this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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Economic growth was positive, just slowed. There were numerous reasons for this, from recovery from world war II and the population crisis it caused, to needing to maintain millitary parity with a much wealthier adversary, to economic liberalization, but despite all of this, growth was positive and the systems working. Instead, the soviet union was killed. It didn't collapse under its own weight and failing systems, but was dismantled on purpose.
The idea that socialist economies were stagnating was used as justification for applying the Washington Consensus and shock therapy, where the west looted the former soviet union for parts and destroyed their economies. Key life metrics plummeted, production crumbled, and took decades to approach their soviet levels.
This graph would be even more damning if it included the fact that socialist countries economies were mostly real and material ones, based on production of goods, while the capitalist ones are propped up by stonks gambling and layers upon layers of financial instruments. If we deducted this kind of virtual economy the graph would most likely still be way below the 1991 line.
Agreed! I touched on that a bit when comparing the USSR's GDP to the US Empire's current GDP below, but comparing to the current economies of Eastern Europe would be even better for proving just how devastating the fall of socialism was, that's a great point.
The line going up just means GDP per capita increased, not that the system was healthy. USA's GDP continues to go up, would you consider our current economy healthy? Post 60s, Soviet growth slowed and was mostly driven by oil, not productivity. That hides a lot of inefficiency and fragility that GDP doesn’t show. When oil prices dropped and reforms started, the economy collapsed because it had very little resilience left, not because capitalism suddenly “killed” a thriving system.
To be clear - I'm not saying that shock therapy didn't cause harm, I'm just saying that the USSR was clearly not booming by the time it was applied.
GDP in the context of a heavily industrialized socialist economy vs a dying imperialist country where finance is dominant is entirely different. Production continued to meaningfully grow in the USSR, while what we see in the US Empire is a decay in the superprofits stolen from the global south and a hollowed out industrial base, AI bubble, etc, none of which applied to the USSR. Additionally, the economy exploded after the dissolution of the USSR, not before.
The USSR was stable. It was growing slower than before for a number of reasons, but it remains true that it didn't collapse, it was killed. Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? by Stephen Gowens is a good essay on some of the factors at play during the dissolution of the USSR. Socialism works.
Ive been reading michael perenti's blackshirts and reds and it seams to contradict what your saying.
It seams to say that the soviet union was rather unstable because people were not going to work when the money they earned from working wasnt worthwhile since all there basic needs were met anyway. I think its saying that the workers were not yet ready for socialism to progress this quickly and there was still a fundamental underlying greed within its society that needed to be stamped out.
The point Parenti is making was that socialism wasn't perfect. There were flaws and issues with this to some degree. It wasn't that there was an "underlying greed," though. Even with the odd person not showing up to work, economic growth was still positive all the way up to the end of the USSR. Following up Blackshirts and Reds with Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? by Stephen Gowens is a good way to look at some of the actual economic statistics.
One thing also important to know is that the economy exploded after the USSR was dissolved, and their raw productive capacity largely has not been reached in these post-socialist states due to the inefficiencies of capitalism.