06-04-2002 05:50									#1
	Soviet Union's Possible Success Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Question for the communists / anti-communists of apolyton.

Do you think that the Soviet Union could have succeeded if the rest of the world didn't offer them a cold shoulder?

I am well versed in the philosophies of Marxism and Communism (world wide revolution!!!), and I live in America so i have a decent grip on the whole Capitialism / Anti-Communism feelings. I took a few courses in European History, American Histroy, American Government, and Economics.

So my question to you, is if America, Britian, and all the other Democratic / Capitialistic nations didn't almost automatically hate the Soviet Union, what could have happened?

If it helps, think of it in Civ3 terms. In real life, the USSR civ would be surrounded by powerful, rich, tech savy civs that were "annoyed", or even "furious". the chances of trading and bettering both nations goes down the tubes.

imagine playing a game of civ in which no AI wanted to talk / trade / anything with you, and you couldn't outright declare war and destroy them.

	06-04-2002 06:02									#2
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Contrary to the Civ games, the corruption in the Soviet Union brought about it's downfall.

	06-04-2002 06:14									#3
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quote: imagine playing a game of civ in which no AI wanted to talk / trade / anything with you, and you couldn't outright declare war and destroy them.

WTF?
Do you trying to say that no one ever didn't declared war on SU in real life?
What about intervention of 14 foreign countries against Soviet Russia just after October Revolution? What about Hitler?

What consider trade, it was not a question of survival for Soviets. In civ terms SU had EVERY possible resourses in very big qantity.

quote: So my question to you, is if America, Britian, and all the other Democratic / Capitialistic nations didn't almost automatically hate the Soviet Union, what could have happened?

In that case SU didn't spend half of it's GND for military purposes and it should have absolutely different economy.
I sugest in this case I still lived in country called Soviet Union instead of Russian Federation.

	06-04-2002 06:16									#4
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The Soviet Union's economy was in massive disarray and was a disorganized disaster, or basket-case. Its industries was pathetically outdated and inadequate. It was doomed to die.

	06-04-2002 06:20									#5
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No, it wouldn't have survived.

The economic system was simply messed. No incentive... cheating going on all over, just total mess.

I mean, the productivity was NEGATIVE in the 80s... that is simply jawdropping.

	06-04-2002 06:21									#6
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quote: Originally posted by UberKruX Question for the communists / anti-communists of apolyton. Do you think that the Soviet Union could have succeeded if the rest of the world didn't offer them a cold shoulder?

I am not a believer of communism, but I'm not anti-communist either, since I do not hate those who do believe in communism.

Anyway, communism in the Soviet Union could not have succeeded even in a more peaceful world, simply because there were always wealthier people in the Soviet Union. There was too much corruption, and too much concentrated wealth with the leaders of the Soviet Union.

	06-04-2002 06:25									#7
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You are positing that if everything else was diferent, the economy still would have been a basketcase in the 80s, Imran? Balderdash!

The economy of the USSR was exceedingly energetic in the begining, after the civil war, and only crunched because of seven years of the most brutal war. Even under the Stalinist terror, there were incredible levels of volunteerism and sacrifice for the betterment of their nation.

I suggest that if the USSR hadn't been attacked outright, economically cut off, and had the CIA running around fomenting saboteurs, the USSR might have really been something spectacular.

	06-04-2002 06:27									#8
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara The economy of the USSR was exceedingly energetic in the begining, after the civil war, and only crunched because of seven years of the most brutal war. Even under the Stalinist terror, there were incredible levels of volunteerism and sacrifice for the betterment of their nation.

Yes. Because they were forced to. If they didn't they would of been marched off to Gulags, left to die in brutal cold.

quote: I suggest that if the USSR hadn't been attacked outright, economically cut off, and had the CIA running around fomenting saboteurs, the USSR might have really been something spectacular.

Yeah right! Their industries were so backwards it wasn't even funny.

	06-04-2002 06:30									#9
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I don't neccesarily think that SU would have been spectacular

but it definitly would have been moderately succesful (maybe more so than the US)

but then I am not really a Marxist

Jon Miller

	06-04-2002 06:33									#10
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BS!

The economy of the Soviet Union was crap after Stalin. Basically Stalin forced industrialization, resulting in extremely high growth rates.

However, the whole structure of the economy was rotten. There was no real incentive. You had managers who'd mistate production because the only incentive was bonuses made by beating targets. You had a whole system where nothing was done by market forces... so you had only one sort of, say, aluminum being produced in a plant, so a car factory would get tons of sheet aluminum when it didn't need that kind.

The entire economic system was rotten to the core... especially since the Stalinists believed that the people didn't need consumer goods.

Oh, and btw, Stalin was looking towards creating autarky in his country, so trade wouldn't have mattered anyway... but even if the SU wanted to trade... having a non-convertable currency would make the level of trade not much higher than it already was.

	06-04-2002 06:34									#11
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Stalinism gave a huge boost to the productive potential of the USSR (in 1913 Russia had around 40% of Germany's manufacturing output, by 1938 Germany had 40% of the Soviet Union's) but at the cost of setting up corruptionist tendencies that in the end crippled the USSR's ability to grow past a certain point.

Stalin's purges, whilst awful from a humanitarian viewpoint, did at least have the economic benefit of inhibiting the growth of corruptionist coalitions within the economy.

If the USSR was allowed to 'live in peace' then I think it could still be in existance today (although it's power would be well below the mid 1970's peak).

If the 'kinder, gentler' form of communism that came with Kruschev had not prevailed and brutal Stalinism with it's periodic purges had prevailed then I think it's quite possible that the Soviet Union could today be equal to the USA in global power.

With reflection that's quite a horrifying thought.

	06-04-2002 06:45									#12
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The Soviet Union totally destroyed its own land. Two thirds of the Aral Sea is now desert. Lake Baikal, the most voluminous fresh water lake in the world is full of pollutants. More then 4 million acres of the Ukranian "black earth" soil, the most fertile soil on the planet were ruined in only a few weeks by huge overloads of fertilization and irrigation. In Magnitogorsk, there was so much soot and ash in the air from open-air steel smelters, (the kind which were last used in America in 1878) that every day, more then .5 inches (1.3cm) of dust would collect on every surface in some homes. In the oil-rich Caucasus region, for every twenty barrels of oil that flowed through the piplines, one barrel spilled out onto the ground. Three quarter-million acres of Siberian forest were logged in one summer, and the wood was left lying around through the winter; by the time it was collected, it had almost completely rotted. There are many other examples of this.

In my opinion, if the Soviet Union had been more open to the west, the west would have returned the favor. If this had been the case, I think we would all be better off, as the land in the former USSR would not be so horrendously polluted.

But improvements are being made, albeit slowly.

Steele

	06-04-2002 06:49									#13
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Yes, but all of the examples of what went wrong int he USSR are contingent upon a history which started out with civil war and foreign invasion and economic blackade. Without understanding how the first three events deformed the Soviet polity, you can't make a reasonable guess about how things might have been different.

	06-04-2002 06:53									#14
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You can argue about what would happen, but my point was:

If the USSR were more open with the west would have been likewsie. This would have enabled the sharing of technology both ways. I can't think of anything that the west would gain that it wouldn't already have, but the USSR could get cleaner and more efficient manufacturing practices, more efficient engines, and the like.

Steele

	06-04-2002 06:59									#15
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quote: Without understanding how the first three events deformed the Soviet polity, you can't make a reasonable guess about how things might have been different.

So how can you say it would have been spectacular?

	06-04-2002 07:04									#16
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By why shouldn't the West have hated the Soviet Union? Their ideology called for the overthrow of all of our governments.

	06-04-2002 07:13									#17
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Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't part of the communist ideology require that ALL people have the same level of quality of life.

If I am right on this -- then all the upper-class leaders and rulers of the Soviet Union needed to live the same quality of life that their working class were living in. Or vice versa -- all people in the working class needed to live the same quality of life that the rulers lived.

In this aspect then, communism would have failed even in a more peaceful world.

	06-04-2002 07:21									#18
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SU was a mess. The "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us" just doesnt work.

Communism is so stupid. Glad I live in the west and never had to put up with that crap.

	06-04-2002 07:31									#19
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quote: Originally posted by steelehc You can argue about what would happen, but my point was: If the USSR were more open with the west would have been likewsie. This would have enabled the sharing of technology both ways. I can't think of anything that the west would gain that it wouldn't already have, but the USSR could get cleaner and more efficient manufacturing practices, more efficient engines, and the like. Steele

Very interesting.
May be forget who started the Cold war? Was it SU or it was the West? It was you who start iot so don't blame us in this.

You have very interisting info about ecology, considering that I was on Baikal few years ago and saw it with my own eyes. There is no nothing, even a close like ecologists of all kinds are screaming about. It's very clean and one of the most beautyfull places I ever been. And I dont remember things you said about Siberian forests, it's strange because I'm living in Siberia. I'm understand that it is pretty big place, but... when it happen?

	06-04-2002 07:35									#20
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quote: Originally posted by steelehc I can't think of anything that the west would gain that it wouldn't already have, but the USSR could get cleaner and more efficient manufacturing practices, more efficient engines, and the like. Steele

Oh common,
you are so superior, we are so backward. I know this song and heard it many times. And from you too btw,
If it's true why your CIA always tried and trying now to steal some of our advances.

	06-04-2002 07:36									#21
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Serb... one thing most people agree on is the the USSR raped the land.

	06-04-2002 07:41									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Serb... one thing most people agree on is the the USSR raped the land.

I suppose in absolutely different manner, in different way like Western corporations do so.
And you talking about ecology here!!!
You defenders of nature. You Americans- who don't want to sign a Kyoto agreements to reduce global warming.

	06-04-2002 07:42									#23
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Imran,

But the Soviet Union had so much land that it's value was correspondingly lower.

So surely it made sense for them to 'rape the land' more than the west did.

	06-04-2002 07:52									#24
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el freako... yeah, I agree. But they didn't have to go to such lengths. I mean, the pollution in the West is bad... but in no way comes even close to what the USSR did. It is just staggering... and Chernobyl is just the beginning of it.

	06-04-2002 08:03									#25
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Still take points from one of our biggest tragedies. Good for you, go on.
Do you realy think that your Nuclear plants will not share the fate of chernobyl somday?
Do you think you are protected from such kind of tragedy? Do you think your plants never have breakdowns?

	06-04-2002 08:06									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Serb Very interesting. May be forget who started the Cold war? Was it SU or it was the West? It was you who start iot so don't blame us in this. You have very interisting info about ecology, considering that I was on Baikal few years ago and saw it with my own eyes. There is no nothing, even a close like ecologists of all kinds are screaming about. It's very clean and one of the most beautyfull places I ever been. And I dont remember things you said about Siberian forests, it's strange because I'm living in Siberia. I'm understand that it is pretty big place, but... when it happen?

wrongo. you started it when you refused to leave eastern europe, and instead decided to enslave them. Then the berlin blockade? I guess your going to say we deserved it or somthing?

	06-04-2002 08:07									#27
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add to that the support you gave to the greek communist's attempting to overthrow a western democracy. So after all...look who started the cold war?

	06-04-2002 08:12									#28
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WTF?
I always though that the Churchill's Fullton speach is considering as the beggining of Cold war.

	06-04-2002 08:20									#29
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quote: Do you realy think that your Nuclear plants will not share the fate of chernobyl somday? Do you think you are protected from such kind of tragedy? Do you think your plants never have breakdowns?

No, they probably won't. Because we tend to take care of them better than the USSR did. Meltdowns can be prevented with care... and the USSR didn't provide any.

That is my last comment to the nationalistic Russian who seemingly knows nothing but government propaganda.

	06-04-2002 08:21									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Sceptor107 wrongo. you started it when you refused to leave eastern europe, and instead decided to enslave them. Then the berlin blockade? I guess your going to say we deserved it or somthing?

Oh....
I suppose after Nazi killed 27 millions of Soviet people and destroeyd the most industrialized part of our territory, we should just leave from Europe and let Americans and Brits to took all benefits from OUR victory. Right!!! Why Stalin didn't do so? What a stupid Stalin!!!! He should trust to the west (who burden his country) instead of afraid that someday west could make another attempt to conquer SU.

You said that we are enslaved Eastern Europe, do you have ANY fècking idea what was nazi plans for us, citizens of Russia?
DEATH. Wipe out of population of whole country.
Now you are rewriting history, tommorow you will be blame us for what we destroyed nazi and saved our lives and lives of millons of people from other nations.
Thanks for your gruttitude.