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EdgyIndividualistBuffoon wrote (edited )

Russia in 1917 was a largely peasant agrarian economy with massive corruption problems, widespread shortages and very little modern industry. It was frankly extremely remarkable how they managed to industrialize so quickly and put the first satellite into space just 40 years later. Obviously, central planning hits hard limits when you get to middle incomes, but it seemed to work astonishingly well for a time. American politicians and economists were also very afraid up until around the 1960s.

Like it's absolutely delusional to discard the economic and technological achievements of the early Soviet Union, even if you think (as I do) that they were based on oppression, murder, and environmental destruction to a large degree. That was not something other countries in their position managed to do, even if they had their own murder and oppression (and they mostly did).

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