianism has its own romance to it, and usually is espoused by anti-authority personalities, who may not regard liberty as crassly. (Some probably do though, as some libertarian economists are more pragmatic on the matter)

Money may be the measure of everything you value. Evidently we have a different value set.

No, you just aren't getting my point. Really, deep down, we all are making trade-offs. These trade-offs are expressed in money. Also, deep-down, we aren't going to pay an infinite amount of money for anything. Maybe there are the few things that we'd die for, so they might count, but beyond that, generally, most values are really something we can actually measure in money and that we will trade in for money, even if this kind of accounting is perceived as crass.

It's not matter of being crass. It's a matter of basic value evaluation outside an exchange system. The value I put on quiet walk in the woods, observing birds and the outrageously beautiful colors of the fall foliage, the slightly sharp air, the scudding clouds in a blue sky and the deep understanding that my life is very limited and I delight in every moment left is not translatable into coin. I have no idea what might give you enjoyment but if it is on the market for you then that is a quite different value set.

Sand, that's poetic, but it is also BS. I mean, part of the reason you can say this is because you could croak at any moment anyway, which I say only because of death as an expression of an extreme sacrifice of economic resources. But, even then, if you had a great concern for others, economic value still would be relevant, if only for the sake of those other individuals. Really, a lot of what you say is just an expression of basic human framings of reality, which tend towards essentialism, but the issue is that these basic framings are also stupid, because essentialism is stupid. Societally, we cannot escape the problems of economic value. (which is the real point of relevance for my comment anyway) The reason being that individuals have many many desires, but resources are insufficient, so the great social problem has always been economizing.

Economic value has a good deal to do with availability and control and neither has much personal value absolutely. At the moment air is free here on Earth and is very basic and essential and nobody under normal experience pays to breathe. Incidentally, you also could croak at any moment but choose not to think about it. Human framings of reality are all anybody has unless he or she is not human. I am beginning to have doubts about you.

You mean the air is plentiful. However, people pay for all the rest. People even pay for the air. Just think about clean-air regulation, as that is just a matter of imposing costs on certain parties so that way your air can be cleaner. That's an economic trade-off. So is the trade-off to allow have a number of green areas to exist in the first place.

Right, or I could live 60 more years, and I would have to plan ahead for that.

By "human framings of reality", I was really referring to the basic intuitive ones, not the ones that we later developed.

People do not necessarily pay for all rewards. A pleasant day, a peaceful moment, an unexpectedly good lay, a melody caught as one passes a street musician, A beautiful woman seated opposite on a bus, a great cheap meal, - prices are determined by various contingencies and pleasures come and go. Life is full of unexpected delights and unforeseen horrors and money is not the universal in what really matters in all instances. Bean counters are a**holes.

No, it was not. Stalin was never an ally of Hitler- they signed a non-aggrssion pact which both of them had intended to buy time before their inevitable confrontation. But before this pact, Stalin was among the first leaders in Europe to recognize the threat posed by the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. He approached Western European leaders in France and England to propose a collective security arrangement to counter the Nazi threat. They scorned him. Seeing that he was on his own and would get no help from the West in defending the USSR against the Nazis, he then signed the non-aggression pact to give the Soviet Union some time to industrialize and build up a military.


This support came only after Western Europe had been defeated by Nazism and the Soviets were basically the world's last hope against German domination. Lend-lease by America went mostly to other powers than the USSR, even though the USSR did most of the real fighting against Hitler.


Not really surrendered. The Soviets liberated those areas from Nazism, and I don't think the inhabitants really realized at that point what they were in for under Stalinism.