With Russian economic output plummeting in ways not seen since the massive restructuring of the early 1990's, the big questions being asked now are Kto vinovat? ("Who's to blame?") and shto delat'? ("What is be done?") Here is an interesting article on the state of Russian thinkers' discontent with the regime. As is noted, Russia has yet to overcome it's centuries' old problem of making things that the rest of the world would actually want to buy, rather than just chopping down trees, or pulling rocks and sludge from the ground.
As an aside, quite a few histories of Russia have noted that one of the goals of Russian/Soviet imperialism has often been to literally capture new markets for its subprime goods. The Russian conquest of Central Asia was driven in no small part by its mercantilist demands for cotton and needs for captive consumers of Russian goods. I have often thought that the Soviet bloc should be reinterpreted in the light of a massive economic subsidy for the Soviet Union. Soviet materials were swapped for East German, Czechoslovakian and Polish industrial products that the Soviets could never hope to produce or buy in an open market. One has only to look at how quickly Eastern European countries have stopped trading with Russia, other than to purcahse its gas and oil.
UPDATE: Rebuttal here.
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2 comments:
I remember reading about the dismantling of thousands of Germany factories by the Russians during the post-WWII occupation. The Russians dismantled the Germany factories, shipped them back to the Motherland by rail and reassembled them.
I guess that was easier than trading.
Good old Soviet economic logic.
That and I believe they shipped topsoil from Romania back to the Soviet Union.
It's interesting, because I remember in economics class people would talk about how the post-Soviet economy was reduced to bartering, like they had re-entered the stone age. Russian companies still conduct barter swaps with each other, and it was the Soviet Union's preferred method of trade.
East Germany learned the practice but took it up a notch by letting West Germany pay it to accept industrial waste.
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