Just because you live in Moscow doesn't make you an expert. I live in America and I am not an expert on its history or politics. Yet, despite my ignorance I know there are certain events in American history that can be viewed in different ways, but opinions and political leanings aside we can all agree that something happened.

As a scholar I am reading these posts, and it seems that someone is holding on to the information they absorbed half a life ago and continued to read that same stuff for "half of their life." ("Half of my life has been dedicated to the study of Soviet history, so much so that I actually relocated to Moscow." -Aslan)

Making the point again that I don't know anything about soviet history, I'll emphasize my knowlege of the research process and ask what recent sources could support all of your cases. These comment posts shouldn't be a place for research papers or reference pages, but at the same time when opinions about soviet history sound like they came out of the mouth of neo-Stalinists after his death (in the '50's?), I would ask for more recent interpretations, sources, and facts to help me view this issue in a less subjective and skewed light.

It's always reductio ad absurdium(forgive any Latin spelling mistakes) with you, Brandon. Now you're claiming I attribute all this to two sources, when in fact there are more, for example, A Short History of Soviet Socialism, or Socialism Betrayed. Ironically your cited passage to show how "clueless" Nicolaus was, only shows how clueless you are about Soviet history, given the fact that the author was clearly referring to the fact that these debates were largely held in secret, whereas major issues in the past had been publicized(e.g. the discussions on the 1936 constitution). The point the author was trying to make was that since there had already been massive unrest due to the rumors about the secret speech, there was a good chance that popular opinion would win out if Khruschev's opponents publicized their current debate. Idle speculation perhaps, but a valid point.

Of course you couldn't attack any actual argument he made, so the point still stands:

1. Planning ceased to exist in any meaningful form.

2. Profit motive was the determining factor for enterprises.

3. Labor power and means of production were commodities.

All of these factors point toward one system, capitalism. You cannot speak about the failure of command economy if a real command economy did not exist, and when someone deliberately demolishes something you cannot claim it was an inevitable failure.

I'm surprised that you can get the History Channel in Moscow. Good for you and your "research." I'll let you get back to watching "Wings of the Luftwaffe" and "History's Mysteries."

I should have known better than to poke an internet troll, but with someone as clueless and completely indoctrinated in Stalinist ideology as you seem to be, I couldn't resist. Lesson learned.

The other book you cite seems to be out of publication; I found a used copy on Amazon for $45, so I don't think I'll be purchasing it any time soon. But fortunately, I found copies online, on such websites as marxism.halkcephesi.net and marx2mao.com. It becomes pretty apparent from the outset that this text was written in the context of a now-arcane dispute that cleft the communist world in the wake of Khrushchev's secret speech. Following Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, luminaries such as Mao and Albanian leader Enver Hoxha denounced the new "revisionist policies." The author of this text, and you yourself, are obviously firmly situated in the hardline, anti-revisionist camp. But let's read on; here is his opinion of Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin:

"Stalin, then three years in his grave, was suddenly heaped with epithets of the most astonishing kind. He was a "tyrant," he had committed "crimes more monstrous than the tsars," his "reign" was marked by "blood and terror," his leadership in the world war was tantamount to treason, he was a bumbler and so on. It was as if the congress of a 20th-century Marxist-Leninist party had been transformed suddenly into a medieval rite of exorcism." (quotation marks are the author's own)

So it's perfectly clear from the outset that this guy is far from an objective, dispassionate analyst, but rather a Stalin apologist, perfectly willing to gloss over the crimes committed by Stalin in the name of party loyalty and the construction of socialism. I eagerly await more citations from you that will supposedly deny, minimize, or disperse blame for The Terror or the horrors of collectivization.

This is perhaps my favorite quote illustrating how utterly clueless this guy is regarding the policymaking process in the Soviet Union:

"While Khrushchev's opponents apparently never thought to take the issues to the masses of the Soviet people — this was certainly their fatal weakness — Khrushchev's backers, for their part, did everything possible to keep the Soviet people in the dark."

I really don't know anything about this Martin Nicolaus. Passages such as this, though, indicate to me that he never actually lived in the Soviet Union, that he was an obscure academic at some American university talking out of his ass. He's criticizing Khrushchev for his undemocratic principles, for not letting the Soviet people vote on his policies in a plebiscite? I had no idea that policymaking under Stalin involved such a high degree of civic participation…

Now that I see where you are getting your information from, your denunciation of post-Stalin reforms as "capitalist" becomes much more comprehensible. It basically follows the pattern of internal communist party denunciations. These reforms were capitalist in the same sense that Bukharin, Trotsky, and countless other opponents of Stalin and Mao were accused of being "rightists," "capitalists," "counter-revolutionaries," etc. before their executions, deportations, or imprisonment. Capitalism isn't measured by any objective correspondence to definitions (your attempt to compare Khrushchev era reforms to post-Mao reforms in China is laughable), but rather by deviation from stated party orthodoxy.

But, hey, that's cool, you guys had a nice run, and I think that many of your principles are still relevant today.

First let's point out something very important- a country is not "Communist" or socialist simply because it claims to be so. China is run by the Chinese Communist party yet it is wholly capitalist. Whether a country is socialist or capitalist depends on the actual nature of its economy. Labor power as a commodity, profit motive, and the means of production as commodities are features of capitalism. So to be sure, one could call the Soviet system "market socialism", but history shows this always turns out to be more in favor of the market than socialism. You claim these features were due to the FAILURE of a command economy- but what failure are you referring to? It is generally agreed upon that the peak of the Soviet economy was around 1960-61, even after some of Khruschev's initial reforms. So what crisis of the command economy was Khruschev trying to fix?

As for the abolishment of Sovnarkhozy, I am well aware of this but the point I was trying to make is that after they were abolished, the state planning bureau was still just as powerless as it was before, and individual enterprises still held most of the power.

Now you ask about opposition to the Perestroika reforms, but from whom, and for what reasons? There is a big difference. For example, even from the very beginning of Khruschev's political reforms there was massive resistance- riots and strikes. In the case of perestroika, there were people that stood to gain and many people who stood to lose.

Now for the coup de grace: "I’m not really sure what you’re arguing for here. Are you saying that the hardships of World War II were qualitatively different for the Soviet soldier than for the other Allies and that’s why the Soviet Union collapsed? If that’s the case, my suggestion to you would be to prove it. From what I understand of Russian history, the Russian people willingly took on the sacrifices entailed."

First of all, this is not my argument, neither you nor Brandon has figured this out yet, so this casts doubt on any study either you may have done on Soviet history. After all, if you can't figure out the argument of a post on a comments section, you obviously can't handle long historical texts.

First of all- you ask me to prove that the hardships of WWII were qualitatively different for Soviet soldiers? No problem. I cite as my source: virtually every book every written on the subject of the Eastern Front. But the effect on the individual soldier has nothing to do with why the Soviet Union collapsed. It is the overall effect of the war, economically, politically, socially, culturally, etc. Even STILL I must remind you two that I don't attribute the collapse of the Soviet Union solely to the war, though it did play a major role.

If you think I am the only person to make this argument, I suggest you go out and get a copy of Chris Bellamy's Absolute War, where he advances the very idea that WWII was a mortal wound on the body of the USSR.

In the mean time, before you lecture me about history, you are more than welcome to examine the source I provided(Restoration of capitalism in the USSR) and refute any information in them that is historically inaccurate.

As for all of Khrushchev's so-called "market reforms," you're the first person I've ever heard describe them as such. I have to agree with Brandon – simply referring to a few small reforms on the fringes does not negate the overall nature of the Soviet command economy. Take for instance, Khrushchev's Virgin Lands program in which he attempted to cover the Soviet Union in corn. If the Soviet Union was as decentralized as you say it was, the leadership in Siberia (or other places and climates where corn would not grow) would have put a stop to it. What actually happened was the corn crops failed all over the country and the Soviet Union had to import grain. Yes, there were reforms that resulted in minor decentralization, but the bulk of Khrushchev's policies reinforced the economic and political structures generated under Stalin.

As for your 105 Sovnarkhozy, these were abolished after Khrushchev was removed from office. Brezhnev simply reinforced most of the economic institutions and ignored most of the problems: political, social and economic. Did people make money outside of the system? Yes, of course they did. Was there a black market? Yes? Does any of this mean that there was a capitalist system – possibly, but just an nascent one. All of these informal institutions arose because of the failures of the COMMAND economy.

My final point is, if the Soviet Union was a capitalist state starting in the 1950s, why was there such animosity towards Gorbachev's perestroika reforms? I would think that allowing private businesses to hire their own workers and set their own prices would be a welcome addition to a capitalist economy, like the one present in the Soviet Union.

I think you're the one that needs to crack a book, because you would be surprised to see how different the history of the actual Soviet Union is from your strange alternative capitalist Soviet Union. History is something that is generally agreed upon. Just because you say something is true, doesn't mean that you're right. Brandon and I appear to have decades of historical research on our sides, it appears like you have a couple of google searches on yours. Next you'll be saying that the moon landing was faked, because you heard from a guy you know.

Hahaha, that's great! Congratulations! Do you want a gold star or something? If you want to accuse me of misreading your posts, then don't misrepresent mine; I never said I had never heard of economic reforms enacted under Khrushchev. What I said was that I had never seen them labeled as capitalist; the reason for that is because no economist with any understanding of the concept would call the Soviet economy under Khrushchev and Brezhnev capitalist. The fact that some very minor decentralizing measures were made at the very margins of the Soviet economy doesn't alter the fact that it was still based on government planning and state ownership. But I realize that calling it "capitalist-like" and overstating the scale and significance of the reforms is a very convenient rhetorical strategy for you; it allows you to shift the debate from a critical analysis of the system of state planning when you can just say, "oh, but the Soviet economy was no longer communist when it started to disintegrate, so you can't blame communism." And let me ask: why did Khrushchev (and Brezhnev to a lesser extent) implement any reforms at all? If the Soviet economy had gained so much progress from 1924-53, why would Khrushchev want to interfere with such a successful system?

On the subject of the capitalist reforms, I am sorry you have never heard of this; I have, however. When Khruschev introduced his first attempt at decentralization, it basically made GOSPLAN irrelevant, leaving everything in the hands of the 105 Sovnarkhozy. Problem was of course, that these enterprises had very poor means of communication, and a new class of NEP-style men arose who knew how to get things for various enterprises. This was not entirely legal at the time- it was under Kosygin that this kind of trading was basically legalized.

Other key reforms were:

Selling of the machine tractor stations to the Kolkhozy.
Giving managers more ability to fire workers at will. Enterprises started to make profits by selling off means of production, and firing workers. The result was that the means of production and labor power became commodities. Profit motive, labor power and means of production as commodities- these are key elements of capitalism. By the time of Brezhnev, state planning was meaningless. Enterprise heads printed up their own plans, and the central planning bureau was prevented from altering their plans or changing them in any way.

I suggest you read Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, then read The Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR by Martin Nicolaus, where these issues are dealt with step by step.