LOL. Stalin certainly did revive industrial policy in Russia, but he did it in a very flawed way. In order for no one region to dominate industry, he put factories as far away as possible from each other, thus creating a lot of inefficiency. Also, since the workers got paid regardless of the quality and quantity of their output, it was a highly inefficient system. The same went for agriculture. For example, a tomato farm was paid to harvest the fruit, put it on trucks, and drive the produce to the end of the zone where they were responsible for maintaining the road. And there the trucks sat, the farm having legally fulfilled its mandate under the latest five year plan. Also, in order to pacify workers, Stalin made vodka and cigarettes dirt cheap, resulting in a lot of early mortality, but also ensuring that the farm or factory workers produced their goods in a heavily drunken state. Rotting to the core? You have no idea what that phrase means with regards to America!
begob,
How on earth did they make it to Berlin in 1945?
ocypode, November 4, 2025 at 4:24 am
You can dislike and disagree with Stalinist collectivization and mass industrialization policy, obviously. I don’t think many people see it as a nice time. But the Russian Empire was mostly agricultural and weak (see: the results of WW1), and the USSR won WW2. You can hardly dispute that it worked. To do so is historical falsification and bad faith argumentation. As to whether it was as efficient as it could have been, probably not? This was the first time anyone had tried to do something like that and they didn’t exactly have the most lenient conditions to do it. If you’re going to criticize Soviet policy, do it properly.
LOL. Stalin certainly did revive industrial policy in Russia, but he did it in a very flawed way. In order for no one region to dominate industry, he put factories as far away as possible from each other, thus creating a lot of inefficiency. Also, since the workers got paid regardless of the quality and quantity of their output, it was a highly inefficient system. The same went for agriculture. For example, a tomato farm was paid to harvest the fruit, put it on trucks, and drive the produce to the end of the zone where they were responsible for maintaining the road. And there the trucks sat, the farm having legally fulfilled its mandate under the latest five year plan. Also, in order to pacify workers, Stalin made vodka and cigarettes dirt cheap, resulting in a lot of early mortality, but also ensuring that the farm or factory workers produced their goods in a heavily drunken state. Rotting to the core? You have no idea what that phrase means with regards to America!
begob,
How on earth did they make it to Berlin in 1945?
ocypode, November 4, 2025 at 4:24 am
You can dislike and disagree with Stalinist collectivization and mass industrialization policy, obviously. I don’t think many people see it as a nice time. But the Russian Empire was mostly agricultural and weak (see: the results of WW1), and the USSR won WW2. You can hardly dispute that it worked. To do so is historical falsification and bad faith argumentation. As to whether it was as efficient as it could have been, probably not? This was the first time anyone had tried to do something like that and they didn’t exactly have the most lenient conditions to do it. If you’re going to criticize Soviet policy, do it properly.
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