Why Did Socialism Fail in the Soviet Bloc?

[ROSSERJB@xxxxxxx]

     This is an effort to draw together some threads
that have been weaving in and out.  Basically I blame
the legacy of Stalin's policies for the failure of
socialism in the Soviet bloc, even if the initial trigger
was the reform effort of Gorbachev and allies.  Their actions
would not have caused such a collapse if the system were
ready to go.
     I see three major legacies of Stalin that underlay the
decay:
     1)  Excessive military production.  Even if one accepts
the most vigorous of revisionist arguments, there is no
evidence that the US and its allies after WW II were plotting
invasion of the USSR.  IT was not militarily threatened,
although there were certainly interests in the West hostile
to the USSR.  It is not at all clear that the buildup announced
by Stalin in early February, 1946 had any justification.  It
was opposed by important elements in the USSR such as Vosnesenzky
who would later be killed during the "anti-Cosmopolite" purge
(any stories on what "wreckers" and "mountebanks" that crew was,
Adolfo?).  It was the locking in of the Eastern European states
to the Soviets' military industrial complex which consumed a much
higher proportion of GDP than in was happening in the capitalist west.
This was a major part of Stalin's imperialism.
     2)  Technological stagnation.  This is a harder problem for
socialism to deal with, although not an impossible one.  A major
element in it is
     3)  Political Repression.  The leaders in Eastern Europe were
imposed by Stalin and maintained in office by the force of the Red
Army.  It is no accident that the Communist states that were liberated
>from the Nazis by their own armies, Yugoslavia and Albania, sought
political independence from the Soviet bloc.  This political repression
made the events of 1989-91 what they were.  Any future socialist
movements must avoid their mistakes.
Barkley Rosser


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