# Did the USSR provide us with any lessons that aren't in the category of "don't try this at home"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 16, 2012, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072 "2012-02-16T22:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/41 "2012-02-17T18:25:17Z")
Modern China, for better or for worse. Despite economic liberalization and a relaxing of state intrusion in daily life, political structure is still entirely Leninist. The architecture of power is basically the same as Soviet Russia. That part has not changed. While private economic activity is allowed, it is by state permission and in service to the state to serve specific political aims. And in some ways, the modified formula works. They’ve achieved incredible economic results, and some pretty big social ones as well. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/42 "2012-02-17T18:34:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Which Russia **could not** have done, if it had had a free-market system between the wars. And it would not have been necessary in the first place if the Bolsheviks hadn’t hijacked the Russian revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/43 "2012-02-17T18:53:05Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > What, you mean if the Tsar had still been in place? Or under some potential democratic state? Because the tsar had his chance to run Russia in a world war, and having a good army and loyal populace turned out to be beyond his grasp. > > Ukraine would never have been loyal anyway, they always tried to gain independence if an opportunity presented itself. No lack of Stalin could have changed that. What might have changed would have been the industrialisation of Siberia, and therefore the availability of T34s. Or the presence of a high ranking ring of Commie spies in the Nazi high command, you get a lot more ideological communists willing to spy for you than ideological Tsarists. Exactly. Tsarist Russia didn’t have a loyal population and faced open revolt more than once. Loyalty to Stalin may have been based on fear rather than love, but he had a lot more loyalty than the tsars. Not that loyalty to the tsars wasn’t based on fear as well. As to ‘China-like levels of economic growth rates on the eve of the First World War,’ the Russian economy couldn’t handle the strain of war and collapsed. There were chronic shortages of ammunition and there weren’t even enough rifles to go around, leading to conscripts being sent into battle unarmed and told to pick up rifles from the dead. In the end large parts of the Russian army voted with their feet and deserted, mutinied or surrendered. Oh, and the [PPSh-41](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPSh-41). Everyone remembers the AK-47 but forgets the PPSh which was the visible symbol of being a Soviet client state before the AK took its place. Entering service in late '41, over 6 million were produced during the war. Contrast that with tsarist Russia not being able to provide 6 million rifles. ---
**Author:** ![aaaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@aaaa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaaa)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/44 "2012-02-17T18:55:27Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > I was with you until this, because [no you’re not](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked). If you’re going to pursue this unsubstantiated position then I’d argue that you’re a victim of your own state’s propaganda in a way not dissimilar to the Soviet’s population. Norwegian workers are more productive per hour but American workers produce more per year. American workers create more wealth per year than any other worker. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20572828/ns/business-world\_business/t/un-us-workers-are-worlds-most-productive/#.Tz6g2rRuAtU](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20572828/ns/business-world_business/t/un-us-workers-are-worlds-most-productive/#.Tz6g2rRuAtU) > [@](#): > > Norway, which is not an EU member, generates the most output per working hour, $37.99, a figure inflated by the country’s billions of dollars in oil exports and high prices for goods at home. The United States is second at $35.63, about a half dollar ahead of third-place France. > [@](#): > > The average U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in second at $55,986, followed by Luxembourg at $55,641, Belgium at $55,235 and France at $54,609. > [@](#): > > The U.S. employee put in an average 1,804 hours of work in 2006, the report said. That compared with 1,407.1 hours for the Norwegian worker and 1,564.4 for the French. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/45 "2012-02-17T20:00:35Z")
Oh crap, I forgot one of the best things about the PPSh-41. While the practical value of such a thing is debatable, the Soviets created [one of the coolest looking things ever](http://perso.charlyecho.com/88-mitrailleuses-ppsh-41-sur-un-tupolev-tu-2/) by modifying a Tu-2 bomber’s bomb bay and fitting it with 88 PPSh-41’s mounted at a 45 degree angle, each with a 71 round drum magazine. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/46 "2012-02-17T20:06:56Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Oh crap, I forgot one of the best things about the PPSh-41. While the practical value of such a thing is debatable, the Soviets created [one of the coolest looking things ever](http://perso.charlyecho.com/88-mitrailleuses-ppsh-41-sur-un-tupolev-tu-2/) by modifying a Tu-2 bomber’s bomb bay and fitting it with 88 PPSh-41’s mounted at a 45 degree angle, each with a 71 round drum magazine. Jesus. How long would it take to reload that thing? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/47 "2012-02-17T20:10:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Oh, and BTW, socialism or whatever you call what Hugo Chavez is trying out in Venezuela also seems to be working, at least to the extent that the people like it enough to keep re-electing him and his party, freely and fairly according to international monitors. FWIW. Well, as defined by modern conservatives, socialism is anything that is not laissez-faire capitalism. So, socialism is far superior to capitalism, if you accept their definition. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/48 "2012-02-17T20:16:19Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > That’s bullshit. Very few people in the US are actually starving or dying the poor have welfare programs and food stamps and so on and most of them are well enough to own a car and a TV and most homeless people in the sense of hoboes, beggars, and the like have intentionally chosen that lifestyle. Millions of Soviets starved to death in the Holodomor and similar famines caused intentionally or by Soviet stupidity. The Holodomir was a political thing, I made a distinction there. It was very dangerous to get on the political shit-list in Soviet Russia, but you know, things did get better in that respect when Stalin died. When the Soviet empire collapsed and gangsters started forcing people out of their homes so they could rent them at higher prices through tactics such as “brutality” a lot of Soviets found themselves wishing for the good old days. As for nobody forced out of their homes by capitalism … where have YOU been since, I dunno … 2008? ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/49 "2012-02-17T21:02:26Z")
I don’t want the digression on American productivity to continue in this thread so let’s just agree I’m wrong on this point. If I want to argue it again I’ll do it in another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/50 "2012-02-17T21:40:54Z")
Tetris. ---
**Author:** ![aaaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@aaaa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aaaa)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/51 "2012-02-17T21:46:52Z")
Didn’t the Soviet Union indirectly help a lot of technological advancements? What I mean is because the U.S. government (and other NATO countries) were always trying to be ahead of the USSR they spent a lot of money on inventing knew technologies, like basically everything made by ARPA/DARPA. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/52 "2012-02-17T22:00:12Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Oh crap, I forgot one of the best things about the PPSh-41. While the practical value of such a thing is debatable, the Soviets created [one of the coolest looking things ever](http://perso.charlyecho.com/88-mitrailleuses-ppsh-41-sur-un-tupolev-tu-2/) by modifying a Tu-2 bomber’s bomb bay and fitting it with 88 PPSh-41’s mounted at a 45 degree angle, each with a 71 round drum magazine. 😕 Is that supposed to . . . shoot bullets . . . at ground targets? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/53 "2012-02-17T22:03:59Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > And it would not have been necessary in the first place if the Bolsheviks hadn’t hijacked the Russian revolution. I dunno, Hitler, had he come to power in a non-Bolshevik-Revolution timeline, still would have wanted to destroy the nations of Poland and non-Communist Russia, just so a Greater Germany could be built on their bones (and all the Jews there exterminated) – _Ostpolitik_ was already an ancient tradition in Germany, and murderous racist imperialism was Hitler’s take on it. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/54 "2012-02-17T22:08:13Z")
Wasn’t the USSR and unfortunate but not unforeseeable result of Russian civilization? They’ve always gotten things done by treating each other like crap. (Would _you_ volunteer to be the boyar who pushed a translated Magna Carta under Ivan the Terrible’s nose?) Same with China. A civilization that was running farmers markets and restaurants back when the pyramids at Giza were vacant lots will always be capitalist. Years from now Communism will be remembered as a tough measure used to get organized and on an even footing with the West. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/55 "2012-02-17T22:12:35Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Same with China. A civilization that was running farmers markets and restaurants back when the pyramids at Giza were vacant lots will always be capitalist. Years from now Communism will be remembered as a tough measure used to get organized and on an even footing with the West. Funny thing, though, for most of Chinese history the dominant cultural-value narrative – Confucianism – denigrated commerce and merchants. Scholars and soldiers should rule, peasants/farmers/craftsmen are respectable contributors to society as economic producers, but merchants are parasites who don’t produce anything, or something like that. None of which prevented commerce from thriving in China at any pre-Communist time, AFAIK. (Other things, like war, might have at times prevented commerce from thriving, but not Confucian prejudice.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/56 "2012-02-17T22:30:05Z")
Seems to me the question is not whether China can be capitalist, or be anything else, but whether China can ever become a libertarian society in the . . . let’s call it the autonomist sense. The presumption that apart from taxes, a society’s claims on the individual are mostly negative (don’t do this or that) and anything not forbidden by law is permitted, and generally that there are legitimate limits on what government can and can’t do, there is a law above even the state and its rulers, and balances of power within government are good, balances between government and civil-society organizations independent of the state are good, etc., etc. Now, the idea that that government governs best that governs least is perfectly Chinese – Taoist – but, for the rest of it, whatever functions a Chinese government does or does not choose to perform, it never seems to be questioned that government can and will and legitimately may govern **absolutely.** And in a centralized fashion; federalism has never been a powerful concept in China, any government/dynasty that does not hold centralized national power is a dying one. And the existence of any civil society independent of the state is traditionally not encouraged. Might lead to rebellion. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/57 "2012-02-17T22:51:56Z")
The one thing that used to moderate the Emperor’s absolute power was the necessity of ruling through a bureaucracy of civil servants chosen for their depth of indoctrination with (as inferred from the depth of their knowledge of (as inferred from their facility at writing elegant commentaries thereon in ancient literary Chinese language and characters in the civil-service-exam booths)) the Confucian classics and Confucian ethics and values, including honesty and diligence in public service, benevolence to the people, etc. This also indoctrinated all the local-community leaders everywhere in China in these values, because only about 5% of the candidates ever passed an exam (only so many government jobs available) but all had spent years studying for it, and ex-exam-candidates had social prestige, etc. All in all it was a system that Western philosophers admired, at least back in the 18th Century. (In the 19th Century the Imperial-Confucian system started getting in the way of Westerners making money in China, and Western regard for it declined . . .) I wonder – seriously – has the Communist Party of China, at any time since 1949, performed any functions in any way similar or comparable, in Chinese society? Does anybody know? ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/58 "2012-02-18T00:47:42Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Oh crap, I forgot one of the best things about the PPSh-41. While the practical value of such a thing is debatable, the Soviets created [one of the coolest looking things ever](http://perso.charlyecho.com/88-mitrailleuses-ppsh-41-sur-un-tupolev-tu-2/) by modifying a Tu-2 bomber’s bomb bay and fitting it with 88 PPSh-41’s mounted at a 45 degree angle, each with a 71 round drum magazine. The best part is the way the article opens with “Le WTF du jour c’est…”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/59 "2012-02-18T02:27:28Z")
They’ve got to work that thing into a Bond movie sometime. Bond is on the tarmac under the baddie’s parked escape plane, holding a gun on him . . . Above Bond’s head, the bomb bay doors open . . . And he gives the biggest WTF?! look that ever crossed a Bond face since _Dr. No_ before running flat-out . . . ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072/60 "2012-02-18T02:27:54Z")
[Phage therapy.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy) > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Quite true. OTOH, no one but Stalin – that is, no system but Stalinism – could have saved Russia by shipping its entire moveable industrial plant east of German-occupied territory, and rebuilding a whole new industrial capacity and a whole new army from scratch > > And, if the Bolshevik Revolution or something like it had never happened, Hitler – assuming he comes to power in this timeline, without any triumphant Communism to provoke fascist reaction, and assuming he still wanted to expand the Reich eastward – would have been able to invade a substantially agrarian country with hardly any industrial plant at all. Stalinism **works,** if only the purpose of heavy-capital-formation – gets that done much faster, at any rate, than a free market would under similar circumstances. More or less what I was going to say. I’ve seen a Russian guy on another forum make that point; centralized planning and authoritarianism is quite good at building an industrial infrastructure, it falls down when it comes to deciding what to do with that infrastructure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ussr-provide-us-with-any-lessons-that-arent-in-the-category-of-dont-try-this-at-home/613072.md?page=4)