Joe

Honestly the USSR collapsing just shows how fragile that system was. And yeah the 90s were rough for basically everyone post-Soviet, but the Baltics clearly played it better long term. Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania have way higher QoL, better schools, actual functioning institutions, more opportunities, etc. Meanwhile Russia went the oligarch + authoritarian capitalism route and never really recovered socially. So ‘it got worse’ is true short term, but long term they absolutely upgraded.

In socialist states a larger part of the surplus is used to improve the labor pool, which explains the rapid growth.

Sure. If the right policies are prioritized and investments made, it should be much more efficient. Investments in primary healthcare and education in particular tend to be clear winners.

stark contrast from before and after the dissolution

Russia’s sudden shift to oligargchic capitalism was deeply corrupt and destabilising, harming russia itself and much of the neighbourhood.

to say that capitalism improved living standards is just assassine

It’s not capitalism that improves living standards. It’s sustained (and sustainable) growth, stable institutions and investment over time. Both capitalism and socialism can (and have) supported that, each with risks and caveats.

Sorry about that

Thanks

Recovering from WW2 losses was indeed a challenge for many soviet bloc countries. My suspicion is that without the cold war, W.Europe would also have recovered much slower as US investment and interest could have taken quite a different form.

Latin America is a different beast, worthy of its own discussion separate to this one.

The graph serves as simple contextualisation.

All european countries were already on the same trajectory. Russia was lagging behind for perfectly understandable reasons, but it was on the same trajectory. The soviet movement came at the right moment to benefit from this (and yeah, there’s a good chance they accelerated it, and in the worst case were “not bad” as someone phrased it).

A government would have had to monumentally screw up to not benefit from the rapid changes across europe at the time.

If the OP (or many of the commenters here) want to demonstrate uniquely soviet achievements, there are better metrics to focus on than life expectancy.

The original poster was terribly one sided, clearly meaning to shock people into thinking that the USSR’s socialism was solely responsible for it.

That the USSR achieved what it did is not in dispute… that socialism alone could have achieved this is my point… russia was a blank slate, primed for rapid improvement. It also didn’t improve uniformly (not surprising given its size and geography).

Neoliberal shock doctrine aka capitalism does that (followed by a rule 1 violating insult)

Russia’s internal collapse and slide was quite special, and most other former USSR states did better (even pre-1991), including Belarus & Ukraine. That speaks very much to russia, not the USSR of course

I expect people here to be capable of basic research and forming their own opinions. If your opinion is “ussr was perfect, does no wrong” then OK, good for you.

The users here are fully capable of doing minimal research and applying critical thinking without being spoon-fed.

A simple search shows several cases of reparations or more targeted compensation schemes by some western countries, japan, etc. Not covering all the atrocities, and some WTFs too… Go search and compare as needed.

While no country is the same, you might look at finland (independent) and the baltics (joined USSR in 1940) for a somewhat comparable shared modernization trend and the resulting improvements in life expectancy, the 1970s dip, etc.

Russia started out in a terrible position (with no small thanks to the late abolishment of serfdom). But it isn’t particularly surprising that it improved when or as much as it did with the arrival of new technology, urbanisation trends, better sanitation and health care (especially pre-natal care), and of course its location. The world was changing fast, and russia was well primed to change with it.

If you want country specific data, you might have to explore the data sources itself.

I was just trying to add context, because the huge jump in life expectancy was a global phenomenon, which casual readers may not know.

It has knobs, twiddle them or use the raw data.

Yes - societal collapses tend to do that.

Seems relatively on par with the rest of the world…

https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250731-112524/grapher/life-expectancy.html

• Across the world, people are living longer. In 1900, the global average life expectancy was 32 years. By 2023, this had more than doubled to 73 years.
• Countries around the world made big improvements, and life expectancy more than doubled in every region. This wasn’t just due to falling child mortality; people started living longer at all ages.

I’m perhaps being overly critical (I like to see roadmaps and concrete progress, but instead I see the markets expanding), but assuming that they manage it, it would be monumental.

“state capitalism” alone is a bit imprecise, and open to interpretation (as this whole thread demonstrates). It’s probably why additional qualifiers are typically used, and definitions often provided. Especially when labels like socialist market economy change over time.

Once again: it’s fine - times change & ideologies evolve.

I like the analogy.

That also makes the state a prime target for capture, for many different reasons but unfortunately often with the same result (a nation full of wage slaves who don’t control the means of production, and a few who wield the power).

Even when socialists are in power, there are no guarantees… but the stated intent is there, which is a very good start and can serve as a stablising force. Ultimately, it is the actions of a government and its leaders that will be judged, and often in hindsight.

China has continually softened its stance regarding this being a transitional period. It’s an open ended stage, being increasingly framed as a permanent feature. Calling it a stage is a stablising concept, but falls short of a roadmap.

It could be that the current system has become too comfortable for some, or that it is increasingly seen as a viable long term approach, or both. Or maybe they have a secret roadmap so external actors don’t interfere.

Watch this space, I guess.

Don’t worry, your email to [email protected] with the subject line of “next target” is safe. /s

As a funny counter-example: I wouldn’t call Norway a socialist state, but it does have a similar interest in many industries, commanding heights in some. It could also be described as practicing a form of state capitalism (more of a carve out in the bigger capitalist system). The difference in China is the ideology and scale and dominance of it… 60% or so of the entire economy, if I remember right. China chose to call itself a “socialist market economy” back in 1992. That’s fine, and it’s definitely nicer to say than “state capitalism with chinese socialist characteristics”. It’s a political ideological label that they own, and can even change and interpret as they see fit.

Economists will continue to prefer analytical terms.

Uhuh.

A friend of mine described his government/business trip to china a few years ago, and the feeling of a “bubble of power” as they were driven around by a high up party member in a black limosine (german, of course) where the driver would occasionally get out and yell at people to move, and they would very quickly clear the way. They visited farms, factories, universities and tech companies and saw all walks of life. Those black limosines are still very popular…

I think that connection to the working class is more tenuous than you believe. China still has a long way to go on the road of (edit: was “to”) socialism, and that is OK, so long as they are driving in the right direction and stay on a peaceful path. If not, the connection breaks and legitimacy will collapse.

It’s still the party though (and increasingly the upper echelons of the party) that holds power. If they can maintain high approval, they get to keep the role (without resorting to coersion and/or violence). A good way to maintain high approval is to put the needs of the people first.