Russia - End of USSR brought poverty, unemployment and misery for most Russians.

[Count Bobulescu]

Lana Peters, Stalin's only daughter and last surviving child dies. Her life story was worth a novel in itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/wo...-at-85.html?hp

[C. Flower]

Lana Peters, Stalin's only daughter and last surviving child dies. Her life story was worth a novel in itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/wo...-at-85.html?hp

I have a copy of her autobiography, inherited.

Must get it out and have a look.

[Count Bobulescu]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR. I’m surprised that neither the historians nor commies hereabouts have noted it. 43 photos.


http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2...-union/100214/

[TotalMayhem]

Right in time, Gorbachev was on state television yesterday, advising Putin to resign.

[Griska]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR. I’m surprised that neither the historians nor commies hereabouts have noted it. 43 photos.


http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2...-union/100214/

Conor O'Cleary's book on the subject is well worth a read.

[People Korps]

the fall f the USSR led to the sort of rise of Declan Ganley this thread is amusing http://machinenation.forumakers.com/...irish-politics

[Count Bobulescu]

Conor O'Cleary's book on the subject is well worth a read.

Yes it is. You can listen/read transcript of 50 minute NPR interview here.

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/20...cember-25-1991

[C. Flower]

Today is the 20th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR. I’m surprised that neither the historians nor commies hereabouts have noted it. 43 photos.


http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2...-union/100214/

The photographs are good. Also some interesting comments and discussion.

Lithuania features in them quite a bit. I know Lithuanians in Ireland and they say that the country has declined drastically since the 1990s, people are depressed, leaving in droves, can't eat properly and are being impoverished by the cost of heating their homes.

North Korea's famine took place after the fall of the USSR, due in part to loss of fuel supplies.

Not all, but many of the former USSR states are in a very poor state, with a return to living off subsistence agriculture as there is so little employment.

The report you linked says that 6,000 Russian soldiers died in 1990 due to "ethnic unrest". Perhaps it wasn't such a peaceful transition as made out.

Also, many of the people who took part in the push against the Soviet leadership were not looking to go back to capitalism, but wanted to deal with the corruption and inefficiency of the regime.

>> Indeed, the Soviet Union in 1985 possessed much of the same natural and human resources that it had 10 years before. Certainly, the standard of living was much lower than in most of Eastern Europe, let alone the West. Shortages, food rationing, long lines in stores, and acute poverty were endemic. But the Soviet Union had known far greater calamities and coped without sacrificing an iota of the state's grip on society and economy, much less surrendering it.
Nor did any key parameter of economic performance prior to 1985 point to a rapidly advancing disaster. From 1981 to 1985 the growth of the country's GDP, though slowing down compared with the 1960s and 1970s, averaged 1.9 percent a year. The same lackadaisical but hardly catastrophic pattern continued through 1989. Budget deficits, which since the French Revolution have been considered among the prominent portents of a coming revolutionary crisis, equaled less than 2 percent of GDP in 1985. Although growing rapidly, the gap remained under 9 percent through 1989 -- a size most economists would find quite manageable.
The sharp drop in oil prices, from $66 a barrel in 1980 to $20 a barrel in 1986 (in 2000 prices) certainly was a heavy blow to Soviet finances. Still, adjusted for inflation, oil was more expensive in the world markets in 1985 than in 1972, and only one-third lower than throughout the 1970s. And at the same time, Soviet incomes increased more than 2 percent in 1985, and inflation-adjusted wages continued to rise in the next five years through 1990 at an average of over 7 percent.<<

Source:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/a...

[TotalMayhem]

Perhaps it wasn't such a peaceful transition as made out.

Perhaps not, but that's nothing compared to the widespread massacres and mass deportations perpetrated by the Commies during the transition to Marxism-Leninism.

[Griska]

A fairly hum-ho quick doc on the end of the USSR:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvoa25IiUEo"]Stabbing the Empire: Last Day of Soviet Union - YouTube[/ame]