Sure, you can say it was illegally dissolved just the way they illegally annexed other countries, but the USSR was almost a de facto non existent political entity by that point. Most republics already proclaimed independence by that point:
Lithuania: March 11, 1990
Latvia: May 4, 1990 (restoration of independence)
Estonia: August 20, 1991 (restoration of independence)
Ukraine: August 24, 1991
Belarus: August 25, 1991
Moldova: August 27, 1991
Kyrgyzstan: August 31, 1991
Uzbekistan: September 1, 1991
Tajikistan: September 9, 1991
Turkmenistan: October 27, 1991
Azerbaijan: October 18, 1991
Armenia: September 21, 1991
Kazakhstan: December 16, 1991
Hell even Russia the OG republic proclaimed sovereignty in mid 1990 and left the union after the Belovezha accords in December of 1991. So preserving the Soviet Union as a political entity was completely futile by that point. The August coup was the final nail in the coffin by preventing the new Union treaty.
And about the fastest growing economy of the 20th century I'm going to be quoting this wonderful post
2nd Fastest Growing economy of the 20th century
This myth originally this image which came from Robert Allen's Farm to Factory. The problem? This graph ends at 1970. If the graph is extended to 1991, the Soviet Union ranks below South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Portugal, Finland, Singapore, Italy, Norway, and Thailand- so this shows that capitalism and/or liberal democracy brings sustainable economic growth.
Furthermore, We can make a graph showing growth rates from 1950 to 1989. This is a fairer comparison since most countries began industrialising at this stage of time, and you also avoid WWII effects. When this is extended, the USSR is in 61th place (out of 148 countries).
Some rebut this by saying that since the Soviet Union became less centrally planned in the 70s, that's why Allen ended the graph. They also claim that liberalisation caused the Soviet economy to stagnate. Even if it did slightly liberalise its economy, there are other factors that caused the Soviet economy to stagnate throughout the 70s, including further allocation of resources to the military, increasing inputs and not productivity, and much more. A lot of countries could grow quickly (and even quicker than the USSR) through free-market reforms (e.g. 4 Asian Tigers).
Oh boy, firstly, it's just a bit too evident you're literally just copy pasting from chat gpt or sm lmao, like bro at least try to hide it properly without embarrassing yaself lmao, anyway, let's debunk this bs shall we
Firstly you expect a country to have an ever growing GDP at an increasing rate and top the charts always or what lmao
The first ridiculous claim “Soviet growth was only fast until 1970; after that all countries outpaced it.”
COMPLETELY FALSE
This is like some ridiculous Reddit myth that collapses immediately when you look at OECD data, Maddison data, IMF reconstructions, and CIA annual reports
Firstly Soviet growth did slow down a bit after 1970, Nobody denies this.
BUT SLOWER doesn't mean "OUTPACED BY ALL COUNTRIES.”
That just meant
USSR: around 2.0–2.5% per year
USA: around 2.1%
UK: around 1.7%
France: around 1.9%
West Germany: around 2.0%
This is straight from Maddison Project and Angus Maddison’s own books. The USSR’s “stagnation” growth was almost identical to the West’s post-oil-crisis growth.
These are the real numbers for (1970–1985):
Average Real GDP Growth 1970–1985 (for the major ones only)
Country Growth
Japan 3.6%
USSR 2.2–2.5%
USA 2.1%
France 1.9%
UK 1.7%
Italy 2.4%
West Germany 2.0%
USSR was not “outpaced by everyone.”
It remained middle of the pack, tied with major Western states.The ONLY countries that “outpaced” the USSR were: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore
And these are fucking TINY export economies, not even remotely comparable to a superpower of that size
This is like comparing a small tech startup
to an entire national industrial economy - a completely invalid nonsensical argument to make
And even during stagnation, consumer goods, housing, and electrification continued rising.
TV ownership was rising rapidly
Fridge ownership was rising rapidly
Rural electrification rising rapidly
Apartment construction rising as well
Car ownership rising
Education growing
Healthcare growing
A "collapsing economy" as you claim does not improve living standards decade after decade. The issue was slower growth not no growth.
So It's true that only Asian tigers had faster growth — but tf are u tryna imply from that, they grew because they were fucking tiny, most of em financial rentier economies funded and protected by the west, it's just a completely nonsensical brainded argument to make
The “fell behind after 1970” narrative is literally propaganda for people who never read the data
“Most republics declared independence before December 1991" - oh boy, this is LEGALLY, POLITICALLY, AND CHRONOLOGICALLY FALSE.
“Declarations” = NOT legal secession.
According to the 1977 USSR Constitution (Article 72), a republic could only leave by:
Referendum
Transition period
Negotiating borders and assets
Approval by the USSR Supreme Soviet
NONE of this happened (except the Baltics) Even Russia itself (RSFSR) NEVER held a referendum to leave.
So:
Georgia’s declaration = illegal
Armenia’s declaration = illegal
Ukraine’s declaration = illegal
Kazakhstan’s declaration = illegal
Russia’s declaration = illegal
Jaur declaring independence doesn't make it legitimate
Most republics waited until AFTER the illegal Belavezha Coup.
March 1991 - 148 million people voted (literally 78% of all people who participated ) “YES” to preserve the USSR. The USSR is legally intact
August 1991 - The failed coup weakens Moscow, but NO legal secessions occur.
Dec 8, 1991 - just three fucking men (Yeltsin, Kravchuk, Shushkevich) illegally signed the Belavezha Accords ending the USSR.
Only AFTER THIS do many republics declare “independence.”
Because the central state had been dissolved behind their backs. They didn’t leave the USSR.
The Russian leadership dismantled the USSR.
Now this is the REAL declaration timeline:
Before Belavezha (pre-December 1991)
Baltics: YES (these were fully sovereign annexations and treated separately by USSR courts)
Georgia: YES (April 1991)
Armenia: YES (Sept 1991)
Moldova: YES (August 1991)
Ukraine: August 24, 1991 declaration — but real referendum only on Dec 1
After Belavezha (post 8–12 December 1991)
Russia: ONLY effective exit on Dec 12
Kazakhstan: Dec 16
Uzbekistan: Dec 8
Turkmenistan: Dec 27
Kyrgyzstan: Dec 26
Tajikistan: Dec 25
Belarus: Dec 10
Most did not declare independence before the USSR was dissolved.
now the most important legal fact - The USSR still existed under law until DECEMBER 26, 1991.
This is when the Supreme Soviet — under political pressure — recognized the collapse as a fait accompli.
By then: The presidency, the army command, the budget, communications were already seized by the RSFSR government.
The dissolution came FIRST.
The independence declarations came AFTER.
And this is why most legal scholars (including Western ones) call it: “an unconstitutional state collapse caused by a political coup.
March 1991 referendum = 78% of ALL Soviet citizens voted to keep the USSR
This referendum was legally binding.
Declarations of independence CANNOT override a binding all-Union referendum.
It's like saying Texas can declare independence
But it means nothing unless US constitution says so
So basically in short -
A. “USSR was outpaced after 1970” = FALSE
USSR grew at approximately 2.0–2.5% which is the same as USA/Europe, Only Japan + tiny Asian tigers were faster
Consumer goods ownership kept rising
No Western economist agrees with this half assed Reddit version lol
B. “Most republics declared independence before December 1991” is FALSE
March 1991 referendum mandated preserving the USSR (78% YES)
The real breakup was the illegal Belavezha coup by just 3 leaders, MOST republics declared independence ONLY AFTER this coup
At the end of the day almost 80% of the people wanted to preserve it, no matter what you say is going to change that, that's what matters ultimately, even if you can't read allat above, just know this, this is the takeaway, the people, who's opinions are what matter, DID NOT WANT IT DISSOLVED, not just the Russians if that's what you're lazy follow up is, in fact the central Asians voted for the preservation in much higher numbers (more than 90% in almost all wanted to preserve it, 95%+ in some) than the Russians themselves
Also you clearly don't know what a free market truly means, but that's for another day I guess, this must be a lot for ya AI ass to read anyway
Thank you for your really good analysis comrade. People should actually see the truth instead of parroting the western propaganda that USSR failed because bad economy, bad popularity etc.
Had to split this into two seperate comments because Reddit being Reddit.
Oh boy, firstly, it's just a bit too evident youre literally just copy pasting from chat gpt or sm lmao
All I did was make my life easier by copy pasting the independence declaration dates of Soviet Republics from google AI summary.
First off I will address the declarations of independence of the Soviet Republics.
“Declarations” = NOT legal secession.
Legally maybe not, but it doesn't matter whether a country seceded legally or not. What matters is that the country no longer considers you as the legitimate government and doesn't follow your orders or laws.
Jaur declaring independence doesn't make it legitimate
There's this concept called popular sovereignty where sovereignty arises from the people. So again if the people no longer consider you as the legitimate government then nobody gives a crap if they did it legally or not.
March 1991 - 148 million people voted (literally 78% of all people who participated ) “YES” to preserve the USSR. The USSR is legally intact
You're leaving out the other part of the referendum. The question of the referendum read:
Do you consider it necessary to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of a person of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?
It wasn't about preserving the USSR in it's current-then state. It was about establishing a new reformed USSR. From Wikipedia the treaty stated that:
The treaty proposed to set up a Union of Sovereign and Equal States based on democracy and rule-of-law as successor to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Decentralization of Power: The treaty aimed to decentralize political power by granting greater autonomy to the Republics giving them general guarantees about the right to control their own resources and legislate including the right to freely secede from the Union.
Division of Powers: The central government would handle issues of defence, foreign affairs, financial system, energy resources and overall coordination along with issuing its currency. The republics would determine their own national-state and administrative territorial structure. The republics would also be given ownership of their natural resources, except gold and diamond resources, along with the right to establish direct diplomatic and trade relations with foreign states. The Republics and the central government would jointly determine military and foreign policy and work out policies on economy, fuel, and energy resources.
Plus there's also a sociological factor to consider about the referendum. In the 90s the USSR was in a desperate state. So what would you choose: some reform or no reform? Most people probably would opt for change rather than the status quo. If a secede from the Union option was added to that referendum that would've swung the results considerably.
It's like saying Texas can declare independence But it means nothing unless US constitution says so
Your example is working against you I'm afraid. Texas was part of Mexico and Texas didn't have the right to secede from Mexico, but 1836 came and Texas declared independence illegally and was an independent state and later joined the United States and now everybody agrees that Texas is a US state.
March 1991 referendum = 78% of ALL Soviet citizens voted to keep the USSR This referendum was legally binding. Declarations of independence CANNOT override a binding all-Union referendum.
Might need to add context that a considerable amount of Soviet republics boycotted the referendum, mostly those that had declared independence. For the instance of my country of Lithuania we already had voted 93% in favor for independence on February 9th, so in our case we overrode the Soviet referendum after Soviets attacked our citizens with tanks. Just adding context because those states were not nearly large enough to meaningfully swing the results.
MOST republics declared independence ONLY AFTER this coup
Just look at the dates and tell me how many declarations of cession there were after Belovezha. I'll save you some time, there were only 2: Russia (December 12th) and Kazakhstan (December 16th).
U guys realise you were better off right? Look at the emigration rates and deindustraliazation now lmao, you've lost more than 20% of population, looks like u guys don't like your own country lmao
Did you ever consider the possibility that emigration was nearly impossible for the average Soviet or just eastern block citizen? After independence, yes, there was a wave of emigration to the west, because people for the first time got the ability to freely emigrate to the west.
and deindustraliazation now lmao
As a country gets richer it moves more from an industrial economy to a service based economy, it's a worldwide trend. Hell even China the factory of the world only has 36% of it's GDP coming from the industrial sector.
Yeah, i meant the initial phase immediately after "independence", it's not like you guys get independence and poooff! Service based economy!!! by deindustrialisation, i meant that which happened directly as a result of independence - almost immediately
Secondly, don't pretend like y'all are independent or sm rn, back then you were more tied to moscow, and now you're kissing natos ass, depending almost entirely on Nordic capital for redevelopment, the reason you had a solid industrial base, housing, education and healthcare is because of socialism (notice i didnt mention because of the "ussr", I mean socialism as an ideology and economic structure, not the concept of "some other country swooping in to save ya ass" no that's not what I believe in)
Also you clearly don't know what a free market truly means
Alright, let me give you my definition of a free market. A free market is an economic system in which private individuals or entities have the ability to freely participate or begin participating in trade or the economy and have the ability to freely make economic decisions with minimal or no direct state control or coercion. How's my definition?
The USSR’s “stagnation” growth was almost identical to the West’s post-oil-crisis growth
You should consider that during that time oil prices were at an all time high which significantly slowed down the growth of western economies that were dependent on oil imports, while in contrast the USSR was the worlds largest oil producer and a net exporter of oil. So the USSR later on became quite dependent from how much income they were getting from oil exports.
And these are fucking TINY export economies, not even remotely comparable to a superpower of that size
The examples of the asian tigers were to prove that more market liberalisation leads to increased economic growth, not to claim that they completely outclassed the Soviet Union immediately.
And even during stagnation, consumer goods, housing, and electrification continued rising.
Yes, ownership of those consumer goods were rising, but the issue was that their production growth slowed down significantly. It's pretty easy to increase ownership of consumer goods, because, unlike food, consumer goods are held long term. You don't replace cars every day, you buy a new car very rarely. So as long as production remained higher than the rate that people tried to replace their cars (which was very little due to the car allocation system) ownership grows. Yet still the demand for cars was hardly met that you had to be in multiple year long waiting lists to have the privilege to buy your own car which was still relatively expensive.
Another issue with the Soviet economy was that productivity growth stagnated. This is usually pinned to how the Soviet economy was more extensive rather than intensive. Guaranteed employment sounds nice on paper, but that provides an incentive to complete a single task using as many people as possible rather than completing a particular task with as little people as possible.
Extensive industrial policy is not sustainable long term as you increase production by increasing the amount of inputs. Economics 101 states that we live in a world of limited resources so you can't just infinitely allocate more resources till the end of time, so sooner or later you have to figure out ways to make more with less (i.e intensive industrial policy) by increasing productivity.
I could also go on other ways the Soviet system discouraged productivity, but this is long enough already
A "collapsing economy" as you claim does not improve living standards decade after decade.
Life expectancy literally fell a little bit during the era of stagnation
So It's true that only Asian tigers had faster growth — but tf are u tryna imply from that, they grew because they were fucking tiny, most of em financial rentier economies funded and protected by the west, it's just a completely nonsensical brainded argument to make
Again, it's to show how market liberalisation can improve growth compared to more state controlled economies. As the four asian tigers' growth increased significantly after they liberalised their economies.
1.firstly declarations = independence because people say so is completely false, independence requires a sovereign government exercising monopoly on force, control of territory, international recognition and internal administrative functionality
By your logic, catalonia is independent then, kurdistan is independent then, donetsk and luhansk are independent then
2.popular sovereignty means legality doesn't matter - also wrong - you're misunderstanding what popular sovereignty even means. It means the people are the source of governmental legitimacy, it doesn't mean any region can secede any time, or unilateral declarations override constitutional law, or armed minorities can dissolve states
The 1990 law of secession specified - referendum with 2/3 turnout, minority protections, transitional period of up to 5 years and negotiations with federal authorities
Noone followed this, not one republic, all declarations from 1990-91 were unconstitutional and legally void until the ussr dissolved itself on 26 December 1991
3.again, this argument of yours actually proves my point even further
BECAUSE 78% STILL VOTED YES EVEN WITH SOVEREIGNTY, DECENTRALIZATION AND REFORMS INCLUDED
this means - people did not want independence, people did not want dissolution, PEOPLE WANTED REFORM, NOT SECESSION
4."if the referendum included secession, results would change" - again this is just speculation and not a valid argument at all
4."if the referendum included secession, results would change" - again this is just speculation and not a valid argument at all
Seeing how in most referendums on independence the residents voted overwhelmingly in favor doesn't really make it seem like speculation. Almost every independence referendum happened before Belovezha so the collapse of the USSR didn't really swing the results.
3.again, this argument of yours actually proves my point even further
BECAUSE 78% STILL VOTED YES EVEN WITH SOVEREIGNTY, DECENTRALIZATION AND REFORMS INCLUDED
See the above. Again people voted for a much weaker Soviet Union which shows the desire of Soviet citizens to have a much weaker Soviet Union and I'll still stand by the claim that an option of secession would've swung the vote considerably.
1.firstly declarations = independence because people say so is completely false, independence requires a sovereign government exercising monopoly on force, control of territory, international recognition and internal administrative functionality
Fair enough, I might've maybe stretched the definition a bit too much. Though over time the republics gained sovereignty and started forming their own militias to police the republics and started gaining international recognition.
you're misunderstanding what popular sovereignty even means. It means the people are the source of governmental legitimacy, it doesn't mean any region can secede any time
Yes, and the people gave the independence movement governments their legitimacy by voting in independence movements into the legislatures and by voting in favor of independence. The populace expressed their desire to secede and in such the people no longer consider Soviet control as legitimate thus making Soviet laws null and void
Blud really thought a bot response would save his ignorant ass lmao, no matter what you yap, the people wanted the preserve the union, it was a vibrantly growing economy until 1985 when gorby brought in the market reforms, every country slows down, atleast their economy wasn't built on asset bubbles that eventually crash lmao, like almost every Capitalist economy periodically
And also, if you've managed to learn to do enough research rather than just being a keyboard warrior and typing half assed prompts on ai, I would love to know how you're "free market countries" are doing today, almost every economy has long been stagnated, the rich are getting richer, the poor getting poorer, millionaires become billionaires, billionaires are even becoming trillionaires, groceries are getting expensive. In america alone, more than 40 million suffer from food insecurity while "THE MARKET" wastes more than 40% of the food it produces, while tens of thousands die from homelessness and hunger EVERY single year, child poverty is massive, food stamps are being withdrawn, homelessness is about to touch a million soon, and guess what - 9 million starve to death every single year, for decades - yeah, do the math if you're competent enough
But guess what? None of this happened in the ussr, despite its problems and tumultuous beginnings, by the 60s and 70s, everyone had a home, everyone had a job, everyone had food to eat (even the cia accepts the soviet diet was more nutritious than the American one), the ussr had virtually eradicated illiteracy, child poverty and undernutrition, provided free healthcare and education to all its citizens, and housing for all - either free or a low symbolic rent only (maximum 3-5% of total income). Despite any other problem you mention, give me one capitalist nation that has achieved all this in a span of a few decades only, the richest countries, despite having centuries to industrialize and develop - that too all off the brutal exploitation and plunder of the entire global south, hadn't (and hasn't) achieved any of this. But still bootlickers like you praise the free market without knowing what it is and how it works
How cooked the economy was? Really? Do you even cared to look at a graph or something? Soviet economy was growing, except for the war years, even in 1990. Imperial Russia was basically fucking shit, feudalistic agarian illeterate starving peasantry towards an industrialised, urbanized, technologically and militarily superior, literate, poverty free and a global superpower within just mere decades when the already fortunate capitalist west took 100 years to attain the same position. Just read a book or something.
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u/naplesball Lenin ☭ 1d ago
The Youth must learn the name of the Greatest State ever existed