I’ve seen a lot of people ask why the USSR fell and a lot if people go into explaining what happened but not nearly as much exploration into how we can avoid repeating the same mistakes.

So what’s the secret? How do we build something like the USSR again but avoid the same pitfalls that doomed it? How do we avoid repeating history? What have current socialist projects learned from the Soviet Union’s tragic demise? What have current communist movements learned from the failure of the Bolshevik’s project? How have current theoreticians grappled with this question?

  • Muad'Dibber@lemmygrad.mlM
    23·
    3 days ago
    1. Don’t de-link from the world market. We can’t really blame the USSR for the cold war, and the US successfully alienating them from the rest of the world, but there were times in the USSR’s history when overtures could have been made, especially to non-aligned countries.
    2. Don’t shy away from a market economy; create a socialist market economy that serves the people. People love treats, and if the capitalist world is able to give them treats, and you aren’t, then people will lose faith in your system over time.
    3. Make sure the military and intelligence forces are controlled by the party, politically educated, and vigilant against opportunists and careerists.
    4. Don’t get involved in war quagmires, or fund revolution abroad. The US set many traps the USSR fell into, and used its larger resources to force the USSR to drain its economy and focus too many material and human resources on the military, which isn’t a productive sector. In a poker game where your opponent has more chips, and forces you to pay a high ante, you should always fold except with the strongest of hands. After you get nukes, you can just always fold and never pay any ante, as has been proven by the PRC and DPRK.

    The PRC and other socialist countries have mostly addressed these.

    • Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml
      3·
      2 days ago

      Regarding the first point, we should make it clear to everyone, from anti-communists to ill informed comrades that Trade =/= Capitalism. Capitalism has existed for 400 years but long-distance commerce has existed for more than 150,000 years. One of the reasons why the US Empire imposes embargoes and Sanctions is because they wanna suffocate the people who dared to choose socialism.

    • darkpassenger@lemmygrad.ml
      12·
      3 days ago

      I hate that my country was instrumental in helping US create the Taliban just for $$$. Also ironic how the taliban then waged war against us and our blowing up people to this day.

  • rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml
    29·
    4 days ago

    This is a great question and I think this post will help a lot -> https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7854832

    The post that I linked above has the title, “Lessons from the collapse of the USSR: What China learned”, and it shares valuable insights that help to understand some of the causes of the dissolution which can be highlighted as follows:

    • Peretroiska reform
    • Glasnost reform
    • The vilinization of Stalin

    There are more resources out there but I am hopeful that the post will resolve most of your questions as it did for me.