02-04-2004 02:53									#91
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Stalins achievement was NOT being particulary efficient in how he built projects (ISTR that there was plenty of waste)

It was his ability to mobilize the capital to do so. Russia was a primarily agricultural society. Unlike, say 18th century Britain, the bulk of wealth was not in the hands of an aristocracy, but, thanks to late Czarist and early Soviet era land reform, in the hands of the wealthier segment of the peasantry. They had no particular desire or incentive to invest in heavy industry. Had Russia been democratic and capitalist, there would likely have been higher living standards for the peasantry, more production of consumer goods for this expanding market, and investment by the peasants in improving agriculture and in the industries making the consumer goods. Which would have been just jim dandy, until the day Guderian the Panzers arrived. Its not clear that ANY regime short of Stalinism could have redistributed wealth and income away from the peasants sufficiently to build industry fast enough.

Of course I still think that a democratic capitalist Russia would have been far stronger diplomatically, so it might never have come to Panzers across the border.

	02-04-2004 04:37									#92
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I think Trotsky would have done better as a wartime leader - he won the civil war against all the odds.

Tukachevsky also made his reputation in the civil war but his best remembered as one of the pioneers of modern warfare. Zhukov was his student.

	02-04-2004 07:38									#93
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quote: Originally posted by Hurricane Have you read "A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia" by Alexander N. Yakolev? I highy recommend it; written by a Russian that was part of the top communist machinery. He if anybody should know what he is talking about.

Oh boy, did you say A.N. Yakovlev?



This motherf*cker was the CHEIF OF SOVIET PROPAGANDA MINESTERY, the member of Politburo and the central cometee of Communist party of SU, while he was in leadership of USSR, he was praising Soviets and communist party. Under democrats he became a cheif of democrat's propaganda and started to curse Soviets and Communist party.
He is quite a hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker. Do you know his hickname here? Certanly no. His nickname is Russian Hebels. He is a lier, an author of BS claims about 120 millions of Stalin's victims and the same sh!t.
Somehow I'm not surprised that you took your knowledge from that kind of sources.

	02-04-2004 07:49									#94
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quote: Originally posted by Serb . 2) Stalin was not an alcoholic, alcoholics usally don't live long and don't have bright mind to make really desicive desicions.

You're wrong. I'm a medical doctor. I've had plenty of alcoholic patients who lived up into their 70s.

quote: 3) He wasn't paranoid as well.

You're wrong. This much is pretty clear. He saw conspiracies against him that weren't there. People seen talking together quietly were assumed to be plotting aginst him.

Maybe Malenkov wasn't the name I was looking for. After Lenin's death there was another rising Communist leader who was a contender for the top political posts whom Stalin had killed. I can't think of his name.

	02-04-2004 07:59									#95
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Kamenev? Zinov'ev? Bukharin? Rykov?
Malenkov never was paricularly influential.

	02-04-2004 08:03									#96
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quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse I think Trotsky would have done better as a wartime leader - he won the civil war against all the odds. Tukachevsky also made his reputation in the civil war...

Sure his f*ck-ups during Polish intervention made him quite a reputation.
Can you name a single battle he won?

quote: ...but his best remembered as one of the pioneers of modern warfare.

His best remembered as traitor who betrayed his country, was head of military coup and who worked for Germans.
And if you are refering to him being a tank proponent. Just look what kind of tanks he ordered for red Army. He did not understand the nature of future warfare. He did not understant the importance of communication. Soviet tanks didn't have radios mostly. Soviet airforce had less radio equipment than Soviet CIVIL aviation. In Soviet tanks commander did not command the battle, he had to load the main gun and fire from machine gun. He simply had no time to command the battle. This is a Tukhachevsky's invention. He is responsible for disasters of first months of war, because he ordered to build this armada of absolutely useless tanks and planes, because he did not understand the nature of incoming warfare. He had enough time to train his pet mouse, his mouse could do a lot of tricks, even could dance, but he had no time to learn and to observe foreign experience. He was just an incompetent, uneducated ensign who by luck, dirty tricks and treachery recieved a feildmarshal's stars.
F*ck him.

quote: Zhukov was his student.

Sorry AH, but this is plain BS.

	02-04-2004 09:03									#97
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quote: Originally posted by shawnmmcc Serb, thank you for the note. Bear with me. It may be that our two cultures define alchoholic differently. I have seen numerous citiations that Stalin consumed a fair amount of Vodka, multiple times a month. He was not a "drunk", as in letting the alchohol disable him. But people who drink routinely, with many drinks up to a substantial portion of a bottle in one sitting, are considered alcholic. Note I did not consider it delibilitating per se, but it evidently did not help his dispostion nor do anything good for those whose death warrants he was signing. Many bright minds have had problems with alchohol, and with the right ancestry you will not necessarily get cirrohsis of the liver as long as it isn't constant.

It's strange. I never, never in my life read that Stalin drank vodka, esp. in such quantities. He was a Georgian and as all Georgians loved good wine.

quote: Also, if Khruschev fed the west this false history, where is a non-Russian speaking historian type going to find translated documents that show this was false. It's the nasty problem in studying Soviet History - whose history and when did the party write it.

First he have to learn Russian, then come to Russia and spend years in archives diging, diging and diging for facts, then analyzing, analizing and analyzing them to find truth.

quote: Reference the BT, yes I know it was not the T-60 or the T-70, two vehicles designed as scout tanks or tankettes. However, given it's speed and capability it would have made an excellent scout tank. The heavy tank break out concept, with the cavalry tank break out, was NOT that far removed from a Blitzkreig. Imagine instead of the few T-34's and KV-1's as part of a spearhead with the BT-5/7's as the breakout vehicles. Compared to the AFV's the Nazis used in France quite successfully (Pzkw 1 (machine guns) - II (20mm canon) - III and Czech 38t (37mm canon) - IV (short 75mm field gun), it wouldn't have been that different.

It would have been that different considering what kind of tanks Tukhachevsky ordered for red army. I'm going from my rough memory.
1) T-35 a famous child of Red Marshal. A copy of British "Independent"- complete sh!t, absolute sh!t, supreme sh!t. Five turrens, 7 crew members, slow as turtle, unreliable as hell, couldn't climb a 15 degree surface, couldn't cross a pile of mud. Had a 50 mm of front armor and much less armor elsewhere. Can be stopped by any German gun.How commander could efficiently command this tank in battle, if he had to correct fire from 3 guns and five MG, while loading one of the guns and fireing from his command MG is a mystery for me.
Thanks God he build only about 50 such ugly mosters. But he had plans to create even bigger and uglier tank, much heavier, much slower, but with even more turrets, guns, MG and crew members.
Russian tankisty nicknamed T-35 "bratskaya mogila na semeryh"= joint grave for seven. In first two months of war all of them were lost, 80% due technical breakdowns, those monsters simply couldn't reach the battleshield to engage the battle. And don't tell me that this kind of sh!t happened with all new tanks, including German Tigers and Panthers. T-35 was in army for 8 years, if its bugs weren't fixed, it means it wasn't possible to fix them.
So how do you imagine a breakthrough of Soviet armor forces? Remind you it had only 50 T-35 (not a problem for German AT artillery) and several thousands of fast BT with "paper" armor (whose armor could be penatrated by AP rounds of German rifles, note: not by AT-rifles, but by AP rounds of usuall German infantry rifles)?
2) Now German tanks:
Even light Czech's t-38 front armor was a problem for Soviet 45mm AT gun (main and only anti-tank gun in Red Army). The front armor of T-III and T-IV, Soviet 45mm AT gun could penatrate only from extremly short distances. In accordance with statistics at first year of war, for one destroyed German tank, Soviets lost 4 anti-tank guns. This is the main difference. German tanks were well armored. Tukhachevsky's tanks were slightly armored, even heavy, "breakthrought" T-35 wasn't a problem for German artillery. BT and T-26 with their 7-13mm armor (the bulk of Soviet armor forces in 1941) was a complete joke. Before the war Soviets created a 57mm anti-tank gun, wich could penatrate up to 100mm armor and thus could be efficiently used against any German tanks, but your beloved "bright mind" Tukhachevsky and his minions, buried this project and Soviets had to make those guns later when the war was already go on.

quote: However, the Red Army at the time did not the flexibility in doctrine/lower command initiative to make that kind of tactical doctrine work. Plus the lack of radios really cramps any mobile doctrine. In fact the Soviet armed forces never quite put these together except on a special forces level, look at Afghanistan half a century later. You need both to be truly successful - hardware and doctrine. The Nazis showed that doctrine and organization can get you further than hardware at times.

The lack of radios was another "glorious achievments of brightest mind in Red Army" Because he did not understand the importance of it. Sure who cares about radios when we have hordes of purly armored tanks and gonna fight without reserves? That's how this "bright mind" thought.
As for doctrines, I must surprise you. Soviets had much more complicated, developed and advanced doctrine, than Hitler's blitzkreig. It was called a theory of deep operation. It was created in early 30's by Soviet strategist Triandafilov (btw, the enemy number 1 of "bright mind" Tukhachevsky). It was part of Red Army's regulations of 1936. The first classic example when Soviets used this doctrine was Zhukov's success vs. Japanese Imperial Army at Khalkin-Gol in 1939. The later examples are almost any offensive operations of Red Army since 1943.
As for Afghanistan, let's see:
a) Soviets acted in mountins that is considered as the most difficult terrain for offensive operations and most favorable terrain for defense.
b) This war was a classical guerelia warfare, not conventional warfare vs. regular army.
Now compare the results:
c) Soviets controlled most part of the country for about a ten years, leaved Aghanistan because of change of political situation at home and change of foreign policy of USSR (thanks to Garbachev's betrayal). When they gone, they left a pro-Soviet government here. During whole war Soviet army lost lost less than 14 500 soldiers KIA.
d) Americans for about a ten years were hunting for Vietcongs in Vietnam, leaved when their casuality rate reached an unacceptable level. Lost the war, because when they gone, commie government was established in Vietnam. During whole war they lost about 60 000 soldiers KIA.

So who had the worse doctrines?

	02-04-2004 09:37									#98
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Sure

Last edited by Zylka on 02-04-2004 at 09:44

	02-04-2004 09:40									#99
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Some blamed the staggering early losses of the USSR in WWII on Stalin, particularly on his purges. Others attributed eventual victory on Stalin's superhuman will, arguing that the USSR would have lost without the man. What do you think?

What did his "superhuman will" have to do with it? Was there any particular alternative?

	02-04-2004 09:57									#101
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quote: Originally posted by Whoha Nice diary from the ambassador, but I'd have put this part in bold "The buildings and equipment in most of the cases are the most modern available. The best companies mostly from USA, but also from Germany, France and England were invited on competive base to design them. When you have to invent, design, and build everything yourself, of course its going to take a little longer.

And? Stalin certanly bought technologies from the west. What's wrong with that? Nobody gave him knowledge for nothing, he paid $$$ for this. It was just a buissness.

	02-04-2004 10:02									#102
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Considering the fact that the German knocked the Russians out of WWI with less troops than they were commiting at the outset of the Russian invasion and that Stalin had been butchering his officer core, it's hard to imagine them doing worse.

	02-04-2004 10:11									#103
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quote: Originally posted by ErikM Alternatively, we can dismiss his works as a commie propaganda. Or do we just accept anything that states that Soviets were monsters as true (regardless of the souurce) and deny everything else as a biased account.

Exactly.

Somehow, I suspected he will bring fairy tales of this old fart as evidence.

Hey Hurricane, here is your idol 20 or so years ago, now he is walking ruin. Here it comes the Mr. "I was young and needed work, that's why I was the Soviet Hebels, but now I'm anti-Soviet Hebels, because well... you know... I have to eat something.".
Mr. A.N. Yakovlev.

	02-04-2004 10:14									#104
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quote: Originally posted by DinoDoc Considering the fact that the German knocked the Russians out of WWI with less troops than they were commiting at the outset of the Russian invasion and that Stalin had been butchering his officer core, it's hard to imagine them doing worse.

Purges in Red Army of 1937-1938, strenghtened the Red Army, not the other way around.

	02-04-2004 10:37									#105
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: alcoholics usally don't live long Explain Yelsin then

This is exactly what I meant. Yealtzin in his 50+ was a complete ruin. He couldn't say a couple of words without cause a deep counfusion to public. Some of his absolutely dumb statements shoked people. Thanks to his alcoholism, his IQ droped to 20 or so (not that it was ever higher then 40. After all, when he was a pupil, he spent an additional year in school, because he couldn't manage a final exam. I can tell you for sure, that in Russia, you have to be a really, supid, lazy, dumb mofo, to stay at school for an additional year).
Now read some memoirs of other great leaders who knew Stalin. The memoirs of Churchill, Roosvelt, Truman and others are full of admiration of Stalin. They really admire his iron will, personality, intellect, erudition, etc.
I can't imagine any of modern leaders saying something alike about the alcoholic and dumbass Yeltzin.
Damn, even Stalin's enemy number 1- Adolf Hitler, despite he wanted to kill Stalin, still admired him. Do you need some of Ribentrop's meories when he says about his talk with Hitler in the middle of the war about Stalin?

quote: quote: He wasn't paranoid as well. Yes, they really were all out to get him .

Who?

	02-04-2004 10:53									#106
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quote: Originally posted by Serb Oh boy, did you say A.N. Yakovlev? This motherf*cker was the CHEIF OF SOVIET PROPAGANDA MINESTERY, the member of Politburo and the central cometee of Communist party of SU, while he was in leadership of USSR, he was praising Soviets and communist party. Under democrats he became a cheif of democrat's propaganda and started to curse Soviets and Communist party. He is quite a hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker. Do you know his hickname here? Certanly no. His nickname is Russian Hebels. He is a lier, an author of BS claims about 120 millions of Stalin's victims and the same sh!t. Somehow I'm not surprised that you took your knowledge from that kind of sources.

Yakolev was one of the main architects behind Glasnost, so I understand that you hold a grudge against this guy who helped destroy communism. However, I don't see how this would make him a "hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker". Like you say, he was a member of the Soviet elite, but then eventually understood how wrong Lenin's and Stalin's communism was. If George W. Bush wrote a book about how it was stupid to attack Iraq, would you also dismiss is as written by a "hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker".

	02-04-2004 10:53									#107
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove You're wrong. I'm a medical doctor. I've had plenty of alcoholic patients who lived up into their 70s.

Belive me, I know how alcoholics looks like I saw plenty of them. All long-time alcoholics have the same trait, but unfortunately I don't know how to describe it. Stalin on pictures and in documentary, obviously doesn't look like alcoholic.
But I'm not surprised with this myth, some morons here in Russia even claim he was a gay.

quote: You're wrong. This much is pretty clear. He saw conspiracies against him that weren't there. People seen talking together quietly were assumed to be plotting aginst him.

Yeah, right. He walked at streets looking for people who are talking quietly. Typical maniac.
I'm getting tired of this.

quote: Maybe Malenkov wasn't the name I was looking for. After Lenin's death there was another rising Communist leader who was a contender for the top political posts whom Stalin had killed. I can't think of his name.

Then who? Kirov? He was not a challenger for Stalin. In Soviet chain of command he was far, far lower than Stalin, Kalinin, Molotov, and many, many others. He was just a cheif of Leningrad's party organization.

	02-04-2004 10:57									#108
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quote: Originally posted by Serb And? Stalin certanly bought technologies from the west. What's wrong with that? Nobody gave him knowledge for nothing, he paid $$$ for this. It was just a buissness.

I have no problem with what Stalin did here. I merely am pointing out that comparisions between what the free market accomplished and what the 5 year plans accomplished are not capable of being made.

	02-04-2004 10:58									#109
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quote: Now read some memoirs of other great leaders who knew Stalin. The memoirs of Churchill, Roosvelt, Truman and others are full of admiration of Stalin. They really admire his iron will, personality, intellect, erudition, etc. I can't imagine any of modern leaders saying something alike about the alcoholic and dumbass Yeltzin.

The funny thing is that Churchill was an alcoholic as well, and plenty admired and respected him.

Besides you said they didn't live long.

	02-04-2004 11:04									#110
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Churchill was a freaking amphetamine beast, as well

	02-04-2004 11:06									#111
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quote: Originally posted by Hurricane Yakolev was one of the main architects behind Glasnost, so I understand that you hold a grudge against this guy who helped destroy communism.

Main architect, my ass. He was the Gorbachev's whore, while Gorbachev was the West's whore. When Gorbachev lost the power, he became the Yeltzin's whore. His is a lying f*cker without any principles, he always works for a guy who holds the power and always does what his master orders him to do.

quote: However, I don't see how this would make him a "hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker". Like you say, he was a member of the Soviet elite, but then eventually understood how wrong Lenin's and Stalin's communism was.

I do not believe in that kind of behaviour. This motherf*cker was a head of Soviet propaganda minestery. Do you realize this? He was the head of Soviet brainwashing machine. The head of machine which goal was to praise Soviet system and communist party of Soviet Union. He praised USSR, communist party and its leaders for the most part of his life. When situation changed and Soviet Union collapsed, he became an anti-communist, because now it is profitable to be an anti-communist.

quote: If George W. Bush wrote a book about how it was stupid to attack Iraq, would you also dismiss is as written by a "hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker".

Don't worry, without any books writen by G.W. Bush, I already know that he is a hypocrite, lying and stupid f*cker.
If he will write some kind of book in which he will complain that he thought that he is doing a right thing attacking Iraq, but now he understand that he was wrong, I would call him a hypocrite, lying, stupid son of the b!tch again.

	02-04-2004 13:27									#112
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quote: Originally posted by Whoha I have no problem with what Stalin did here. I merely am pointing out that comparisions between what the free market accomplished and what the 5 year plans accomplished are not capable of being made.

Why?

	02-04-2004 13:32									#113
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui The funny thing is that Churchill was an alcoholic as well, and plenty admired and respected him.

Oh, he was a British, right? Then it's Ok for him being alcoholic. As we all know, all Brits are alcoholics and smokers, some people (hi Paiktis ) seem to believe Brits are gays, as well.

	03-04-2004 01:58									#114
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Serb, you are a big patriot and to that.

But you are so blinded by your patriotism you take everything as an attack on Russia. You even go so far as defending Communism (yet I bet you don't vote for them, do you?) and bringing up Afghanistan to justify WW II Soviet military doctrine.

Peace man, I love Russia, I'm a Slav too and I want to visit one day.

However what I said stands, communism is terribly innefficient and Stalin harmed industrialization of Russia and funny propaganda stories (thanks for translating that part) about Potemkin villages don't change that.

	03-04-2004 02:00									#115
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Serb, US doctrine for dealing with asymetric warfare stinks from a political standpoint. Vietnam was a classic cluster f***, and Iraq is having problems. Our problem is that our military is politically controlled, and when the administration is in denial, "they'll welcome us with open arms," our military isn't given the resources because the idiot politicians KNOW they won't have a guerilla war.

I agree that all of the early Soviet Army was lightly armored. That's why I mentioned BT-5/7 spearheaded by T-34A/KV-1A. The T-28 and T-35 were pathetic, but then again so the the PZ-1, with the PZ-11 only competent for armored recon (which the Germans eventually used a variant for). If you look at other tanks from the same time period, nobody was doing a very good job. The Brits had tiny guns, the French had one-man turrets, and the Germans only had light tanks. It's the next generation, with the Pzkw-III that the German's get quality equipment, and then the Soviets with the T-34 and KV-1 build the best tanks for the time period, pre-1942/43 depending on how you figure your dates and the Panther and Sherman Firefly.

The problem with the theory of deep operation is that it as practiced it was centrally directed, and commanders were largely trained AND REWARDED for following orders, not initiative. You cannot claim to only reward successful initiative, but there will always be mistakes. If you can get shot for a loss on the field due to failed initiative, then initiative will be rare. Doctrine includes down to the small unit level, and the disconnect between brilliant strategic doctrine and failed operational/tactical doctrine means that deep operation was a paper tiger.

Khalkin-gol is a very bad example. The Japanese army was pathetic. It's best tank was worse than the BT- series, it only had a medium velocity 37mm gun, it was slow, and it had armor that could be penetrated by a heavy machine gun. There artillery was poor, and their machine guns had all kinds of problems. The only thing you could say for their doctrine was that it stressed the intiative, but it did that via frontal assaults and horrendous casualties. Their army air force was equally bad, and it took bringing in their naval air units to slow down the Soviets. The Soviets were fighting an army with worse infranty equipment than the German and British armies in WW1 (not the French, nobody was that bad ).

	03-04-2004 02:01									#116
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quote: Originally posted by Serb Purges in Red Army of 1937-1938, strenghtened the Red Army, not the other way around.

Are you like 15 years old?

	03-04-2004 03:55									#117
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quote: Originally posted by VetLegion However what I said stands, communism is terribly innefficient and Stalin harmed industrialization of Russia and funny propaganda stories (thanks for translating that part) about Potemkin villages don't change that.

I would tend to agree that communism cannot compete vs free market economy in terms of overall economic output. After all, no central planning authority will ever be able to come up with automobile coffee-cup holders, Freakies cereals, strawberry-flavored condoms and what have you.

But imo there is little doubt that communism/central planning is inherently better at channeling limited resources towards certain well-defined strategic goals, like building up a heavy industry from scratch in what, less than 10 years.

It may be true that without Stalin Russia may have been more industrialized today. But I seriously doubt that Russia could have been industarialized faster. And in pre-WWII era speed was of particular importance by obvious reasons.

Oh, and on unrelated note, many modern historians think that "Potemkin villages" were an urban legend of sort. He was a very capable administrator, wineries that he cultivated in Crimea stand to this day (those that were not destroyed during Gorbachev's infamous anti-alcohol campaign, that is). And Crimea, that Katherine inspected, is just naturally beautiful In other words, Potemkin did not really have to fake prosperity.

	03-04-2004 04:58									#118
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Nice bit of trivia about Potemkin. Still, there are countless accounts of foreigners arriving to Soviet Russia and leaving with wonderful impressions. They saw a prosperous country and a happy people. The fact that they couldn't move freely during their visit and were toured around instead of roaming freely was suspicious only to the more cynical ones

quote: But imo there is little doubt that communism/central planning is inherently better at channeling limited resources towards certain well-defined strategic goals, like building up a heavy industry from scratch in what, less than 10 years.

I disagree.

quote: It may be true that without Stalin Russia may have been more industrialized today. But I seriously doubt that Russia could have been industarialized faster

I'm not willing to concede this either.

Communism wasted everything. It wasted natural resources, it wasted manpower, it wasted talents.

If Soviets were able to build an aluminium plant with 2000 workers it probably[1] means that there was enough bauxite and workers to do so. In that case a capitalist venture would have been able to do the same, only better.

And about speed: if government wanted something built fast it could have speeded it up with subsidies, land grants, tax cuts and other incentives.

Not to mention that tzarist Russia also had an impressive industry growth rate prior to WW I.

[1] There is a famous case in Croatia (then Yugoslavia) of a huge mining and processing facility being built (forgot for which metal) on a poor mining site. Commie plan said we want X000 workers working there by year X so they built a huge facility for that. They had to close it when it became apparent that the site is actually mineral poor.

	03-04-2004 06:19									#119
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I do not disagree that communism (or rather central planning if we stick strictly to economics) is wasteful.

But.

Economics is all about incentives, really. Free market economy creates incentives for people to engage in any sort of activity that may potentially be profitable, and it works reasonably well in the long run with a few exceptions (like public goods and healthcare).

The corollary to that, though, is that given several options, free market will pick up a project with the highest profit potential (net present value of future profits). Since in developing economies capital tends to be scarce, interest rates tend to be high, and that means that most profitable projects are those that provide an immediate return on investment.

Invariably, these projects are
- trade (basically, arbitraging away differences between domestic and world prices)
- agriculture/food processing (as demand for food is pretty inelastic)
- light industry.

Only when the potential for earning higher than normal rate-of-return on investment is exhausted in such industries, we see investment into capital-intensive, long payback period projects such as heavy industry.

And that is how it works everywhere, be it England, US, China, or post-communist Eastern Europe. If economic development is undisturbed and foundations (such as legal system) are in place, it works out in the long run.

But Soviet Russia could not afford a luxury of letting things develop in a natural progression. Pre-wwII, it was the only communist country, with an ideology that run contrary to pretty much every other country in the world. So Russia had a serious shortage of friends but plentiful enemies. Some of them (Nazi Germany) made no secrets as for their plans of exterminating Russia as a nation.

Following a natural economic development curve would see Russia in 1941 with (perhaps) a higher GDP/capita, but likely it would still be a rural country with few heavy industries, and, consequently, militarily weak. Thus, it was perceived that a normal course of economic development was not suitable to Russia due to the overall grim outlook in international affairs.

But there is still an issue of providing incentives for a super-fast industrialization that was needed. So Stalin had to rely on non-economic incentives (ie terror) to motivate his workforce. He used economic incentives, too, whenever feasible. Ie, entreprenerial activity was not rewarded since it was perceived as distracting already limited resources from where they were required. But good performance within the industry was rewarded (Serb's examples).

[Now, one can make an argument that without Communist revolution Russia would not be surrounded by enemies, and then maybe there would be no need for huge military, and then maybe Hitler would not come to power, etc, but this a much-longer sequence of historical what-ifs that I'm willing to entertain].

While cruel, this system was largely successful in accomplishing the goal of industrializing Russia in a very short time.

After war, there are other examples when the system was successful in mobilizing resources for work towards a certain, well-established goal (da Bomb, ICBMs, space race etc.)

However, after the war (or rather after da Bomb)external threat to Soviet security diminished. And, after Stalin no Soviet leader was willing to use force to the extent Stalin did (and, most likely, people would not stand for it due to relatively weaker external threat).

And that's largely when communism as an economic system started to crap out, as communism indeed does a poor job at stimulating entrepreneurship and so such.

So to summarize I believe that free market economy is superior in the long run but communism may be superior in the short run.

I believe Japan is an example of a country that done a successful combination of both. Rapid industrialization with focus on the heavy industry while using centralized planning/heavy protectionism, and then sithching to a largely free market. The advantage of doing things this way is that the overall development cycle is shorter. I think Putin, roughly speaking, also tries to do things this way.

	03-04-2004 06:48									#120
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quote: Originally posted by Serb Sure his f*ck-ups during Polish intervention made him quite a reputation. Can you name a single battle he won?

Trostky commanded the Red Army during the civil war - he must have won a few battles because the Red Army beats the Whites. Stalin did not distinguish himself in the civil war, quite the opposite. In fact if I recall correctly Stalin was responsible for the Polish debacle. There was a scandal about it but this of course was written out of the official history once Stalin came to power.

quote: His best remembered as traitor who betrayed his country, was head of military coup and who worked for Germans.

It's sad you believe that because it was actually intelligence operation by Abwehr, German military intelligence, which triggered the purges. It was their most successful operation to convince Stalin his most gifted generals were traitors.

quote: And if you are refering to him being a tank proponent. Just look what kind of tanks he ordered for red Army. He did not understand the nature of future warfare. He did not understant the importance of communication. Soviet tanks didn't have radios mostly. Soviet airforce had less radio equipment than Soviet CIVIL aviation. In Soviet tanks commander did not command the battle, he had to load the main gun and fire from machine gun. He simply had no time to command the battle. This is a Tukhachevsky's invention. He is responsible for disasters of first months of war, because he ordered to build this armada of absolutely useless tanks and planes, because he did not understand the nature of incoming warfare. He had enough time to train his pet mouse, his mouse could do a lot of tricks, even could dance, but he had no time to learn and to observe foreign experience. He was just an incompetent, uneducated ensign who by luck, dirty tricks and treachery recieved a feildmarshal's stars. F*ck him. Sorry AH, but this is plain BS.

So sad you think that about Tukhachevsky. Stalinist propaganda is alive and well it seems in modern Russia. The Germans had immense respect for Tukhachevksy because they trained secretly in Russia during the Weimar republic period. The blitzkrieg was developed in Russia but Stalin's cronies rejected deep armoured penetration as counter-revolutionary after the purges in favour of massed infantry frontal assault. This "tactic" wasn't overturned until the end of 1942. Millions of ordinary Russian soldiers died as a result.