Why did the USSR and communism fail?

>>2425360
Because it was based on assumptions of human nature that were incorrect, as well as a poor understanding of capitalism.

shitty economic system

>>2425360
human nature

>>2425360
>This thread
>Again

>>2425360
famines and scorched earth up the wazoo

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>>2425360

Socialism is fundamentally flawed. It has nothing to do with human nature even if the soviet union was run by philosopher kings and socialist superhumans it would have the same fate eventually

it made state bureaucrats the manager class.

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Because people lie.

>>2425360
free market

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>>2425360
Jewish subversion obviously

Communism only works if society is completely classless. The USSR was not classless. It had a fucking dictator. That's about it.

>>2425360
>Every fucking week

>>2425360
Ordinary people wanted ordinary things. They wanted more varieties of consumer items. Look at China; they still have all the limitations on freedom and censorship but they have consumer items. That's ultimately why the USSR failed. If you're asking why it collapsed, it's probably more due to a lack of political will to continue. Gorbachev's policy of Glastnost' (meaning "vocalization" or "freedom of speech") allowed people to criticize the regime and tarnish its reputation by discussing crimes committed by the communists in the past (ie, invasion of Poland, Katyn massacre, Golodomor, etc). Gorbachev also enacted democratic reforms that permitted people to elect real representatives for the first time. Meanwhile, his economic reforms were too little too late and were disastrously unsuccessful, resulting in long lines and empty store shelves. While the 70s were stagnant, there were actual "bread lines" and deficits in the Gorbachev era. When people can't eat, they revolt.

The Soviet system could have survived if they enacted the economic reforms prior to any political reforms the same way that China did. It's tragic that they didn't because all the constituent countries ended up worse off for it, governed by tin pot wannabe dictators and in perpetual poverty. On the other hand, communism is shit and is bound to fail.

>>2425360

The USSR didn't fail, it just broke up and reformed itself, and it did it on its own volition.

Communism is an ideology, not a system of government. Marxist-leninism is a system of government, that failed, but communism never as an idelogy never went away. Putin considered communism to be something of a bible for the Russian Federation, and Russians 2nd largest political party is the communist party.

So in short, the USSR never failed, and communism isn't dead.

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>>2425360

A string of weak leaders.

>>2425407

So many PIIGS.

>>2425407
damn thats tragic, east Europe seems to be able to become first world if not for commies

>>2426573
Most of them will eventually make it if Russia doesn't drag them back down into the shitter.

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Because it doesn't work.

>>2426572
>A string of weak leaders.

Basically this. Capitalism had two major crises during the twentieth century which could have potentially lead to the end of prosperity. However, both times bold leaders rose to the challenge, pushed through reforms, and got the gears rolling again. Socialism had it's own crisis in the 1960/70s. The economic policies that were so successful for the past forty years were no longer cutting it. They needed a man brave enough to try something different.

Instead they got Brezhnev.

>>2425360
This

1: It wasn't "true communism", but dictators loved using it as propaganda for a reason. It is a very seductive ideology that appears modern and liberal yet is myopic and ambiguous enough that people can be convinced to go off and fight windmills like don quixote instead of tackling the most pressing problems. Even its moderate relatives in democracies can end up hopelessly corrupt. Apologists claim that without them there would be no social welfare and unions, but I doubt this, one can easily support social welfare without being a raging commie and opposition to social welfare and unions is often a reaction to their extremism.

2: Communism fixates on the "means of production", almost pinning it as the cause of all ills. It demonizes individual rights as being part of a capitalist bourgeois conspiracy when in reality they are very important for resisting the ruling class in general, whether it be the plutocracy or the communist party. They not only have practical value as an obstacle to corruption and in letting people automatically look after themselves, they have inherent moral value since we are all individuals after all and morality boils down to what we decide on our own, especially if the "means of production" were created by one's own effort. The idea that a "people's republic" should decide what is right and good is frankly insulting yet many seem to treat this assumption like a law of physics.

>>2425360
Poor planning, a far smaller resource pool, and an inability to keep up with Western military industry.

>>2425360
>USSR
>Communist

The USSR was state capitalist. The means of production were owned by the state and not democratically controlled and owned by the workers.

>>2425360
communism didn't fail. It was never even attempted

>>2427023

The problem is that there are different things people can mean when they say 'communist'.

Its where this 'not true communism' thing comes from, one guy is saying communism meaning Marxist political systems, and anther guy is saying 'communal ownership of production' and yet another person is saying 'stateless collective ownership of the means of production' and yet another person is talking about communism in a non-marxist/per-marx sense, like the French Communards, and yet another person could mean communal-ism in general, like Hippie communes and christian communism.

Shit be complicated, yo.

>>2425360
shitty economic model

>>2427303
>shit be complicated, yo
basically all of human history

>>2425360

USSR failed due to a shitty economic system.

In regards to communism, some COULD argue that Tito's Yugoslavia, The Free Territory of the Ukraine the Paris Commune, and the council communists of the second hungarian revolution were examples of them working the the latter two only lasted a few months, and the Free Territory had a few ridiculous policies (abolishing money and denying work in the cities and factories)

In regards to communism "failing" or "not being achieved" is due to the dictatorship of the proleteriat. One of the main critiques that i have of communism is

"Why would you want to abolish the state by implementing another state?".

Communism, in this sense, risks corruption and unaccountability, as the state can thoroughly abuse its power and commit mass humanitarian violations of its own supporters, the USSR for example.

Communism can work, (though the soicities aren't perfect as some would envision them to be), but IT DOES risk turning into Maoist China, or the USSR.

>>2427342
Yugoslavia was basically living on western aid and loans

>>2425360
It was just a cunning plan. Now the US President is a Russian puppet.

>>2425360
totalitarism

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Any chance that Russia's government is still secretly the Soviet Union?

>>2426649
It didn't help that they had several economic geniuses they could have (well, and did) call in to help them reform and do shit, and they got a lot of amazing advice but rejected it because it would have cost them money.

It didn't help they computerised in a really fucking weird way.

>>2426573
Many of them are already richer than Greece and Portugal today. It's not much but it's a start.

>>2429458
It's pretty openly it's continuation.

>>2429458
Russian President Putin was a KGB spy and positions in government are filled with his former KGB buddies. And this was the worst part of Soviet Union.

>>2429458
>>2429530
I think the best way to understand the dissolution of the Soviet Union is to think that it was just the intelligence community, the "Chekists", getting rid of the ideological baggage of communism and of the Communist Party, and taking control of Russia themselves.

>>2427303
Everyone knows what is meant by communism. Yes, there are differing leftist sects, but everyone will tell you that there has never been communism. Even the USSR and China (did or still admit) that they aren't communist. They were on the road to communism, not actually there. They didn't even reach socialism, let alone communism.

>>2425360
Communism isn't sustainable without a post scarcity economy.

>>2429610
This can be said of any economy

>>2429613
Capitalism is sustainable without post scarcity. Communism cannot be achieved without it.

Communism is, according to Marx, the end result of capitalism should post scarcity be achieved making it obsolete.

>>2425360
American subversion and cultural capitalism

>>2429641
>Capitalism is sustainable without post scarcity
>infinite growth with limited resources is sustainable

>>2429733
To be fair, that's only one particular strain of capitalism. There's nothing about the basic idea of capitalism that requires infinite growth.

>>2429742
How do companies/people profit without infinite growth?

>>2429747
At the expense of other people, I guess. I agree in practice you're pretty much right.

>>2429526

Once Putin is out of office (maybe in 200 years), the communist party has a chance of winning election again. Unless some nu-putin takes control.

Assuming Russia ever has a chance at a real multi-party democracy.

>>2430732
Russians were never really communist. Many of them miss the Soviet Union for the same reason many Brits miss the British empire, because it was grand and large and powerful, not because it was fucking communist.

>>2430755

The 2nd largest political party in Russia is the communist party.

>>2429747
How did you reason that growth is necessary for profit?

>>2430780
Yes, for the exact reason I mentioned. They miss Stalin, they miss the empire, they miss being feared and respected all around the world. They don't miss communism.

>>2430827
Well, if companies aren't growing how exactly are they making a profit?

Investors wouldn't be profiting if the stock market didn't constantly grow would they?

Nuclear arsenals and wars are expensive.

>>2425407
k so was it boleshivism or slavism that caused this? Confounding variables at play here someone have a number that will clear this up?

Shitty leadership, shitty economic management and/or philosophy, and finally concentrated rabble-rousing during the Gorbachev administration.

>>2429458

What, you mean like the top Russian politicians and officials meet and secret and refer to their country as the USSR and discus plans for future world communism and winning the cold war?

>>2432071
>slavism
What did he mean by this

Because sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

USSR was barely communist, if anything marxist-leninism was just a tòol to control populace. At it's core and as it has always being in all forms russia has had over centuries-ir was a police state first, and whatever ideology second.

>>2432666
Spengler predicted this in 1918 right after the Bolsheviks took over. He basically said that communism is a fundamentally western ideology incompatible with Russian civilizational values and that eventually Russians will transform it into a typical conservative Russia-style despotism and within 100 years they will get rid of it altogether. He was 100% spot on.

It highlights the fact that political and economic systems aren't universally applicable and you have to consider the civilization you're trying to apply to. This is why democracy can work in say, England or the USA, but try to implement it in fucking Iraq or Afghanistan and the country will completely implode. Pan-Arab socialism failed for the same reason.

>>2425360
Gosplan failed to evolve the soviet economy to the changing needs of the average soviet. The military budget continued to rise beyond a sustainable level. Constant pressure from the 1st world turned the smallest cracks into fissures.

>>2425407
>economic system that doesn't focus exclusively on growth doesn't grow much
>flawed

>>2432714
>actually we were being shit on purpose! Take that, dirty capitalists!

Economic efficiency is a big issue, but mostly because in the Soviet Union when a bad decision was made there was little in the way of reversing it, the administration was inflexible in its structure, which meant even after most folks on the ground (agricultural labourers growing corn, for instance) knew what they were doing was a bad idea, it did not reach the higher echelons until much later. And even then, they wouldn't necessarily reverse policy, since that sort of embarrassment would mean a lot of resignations by important members of the central committee, even the politburo. So you just sorta rolled with it.

>>2430838
>They miss Stalin
More like they miss Lenin, or if not Lenin, the idea and the image of Lenin

>>2432765
Whoops, I forgot to add: to make matters worse, bad decisions were made very often by the politburo itself, and these were national-level bad decisions. there's someone to stop or at least hinder presidents if they start to make too many dumb decisions, so such thing existed within the upper echelons of the party, save for basically everyone getting together and letting you know not to come to the next party meeting (at gunpoint), or str8 up poisoning you.

>>2432773
No, STALIN. They explicitly miss Stalin. During the "Greatest Russian" TV poll Stalin got the most votes by far so the TV panicked and had it rigged so that Alexander Nevsky would win instead.

>>2430780
Ironically, it's one of the least communist of european communist parties