Wojtek Sent from my Droid On Oct 9, 2012 11:19 AM, "andie_nachgeborenen" < andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Some and some. Russian light arms were superior to anyone's. the post war
> AK-47 is still the gold standard in assault rifles. The T-34 was in its day
> the best light tank in the world. And the Soviets did have access to a lot
> of Western technology, in the 20s, when there was a lot of covert trade
> with Germany, in the 30s, when a number of Western factories moved to the
> USSR because there were no markets at home -- I ave several 40s Soviet
> watches from the First and Second Soviet watch factory that moved to the
> USSR from Ohio in the 30s, still work too.
>
> But a study by the ex-socialist and now vehehemently right wing but very
> good scholar Janos Kornai, The Socialist System, includes a comparative
> analysis of innovation and finds exactly one major innovation of formerly
> existing socialism, the satellite, out of 20 some basic innovations of the
> 20th century. This despite the fact that Soviet scientists and engineers
> were second to none. The system failed them for reasons Hayek explained.
>
> More generally the Soviet system was lost from the start, as Lenin foresaw
> (without a successful,German revolution), partly because of Hayekian
> reasons, partly because of foreign hostility, partly because of the triumph
> of a hidebound bureaucracy under the dictatorship of a cruel and irrational
> tyrant. But I don't think Bukharin or Trotsky could have saved the Soviet
> experiment. Socialism in one country was a fact, and a trap, not a choice.
> As Isaac Deutscher said, socialism in a backwards country gives you
> backwards socialism. Alternative leadership would have been less savage and
> destructive, but the USSR was doomed after November 1918.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 8, 2012, at 11:05 PM, michael perelman <michael.perelman3 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > James Heartfeld wrote:
> >
> > "there was no possibility of building socialism in Russia, without
> > access to western technology, on terms that simply were not on offer."
> >
> > I don't know. Others are more up on the subject than I am, but my
> > sources indicate that the Soviets's weapons were superior to the
> > Nazis. The country had pretty good training in science, math, and
> > technology.
> >
> > Too much of their resource went into the military, but they were
> > surrounded by enemies.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Michael Perelman
> > Economics Department
> > California State University
> > Chico, CA
> > 95929
> >
> > 530 898 5321
> > fax 530 898 5901
> > http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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