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Talk:History of the Soviet Union

Slrubenstein:

I’m looking through some of your edits. While they make for better “readability”, this is often at the cost of over-simplifying the content and at the expense of more precise wording. For instance, it’s more precise to state that under Brezhnev’s “tutelage” certain growth rates were experienced rather than under his "leadership" since he may or may not have taken any great role in some of the developments seen under his “tutelage”. Go through the section that on the nature of economic planning and you'd get a sense why. A Soviet party chief/ceremonial state president (like Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, or Gorbachev” is a bit more like the “chairman of the board” than someone like Bush or Chirac (other strong heads of state). Also, it’s too simplistic to go through some of the conditions liked to the Bolshevik Revolution and list them together as “causes”. There is simply to much debate about the subject.

You’re also mixing up the chronology. Now the 1922 Kronstat Revolt, which is more relevant in the NEP section instead of the Bolshevik Revolution section, is being discussed before events leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution.

Noting these problems, I made some changes to the organization of the first two sections. 172

172

Your point about Kronstadt is well-taken, thank you. As for tutelage, I realy disagree with you and have posted a complete explanation to your talk page. I am also glad you think many of my changes have increased readability. Slrubenstein

Rather than poor writing styles or suspected biases, the problems of the article are more clear. Due to my shortcomings, it lacks the following issues that come to my mind just to name some examples:

Titular nationalities, ethnonationalism, institutional change, the Cold War, the Sino-Soviet Split, the origins of the Cold War, the Kosygin reforms of 1965, power struggles, de-Stalinization, arts and culture, the causes of the Bolshevik Revolution, Perestroika and Glasnost, the Andropov and Chernenko interludes, foreign trade, the Warsaw Pact, Soviet subsides to foreign regimes like Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam, the military-industrial complex in the post-Stalin years, the Cuban Missile Crisis, youth organizations, the Virgin Lands, Afghanistan, and the judiciary.

As you can see, the article is weak on the post-Stalin years. G-man had a good idea to slit the article in half, one section covering 1917-1953 and the other 1953-1991. That way we can add content without removing important content on the war, industrialization, and collectivization. It's not that I forgot all these topics, but realized that the article was already too long once I got to the point of having to address them.

172

I agree about the need for more content, although again you have been doing a good job. Also, can you add anything on the role of anarchists in Kronstadt, and the Bolshevik repression of anarchists?

Anyway, I just made a few changes -- nothing to content, mostly a little switching of sentences and stuff; I hope you will again agree it makes it more readable. I did change tutelage back to leadership; please see my explanation on your talk page, 172, and also please consider taking up my suggestions there, Slrubenstein

We can revisit Kronstadt, but we should all enter into a pact to focus on post-Stalin years, where the article is weaker. 172

I wasn’t suggesting that Bush and Chirac have more or less power than Brezhnev did, but just stressing the fact that the systems are very different. One system is based on delegated powers, the other is sort of based on informal personal influence that some top cadre accumulated over some particular institutions and compromise between committee members.

Here’s a story that will illustrate why Brezhnev and his successors were conciliatory chairmen of the board, and not dictators in the mold of Stalin or executives with strong delegated powers like Yeltsin or Putin.

I’m partial to the bureaucratic pluralist and interest groups approaches taken by Sovietologists in years past. To get a sense of where these model’s are coming from, I suggest that you take into consideration the aborted Kosygin Reforms of 1965, which called for giving industrial enterprises more control over their own production-mix, some flexibility over wages, and allowed them to put a proportion of profit into their own funds. But these reforms suggested a move away from detailed central planning and control from above, prompting the planning ministries, whose numbers were proliferating rapidly, to fight back and protect their old powers. This was not a difficult task since the Brezhnev/Kosygin collective leadership lacked the strength to counter their influence (the ministries, after all, controlled supplies and rewarded performance) in order to implement the reforms. The ministries fought back by just issuing more detailed instructions that retarded the reforms, curtailing the freedom of action of the enterprises. Nor did these economic reforms, aimed at increasing productivity by pushing aside surplus labor, necessarily appeal to workers. The constituency that stood to gain the most from the reforms was the enterprise management, but they weren’t enthusiastic either since they weren’t convinced that these reforms might last. Finally, by 1968 there was the unfortunate example of Czechoslovakia, which put the breaks on the momentum for economic and political reform. In contrast, the military sector continued to be the success story.

In the article I pointed out that the ACS system had not yet exhausted its capacity for growth by the late 1960s since it was still sustaining higher rates of growth than the Western powers, so these reforms could have been implemented at just the right time to save the Soviet Union and spare the population of the hardships of the past twenty years. By Gorbachev, in contrast, a decade of stagnation, declining productivity, and systemic problems like the ones I chronicled in the article might have been insurmountable. Perhaps the problem with Kosygin/Brezhnev was not too much power concentrated in their hands, but not enough. Forces like the ministries and the military won out, pushing the Soviet Union in a less prudent direction.

When I was describing the role of the Soviet Party chief/state president, I should’ve given Putin and Yeltsin as examples just to avoid confusion. Yes, Yelstin was more powerful within Russia than Brezhnev. Since Yelstin was a strong executive with strong formal delegated powers, he could implement radical (and unpopular) economic reforms under his leadership by executive decree and unconstitutional actions like his disillusion of the duma in 1993. Kosygin, then the Soviet Premier, however, could not get the Byzantine labyrinth of the Soviet Administrative Command System to carry out the reforms that he attempted to institute. Stalin's successors simply did not enjoy his apparatus of state terror to get things done, made possible by Stalin subverting the party's power with the secret police.

Perhaps what I just described to you should be in the article. Rather than squabbling over whether or not “tutelage” is a common enough word to belong in the article, maybe the above content could give readers a better sense of Soviet politics.

172

As I say on 172's talk page, much of the above ought to be adapted to fit the article itself! Slrubenstein

I added it. The article, however, is still weak on the Gorbachv era and could also use more of a general chronology woven into it for readers who are unfamiliar with a general overview or outline of Soviet history. 172

thanks, Slrubenstein

I deleted "created" because it is argumentative and POV. Personally (and I am no Stalanist) I do not believe he "created" his reputation, unless you mean he created it through actual deeds. I believe he was a dedicated revolutionary and Bolshevik through the Civil War. You have a right to disagree -- my point is that neitehr your nor my position is objective NPOV. What is objective, what you and I can both agree on, is that he had a reputation. How this reputation developed and to what extent it was accurate is a matter of historical and political debate. The Stalin article should provide an account of the debate -- but in an NPOV way. Slrubenstein

I'm not going to get into an uproar over that change (I didn't write that paragraph), but it is well-documented that Stalin began a propaganda campaign following Lenin's death exaggerating his role in the Bolshevik revolution and his role as Lenin's anointed heir while he was pushing aside rivals on the left and the right and consolidating power. 172

And that campaign should be documented in the article on Stalin (if you have detailed information please by all means include it there) -- as should his real achievements prior to and during the Revolution and Civil War. He is a complicated character and virtually all talk of him has been highly partisan -- all of this should be covered, but in a balanced way, that's all, Slrubenstein

I’m content with your wording right now, but I’ll deal with that issue after adding a little information on the Stalin cult. I know that I wanted to focus on the post-Stalin years, but this topic is conspicuously absent. 172

Did you like my contribution about the causes of the USSR's break up G-Man

Yes. It was succinct and well-written. I was also able to weave all the old text on the disillusion of the Soviet Union, which lacked analysis, into it. That was the content that the article needed the most.

Good job! 172

Attribute actions to actors with respect to the phrase:

The CPSU became the sole legal political party

I do not claim greater expertise on the subject than an attentive reading of Orlando Figes A people's Tragedy, but I think we could look a little less like Weaselpedia here. -- Alan Peakall 17:38 29 May 2003 (UTC)

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