Perhaps that has something to do with having lost millions during WW1, revolution and WW2. Eastern Europe and China were hit the hardest during WW2 and didn't have the massive US economy (which was unharmed in both WW1 and WW2) to help the rebuild (marshal plan). The young people who died during WW2 would otherwise have contributed to the economy during the 50s, 60s and 70s. In fact, you can still see the damage of WW2 in the Russian demographics today.

Of course it didn't help that the soviet politicians constantly mismanaged the economy at the same time. Also interestingly, Mao was constantly screwing up the economy with his uneducated policies that he was hugely unpopular internally with the CCP. However Mao was hugely popular with the common people that the CCP had to just put up with and put out the fires he starts. (reminds me of Trump today...)

That's super false. They went from a backwards agricultural society with actual serfs to an industrialized world power in 3-4 decades despite a nazi invasion killing 20 million russians.

That sounds like decades of economic success to me.

You forgot the tens of millions killed deliberately by the USSR itself, fir one example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Every first world country went from a backwards agricultural society to a far more advanced one during that century. Look up the dust bowl or even better the state of US agriculture during the early 20s.

Without central planning, the people’s of the Soviet republics would not just have been free, they would have grown wealthier

> You forgot the tens of millions killed deliberately by the USSR itself, fir one example.

Please keep in mind that the current, mainstream political Western discourse is seriously contemplating whether or not we should re-open, sacrificing a few million people on the altar of economic growth.

This really put the discourse in perspective for me, but I suppose we've made decisions like this every so often in the course of governance for a few decades now. I hope we continue to pursue all fundamental rights described by "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".

Russia has an economy the size of New York state. In a country of over 140 million people, that is no one's definition of success. Soviets didn't leave them much beyond a decaying nuclear arsenal and bunch of ugly buildings.

>> Russia has an economy the size of New York state.

According to Wikipedia it is 2.6 times more than New York state:

- New York's gross state product in 2018 was $1.7 trillion.

- Russia has a GDP of $4.519 trillion in 2020

>> In a country of over 140 million people, that is no one's definition of success.

It's half GDP per capita of USA, but USA has half of GDP per capita of Macau or Qatar. Ireland or Norway have a better GDP per capita than US. And if there was no wealth transfer between "rich" US states and "poor" US states, those would be much poorer, and would become comparable to Russia.

You're taking PPP figures instead of nominal figures. That's not necessarily wrong but it should be mentioned and explained. Based on nominal figures both new york state and russia are around 1.6-1.7 trillion.

PPP is incredibly misleading and is often useless as a comparison mechanism. The same car in the USA isn’t somehow cheaper in China (quite the opposite, Russia also), a lot of adjustments made in PPP are straight out differences in quality of life expectations.

Russia's economy today is smaller than during the USSR (adjusted for inflation), by quite a bit. Not comparable at all.

Compared to 1917 Russia? Huge success.

From 1917 until the 60s or so they vastly improved the lives of average Russians.

From the 70s until 1989, not so much, and then after 89 you can't really put it on the USSR since it didn't exist anymore.

Introducing modern technology into an economy can do that. Look at all the East Asian nations such as Korea. On the whole, Russia's communism seems to have been a big drag on progress.

Lots of countries have developed. South Korea went from bombed-out wreck to one of the richest countries of the world. There's nothing impressive about Soviet development.