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Liberalism

2021-01-01T03:15:12Z

RS17:

'''Liberalism''' is a political and economic philosophy whose basis is on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law.<ref>"liberalism In general, the belief that it is the aim of politics to preserve individual rights and to maximize freedom of choice." ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics'', Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, Third edition 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-19-920516-5}}.</ref><ref>"political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for conservatism and for tradition in general, tolerance, and [...] individualism". John Dunn. ''Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future'' (1993). Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-521-43755-4}}.</ref><ref>"With a nod to Robert Trivers' definition of altruistic behaviour" Trivers et al., 1971, page 35), Satoshi Kanazawa defines liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) as "the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others" (Kanazawa et al., 2010, page 38).</ref> Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support free markets, free trade, limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), [[capitalism]], [[democracy]], secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, and freedom of speech, the press, and of religion.<ref name="LInternational">{{cite web|url=http://www.liberal-international.org/editorial.asp?ia_id=537|title=The Liberal Agenda for the 21st Century|access-date=20 March 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110207012341/http://www.liberal-international.org/editorial.asp?ia_id=537|archive-date=7 February 2011}}</ref><ref name="Nader Hashemi">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UkVIYjezrF0C&dq=liberalism+secularism|author=Nader Hashemi|title=Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies|publisher=Oxford University Press|quote=Liberal democracy requires a form of secularism to sustain itself|year=2009|isbn=978-0-19-971751-4}}</ref><ref name="Kathleen G. Donohue">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=htuTnexZAo8C&pg=PA1&dq=liberalism+freedom+of+religion#v=onepage|author=Kathleen G. Donohue|title=Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Idea of the Consumer (New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History)|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|quote=Three of them – freedom from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion – have long been fundamental to liberalism.|isbn=978-0-8018-7426-0|date=19 December 2003|access-date=31 December 2007}}</ref><ref name="The Economist">{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KBzHAAAAIAAJ&q=liberalism+freedom+of+religion&dq=liberalism+freedom+of+religion|title=The Economist, Volume 341, Issues 7995–7997|journal=The Economist|quote=For all three share a belief in the liberal society as defined above: a society that provides constitutional government (rule by law, not by men) and freedom of religion, thought, expression and economic interaction; a society in which [...]|year=1996|access-date=31 December 2007}}</ref><ref name="Sheldon S. Wolin">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ndAdGl8ScfcC&pg=PA525&dq=liberalism+freedom+of+religion#v=onepage|author=Sehldon S. Wolin|title=Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought|publisher=Princeton University Press|quote=The most frequently cited rights included freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, property, and procedural rights|isbn=978-0-691-11977-9|year=2004|access-date=31 December 2007}}</ref><ref name="Edwin Brown Firmage, Bernard G. Weiss, John Woodland Welch">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mQJgnEITPRIC&pg=PA366&dq=liberalism+freedom+of+religion#v=onepage|author1=Edwin Brown Firmage|author2=Bernard G. Weiss|author3=John Woodland Welch|title=Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives|publisher=Eisenbrauns|quote=There is no need to expound the foundations and principles of modern liberalism, which emphasises the values of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion |isbn=978-0-931464-39-3|year=1990 |access-date=31 December 2007}}</ref><ref name="John Joseph Lalor">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/cyclopaediapoli00lalogoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/cyclopaediapoli00lalogoog/page/n758 760]|first=John Joseph|last=Lalor|title=Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States|publisher=Nabu Press|quote=Democracy attaches itself to a form of government: liberalism, to liberty and guarantees of liberty. The two may agree; they are not contradictory, but they are neither identical, nor necessarily connected. In the moral order, liberalism is the liberty to think, recognised and practiced. This is primordial liberalism, as the liberty to think is itself the first and noblest of liberties. Man would not be free in any degree or in any sphere of action, if he were not a thinking being endowed with consciousness. The freedom of worship, the freedom of education, and the freedom of the press are derived the most directly from the freedom to think.|year=1883|access-date=31 December 2007}}</ref>

There are three main types of liberalism:
*[[Social liberalism]]
*[[Conservative liberalism]]
*[[Classical liberalism]]

==Relation to socialism==
Liberals are not [[socialism|socialists]], and at most have somewhat of an inclination or sympathy towards such. Liberals tend to be unaware of legitimate critical theory but may side at times with socialism nonetheless either because they believe in forming a popular front or because they have a misconception about what socialism is (most commonly, this manifests as a liberal’s desire for what they believe to be socialism, when really they just focus on the achievement of welfare, not to change the relations to the means of production per se). Marxism rejects liberal reform of capitalism, considering reform to be a bandage that cannot reconcile the inherent contradictions to capitalism. Regardless, liberals on the path to class consciousness are generally considerable allies and have a place within the socialist movement, particularly at first when uniting against reactionary and other anti-socialist forces (wherein there is the establishment of a popular front).

==References==

China

2021-01-01T03:13:31Z

RS17:

{{More citations needed}}

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is a country in East Asia. It is governed by the [[Communist Party of China]], and was established in 1949 following the [[Chinese Civil War]] in which the Communist Party won control over all of mainland China, with the losing [[Kuomintang]] retreating to Taiwan, which the People's Republic claims sovereignty over. China is the world's most populous country and the third-largest by land area. Among leftists it is a controversial topic, with strong support and opposition to China occurring on all sides, as well as further controversy as to the degree to which China truly is socialist.

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right"
|-
! People's Republic of China<br>
<small>中华人民共和国</small>
|-
| [[File:1024px-CHN orthographic.svg.png|frameless|300x300|center|The People's Republic of China]]
<div style="text-align:center">Land controlled by the People's Republic of China shown in dark green;<br>land claimed but not controlled shown in light green.</div>
|-
|
Flag:[[File:1024px-Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg.png|125x83px|frameless|Flag of the PRC]]State Emblem [[File:800px-National Emblem of the People's Republic of China (2).svg.png|85x92px|frameless|Emblem of the PRC]]
|}

==History==
===Civil war===
====1910-1945====
After the fall of Qing Dynasty in 1911, China was ravaged by foreign influence by Japanese, British and French. On 1921, with patrons from Soviet Union, the communist party of China was founded. The Communist and Nationalist shared a front to restore China to it's past greatness. The united front which was founded in 1924 focused on the internal enemy which were the warlord. After the front proved successful, the nationalist slaughtered communist in 1927. Mao Zhedong differed from the founders in that he thought the true revolutionary force in China, wasn't the proletariat, but rather the peasantry. In 1934 communist in the encircled in their base in Jiangxi. To escape the nationalist they set out on the long march. During the long march of 1934, by criticizing Zhang Guato, Mao in large part rose to power. According to him, the communist were loosing because of bad organization. What was observed during the march was the different culture of Miao had compared to the Han. He promised that different nationalities could form their own nations, or willingly join the PRC. The Hui Muslims were promised to be able to choose their own religion and attend visits to mosques. Because of the war with Japan that started in 1930's, there were multiple attempts for nationalist and communist to cooperate, or at least stop fighting. In 1935 a CPC sent to Guomindang (nationalist) was sent to stop fighting in north east. During the december of 1936, Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by his own generals who urged him to cooperate with CPC. In 1937, Marco Polo Bridge incident caused a full scale war with Japan and an united front was formed. During the war Mao showed ability for compromise if it helped the CPC. Various Warlords were convinced to become an ally or join the CPC. Yan Xishan, who was in charge of Shanxi, declared neutrally with CPC on 1939. There was cooperation with American forces, with intelligence sharing and neutrality. A land reform was pursued in 1934 which allowed private farms to peasants. After the bombs on Japan fell the war was declared to have been ended.
====1945-1948====
With the end of war talks between the nationalist and communist began in Chongqing, but the talks proved fruitless. In December of 1945, US arranged second talks with the opposing forces. The talks proved fruitless yet again with communist never trusting the Guomindang in keeping liberated areas for the CPC, and the Guomindang not trusting CPC in recognizing Chiang as the leader of China. Imminently after the war Chiang sent his troops toward north-east China, where the communist troops and bases were. During this time both the CPC and the nationalist prepared for war. In 1945 party congress in Yanan took place in preparation of the upcoming civil war. The central military committee was established with high ranking CPC members having being appointed to leading roles. While nationalist certainly had a larger piece of the land and army, they weren't approved by the general population. Desertions among the soldiers of the nationalist army was common, with men being roped together to not escape. From 1937 to 1949, fifteen million starved because troops used to sell their rations to the peasants. Since a great deal of the army had troops from the warlords, rape and plunder was common. On CPC side, Mao got 200,000 troops from Manchuguo. Those who didn't join the PLA were executed.{{cn}} The CPC also gained a great number of troops from the deserted ones from the nationalist army. Other failure of the nationalist was that they allowed landlords, which were unpopular with the peasantry, to return after the war to their property. The Communists, knowing well how unpopular landlords were among the peasantry, humiliated and executed them. The CPC control over Harbin, area which the Japanese occupation industrialized, proved to be important in their victory, and allowed CPC to build a modern army. With communist evacuated from the area, Yanan fell to the Guomindang in 1947. After this Mao declared the annihilation of the Chiang's regime. After that the Guomindang tried spreading their reach within the country. With most of it's units being sparse, a counter-attack by the communist proved easy. In 1947 the CPC in Ningxia and Gansu were winning against the Muslim warlords. By 1948, Mao was convinced an attack, rather than defense, on the Guangdong was possible. the CPC was winning against the nationalist in north east, and with it overtook Shenyang and moved south.

====1948-1950====
Chiang troops gathered around Xuzhou with the hope of having enough time to counter-act the movement of PLA into the heart of China. With CPC having enlisted POW from the Guomindang troops into PLA, the attack could start instantaneous. Within five days Xuzhou, with it's supplies cut off and heavy rain making it's tank useless, was under CPC's wing with it's general Baitao committing suicide. At this time Mao thought that Beijing, while useless in strategy, would give much prestige. On January of 1949, Fu Zuoyi, who guarded Beijing, was promised that if he allowed the CPC to take Beijing, his war-crimes would be absolved, his fortune kept, and would be allowed to live where he wishes. On January of 1949, he accepted the term and People's liberation army stormed Beijing in. In April of 1949, Zhang Zhizhong, the governor of Xinjiang, joined the CPC. The majority of nationalist forces were defeated, and with it Chiang fled on a plane from Chengdu to Taiwan, which he brutally took over. On first of October, 1949, Mao declared from the forbidden city than the civil war has been won and People's Republic of China was found.

===Sino-Soviet split===
When [[Nikita Khrushchev]] came to power upon [[Stalin]]'s death, [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] began to consider himself the head of the international communist movement as he was the most senior leader. Khrushchev saw otherwise, that he himself was because he led the world's most powerful communist country. The denunciation of Stalin by Khrushchev, as well as the process of [[de-Stalinization]], and on top of this the policy of "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist world developed Chinese antagonisms with the USSR further. Mao's leadership also began pursuing [[Nuclear weapons|nuclear weapons]] in part to legitimize the claims that the PRC is the leader of the communist world, not the "[[Revisionism|revisionist]]" USSR. The Soviets considered Mao to be a rash and potentially destabilizing force, while Mao likewise thought the Soviets to be unreliable.

In 1959, the USSR offered moral support to the [[Tibet|Tibetan]] people in their uprising against the Chinese. The following year, at the Romanian Communist Party Congress meeting, Mao and Khrushchev openly hurled insults at each other in front of attending delegates, which would be reported across international headlines. In 1962, Mao accused Khrushchev of capitulating to the [[America|Americans]] during the 1962 [[Cuban Missile Crisis]], to which Khrushchev replied that Mao's attitude would lead to nuclear war. The same year, the Soviets backed [[India]], who they also had a good relationship with, against China in the [[Sino-Indian War of 1962]].

The USSR and the PRC nearly went to war in 1968 over a border dispute in Xinjiang. The Soviets even considered carrying out a preemptive strike in the Lop Nur Basin, also in Xinjiang, where the Chinese were preparing to test their first nuclear weapons. The United States however persuaded the Soviets not to do so, for fear of sparking a world war. In the 1970s, the Communist Party of China gave a large amount of support and funding to the [[Khmer Rouge]], which was opposed to Soviet-backed Vietnam and which received approval from [[Mao Zedong]] himself. It is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which was provided to the Khmer Rouge came from [[China]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Chandler|first=David P.|title=Brother Number One: A Political Biography Of Pol Pot|publisher=Routledge|year=2018|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mTlMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT77&lpg=PT77&dq=Maha+lout+ploh#v=onepage|isbn=978-0-429-98161-6}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/chinas-aid-emboldens-cambodia |last=Strangio |first=Sebastian |title=China's Aid Emboldens Cambodia |website=Yale Global Online|access-date=2020-04-12}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-chinese-communist-partys-relationship-the-khmer-rouge-the-1970s-ideological-victory|title=The Chinese Communist Party's Relationship with the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s: An Ideological Victory and a Strategic Failure|date=2018-12-13|website=Wilson Center|access-date=2019-11-26}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/chinacambodia/relation.html|title=China-Cambodia Relations|website=www.rfa.org|access-date=2019-11-26}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/cambodian-historians-call-for-china-to-confront-its-own-past/|title=China Is Urged to Confront Its Own History|last=Levin|first=Dan|date=2015-03-30|website=The New York Times|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2019-11-26}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.visiontimes.com/2018/01/28/how-red-china-supported-the-brutal-khmer-rouge.html|title=How Red China Supported the Brutal Khmer Rouge|date=2018-01-28|website=Vision Times|language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-26}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Kiernan|first=Ben|title=The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0300142990}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=54iUDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=By+mid-september+China+was+prepared+to+extend+to+Cambodia+a+total+of+US$1+billion#v=onepage|title=ASEAN Resistance to Sovereignty Violation: Interests, Balancing and the Role of the Vanguard State|last=Laura|first=Southgate|date=2019-05-08|publisher=Policy Press|isbn=978-1-5292-0221-2}}</ref> The Khmer Rouge was removed from power in 1979 when [[Cambodian–Vietnamese War|Vietnam invaded Cambodia]] and quickly destroyed most of the Khmer Rouge's forces. Later on in 1979, when the [[Soviet-Afghan War|Soviets invaded Afghanistan]] to support the communist government there, China allied itself with the US and Pakistan to support the [[Mujahideen|mujahideen]], as it saw Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as an aggressive move to encircle China. Soon after in 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, beginning the [[Iran-Iraq War]] that would last until 1988, the Soviets allied themselves with the US and French to support Iraq, largely because Iran had crushed the communist Tudeh party and thus the Soviets wanted revenge. To this, China sided with Iran, as did North Korea and Libya.

Throughout this, the Chinese leadership repeatedly pushed for the Soviets to relinquish [[Mongolia]] and "give it back" to China. The Soviets rejected this proposition, as did the Mongolians, who like the Vietnamese feared that China had imperialist ambitions on the country, seeking to exploit its resources and possibly even colonize it just as it had done so in its imperial era.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20200803213207/https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/ACF4CA.pdf The Soviets' Best Friend in Asia: The Mongolian Dimension of the Sino-Soviet Split</ref>

When [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] became the Soviet premier in 1985, he sought to normalize relations with China, starting by recalling some border guards from the Soviet-Chinese border, as well as reopening trade relations. The Chinese leadership was skeptical, however, of Gorbachev's policies of [[Perestroika|perestroika]] and [[Glasnost|glasnost]], believing that economic reforms should take place before political reforms. Regardless, the Chinese government welcomed an official state visit from Gorbachev in late May of 1989, along with the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The world press convened in Beijing to record the moment.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, posthumously granting Mao's wish — for China to be the world's most powerful state that calls itself communist.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200711033153/https://www.thoughtco.com/the-sino-soviet-split-195455 The Sino-Soviet Split: Russian and Chinese Political Strain in the 1900s]</ref>

===Great Leap Forward===
====The Great Chinese Famine====
[[The Great Chinese Famine]] (1958 till 1961) was caused and its severity compounded by a number of factors:

* Bad weather conditions, floods and droughts at the same time;
* The Four Pests Campaign;
* Peasants transferring to steel production;

* Bureaucratic mismanagement.

Four to five million people lost their lives.<ref>{{safesubst:Cite web| title = Cheng Enfu, A Study of Unnatural Deaths ... S&S 82,2 (April 2018) (1).pdf| work = Google Docs| accessdate = 2019-10-09| url = https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JiHMNyN2636l6NM1RtgcipDU1ztNJlup}}</ref><ref>{{safesubst:Cite web| title = Sun Jingxian, Population Change During China's 'Three Years of Hardship' (1959-1961) CCPESR April 2016 (1).pdf| work = Google Docs| accessdate = 2019-10-09| url = https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iLVagufemBYVG4d043mL6XH0auu8V5HE}}</ref> Official government statistics claim that fifteen million people perished as a result of the famine, but the composition of this statistic remains unclear (some suspect that this was an exaggeration and meant to discredit Máo or legitimise Deng Xiaoping’s policy changes), and antisocialists usually insist that between 20 and 100 million innocents died,<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Ball|first=Joseph|title=Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?|url=https://monthlyreview.org/?p=5005|date=2006-09-21}}</ref> a toll that counts millions of hypothetical babies as ‘deaths’.<ref>https://www.reddit.com/comments/9f95t9/_/e5wcr63</ref>

Amartya Sen and John Drèze point out that, while the Chinese famine was devastating, it pales in comparison to the ordinary mortality rates which occur under market economies in an otherwise comparable nation like India:

{{quote|[I]t is important to note that despite the gigantic size of excess mortality in the Chinese famine, the extra mortality in India from regular deprivation in normal times vastly overshadows the former. Comparing India’s death rate of 12 per thousand with China’s of 7 per thousand, and applying that difference to the Indian population of 781 million in 1986, we get an estimate of excess normal mortality in India of 3.9 million per year. This implies that every eight years or so more people die in India because of its higher regular death rate than died in China in the gigantic famine of 1958–61. India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame.|Amartya Sen & John Drèze|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|title=Hunger and Public Action|publisher=Harvard University|url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/sen/publications/hunger-and-public-action}}</ref>}}

This comes out to more than one hundred million excess deaths in India alone from 1947 (when India became formally independent) to 1980. As Paul Heideman put it:

{{quote|In other words, though India experienced no concentrated period of starvation which can be easily identified and hung around the neck of a particular ideology, its ordinary conditions for the latter half of the twentieth century, in which an extraordinarily unequal distribution of land obtained, created an excess mortality that, over the long term, dwarfed that of the worst famine of the century.|Paul Heideman|https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/capitalism-socialism-khmer-rouge-cambodia-china-famine-friedersdorf}}

This demonstrates the effects that capitalism has on a developing nation, but it is all the more troublesome when compared to the [[People's Republic of China#Infrastructure|immense gains made in the People’s Republic of China]].

===Cultural Revolution===
===Market reform===
====1989 Tiananmen Square protests====
Students have been protesting since 1986 for better economic conditions and greater freedom of the press, however those protests were suppressed. They flared up again in April of 1989 after the death of ousted General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who was reform-minded and rather popular with the people. Protests were concentrated in Beijing but occurred in many other places as well, reiterating the goals of previous demonstrations.

The protest movement was supported by the liberal faction of the CPC including high-ranking party members such as Zhao Ziyang, who promised to open the door to liberalization if it had succeeded like in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Yugoslavia. The protest movement, as evidenced by their own accounts, called for political and economic liberalization, rallying around a statue which some say resembles the Statue of Liberty, while otherwise is said to more so resemble the works of Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina. After the movement had been building in the square for seven weeks, unarmed soldiers were sent in to disperse the protesters, after which many soldiers were beaten to death, torched, and lynched. The New York Times' death count went from 2,600, to 8,000, then to tens of thousands. In reality, it wasn't a massacre of peaceful students, but skirmishes between PLA soldiers and armed detachments from the liberal reformist movement. Nobody was killed inside the square itself, only around 300 (including soldiers) were killed or trampled in smaller clashes in streets outside the square.<ref>[https://www.liberationnews.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/ Tiananmen: The Massacre that Wasn’t]</ref><ref><[https://medium.com/@leohezhao/notes-for-30th-anniversary-of-tiananmen-incident-f098ef6efbc2 Notes for 30th Anniversary of TianAnMen Incident]</ref> The Chinese Communist Party did not and does not deny the incident and the deaths that occurred, nor did they hide the incident from the public. They held a press conference on national television two days after the incident occurred where they openly admitted the actions that took place, the estimated casualties, and the political motives involved.<ref>https://imgur.com/a/Wqq19Q6</ref> An on-scene Washington Post reporter disavowed his own article for its lies and lack of journalistic integrity, especially regarding the alleged machine-gunning of protesters.<ref>https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php</ref> A protest leader who came from Taiwan admitted that no protesters were killed in the square.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqPI8xlnrwg&feature=youtu.be&t=1374</ref>

A WikiLeaks cable from a US ambassador to the US state department confirmed that no killings or machine-gunnings took place in the square.<ref>https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING18828_a.html</ref>
===China today===

==Politics==

==Economy==
===Market reforms===
A series of market reforms began to be implemented on December 18, 1978 by the reformists of the Communist Party, led by Deng Xiaoping. The Soviet Union, as well as the countries following its model, were seen as a lost cause and so the market reforms were made, intended to open China up more to the capitalist world. The level of market elements to be introduced into the country was set to be greater than that of the Soviet [[New Economic Policy]] of the 1920s, with the rationale being that factors such as technology becoming more complex meaning that capitalist economies must be drawn closer to, as it is difficult to develop such technologies from scratch. The proximity of China and foreign capitalist states meant that China would obtain more products and technologies directly, while also making espionage easier, as opportunities for copying technology are greater and easier. Stealing advanced technology would be insufficient, however, as that would also require establishing advanced factories and infrastructure, with the outputs of such production thus being scarce and inefficient. Orienting the relatively primitive economy towards mass-producing bulk products, through the utilization of comparative advantages, however, enables for the accumulation of capital in order to acquire advanced technology of various sorts in an easier manner than clandestinely. Of course this also needs to be coupled with directed developmental policies concerning the economy, or else the country will just turn into something like Bangladesh.

Though these reforms have indeed enabled China to develop its productive forces, so far in the short term, it is uncertain whether they are sustainable under Chinese state control or whether they will enable the People's Republic to survive the end of capitalism. Government vision does not always translate into success quite as may be hoped, with a socialist example of this being the power structure established in the USSR, which though was supposed to defeat capitalism by the end of the century,<ref>{{cite book|last=Tompson|first=William J.|year=1997|title=Khrushchev: A Political Life|location=New York City|publisher=St. Martin's Press|page=238}}</ref> did not actually evaluate to do so. The scope of the economic reforms that China has carried out are beyond that of the New Economic Policy, which in the Soviet Union was very troublesome to undo in the phase of constructing actual socialism, and which ended up exacerbating a famine that was going on at the time.<ref name="CEE">New Economic Policy. (n.d.) The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia®. (2013). Retrieved September 22 2020 from https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/New+Economic+Policy</ref> Deng Xiaoping's market reforms do seem to have enabled China to outlive the Soviet Union, but it is still uncertain whether they will be able to be undone without catastrophic damage. As capitalism does not tend to be environmentally friendly, it is also uncertain whether the world will be reparable from the effects of climate change<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200922044434/https://time.com/5824295/climate-change-future-possibilities/ What the World Will Look Like in 2050 If We Don’t Cut Carbon Emissions in Half]</ref> by the time China is to actually establish the socialist mode of production.

===Pollution===
Despite having a reputation for being one of the world’s worst polluters, the PRC emits much less carbon dioxide per person than the [[United States]] does, even while having a population that is five times greater.<ref>https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/CO2_emissions_per_capita,_2017_(Our_World_in_Data).svg</ref><ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita)|url=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/en.atm.co2e.pc|accessdate=2020-01-10}}</ref> (The PRC’s emissions can also be attributed to the fact that most of the West manufactures its goods there; most of its pollution is probably caused by producing things that are exported to the West.) The PRC is nine years ahead of schedule on meeting its Paris agreement climate change goals,<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Vaughan|first=Adam|title=China is on track to meet its climate change goals nine years early|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/2211366|accessdate=2020-01-10}}</ref> and has met ultra-low power plant emissions in advance of the 2020 goal.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=China meets ultra-low emissions in advance of the 2020 goal|url=https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/caos-cm110519.php|accessdate=2020-01-10}}</ref><ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=China is on track to meet its ultra-low emissions goals for 2020.|url=https://theecologist.org/node/2991669|accessdate=2020-01-10}}</ref>

==Infrastructure==

===Health===
{{quote|Because of its radical commitment to the elimination of poverty and to improving living conditions — a commitment in which Maoist as well as Marxist ideas and ideals played an important part — China did achieve many things that the Indian leadership failed to press for and pursue with any vigor. The elimination of widespread hunger, illiteracy, and ill health falls solidly in this category. When state action operates in the right direction, the results can be quite remarkable, as is illustrated by the social achievements of the pre-reform period.|Amartya Sen|<ref name=Sen>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Sen|first=Amartya|editors=Klasen, Stephan; Günther, Isabel|title=Perspectives on the Economic and Human Development of India and China|url=https://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/handle/3/isbn-3-938616-63-6|publisher=Harvard University|year=2006|doi=10.17875/gup2006-202}}</ref>}}

Another important comment summarizing the findings of the study is as follows:

{{quote|We argue, in particular, that the accomplishments relating to education, healthcare, land reforms, and social change in the pre-reform period made significantly positive contributions to the achievements of the post-reform period. This is so not only in terms of their role in sustained high life expectancy and related achievements, but also in providing firm support for economic expansion based on market reforms.|Amartya Sen|<ref name=Sen/>}}

Professor Sen states here that the prereform period saw enormous increases in quality of life for the Chinese people, as well as important economic developments, without which the economic expansion following the 1979 market reforms most likely could not have taken place. He notes that during this period, a ‘remarkable reduction in chronic undernourishment took place,’ attributing this to the policies implemented by the people’s republic:

{{quote|The casual processes through which the reduction of undernourishment was achieved involved extensive state action including redistributive policies, nutritional support, and of course health care (since undernourishment is frequently caused by parasitic diseases and other illnesses).|Amartya Sen|<ref name=Sen/>}}

Professor Sen focuses more attention on the remarkable advances in healthcare during this period:

{{quote|China’s achievements in the field of health during the pre-reform period include a dramatic reduction of infant and child mortality and a remarkable expansion of longevity.|Amartya Sen|<ref name=Sen/>}}

It is also noted that the PRC’s life expectancy approximately doubled from approximately 35 years in 1949 to 68 years in 1981 (when the market reforms began to take effect).<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Hipgrave|first=David|title=Communicable Disease Control in China: From Mao to Now|journal=Journal of Global Health|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484775|year=2011|pages=224–238}}</ref> Another source on public health in the [[short twentieth century]] PRC comes from the journal ''Population Studies'', in a study conducted by researchers from Stanford University and the National Bureau for Economic Research. One important comment is as follows:

{{quote|China’s growth in life expectancy at birth from 35–40 years in 1949 to 65.5 years in 1980 is among the most rapid sustained increases in documented global history.|Babiarz KS, Eggleston K, Miller G, Zhang Q|<ref name=PopulStud>{{safesubst:cite journal|last1=Singer Babiarz|first1=Kimberly|last2=Eggleston|first2=Karen|last3=Miller|first3=Grant|first4=Zhangd|last4=Qiong|title=An exploration of China’s mortality decline under Mao: A provincial analysis, 1950–80|journal=Population Studies|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331212|date=2014-10-13|pages=39–56|doi=10.1080/00324728.2014.972432}}</ref>}}

This alone goes to show the massive benefits that the revolutionary socialist movement attained. More important information is provided in the study, dealing with hospital and medical resources:

{{quote|Physician and hospital supply grew dramatically under Mao due to a variety of factors (including increases in government financing, the introduction of social insurance for urban public employees, and the launch of China’s Rural Cooperative Medical System in the mid-1950s). Rural Cooperative Medical Schemes (CMS) were vigorously promoted and became widespread in the late 1960s as part of the Cultural Revolution.|Babiarz KS, Eggleston K, Miller G, Zhang Q|<ref name=PopulStud/>}}

They also quote other research which found that the rapid gains in Chinese healthcare can be attributed to the specific policies that the communists implemented:

{{quote|China’s mortality decline between 1953 and 1957, which resembles that of the US between 1900 and 1930, was “primarily due to the unique social organisation of Chinese public health practices.”|Babiarz KS, Eggleston K, Miller G, Zhang Q|<ref name=PopulStud/>}}

Note that China achieved in four years what [[Imperial America]] took three decades to accomplish, due to their differing systems (i.e. planned economics vs. market economics). The study also confirms the immense success of the PRC’s vaccination programs:

{{quote|Systematic efforts to vaccinate the population against polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and cholera were rapid and reputedly successful (China nearly eradicated smallpox within the span of only three years, with the last documented cases occurring in Tibet and Yunnan in 1960).|Babiarz KS, Eggleston K, Miller G, Zhang Q|<ref name=PopulStud/>}}

Additional citations for the claims in the above quotes are provided in the original study.

===Education===
Professor Sen notes that the huge improvements (including dramatic increases in literacy) can be attributed primary to the pre-reform period:

{{quote|China’s breakthrough in the field of elementary education had already taken place before the process of economic reform was initiated at the end of the seventies. Census data indicate, for instance, that literacy rates in 1982 for the 15–19 age group were already as high as 96 percent for males and 85 percent for females.|Amartya Sen|<ref name=Sen/>}}

Another study confirms Professor Sen’s analysis of education:

{{quote|China made large strides in primary and secondary education under Mao.|Babiarz KS, Eggleston K, Miller G, Zhang Q|<ref name=PopulStud/>}}

==References==

[[Category:Asia]]
[[Category:East Asia]]
[[Category:China]]
[[Category:PRC]]

The Great Reset

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Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

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{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px;"
! colspan="2" | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics<br><small>Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик</small>
|-
| colspan="2" |[[File:800px-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (orthographic projection).svg.png|frameless|300x300|center|The Soviet Union]]<br><div style="text-align:center">Map of the USSR</div>
|-
| style="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom; padding-top: 5px;" |[[File:Ussrflag.jpg|125x63px|frameless|Flag of the Soviet Union]]
| style="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center; vertical-align:bottom; padding-top: 5px;" | [[File:State Emblem of the Soviet Union.svg.png|85x88px|frameless|Emblem of the Soviet Union]]
|-
| style="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center;" | Flag
| style="width:50%; border:none; text-align:center;" | State Emblem
|}
The '''Union of Soviet Socialist Republics''' ('''USSR'''; or in Russian "СССР"), also known as the '''Soviet Union''', was a [[Marxism-Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] state on the Eurasian continent that existed between 30 December 1922 and 26 December 1991. It was governed as a single-party state by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] with Moscow as its capital.

==History==

===Russian Revolution===
The RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) emerged out of the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]], with [[Bolshevism|Bolshevik]] revolutionary [[Vladimir Lenin]] as its first president. The new government created a constitution establishing itself as a Socialist republic.

===Red vs. White Civil War===
In 1918, following the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, a civil war between the Bolsheviks (or ‘Reds’) and the remaining monarchists (the ‘Whites’), along with various disgruntled social democrats and liberals such as their rival faction, the Mensheviks, tore apart the RSFSR. Despite support from the capitalist Western Powers, the Whites were ultimately defeated in 1920.

During the war, the Bolsheviks militarily intervened in Ukraine, which was under the control of anarcho-communists (led by [[Nestor Makhno]]) and Ukrainian ultranationalists. The anarchists made a treaty with the Bolsheviks in 1920, but the Bolsheviks refused to publicly acknowledge it, leading to the arrest of Nestor Makhno and his delegation upon confronting the Bolsheviks.

===New Economic Policy===
''Main Article: [[New Economic Policy]]''
The New Economic Policy was part of what historian Brinton called the thermidor after the French Revolution's Thermidorian Reaction. It involved a variety of concessions to the backward strata of Soviet society, including the restoration of obstacles to divorce, laws against homosexuality, and the abolition of the age of consent laws.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Brinton|first=C.|title=The Anatomy of Revolution|year=1965|pages=225–226}}</ref> Economically, it meant that industrial state owner enterprises gained autonomy in its policies while in rural areas individual private initiative and enterprise was allowed to dominate economic conduct.

In 1928 the NEP ended when the Soviet government implemented the first Five Year Plan. This became known as central planning or a command economy, which lasted until circa 1991 when the economy had reached a critical point in the [[Crisis|crisis of the absolute over-accumulation of capital]].

===Socialism in one country===
In spite of an arguably overpowered bureaucracy and some of the reactionary concessions, the Soviets made extensive achievements which vastly improved life for hundreds of millions of people. These achievements were the result of the [[planned economy]] (built primarily during the 1930s). Even reactionaries<ref>{{cite book|last=Losurdo |first=Domenico |chapter=1 |chapterurl=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WS8cCjXDgdJaXFrkW9b1ldY3xlwiPPQ89AwZo53Amlk |title=Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend |url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/18K7U3g_ZsHwasqAS_BiokoWg5A0vXAsCkwYoO_xw93A |location=|publisher=|year= |page= |pageurl= |isbn= |oclc= |text=}}</ref> have been unable to deny this;<ref>{{cite book|last1=Downey |first1=Town |last2=Smith |first2=Nigel |chapter=6 |chapterurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C&pg=PA37 |title=Russia and the USSR 1900–1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C |location=Great Clarendon Street |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1996 |page=43 |pageurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYIqpmIgYZ4C&pg=PA43 |isbn=0-19-917248-X |oclc= |text=}}</ref> as antisocialist propagandist Nick Eberstadt admitted:

{{quote|[[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]’s results were incontestable. This is a point those of us in the West often overlook. Stalin inherited a country that was the primary casualty of World War I, and bequeathed to his successors a super-power. It is but a single measure of the success of the ‘Leader’, and his understanding of the endurance of his nation, that between 1940 and 1953, a period marked by an immensely destructive world war costing perhaps twenty million Soviet lives and a series of purges claiming perhaps not many less, the USSR doubled its production of coal and steel, tripled its output of cement and industrial goods, and increased its pool of skilled labor by a factor of ten. These rates of growth were geometrically higher than in the less devastated and Terror-free West.|Nick Eberstadt|<ref name=Eberstadt>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Eberstadt|first=Nick|title=The Health Crisis in the USSR*|url=https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/6/1384/660149|journal=International Journal of Epidemiology|volume=35|issue=6|date=2006-12-04|pages=1384–1394|doi=10.1093/ije/dyl238}}</ref>}}

The claim that the Soviets purged ‘perhaps not many less’ than twenty-million people, however, is obvious nonsense:

{{quote|The Stalinist regime was consequently responsible for about a million purposeful killings, and through its criminal neglect and irresponsibility it was probably responsible for the premature deaths of about another two million more victims amongst the repressed population, i.e. in the camps, colonies, prisons, exile, in transit and in the POW camps for Germans. These are clearly much lower figures than those for whom Hitler’s regime was responsible.|Stephen Wheatcroft|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Wheatcroft|first=Stephen|title=The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930-45|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-German_Soviet.pdf|publisher=University of Glasgow|volume=48|number=8|year=1996|pages=1319–1353}}</ref>}}

The Stalin administration was thus responsible for about three million deaths, and even that is only if one includes Fascist POWs, victims of an unintentional but tragic famine (Wheatcroft’s own research proves that it was unintentional), and gulag prisoners. The purges of the late 1930s are a black mark on the USSR’s legacy; this much cannot be denied. That being said, they have been the subject of decades-worth of unjustified and intolerable distortions and exaggerations by bourgeois academics, necessitating a thorough reply. While Westerners are often treated to numbers ranging from 20 to 50 million, the true figures (while worrisome enough in their own right) are nowhere near that high. According to Professor J. Arch Getty:

{{quote|From 1921 to […] 1953, around 800,000 people were sentenced to death and shot, 85 percent of them in the years of the Great Terror of 1937–1938. From 1934 to Stalin’s death, more than a million perished in the gulag camps.|J. Arch Getty|<ref name=Future/>}}

To these figures must be added an important qualification: contrary to popular opinion, the vast majority of gulag inmates were not innocent political prisoners. Professor Getty notes that those convicted of ‘counterrevolutionary crimes’ made up between 12 and 33 percent (depending on the year) of the gulag population, with the rest having been convicted of ordinary crimes. He also rejects the common claim that non-Russian nationalities were disproportionately targeted. To quote from his article in the ''American Historical Review'', concerning the gulag inmates in particular:

{{quote|The long-awaited archival evidence on repression in the period of the Great Purges shows that the levels of arrests, political prisoners, executions, and general camp populations tend to confirm the orders of magnitude indicated by those labeled as "revisionists" and mocked by those proposing high estimates. […] Inferences that the terror fell particularly hard on non-Russian nationalities are not borne out by camp population data from the 1930s. The frequent assertion that most of the camp prisoners were "political" also appears not to be true.|J. Arch Getty|<ref name=Getty>{{safesubst:cite journal|last1=Getty|first1=J. Arch|last2=Rittersporn|first2=Gábor|last3=Zemskov|first3=Viktor|title=Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years|journal=The American Historical Review|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf|publisher=Oxford University Press|volume=98|number=4|year=1993|pages=1017–1049|doi=10.2307/2166597|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597}}</ref>}}

According to this research, alleged counterrevolutionaries never made up more than a third of the gulag population (and generally much less, around 12%). This is backed-up by a CIA report on the topic, which found that as many as 95% of camp prisoners were non-political in camps that they investigated.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Forced Labor Camps in the USSR|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf|date=1957-02-11|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200120215158/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf|archivedate=2020-01-20}}</ref> The majority of camp prisoners were thus genuine criminals, convicted of rape, murder, theft, and similar. In addition, the gulag camps were not death camps like those of the [[Third Reich]]; they were prisons, albeit harsh ones. Even noted antisocialist scholars (such as those who worked on the infamous ''[[Black Book of Communism]]'') have admitted this. To quote again from Professor Getty:

{{quote|Stalin’s camps were different from Hitler’s. Tens of thousands of prisoners were released every year upon completion of their sentences. We now know that before World War II more inmates escaped annually from the Soviet camps than died there. […] Werth, a well-regarded French specialist on the Soviet Union whose sections in the ''Black Book'' on the Soviet Communists are sober and damning, told ''Le Monde'', “Death camps did not exist in the Soviet Union.”|J. Arch Getty|<ref name=Future>{{safesubst:Cite web| last = Getty| first = J. Arch| title = The Future Did Not Work| work = The Atlantic| accessdate = 2019-10-09| date = 2000-03-01| url = https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/03/the-future-did-not-work/378081/}}</ref>}}

It must also be noted that, contrary to the popular conception of the USSR as a place of ‘total terror’ (to quote Hannah Arendt), the majority of the population did not feel threatened by the purges. Referring to the time of the Great Purge, Professor<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Dr. Robert Thurston|url=https://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/history/about/faculty/emeriti-faculty/thurston/index.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118140600/http://miamioh.edu/cas/academics/departments/history/about/faculty/emeriti-faculty/thurston/index.html|archivedate=2020-10-18}}</ref> Thurston notes that the Great Purge was an exceptional occurrence, which cannot be used to characterize the USSR pre-1953 as a whole:

{{quote|I will not simply imply but will state outright that the ''Ezhovshchina'' (Great Purge) was an aberration. Torture was uncommon until August 1937, when it became the norm; it ended abruptly with Beria’s rise to head of the [[NKVD]] in late 1938. Mass arrests followed the same pattern. […] A campaign for more regular, fair, and systemic judicial procedures that began in 1933–1934 was interrupted and overwhelmed by the Terror in 1937. It resumed in the spring of 1938, more strongly and effectively than before. Thus more than one trend was broken by the ''Ezhovshchina'', only to reappear after it.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, 1934–1941|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1996|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bw0h}}</ref>}}

He also points out that some arrests which took place during the Great Purge were based on previously ignored (yet arguably still legitimate) crimes against the Soviet state, such as fighting with the reactionary forces during the Civil War:

{{quote|People were suddenly arrested in 1937 for things that had happened many years earlier but had been ignored since, for example, serving in a White army.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

The question arises: why arrest former White Army soldiers, among others? The answer lies in the general fear of counterrevolution which pervaded the party at this time. According to Professor<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Professor James Harris|url=https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/history/staff/64/professor-james-harris|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044120/https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/history/staff/64/professor-james-harris|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref> James Harris:

{{quote|By the mid–1930s, the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the militarists in Japan, both stridently anti-communist, posed a very real threat to the USSR. War was then on the horizon, and [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] felt he had no choice but to take preemptive action against what he saw as a potential fifth column — a group that would undermine the larger collective.|James Harris|<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Harris|first=James|title=Historian James Harris Says Russian Archives Show We’ve Misunderstood Stalin|publisher=History News Network|url=https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/163498|accessdate=2020-01-03}}</ref>}}

Bear in mind that since the moment of its founding (still a recent event, at this time), Soviet Eurasia had been invaded by multiple capitalist powers<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Budanovic|first=Nikola|title=The Day That The USA Invaded Russia And Fought The Red Army|url=https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-day-that-the-usa-invaded-russia-and-fought-with-the-red-army-x.html|date=2016-11-17|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044116/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-day-that-the-usa-invaded-russia-and-fought-with-the-red-army-x.html|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref> (including the [[United States]]) in the early 1920s, and had also been subject to espionage and internal sabotage. Combined with the looming threat of war with an increasingly powerful Third Reich, it is hardly surprising that these factors came together to form an atmosphere of paranoia, which lent itself to the sort of violent excess seen during the Purge. This coincides with Professor Thurston’s interpretation of the events, from his book ''Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia'':

{{quote|[B]etween 1934 and 1936 police and court practice relaxed significantly. Then a series of events, together with the tense international situation and memories of real enemy activity during the savage Russian Civil War, combined to push leaders and people into a hysterical hunt for perceived ‘wreckers.’ After late 1938, however, the police and courts became dramatically milder.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

This general atmosphere of fear (not of the purges, but of external and internal enemies) is most likely why the majority of the Soviet people seemed to support the government’s actions during the Purge period:

{{quote|The various reactions to arrest cataloged above suggest that general fear did not exist in the USSR at any time in the late 1930s. […] People who remained at liberty often felt that some event in the backgrounds of the detained individuals justified their arrests. The sense that anyone could be next, the underpinning of theoretical systems of terror, rarely appears.|Robert Thurston|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Fear and Belief in the USSR’s “Great Terror”: Response to Arrest, 1935-1939|journal=Slavic Review|publisher=Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies|year=1986|volume=45|issue=2|pages=213–34|doi=10.2307/2499175}}</ref>}}

===World War II===
''Main Article: [[World War II]]''

===Khrushchev-era===
Nikita Khrushchev won a power struggle that ensued after Stalin's death, coming to power in the mid-1950s and lasting until 1964 when he was ousted. During his "secret speech" at the [[20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] in 1956, he denounced Joseph Stalin and decentralized control within the party on top of easing control over society, this being known as de-Stalinization. The speech he gave caused many people to leave non-ruling communist parties, especially in the West, with an estimate of approximately one-half given by Grover Furr. However, there were also those who were merely shaken by the news and remained in said parties until Soviet intervention in Hungary later that year, which was considered the "last straw". Stalin's reputation was at a high during World War II, when the USSR was fighting with the Allies against the Axis, though it wasn't flawless before de-Stalinization. As an example, during the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] plenty of commentators wrote of the USSR and Nazi Germany as totalitarian twins and the term "Communazis" gained widespread use. FDR, not known for any hatred of the Soviets, stated in a February 1940 speech: "The Soviet Union, as a matter of practical fact, as everybody knows … is run by a dictatorship, a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world." The USSR's invasion of Finland was also not popular in the West. Then of course came the [[Cold War]], in which Stalin was frequently portrayed as a demented and bloody tyrant who betrayed promises at Yalta and threatened freedom across the globe. By the time of his death everything he was ever accused of (mass bloodshed and famine as a consequence of collectivization, the assassination of Kirov and consequent bloody purges, deportation of nationalities, anti-Semitism in his last years, the gulag system, allying with Nazi Germany against the democracies, Katyn, etc.) had already been covered in the West. Obviously among "official" communist parties Stalin would, of course, be respected as both a leader and a theoretician, whose works were (as in the USSR itself until 1956) upheld as being on the same level as Marx, Engels, and Lenin. The view of Khrushchev's speech in the West is that it was shocking simply because a leader of the Soviet Union was speaking out against Stalin, not that he was saying anything new. Numerous commentators pointed out that Khrushchev left out much else that could be said, and that Khrushchev had exclusively fixated on Stalin as an individual so as to absolve "the system" from any blame. Glasnost would echo this situation later, mostly being seen as confirming what was already alleged about Stalin (e.g. Gorby handing over Katyn documents to Poland in 1990).

===Gorbachev-era reforms===
In 1987, Gorbachev passed a law that decentralized much of the economy and expanded market activity, however was not by itself a restoration of capitalism. Nowhere within the law were capitalist relations of production legalized.
{{quote|The Basic Provisions stress that the economy shall continue to be planned and managed as "a unified national economic complex" as the principal means for carrying out the Party's economic policies. These policies are to be embodied in a 15-year plan that sets goals and priorities and outlines a program for implementing them. This plan, which is to contain specific targets for the 15- year period, is to be the basis for detailed formulation of the plan for the initial 5-year period, with a breakdown by years. Per the current procedure, this plan will be worked out by Gosplan and sent down to republic Councils of Ministers and to ministries. These bodies, in turn, send "initial planning data" to firms, on the basis of which the latter work out and ratify their own 5-year and annual plans. Plans are reviewed annually and revised if required. Proposals for revisions are submitted to Gosplan, which reviews them, revises the 5-year plan if necessary, and submits a report to the Council of Ministers and to the Central Committee, along with the draft state budget.
<br><br>
The firms receive: (1) "non-binding control figures" that specify the value of output, profit, foreign currency receipts, and major indicators of scientific and technical progress and social development; (2) a mandatory bill of state orders for output that "ensure meeting society's priority needs"; (3) limits, which include rationed goods and centralized investment allocations; (4) long-term economic normatives based on a list approved by the Council of Ministers regulating, among other things, growth of total wages, payments for capital and labor, and the allocation of profits among various kinds of taxes and reserve funds set up by ministries and enterprises. Three major funds are the bonus fund, the social development fund, and the fund for financing research and development and investment.
<br><br>
Clearly, the state intends to determine the rate and direction of the bulk of investment. To what extent will depend on how state centralized investment is defined. The state also intends to determine the directions of economic development and to enforce programs of scientific-technical progress that are worked out from the top.|Gertrude E. Schroeder|"Anatomy of Gorbachev's Economic Reform" in ''Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka: The Economy'', pp. 205-206}}

The 1987 reforms were still somewhat "moderate" compared to Yugoslavia's system, and clearly didn't go nearly as far as Deng's reforms.

One of the reasons used to justify Perestroika was because the USSR had problems with shortages beforehand. The continued existence of shortages are evidence the reforms didn't work and instead made the situation far worse than it had been before. Shortages clearly weren't an unknown phenomenon in socialist economies during the 20th century. It's something bourgeois economists usually focus on when criticizing socialism, hence the two-volume Economics of Shortage by János Kornai. Not coincidentally, Kornai's text had a lot of influence among Chinese reformers and he personally worked to convince them to enact market reforms at the 1985 Bashan conference, whereas Kornai's influence on Soviet reformers (at least those who advised Gorbachev) was a lot more limited. Furthermore, shortages are not proof of capitalist restoration. Marxists frequently argue that capitalism displays a very different problem: a crisis of overproduction caused by the purchasing power of workers declining amid an ever greater abundance of goods flooding the market.

===Collapse and dissolution===
{{hatnote|Main article: [[Collapse of the USSR]]}}
In the 1980s, [[Imperial America]] expanded its arms chase, terrorizing the Soviets into catching up, a process made more stressful by the struggle in the Afghan war. Antisocialist officials also pressured banks and other businesses, and even the Swedish state, into ignoring the Soviet Union.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Krehbiel|first=Paul|title=The Demise of the Soviet Union: The Secret War that Helped Destroy Soviet Socialism, 1981–1991|url=http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/RR-PAUL-SECRETWAR.pdf|accessdate=2020-03-13}}</ref> Gorbachev introduced new reforms to both the economy and politics, which worsened the condition of the workers by increasing wealth inequality — though it never reached the same rate as it had in capitalist countries, e.g. the U.S. — as well as breadlines, and allowed more critical opinions to be voiced politically. But heads of newspapers were now in fact being replaced or pushed towards a more right-wing view by that same government, meaning such policies did not actually result in more discourse. Nonetheless it became a more and more accepted view to advocate for regulated or even free markets, which then led to the rising popularity of Yeltsin. He criticized the Soviet elite and advocated for market reforms, promising less waiting lines and a decrease in inequality. In April 1990 Yeltsin became the chairman of the Russian parliament. The direction the country was taking triggered a [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|coup attempt in August 1991]], but which failed as Yeltsin called for a strike against it. While according to a referendum from 1991 most people did not want a complete dissolution of the Soviet republics, this is exactly what happened until the end of 1991: Parts of the government were simply dismantled, the party lost its power, and eventually republics started declaring independence — the union, in a sense, was falling apart.

After the Soviet Union’s discontinuation, living standards decreased dramatically and to this day many former citizens of it regret its fall, as many polls show, though the results sometimes strongly vary among some of the former republics.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=People who lived under communism more convinced ordinary people did not benefit from societal changes|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/global/?p=44546|date=2019-10-09}}</ref>

==Politics==
Modern evidence suggests that the masses did indeed support the Stalin administration, which likewise encouraged mass participation from the working people:

{{quote|Stalin, the press, and the Stakhanovite movement all regularly encouraged ordinary people to criticize those in authority. […] If the citizenry was supposed to be terrorized and stop thinking, why encourage criticism and input from below on a large scale? […] my evidence suggests that widespread fear did not exist in the case at hand [the ‘Great Terror’ period].|Robert Thurston|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=On Desk-Bound Parochialism, Commonsense Perspectives, and Lousy Evidence: A Reply to Robert Conquest|journal=Slavic Review|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=45|number=2|year=1986|pages=238–244|doi=10.2307/2499177|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2499177}}</ref>}}

These states were not entirely non-participatory as some have suggested; the working masses did have a genuine voice in political affairs.<ref name=vincesherman>{{safesubst:cite web|author=vincesherman|title=The Trade Unions & Actually Existing Socialism: A Point of Comparison for the American Worker|url=https://return2source.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-trade-unions-actually-existing-socialism-a-point-of-comparison-for-the-american-worker/amp|date=2013-02-19|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180920140818/https://return2source.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/the-trade-unions-actually-existing-socialism-a-point-of-comparison-for-the-american-worker/amp|archivedate=2018-09-20}}</ref> Professor Thurston states that ‘at the lower levels of society, in day-to-day affairs and the implementation of policy, [the Soviet system] was participatory.’ He notes that workers were frequently encouraged to take part in decision making:

{{quote|The regime regularly urged its people to criticize local conditions and their leaders, at least below a certain exalted level. For example, in March 1937 Stalin emphasized the importance of the party’s ‘ties to the masses.’ To maintain them, it was necessary ‘to listen carefully to the voice of the masses, to the voice of rank and file members of the party, to the voice of so-called “little people,” to the voice of ordinary folk.’|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Thurston|first=Robert|title=Reassessing the History of Soviet Workers: Opportunities to Criticize and Participate in Decision-Making, 1935–1941|journal=International Council for Central and East European Studies|url=https://www.docdroid.net/t9gG4jQ/thurston-robert-reassessing-the-history-of-soviet-workers-opportunities-to-criticize-and-participate-in-decision-making.pdf|pages=160–188}}</ref>}}

While there were limits to criticism, Professor Thurston notes that ‘such bounds allowed a great deal that was deeply significant to workers, including some aspects of production norms, pay rates and classifications, safety on the job, housing, and treatment by managers.’ The workers had a voice in various official bodies, and they generally had their demands met:

{{quote|The Commissariat of Justice also heard and responded to workers’ appeals. In August 1935 the Saratov city prosecutor reported that of 118 cases regarding pay recently handled by his office, 90, or 73.6 percent, had been resolved in favor of workers.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}}

Workers also took part in direct oversight of managers:

{{quote|Workers participated by the hundreds of thousands in special inspectorates, commissions, and brigades which checked the work of managers and institutions. These agencies sometimes wielded significant power.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}}

The rights of Soviet workers were often noted in later accounts of the pre-1953 era:

{{quote|One émigré recalled that his stepmother, a factory worker, ‘often scolded the boss,’ and also complained about living conditions, but was never arrested. John Scott, an American employed for years in the late 1930s as a welder in Magnitogorsk, attended a meeting at a Moscow factory in 1940 where workers were able to ‘criticize the plant director, make suggestions as to how to increase production, increase quality, and lower costs.’|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}}

Professor Thurston makes the following observation:

{{quote|Far from basing its rule on the negative means of coercion, the Soviet regime in the late 1930s fostered a limited but positive political role for the populace. […] Earlier concepts of the Soviet state require rethinking: the workers who ousted managers, achieved the imprisonment of their targets, and won reinstatement at factories did so through organizations which constituted part of the state apparatus and wielded state powers.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}}

These facts are all the more impressive when we recall the dismal state of workers’ rights in the market economies at this time:

{{quote|This occurred at a time when American workers in particular were struggling for basic union recognition, which even when won did not provide much formal influence at the work place.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Reassessing/>}}

Professor Thurston also states:

{{quote|Stalin did not intend to terrorize the country and did not need to rule by fear. Memoirs and interviews with Soviet people indicate that many more believed in Stalin’s quest to eliminate internal enemies than were frightened by it.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

Perhaps one of his most interesting statements (indeed, one of the most statements from any bourgeois historian dealing with the Stalin administration) and perhaps the most succinct summary of this issue is the following:

{{quote|There was never a long period of Stalinism without a serious foreign threat, major internal dislocation, or both, which makes identifying its true nature impossible.|Robert Thurston|<ref name=Life/>}}

This relates to how the Soviet government reacted to the genuine material conditions faced by the Soviet Union, rather than simply following its own whims and desires. Working people did not only have the right to take part in decision-making at the workplace; they also had a voice in national policy decisions. Professor Kawamoto (Hitotsubashi University) states that the USSR had ‘a more democratic face than what is usually imagined, especially among Western people.’ As they put it:

{{quote|The Soviet regime was democratic in its own sense of the word. [P]articipation through sending letters and attending discussions gave self-government a certain reality and helped to legitimize the Soviet regime. Therefore, listening to the people was an important obligation for the authorities. [T]he government encouraged people to send letters to the authorities and actively used the all-people’s discussions.|Kazuko Kawamoto|<ref name=Kawamoto>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Kawamoto|first=Kazuko|title=Rethinking Soviet Democracy|journal=Japanese Political Science Review|url=https://researchmap.jp/read0148263/?lang=english}}</ref>}}

It is also noted that Soviet citizens ‘believed that they were entitled to demand policy changes, and the draft writers, including specialists, officials, and deputies, felt obliged to respond to those demands.’ The process of gathering public opinion was intensive enough that it often slowed down the process of legislation:

{{quote|Regarding the process of creating the Principles, direct participation worked largely as expected in the ideology of Soviet democracy, although it took many years.|Kazuko Kawamoto|<ref name=Kawamoto/>}}

As Professor Kawamoto says, ‘the reason why it took so long was deeply rooted in the ideas of Soviet democracy.’

In addition to the aforementioned means of popular participation, Soviet officials also traveled throughout the nation to gather information on popular opinion. Using the development of Soviet family law as an example, Professor Kawamoto states:

{{quote|The draft makers were not only passive recipients of letters but also traveled throughout the Soviet Union to listen to the people. When the work in the Commissions of Legislative Proposals was reaching its end, members of the subcommittee and officials working for them visited several union republics from April to June 1962 to research the practice of family law and collect opinions on important standards in the draft of the Principles… After these research trips, the commission finished the draft and presented it to the Central Committee of the Party in July.|Kazuko Kawamoto|<ref name=Kawamoto/>}}

While Soviet democracy was not without its flaws (as mentioned, the process was often rather slow, and there were limits on the extent of criticism), it would be highly inaccurate to describe the USSR as a ‘totalitarian’ society, with no democratic structures; on the contrary, the USSR did practice its own form of democracy, and it did so rather effectively.

===Scope of authority===
The government's authority over cities was uncontested throughout its existence, bar areas which were under foreign occupation during the Great Patriotic War. There were however cases of villages being seized by the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, which was in essence defeated in 1931, with its remnants extinguished in Kirghizia by 1934. In the Baltics there were the "Forest Brothers", who were anti-Soviet resistance forces that were pretty much defeated by Stalin's death. There were also some anti-collectivization rebellions.<ref>[https://b-ok.cc/book/831235/8b358a Peasant Rebels under Stalin]</ref>

==Political Economy of the Soviet Union==

===Wage Labour===

In capitalist theories of the Soviet Union labour-power is considered a commodity in the Soviet Union, bought and sold on a labour-market.

===Commodity Production===

In capitalist theories of the Soviet Union, commodity production is regarded to have had a generalised character, with inputs and outputs being commodities. Labour-power was sold to and bought by individual state enterprises, the means of production were sold between individual enterprises, and outputs, capital and consumer goods, were likewise sold to a market of consumers.

===Competition of Capitals===

In capitalist theories of the Soviet Union there is some debate about the existence of the competition of capitals. Tony Cliff and Raya Dunayevskaya claim that the law of value operated nonetheless due to international trade. [[Paresh Chattopadhyay]] disagrees, arguing that the law of value couldn't exist under such conditions and maintains that enterprises were reciprocally independent and were 'competitive' in the Marxist sense by confronting each other through the exchange of commodities.

===Accusations of imperialism===

The USSR has been accused of [[imperialism]] primarily by left communists, Trotskyists, and Hoxhaists. In the Marxist sense, the USSR was not imperialist because it was not capitalist; a prerequisite of imperial exploitation. As Harry Haywood (a veteran CPUSA member-turned-Maoist-turned-critic of China's foreign policy) put it:
<blockquote>History demonstrates that, overall, Soviet foreign policy has been basically defensive and non-aggressive. This fact does not mean that everything the Soviet Union does is correct or that it cannot make serious mistakes or pursue wrong lines. For example, its relations with China and other socialist countries have been marked at times by chauvinism and hegemonism. But these problems do not make the Soviet Union a social imperialist power. Without a monopoly capitalist class and without capitalist relations of production there is no fundamental and compelling logic in the Soviet economy that creates a need to export capital and exploit other countries through trade. As a result it also has no colonies and no empire to sustain.</blockquote>
Chapters 6-8 of ''[[Is the Red Flag Flying?]]'' develops on this.

It was possible for the USSR to use its political power to impose onerous or otherwise "lopsided" economic arrangements on other countries, e.g. the joint-stock companies in parts of Eastern Europe and China after WWII, but these were just as easily abolished after Stalin's death. By contrast, if a communist were elected President of the United States they would not be able to change the imperialist nature of the American capitalist economy, let alone of capitalism more broadly.

In contrast to supposed imperialism, Soviet reformers in the late 80s were lamenting how the USSR's foreign policy was oriented toward subsidizing allies' economies rather than dealing with them on a more "businesslike" footing (e.g. Cuban sugar was bought at prices considerably higher than that of the world market).

In terms of "imperialism" in a non-Marxist sense, e.g. in terms of political control, then the lines are blurred a bit. Just as the United States presumably wouldn't stand by if France or Italy went communist, the USSR was clearly willing to deploy troops to prevent any possibility of counter-revolution in the Warsaw Pact states. But this sort of analysis obscures the fundamental differences between the US and USSR in favor of "power politics" and other general concepts typical of bourgeois relations.

=== Non-mode of production ===
Some Marxists provide an alternative theory of the nature of the political economy of the Soviet Union. The theory was first formulated by [[Hillel Ticktin]].

== Economy ==
{{hatnote|Main article: [[economics of the Soviet Union]]}}

With the exceptional periods of the 1910s and the 1990s, the Soviet Union was a [[planned economy]]. It achieved massively positive economic results until the 1970s, when revisionist policies and the [[Cold War]] began to cause a stagnation.

=== Prerevolutionary background ===
In 1917, Russia was a backwards, semicapitalist and feudal society. They had only recently abolished the manor system, and replaced it with the most brutal and primitive form of capitalism. The nation was dreadfully underdeveloped, with no sign of improving in the future, and what little growth did occur led to massive inequalities. According to a Professor of Economic History at Oxford University:

{{quote|Not only were the bases of Imperial advance narrow, but the process of growth gave rise to such inequitable changes in income distribution that revolution was hardly a surprise. Real wages for urban workers were static in the late Imperial period despite a significant increase in output per worker[.] The revolution was also a peasant revolt, and the interests of the peasants were different[.] As in the cities, there was no gain in real wages.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Allen|first=Robert|title=A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution|url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf|journal=Comparative Economic Studies|publisher=Oxford University|volume=47|issue=2|year=2005|pages=315–332|doi=10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100101|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044114/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf|archivedate=2020-01-19}}</ref>}}

The University of Warwick corroborates these observations:

{{quote|Agriculture had reached North American levels of productivity by 1913 and wheat prices collapsed after 1914. The expansion of the railroads had run its course and there was no prospect of protected light industry becoming internationally competitive. The appropriate comparators for the prospects for Russian capitalism in the twentieth century are not Japan but Argentina or even India. Moreover, Russian capitalist development had brought little if any benefit to the urban and rural working class, intensifying the class conflicts that erupted in Revolution.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Clarke|first=Simon|title=Reviewed Work: Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution|journal=Labour / Le Travail|url=https://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~syrbe/pubs/FarmtoFactory.pdf|publisher=Princeton University Press|volume=55|year=2005|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118140746/https://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~syrbe/pubs/FarmtoFactory.pdf|pages=300–302|jstor=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25149595|archivedate=2020-01-18}}</ref>}}

=== Revolutionary period ===
With the 1917 revolution (and after the bloody civil war, with its policy of [[war communism]]), the Soviet economy began to grow rapidly.<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Allen|first=Robert|title=The Standard of Living in the Soviet Union, 1928–1940|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/standard-of-living-in-the-soviet-union-19281940/2922A641CA53F7BF592ECDDAF3316070|journal=The Journal of Economic History|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1998|date_published=2009-03-03|doi=10.1017/S0022050700021732}}</ref> The New Economic Policy (which nationalized large-scale industry and redistributed land, while allowing for the private sale of agricultural surplus) succeeded in transforming Russia from a semicapitalist existence into a developing state capitalist society, laying the groundwork for a [[planned economy]].

{{quote|Following War Communism, the New Economic Policy (NEP) sought to develop the Russian economy within a quasi-capitalist framework.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}}

Economic circumstances came to require the transition to a planned economy:

{{quote|However, the institutional and structural barriers to Russian economic development were now compounded by the unfavorable circumstances of the world economy, so that there was no prospect of export-led development, while low domestic incomes provided only a limited market for domestic industry. Without a state coordinated investment program, the Soviet economy would be caught in the low-income trap typical of the underdeveloped world.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}}

In 1928 (after they selected the new head of the Communist Party), the [[RSFSR]] instituted a fully planned economy, and the first Five Year Plan was enacted. This resulted in rapid economic growth:

{{quote|Soviet GDP increased rapidly with the start of the first Five Year Plan in 1928. […] The expansion of heavy industry and the use of output targets and soft-budgets to direct firms were appropriate to the conditions of the 1930s, they were adopted quickly, and they led to rapid growth of investment and consumption.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}}

Bourgeois economists often alleged that this rapid growth came at the cost of per-capita consumption and living standards. However, more recent research has shown this to be false:

{{quote|There has been no debate that ‘collective consumption’ (principally education and health services) rose sharply, but the standard view was that private consumption declined. Recent research, however, calls that conclusion into question. […] While investment certainly increased rapidly, recent research shows that the standard of living also increased briskly. […] Calories are the most basic dimension of the standard of living, and their consumption was higher in the late 1930s than in the 1920s. […] There has been no debate that ‘collective consumption’ (principally education and health services) rose sharply, but the standard view was that private consumption declined. Recent research, however, calls that conclusion into question. […] Consumption per head rose about one quarter between 1928 and the late 1930s.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}}

Calorie consumption rose rapidly during this period:

{{quote|Calories are the most basic dimension of the standard of living, and their consumption was higher in the late 1930s than in the 1920s. […] In 1895-1910, calorie availability was only 2100 per day, which is very low by modern standards. By the late 1920s, calorie availability advanced to 2500. […] By the late 1930s, the recovery of agriculture increased calorie availability to 2900 per day, a significant increase over the late 1920s. The food situation during the Second World War was severe, but by 1970 calorie consumption rose to 3400, which was on a par with western Europe.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}}

Overall, the development of the Soviet economy during the interbellum period was extremely impressive:

{{quote|The Soviet economy performed well. […] Planning led to high rates of capital accumulation, rapid GDP growth, and rising per capita consumption even in the 1930s. […] The expansion of heavy industry and the use of output targets and soft-budgets to direct firms were appropriate to the conditions of the 1930s, they were adopted quickly, and they led to rapid growth of investment and consumption.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}}

The USSR’s growth during the interbellum period exceeded that of the market economies:

{{quote|The USSR led the non-OECD countries and, indeed, achieved a growth rate in this period that exceeded the OECD catch-up regression as well as the OECD average.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}}

This success is also attributed specifically to the revolution and the planned economy:

{{quote|This success would not have occurred without the 1917 revolution or the planned development of state owned industry.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}}

The benefits of the planned economy become obvious upon closer study:

{{quote|A capitalist economy would not have created the industrial jobs required to employ the surplus labour, since capitalists would only employ labour so long as the marginal product of labour exceeded the wage. State-sponsored industrialization faced no such constraints, since enterprises were encouraged to expand employment in line with the demands of the plan.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}}

Economic growth was also aided by the liberation of women, and the resulting control over the birth rate, as well as women's participation in the workforce:

{{quote|The rapid growth in per capita income was contingent not just on the rapid expansion of GDP but also on the slow growth of the population. This was primarily due to a rapid fertility transition rather than a rise in mortality from collectivization, political repression, or the Second World War. Falling birth rates were primarily due to the education and employment of women outside the home. These policies, in turn, were the results of enlightenment ideology in its communist variant.|Robert C. Allen|<ref name=Allen/>}}

Reviews of Allen’s work have backed up his statements:

{{quote|Allen shows that the Stalinist strategy worked, in strictly economic terms, until around 1970. […] Allen’s book convincingly establishes the superiority of a planned over a capitalist economy in conditions of labour surplus (which is the condition of most of the world most of the time).|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}}

Other studies have backed-up the findings that the USSR’s living standards rose rapidly:

{{quote|Remarkably large and rapid improvements in child height, adult stature and infant mortality were recorded from approximately 1945 to 1970. […] Both Western and Soviet estimates of GNP growth in the Soviet Union indicate that GNP per capita grew in every decade in the postwar era, at times far surpassing the growth rates of the developed western economies. […] The conventional measures of GNP growth and household consumption indicate a long, uninterrupted upward climb in the Soviet standard of living from 1928 to 1985; even Western estimates of these measures support this view, albeit at a slower rate of growth than the Soviet measures.|Williams College|<ref name=Brainerd>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Brainerd|first=Elizabeth|title=Reassessing the Standard of Living in the Soviet Union: An Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data|url=https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf|publisher=Williams College|year=2008|doi=10.2139/ssrn.906590|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150318181223/http://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf|archivedate=2015-03-18|accessdate=2020-03-20}}</ref>}}

As early as 1917, forest conservation became one of Bolshevism’s duties.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Lenin|first=Vladimir|chapter=8|title=The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/tasks/ch08.htm#v24zz99h-071-GUESS|year=1917}}</ref> With one minor exception, the Politburo consistently rejected the drive toward hyperindustrialism in the forest: Moscow capitulated only briefly to the industrialists in 1929, and in the 1930s and 1940s it set aside larger tracts of the RSFSR’s most valuable forests as preserves, off-limits to industrial exploitation.<ref name=Stalin_Environmentalism>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Brain|first=Stephen|title=Stalin’s Environmentalism|url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/13QiQYmG65Vlr7ncIJI44ynMIWwOzWOWR|journal=The Russian Review|publisher=Wiley on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review|year=2010|month=January|volume=69|number=1|pages=93–118}}</ref>

=== Cold War ===
While the Soviet economy outperformed the market economies in numerous ways, the introduction of market reforms and other revisionist policies after 1953 may have contributed to the system’s deceleration and delayed the increase of living standards:

{{quote|Three different measures of population health show a consistent and large improvement between approximately 1945 and 1969: child height, adult height and infant mortality all improved significantly during this period. These three biological measures of the standard of living also corroborate the evidence of some deterioration in living conditions beginning around 1970, when infant and adult mortality were rising and child and adult height stopped increasing and in some regions began to decline.|Williams College|<ref name=Brainerd/>}}

Economic growth also began to slow around this time:

{{quote|After the Second World War, the Soviet economy resumed rapid growth. By 1970, the growth rate was sagging, and per capita output was static by 1985.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}}

The [[Cold War]] was another factor which contributed to slowing growth rates:

{{quote|The Cold War was an additional factor that lowered Soviet growth after 1968. The creation of high tech weaponry required a disproportionate allocation of R & D personnel and resources to the military. Innovation in civilian machinery and products declined accordingly. Half of the decreased in the growth rate of per capita GDP was due to the decline in productivity growth, and that decrease provides an upper bound to the impact of the arms race with the United States.|Simon Clarke|<ref name=Farm/>}}

Despite the delayed growth rates, food consumption remained at acceptable levels. By 1976 the average caloric intake of the Soviet population was 3,330.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book| publisher = Springer| isbn = 978-1-349-10349-2| last = Birman| first = Igor| title = Personal Consumption in the USSR and the USA| date = 1989-06-18| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_hexCwAAQBAJ|page=36|pageurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=_hexCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36}}</ref> Similarly, a 1983 report confirmed that Soviets and U.S. citizens ate about the same amount of food quotidianly, but the Soviet diet may have be more eutrophic; they put the daily caloric intake at 3,280.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=STRENGTH‐DIET|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf|date=1983-01-08|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200224040849/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf|archivedate=2020-02-24}}</ref><ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=The Nutrient Content of the Soviet Food Supply|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf|year=1984|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200203193608/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf|archivedate=2020-02-03}}</ref> Dr. Kenneth Gray, the White House’s top expert on Soviet agriculture, confirmed in his testimony to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that ‘the food shortages in the USSR are occurring at fairly respectable levels of consumption.’<ref name=Medley>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Medley|first=Joseph| accessdate = 2019-10-09| title = Soviet Agriculture: A Critique of the Myths Constructed by Western Critics|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611145106/http://www.usm.maine.edu/eco/joe/works/Soviet.html}}</ref>

While the USSR did become a major importer of grain by the 1980s,<ref name=Medley/> they intended these imports strictly for feeding livestock, since it takes between seven and fourteen pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. They thereby increased their consumption of meat and dairy.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book |last=Syzmański |first=Albert |authorlink= |chapter=5 |title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union |url=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion |location=London |publisher=Zed Books Ltd. |year=1984 |section=Imports |page=132 |pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion#page/n74/mode/1up |isbn=0 086232 018 6 |oclc=}}</ref> Per capita meat consumption in the USSR doubled from the 1960s to the 1980s and exceeded such nations as the [[Kingdom of Norway]], Italy, Greece, the [[Kingdom of Spain]],<ref name=HRSU72>{{safesubst:cite book |last=Syzmański |first=Albert |authorlink= |chapter=5 |title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union |url=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion |location=London |publisher=Zed Books Ltd. |year=1984 |section=Living Standards|pages=128–9 |pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion#page/n72/mode/1up |isbn=0 086232 018 6 |oclc=}}</ref> [[Japan]], and the [[State of Israel]]. Milk production increased almost sixty percent in two decades, to the point when during the 1980s the USSR became by far the world’s largest milk-producing country. According to the 1982 [[CIA]] report on the Soviet economy, ‘The Soviet Union remains basically self-sufficient with respect to food.’<ref>{{safesubst:cite book| publisher = Transaction Publishers| isbn = 978-1-4128-3909-9| last1 = Hoffmann| first1 = Erik P.| last2 = Laird| first2 = Robbin Frederick| title = The Soviet Polity in the Modern Era| page = 431|pageurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=63_obglArrMC&pg=PA431}}</ref> These were the accomplishments of an agrarian labour force that decreased from 42% in 1960 to 20% in 1980, working in a country where over 90% of the land is either too arid or too frigid for farming.<ref>{{safesubst:cite news| issn = 0882-7729| title = Soviet farming: more success than failure?| work = Christian Science Monitor| accessdate = 2019-10-09| date = 1982-12-13| url = https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/1213/121323.html}}</ref>

Although Vladimir Lenin would inspire many ecosocialists in the U.S.S.R.,<ref>{{safesubst:Cite news| title = Lenin’s Eco-Warriors - The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/opinion/lenin-environment-siberia.html| accessdate = 2019-10-09| date = 2017-08-15|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170815005108/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/opinion/lenin-environment-siberia.html|archivedate=2017-08-15}}</ref> and Moscow initiated history’s first state-directed effort to reverse artificially induced climate change,<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Brain|first=Stephen|title=The Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature|journal=Environmental History|publisher=Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History|year=2010|month=October|volume=15|number=4|page=671|JSTOR=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25764488}}</ref> the immense pressure to compete with antisocialist régimes meant that pollution and irresponsible use of the environment would become very significant issues in later decades.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Szymański|first=Albert|chapter=5|title=Is the Red Flag Flying?|url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-6/red-flag.pdf|location=London|publisher=Zed Press|year=1979|page=83|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/IsTheRedFlagFlying#page/n45/mode/1up|ISBN=0 905762 35 5}}</ref><ref>{{safesubst:Cite web| title = Environmental Policy and Law in the USSR| accessdate = 2019-10-09| url = https://elr.info/sites/default/files/articles/17.10068.htm}}</ref> For example, a series of dry years in the 1970s (particularly 1974–1975) and low flows between 1982 and 1986 contributed to the Aral Sea’s desiccation, but overconsumption of the water for irrigation was another factor. Starting in the 1960s, the Soviets proposed a large-scale project to redirect part of the flow of the Ob basin’s rivers to Central Asia over a gigantic canal system; replenishing the Aral Sea was considered as one of the project’s main goals.<ref>{{safesubst:Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-1-139-42941-2| last = Glantz| first = Michael| title = Creeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Basin| date = 1999-05-13|pageurl = https://books.google.com/books?id=2YXnBxZg7c4C&pg=PA174| page = 174}}</ref> It was only due to its staggering costs and the negative public opinion in the R.S.F.S.R. that the federal authorities unfortunately relinquished the project by 1986. (The worst effects of the sea’s desiccation manifested '''after''' the short twentieth century:<ref>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:AralSea1989_2014.jpg</ref> when a market economy was well in place.) The discontinuation of many Soviet industries also lead to a temporary reduction in CO₂ emissions in the Eastern world;<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last1=Schierhorn|first1=Florian|last2=Kastner|first2=Thomas|last3=Kuemmerle|first3=Tobias|last4=Meyfroidt|first4=Patrick|last5=Kurganova|first5=Irina|last6=V Prishchepov|first6=Alexander|last7=Erb|first7=Karl-Heinz|last8=A Houghton|first8=Richard|last9=Müller|first9=Daniel|title=Large greenhouse gas savings due to changes in the post-Soviet food systems|journal=Environmental Research Letters|url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1cf1|publisher=IOP Publishing Ltd|date=2019-06-21|volume=14|number=6}}</ref> United Nations data from 1990 indicate that the Soviet Union was emitting 13.5 tons of CO₂ per capita (lower than antisocialist states such as Australia (17.2), Canada (16.2), and Imperial America (19.1)).<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|title=Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (CDIAC)|url=http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx|publisher=United Nations Statistics Division and United States Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)|accessdate=2020-02-11}}</ref>

In summary:

{{quote|Compared with the later period it is justifiable to talk of the indisputable advantages of the command over the market economy in Russian conditions. […] [T]hese advantages are evident even in comparison with the degenerate mid-1980s version of the command economy, which was very different from the classical model. […] The USSR economy also exceeded the main capitalist countries in this period in terms of a number of indicators of economic efficiency. […] [T]he fading of the rate of economic growth which began at the end of the 1950s was not an inevitable consequence of the faults of command economy as an economic system but was the result of its gradual dismantling and the incompetent actions of the political and economic leadership in this period.|G.I. Khanin|<ref>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Khanin|first=G.I.|title=The 1950s: The Triumph of the Soviet Economy|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3594504|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|publisher=Taylor & Francis, Ltd.|volume=55|number=8|year=2003|pages=1187–1211|ISSN=0966-8136|DOI=10.1080/0966813032000141088}}</ref>}}

== Infrastructure ==

=== Health ===
The USSR placed importance on the health of its people, and alongside quality food products, provided health care as a constitutional right. <br>
''ARTICLE 120. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.'' - (Soviet Constitution of 1936 Chapter 10: FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS)<ref>[https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04.html#chap10]</ref>
<br>
''- Article 41: Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest and leisure. This right is ensured by the establishment of a working week not exceeding 41 hours, for workers and other employees, a shorter working day in a number of trades and industries, and shorter hours for night work; by the provision of paid annual holidays, weekly days of rest, extension of the network of cultural, educational, and health-building institutions, and the development on a mass scale of sport, physical culture, and camping and tourism; by the provision of neighborhood recreational facilities, and of other opportunities for rational use of free time. The length of collective farmers' working and leisure time is established by their collective farms.

- Article 42: Citizens of the USSR have the right to health protection. This right is ensured by free, qualified medical care provided by state health institutions; by extension of the network of therapeutic and health-building institutions; by the development and improvement of safety and hygiene in industry; by carrying out broad prophylactic measures; by measures to improve the environment; by special care for the health of the rising generation, including prohibition of child labour, excluding the work done by children as part of the school curriculum; and by developing research to prevent and reduce the incidence of disease and ensure citizens a long and active life.'' - (Soviet Constitution of 1977, Part II. The State And The Individual; Chapter 7: The Basic Rights, Freedoms, And Duties Of Citizens Of The USSR)<ref>[https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html#chap07 ''CONSTITUTION (FUNDAMENTAL LAW) OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS: Part II, Chapter 7'']</ref>

Health conditions in Imperial Russia had been deplorable; it was among the unhealthiest nations in Europe, if not Earth in general:

{{quote|Without doubt the Soviet Union was one of the most underdeveloped European countries at the time of the October Revolution. In terms of life-expectancy it lagged behind the other industrialized countries of Europe by a gap of about 15 years.|University of Munich|<ref name=Dinkel>{{safesubst:cite journal|last=Dinkel|first=Reiner|title=Declining Life Expectancy in a Highly Developed Nation: Paradox or Statistical Artifact?|url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-95874-8_22|journal=Paradoxical Effects of Social Behavior|publisher=Physica-Verlag HD|year=1986|pages=311–321|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-95874-8_22|ISBN=978-3-7908-0350-1}}</ref>}}

However, after the October Revolution, healthcare conditions began to improve rapidly.<ref>{{safesubst:Cite book
|author=Howard M. Leichter
|authorlink=
|chapter=7
|editor=|editors=
|title=A Comparative Approach to Policy Analysis: Health Care Policy in Four Nations
|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cfI6AAAAIAAJ
|archiveurl=https://wp.me/pa7b25-X
|archivedate=27/July/2018
|edition=
|location=New York
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|year=1979
|volume=
|section=
|page=200
|pageurl=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cfI6AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA200
|isbn=0-521-22648
|oclc=
|text=In this hospital great pains were taken to keep surgical areas antiseptic and patient areas clean. The patients could enjoy fresh air and relaxation in an outdoor garden. In general, the patients, who included persons of varied ethnic and social backgrounds, were getting good medical attention. […] As the two literary descriptions suggest, the quality of medical care has improved substantially under communist rule.}}</ref> By the end of the interbellum period, healthcare standards (measured by life expectancy and mortality rates) were superior to those of Western Europe and the USA:

{{quote|One of the most striking advances of socialism has been and was generally seen to be the improvement in public health provision for the population as a whole. In accordance with this assumption mortality-rates in the Soviet Union declined rapidly in the first two decades after World War II. In 1965 life-expectancy for men and women in all parts of the Soviet Union, which still included vast underdeveloped regions with unfavorable living conditions, were as high or even higher than in the United States. Such a development fits perfectly into the picture of emerging industrial development and generally improving conditions of living.|University of Munich|<ref name=Dinkel/>}}

Even reactionary intellectuals were forced to acknowledge these achievements; according to Nick Eberstadt (an antisocialist think-tank adviser), healthcare standards in the Soviet Union during the interbellum period surpassed those of the USA and Western Europe:

{{quote|Over much of this century the nation in the vanguard of the revolution in health was the Soviet Union. In 1897 Imperial Russia offered its people a life expectancy of perhaps thirty years. In European Russia, from what we can make out, infant mortality (that is, death in the first year) claimed about one child in four, and in Russia’s Asian hinterlands the toll was probably closer to one in three. Yet by the late 1950s the average Soviet citizen could expect to live 68.7 years: longer than his American counterpart, who had begun the century with a seventeen-year lead. By 1960 the Soviet infant mortality rate, higher than any in Europe as late as the Twenties, was lower than that of Italy, Austria, or East Germany, and seemed sure to undercut such nations as Belgium and West Germany any year.|Nick Eberstadt|<ref name=Eberstadt/>}}

He even notes that these achievements made planned economics seem nearly indefatigable:

{{quote|In the face of these and other equally impressive material accomplishments, Soviet claims about the superiority of their “socialist” system, its relevance to the poor countries, and the inevitability of its triumph over the capitalist order were not easily refuted.|Nick Eberstadt|<ref name=Eberstadt/>}}

While health conditions did start to decline after the introduction of revisionist policies in the mid-1960s, this was likely caused mostly by the substance abuse, lopsided age demographics due to WWII, and the disparities in mortality rates between the European and Asian regions of the union rather than actual deficiencies in the healthcare system.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Cockshott|first=Paul|title=Economic Factors in Soviet Collapse|url=https://invidio.us/embed/EE-kCZnlGZU|accessdate=2020-03-26}}</ref> Either way, the planned economy’s healthcare achievements remain unimpeachable.

In January of 1960, news of a smallpox epidemic reached Moscow, which immediately mobilized all the resources of its hospitals, clinics, police departments and the KGB to search for and contain probable carriers. For example, they interrupted university lectures to quarantine one hundred fifty students, and searched elsewhere for other contacts until they establish an entire chain, interrupting trains and flights to quarantine potentially infected people. They placed a total of 9,342 people under quarantine. The Soviets prevented the spread of smallpox by vaccinating all of Moscow’s and Moscow Region’s residents of all ages. Within only a week, they successfully vaccinated more then 9.5 million people, an unprecedented case in history. By mobilizing law enforcement, epidemiologists, and all medics, they successfully defeated the virus in only 19 days, concluding on February 3, 1960. In total, they found only forty-five Moscow residents suffering from smallpox, only three of whom died.<ref>{{safesubst:cite web|last=Egorov|first=Boris|title=How the USSR defeated a smallpox epidemic in a matter of 19 days|url=https://www.rbth.com/history/331857|date=2020-03-19|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200321031034/https://www.rbth.com/history/331857-how-ussr-defeated-black-smallpox|archivedate=2020-03-21}}</ref>

===Education===
Already in 1919, despite the lackluster economic conditions, the Bolsheviki improved education substantially:

{{quote|Thousands of new schools have been opened in all parts of Russia and the Soviet Government seems to have done more for the education of the Russian people in a year and a half than Czardom did in 50 years. […] The achievements of the department of education under Lunacharsky have been very great. Not only have all the Russian classics been reprinted in editions of three and five million copies and sold at a low price to the people, but thousands of new schools for men, women, and children have been opened in all parts of Russia. Furthermore, workingmen’s and soldiers’ clubs have been organized in many of the palaces of yesteryear, where the people are instructed by means of moving pictures and lectures. In the art galleries one meets classes of working men and women being instructed in the beauties of the pictures. The children’s schools have been entirely reorganized, and an attempt is being made to give every child a good dinner at school every day. Furthermore, very remarkable schools have been opened for defective and over-nervous children. On the theory that genius and insanity are closely allied, these children are taught from the first to compose music, paint pictures, sculpt and write poetry, and it is asserted that some valuable results have been achieved, not only in the way of productions but also in the way of restoring the nervous systems of the children.|William C. Bullitt|<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Kominsky|first=Morris|IV|title=The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheHoaxers|edition=|location=Boston|publisher=Branden Press, Inc.|year=1970|id=8283-1288-5|volume=I|page=256|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/TheHoaxers#page/n250/mode/1up}}</ref>}}

Corporal punishment, common in Imperial Russia, became illegal and increasingly rare.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last1=Gould|first1=Laurie|last2=Pate|first2=Matthew|chapter=1|editor=Graeme R. Newman|title=Corporal Punishment around the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uf-1r3SVVrYC|location=Santa Barbara|publisher=Praeger|year=2012|page=26|pageurl=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uf-1r3SVVrYC&pg=PA26|ISBN=978-0-313-39131-6|LCCN=2012017133}}</ref> Education continued to improve from the 1920s to the 1960s, and various nonsocialist observers, including Western government officials, have attested to the high quality of Soviet education, noting the diverse range of subjects, support for students, and complexity compared to U.S. education.<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Kominsky|first=Morris|IV|title=The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars|url=https://archive.org/stream/TheHoaxers|edition=|location=Boston|publisher=Branden Press, Inc.|year=1970|id=8283-1288-5|volume=I|pages=294–303|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/TheHoaxers#page/n288/mode/1up}}</ref>

{{quote|In common with primary and secondary education, all higher education is free, and students in higher education who maintain a ‘B’ average also receive a stipend. Such stipends vary according to the year of study, the subject studied, the type of school and the student’s progress; no stipend is paid for a year that must be repeated. In the mid-1970s university students received 40–60 roubles a month and technical school students 30–45 roubles. Admission to higher education is by examinations for specific institutions; there are no IQ tests or general aptitude tests in the USSR. Students who fail one institution’s entrance exam can reapply in future years or apply to other institutions. Advantages are given to higher education applicants with work experience, for example, quotas, extra points on examinations, special tutorial programmes. In 1967, 30% of admissions to higher education were of people who had been working full time. In general, Soviets are actively encouraged to continue with formal education throughout their lives. Indeed, the Soviets have one of the highest rates of attendance at institutions of higher education in the world.|Albert Szymański|<ref>{{safesubst:cite book|last=Syzmański|first=Albert|chapter=5 |title=Human Rights in the Soviet Union |url=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion|location=London |publisher=Zed Books Ltd.|year=1984|page=137|pageurl=https://archive.org/stream/HumanRightsInTheSovietUnion#page/n76/mode/1up |isbn=0 086232 018 6}}</ref>}}

==Environment==
===Environmentalism===
The USSR produced so little plastic that it was essential non-existent, and the plastic that was produced was made to last. Most bottles were made of glass, with old ones sent to factories to be sanitized and reused, with broken glass either swept up to be melted down or otherwise disposed of. Metal and paper waste was treated just like in wartime, similar to the US scrap collection system during World War II, resulting in minimal metal and paper waste. Littering was fined and weekly cleanup volunteers helped reduce trash in public places.

Widespread availability and use of public transport meant less CO<sub>2</sub> produced as well. Cars also tended to have 4-6 cylinders meaning they used less gas, with trucks using diesel fuel which requires less refinement and is thus cheaper, while also using less energy from power plants.

The focus on nuclear power further reduced CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, with nuclear power gradually coming to supersede coal-based power. Windmills were also used in areas for water pumps and flour production.
And furthermore Stalin, for one, had a series of ecological programs which replanted thousands of square kilometers of forests cut down or destroyed in preparation for and during World War II - [[The Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature]] (1948-1953). In all these ways, the Soviets sought to reduce the ecological effects of their rapid and massive industrialization necessary to survive their early years as a nation.

The Russian Federation, on the other hand, shirked environmental maintenance work which was regularly done in the USSR. The current system is to cut down a section of forest, dig a deep pit, dump waste in the pit, light it on fire, and then bury it while the methane and other fuel continue to let the fire burn under ground; leaking into the air and nearby villages. This has caused and still causes large protests, especially since this is a significant step down from the more efficient trash sorting and processing system present in the Soviet Union.

===The Aral Sea===
Aral Sea has been slowly drying up for a while naturally. If no humans effect it this would take a few millenia to eliminate. Obviously human impact has sped up this process. In the 1960s, Soviet researchers predicted the complete evaporation of the body of water, and a river used to irrigate farmland had the excess water siphoned into the lake and would have been rerouted to continue to do so. This was, however, expensive, and during the privatizations (and subsequent economic catastrophe) of the 1980s, that came with the rise of Gorbachev, the plan was abandoned. After Kazakhstan seceded, high-intensity cotton farming practices and infrastructure mismanagement - most water running through irrigation to the farms evaporated on the way there - accelerated the shrinkage. Most of the former Aral Sea is a desert. The destruction of the Aral Sea is a product of resource mismanagement both during the Soviet Union and after, with the latter being exemplified by Yeltsin's capitalist shock therapy which largely disregarded environmental sustainability rather than simple ignorance of impact.

===Radioactive dumping===
There is only one lake with high radiation levels as a result of radioactive dumping, Lake Karachay, but that was because radiation wasn't understood nearly as well at the time. Similarly, radioactive dumping by Soviets has occurred in the Barents and Kara Seas, however this was not a phenomenon unique to the USSR.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200609083923/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste Ocean disposal of radioactive waste]</ref>

==Railways==

From 1927 to 1941, the USSR expanded their freight rail network to be 20x larger than before, surpassing the US. From 1965 to 1980, the USSR build 639km of track a year (or about 1.5km a day).

==References==

[[Category:History]]
[[Category:USSR]]

Kelly Loeffler

2021-01-01T03:07:56Z

RS17:

=== SHE'S BEEN CAMPAIGNING WITH A KLANSMAN. SHE'S BEEN CAMPAIGNING WITH A KLANSMAN. ===

{{Officeholder
|name=Kelly Loeffler
|image=Kelly Loeffler.jpg
|party=[[Republican]]
|spouse=Jeffrey Sprecher
|religion=[[Christian]]<ref>[https://www.dreshare.com/kelly-loeffler/ Kelly Loeffler Height, Weight, Age, Husband, Biography & Family]</ref>
|offices=
{{Officeholder/senator
|state=Georgia
|terms=January 6, 2020 – present
|preceded=[[Johnny Isakson]]
|status=j
|succeeded=
}}
}}

'''Kelly Lynn Loeffler''' (born November 27, 1970 (age {{age|1970|11|27}})) is an American businesswoman and a U.S. senator from [[Georgia]].

==U.S. Senate==
===Gubernatorial appointment===
After [[Johnny Isakson]] had decided to retire from the Senate, governor of Georgia [[Brian Kemp]] appointed Loeffler to replace him.<ref>[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/4/kelly-loeffler-appointed-senate-georgia-amid-socia/ Kelly Loeffler appointed to Senate from Georgia, amid social conservative skepticism]</ref> Some conservatives opposed Kemp's decision, as many preferred [[Doug Collins]] to have been appointed instead. In addition, there are some who are skeptical of Loeffler's support from [[establishment]] Republicans.

===Opposition to impeachment coup===
Loeffler has strongly rebuked [[RINO]] [[Mitt Romney]] for his support of more impeachment "witnesses", calling it an appeasement to the [[Left]] and slander against [[Donald Trump]].<ref>[https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/27/kelly-loeffler-mitt-romney-appeasing-left-calling-more-impeachment-trial-witnesses/ Kelly Loeffler: Mitt Romney Appeasing the Left by Calling for More Impeachment Trial Witnesses]</ref>

She voted against both articles of impeachment in the Senate.<ref>[https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/188718/kelly-loeffler Kelly Loeffler's Voting Records]</ref>

===Establishment backing===
Loeffler is supported by Senate Majority Leader [[Mitch McConnell]] as well as the [[National Republican Senatorial Committee]].<ref>[https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/473346-doug-collins-on-potential-2020-senate-run-im-not-ruling-it-out Doug Collins on potential 2020 Senate run: I'm not 'ruling it out']</ref> Representative [[Doug Collins]], a conservative Republican challenger for her seat, has criticized Loeffler for her endorsement by an anti-Trump, anti-agricultural group.<ref>[https://twitter.com/CollinsforGA/status/1224364335004180480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Doug Collins on Twitter]</ref>

===2020 special election===
:''See: [[2020 United States Senate special election in Georgia]]
Loeffler, facing Rep. Collins as well as [[Democrat]] [[Raphael Warnock]] in the special election in running to finish Isakson's Senate term, finished second place in the jungle primary held on Election Day, trailing Warnock by seven points.<ref>[https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/georgia/senate-special-election Senate Special Election: Georgia]</ref> No candidate won a majority of the votes cast, so a runoff will be held on January 2021 to determine who will serve for the next two years.

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*[https://www.loeffler.senate.gov/ Home | Senator Kelly Loeffler]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loeffler, Kelly}}
[[Category:Georgia]]
[[Category:United States Senators]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Establishment]]
[[Category:116th United States Congress]]