How Capitalism Destroyed Russia
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2022
- If you're like me, you know way too many people who think Russia is communist, or that don't realize the USSR has been gone for three decades now. But even for those who do understand that Russia is is capitalist oligarchy, not many know the full story. Come learn about how the West subjected the former soviet countries to brutal free market shock therapy, and the disastrous consequences that followed.
How Capitalism Destroyed Russia - Second Thought
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Citations and Further Reading:
Books
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Videos
• The First Years of Rus...
• How “Shock Therapy” Ca...
• Post-Soviet Russia: Fr...
• How capitalism destroy...
Shock Therapy
en.wikipedia.o...)
www.shortform....
www.project-sy...
The USSR and The Russian Federation
en.wikipedia.o...
en.wikipedia.o...
en.wikipedia.o...
en.wikipedia.o...
www.nplusonema...
Naomi Klein’s definition of shock doctrine/shock therapy
www.theguardia...
Individual statistics, facts, and quotes:
250% increase in price following privatization
books.google.c...
56% increase in unemployment
news.bbc.co.uk/...
14.5% fall/ nearly 20% decline in industrial production/1,354% inflation/real incomes being cut in half
books.google.c...
Decrease in health and education spending
www.greenleft....
www.nytimes.co...
12.8% increase in deaths
news.bbc.co.uk/...
6 year drop in life expectancy in Russia 1991-1994/1 year drop due to Covid
link.springer....
85% under the poverty line/Yeltsin’s 35% “correction”
• How “Shock Therapy” Ca...
Jeffrey Sachs’ “spontaneous market activity” quote
books.google.c...
The mafia’s origins in Yeltsin’s decree
books.google.c...
47,000 then 90,000 privatized companies
books.google.c...
books.google.c...
$20 vouchers and 14% of privatizations open to the public
books.google.c...
Graphs of wealth and inequality
• How “Shock Therapy” Ca...
Sachs quote about prioritizing speed during the privatization process
scholar.harvar...
Sachs quote about not prioritizing speed during the privatization process
www.acamedia.in...
Sachs quote about the urgency of privatization before people caught on
books.google.c...
The IMF using its funds to push around economic reforms
books.google.b...
The centralization of power by Yeltsin
www.nplusonema...
Favorable and extra press coverage for Yeltsin
www.belfercent...
Yeltsin election rigging
www.nplusonema...
Sachs quote about workers councils
www.brookings....
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My dad studies Russian history and lived in the USSR during the 70s. He came back right after shock capitalism was in full force. He said one of the saddest things he saw was old women who’d lived through famines, WWII etc. who got cheated out of their pensions at the last moment selling bread on the subway at midnight in the middle of winter.
It’s amazing how this is so reminiscent of the Covid Warriors who now blame the global economic crash that has only just begun, caused by overspending on pharmaceuticals while locking down your own economy, they blame it on everything but their own actions and wants which directly caused it. They are not that dumb either, it’s subconscious rejection of responsibility like a dead beat parent who doesn’t want their child to live.
A drunken psychotic drug addict has children who he rapes and abuses in the basement of his apartment. After a few decades he gets old and dies of an overdose and starvation due to poverty, and the surviving children escape. The police find them and try to help them, but with only partial success.
Which means it was the ideology of the police that caused all the trouble.
@@busterkeyl This was Russia in the 30's too. And East Germany in 1945.
Why not tell me about the besprizorniki?
Cheated by who?
@@marius4iasi their own Greedy Commie leaders obviously. Funny how people overlook tens of millions deaths cause by Communism and now want to blame Capitalism when things change because they are too dumb, brainwashed, manupilated and lazy to think and work for themselves.
I'm from Kazakhstan, born in the late 80s, I'm afraid to watch this video because I'll get re-traumatized. The 90s were horrible horrible time, we barely survived, so many people quietly died, some from hunger, others from despair, alcoholism, drug addiction, murdered by bandits and so on. I freeze from pain when I think about that time and what our people were subjected to, including my parents.
the 90s compared to 80s was a time when people finally got an opportunity to fulfill the stomach
Kazakhstan tried to conduct their free market reforms in a safe and slow, low risky way, so the economic growth was in the bottom of the CIS region for many years
@@romanchannel69 i thought the 90s was the worst time in like every former Soviet countries, was it different in Kazakhstan?
@@quang2842 you're right, we had shock therapy with 5 waves of privatization. It mirrored Russian experience, just without political violence. I don't know what he is talking about. We crawled out of poverty and population decline only because of oil prices increases in 2000's. To be fair it could have been worse. Civil War was actually an option given that majority of population was diaspora. We can thank Nazarbayev at least for that, that he prevented such things from happening. Still piece of shit, though.
@@romanchannel69 fulfill their stomach with what? with emptiness or bullets? c'mon, it's ridiculous, 90's were the worst time in the whole Soviet territory after the WW2. Deffinitely much worse than the 80's and im from Russia
90s in the USA vs Russia. The 90s was my favorite time of my life as a USA citizen. Sounds like it was hell for the Russians.
I was a kid when the USSR fell. I still remember the grief, shock and despair that surged through our family when it happened. I remember my parents calling Gorbachev a traitor and Yeltsin was seen as the incarnation of capitalist evil. I’m from India, for context.
Is the title of this video correct?
@@lochnessmunster1189 Абсолютно.
Typical of a bengali, still in love with communism while your state dies a a painful death due to lack of any entrepreneurship and industries.
USSR was literally an epitome of evil. It was a shit country. Gorbachev was one of the best USSR leaders. Capitalism literally saved Russia. There was no way to continue the country as it was before. It was just shit. People were dying and starving. If not Gorbachev USSR would've collapsed sooner. He saw that being communist is impossible so he gave more freedom to people. Communism was shit
@@lochnessmunster1189 no, it's bs
I lived in Moscow in this time period. It did indeed happen very quickly. One thing I never forgot was the puzzlement of the 'True Believers' who really thought we are building Socialism for a better tomoro. Then it was suddenly all about money. They walked around stunned for a couple of years, then just went for the money.
Overall, it was a fairly horrible period and I try not to think about it.
I honestly believe I was the only non-Russian on the planet to be standing on Red Square when they hauled down the Soviet flag for the last time in history. The square was barren, dark and cold. Just me and some dude trying to sell souvenir cups to nobody (probably KGB).
Who said it will be the last time?
As a Russian, everything you say in this video essay is so on-point, well-researched and non-superficial mainstream info it's kind of scary considering you're not an inhabitant of ex-ussr haha. Kudos man 🫡
Thank you very much! I try my best
@@SecondThought wheres the figure of 80% of USSR members wanting it to continue? good video BTW
@@michimatsch5862 What were the reforms or changes they wanted?
@@lordjj2549 Gorbachev was slowly increasing Government Transparency, Freedom of Speech and Press, and repeeling more Stalinist-Era Laws
@@lordjj2549 It refers to the 1991 USSR referendum. I'm quoting from wikipedia: "Do you consider necessary the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any ethnicity will be fully guaranteed?" (...) "The referendum's question was approved by nearly 80% of voters in all nine other republics that took part."
As a Russian, who managed to lived through all of that in person (born in 1971 in the USSR), have to say:
1) The facts in the video are well researched and absolutely accurate.
2) I'm surprised to see such an unbiased, deep and qualitative analysis of anything related to Russian in the English-language segment of the internet. Especially nowadays.
We exist bro, I'm an American communist and despise what this nation stands for. The Union was our best hope. Can we rely on China as a vanguard? I doubt it. We'll need to make our own revolution.
Not sure if trolling or just stupid. Do you really believe this perspective is unbiased? Do you really think the author did well on research? Like, really? Do you know what the word "unbiased" means?
@@ernstthalmann4306 right, China is an awesome example of communism coming to life xD You American communists aren't very picky, are you? I'd suggest your government change the flag to red and rename the leading parties to "communist democratic" and "communist republican", you'll be happy for the rest of your lives.
@Piracy advocate you know China has less prisoners than America? Higher math test scores for students. Takes 2 weeks to build a skyscraper. What's the point of democracy if nothing gets done?
@@ernstthalmann4306 waaaaait, wait. Isn't communism the ultimate democracy? You American communists are even funnier than I initially thought xD
I was born in 1948. I felt a vague sense of alarm when the Soviet Union dissolved. I remember the day in the late 1990s I was considering getting rid of my books about the Soviet Union and Communism. This Second Thought gives me a language to think about events.
Wow you
Would you be so kind to describe us the Soviet lifestyle through the years? It would be very interesting and usefull to hear that from a wise man
Bless you old man
god bless you
I would love to hear about your story.
I’m Lithuanian but my family is Russian. When the USSR ended, Lithuania still had it better economically than Russia. But even with this, my grandmother and grandfather, who worked in highly respectable factories as econometricians and engineers, lost their jobs due to the factories closing. They sold underwear on the street to make money. My mom was studying to be an engineer and could not finish her study because the factory she’d be working at closed down and she had nowhere to go.
Lithuania's gdp fell by 50% during the 1990s and today real term gdp is only 60% greater than 1989 level.
Surprise! If your family is Russian you're ethnically Russian too. Welcome
in russia they're called oligarchs 👹 in the us they're named billionaires 💫
six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Nothing could be further from the truth. You do realize this cute little boy is the new face of marxism. Lenin and Bernie didn't work so well so now they've developed a new toy to brainwash the youth.
a big price for making the "oligarch" word not as rude as it was in USSR
Oligarch is when you can co-rule a country, billionaire are just guys with a lot of capital.
@@iche9373 do you really think billionares dont co rule the country?
This video can help to understand Russian society a lot. Putin’s popularity is not based on him being actually awesome but because people associate early 2000s when he became president with rapid economic growth that took place. The other significant reason for his enormous approval is that he managed to cope with constant terror attacks and to end the war (ironic, isn’t it) in Chechnya.
Only Putin could have hauled in the looting oligarchs, giving them a choice between investing in Russia, exile or the chop. Putin earned his reputation and even westerners acknowledge him as the greatest statesman of our generation.
Same thing happened with Algeria during the 2000s but with Bouteflika, we were socialists who switched to a free market which caused poverty and a civil war with 2 terrorist groups, then Bouteflika came in, managed to stop the war and improved the Algerian economy, guy was a walking corpse before people stopped liking him.
"him being awesome" +5 roubles
@@kekkoinen 🤦♂️
@@kekkoinen his hear cold, his moves are bold
I was born in Russia in 94. My family used to be fairly well-off before the dissolution of ussr, at least enough to live comfortably and provide for my parents once they got married. My mom got a free apartment provided by the government for working on railroads. My dad had a car, my grandfather had a nice apartment in the very center of the city (not Moscow), a dacha (a summer house with a bit of land), a personal fishing boat, an amazing for the time collection of photo cameras, and a shit ton of other useful stuff, and had a decent savings account. By decent i mean enough that i could buy an apartment right now for what it was worth, and i'd have enough for whatever work it needs, and maybe a used car too. My dad studied in Moscow to become an engineer, and was making decent money too.
Guess what happened next? A few years before i was born inflation skyrocketed so much that all my grandparent's money poof-ed out of existence and my whole family almost starved. My mom and dad couldn't take me to go visit mom's side of the family until i was almost four years old because there was no car and travel became a nightmare. And then of course the roads were not being maintained for literally years, so we crashed our new car and i lost my mom to a ditch 300km from her hometown.
My entire childhood i never had any clothes of my own - everything came from kind neighbors and distant family. My grandmother raised me, and she always had food on the table, but i distinctly remember not being allowed to buy anything in stores aside from milk and bread, and very very occasionally a chupa-chups. I hated myself for forcing my dad to work three jobs just to be able to buy and make livable another apartment to take me in again, and grew up to have a constant feeling of intruding on other people, always afraid of taking more then was acceptable in my mind.
Rn im an adult married woman, but we still live in my mom's apartment and there is no way my husband and i could make enough to buy another property, not even if we double both incomes. We can barely scrape by without going too badly in debt just from groceries and necessities, and that's only because by last grandma gives me half of her veteran pension in exchange of me taking care of her health, working in her home and cooking. Oh, and we don't qualify as poor.
I'm fully expecting that if i have kids they will have to learn to live off the land and make a fire by rubbing sticks together.
I'm not saying everyone is this bad off, but my story is not out of the norm here.
If you live near Peter or Moscow(or other big city) you should consider other towns/cities. I don't have a higher education and I alone cover my flat and all my necessities with pay of 30k + bonuses from work. I even help my parents cover my grandma's treatment bills sometimes. I even save up for my future flat/house (I hope for a house but it seems rather expensive to build, I'll wait until everything normalises or chose somewhere away from Moscow).
The real estate prices are insane, probably one of the things our government has to look into to go in with their population increase plan. That's probably current major issue that needs to be addressed.
@@retroas2683 try making 30k in Saratov. You need to be a man and have 2 bachelors degrees and 10 years of experience, and a lot of connections, or work 12 hours 5-6 days a week. I've never been paid more then 20k a month. Rent for a one-bedroom is 10-15. Utilities is 5k in winter. Even if I made 30 i'd never have enough money for anything aside from food living on my own.
@@kennyshepard-ww1gk well my mom is dead, so is most of the family by now, but I'm actually a commie if it helps
@@kennyshepard-ww1gk it will sound cliche, but here's what I genually think:
a) the USSR didn't fall apart by itself, it was destroyed by decades long deliberate effort on part of both western interference and internal conflicts of interest. It's well documented that the majority of USSR citizens did not want a dissolution. Most people were perfectly fine to keep it.
b) for a country that started as barely more then totally agrarian miserably poor monarchy with no education, technology or unity, USSR wasn't half bad by the end, or even by the middle. It still wasn't actually communist though. It was more of a state capitalism. There was no real dictatorship of the proletariat, tho it gave a better illusion of one then, say, USA. And it was still very much capitalist, though some things were socialised, like education and housing. There was still plenty of inequality, poverty and other capitalist bullshit - mostly for reasons of corruption, isolation and a horrible lack of democracy.
Tl;dr: the ideal was good, but the conditions were unsuitable, so there was never real communism in USSR. It was destroyed by deliberate prolonged effort of combined forces within and without. It was pretty bad, but there are many ways in which it was better then market capitalizm. Ask people who actually lived in it.
@@kennyshepard-ww1gkОни оказались бедными в результате распада СЭВ и СССР и краха своих политэкономий. Но при "социализме" (на деле госкапитализме с социалистическими элементами и обещанной перспективой) большинство жило хорошо, и раздражали только недостатки, которые, казалось, было нетрудно исправить (поэтому и купились на "перестройку", оказавшуюся мошенничеством).
Правящий слой переродился, а народ перестройщики обманули. А когда люди осознали масштаб Бедствия - к 1993 г. - в Москве клика Ельцина просто разогнала парламент и Конституционный Суд, и расстреляла протестующих (в т.ч. в по-пиночетовски созданным концлагере Асмарал).
Нынешняя поддержка Путина есть поддержка не столько капитализма, сколько возвращения элементов советской системы, ну и прежде всего, конечно, по контрасту с катастрофой и ужасом 90-х (ещё 00-х). Но перспективы смутны, я вот думаю, что надо исполнить проект Глушкова ОГАС. Сделали бы это в СССР - и Страна бы не распалась, и не пришлось бы пройти по Кавдинским ущельям бедствий 90-х - 00-х.
Hello. I was born in 1990 in the USSR. I was a child, but I saw with my own eyes how hard it was for my parents to survive this terrible decade. People were not ready for capitalism and did not want it that way.
I was ten when the change happened. I consider myself lucky to remember the USSR and still gotten the Soviet education. We emigrated in mid-1990s. I had been reviewing my attitude to socialism since 2008 and especially over the past 2 years.
USSR: *dies*
Pizza Hut: It's free real *Gorbachev* !
tankie?
@@wwanca3771 no, it's a "free real estate" meme variant
🤮🤮🤮
Ironically that Pizza Hut ad was never aired in Russia.
@@camaradecarter no😊
What happened not only literally ruined lives of working people in the former USSR (including but not limited to Russia), it also made a huge wound in lives and minds of the generation that is in its prime right now. That wound never healed fully so you get the idea
It started to inevitably happen when Kosygin was fired. Kosygin in fact was Prime Minister, Industry Minister and Minister of Economy, started his high-level career even with Stalin during War. Check the facts.
the fall of the ussr is the single largest collapse in human standard of living.
@@argonaut5617 Kosygin was the dude who advocated and actually began replac... Pardon me, "integrating" elements of market economy into the planned economy of the USSR, which in the end was one of the reasons (albeit rather an effect than a cause) of the collapse. Sounds like a "great" role model for modern communists.
I still hope for a Second Act. Social Media may have ruined a lot of brains, but it also exposed the intectual level of the right wing Worldwide.
Boo hoo hoo Russia could not STEAL from its neighbors.
Boo hoo hoo
I'm from Russia, I was born in 2000 but I understand why older generation redy to bearing everything if it saves us from returning to 90s my grandmothers told me how it was. Even when war and all the sanctions stated one of my grandmothers said to me: "Don't worry, we survived 90s, we will survive this".
то же самое! это буквально то же самое, что сказали мои родители!
я ребенок нулевых
Я родилась в те времена и от голода у меня был всю жизнь очень низкий рост (не было достаточно еды чтобы способствовать росту организма, мы из средне-низжего класса) после 20 лет, когда все наладилось, я за 8 лет набрала 15 сантиметров и достигла среднего роста.
За 90ые как ребенок я увидела много смертей, трупы на улицах, человека раздавленного машиной сорвавшейся с эвакуационного крана, возле нашего дома наркоманы кололись ночью. Дедушка который раньше помогал родителям и сидел с детьми на площадке пока они бегали за продуктами однажды был найден мертвым в помойке когда новые русские наипали его на квартиру. Дедок великую отечественную пережил, не пережил 90ые. Почти ежедневно были новости о жестоких расправах над людьми, один раз видела как с дома сбросили девушку - потом когда взрослая уже была родители рассказали что это с ближнего востока рабочие изнасиловали, убили и сбросили ее.
Не профукайте то что у вас сейчас есть. Никогда не доверяйте США и Западу. Наши родители не для этого откапывали страну из того г в которое нас погребли либерахи того времени.
Запад никогда не меняется. Их целью всегда будет истребление и порабощение. Разделяй и властвуй, это их логика, а наша логика силы в единстве им противоречит.
@@retroas2683stop invading your neighbour and we can be friends. The west had no ambition to "destroy" Russia, it was mainly the ambition of Western billionaires in combination with a weak Russian state apparatus. I'm very sorry for what you and most ex-ussr republics went through as it didn't have to be that way. The Baltic states are a good example (even though their economies were heavily subsidised by the Nordics and Germany). The idea of that "the west" wants to destroy Russia is simply false, it's actually a pretty terrifying prospect if you give it a thought. It does however don't want a return to the cold war with another iron curtain through Europe. It's also important to remember that the west is NOT a monolith. Interests fundamentally differs between different countries. Russia rolled the dice, so to speak, when it invaded Ukraine, there's a divide now between Russia and the rest of Europe that will probably take decades to heal, if that. If anything this confirms for the former Warsaw pact and USSR states that joined NATO that they made the correct decision, not to mention that Finland also joined and Sweden seems to be on its way
@@retroas2683 "трупы на улицах" ты серъезно? хватит страшилки рассказывать 😴
@@lukediceman1098 не рассказываю. Зимой приходилось видеть трупы бомжей. Но тебе, 4урка, этого не знать, ведь тебя даже в планах не было в то время.
Sadly, the US had an unfortunate role in shaping Russia into what it is today. George H Bush and the neoliberal policies that he and Reagan had been fleecing onto America for nearly a decade, were forced on Russia as well. Gorbachev wanted to transition Russia into a social democracy like Sweden or Norway, but the Bush administration pushed for full on unrestrained capitalism - the shock therapy as you put it.
Rather, the United States was upset that it was not possible to completely destroy Russia. Ideally, Russia should have completely lost its political independence, turned into an exclusively raw material power and consumed American goods. I think the American authorities regret that they did not completely destroy Russia.
And the lives of Russians are not the concern of the American Empire.
You've got to be kidding me. Clinton was President during most of this time. He effed it up.
My mother had two higher educations but in 90s she had to knit sweaters so my dad (an engineer) could sell them at marketplace. My father was paid apple juice and no money at the factory where he worked so he had to take different part time jobs to provide for the family. My eldest brother and eldest cousin had to work with him instead of playing like kids should do. We ate soy sausages because meat was too expansive. Mom made for us candies out of burnt sugar. My parents couldn't afford to buy Snickers or Mars for each of as and we could have only one bar for a family. We survived due to my grandma and grandpa. Grandpa used to steel some sunflowers in the local field to make some oil for us.
It wasn’t problem of the 90s it was a problem of stupid team economy. They build the factories and then artificially supported the demand for its products. So after the collapse of Soviet Union they became useless as well as the knowledge and work of the engineers and other staff worked there.
@@Vladik614 I don't think i can give you a lecture about soviet economy in youtube comments. I'll just say that you're oversimplifying the problem. Если говоришь по-русски - смотри лекции Сафронова и не неси чушь.
@@redprincess4495 я достаточно знаю про экономику и про устройство советского союза, чтобы сделать вывод почему были проблемы в 90-е. Командная экономика не работает, она идёт в разрез естественным потребностям людей и история это лишний раз доказывает. И это только один аспект, почему Советский Союз был не жизнеспособным. Был еще негативный отбор, когда у власти были не те кто умнее, а тот кто правильны с точки зрения идеологии, тотальная уравниловка, когда было плохо быть индивидуальным и предприимчивый и многое другое. Да я немного упрощаю, как раз потому, что в формате комментария сложно передать все что я знаю по этой теме. Просто тут очень много людей думают, что девяностые придумали Ельцин и Чубайс, а на самом деле это был долгий путь развала, к которому этот Титаник шел долгие годы. И мне кажется, что тот человек, которого вы мне посоветовали, говорит что-то другое, чем парень на этом видео. Все те же байки, что это все злой капитализм нам все испортил, а не 10-ки лет не правильных решений.
@@redprincess4495 посмотрел я вашего Сафронова, что скать, очередной коммунист экспериментатор рассуждает почему не получилось и что нужно сделать, чтобы получилось. И когда он затеет очередной эксперимент на радость публике, которая слушает все эти сказки платить будут их дети, уже в какие-нибудь 2090-е. Хотя куда мне до вас, сверхразумов, которые из аргументов имеют только «не несите чушь» и апеллирование к авторитету.
@@Vladik614 Почитай тогда книжку People Republic of Walmart. Это про неэффективное планирование, которое не учитывает интересы людей.
I was born in 1995 in Russia
My family had no money and no food
They managed somehow to get baby food for me, but my mother had to eat it with me sometimes, since there was no food for her
My grandparents were paid by flour (many people of that time were paid by specific type of products). They lost their teeth due to lack of vitamins. In their 40s.
Doesn't sound like a therapy.
I'm Прибалтика born 2 years before you and it's crazy how much worse parts of russia got hit compared to us. Your story sounds far more like my mothers childhood in 60s than mine. My parents where school teachers so no not really people who got rich from privatization.
@@Drunkle. yes, my grandparents teachers as well. Idk honestly why they were getting paid by flour (better than being paid by textbooks though)))
Why do you blame the consequences but not the causes then? The bolshevik dictatorship had led the country to a disaster. New oilfieds that had been discovered in 60s just delayed the inevitable crisis. It supposed to happen much earlier
@@romanchannel69 because for the whole world to celebrate the fall of the Soviet Union my country had to suffer and people to starve.
At the same time the West put lots of money into Poland for example. Now Ukraine.
I lived through the 90ties, we hoped for better connection with the West and better opportunities.
When nothing of it came to be, people reverted back to nationalism, que todays Russia.
The problem was not the neoliberalism of the country but the power grab by the oligarchs. Capitalism works because it doesn't require government intervention but it also needs a government that doesn't have a stake in the table.
This applied not only for Russia, many eastern Europe countries had this transition (some violent one), expecting better future, instead leaving future oligarchs split their own property into hands of few.
None of the countries in the Warsaw pact had a planned economy before the coups of the Soviet Union, and pretty much every country has a higher standard of living than russia nowadays. Russia robbed those countries of 45 years of development
My parents and uncles lived through it, they were born in the early 70's and were my age when communism fell. In Hungary, it went peaceful and with great public support, and she said that being 18 at the time, she felt that things finally gonna go well during her prime years in this life.
Then came the early 90's recession, which was nowhere as bad as in other ex-commie countries, and Hungary actually managed to fare the sparked up waters pretty well. Then came the era of governments switching every term, opposition and ruling party working together to pump every penny from the country, until one man became strong and popular enough to wreck this system, and keep all the money for himself, not giving anything to the then-opposition side of the organised crime syndicate called the hungarian government, significantly weakening and basically eliminating the only thing which could counter him. The 2010 election marked the beginning of his career of unrestrained power abuse and corruption which lasts until this very day, because this guy is Viktor Orbán, the current prime minister of the country. He is nothing more than one of the perestroika opportunists who happened to be at the right place at the right time, and gained significant wealth and power during the troubled years, and still profits off the connections he made during and after the commie years. Basically the hungarian Putin who still thinks we are living in 1992 and rules the country as such. When he confronted the latest prime minister and outed him from office, was the last time hungarians felt any hope towards the tomorrow. I think by 2018, literally everyone in this country had realised he is corrupt and evil, even his supporters, but the net of loyal oligarchs he built is so strong, and his blatant corruption is so everyday, that people have accepted it as "normal", and it became normal because everyone thinks so.
-Note how he had the power to completely stop the organised government crime they had in the last 20 years. Hungary had a blank sheet to write on, but the new sheet became even dirtier than the previous one, due to him wanting it that way. if he would've felt any weak ray of patriotism or conscience, even the slightest bit, things could be so good, because Hungary really isn't (wasn't) a weak country, nor economically, nor mentally. A fertile soil for something beautiful to grow, but no.....
Oh, and the best part: power doesnt just grow on the trees. You can't becaome powerful just by being smart and around well-positioned people, even during the wild-west like early 90's. You had to already be in position to be able to build up your career, just like the stable base of a giant mansion. And the very definiton of power before the 90's was: the communist party. It is kind.of a conspiracy ytheory, but everyone knows Viktor had his part with the communist party in the 80's, thats when he felt the direction of the wind change, then turned his sail on his previous superiors, riding the wave of the regime change and the death of the "ever watching big brother", who would've killed off any people with such ambitions very early in his ranks. So Hungary, and im literally sure every other ex-commie nation, is still ruled by ex-commies who switched Red and Gold to Navy Blue just at the right moment. But the past is always there to haunt you, the case is similar with him: His (supposedly ex-KGB) commie past echoes back to him from his former KGB Big Boss who still has the documents in his vault proving his guilt: Vladimir Putin. Notice how Viktor is Putin's dedicated NATO and EU cocksucker, even though that man shouln't be possible to have any hold on him, with him being part of the EU and NATO. He shouldn'T be afraid of Putin, but he is, very much, because he has something which could destroy him in an instant, even 30 years after Hungary said forever goodbye to the Soviet Union.
My mom abandoned all hope of things ever changing in her lifetime (for the better) 13 years ago, and man, i don'T feel even half as bright about the future as she did my age.
The difference is that in post-Soviet countries politicians blamed Russia on the situation, and in Russia they blamed the USA and their “advisors”.
Same as Robert Fico in Slovakia, sad :(@@oliverpapai6011
Gorbachev is one of the most hated politicians in Russian history, if not the most. To the extend they love him in the West, he hated in Russia with passion.
But I think most of catastrophic things are caused by Yeltsin. Gorbachev is likely to wanted democracy with socialism.
I was born in 1991 not so far (about 200km) from Yekaterinburg, Russia.
To be clear, I don't remember that time as a complete disaster because I was a child. For me, everything at that time was pretty good. But after I turned 13, I had a conversation with my parents about their life in the 90s. And it was tough.
My father was fired from institute of mechanical engineering and had troubles to get a new job. Finally, he found a vacancy in metallurgical plant in nearby city and it was amazing because otherwise he had to join the crime gangs. Our city was small and there weren't so much work places and that why some people was making money by racket, stealing or even murdering. Actually, my father had a conlict with one of gang member at that time. He got some injures during the fight but they were not critical, so everything was going fine in the end.
My mother was teacher (in fact, she is still the teacher) and in period from 94 to 95 she received food supply instead money for her salary. And that food was kinda poor to be honest.
So yeah, this Shock Therapy wasn't a therapy at all. It's like another wound on the soviet countries body. Many people in country felt this shock.
Вы родились в Серове?
@@user-lt9im7nq4e нет , под Нижним Тагилом)
Hello, I also live near Yekaterinburg, in the city of Serov. In our city, there were also huge layoffs of workers at the factory and severe unemployment
Hence Putin's justified anger
@@ernstthalmann4306 don't know. Seems like he had his own purposes to start this bloody war. Maybe status and power is his choice. But in the end this decision still isn't a treatment, it's like making the wound bigger not smaller.
I personally don't support what's happening in Ukraine right now. A lot of my friends are living there and I don't want them to suffer.
I was born in 1978 in Yugoslavia, so not Russia, but the same goes for ex Yu countries. It was hell transitioning from socialism to capitalism and it's not much better now. Slaves it's what we are.
Ask your grandparents which was better?
@@megadan66 In my experience and from polling I've seen, they would likely saw that the socialist era was better.
You think thansition from feudalism was better?
@@b.t.peterson6429 yes. Ok, not everybody would vote for the socialist times (there is always someone who gets hurt by any type of goverment) but majority would say for sure that life in Yugoslavia during socialism was much better.
@@Shini1984 no, I do not think it was easier. I am just wondering whether this "transition" will end one day or not likely. I'm not saying it's not our fault that we cannot create a better (richer) society, I guess it is our fault, but I think at least for some countries capitalism is not the way, but world's policeman won't let us do anything else. They need markets and cheap labour so here we are.
Ого! От иностранца я такого анализа не ожидал.
I never knew any of this and never felt as much anger over capitalism as I do now.
my condolences
i only feel despair
Capitalism saved all of the eastern European soviet satellite states from russia, so that's a very good thing.
@@j.ceasarsave from what? A stable life?
As an autistic person, shock therapy does not make me think of good things lol.
As a trans AND autistic person that goes double for me.
I've seen shock therapies, they are not pleasant to look at.
Agreed.
I was gonna say
as a gay me neither lol
Being a person who is living in a place where each village used to have some local plant, dairy farm, fleet consisting of various agricultural vehicles or many other live forming unit types I can sincerely say that passing by shambles of formerly higher civilization makes me grief.
Держись, брат. Надо объединяться.
Комплекс сельхоз строений размером с небольшой район, больше половины заброшено и напоминает скорее кучу строительного мусора, а то, что ещё используется, не обновлялось годов с 80-х. Богатство Дона/юга, нечего сказать.
Аналогично, братан.
It's seem the swamp in Washington is hellbent to not allow it happen again.
I'm with you my brother. Our childhood was rich in all meanings of the word.
(born in the USSR in 1971)
@@RustedCroaker I'll tell you more. Swamp is everywhere. And that play happening in part of your collapsed motherland is nothing but a play. Play where ordinary soldiers die for swamp creators.
I became a socialist fairly early as an American and became very interested in the USSR. Which I think is sort of natural given my father was in the military and I was born the year the USSR fell. But it’s a love hate relationship with me as a historian that focused on Soviet and American history and the relations between them. Every time I read or hear about the destruction of the USSR I’m increasingly more infuriated with the United States. It’s also a mix of grief which is odd to me because I don’t actually have any ties to the Soviet Union.
Communists arent sad for what was, but what could have come to be. There are dozens of swatikas that litter my block. Would they be there had there been a system of education to give those who drew them some brains? I would like to believe so.
The USSR was born from the most noble human idea, crumbled from the most despicable human desire
Oh come on! Peak USSR saw the most suffering a "developed" nation has ever seen. There was nothing noble or human about the USSR during Stalin.
Just look at what the USSR did to people in the baltic states. They have preserved the soviet torture chambers that were used to try to keep the population controlled , so you can still go there and see for yourself.
@@j.ceasaroh don't give me that, the usa today has a higher prison population than the ussr at the peak of stalinism. look at the 13th amendment, where it explicitly states that slavery is abolished, except as punishment for a crime. suddenly it makes sense why so many people get imprisoned.
@@j.ceasarthe most rapid economic development was in the Stalin era. And that despite the World War, which took out the lives of 27 million people.
@@j.ceasaryeah, look what the USSR did to the Baltic states. Not that it literally built all of their infrastructure which they use to this day. The baltics were literally dotation regions meaning they weren't self-sufficient and relied on the dotations from the center which USSR fulfilled. Also USSR never forbidden their language or national culture (that was an official policy in any SSR, not only in baltics). Yeah, those horrible times...
As a Russian it’s hard to watch this 😢although I was born in 1996, but I remember my childhood being poor and my mum and the whole generation suffered physically and mentally. Imagine your country just ended one day
To us, Poles, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a moment of joy. Probably not only to us, but to the entire Eastern Europe that Russia kept as their satelites.
And now, thanks to the ongoing war that Russia started, this state will fell once more.
@@MankindDiary Soviet Union liberated you from the nazi occupation (nazi wanted to destroy all poles like jews, gypsies and russians, but for your country Stalin = Hitler, and that's why you destroy monuments to the soviet soldiers). Soviet Union helped you to reconstruct Warsaw. On a soviet spaceship first citizen of Poland came to the space.
After that USSR has fallen. Western capitalists destroyed Soviet industries, robbed russian resources, and that's why past 30 years were an age of unstoppable growth of consuming in EU and USA, when in Russia tens of millions of people lived in poverty.
And when Russian economy started to grow in 00s, and RF has going to become an independent center of decision making, USA started to see in Russia a competitor. After that USA started de-stabilising post-Soviet states. Revolution in Georgia (after that started war in Abkhazia in 2008); 'Maidan' and, after that, civil war in Ukraine, started by ukrainian nationalists - successors of nazis; NATO expansion and nuclear weapons on a russian border - USA are guilty in war. Russia is right, and that's why Russia will win like 80 years ago. Russia will fall only in your dreams, my polish comrade
@@konstar6471 Soviets attacked Poland alongside the Nazis, killed thousands upon thousands of Polish intelligentsia ans military leaders. They've rebuilt Warsaw, although they could've stopped Germans from destroying it in the first place.
To Poles, Soviets are just occupants and enemies of the Polish nation, we have few things to be grateful, and tons to resent and hate them.
I'm from the former Yugoslavia and I remember when our country fell apart in a time frame of a few days. It was bad.
@@MankindDiary not all of Eastern Europeans were happy about that. I'm from the former Yugoslavia and we weren't happy about thr fall of the Soviet Union.
I'm chilean and I was born after the Pinochet era, but all of this resonates a lot with what happened in Chile. The shock therapy is exactly what happened here too, the USA conspired to make a growing communist government fail, with armed forces. All chilean people know someone who was "disappeared" by the government ater Pinochet took over.
It angers me how, before Pinochet, education was free everywhere, from preschool to doctorates. Many older people here got their degrees for free, while people my age who managed to get into higher education are covered in crippling debt. And these same old people tell us that they got what they have by studying and working hard! That is just one example of how our country was messed up by the USA because they were scared of communism.
The worst part is, most people here say we were blessed with Pinochets coup, because otherwise we would be living like North Korea or China or worse. Andeven with our recent constitutional proposed update, people voted to keep the constitution written during dictatorship.
Capitalism has fucked this country over so much. Our productive sector is owned by foreign companies and the 0.1%. And people blame immigrants for not having jobs.
I'm so angry, and I feel there's nothing I can do.
this all happened so that international corporations could suck the wealth from everywhere and leave all of us impoverished.
Here in Brazil happened the same thing: the left were growing fast, the country was getting more and more industrial, the salaries were raising, but USA and the rich financed a military coup d'etat to maintain Brazil the big plow of the central captalism countries. The scars never healed. Just when Lula and Dilma's goverment started to challenge again the rich and impose national sovereignty, another coup were done against Dilma and the liberalism with Bolsonaro's facism tooks place. Now we are trying to bring Lula back, but the wounds are still bleeding.
i feel the same way. its like a neverending horror story of existential dread, and it feels like theres nothing i can do to break through this nightmare because we will always be oppressed.
like most socialists, you live in a world of make believe . During socialist rule , Chile was dirt poor , almost completely impoverished , & had sky-high inflation . But within a decade of Pinochet's coming to power , they were by far the richest country in south america , with a massive middle class
@@bigmedge Guess who was boicotting Chile so that our economy went spiraling down.
This is literally the most accurate video about this time period from a non-russian in english ive ever seen
To be honest how capitalism destroyed a whole planet is more accurate 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
Tell me please, in which direction did people flee after the fall of the Berlin Wall?
@@gr4tisfactionскажите пожалуйста почему в мире так много бедных капиталистических стран и как получилось, что эти страны раньше были колониями? И изучите время, когда мир переходил в эпоху капитализма, многое станет понятно
@@hj8750 Вау, в мире существуют бедные страны, какое откровение. До прихода злых капиталистов там то конечно был рай на земле, а они пришли, негодяи такие, и всё испортили.
@@gr4tisfaction с приходом капитализма всё конечно изменилось🤡
@@hj8750 Так и я говорю, что не в капитализме дело. Молодец, сам себе и ответил 🤡
Currently watching as my country's (UK) government collapses in on itself while they desperately try to preserve (and increase) the wealth of the ultra rich. Thank you for all that you do, love your channel! 🧡
damn, stay safe
Sad part is, idk if you're talking about russia or the US
It’s not clear where you’re from; there are many contenders.
@@altosack i guess you could include England in that list (i live there)
@@altosack It's the current UK debacle I'm talking about but it seems that capitalist governments in general are having a pretty rough time rn 🙃
Its extremely important that you put your citations and research into the description of the video. Im very glad youve been doing this. It helps convince people like me and gives you very solid credibility.
It's there, but true since people can't read up ti
This is critical. Nice.
269 likes, unwilling to disrupt that. Lol.
Yeah cause Wikipedia is such a good source. Could as well have cited ”the library”
Every single one of those wikipedia citations comes with supporting citations from other sources specifically for people like you Id imagine.
That damn Gorbachev Pizza Hut commercial always gets me lol
It's so awful! xD
Imagine what kind of clown you have to be to dream in a pizza commercial being the secretary general of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Gorby was only a puppet of those who ruined the USSR no more. Like today's many presidents of countries ... They are clowns and nothing more.
I'm from India and something similar happened in my country in 1991.
not 'shock' therapy as it was atleast done with some planning and responsibility, though in my experience, only upper middle class urbanites and ultra rich have benefitted. some people have jumped, but such cases are very rare as it takes good money for good coaching etc. so only few have benefitted. before that, we had toothless tiger central planning, and tenders going to large corrupt corps, worst combo, as even central planning cannot do much if not religiously followed like in south korea or ussr under centralized government
Moscow resident here. The more i live the more i hear people from all walks of life calling for violent removal of oligarchs,in light of peaceful protest doing jack shit, the incredibly passive population had finally grasped the idea that they have no power and are cattle to the upper class. One can only hope that whatever will happen it will lead to oligarchs,their loyal puppets, their friends and families,being hanged. They practically turned themselves into nobility once more, nobility that was killed and disenfranchised for all their wrongdoings,and it was completely earned. Now,they seek the same fate.
Bro same in pakistan but worse in your country at lest putin has some control over them but in our country they control everything. Imagine only a handful of 20 to 25 families controlling the fate of 230 million people
@@khalidhayat6461 A decent pack of families straight up pulls the strings of globalised world structure itself, so its not that hard to imagine. Dont know much about Pakistan,wont lie,but all i can hope for is for you people to have easier access to weaponry than we ever will, better to try and die gun in hand than to live like this
Hello Capital-Fail!!! I hope for the same things as you, and I hope that it inspires the world.
I hope you take your country back. Glory to the Freedom of Russia Legion.
And if you finally manage a violent removal of oligarchs another socialist system is installed and you get another communist dictatorship again. Then it falls apart again 60 years later and the cycle repeats.
"Everything the Soviets ever told us about Communism was a lie. Unfortunately, everything they told us about capitalism was true."
*- Russian joke*
Lol, there is no such a joke. The joke is "everything the Soviets ever LIED about the capitalism was TRUE"
A plagiarist, rapist, racist and police snitch come into a bar.
The bartender asks: "How is the new book going, Mr. Orwell?"
@@Vsenorm No, I heard the joke only in the variant by @rozod3135 (about socialism and capitalism)
Whoa... as a well informed American I have long known about the "untold history" of the Cold War and the restoration of capitalism in the former USSR but did not believe that such a source of this material would exist on youtube, owned after all by Alphabet, a mega capitalist creation.
This is great stuff, and a new sub.
Russia never lived under democracy 😔
First the tsar's autocracy, then the devastating civil war, then stalin's reign of terror, then Nikita and Brezhnev's state capitalist dictatorship and finnaly the oligarchy that we see today
Good video! I was a foreign student in the late 80s and finished my studies in Moscow in 1993. Those were shocking times. I remember hearing few Russians in Moscow admire Fujimori shock therapy in Peru, now he is in jail for crimes and murder. Later, I was able to visit and lived in other countries like Switzerland, Canada and USA for studies and work. I keep saying to myself that unfourtunately money is more power than solidarity among people.
I keep hearing peolle say that we are greedy by nature...But if the game forces you to be greedy then it's no surprise people focus more on themsleves rather than helping others. Because it means that under our current system we are hurting each other Because that's the only way to move forward in this system....
I don't want that, in Mexico is the same, you cannot climb and grow ecnomically unless you are corrupt and corruption here in Mexico has killed way to many people....
I really think we need to change the way we do things like...Now, start talking to others about new stuff we can try, let's build something new instead of being miserable and stuck in this hole
@@TsugMt mexicos problem is the culture not the economic system.
@@spanishb1 It's thinking that we are gringos when we are not....And mind you, at least we have a culture unlike white gringos.....
Our culture is about family...Is that bad?
Our culture is about being open to other people's preferentes, be it as sexuality or just as liking something as simple as anime....
Our culture is about food, music and tradutions, is about making fun at EVERYTHING....Is that bad?
We're not perfect, we still need to grow a lot but I truly think as mexican that one of our main problems is trying to think lile gringos, that more money and material is the goal in life....When that's bs....Financial stabiltiy is important but there's a difference between putting yoir entire identity in money and using money as means to have a chill life....
So yeah...Your arrogance is inpressove
@hchdh The arrogance of thinking you kniw more about your culture than me is just....Such a grungo way of thinking....You're not the police of the world, and if we as mexicans choose a more socialist approach to our economy pkease leave us alone, we don't want your "freedom", we want something better for our communities and country and that is clearly stop thinking like gringos....
Greetings
@@TsugMt lmao aww man you’re just a kid. I won’t be mean or rude then….
But Mexican culture is DEFINITELY NOT open to “sexuality” whether it be the lgbt stuff or like free and open sexuality, lol 😂.
Btw I’m not a “white gringo”, don’t be so emotional in your response immediately throwing insults.
Mexican culture is family centered with a light hearted approach to life which I very much like. But there’s definitely bad aspects of the culture that are currently keeping it in a criminally controlled stagnant state.
Thank you for this video. As a person from Kazakhstan, it made me tear up 🥲
I know that my grandfather, who was WWII veteran and a committed communist, simply couldn't stand the collapse of the Union and soon passed away. Everything that they built with such sacrifices just fell apart before their eyes.
Stay strong, brother, we have to continue their fight.
@@keiralum1797 thank you ✊🏻
Fuck communism.
you realise that that holy Union was build on blood and suffer of milions,that was way worse then all that shit
@Omar Khurshid it was over way before you were even born.
My grandfather worked in the communist party and was in that building when Yeltsin shot at it. My grandfather and dad actually lived in the same building as Yeltsin, on Tverskaya Ulitsa, and my dad told me stories of how many communist leaders met at my grandfathers apartment to try and bring Zhuganov to power, pretty interesting.
The most prominent person behind shock therapy is Jeffrey Sachs' very own 'chicago boy' Yegor Gaidar. He was the one behind the process that was called 'the liberalization of prices' in late USSR. The scheme was following.
During the late 1980s, when Perestroika was announced, soviet citizen were allowed to open their private companies, including private shops and stores. But the production of goods was still in 100% government hands, or better say, in hands of directors of government plants. It was common for a friend or a relative of such directors to open a private shop, and the plant started selling their goods not to a government distribution network, but to such a private shop. However, the prices were still controlled by the government, so state shops still got some leftover goods.
Then, in 1990, the government announced, that the 'liberalization of prices' is coming, meaning that all government restrictions on price formation would be lifted in near future. This 'near future' lasted for almost a year, during which all plants literally stopped selling their goods, waiting to sell them at a new price. This even led to food factories throwing away their product to maintain the demand. This was the time, when major part of photos with empty shelves were made. You often see them today as a depiction of flawed planned economy unable to produce.
Then, following the 'liberalization', the price for food and other vital goods skyrocketed. This effectively swept most of soviet citizens' savings in one year, and the inflation during 1990s killed the rest. Then came 'loans-for-shares auctions', which were used to split the state production facilities among few private owners, who made their money during Perestroika and early 1990s. You can find them in Russian Forbes list now - they're like 95% of it.
Hold on, comrade! Let me just add that all citizens’ deposits in the state bank were stolen by scammers who, among other things, used these funds to seize the means of production.
Teacher -"What did we learn today children?"
Children In Unison - "Never let Pizza The Hutt take over your country."
one simply cannot out pizza the hut
@@Jinx-iw6zb facts 😔✊🏻
@@Fallout3131 so true king
He did eat himself to death ☠️ thpugh
And put pineapples on your pizza 😂 🤣
As a latinamerican citizen , Still Is hard for me magine you ,a US citizen, trying to speak about socialism to your society. I honor your efforts on such challenging taxi. Congratulations!
A "shock therapy" - a neat name for accumulation by dispossession, which is a neat name for stealing
Greetings from capitalist Russia! It's very nice to watch such videos, and the fact that there are people all over the world who understand the situation!
I was about to say “somebody read The Shock Doctrine before making this video” then dude quoted Naomi Klein. (Claps of approval)
It’s a great book!
@@SecondThought yes it is. I’m about midway through. Reading about Sachs’ start destroying the Bolivian economy.
@@PutXi_Whipped I definitely have my issues with Klein. I don’t really keep up with what her and Sachs have been up to recently.
@@MJ_Convey
Sachs (maybe not, since he has lied for appearances before) seems to have turned a new leaf-- spoken out about Russia's 30-year long warnings not to expand American military access to its border
When we were taught Russian history in school (I'm Canadian btw) they start in the late 1800s and carry on to the dissolution of the USSR. There is nothing covered after that. I forgive the textbook for not having more, it was years out of date and printed in the early 90s. I'm pretty sure the curriculum hadn't been updated since either, which is disappointing. Nothing we were taught about Russia covers these years and it's very much a blind spot in my understanding of the world.
Russians in the comment section act like poverty is or was just exclusive to the USSR or communism. In fact after the fall of the Soviet Union every former soviet state struggles to maintain the whole infrastructure system which was very well maintained during Soviet times in almost every location of the soviet union. Nowadays in post-soviet russia modernization happens almost just in the biggest cities of russia. Rural communities have not enough money for reparations or New buildings. These are just some points you can mention about the drawbacks after the collapse of the soviet union
I was born in a small Russian city. The land plot that the CPSU gave us on which we grew fruits and vegetables, kept chickens and rabbits, helped us not to die of hunger!
Yeltsin was a horrible man. I can't understand why someone would destroy their people's high quality of life for cheap personal gain.
I mean he is also quite crucial for the dissolution of the USSR not turning into a civil war.
The check cleared and the liquor was decent.
From a libertarian point of view I don't agree, but Capitalism has problems, but not many, and State Capitalism even more! 🔥
In the United States, we would rather see people die than have the medical industry miss out on profits.
He got put there by CIA, to turn Russia into Gas station for EU.
One of the more interesting things Parenti noted was a phenomena he called "cultural penetration", where western media, popular culture etc was allowed to paint an idealized picture that was entirely missing any of the actual downsides of Capitalism, to those living in Communist countries. Particularly pertinent was a radio interview he recalled, where some Polish factory workers were being interviewed, and when asked whether they were fine with the factory firing some excess workers (Communist countries often over-employed as to reduce work hours etc for individual workers in production) they nodded along and agreed that it would be better if things got more productive, efficient etc. When asked whether they'd still be fine with this matter if those workers who were being fired were themselves, they responded:
"That's alright, the state will find new jobs for us."
There's no job guarantee or similar safety nets built into Capitalism. It's worth noting how many of those who were actual proponents of a transition to a Capitalist system were utterly bereft of an understanding of how things actually worked under it. The rude awakening for those poor individuals must have been even more devastating, all things considered.
I think this is massively understated and part of the reason China has been relatively more successful. Soft propaganda projecting this idealistic life of the US and West more broadly and the fun of consumerism without showing the drawbacks, the poverty, etc is incredibly tantalising to a population that may be comfortable but yearning for more. By China inviting in some levels of consumerism they effectively cut off the upper middle class and upper class youth from looking to the US if they want opulence. Instead China can have those elements of consumerism and continue to sledge the increasing poverty in the US
I'm astonished why there weren't people's revolts AGAINST capitalism in the former USSR.
Also, i've seen nations divide over religion (ex. India in 1947), language (Pakistan in 1971), and other reasons. But I've never heard of a nation that split up because they all wanted their own Pizza Hut!
And yet the living standard in the most successful Soviet states never reached a comparable level to even the poorest 1st world. Thats nice that people were given the jobs by the state, but those jobs payed very little compared to their capitalist counterparts.
@@morro190 the cost of living was also significantly lower during those times in those countries. The same can be said for China today
@@zanesmith7727 And yet the closest the Rusisans came to America was in the 1970. While the HDI of the soviet union rose after the 40's, the people in the Soviet union never had the mobility of the capitalist countries. West berlin always performed better than East berlin and you can just ask the Germans who lived under Soviet rule.
Ah Gorbachow: best case an idiot, worst case an enemy agent.
As Anatoly Chubais (main liberal ideologist of privatisation in Russia) once said in interview - "for Jeffrey Sachs privatisation is a classical economic process of reallocation of resources in more effective way, but for us in first place it was a final nail in a coffin for communism, we were ready to give property for free, even to pay extra, so there could be a class of owners"
I was about 10 years old when the Soviet flag was lowered during the Christmas season in 1991, and I remember that video clip you posted of the flag being lowered as it happened, live (or at least, freshly broadcast soon as it happened if not live). This, along with the first Gulf War coverage, are some of my first lasting memories of political issues, ones that I actually remember without having to see a history text. I became a teenager in the early 90's and was a very early online-Internet adopter, and some of my first chats were with people who lived in the eastern bloc soon after its fall. When I was chatting in 1994-1995 as a teen, I quickly came to understand the story from people who actually lived in these systems were vastly different from the western media storyline, including the Tom Brokaw/Peter Jennings/Dan Rather reports of the flag coming down and the world being a better place because of it. I think it was a unique time in history, because when I got online access and my own personal computer in 1994, only several months (24-30 months is a raw time frame for such a transition) had passed since the systems had changed and I had open unfiltered access to IRC chats and newsgroups of people who frankly and openly discussed the real differences fresh as it happened. Most of my experiences were not talking with former Soviet citizens, but rather East Germans and some others I got to know from Hungary and even Romania, as well as Yugoslavia. There are so many people who have experiences that do not match with the western storylines and "education" we received while I was growing up in North America.
One thing I quickly learned is that all the eastern bloc people who immigrated to the United States and other western countries tended to give horrific accounts of the oppressive systems, and these are the people we westerners grew up listening to through our media. But these immigrants are people who left those systems specifically because they hated them, they shouldn't be relied on for an overall account. These were the less than 1% of populations in those countries that worked hard to escape, so they could market/sell their "horror" stories to doting western ears and media outlets eager to report for views and ad revenue. These are not the stories we should use to get a full historic context if we're looking for facts. Many of these people are ego-centric money seekers who want to get fame and fortune by marketing their "horror" stories, and western media were all to quick to give them a platform. In contrast: the real, genuine people I met online living in the eastern bloc, who didn't want to leave, gave accounts of how horrible the transition was and how they were better off before the fall of the wall.
What I really came to understand is that the failure of the eastern bloc wasn't economic. They actually lived quite well, there weren't shortages of everyday products at the levels we westerners were led to believe (by the 1980's even most Soviet citizens could own a car, automobile production had ramped up so significantly in the 1970's that the years-long wait lists were over with; a used car was relatively easy to get with no wait by the late 1970's), what really was the downfall of the systems were their social controls and lack of mobility. Pensioners could travel, but adults below that age couldn't.
I also came to understand the horrific photos of food shortages, stores with empty shelves, and etc. were real photography, western media weren't lying when they aired the pictures. But they didn't give context. Those empty food stores were mostly a post-communist phenomenon. The flies hovering around putrid meat droppings in broken fridge machines in stores from the 1990's was the result of shock therapy and conversion to capitalism. EVERY SINGLE PERSON I chat with in the 90's who was in a communist country that had access to the new Internet phenomenon reported the same thing: stores were actually stocked in the 80's, not with as many goods, but stocked to the point that people had what they needed. What we were seeing was what capitalism did after the fall. Western media didn't report that, they gave the context to believe that people were starving for 70 years (not true) and failed to explain they were going through what shock therapy devastation did in the 90's. That was the big "western lie" we were fed. And the 90's were a period of extreme arrogance, the western view was absurdly high and mighty. Those were interesting days to live in, and mature into adulthood in. I'll never forget it.
It is my belief that if eastern bloc leaders would have been more into mobility: kept the border open to travel, reduced unnecessary social controls (which did fail), these systems might still be alive today. For example, China has had open mobility for most of the last 50 years, after a thawing in the relationship in the 70's. China still exists as a fairly socialist country. From the people that lived in the east and stayed and wanted to make it work, all they wanted was to travel across that wall to West Berlin for a few hours then go home. Or travel to Paris or somewhere for a bit and go home. They didn't want unregulated, skyrocketing rent and absurd prices on necessary items.
Bananas were scarce in the DDR/GDR, for example, but that's because western governments and corporations dominated banana growing regions of the world. If the border were open, the eastern bloc people would have been more angry at western governments with blockades and sanctions and hoarding goods, rather than their own governments that couldn't change the western behavior. That's the sentiment I gather from those who actually lived those systems.
Most all of the people in 1989 that showed up to the Berlin Wall did so because they wanted mobility and travel, not because they were seeking to destroy their system. They wanted to be reunited with family and friends, not pay 100x more for housing. The wall DID need to come down, but not for the reasons people often think. But the west soon took over and didn't leave people with the choice.
I've learned to talk more and more about these issues, because now that I've turned 40, I realize that people won't know these things unless we talk about them. And when I die, so will the stories I got from that period. The more we talk, the more we inform, the better off we'll be.
Do those computer chat exist somewhere?
@@GalacticNovaOverlord Only in my memory. I had no idea of the historic context at the time, I was just a curious teen, interested in politics and culture at an early age. If only I had known to keep those chats from the day. Most of my interactions were with university students who had new access online (it was new for both westerners and people who lived in eastern bloc countries at that time), back then news groups and IRC was the big thing, the forms of social media we have today like the controlled environments of Facebook, Twitter, etc. are not the same thing.
... all those moments , lost , like tears in rain
yes sir , we will lose them , unless somebody invests a lot of money into gathering firsthand accounts into a huge Book Of Eastern Europe Transition Into Regression .
from the former eastern bloc , my account is : those years were utter shit . from 1980 on , our elites , communist just in name , started to get their agenda from elsewhere . much of the funds they got from international trade , they funneled them into secret funds they got to use after 1990 . thus they started their own capitalism by stealing huge amounts , and then they took over the East , just by ceasing to do their job as state administrators , letting the country ruin and fall prey to anybody who paid them . much like a safari , where the rangers take a toll from the poachers and let them hunt at will . traitors within , that is . people of eastern europe don't fancy socialism anymore simply because they know that the socialist second-rank elite themselves ruined their countries willingly for a decade and then let the people fall prey to all sorts of modern slave masters . let's admit , the EU actually brought back a slim shade of socialist control , if only to avoid revolution , but before year 2000 it was all hunger games in the east . that's why easterners hate Russia : because they hate imperialism . and they like the EU just because it's the closest to socialism thing that's available . and we don't trust our elites at all just because they're literally the ones who owned that safari not so long ago .
China ? Really ? China that obligated people to make children ? People who died during Mao ? The killing of uygurs ? The prostests at the Polithenic University ?
I rarely read comments this long to completion. Thank you for sharing these thoughts and accounts.
Интересно читать все комментарии под роликом. Ни кому не пожелаю пережить 1990-е годы
Да, но увы, троллей с гадостями в комментах тут тоже хватает.
@@user-mv8bu5jy2n большинство из них просто не понимающие люди. Для этого и создан канал - для просвещения.
Да. жопа была. хоть и детство.
сейчас еще хуже
Да Лёшу навального вытащить с тюряги, и привет 90-е.
Может и Кириенко сможет справиться, кто знает.
This is one of those videos that dumb people think is really smart and revealing
Clown world it is
It is the best english video from a non-russian about this time period Ive seen so far
Jeffery Sacks is the one that sacked Russia😂
Man... I've been looking at the history of Russia for a while, and i must say, Russia after 1991 is a tragedy... Just that, a tragedy
There was never a period of time in Russia when it wasn't a tragedy...
The times befor werent really better
@@liberty1827 I do not want to disappoint you, but people under socialism lived much better than in Russia now and better than in the nineties.
@@user-mv8bu5jy2n Жил я на Дальнем Востоке при социализме. Не лучше.
@@liberty1827 А я там жил в нулевые. И многие говорили, что при СССР было куда лучше чем тогда. Про сейчас, вообще молчу.
i was born in USSR in 1974 and your video is the story of my life. hard life. thank you for helping people see the real face of capitalism.
the crisis of 80-90 was started by the planned economy and stopped by capitalism. Just learn the history and don't prate nonsense.
@@asbest2092 ahha)) i was on your side before i learned the history.
@Porky Propaganda pfp=your opinion is invalid.
And I don't have an opinion, only facts.
@@Y_U_K_A My side is the side of history.
What books about the topic did you read?
@@asbest2092 are you kidding me? I see with my own eyes 3 factories in my city collapsed after perestroika. i see people work on outdated equipment and receive pennies for this not the huge salaries that they were paid in the USSR. i see many factories in Moscow have turned into business centers, clubs, exhibition halls, etc. they were built under the planned ecpnomy and fell apart under capitalism. how can a country prosper if production has been destroyed and only resourses exports remain? How can a country prosper where education and medicine are destroyed? Go around Russia and look at the situation. everything prospered during USSR and now these are deserted and dilapidated cities and deserted villages.
start reading about Khrushchev to begin with. That's a lot of books, I won't list them. Maybe then you will understand how and why planned economy can become inefficient and what destroed my country.
Who is this clowning for? As a citizen of Russia (Southern Federal District), I will say that everything that is voiced in this video is turned upside down.
At the moment, we can definitely say that there is NO capitalism in Russia. It's funny to hear stories about the capitalist Putin - the same capitalist who served in the KGB until the very collapse of the USSR. And then, the KGBist Putin descended, and decided to build capitalism in Russia in order to destroy our Russia. That's just funny. Have you even seen the share of the state in the economy of the Russian Federation? No? Ok, it's all over now.
Slava Ukraine
shhhh you're upsetting the American commies.
As a person living in Russia, I will say that you are talking absolute nonsense and crap.
Denying capitalism in Russia is just like denying the presence of air on earth.
All the factors of capitalism are present in Russia, from private property, the presence of businessmen and large private enterprises, to the power of corporations and the oligarchy.
Even if there is no capitalism in Russia, then what?
The same KGB officer? I will surprise you, but there is such a thing as "Careerism", this definition alone destroys such arguments about being connected with the party elite with the current government. Yeltsin was in the CPSU in general, but this did not stop him from ruining the country and turning it into a capitalist garbage dump according to the precepts of a market economy)
The share of the state in the economy? Bro, the presence of state intervention in the economy is called etatism / state capitalism, and is not the reason for the lack of capitalism. In Russia, a mixed economy, the presence of state-owned enterprises is equivalent to private structures.
The fall of the USSR is the greatest tragedy since WW2
JT really is showing his hand and power level more and more lately, figured your audience is ready for it after you covered the basics? :D
From a libertarian point of view I don't agree, but Capitalism has problems, but not many, and State Capitalism even more! 🔥
@@RealNeutronStar thats why we're communists and not state capitalists!
@@komisar1568 It's usually better to ignore trolls spamming the same comment. Even if they do have any valid views, they aren't actually trying to have a discussion.
@@hattielankford4775 true, didn't notice at first, thanks.
@@RealNeutronStar Spoken like a bot.
Let me say an a Russian, this is incredible! Great summary, analysis and historical information. I will be saving it and sharing it with my friends who don`t know or understand the modern Russian history that well.
You are doing a really great job!
Thank you so much!
@@SecondThought can I ask you to watch a recently released animated film from a group of enthusiasts called The world we lived in( class struggle ror everyone)? This is their first attempt at making a video entirely in English. The rest of the films are still in Russian and they are very popular in the Russian-speaking segment of YT.
@@user-ye1yx6sn1m I second your request. That film is targeting an international audience (it's even dubbed in English on a very good level), and it's generally pretty darn good, so it would be great if JT and other English-speaking comrades watched and shared it.
Катя, вы, видимо, совсем молоды. Ещё раз скажу: вас программируют так же, как программировали советских людей, затем новых россиян, затем россиян постарше. Калька одна: старый руководитель в России - негодяй и заведомо действовал антинародно. Если вы не знаете, и советы сто лет назад пришли с такой же пропагандой. Затем меняли друг друга, убивая предшественника. Если вы действительно хотите разбираться в нашей истории и почему так много таких странных событий произошло за последние 40 лет - изучите, кто таков был Косыгин, как устроена плановая хозрасчетная экономика, чем известен МакКарти, кто такой Чазов и почему при нем генсеки и министры умирали пачками. Очень просто послушать о том, что один человек был ужасным негодяем, и все проблемы из-за него. Только вам не кажется странным получать такую информацию из Соединенных Штатов, ведущих с нами холодную, экономическую войну, а теперь уже и прокси-войны? Подумайте ещё раз, Катя.
Это война, которой уже более 100 лет. Было бы удивительно, если бы за 100 лет соперник не начал вести активную пропаганду.
2:11 I'm from Lithuania. The end of the Soviet Union certainly brought my country democracy. We were illegally occupied previously. Don't write that off as if it's nothing, it makes my blood boil with rage.
The transition was rough, but it ended alright. According to my parents (middle-class workers), the standard of living rose significantly, and the only people that they know of who were worse off were the old, who were too old to adapt to this big a change, and those, who were too lazy or deep into alcoholism to actually work. Under communist regime, they were allowed to barely do any work and drink their time away, and still get paid, while everyone around them suffered. I personally know one such person, and she was an elementary school teacher. Also, theft of public property was rampant, because it belonged to "no one", as well as corruption on every public institution. If you're used to benefiting from that, it stopping must come as a shock.
Now, we're still cleaning up the mess the soviets left, but such things don't fly. It's certainly better.
It’s because the Baltics and Poland had a pump of cash and structure on purpose (so you look very successful with the help of others). In Brazil when the coup turned into Republic was very similar to what happened in Russia. Military in power for new democracy…
@@Cidadaodomundo.au.br.007 Oh no! How dare we attract investments and use them for the betterment of our society! /s
The video is about Russia and I pointed out an inaccuracy of its portrayal of post-soviet countries. I don't know how situation in Brazil relates to this region, if at all.
"We were illegally occupied previously."
Well, technically true, it was illegally occupied from 1941 to 1944
@@chrisgaming9567 Ah yes, if you occupy a country and annex its territory, then the front moves and another army invades it, and then you take it back... It becomes legal! Lol
1 traitor
2 why should i care if your fascist puppet state got civilized?
3 its a joke to think that the faults of capitalism are actually communisms fault because *insert fascist nonsense here*
My parents were in their early 20s during collapse. They went from upper middle class to struggling to put bread on table literally overnight. Their lifesavings got wiped away and they could buy only a slice of bread for that much money.
Incredible video; can't believe this kind of alternative perspective has reached so many eyeballs in English language RUclips. Thank you for your work. Literally millions of people died prematurely in the 90s and 2000s across the former Soviet space. And then some wonder why most people hate Gorbachev and Yeltsin as much as Hitler.
When the current regime falls, some who believe in television may have a heart attack.
only commies hate gorbachev and yeltsin as much as hitler
Well, much less died than with Stalin at least. And they died because of the old russian problem - corruption. Putin got big because he managed to get his fingers on some decent donations from the west, when he was in StPetersburg. Stealing it from the starving babushka. With that he started his mafia network that is still in power, after he ousted Jelzin and his mafia network.
@@CousinBowling Ok thank you Dennis Prager.
Gorbachev was kidnapped and then forced to resign to avoid a civil war in Russia, he tried to save the USSR territorial integrity and its economy trough a smooth transition to social democracy during a period of reforms. He was a great man with excellent ideas and he's not to be blamed for the fall of the USSR.
In my history class (I live in the UK) we started a unit on the cold war and in the first lesson capitalism and communism were defined to us, capitalism was defined as "a system where everyone has a say because of democracy, and people enjoy many freedoms and wealth", then communism was defined as "where there is no democracy and everyone is poor. Many people starved under communism". I shit you not that's what my teacher said to a class full of impressionable children, it just makes me really angry that propaganda reaches to every corner of society, even education.
Your teacher was objectively right ...
Oh it's in the children's cartoons and sitcoms, the West is a Panopticon with hidden chains.
If you believe in communism then I'm sorry but you're the one that's easily impressionable
@@eladpeleg745dude if I’m gonna be tucked over at least I know who’s doing it and only have one person to blame there’s no one to fall back on in a dictatorship so in a way corruption is much less prevalent cause there’s really no way to have power besides being Joseph Stalin
@@davidjackson9680 Corruption is less prevalent in Communism? Umm hard no. The whole point of Capitalism is that no one has the power to central plan the economy so we the people can vote for what we like. In communism those who get benefits are those who have ties to officials. It's probably the most corrupt system... I'd say
Why wouldn't you look at countries like Estonia or Poland, who had a rapid recovery after a short recession? Maybe because Russia was the country, that had put out the market reforms in the worst possible way, by "privatizing" most significant enterprises to ex-communist party members, while passing the least market reforms (Russia was a social democracy from the very beginning, not a more economically free neo-liberal state) out of most ex Soviet state...
But even after all of this, after 90s where over, economy rapidly recovered and standarts of living rose dramatically. No longer you have to stay in bread lines for basic food.
As an Australian we were late to everything, our mass privatisation happened in the late 90s early 2000s when john howard was in power, lost so many public assets its crazy
Good. State owned things are horrible anyways.
@@j.ceasar are you socialist?
@@lightningstrike5024 No.
@@lightningstrike5024 I do see the value in some socialist things.
@@j.ceasar ao how exactly do you think youll get those socialist things when corporations-own everything?
A video on advancements in scientific fields (such as zoology) in socialist countries would be cool
No, biology ratio
Cuba's lung cancer vaccine would be a interesting mention.
From a libertarian point of view I don't agree, but Capitalism has problems, but not many, and State Capitalism even more! 🔥
Zoology? Like those cute somewhat domestic foxes from Novosibirsk? Haha, that said, many achievements of socialist nations are quite impressive, even though some might be limited by ideology like the stupidity that was Lysenkoism.
@@RealNeutronStar here is the leftist response to the state capitalist claim, if you are at all interested!
"i am not a democracy expert but shelling the shit out of people dose not seems like democracy to me"
America would like to disagree
My family lived through these years in Ukraine and in Russia. It is hard to describe the level of pain and suffering caused by the economic dislocation. And things already weren't great during USSR's last two years - empty stores, rationing, ethnic tensions, etc. Soviet Union was effectively finished in 1990, when Russia declared independence before all other republics, except Estonia. Gorbachev and the communist party were quickly losing credibility, and the "democratic" opposition offered easy solutions that made sense to an average person. Moral of the story is not to trust the populists, left or right!
There is a large section on Russia in Naomi Klein's book 'The Shock Doctrine'. Tells the sad story of Russia and shows that it is part of a pattern that has been repeated across the globe.
If anyone wants another book like it, Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad is another good read.
I'm American, but I studied Russian at university, have spent a lot of time living and traveling around the former USSR, and am now a certified Russian language interpreter. It's incredible how much my view of events in the post-Soviet space have changed since learning the language and starting to hear first-person accounts of what life was like in the USSR. No matter where I've been, whether Siberia, Moldova, Ukraine, the Russian Far East, quality of life seems to have significantly decreased for people. The exception to this being Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but even there, many people struggle to make ends meet. There also seems to be a collective trauma amongst older people who have lost their homeland- I remember being on a bus with an older lady in Moldova, we had to stop at a checkpoint on our way to Transnistria, and she said to me "Как же грустно, раньше это все было одной страной, сейчас нас разделяют границы"- "It's sad, this all used to be one country, but now borders separate us." She was on her way to visit friends in Ukraine.
Beyond becoming just poor, the region has become incredibly unstable. All of these recent conflicts, from the breakaway States of Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh, to the wars in Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine, all are direct or indirect consequences of the country's collapse.
We really are spoon-fed propaganda in the West, and ever since the war in Ukraine started, it seems to have accelerated. People acting as if this conflict just came out of the blue, and not just a domino effect of the devastation this part of the world has experienced since the 1990s...
That is so true. Thank you for sharing. I’m one of those many people missing their home. My birth certificate says USSR, it’s so dear to me, you can’t imagine
@@marinakaverina2864 Same here. I was an infant when the USSR was demolished, but I grew up on Soviet books, and I'm incredibly pissed that our generation is forced to work meaningless unsatisfying BS jobs, mostly limit our dreams to a new gadget or a vacation trip to Bali, and be thankful for this largely pointless existence.
In my early teens I thought that we might get to see a city on the Moon before we die. Nowadays I'm dead certain that we won't see one, and I'm not even sure if we'll even get to grow old and die from natural causes.
Except Ukrainians are no longer systemically murdered like they were during the Holodomor.
Ukrainians were always abused by Russia. And now they are genocided by Russia.
Fuck Russia.
Spot on: in 2022, some 30+ years after communism ended, people are doing worse today than they were under the old system. I think we've had enough trial and error to know capitalism doesn't really work for most people in the globe.
@Dmytro My words are my words, I never said what you wrote. I can speak for myself.
At the beginning of this video Gorbachev asks the little boy how his pizza is. The boy replies it tastes of counter revolution you traitor.
Спасибо вам, товарищи, за этот ролик! Рад видеть, что не все англоязычные люди настолько наивны в своих взглядах на перестройку!
We here at Second Thought love your username
we love your username (from a lib-right)
Слава Коммунизму🟥
From a libertarian point of view I don't agree, but Capitalism has problems, but not many, and State Capitalism even more! 🔥
Translation from Google Translate:
"Thank you, comrades for this video! I am glad to see that not all English-speaking people are so naive in their views on perestroika!"
I’ll never forget what my friend, a Russian foreign exchange high school student from Moscow, told me in 1997…
“We were better off under communism. At least then my family had food, and my dad had a job.”
It really broke my little teenage brain in the midst of all the American propaganda.
My parents were 30 when the Union collapsed. Funny enough, they supported the dissolution, albeit not actively. Like many other Soviet citizens brainwashed by the likes of Yeltsin, they naively imagined that they'd get to keep all of the welfare but would also get the craved jeans, chewing gum, imported cars, porn, Hollywood movies and Coke on top of it all.
During Soviet times, my dad was an engineer at an electronics factory and worked on automation systems for construction material production (i.e. pluggable CNC control for concrete or brick factories). The pay wasn't anything fancy, but they got by just fine - had a place to live, food on their table, some hobbies, books, and, most importantly, the certainty that tomorrow everything's gonna be OK.
After the collapse, dad had to work 2 jobs at some shady firms to make a rather pathetic living for the family, I remember that the nineties were an absolute dumpster-fire, even though I was a small kid back then. Dad never got back to an engineering profession since there's been zero demand for his specialization for at least 15 years after the collapse. The factory that he used to work at, like most other Soviet factories around here, is now a shopping mall.
You had food,,, but the 6 million ukranians you took it from didn't
@Dmytro They are still stealing shit from ukranians to this day and sit around being like "Wasn't the USSR great guys?" wtf is wrong with these people lol
@@vadimk3484 same happened here to, many people lost they job and did not had anything. Most immigrated doing labor jobs in the west to get bay. This happens to this day were on parent leaves the family to work alone in the west and send money in the contry. My mother had to do this and most treated here really bad, idk why so many western people see us as disgusting imigrand who can do all they want to them. In Germany one time she wasn't even paid. The only thing is my father who is a director now, bcs he know his stuff, is really smart. And they keept his work place. In the end, we convinge our mom to come home bcs he doesn't like being alone and knowing her there suffering alone, same with they grandparents who have pension will also say will help. She is back, but is sad she doesn't have a work place like she had under communist. And I am a happy case here. Most parent had left children with the grandparents only and most got raised by the grandparents, as many zones in the contry were build around the fabrics and after they close people did not had any income to buy food.
I wish we also got the safety our parents and grandparents had in that day. A home, food and holidays. Right now I am not even sure I will get a job, at least I have all the properties from my grandparents and parents. If I sell them right now, for real I can get a billionaire, and my dad ass grandad got them with like here is mine I want to plant corn and everyone was like sure. 💀
@@donaldhysa4836 don't forget that Stalin also shot three billion people. Personally.
why did you not mention any events between the referendum in march 1991 and the dissolution in december 1991
there was a whole coup attempt and another vote in ukraine which lead to an overwhelming majority of ukrainians voting to leave the ussr and become an independent state in between then
i understand and agree that post dissolution russia was horrific due to the effects of capitalism, but it's very important to include those details and feels a bit dishonest that you didnt mention those in this video.
the ussr had some great ideas but also did a lot of bad and it's important to not shy away from either if we want to learn from the past mistakes of communist countries and achieve a better society
I can't stop watching your videos one after another. Isn't it marvelous there are communists like the author in the USA today! It gives the world hope.
I'm so glad you have been covering Russia. The western world never gets a wholely accurate and truthful depiction of Russian history.
Not getting one now. This is like listening to National Socialists blame WW II on the Jews.
@MDKAI - not even the Russians themselves know that. Then they would not be able to admire their murderer of 30 million people, Stalin. Russia has always had a dictator. Why?
@@DajaSlovakia421 Because they had the misfortune of transitioning from monarchy to socialist aristocracy, much like China.
>"comunism killed the ussr"
>truthful description
Are you mad?
@@asbest2092 super mad bro. I need help. dose me with that capitalism.
So glad to see your channel growing and growing! Honestly, it’s one of the few channels on RUclips who tells it like it is, unapologetically.
Thanks, I do my best!
@@SecondThought -- You are amazing.
@@SecondThought i once again offer u to translate those videos to the german audience!
@@RadikalBanal Why? A perfect opportunity for you to learn English - the most common and widely used language throughout the entire world.
@@Domzdream i speak english. i just want to provide a german translation to those who don't.
Yeltsin is still a pariah in Russia.
Я помню когда распался Союз, было непонимание, никто этого не хотел. Моя семья и могилы моих родных оказались в нескольких странах. Мы поддерживаем общение как одна семья, но мы теперь живем в разных странах! А теперь наши страны ещё и воюют между собой! Продажные политики преследуют свои цели! Военные корпорации преследуют свои цели! И они никогда не насытятся! Никогда!
"Я помню когда распался Союз, было непонимание..."
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Это как, прости? Как ты можешь "помнить непонимание"? Как можно "помнить" то что отсутствовало? (непонимание - это отсутствие понимания)
На самом деле, было не "непонимание", а полнейшее равнодушие. Рядовому советскому обывателю, измученному многолетними нехватками, дефицитами, очередями и бесконечными рассказками о "светлом будущем", которое вот вот наступит, было совершено по фонарю чего там и как с этим Советским Союзом произойдет - рассыпется ли он в пыль (что произошло в реале) или будет преобразован (в "федерацию свободных государств, где гражданину каждой национальности будет гарантировано ля-ля бла-бла", как были написано в бюллетенях на референдуме о "сохранении Нерушимого Союза"). Всем в тот момент было просто похую. И тебе в том числе.
Это ты только спустя годы, прожив в "капитализме" 30 лет, начинаешь страдать о твоём "счастливом советском детстве" и о могилах родителей, рассеянных по б. советским республикам.
@@Hobbitangle ты явно дурачок, я описывала свои эмоции, а не какого то призрачного. Иди посмейся на улице, за шута сойдёшь.
@@Hobbitangle таким как ты лучше развиваться и не показывать свою глупость на всеобщее пространство.
@@user-rh6kl1rc9g
"Я описывала свои эмоции"
Именно об этом я и говорил.
Ты описывала (и описываешь) свои эмоции. Но только вот эмоции твои, они - _теперешние_ , а не тогдашние.
Это известный психологический феномен.
Если ты "помнишь эмоции", но не помнишь какие то события и факты (а ты их не помнишь), то ты лишь передаёшь своё текущее отношение к тем событиям. О которых тебе, к слову, стало известно гораздо позже, чем когда проходил приснопамятный "референдум".
Говоря попросту ты лжёшь, выдавая свои фантазии за факты. Хотя может и неосознанно.
@@Hobbitangleне мешай местной публике на совок подрачивать
Rich people in Russia: oligarchs
Rich people in US: job creators
Job creators who don’t let their workers piss.
"Job Creators" who lay off tens of thousands of workers on a whim ...
Job creators who rather would you starving homeless then paying a single cent to you (if they could)
Rich people in China: Industrialists, technological innovators
@@sterlingmarshel6299 B B B Bootlickerrrr
I wish there was a way to make the average westerner even moderately curious about this subject
Capitalism is good. Neoliberalism is terrible. Communism is worse.
Its the average western that flirts with socialism so he can have another Holomodor on their side of the isle. THis guy aint from an ex communist country if you havent noticed
It's all in who you read. Malcolm Nance insists the Russian oligarchy was made purely out of Russian greed and a lust for power. He completely overlooks the IMF and World Bank's roles in devastating - and then, shaping these countries.
By contrast, Naomi Klein lays out a fact-based, annotated narrative that describe what JT just talked about. (I suspect, for brevity's sake, he had to limit his topic to Russia. In fact, the IMF and the US deployed Shock Therapy all over the world.)
Nance, a 6-generation military man, rah-rahs the US and everything it does, no matter how destructive. Klein, a Canadian-born activist (and female!) is given nowhere near the platform or credibility. Incidentally, neither are Chris Hedges or other such voices.
If you're only ever fed one perspective, would you have any reason to believe there might be another?
Right? Like you have to learn stuff the hard way before you can really uncover the festering filth boiling beneath the surface. People don't question things, think for themselves. Exactly why videos like this are important.
Most of us already know about this.
Thanks for this well researched video! As a then 14-yo westerner (Europe) I know some of these facts but it is definitely great to know more and see the facts in context. I think you are absolutely right saying this transition was far from democratic. Maybe if changes in policy had been more thoroughly thought through the huge economic decline had not been necessary and the result might actually be a more moderate form of capitalism.
Naomi Klein also wrote a great book about shock therapy, called the shock doctrine. It will give you a lot of understanding of how neoliberal philosophy was implemented but it's also quite disturbing because it was all so fucked up
Amazing book, might be the ultimate takedown of Milton Friedman and neoliberal philosophy
Thanks Russell, I want to read it.
Will soon read
The biggest problem over what happened in Russia is similar in other european countries.
The problem were not only the content of the reforms. But even worse were the political figures from the old soviet/communist establishment who implemented them. And did it the way they used to do things in the USSR. Using these changes to take a share of the cake.
There are countries where the privatisations went well. Poland, the baltics, Czechia, Hungary. The common factor between them is not only that they did a milder version of the shock therapy. But that the entire old establishment was ousted and replaced by genuine political opponents. Not always immensely memorable people. But citizens with no political backgrounds. With professional but especially human qualities. What lacked in Russia, in ex-Yugoslavia, or even Romania or Bulgaria was a political clean up *before* the shock therapy. People like Merckel, Vaclav Havel or Lennart Meri were never given the possibility to take the leading roles in Russia or Serbia. Or perhaps even to be more precise, the most important were not these *people* but the political groupes of human rights, ecologists, journalists and researchers they represented and were put to power. These were not regime's apparatchiks.
Also a great documentary. Shouldn't be too difficult to find on youtube. A bit over 1 1/2 hours.
As a Russian myself, I completely agree. My parents used to live in luxury but later both had empty stomachs. (English isn't my first language, sorry if my grammar is off).
Were your parents living in luxury in USSR?
My grandmother had an income of almost 200 rubles which is way above the average wasn't enough to raise her 2 children on her own
I'm sorry to hear that mate. We all humans
Both your parents must have been elites of the Communist Party.
@@almendra_od Party elites were doing great in the USSR...
@@almendra_od Maybe his parents were from kommunist Nomenklatura. They truly lived in luxury while most of people lived in poverty
My heart skips a beat every time I get called a comrade
Nah. Not My heart skips a beat every time I get called a comrade. Not “My heart skips a beat every time I get called a comrade.” /
Stay in russia. We will never allow you guys to influence the rest of Europe.
Capitalism would ultimately failed in former Soviet states (except for three Baltic states that were given a hell lot of aids from the West). USSR built a system that respect the right of citizens to have free public services, free healthcare, universal education, free accomodation and a high level of social welfare. When working class are well educated and organized, they will never agree to be exploited like before, and like other "successful" rapid developed capitalist models in 20th century in China, Japan or South Korea. And "democracy" is truly a joke in capitalist Russia since the beginning. The president have even a larger power than the old "dictators" (General Secretary of the ruling party) in the Soviet times. General Secretary at least still have a plenty of colleagues that can give advice or even challenge his power in Politiburo.
@@morningstararun6278 Stalin is a true communist who spent his whole life for the people and the survival of the Party. Putin is a fuckin coward that collaborated with Sobchak when the Soviet system was in crisis. He even ordered a short film about his own opinion against Lenin and communism then broadcasted it on Leningrad TV channel, so he could move on as a fanatic member of capitalist regime and a supporter of so-called "liberalization" . And talking about corruption, we should not forget that Putin have already been a corrupted politician since 1992, when he used city budget (that intended for aiding citizen) for personal shopping.
tbh I admired by my parents whom grown me in 90-s, many people died from starvation, organized crimes and drugs.I remember how we planted potatoes every year, then we were eating potato almost literally everyday until next year. Thanx my Mom and Dad, and other parents which were able to grown their children in those hard times.
Even in East Germany we still try to process as a society the shock therapy we had. In a way this was the most alike to the SU as we also lost our country (thought not breaking into peaces but being united with the Western states). And even with a lot more safeties due to the West and also money for a build up (over 2 billions were transferred even though of course a lot got back via "investors") the impact on society was devastating.
I can't imagine how much harder it must have been in Eastern Europe and especially at the core of the economic region, the SU. Shock therapy was no therapy at all. It was a bulldozer flattening all existing society. But there is another thing to know: capitalism tried things on the East they knew the western workers would not accept. Later parts of the changes went on to be implemented in the whole of Germany. And for all that it drained a lot of money from the state.
What a masterpiece of capitalism.
Now the sincere answer made by you, so thank you for it. What about the therapy: as the saying goes: "don't treat me". Hold on! Best wishes!
Given that the DDR was a large country, how much influence does the ideological legacy of socialism have in modern Germany? Is there a considerable amount of nostalgic/positive opinions, or is it mostly "gulag red scare" stuff? Also, have the people from the ex-DDR completely integrated into modern Germany, or is there still a line of some kind between the former "ossies" and "wessies" (hope I got the jargon right)?
@@vadimk3484 You got the jargon right.
It is really complicated. Gulag and red scare is not a big thing, especially as there were gulags only in the SU. Here it is mostly about the "Stasi" and it's mass surveillance as well as the wall and missing democracy and freedom of speech (which are all valid and don't get it wrong: The GDR socialist party was morally bankrupt, it was no question the GDR needed a change).
There is quite some positive view on the GDR nowadays, especially in the east. This is true for multiple fields including but not exclusive to:
- Child care
- Healthcare system
- Recycling
- Low social division and cost of base living
- Parts of education
- Women's rights
On the other hand we had:
- Really bad environment
- Desolated economy overall (with good parts but there were to many areas with dysfunctional central command economy)
- Mass surveillance
- Missing freedoms (speech, media, music)
If you find some you can get a really good view on the inner split in the people by Rammstein interviews on matching topics. They are all from the GDR but went to the US shortly after reunification. They were punks in the GDR, some were not allowed to play at all. If at all then often in churches (which sounds strange today). The GDR viewed such people as dangerous. Still at least some of them see it very ambiguous, miss the security and the order (to fight) but also the anarchy that can due to social safety (no unemployment for example).
Overall the eastern population is well integrated. Germany is divided in regions anyway (Bavaria, Coast, Rhein-Ruhr-Area...) and cultural divers. On the other hand they are still heavily underrepresented in media, economy, military, justice, universities and so on. But it starts to change now that the first "Change" generation comes to power age (~40). This also drives the rethinking about the merging and how to use the best of both lives. Biggest political problem is the noticable drift to the far right in the crisis, first in the 1990s (multiple well known murders / riots), with a mixture of crisis, western media and a destroyed police. Then again after 2015 with the AfD attacking the refugees and later corona management. They have far more success in the east (about double the strength). This is by far the biggest danger for the East itself but also for the unity of Germany.
But also the former state party of the GDR still exists and even leads one of the German states, Thuringia, but their prime minister Bodo Ramelow is indead from the West (Hesse) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_Ramelow
In 1990 many people thought the unification would take only years and East Germany would flourish within 4 years. That didn't happen and the shock therapy was one of the reasons. But after it was mostly dropped in the East and on the other side a light variant established in the West in ~2000 both came closer. East Germany made some noticable investments since the late 1990s including Dow Chemical in the Leuna area (the chemical industry center of the GDR), the success of Jenoptik (Jena) growing from the GDR optic specialists, Solarworld (destroyed in the 2000s solar crash, now solar comes mostly from China), cars (BMW, Porsche) in Leipzig, Silicon Saxony in Dresden (Bosch, AMD, Global Foundries) build on the rests of GDR chip maker Robotron, Tesla (biggest non US factory, near Berlin) and just now Intel (biggest investment in Germany since the war) in Magdeburg. Also the nothern part of the East is one of the leading areas regarding renewable energies. Berlin (West and East) grew to be the cultural (arts, music, especially clubs) and political center of the country but also has a lot of digital start ups.
Regarding media and sports the East does ok though football lacked financial power over a longer time. But where money is not so important (most other sports) the structures from the GDR still work and brought Germany a lot of Olympic metal. There are no bigger private media in the east but there is still the public broadcasting. This is still a big problem. Regarding acters the GDR made very good education (the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Busch_Academy_of_Dramatic_Arts is still with high level today) so they are present in German TV and movies. For music it's overall the same. The East have multiple incredibly successful band so overall it's at least balanced (Rammstein, Kraftklub, Silbermond, Tokyo Hotel).
As said, it is complicated but it is on a good way now that the East established / establishes it's own subculture and get's back on it's feet and gets also more (positively) present in media due to the generational shift our biggest problems are the age (so many young people left in the 90s and / or did not make children) and the far right. So overall I am optimistic.
@@KVPMD thanks for clearing things up! It's nice to know that Marxist ideas are still popular and that not everyone is zombified with stone-age nationalism which the fascists and other bootlicks of the bourgeoisie are force-feeding to the public from every type of media known to man. Rot Front!
I knew you also experienced upheaval in East Germany, but didn't understand the particulars. Thank you for sharing, giving us in the US a glimpse into how things really were.
I know I remember being excited about The Wall coming down, opening up and reunifying Germany, but I naively didn't understand what effects that would actually have on people's lives.
I haven't been able to make it back, but I was happy that my son was able to go to visit, getting to experience the cities in the East, as well.
May we all seek our common ground and stand against the rising right together. 💜✌️😎🍀
Really another in a long line of examples of capitalism and democracy fundamentally being at odds with one another.
Wow, a westerner discribing the 90s so unbiased and so on point. I have to applaud, as someone who lived through those Times, thanks for the video.
"unbiased" funny🤣
@@j.ceasar yes, unbiased. most of people talking of those times in russia either have no clue, were not there or profit from the narrative. how we, the majority, the "simple" workers survived through those times is a miracle - we did it not "because" of capitalism but "in spite" of it.
A friend I made during my college years told me about his father surviving this disaster and ultimately fleeing to the US. He said people in Russia began to say, "Everything they said about communism was a lie but everything they said about capitalism was true."
It was not, just russian transition to capitalism was plagued with corruption so much it resulted in catastrophe
But look at Czech republic, in communist times, we were russian pupet and life was no so great
Now, after transition to market economy, minimal wage here is higer than aweradge wage in Russia
Don't look just at Russia to judge transition to capitalism, look at nations russia was colonizing
@@petrsukenik9266 because you are closer to metropoly and you participate ib co-expluatation of weaker countries.
@@keiralum1797 LOL, no
@@keiralum1797 imagine beliving russia is not exploiting other nations
@@petrsukenik9266, lol, today you are american puppet. Did you needed to made accent on your position in politic? For some reasons, many citynes of countries of the formed socialist bloc believe that with the collapse of USSR, they position in the world is changing. They believe that they countries are now sovereign, than now they are not used as springboard for military equipment. And in fact, you have changed the owner, that's all. But you still living in illusions of «freedom». Yes, american occupation, of course, is muuuuuch softer than soviet, in which the czechs were crushed by tanks. The memories are fresh and therefore it is clear why now you consider yourself as «protected not-a-satellite». But it will hurt to destroy illusions.
East Germany, Czechia and Poland are closer to the centre of global capital accumulation, if they were farther away they would also be piss poor. DDR, Polish and Czech Republic's industries were also decimated in the 90s, they switched their economies to service and financial capitalism instead of producing real goods
Hungary too.
But we dont forget it and dont kissing @$$es of George soros.
But you do
this center, I assume, is somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean?
I feel it's slightly disingenuous to blame so many of Russias woes on Capitalism.