# What was the worst ECONOMIC feature of the 20th century communist states? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362 "2015-01-30T19:14:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/1 "2015-01-30T19:14:17Z")
Ignoring political repression, as well as the effects of communist economic policies, what was the worst economic policy implemented by the USSR, China under Mao, etc.? I am not really looking for things like Lysenkoism or other crazy policies favored by the Fearless Leader, or judging them by the number of deaths they caused, but rather how much they contributed to wrecking that nation’s economy. I would guess it’s a toss-up between central planning and nationalization of industry, but I don’t really know. Rob ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/2 "2015-01-30T19:26:01Z")
I’d go with the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution in China and the dekulakization (or whatever it was called) of the Soviet farms in the late 20’s or early 30’s at pretty epic economic failures. I mean, there are of course myriad failures in both the Soviet and Chinese Communist systems, but these were really beyond the pale and caused not only economic hardship but the deaths of millions. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/3 "2015-01-30T19:33:20Z")
Centrally-planned economy. Sounds good on paper, never worked in reality. Too many bottlenecks, points of failure, and no flexibility whatsoever. Major reason for Soviet Union failing. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/4 "2015-01-30T19:50:46Z")
Great Leap Forward (Backwards); gave people little incentive to work, or implemented ludicrous measures to “boost” productivity. Immense damage to China’s economy. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/5 "2015-01-30T19:51:39Z")
During the famines of the 1990s in North Korea, the international community kept telling the regime that they could feed their people with mild market reforms like private farms. The north Korean leadership preferred having millions starve over risking letting the peasants control such a small aspect of their own lives. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/6 "2015-01-30T19:52:41Z")
Also pol pot trying to empty the cities and make intellectuals into farmers. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/7 "2015-01-30T20:04:07Z")
If I’m understanding what the OP is asking, I’d argue that a lack of quality control was probably the worst economic feature of communism. Not all goods and services are created equal. Sometimes a higher cost is justified by higher quality. But most communist systems just looked at quantity (which is easy to measure and control). A company would be given a quota of something like “make ten thousand radios” without any standard on the quality of those radios. Naturally, companies would comply with the quota in the most effortless manner possible by making the cheapest and easiest to produce radios. The lack of free market competition meant there were no negative consequences for making low quality radios. So why put additional resources and effort into making quality radios when there was no incentive for doing so? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/8 "2015-01-30T20:20:59Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > During the famines of the 1990s in North Korea, the international community kept telling the regime that they could feed their people with mild market reforms like private farms. The north Korean leadership preferred having millions starve over risking letting the peasants control such a small aspect of their own lives. Also, they reserve a lot of the food and other resources for the army. It’s sound thinking, of a kind. Weak, malnourished peasants have no chance of winning a rebellion against a sleek, well-fed army. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/9 "2015-01-30T21:58:31Z")
When you take the farmland from the people who have owned it, tilled it, and produced off it and give this farmland to authoritarian bureaucrats, you get famine and millions of deaths. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/10 "2015-01-30T22:12:43Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > When you take the farmland from the people who have owned it, tilled it, and produced off it and give this farmland to authoritarian bureaucrats, you get famine and millions of deaths. I sometimes wonder how it would have gone for Russia if the [Socialist Revolutionaries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Revolutionary_Party) had prevailed instead of the Bolsheviks. The SR version of “land-socialization” was to distribute land to the peasants instead of nationalizing/collectivizing it. (An outcome where a faction not in any way “socialist” or calling itself “socialist” prevails is probably implausible under the circumstances; all such were comparatively marginal.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/11 "2015-01-30T22:39:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (An outcome where a faction not in any way “socialist” or calling itself “socialist” prevails is probably implausible under the circumstances; all such were comparatively marginal.) See [the election results of the Constituent Assembly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Constituent_Assembly#Election_Results_.2812.2F25_November_1917.29) (which the Bolsheviks allowed to meet for only one day). The only non-socialist party of any importance is the Constitutional Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2015, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/12 "2015-01-30T22:56:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I sometimes wonder how it would have gone for Russia if the [Socialist Revolutionaries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Revolutionary_Party) had prevailed instead of the Bolsheviks. The SR version of “land-socialization” was to distribute land to the peasants instead of nationalizing/collectivizing it. That would definitely have been preferable, although I’m still weary of whose land gets stolen and given to others. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/13 "2015-01-31T00:12:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Also, they reserve a lot of the food and other resources for the army. > > It’s sound thinking, of a kind. Weak, malnourished peasants have no chance of winning a rebellion against a sleek, well-fed army. I wonder to what degree north korea wants the people on the verge of starvation. Well fed people are harder to rule. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/14 "2015-01-31T00:17:15Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > That would definitely have been preferable, although I’m still weary of whose land gets stolen and given to others. [shrug] That’s a venerable American tradition, isn’t it? Every Homestead Act distributed to whites land that had been taken from the Indians. In Russia’s case, the land would have been taken from the nobility, the landlords. Well, remember, the French Revolution happened at least in part because the lords were still demanding their feudal dues long after they had ceased to serve any function of visible benefit to their peasants. And the Russian nobility were a whole lot worse; there was little love for them (or in them). ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/15 "2015-01-31T00:17:45Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I’d go with the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution in China and the dekulakization (or whatever it was called) of the Soviet farms in the late 20’s or early 30’s at pretty epic economic failures. I mean, there are of course myriad failures in both the Soviet and Chinese Communist systems, but these were really beyond the pale and caused not only economic hardship but the deaths of millions. Dekulakization was a counterpart to the more economic plan collectivizing farms. It was more political repression and liquidation of the kulak class that didn’t support what had been predominantly an urban revolution. The deaths were more a feature to achieve those ends than a bug. Mass executions, deportation to Siberia, and starvation were used to bring the rural areas under control. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/16 "2015-01-31T00:47:10Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > Dekulakization was a counterpart to the more economic plan collectivizing farms. It was more political repression and liquidation of the kulak class that didn’t support what had been predominantly an urban revolution. The deaths were more a feature to achieve those ends than a bug. Mass executions, deportation to Siberia, and starvation were used to bring the rural areas under control. Well, the causes of the [Holodomor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) are still debated. Crime or blunder, who can say? > [@](#): > > Scholars disagree on the relative importance of natural factors and bad economic policies as causes of the famine but believe it was long term plan of Joseph Stalin, an attempt to eliminate the Ukrainian independence movement.[9][19][20][21] Using Holodomor in reference to the famine emphasizes its man-made aspects, arguing that actions such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs, and restriction of population movement confer intent, defining the famine as genocide; the loss of life has been compared to the Holocaust.[22] If Soviet policies and actions were conclusively documented as intending to eradicate the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, they would fall under the legal definition of genocide.[23][24][25][26][27] In the absence of absolute documentary proof of intent, some scholars have also made the argument that the Holodomor was ultimately a consequence of the economic problems associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of liquidation of private property and Soviet industrialization. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/17 "2015-01-31T01:20:09Z")
I’ve read that in the Soviet Union hog farmers fed their hogs bread, because subsidized bread was cheaper than hog feed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/18 "2015-01-31T02:48:21Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I’ve read that in the Soviet Union hog farmers fed their hogs bread, because subsidized bread was cheaper than hog feed. That’s bad planning, but at least it means there must have been plenty of bread. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/19 "2015-01-31T03:56:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That’s bad planning, but at least it means there must have been plenty of bread. Not like that’s a good thing; it means they’re misallocating resources. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/20 "2015-01-31T05:27:38Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I’ve read that in the Soviet Union hog farmers fed their hogs bread, because subsidized bread was cheaper than hog feed. Of course American cattle farmers feed their cattle corn for the same reason. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362.md?page=2)