# 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:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**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, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/21 "2015-01-31T05:36:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, the causes of the [Holodomor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) are still debated. Crime or blunder, who can say? My speculation is Stalin was just being ruthlessly efficient. The Soviet Union had a food shortage. If that wasn’t addressed there would be widespread unrest. So rather than have everyone hungry and resentful, he designated one group of farmers as enemies of the state, killed them all, and confiscated all of their food to feed the rest of the country. The people who were still alive were now fed so they stayed quiet (and had the example of what happened to the kulaks to serve as a warning). And the people who had been killed were obviously not going to be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2015, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/22 "2015-01-31T05:41:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Of course American cattle farmers feed their cattle corn for the same reason. That’s a terrible comparison. I think there’s a significant difference between feeding livestock raw grain and feeding them a processed product designed for humans. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/23 "2015-02-02T01:13:01Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > That would definitely have been preferable, although I’m still weary of whose land gets stolen and given to others. Land redistribuion worked pretty well in Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/24 "2015-02-02T01:38:23Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Also pol pot trying to empty the cities and make intellectuals into farmers. Proportionately, this is very close in the running with The Great Leap Forward but it’s hard to tell as it occurred during many other messed up KR initiatives. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/25 "2015-02-02T01:48:46Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Proportionately, this is very close in the running with The Great Leap Forward but it’s hard to tell as it occurred during many other messed up KR initiatives. Well, we’re focusing on economic features specifically, so I guess intentionally slaughtering millions for their class origins or political views or whatever it was that mattered to the KR does not really count, in the way that trying to make the whole society agrarian and nothing else counts. Of course, it’s probably hard to separate the body-count of each from the other’s. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/26 "2015-02-02T02:02:22Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > 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. But, remember, the peoples of the USSR were a lot richer in 1991 than they were in 1917. Even the Stalinist model of totalitarian socialism **does** work – for limited purposes, i.e., heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and – by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but **effective** – by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler’s Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. **No way** could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period. OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.) From [_Economics Explained,_](http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Explained-Everything-About-Economy/dp/0684846411/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0323301-0796122?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182793941&sr=8-1) by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow: > [@](#): > > The reason it [the Soviet system] did last [as long as it did] is that in the beginning the system very much resembled a military operation. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Lenin confronted an almost totally disorganized society, and tried at first to build a “socialism” that was partly capitalist – private farming and private small enterprise – and partly socialist, in the form of state-owned banks and large centers of production. Russia staggered along under this mixed system for a few years, without either great success or great failure, but after Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin took command and rapidly instituted the highly centralized system we have sketched in. > > Stalin’s methods were ferocious and bloody, but they were successful in bringing about an immense accumulation of wealth, much as did the ruthless ways of the ancient pharoahs of Egypt and emperors of Rome or China. The difference was that whereas the latter built palaces and cities, Stalin built factories, steel mills, hydroelectric plants, and railway systems – the ingredients of an industrial economy. The fact that Stalin’s Russia was strong enough to resist Hitler’s armies – and efficient enough, after its reconstruction following World War II, to impress the world with its industrial and military capabilities – shows that Soviet central planning was by no means a failure in its initial years. That is why “military socialism” may yet be a model for development efforts in the future. China is today a semi-military socialism which appears to be successfully negotiating the early stages of industrialization, much aided by a carefully supervised free market sector attached to the planned core. Hence the collapse of the Soviet system should not lead us to the snap judgment that centralized socialism is no longer on the agenda of the coming century. That is indeed likely to be the case with the North, but it is not a foregone conclusion in the troubled countries of the South. > > THE COLLAPSE > > But we are ahead of ourselves. After so successful a beginning, why did Soviet socialism finally break down? The answer is that it is a great deal easier to design and build the skeleton of a mighty economy than to run it. Building a steel plant requires good industrial draftsmanship, but running a steel plant requires good industrial management. Management, in turn, depends on the ability to adapt flows of production to ever-changing conditions – the unforeseen contingencies, mistakes, mismatches, shortages, and overruns that are inescapable in any complex undertaking. > > In a market system, these mistakes are repaired and remedied as soon as possible because they cost the factory or store money. Hence suppliers are told to hurry up, or to hold back on shipments, unprofitable items are canceled and profitable ones run overtime, the Yellow Pages are searched for last-minute necessities. None of this can happen in a society planned from top to bottom. When mistakes are made, they bring about a kind of gridlock in the flow of production, so that the pace of Soviet economic production was a never-ending sequence of feast or famine, too much or too little, with no way of remedying the errors other than recasting next year’s plan or seeking the semi-illegal channels of “tolkachi” – fixers. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/27 "2015-02-02T02:13:15Z")
_Sigh_ I want to argue against **Brainglutton** as he’s posted that about fifty times, damn near word-for-word. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/28 "2015-02-02T02:16:46Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > _Sigh_ > > I want to argue against **Brainglutton** as he’s posted that about fifty times, damn near word-for-word. So what? It’s relevant in every thread on this topic. Debate it. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/29 "2015-02-02T02:18:29Z")
What exactly is there to debate? You’ve never posted a single shred of evidence for it. It’s straight Argument by Assertion. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/30 "2015-02-02T03:02:36Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > What exactly is there to debate? You’ve never posted a single shred of evidence for it. It’s straight Argument by Assertion. I posted a cite from two respected economists, who are not in any way Communists. And arguments by assertion are always debatable, aren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/31 "2015-02-02T03:58:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I posted a cite from two respected economists, who are not in any way Communists. And arguments by assertion are always debatable, aren’t they? I am not going to argue against it. It says what I said, basically. And I like the “military socialism” part - that’s right on the money. Look at our military - it often accomplishes amazing technology, at absolutely ridiculous price that would bankrupt any non-military part of the economy. Yes, it “works” when it is part of your economy - that is, if the rest of the economy can cover the costs. It never works when it is the whole of it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/32 "2015-02-02T04:08:27Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I am not going to argue against it. It says what I said, basically. And I like the “military socialism” part - that’s right on the money. Look at our military - it often accomplishes amazing technology, at absolutely ridiculous price that would bankrupt any non-military part of the economy. Yes, it “works” when it is part of your economy - that is, if the rest of the economy can cover the costs. It never works when it is the whole of it. Still, it is evident that it is possible for central planning to industrialize an economy and run it with some success and growth. The USSR’s problem was that it couldn’t compete with the West economically (for several reasons, only some having to do with the different political/economic systems), and after WWII was obliged to. But it lasted an impressively long time. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/33 "2015-02-02T04:13:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Still, it is evident that it is possible for central planning to industrialize an economy and run it with some success and growth. The USSR’s problem was that it couldn’t compete with the West economically (for several reasons, only some having to do with the different political/economic systems), and after WWII was obliged to. Well, that, and it cost the lives of millions. > [@](#): > > But it lasted an impressively long time. The USSR began a slow collapse once it could not longer afford to kill off its own citizenry. Sustained looting over half a century is not “impressive” in any sense. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/34 "2015-02-02T04:19:05Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Sustained looting over half a century is not “impressive” in any sense. Look, the USSR had an industrial economy where people went to work and made things and did things and managed things, creating wealth the same way, so far as that goes, that workers in capitalist economies do. If the state was “looting” the people, it was only looting them in exactly the same way capitalist employers do. (I’ll make an exception for the gulag slave-labor.) ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2015, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/35 "2015-02-02T05:00:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Look, the USSR had an industrial economy where people went to work and made things and did things and managed things, creating wealth the same way, so far as that goes, that workers in capitalist economies do. If the state was “looting” the people, it was only looting them in exactly the same way capitalist employers do. (I’ll make an exception for the gulag slave-labor.) So did the Russian Empire. Not to put too fine a point on it, but despite gross mismanagement, the Czars built vast industrial base. In point of fact, the Soviet did roughly double their industrial output of heavy materials between the two world wars. But this was not an especially impressive achievement given that it required the murder of millions, the wrecking of the agricultural base, and vast amounts of forced labor to function. This represented a massive amount of lost labor and demand. Yes, Lenin and Stalin built a big industrial power. But they could have done far more. Russia was filled to the brim with energies just _waiting_ to be unleashed. Whenever they were given a chance, Russians modernized with vigor. A democratic Russia could have done far better. A democratic Russia wouldn’t have wasted millions of lives, acres upon acres of fertile fields. A democratic Russia wouldn’t have starved on some of the richest agricultural land in the world. A democratic Russia would have urbanized with energy, because that’s pretty much what they were trying to do. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362/36 "2015-02-02T14:22:33Z")
There’s also the fact that in the Soviet Union there were no purely economic decisions because the economy and politics were by intention intertwined. A policy might be disastrous economically but make “sense” politically. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-worst-economic-feature-of-the-20th-century-communist-states/711362.md?page=1)