I believe this dialogue (as it involved you, me and Dagmarka) has revealed that it was based on mutual misunderstandings from the start. You may recall the original precept was the benefits that Chavez socialism is providing to Venezuela.
I did not ever suggest that Tsarist Russia was better off economically than the Soviet Union of the 1950s or later. Instead I noted that the beginnings of industrial development were already present when the revolution came and often underestimated by historians of the subsequent period. In addition I noted that, despite the political & economic condition of the pesantry they were feeding the country and major exporters of agriculture as well.
My central thesis was that almost any other system would have accomplished as much or more to the economic development of Russia in the 20th century, and done so with far less human suffering. A very good case can be made for the proposition that the Soviets actually impeded industrial and agricultural development in that unfortunate country. For example consider this of yours;
nimh wrote:georgeob1 wrote:Russia was a major exporter of grain to Europe prior to 1914. Under Soviet rule agricultural production fell dramatically, and by 1955 the USSR had become a major importer of grains.
Yes, the Soviets systematically neglected agriculture, to just use a gross understatement.
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Sure, there had been some burgeoning capitalist expansion around/after 1900, even if it had already stalled by 1914; and sure, much of the Stalin-era mass industrialisation was based on the equivalent of slave labour. But the transformation the country went through was still enormous.
The Soviets didn't "systematically neglect" agriculture at all - this is simply false, dude. Indeed they systematically destroyed it through forced collectivization and the extermination of the most proficient farmers.
The NEP and the stagnation that followed through the purges were evidence of the rot that was infecting the Soviet system. The country was finally united and transformed more by the vissitudes of the German invasion than the "enlightened" ideas of Soviet Socialism.
THAT was my point.
