Sgrig - A well written post. Only a few comments:
Ironically, in my opinion, the existance of the Soviet Union did more good to the Western World, rather than the East. If not for the Soviet Union providing competition to USA and Western Europe, then the technological process would be much, much slower. Most of the technological advances from 1950's to late 1980's were fuelled by the need for new military technology.
Agreed in principal, that the West benefitted much more from its Cold War competition with the USSR than the USSR was able to. I would add though that there was a price. An American author whose name I can't recall just this past year published a book cataloguing the price of the Cold War for the U.S., in terms of resources, money, people, time and potential lost development the U.S. invested in its struggle with Moscow. It is a mighty price tag indeed, and we'll never know how those resources might otherwise have been used. I am very glad that the West committed those resources in the Cold War, but from the perspective of technological development one could imagine an easier way to progress...
When considering whether the Soviet regime was good for Russia, and other countries in the region, it is important to consider what the alternative could be.
I'm a little uncomfortable with your thesis here. I agree that democracy for Russia in 1918 was probably unrealistic, at least democracy in the Western sense. After all, democracy failed throughout most of Europe in the 1920s and 30s, including Germany - which was much more socially and economically developed than Russia. However, to go to the opposite extreme and assume that a totalitarian dictatorship was the only way to go, that I'm not so sure. I agree with your linkage of the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes, but I do so because I believe both were part of the same phenomenon. Both were aberrations, unusual departures from the norm of their respective histories. In both cases extremist groups hijacked the country and imposed their distorted view of their national history (and hence future) on the country. I suspect that had the October 1917 coup failed, Russia might have drifted towards a 1930s Romanian-style authoritarian oligarcho-democracy, where technically there was democracy but in reality an economically powerful urban elite ruled the country. The country would have been a mass of semi-literate peasants paying little heed to the political mechinations in Moscow, little influenced by it and little interested in what happens there. Economic (industrial) and etc. development would have been much slower but on the other hand the Stalinist repression never would have happened.
Still, it is true that industrializing economies are always unstable and the dislocation brought on by economic development might have sparked more radical protests, uprisings and even regimes later, in the 1930s (when most of Europe experienced the same). Stalin dealt with this natural instability by merely terrorizing the whole country into submission. Perhaps the result might have been a more blatantly Russian fascism.
Stalin had two major aims. One was to fully consolidate his unrivalled power inside the Soviet Union, the other one was fully industrialise USSR, so that military it can overwhelm any other country. Aim one resulted in millions of deaths through purges, and aim two resulted in deaths of millions through forced collectivisation and industrialisation. However if we suppose that rise of USSR and rise of Nazi Germany were independent events (which might not necessarily be true), then if not for the rapid industrialisation, Russia would've stood absolutely and utterly no chance against Nazi Germany. I highly doubt that any non-totalitarian government would be able to industrialise Russia within 20 years sufficiently to withstand Germany.
The last is a valid point. It is shocking to me that some Russians today can still rationalize the deaths and enslavement of millions as simply necessary for the common good, but it is also true that Russia's modern economic infrastructure is largely due to the Stalinist efforts. What a price though, a price few other countries would ever consider paying...
As for Stalin's purges, many of the people arrested were completely innocent, and many were reported to the NKVD by their colleagues or neighbours purely for personal reasons. I know this because my great-grandfather was arrested in 1936, and had some extremely ridiculuous charges put against him. He was lucky to be released a year later - mainly because he was quite a prominent psychologist and some major scientists in Moscow stood up for him. However among those arrested were also genuine plotters against Stalin's regime. An overthrow of Stalin's regime by somebody like Ezhov (head of NKVD until 1937), would probably result in either an even more despotic regime or complete chaos, which would obviously play into the hands of foreign powers.
There undoubtedly were some plots against Stalin - what sane man wouldn't? - and these threats came almost exclusively from within the party apparatii themselves (GPU/NKVD, Army, etc.) but the overwhelming majority of those arrested in the purges were innocent of the crimes they were accused of. Stalin was paranoid and saw demons where there were none. It must also be said that Stalin's purges did great damage to the USSR's ability to defend itself against the Nazi attack in 1941, as many historians directly blame his gutting of the Army's officer corp for the extremely high casualty rates and fumbles of the first year of the war. Yezhov BTW had of course made his career sending many of those millions to their deaths, and was liquidated by Stalin primarily because he had become too powerful in his own right.
Soviet people (well most of them) regarded themselves to be free and no one would even think of "groveling at the feet of tyrants and thanking them for the stale crust of black bread". Soviet people realised the major shortcomings of the system but no one bowed to anyone. (Well, there were sycophants of course, but they exist in every country) Since the 1960's, state control wasn't as tight as it was during Stalin's time. You would probably be surprised, but in practically every kitchen people were only talking about how bad the government is. No one regarded the high-ranking party officials as being some higher class people. People genuinly believed that everyone is supposed to be equal. And so no one has to bow anyone. And no one did.
This is a matter of definitions. Westerners define "freedom" as individual, personal guaranteed freedoms; while Russians tend to think more in corporate or collective terms. There also is a different sense of scale... For instance, while in the end the Russians and Germans behaved in more or less the same way in their occupations of Poland, Poles tend today to be angrier with the Germans. The reason is that the Russians simply behaved in Poland as they did in their own country - and Poles who travelled to the USSR knew that for as bad as things were in Poland, they were far worse in Russia itself for the average Russian. Germans on the other hand behaved very differently in Poland than they did back home, and didn't dare do half the things they inflicted on Poland back in Germany itself. Even from the perspective of Poland, Hungary or Bulgaria, Russia has an unusually tyrannical history with a long list of all-powerful rulers whose word was virtual diktat. As a Hungarian professor of mine said in the 1990s, Russians are famous for being able to endure deprivations that almost no other country ever could - but Russia won't become a full democracy until Russians stop enduring deprivations and start making demands of their government.
Sorry for the long post.
Apologies for long posts are completely unnecessary around here.
Ironically, in my opinion, the existance of the Soviet Union did more good to the Western World, rather than the East. If not for the Soviet Union providing competition to USA and Western Europe, then the technological process would be much, much slower. Most of the technological advances from 1950's to late 1980's were fuelled by the need for new military technology.
Agreed in principal, that the West benefitted much more from its Cold War competition with the USSR than the USSR was able to. I would add though that there was a price. An American author whose name I can't recall just this past year published a book cataloguing the price of the Cold War for the U.S., in terms of resources, money, people, time and potential lost development the U.S. invested in its struggle with Moscow. It is a mighty price tag indeed, and we'll never know how those resources might otherwise have been used. I am very glad that the West committed those resources in the Cold War, but from the perspective of technological development one could imagine an easier way to progress...
When considering whether the Soviet regime was good for Russia, and other countries in the region, it is important to consider what the alternative could be.
I'm a little uncomfortable with your thesis here. I agree that democracy for Russia in 1918 was probably unrealistic, at least democracy in the Western sense. After all, democracy failed throughout most of Europe in the 1920s and 30s, including Germany - which was much more socially and economically developed than Russia. However, to go to the opposite extreme and assume that a totalitarian dictatorship was the only way to go, that I'm not so sure. I agree with your linkage of the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes, but I do so because I believe both were part of the same phenomenon. Both were aberrations, unusual departures from the norm of their respective histories. In both cases extremist groups hijacked the country and imposed their distorted view of their national history (and hence future) on the country. I suspect that had the October 1917 coup failed, Russia might have drifted towards a 1930s Romanian-style authoritarian oligarcho-democracy, where technically there was democracy but in reality an economically powerful urban elite ruled the country. The country would have been a mass of semi-literate peasants paying little heed to the political mechinations in Moscow, little influenced by it and little interested in what happens there. Economic (industrial) and etc. development would have been much slower but on the other hand the Stalinist repression never would have happened.
Still, it is true that industrializing economies are always unstable and the dislocation brought on by economic development might have sparked more radical protests, uprisings and even regimes later, in the 1930s (when most of Europe experienced the same). Stalin dealt with this natural instability by merely terrorizing the whole country into submission. Perhaps the result might have been a more blatantly Russian fascism.
Stalin had two major aims. One was to fully consolidate his unrivalled power inside the Soviet Union, the other one was fully industrialise USSR, so that military it can overwhelm any other country. Aim one resulted in millions of deaths through purges, and aim two resulted in deaths of millions through forced collectivisation and industrialisation. However if we suppose that rise of USSR and rise of Nazi Germany were independent events (which might not necessarily be true), then if not for the rapid industrialisation, Russia would've stood absolutely and utterly no chance against Nazi Germany. I highly doubt that any non-totalitarian government would be able to industrialise Russia within 20 years sufficiently to withstand Germany.
The last is a valid point. It is shocking to me that some Russians today can still rationalize the deaths and enslavement of millions as simply necessary for the common good, but it is also true that Russia's modern economic infrastructure is largely due to the Stalinist efforts. What a price though, a price few other countries would ever consider paying...
As for Stalin's purges, many of the people arrested were completely innocent, and many were reported to the NKVD by their colleagues or neighbours purely for personal reasons. I know this because my great-grandfather was arrested in 1936, and had some extremely ridiculuous charges put against him. He was lucky to be released a year later - mainly because he was quite a prominent psychologist and some major scientists in Moscow stood up for him. However among those arrested were also genuine plotters against Stalin's regime. An overthrow of Stalin's regime by somebody like Ezhov (head of NKVD until 1937), would probably result in either an even more despotic regime or complete chaos, which would obviously play into the hands of foreign powers.
There undoubtedly were some plots against Stalin - what sane man wouldn't? - and these threats came almost exclusively from within the party apparatii themselves (GPU/NKVD, Army, etc.) but the overwhelming majority of those arrested in the purges were innocent of the crimes they were accused of. Stalin was paranoid and saw demons where there were none. It must also be said that Stalin's purges did great damage to the USSR's ability to defend itself against the Nazi attack in 1941, as many historians directly blame his gutting of the Army's officer corp for the extremely high casualty rates and fumbles of the first year of the war. Yezhov BTW had of course made his career sending many of those millions to their deaths, and was liquidated by Stalin primarily because he had become too powerful in his own right.
Soviet people (well most of them) regarded themselves to be free and no one would even think of "groveling at the feet of tyrants and thanking them for the stale crust of black bread". Soviet people realised the major shortcomings of the system but no one bowed to anyone. (Well, there were sycophants of course, but they exist in every country) Since the 1960's, state control wasn't as tight as it was during Stalin's time. You would probably be surprised, but in practically every kitchen people were only talking about how bad the government is. No one regarded the high-ranking party officials as being some higher class people. People genuinly believed that everyone is supposed to be equal. And so no one has to bow anyone. And no one did.
This is a matter of definitions. Westerners define "freedom" as individual, personal guaranteed freedoms; while Russians tend to think more in corporate or collective terms. There also is a different sense of scale... For instance, while in the end the Russians and Germans behaved in more or less the same way in their occupations of Poland, Poles tend today to be angrier with the Germans. The reason is that the Russians simply behaved in Poland as they did in their own country - and Poles who travelled to the USSR knew that for as bad as things were in Poland, they were far worse in Russia itself for the average Russian. Germans on the other hand behaved very differently in Poland than they did back home, and didn't dare do half the things they inflicted on Poland back in Germany itself. Even from the perspective of Poland, Hungary or Bulgaria, Russia has an unusually tyrannical history with a long list of all-powerful rulers whose word was virtual diktat. As a Hungarian professor of mine said in the 1990s, Russians are famous for being able to endure deprivations that almost no other country ever could - but Russia won't become a full democracy until Russians stop enduring deprivations and start making demands of their government.
Sorry for the long post.
Apologies for long posts are completely unnecessary around here.
