Mikhail Gorbachev has died

There was such a plan, at least in the twisted minds of the people behind the Washington Consensus. They were calling it privatization or price liberalization or some other non-sense like that, thing is the common people got the very, very short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agriculture in a matter of 4-5 years maximum; I'm not from Russia, but still from the former communist space) while some lucky ones from amongst us became entrepreneurs and business leaders. Also, most of the really juicy assets (like almost of all our banking sector, our oil resources etc) got sold to Western companies, but that was a given if we wanted to become part of the European Union and of the West more generally speaking.

Yes, I've started to become more and more bitter as the years have gone by, I'm now almost the same age as my dad was in the mid-'90s, when all hell started to economically unravel. Nobody had asked my parents, or us, who were mere kids and teenagers back then, if we were agreeing to the sacrifices that they were going to impose on us.

https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/03/16/the-transiti...

A lot of Russia's issues stem from the way the government sold off their state owned corporations, which created artificial monopoly/oligopoly owners overnight — often insiders/cronies to begin with. This can be contrasted with traditional market economies where large corporations start off as small companies and become dominant through innovation, growth, and generally meeting consumer demands.

Some ultra-capitalist die-hards have even retreated away from Liberalism in general as they found it too restrictive for their extreme ideology (they know their economic regime could never gain sustained popular support; it would need to be imposed)

> The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II.

Total bullshit. The West did put in nearly as much money as part of GDP in aid to early 199X Russia as US did in Europe after 1945. US aid was pouring from every hole up until mid-late nineties.

I would argue America went too much Marshal on Russia, and you are reaping the results of this folly now. It was a giant mistake not to finish off the beastie, and not to SCALE UP the pressure after the USSR collapse to force genuine reforms.

The West is responsible for much of CPSU's comeback happening in 200X, repeating how USA saved early CPSU from total collapse from food riots in early 192X out of pity. A giant mistake.

US humanitarian aid was stolen many times over, sold again, stolen, and resold, giving a headstart to CPSU elements turning to banditry. It was totally unsupervised. US totally failed to empower the right kind of people back then with its aid.

Subsequent entries by Western multinationals funded much of 200X mess in Russia, rise, and legitimisation of early Putin's mob regime. The first Western supermarket in Russia was literally inaugurated by the mob boss of Moscow.

Much of Kremlin's current denizens owe their meteoric rises to megabribes they got from Western MNCs in early 200X, which they used to fund their political ascensions.

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Other post-USSR countries which did have their economies opened up, and claimed by the Western capital yearly on were super lucky to have the West "rob" them like that.

Russia, or Central-Asian states were saved from such "robbery," and their economies at large stayed with the CPSU mobsters instead.

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"Russian Liberals" == Total intellectual dishonesty. They share as much the blame for Russian devolution into North Korea 2.0 as Putin himself.

> short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agriculture in a matter of 4-5 years maximum;

Good for them! They did live in apartment, unlike the 80% of Bloc's population, who lived in wooden barracks from fourties. They likely had a white collar job, and been on good terms with communist authorities.

Not living in an apartment for 5 years is by far not a life breaking event, nor is anywhere close to worst shit happening to less elite people back then.

> got sold to Western companies

I'm shaking my head to when reading such obtuse propaganda on hacker news.

> Nobody had asked my parents, or us, who were mere kids and teenagers back then, if we were agreeing to the sacrifices that they were going to impose on us.

They did. Through numerous elections, in which Iliescu and his cronies managed to build a state within a state. But of course, that's also Washington's fault.

I feel this. It's not much fun being a end of Millennial. Maybe other generations felt this getting passed over but in general my friends who are older than me by a few years have fared a lot worse than those who are a few years younger than me. Some punk song summed it up

    Where we'll sell you dreams then make you work for free
    They handed us an economy thats destined us for poverty
    Then have the nerve to call us soft and lazy for complaining
    Cause they're from a generation where you could be what you wanted to be
   But baby I'm a 90's kid

That said, the former Soviet Republics that transitioned well are those that were smaller, already edging their way towards a market economy before the USSR collapse, and received substantial help from (and eventually joined) the EU (Baltics, Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep., Slovenia), and in the case of E.Germany, unification.

I don't think most of the others have fared that well. GDP/Capita is not a good measure because it doesn't take inequality into account.

It had been tried in many places already: Chile, Indonesia, the Philippines, and (before 1979) Iran. The data were clear: it had worked very well for capitalists, but very poorly for people in the countries affected. And it mostly has come to the US. There are remnants of the welfare state, but your employer can basically do whatever he wants because he calls himself "a job creator"... and education is debt-financed... and getting sick will wipe out everything you have... and we've transitioned away from productive investment to asset bubbles... and you better not end up in a lawsuit because the rich have the best lawyers and lobbyists and therefore effectively own the court system (you only have a shot if you can find a rich person who hates your adversary enough to back you). The EU has held out to an extent, for now, but it won't if the Davos people get their way. The "Great Reset" is their plan to implement extreme capitalism under a guise of ecological caution and "woke" multiculturalism [1].

The Marshall Plan was written by people who believed market systems were superior to central planning given the technological level and geographical complexities (e.g., general low trust between nations) of the time--they were capitalists, but not capitalist ideologues. Alas, the successes (for "business interests", meaning rich people in the US) in Santiago, Jakarta, and Manila led them to become more brazen, to the point of using the former USSR for some of their most aggressive experiments to that point.

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[1] This is not to say ecological caution isn't important (it is). Nor is it to disparage the broader set of social movements classified by their detractors as "woke", most of which have nothing but the best intentions. The issue with "woke capitalism" is that it retrenches in identity politics in order to divide working people against each other for Capital's benefit, and that it is designed not to provide significant help to people in marginalized groups (most of whom are working class, and who will therefore not be helped) but to neuter a powerful, morally righteous leftist movement toward genuine and universal social justice.

https://youtu.be/wnDxHTaeNX0

That might be what it writes in the link, it wasn't the case though, except if you mean after things stabilized 15 and 20 years later (and it's still bad in most places). Tons of conflict, forced migration, poverty, crime, sexual slavery, and so on...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41294-021-00169-w

Gorbachev wanted to keep USSR intact. He didn't want a post-USSR Russia. He initiated referendums to that end. But USSR was already on the train to dissolution and nothing was going to stop it.

Because whose who installed them of course now knew where are someone with something worth protecting with a steel doors.

And the GDR still got the best deal of all of the ones you mentioned. But there's massive inequality, massive unemployment. (And as a result, extremism, political fatigue, corruption, etc)

Ditto for the goons. If your main skill is sociopathic violence and physical strength, why not use those your talents to intimidate and exploit the workers for your boss’s benefit?

Live in Poland, muggings aren't really a thing, and according to the "what worries the world" monthly polls of ipsos[0], poles are the nation that least worries about violence and crime (it was surprising for me to see the effect is that strong), with only 5% worrying about it.

[0]: https://www.ipsos.com/en/what-worries-world-july-2022

Or when the govt sells off public assets ...

If you look at houses in Compton and see metal bars on the windows, you don't instantly think "man, they must have lots of expensive stuff to steal". Kind of the same deal here.

To me it seems like they have the best intentions in the same way that religious extremists have the best intentions. But otherwise I agree with you.

Central Asia has the same oligarchy as you would picture in Russia and probably much worse. All dictators only changing after the previous dies.

Would the result have been different if Russia followed a Chinese model?

For once, I don't think that they would consider leaving all of their valuables in front of the front door where everything is visible. Unless installing the front door includes rummaging through the entire apartment, all while the person living there is just standing and smiling. Which, I assure you, isn't how it usually goes.

And I am not trying to make it as some attack on people living in the west, I am one of them now myself. It speaks more about how safe and comfortable the modern western life can be, compared to what it was in those eastern european countries back then, that we can afford to be so oblivious to our surroundings and so much less cautious.

>In August 2005, Harvard University, Shleifer and the Department of Justice reached an agreement under which the university paid $26.5 million to settle the five-year-old lawsuit. Shleifer was also responsible for paying $2 million worth of damages, though he did not admit any wrongdoing.[10][16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Shleifer#Scandal

I don't know what you call it when a country loses 10% of it's population, like Ukraine did, but decimation is the dictionary definition.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI

Maybe it's worth taking their points seriously instead of arguing. Nobody has flimay wooden american-style doors in Russia, everyone installs steel doors, thats the norm.

Reforms such as? The countru had new borders, new constitution, new everything. There isn't a legal reform that would have magocally solvednthe problem.

> US totally failed to empower the right kind of people back then with its aid.

Wouls it be realistic and possibpe for a US obserber to know who the right people are?

One day the real history of those times will be written, but this is not it. Economism is faith based, not a science.

How is that evident, though? It’s actually pretty clear that the quality of life has drastically improved in most of these countries. Of *course* you can always find some group who is suffering. But there is no way I would want to live in 1980s Poland, Estonia, etc vs 2020. For example:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?location...

The continued existence of problems does not mean things have not worked. It’s important to look at whether those problems are improving over time.

Now though it's nothing like that. I'm originally from the UK and I feel much safer being here. Not only personal safety (I don't feel there's any 'bad parts' of the city you 'shouldn't go') but also private belongings. I've never heard of anyone in recent times being burgled or having their car broken into.

(It wasn’t exclusively in the USSR sphere of influence, but it was in their sphere of influence.)

That’s how the USA imported the Yugo!

I see oblivious and naive people everywhere all the time (eg phone scams)

> they were way more cautious and aware of their surroundings than modern people living in the west are

Thanks for assuming I'm just a stupid guy from the West.

> all of their valuables in front of the front door where everything is visible

Of course not, but there is a lot of things what can tell you there could be valuables there. Ruined flat in a commie block is one thing, but a freshly renovated flat in that commie block is another thing.

If you think a little you can, probably, understand why I know that.

10% is "one in every ten"

(noun)

the killing of one in every ten of a group of people as a punishment for the whole group (originally with reference to a mutinous Roman legion).

Indeed. He didn't weigh in on the current debacle but he praised Putin's seizure of Crimea.

He was a product of his upbringing and honestly he always seemed like a weak player to me -- but really I have no idea how difficult it might have been to bring off the reforms he did under Andropov, Chernenko and then his own premiership.

You're painting an incomplete picture. The assets got sold only after being looted by former regime cronies who enriched themselves in the process. It's entirely our own fault for failing to prevent this 32 years after the USSR collapse.

Russians mistakenly fault Gorbachev for the USSR collapse. He only saw the writing on the wall and made a soft landing. The USSR was going to collapse anyway.

The USSR should've been broken up until a number of sustainably small republics left. Let Islamic regions go that themselves wanted out (and Russians wanted and still want them out as well) and which resulted in bloody wars on Caucausus.

What actually happened is a quiet takeover by party apparatchiks. The "dissolution" of USSR was performed by three major communist party members so that most important asset Russia (de facto RSFSR left intact) was not broken up.

The power was still centralized in Kremlin as well. The first and last actually elected parliament (elected back under Gorbachev) was crushed in 1993 by Kremlin.

KGB was allowed to regroup as FSB, hide a lot of crimes and then run for power in 1999.

Russian Federation is RSFSR left intact with its borders and regional partition.

Crushing parliament with tanks in 1993 left the country without any checks to presidential power.

Yeltsin constitution gave enormous power to president. For example he can introduce general attorney (the only one who can open investigation on president). Or judges of supreme and costitutional courts (that can introduce changes to constitution itself). Once you've got a puppet parliament, you're free to go, unchecked power.

All regions besides Moscow (or hyper loyal enclaves like Chechnya) are ruled by capital as colonies.

It's evident not only in Russian regions but also occupied territories of Ukraine and Crimea. The assets are quickly divided between Moscow, Chechen and local gangs. Dissent is crushed and voices are forever silenced.

to be convincing you have to point out things that the transitioners could have done that would have worked better, but even the best experts in the world did not know any better than what was tried, so that's going to be a tough case to make.

Haha what? There were 15 Soviet Republics. Can you name the "most" of them where the transition went well?

What I'm most worried of now are old, historically rich countries in decline, like Italy and Spain.

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<tangent> I've started to become increasingly jaded about economic indicators not only because of articles like this, but because of how they are used in general. We seek data on things like economies not because those numbers matter whatsoever, but because those numbers are supposed to reflect of an objective measurement of the quality of life of people living under that economy. In effect, it's an effort to create objective metrics to try to impartially answer subjective questions.

But it ultimately fails, because subjective determination is going to be based on a practically infinite number of metrics, many of which may be immeasurable. So why not simply ask the people? Should we not be aiming to maximize e.g. contentedness/capita instead of GDP/capita and just hoping it leads to the former, somehow? Of course that's a far harder metric to maximize, but that's the whole point. Just doing everything to maximize one metric's value and then waving a "Mission Accomplished" banner clearly is not getting the job done. </tangent>

This is a cousin to both mansplaining and gaslighting, and if we want good, lively discussion on HN we should try to be careful to avoid it. The gp comment gave some very specific and relevant comments about economic upheavals in the late Gorbachev period and deserves better than a well-actually.

OP offered a link and an explanation for some of Russia's trouble: the formation of government-backed oligarchies that prevented a healthy market economy to develop. Not the entire picture, maybe a wrong conclusion, but a valid point nevertheless.

And if we only focus ex-USSR countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia seem more like the exceptions than the rule. Basically every single country besides them did much worse than Russia (unless like it they had a large amount of natural resources)

Depends on what you mean by better. For example they're much worse thrown in the rat race

I still personally think the (mostly) peaceful dissolution of the USSR was probably one the best things that happened in the past 100 years. But transition to capitalism was extremely mismanaged, even in the “successful” countries.