What destroyed the Soviet Union?

Discord: / discord
The Soviet Union, the bastion of Marxist Leninist thinking, fell on the 26th of December 1991.
Fukuyama wrote a book calling the period that follows this the "End of History.""
In many ways, they were right. It signalled the end of an era for the world and political thinking, but the consequences we are only now just beginning to feel in the West.
References
Primary
Hello Sister clip: • Привет Сестрёнка - Hel...
Broadcast. Vremya . Moscow, USSR: Central Television of the USSR, April 28, 1986.
derzhavnyy himn Ukrayiny, Pro. "About the national anthem of Ukraine." Zakon Ukrayiny vid 602-IV (2003): 602-15.Fourth
Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, Georges Peronansky, and Tatjana Varsavsky. "Mikhail Gorbachev: Memoirs." (1995).
Keller, Bill. “Gorbachev Listens to the People and Gets an Earful.” The New York Times. September 13, 1988.
Yeltsin, Boris. "Speech to the Russian Parliament, August 21, 1991." In Russia at the Barricades, Routledge, 2015.
Secondary
Bittner, Stephen V. “The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw: Experience and Memory in Moscow's Arbat.” Cornell University Press, 2008.
Brown, Archie. "The Power of the General Secretary of the CPSU." In Authority, power and policy in the USSR. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1980.
Dawisha, Karen. “The Kremlin and the Prague spring. Vol. 4”. Univ of California Press, 1984.
Hughes, Gerain Hosking, Geoffrey A. The awakening of the Soviet Union. Harvard University Press,
1991.t. "The Soviet Afghan War, 1978-1989: An Overview." Defence Studies 8, no. 3 (2008): 326-350.
Kamrany, Nake M., and David T. Killian. "Effects of Afghanistan War on Soviet Society and Policy." International Journal of Social Economics 19, no. 7/8/9 (1992): 129-151.
Lewin, Moshe. "Russian peasants and soviet power-a study of collectivization." Russian peasants and soviet power-a study of collectivization. (1968).
Malko, Mikhail V. "The chernobyl reactor: design features and reasons for accident." Recent research activities about the Chernobyl NPP accident in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia (2002): 11.
Marples, David R., and David R. Marples. "The Effects of The Chernobyl Disaster." Ukraine under Perestroika: Ecology, Economics and the Workers’ Revolt (1991): 17-48.
Mastny, Vojtech, and Malcolm Byrne, eds. “A cardboard castle? an inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991.” Central European University Press, 2005.
McKenzie, Brent. "Twenty years on-retailer advertising during and since the fall of the Soviet Union: Tallinna Kaubamaja,“Estonia’s Department Store”." In Handbook of research on international advertising, pp. 179-197. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012.
Moberg, Leif. "The Chernobyl fallout in Sweden." (1991).
Plokhy, Serhii. “Chernobyl: History of a tragedy.” Penguin UK, 2018.
Plokhy, Serhii. “The last empire: the final days of the Soviet Union.” Hachette UK, 2015.
Schmid, Sonja D. Producing power: The pre-Chernobyl history of the Soviet nuclear industry. MIT Press, 2015.
Shevtsova, Lilia. "The August coup and the Soviet collapse." Survival 34, no. 1 (1992):
Smith, David James. “The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Vol. 11”. Psychology Press, 2002.
Tompson, William J. “The Soviet Union under Brezhnev”. Routledge, 2014.
Wells, Ludmilla Gricenko. "Western concepts, Russian perspectives: Meanings of advertising in the former Soviet Union." Journal of Advertising 23, no. 1 (1994):
Yurievna, GLINSKAYA Irina. "The Role of the Symbol in the Process of Formation of the Image of the State." ISSN 2078-9025 № 3 (32) сентябрь 2016 Серия «РеГионалиСтика и этноПолитика» 3 (2016): 42.и этноПолитика» 3 (2016): 42.

[@Tunda2]

You got it all wrong man, the Soviet Union fell because they lost that one hockey game and Rocky beat Drago.

[@randomcenturion7264]

This is true,

[@Grimnir_x]

God do you know nothing?? The Soviet Union collapsed due to their failed invasion of America... Go Wolverines!

[@wolfshanze5980]

You got it wrong, it's because Billy Joel had a concert in Russia.

[@croskerk]

They obviously lost because we had John Cena and the Dwayne the Rock Johnson

[@Tunda2]

@@croskerk bit early for them, but Hulk Hogan most definitely had something to do with it

[@typo_3148]

The massive fuckup that USSR has done to Chernobyl has forever tainted the public's perception on nuclear power, setting us back massively

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

👆

[@Edax_Royeaux]

The NS Savannah was in service since 1962 and people were already afraid of that ship's nuclear reactor back then, long before Chernobyl. In 1974 Japanese fishing vessels blockaded the nuclear vessel Mutsu from ever carrying cargo after a radiation incident. The public's perception was already pretty poor back then.

[@Herne0011]

Pretty sure its one of several nuclear accidents that tainted the publics opinion. Just saying.

[@scottbrower9052]

Russia (then the USSR and now the Russian Federation) has always been a massive fuck-up.

[@TTFerdinand]

And in 1950s the dream was that by 2000 all cars would run on their own little nuclear power plants.

[@blueteamepsilon7798]

This video helps explain to me why tankies think the SU wouldn't have fallen if they were allowed to kill anyone who disagreed with them.

[@createdforthemoment6740]

I'd am a little curious to wonder if that was actually true. Or would it have delayed the collaspe a little and have the fallout be far worse....

[@levinicusrex1006]

Like that Onion article which claimed that Stalin was 1 purge away from attaining real socialism.

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

It would've put the union into a coma on life support and eventually you'd see wars of independence imo

[@Sorcerers_Apprentice]

It likely would have held off the inevitable for at least a few years, before the Eastern Bloc decided to wage guerilla war for their independence.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

They like to imagine that’s the case, but the truth is that the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was pretty much inevitable once the Sinatra Doctrine was announced, and Gorbachev only did that because the Soviets couldn’t afford to keep enough troops in these countries to continue to suppress the populace. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism was really just the inevitable result of the fundamental defects of their economic system. It would have happened one way or another.

[@nrrork]

I don't think Gorbechev gets enough credit for softening the landing. The inevitable collapse of the USSR could have gone _a lot_ worse, but instead it ended relatively peacefully. The whole region could've gone the way of the Balkans with decades of civil wars and new countries constantly emerging and splitting up, etc. The region has heated up again the last couple years, and I'm not saying everything in Eastern Europe was great after 89 or 91, but it went about as smoothly as it was ever gonna.

[@jackthorton10]

And if Russia loses here… the same thing might happen…

[@BichaelStevens]

I really doubt it. Yugoslavia was a conglomerate of countries that h-a-t-e-d each other USSR was a conglomerate of countries that liked each other and h-a-t-e-d russia

[@logion567]

plus, unlike Yugoslavia, the USSR was sitting on the largest nuclear stockpile ever seen by man. the overall effect of the USSRs Collapse was damn near perfect for continued peace, but the aftershocks still remain

[@Legitpenguins99]

They got scary close to having a communist coup to reinstate the SU. nfkrz has a great video on it. One of his few videos that it felt like he put actual effort into

[@kisfekete]

I tend to agree, especially if we account for that Gorbachev was surrounded by Putin-like KGB thugs and hardliners. Imagine how much they pressured him to 'just go in and rough everybody up'. I don't say Gorbachev is a saint, hell no, but compared to others in the SU Communist party he was a remarkably sane politician. But to be fair, the disintegration of the SU actually did result in wars like the Balkans: the Chechen War, the Georgian-Abkhaz War, the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, Tajikistan civil war, etc. with tens of thousands of dead.

[@TheCowgirlBookworm]

I love the ending sentiment of “it got so heavy it fell in on itself” because I swear that describes every change in Russian government

[@4grammaton]

Unfortunately it doesn't mean anything; it's just a convenient platitude, the kind that Orwell advised against in his essay "Politics and the English Language". When you use language, you have to make sure that it corresponds to a clear, comprehensible image in your mind of what you're saying, and that this image accurately conveys what you're trying to express. This is all the more important in a scientific discipline such as history, where precise terminology is very important. There are massive structures that don't "fall in on themselves" because they are engineered correctly, and social systems don't even have mass the same way physical structures do. The US today has about the same demographic mass and social complexity (if not more), than the entire USSR did. The expression is misleading and explains nothing about why it collapsed.

[@Kstang09]

@@4grammaton I bet you're just a barrel of fun in real life huh?

[@4grammaton]

@@Kstang09 I'm the quiet guy who gets invited as an afterthought and spends the evening not saying much, but when eventually asked for an opinion on a serious topic someone happened to bring up at the dinner table, gives a response that leaves others thinking more deeply than they expected. It's not "fun", per se maybe, but still adds some depth and variety to the vibe. On KZbin, I don't have to wait to be asked, obviously. And yes, I am incredibly humble.

[@TheSkyGuy77]

Its almost like ever-expanding bureaucracy sucks out any economic benefits for the people/average person. 🤔

[@dominuslogik484]

@@4grammaton following that statement up with saying you are humble better be sarcasm

[@ironwolf2173]

If you think about it, it makes sense Kruzchev hated Stalin. He saw him at his worst, and given the fact this is Stalin, that's saying something

[@MM22966]

Well working for a boss that could & would quite literally have you shot out of hand & consign your family to a living hell on a whim had to be a different kind of "fun".

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Hruščov

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

Yeah, Stalin was a very special kind of evil, perhapse the platonic ideal of "if you can not be loved, be feared" taken to the point of Stockholm Syndrome.

[@Edax_Royeaux]

I mean Stalin had Marshal Tukhachevsky killed, there was no clearer example of sabotaging the Red Army and the security of the USSR in order to consolidate a tiny bit more power.

[@rustomkanishka]

The Corn Man didn't want his own legacy to be "took over from genocidal maniac and kept the genocide going"

[@B1gLupu]

Who would have ever thought that a 40 year military occupation of Eastern Europe would eventually backfire?

[@donkey459]

​@@WiegrafFollesi bet your TV says Russia still controls Kherson and kharkiv regions 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@bluemarlin8138]

@@WiegrafFollesNot an occupation when you’re invited to be there to keep the Ruzzians away.

[@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462]

​@@bluemarlin8138Russia said the same thing. The big difference however is they were lying.

[@TreeGod.]

@@WiegrafFollesthey wanted a land bridge to Crimea, an they got it.

[@Turtletanks]

@@WiegrafFolles 3 day special military operation

[@Ralphieboy]

Gorbachev visited the West in the 80's and saw that there were PCs almost everywhere, in nearly every business. He realized at that point that they needed that technology to be competitive, but that as a result, the government would no longer be able to keep a lid on the spread of information.

[@jalapenopixar]

Exacly, the bullshit lie that the goverment say to each party can now be fact-check with in moment of it when public. Open and free everything show the people that their government was useless and people all around the country were suffering the same.

[@Ralphieboy]

I recall a lot of small businesses already using PC's in the 80's, I did bookeeping entries for my neighbor's contracting company and even a flower shop I delivered for had one. Granted, they were small and primitive, but even then, it was possible to copy an entire Solzhenitsyn novel onto one or two floppy disks.

[@Aetherblade-z4o]

​@@WiegrafFollesyour point?

[@bluemarlin8138]

@@WiegrafFollesHe was talking about businesses having computers, which was true. You were talking about most *people* not yet owning computers in the 80s. That was also true, but failed to negate his point. The fact is that computers were much more widespread and advanced in the US in the 1980s than they were in the USSR. Gorbachev was one of the few to realize how much of an advantage this was for the US and tried to fix it, but even if the Soviets had believed him, their tech and manufacturing wasn’t there.

[@Aetherblade-z4o]

@@WiegrafFolles oh okay it was just kinda hard to tell what your point was

[@francise8698]

Every time i watch videos about why an authoritarian regimes collapsed i'm reminder of an old phase. "You can do many things with a bayonet. But ypu cannot sit on it". The meaning, you can maintain power by using violence. But if you do that then you can never relent and stay in power

[@carkawalakhatulistiwa]

All kingdom in the world😂 all history before 1700

[@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control]

Charles Talleyrand said that in case anyone was wondering. And that man lived to see some occupations.

[@Krysnha]

Any empier created with force, or violence that dont have anything beyond violence keeping it together will eventualy fall, before the soviet union you have Napoleon empire, it colapse, fast, because was make by force

[@gayanudugampola8973]

​@@carkawalakhatulistiwathe least authoritarian kingdoms did the best.

[@55tranquility]

I used to work with a Polish colleague who grew up in the Soviet Union, she was born in the 70s so grew up in its final years. I’m really interested in Soviet and Cold War history so would ask her loads of questions about it - I used to get her to tell me about the Young Pioneers and what life was like. She had some really interesting stories, her main memories were from the 80s she said everyone knew it was sh*t and nobody particularly believed in the ‘system’ but just went along with it as what else could you do? She used to go to summer camps with her Pioneer group and said nobody there not the leaders or the kids gave a crap about communism, there were one or two ‘believers’ but other than that she just remembers being outside and having fun like most kids do. They completely knew about the West, listened to radio saw films etc from the west they would joke about how nothing worked yet they pretended it did - she said they just hoped things might change but never expected they would until they did.

[@caiolima5016]

No

[@Samsung-1.9Cu.Ft.Microwave]

@@caiolima5016 no what

[@thepotatogod2951]

She thinks no one believed in the system when the majority still believed in the superiority of socialism. The soviet referendum before the collapse proves this.

[@justinallen2408]

⁠@@thepotatogod2951I mean they had free summer camp and I’m sure a series of other benefits whilst only rich kids in the US can afford such frivolities.

[@AllMyGabens]

​@@caiolima5016found the historically illiterate tankie

[@jrw2electricboogaloo411]

Blaming the last premiere of the end of the Soviet Union is like blaming a demolition team for blowing up a condemned skyscraper that was doomed fall and the only thing he ended up doing is directing it in a path that I think did the least damage and suffering

[@archer8849]

least damage and suffering? by giving up and handing power to Yeltsin? which caused an even bigger economic collapse? all the country's resources, all industry, everything that belonged to the state, so technically to working people, got bought for small cash by a few number of cunning and selfish assholes, who would become known as oligarchs and rest divided between criminal gangs. millions out of jobs, crazy prices everywhere, people couldn't afford to buy bread. those who had some property were selling it, to make ends meet. rise of depression, alcoholism and crime. birthrates plummeted, death rates skyrocketed. what do you know if you didn't live through it?

[@jrw2electricboogaloo411]

@@archer8849 I'm looking at it from the point of view it could have been a lot worse if he didn't handle it the he did I'm just going to say it's a lot better than war

[@n8zog584]

​@@jrw2electricboogaloo411 I can understand your point. I just think it could have gone better

[@Cordman1221]

To be honest, it would've required a truly unbelievably imaginative leader to even have a chance of keeping the USSR together, much less keeping its position on the world stage. Gorbachev was far too late and far too mediocre. Andropov dying when he did and the politburo selecting Konstantin Chernenko (who then died of being old himself) really ended the window that the USSR had to avoid the disaster that it would. Gorbachev was a...ok? leader but what the USSR needed was a truly transformative and visionary leader. Could he have done better? Yes, absolutely. Did he do terribly? I don't think that's fair to him. Gorbachev was a man who believed that the political rights of the people were more important the economic fortunes of the people. This is...wrong (see China or Singapore, where people are totes ok to live under brutal authoritarianism so long as their standard of living continues to improve), but it's not misguided.

[@tkelly6121]

@@archer8849Worst case it collapsed into a pure civil war with terrible trouble and deaths and half a century of active terrorism. Yes best case everything is rainbows and happyness but real best case is actually a peaceful corrupt fuck up.

[@darrellsmith4204]

Imagine falling asleep in 1982, waking up a decade later and asking "What's up with the Soviet Union?"

[@joerivanlier1180]

Imagine waking up from 1906, the tsar is still an idiot, some things happend but we still waging a war we can't win ran by people that do not know what end of a gun the bullets fly out of..

[@scottessery100]

How about falling asleep in 1982 and waking up in 2023 and think “ah no change then putin”

[@Albukhshi]

That idea was actually explored a while back but for East Germany. I wish I could remember the movie's name, but it was in German.

[@mjeffreya]

@@AlbukhshiGoodbye Lenin. I think…

[@Albukhshi]

@@mjeffreya Yep! that's the one! Thanks!

[@nattygsbord]

Yeltsin was entertaining. He took his plane to Ireland for a state visit, but became so drunk along the flight that he could not show himself in public so the military band and the people outside his plane had to wait for hours without him showing up, and he never set his foot on ireland but just took his plane to fly home again LOL

[@fakeplaystore7991]

Imagine being too drunk even for the Irish. Yeltsin was a man made of pure alcohol.

[@MM22966]

I heard the nickname of the plane during the Dayton Peace conference was "The Flying Wet Bar".

[@hardphlex]

Based

[@mediawarrior5957]

Russians, we are too drunk for the Irish.

[@Edax_Royeaux]

Yeltsin dancing on stage, showed everybody a Russia everybody could be friends with. Americans and Europeans understand people wanting to have a good time.

[@Alf9393]

Brezhnev is the single most responsible person for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[@yukitakaoni007]

the first one who started it mostly contributed to Kurshchev for literally centralized the power to the government and refuse to rotate the people in the political parliment which ended up with Yelstin and Gorbachev being the only (young blood) in the entire parliment.

[@shadowleon659]

I agree.

[@bookwormaf1471]

Nah, Lenin was. Everything that came after was the result of him systematically destroying everything he once claimed to believe in because the one thing Lenin could never do was put aside his ego and admit he was wrong. It was under Lenin that the ideal of democracy was ever increasingly perverted until his definition became indistinguishable from dictatorship. It was under Lenin that the practice of murdering any and all political opposition began, even if Stalin was the one to bring it to horrific heights. It was under Lenin that the workers' councils, in theory the bedrock of the USSR, were stripped of any power, and instead an unelected party bureaucracy was empowered. It was Lenin who ordered the Kronstadt soviet massacred in they streets of Petrograd when they protested this. Lenin reduced to dust every last promise of the October Revolution, in the name of his oh so precious ideological purity. The USSR was a falsehood, its foundations lies and deciet. No country founded in such a way could ever be anything but a dysfunctional mess. And no such country could survive its false foundations being exposed to light. Gorbachev didn't realize what he had done until it was too late for him.

[@Man_Emperor_of_Mankind]

Yeah, the Germans were correct in their belief that Lenin would destroy Russia. It juat took longer than they expected when they released him from prison

[@kolasillers7776]

I lived there. Gorbachev was that man. Russians hate him.

[@internetzenmaster8952]

"Alcoholism was basically... Tuesday" Wait, I thought this was about the Soviet Union, not Finland!

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

There's a difference between functioning and non functioning alcoholics

[@Revkor]

@@HistoryofEverythingChannel lol you had me laughign for a minute

[@ShadowFalcon]

​@@Shouroboros Well, isn't Estonian fairly close to Finnish as languages go?

[@EugeneJ1908]

Having been to Helsinki and drinking there, how the hell can yall afford to be alcoholics? Booze was generally twice as expensive compared to what I'm used to in Germany or the States. Are your wages just high enough to offset it? Or do hard-core alcoholics homebrew?

[@sodadrinker89]

​@@EugeneJ1908 Simple, buy cheap booze from the Estonians.

[@BigRedDragonFan]

I think there’s a huge part that’s overlooked the reliance of the Soviet union on oil. There was a huge correlation between the power of SU and the price of Russia’s oil grade.

[@babayaga6376]

Yeah, and in 1986, the Saudis started pumping a lot of oil, which became cheap, like around 10 dollars per barrel, while the Soviet oil was more expensive to extract than 10 dollars.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

True, _but_ that reliance on primary resource exports points to a lack of other exports, due to the prior stagnation

[@jonathanmerriman7899]

the same is true for modern Russia

[@MostlyPennyCat]

And _they had to spend all that money on food imports because these dumb asses couldn't even get FARMING to work!!_ 😂😂😂

[@ImmersedInHistory]

@@williamchamberlain2263 Konstantin "Inside Russia" made the argument that the explotiation of the siberian oil fields casued the stagnation. During a brief moment in the 60´s reforms giving economic autonomy to soviet companys was implemented, but once the state had oil money rolling in it centralized control again.

[@schiefer1103]

It‘s strange to think this isn’t common knowledge; not too long ago, I got my Abitur with history as one of my primary classes, and in said class an important final piece was the collapse of the USSR, right down to multiple pages on how each republic went about getting independence, and the causes and pressure described in this video. External pressure didn’t kill the USSR, it’s what kept it alive for so long.

[@muellermat]

Still part of my abi in 2016

[@PenskePC17]

Eternal pressure from the US most certainly kept the USSR from flourishing.

[@jalapenopixar]

@@PenskePC17 The US manifests destiny better, while the USSR is just so corrupted that everyone is lying but they ain't lying together, so they can't keep up a facade any longer. I would argue because of the digital age these kinds of bald-faced lies that the USSR said to different parties, they can fact-check with each other. The old, out-of-touch higher-up slow to adapt to changing times weakened the USSR's facade. The USSR and the Russians now try so hard to keep this toxic strong face toward the world and to its citizens but within, everything is rotten. Gorbachev's plan for more transparency should make the people trust the leader more but actually make the people see clearer how shitty the government system is, before people were afraid of going to Gulag now people can voice their opinion, and the government ain't ready to hear 100+ year worth of anguish.

[@arthas640]

​@@PenskePC17it was pretty bilateral. Even in the time of Lenin they were funding -global terrorism- involuntary international socialism trying to agitate socialist uprising. Their whole MO in the period between the end of WW2 and the start of the Cold Was was propping up tiny communist parties in Europe and forcibly elevating them into power so that then they could "democratically" get them to join the USSRs sphere of influence and they did the same with less effective ends across their Bolshevik and tsarist eras before the US-USSR rivalry. The only real pressure from the US prior to the cold war was the US trying to aid an ally, the tsar and later democratic groups in Russia.

[@bluemarlin8138]

@@PenskePC17The fact that an empire based on the worst governmental/economic system known to man was being run by the most incompetent and corrupt country in history is what kept the USSR from flourishing. If it had capitalism and was run by Ukraine or Poland, it might have prospered.

[@B4umkuchen]

Good freaking lord, that Minced Chicken Meat "commercial" is close to some kind of cosmic horror shit that comes up as vivid hallucinations when one overdoses on prescription drugs and alcohol...

[@jfu5222]

You can't say chicken mush without saying Mmmm! Hypnoticly delicious!

[@douglassun8456]

It's like a bad high-concept art film. I love it.😁

[@trolleriffic]

That advert made me feel like I was back in the throws of amphetamine psychosis and my mind was unravelling again.

[@soap_764]

My family is from Soviet Armenia. My Mom’s cousin fought in the Soviet Afghan War. Every time she hears the song Dear Sister (Don’t Tell Mom I’m in Afghanistan) she always says this is her cousin’s song and starts to smile.

[@mikedrop4421]

Keep on cataloging them Russian L's. It never gets old.

[@paganarh]

Estonian here. Lived through that period and wasn't a kid, so I remember it so well. It was awesome and very scary. Independence movement had gotten louder and louder over the years, as it never went away during 50 years of occupation, it was just silenced. Props on showing those adverts, that guy was absolute mad lad. there's a full compilation of his adverts on youtube, find it at your own risk.

[@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket]

I love your country, you guys are the single most advanced government in the world, the ID's being compatible with SmardCard slots makes me SO jealous, I heard they also hand out free USB SmartCard readers so you all can login to your "Social Security" equivalent, etc stuff. I've still yet to hear of any other country's that use a form of 2 Factor. You mad lads rejected EU (I wanna say Norway?) depreciated telecom equipment and instead decided to look ahead and go full digital (the other stuff was pretty analog) and obviously most people should know you all are home of Skype. The Grand father of "Zoom", Microsoft Teams, etc. Estonians all seem like good democracy loving people and I love you all so much. Sincerely from Murica land of the bourbon, home of the AR-15.

[@user-ly6pl5ot9m]

Хорошо что твоя страна входит в блок НАТО. Иначе вата туда точно-б ломанулась "спасать руSSких".

[@Faygo2215]

What’s the guys name I’m trying to find them but KZbin’s search function sucks now

[@paganarh]

@@Faygo2215 Harry Egipt

[@stellviahohenheim]

Risk of what?

[@jhanedoe]

Russia declaring independence from the Soviet Union is like a kidnapper declaring liberty from the captivity he himself orchestrated

[@tiigerpoiss2004]

Greetings from Eestonia, amazing video as always. Also what a surprise to see Estonian Soviet advertisment in these videos. The icecream one was and is one of the most famous Soviet adverts i think. And trust me the Chicken ad is as creepy even if you understand the language.

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

My biggest question is... WHY DID YOU LET HIM KEEP MAKING ADS IN THE 2010S?

[@MM22966]

Communist Chicken! Every Worker Gets a Leg!

[@tiigerpoiss2004]

@@HistoryofEverythingChannel I think the thing was we had no idea what Advertisment should be... so we just copied what the Finnish were doing, but just make everything TOO fucking long. i have no idea what connections he had that he was the main guy making the adverts. I tell in Soviet times connections were everything.

[@ptonpc]

Those things were works of art and must be preserved for the future. Probably as a warning to others...

[@mikoto7693]

@@tiigerpoiss2004That was my assumption. He simply had a connection to someone important within the SU.

[@eppcialism5395]

You merely came across the chicken ad. I was born in Estonia AFTER the USSR fell and still I was forced to see it. It's basically still a meme.

[@billlexington5788]

I remember when I was in Afghanistan in 2011, if you wanted to hear more cursing in a sentence than you may have thought possible… mention russia to an Afghan.

[@Pinter333]

Or USA

[@klusey5244]

That Ukrainian anthem after independence went hard

[@weldonwin]

Just also going to add, the Ukrainian flag, with the three-pointed crown, looks badass

[@StevenRamos248]

​@@weldonwinIt's supposed to be a trident.

[@gameboyterrorysta6307]

11:39 - sung poetry and folk were really popular in slavic countries, as they were often used as weaponry against propaganda and state censorship. If single instrument (like piano or guitar) were enough for artist to perform his songs, there were no easy ways to censor them. Despite arrests and restrictions, ordinary people were able to perform songs and keep them alive. Even in XXI century tradition of "bards" creating highly opinionated songs regarding controversial political topics or historical events is still going strong. I doubt there are many good translations, but I think you'd really like polish song written and performed by Leszek Czajkowski called "Czeczenia" with lines like: "but dreams of freedom are short in the east and cruel is end of said freedom". Thing that wasn't emphasised enough in the video is fact that everyone (except Russians) hated USSR and wanted a way out. And lack of cooperation demanded opression. With time, "soviet boot" was getting weaker, as union couldn't afford fighting wars both outside and inside itself. And with time tiny opposition of guerilla fighters rejecting soviet rule transformed into social and political movements that gained popularity with millions of non-Russian citizens of soviet union.

[@SelikBzdy]

Correction: soviet hardliners were terrified at the prospect of signing new treaty because Yeltsin basically strongarmed it into his favor so much that signing it would paralyze Union goverment and result in the dissolution anyway

[@Brent-jj6qi]

So… they were afraid of losing power, which is what he said. It’s not like the “union” should have ever existed in the first place

[@frostyguy1989]

The collapse of a country is never a simple matter. It's never just one thing. Most often it's lots of smaller things that coalesce into a perfect storm. But if I had to list reasons: an unsustainable arms race with the US, a communist economic system that was total bunk, cartoonish levels of corruption, a complete inability/unwillingness to improve the lives of its citizens, a costly war in Afghanistan, Chernobyl, ethnic and religious tensions, and an attempt by Gorbachev to reform a totalitarian state that relied on fear and violence to uphold into something more democratic.

[@bungalowjuice7225]

Maybe history does repeat or rhyme. It sound similar to today

[@3dcomrade]

USSR if cartoonishly corrupt will survive. But it is not. Nationalism still triumphs over corruption If say, regional power holders share the bucket of corruption with Moscow. USSR will survive, but they refused Look at modern day Indonesia. It should have collapsed, as its more diverse than USSR with each island being its own Yugoslavia. Yet it did not, as regional power holders and Jakarta agreed to share corruption

[@MM22966]

What else? Failure of wheat harvests? AIDS epidemic? Prevalence of abortion? Declining Russian birthrate? (Public) Failure of Communism in proxy countries? Smuggling of Levi jeans and rock music?

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Democracy is the will of the people. And a majority of the people didnt want to live in the Soviet Union.

[@Whatshisname346]

I do wish people would quit saying X or Y person won the Cold War. It’s like those people who say Putin started the war in Gaza; you give too much credit to mediocre people. Reagan, for example, did little to nothing to actually win the Cold War. The Saudis gave more money and weapons to the Mujahideen than everyone else combined, ie all the gulf states, Pakistan, Europeans, China and ….the US. We just know about the US because Reagan was good at PR. The US and Europe could’ve sat on their hands through the 80s and the Soviet Union would’ve still collapsed,

[@Ostenjager]

I think Gorbachev honestly tried to do his best to adapt the Soviet system to the modern era and the benefit of his people, but was doomed to fail.

[@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket]

Agree'd, if he were 1/2 as shit as the drunkards, sorry I mean Russians think he'd have just kept doing what everyone else was doing and they'd have collapsed twice as hard.

[@Alf9393]

This was always my gut feeling to. It seemed like he tried his best to keep the USSR going but it was just too little too late. By the time he takes over, the problems were too big to handle as quickly as needed.

[@joeblow9657]

I think it didn't help that he didn't slow down the reforms and get ahead of the curb if that makes sense. I know he was limited because a lot of hard liners controlled the major ministries and industries who kept demanding funding to allow him to do anything@@Alf9393

[@Puch300G]

He made one crucial mistake he implemented freedom of speech before he improved economy. With bad economy of course people would speak against government, because biggest loyalty builder is giving people upward social mobility. Just imagine how people would talk about USSR if for example Soviet economy was better in 1995.

[@bluemarlin8138]

@@Puch300GIt might have been a smoother transition, but the USSR-especially the Eastern European part-and the Warsaw Pact were simply tired of being under Ruzzia’s thumb. They hated Ruzzia for centuries (or 50 years for some of them) of occupation. They never wanted to be a part of it, and they took the first opportunity to get out.

[@millerlight2592]

Name a more iconic duo than Russia and Internal Collapse

[@stewm1267]

Afghanistan and defeating global military powers

[@kallekas8551]

Nice panning shot of Brezhnev’s eyebrows…😂

[@bradstory7585]

Good vid and thanks. You hit on lots of good symptoms about the ills in the USSR, but you might have missed the reason about why the 'Union Treaty' was proposed in the first place: Lithuania successfully left the USSR on 11 Mar 1990, and, Gorby tried to fix it diplomatically because the military option wasn't as palatable after he allowed the Warsaw Pact nations to leave without firing a shot. The coup in August 1991 was the death spasm of the old hardliners, and the USSR recognized Lithuania's independence on 6 Sep 1991, and most of the other SSRs left with Yeltsin declaring the Russian SFSR independent on 12 Dec 1991, making the USSR irrelevant. It was Lithuania, not Ukraine, that was the first to leave though.

[@realGBx64]

And Kazakhstan was the last to leave :D

[@fakeplaystore7991]

Borat wouldn't have it any other way.

[@realGBx64]

@@fakeplaystore7991It would have been fun had they not secede, and demand to keep the UN seat of the USSR :)

[@igninis]

and 14 of us still died

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

@@realGBx64 They would likely be denied. And the seat transfered like it was for China.

[@gravitydefeater]

I think one more important thing omitted here is power dynamic between the party and KGB. KGB in struggle for power and independence worked against the party in the pivotal point of this story.

[@ImmersedInHistory]

Every soviet department/agency had their own speznas units, for a reason. It's been said that they waged a low-key maffia like civil war behind the curtains for years before the whole union fell apart.

[@Rick-mn5zy]

"hello sister", which is the name of the folk song used in the video, has been updated/remixed for every single conflict the Russian Federation has been in since the USSR fell.

[@Stay_at_home_Astronaut81]

That fucking chicken commercial gave me acid flashbacks.

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

KANA

[@LegendaryPatMan]

Ohh I am gona be so mad if you don't mention dependency upon unviable oil extraction that was viable during the high prices in the 70's but not afterwards in the 80's when prices had dramatically decreased

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

You're going to be mad then

[@LegendaryPatMan]

@@HistoryofEverythingChannel my disappointment is immeasurable and day is ruined

[@Nairobin]

@@LegendaryPatManHistory really done screwed up… 😢😢😢

[@Nairobin]

@@LegendaryPatManAlmost as bad as bringing up Ukraine, but not bringing up the fact that Lithuania was the first country to “leave” the Union, and that his failure to push for a post-Soviet union effectively ended everything for realzies (it really ended when Yeltsin got into power. At that point, there was no way anything was going to save it at that point).

[@LegendaryPatMan]

@@Nairobin I haven't watched the video yet but there wouldn't have been a post Soviet Union, beyond the territorial conquests of Russia. Russia would have never let countries and ethnicities, that they saw as their subjects or serfs, be allowed to have so much autonomy as equal footing in a post Soviet Union

[@margustoo]

Advertisement from Egipt were mostly meant for Estonian TV. And they made those ads because a lot of people had access to Finnish media and vice versa Finns could see Estonian TV. Those ads were meant to make life SSR seem better for it's citizens and Finns.

[@ImmersedInHistory]

I heard that many in Estonia belived that the Finnish comercials were propaganda aimed at them.

[@margustoo]

@@ImmersedInHistory Yes. There were some who thought so, but to my knowledge it was rare. Far more people became more and more envious toward what Finland had and that later pushed Estonia toward democracy and capitalism more so than any other post Soviet countries.

[@Brent-jj6qi]

@@margustoothe Estonians were always some of the brightest in the union

[@TerminatorHIX]

Fun fact: Mikhail Gorbachev was the only General Secretary of the CPSU that was born *in* the Soviet Union (i.e. after 1922). Plus, in the three years between Brezhnev and Gorbachev, two men took the post of General Secretary and then died.

[@Warpcaller]

Great job, I was too young to really understand any of this when I all went down and general sentiment around always was : " Those damn Western imperialists destroyed USSR" guess it takes some time to have a sober look at the historical events of this scale

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Among my nation the sentiment is - "We along with the other nations destroyed the USSR by declaring independance"

[@quinbatcheller5805]

The long panning shot of Brezhnev's eyebrows really got me.

[@PaulAngileri]

Ya that was great. You’re listening to the words and then realize you’re either looking at a forest, or Brezhnev’s eyebrows

[@stumpymcstumpstump3503]

I’m a prior soldier from the American Army. I wholeheartedly believe that all the allies in WW2 had a part to play. If it wasn’t for the Aussies allowing the use of their bases in the pacific. The UK’s Navy, the USSR’s sheer mass of men, or the US’ industrial might, lend lease and Airborne troops, the Axis would have won. All of us had our roles to play.

[@AnimarchyHistory]

A Khruschev into Gorbechev USSR, with reforms and constant economic development. Basically turning it into Slavic Super China mixed with European Social Democracy, would have prevented the hellscape timeline we live in now. But, once again. Say it with me everyone... Tankies. Ruin. Everything.

[@erikprank4611]

As an Estonian, I can say that we would not voluntarily agree to live in any kind of Soviet Union. Soviet Union under Khruschev and Gorbachev was still a repressive totalitarian empire. Nor is today's China anything good , especially how it behaves towards indigenous peoples and minorities. So, I don't think that Slavic super-China can mean anything good for non-Slavic peoples who have to live there. European-style social democracy should include (as the name suggests) democracy. Soviet Union was an empire held together by fear, any turn towards democracy would have meant its collapse. Most of the former colonies of the British and French empires are also very poor, and they too have had several bloody military conflicts. But this does not mean that these empires should have remained together with some reforms.

[@090giver090]

Neither Khruschev nor Gorbachev were benevolent paragons themselves. Khruschev was the guy who ordered the crushing of the Hungarian rebellion and the shooting of workers in Novocherkassk, and Gorbachev sanctioned Riga, Almaty, and Tbilisi massacres.

[@baneofbanes]

Eh I don’t think it would be enough to stop the various republics from trying to leave.

[@AnimarchyHistory]

@@baneofbanes Oh no doubt. But imagine the development level, the economic health of the region. And the distinct lack of "death by gulag". The disaster of shocktherapy wouldn't have taken place, or at least would have been vastly reduced. And monsters like Yanuykovich, Putin and Lukashenko could have been avoided. Im not saying the break away wouldn't have happened. Given the nationalist tendencies in those nations it was inevitable. But the devastation left by Brezhnev's Stalinist nightmare on the development of Eastern Europe was and still is crushing. The northern Balkans and Eastern Europe are only now finally catching back up. Could you imagine a Poland, Romania, Czechia, East Germany, without the absolute hellscape that was the Stalinist bootheel. They'd be on par with France and the Nordics by now. The USSR was doomed ever since Stalin took power, his actions and decisions set it on the path to destruction. But there was a brief moment, where the trauma of the 80's,90's, and Early 2000's could've been avoided.

[@erikprank4611]

@@AnimarchyHistory Social Democratic Soviet Union without Stalin, without the Gulag, without other crimes against humanity, without interfering in the decisions of other countries, without Brezhnev, without corruption and poverty... Then it has nothing in common with what the Soviet Union actually was. One might as well argue that if pigs had claws, they could climb trees. Or maybe I don't understand exactly what you mean?

[@anytimeanywhere7859]

Within a month or two of the USSR falling, I traveled through it. It was...not good. Massive trash everywhere, little to nothing in the shops, people looking through restaurant windows at us like we were eating their food, air stinking with pollution. Whenever I run into people who long for those 'good ole days' (super old people who liked the 'stability' or people who were kids then because kids were well looked after aka indoctrinated) it always makes me sad.

[@Dendricklystable]

Not to be a defender of the Soviet union but that was the USSR under Gorbachev, the exact person that modern Russians blame for the collapse. It's the times before Gorbachev that are looked on fondly

[@Seth9809]

The decade afterward was that plus tons of murder and drugs

[@lexx348]

Modern Russians are the only ones who regret the fall of ussr, cause they lost the power and grip over other nations. Blaming Gorbachev is just such a convenient way of not asking themselves hard questions. So whoever Russians are blaming has very little to do with what actually happened

[@ennio5763]

The lack of goods in supermarket was also driven by black market. In short, people (and often supermarket managers themselves) would "buy" everything in the store, leaving it empty, creating a manufactured scarcity, and then resell the goods at inflated cost to their neighbors. That's how you end up with empty supermarkets. People were themselves creating the conditions for scarcity. You could argue that a society that products 2x more than it needs has a lot more difficulties to reach scarcity. But thing is, a society that products just 1.1x more than its needs can relatively easily be pushed into manufactured scarcity by organized bad actors. People in the west laugh at this, as it was a natural consequence of communism, and only communism. But it's not. It's more a symptom of a society that falls apart, with each individual willingly harming its neighbors for its own benefit. Recently, in covid times, we had to experience a limited version of this, with shortages in toilet paper or home consoles, most of it entirely manufactured by people intentionally emptying stocks to resell units at higher price. We were lucky that it did not expands to other more critical areas. That's because society is still working largely well, with shared values and sense of duty, all built on top of a shared dream of a better future. Remove that, and it's street war at the slightest shortage out there, no matter the regime.

[@bryanknight1056]

Underrated comment. We were headed that way pre-covid. The US is no longer a high trust society. Exploitation and theft infest every aspect of the system. Theres no saving it either, it will perpetually get worse until it precipitates collapse or extreme authoritarianism

[@mikoto7693]

Thanks for posting that-it’s helped me realise that the deep, rampant corruption at every rank in the Russian military I hear about today must have its counterpart within the civilian sphere. No wonder Russia is struggling in Ukraine with corruption being a foundation building block of the society and economy.

[@lexx348]

Yep, we were joining queues at the shops in the 80s, and only then asking what the queue was for, because almost everything essential was hard to get

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

The problem is that under capitalism, the sales drive more manufacturing so an artificial shortage can actually hurt the horders as they get stuck with a lot of product they can't move after the shelves get restocked. Under a centralized planning system, manufacture does not respond to a shortage as a shortage simply means all citizens got their fill. There's no profit incentive to satisfy demand.

[@Flutterwhat]

Premiers are so lame. by the time you've got this video released it's so far down my feed, it becomes easy to forget about it and just ignore it.

[@himanshusatav4343]

+1 specifically if it’s 2 days in advance

[@lemokemo5752]

Agreed, better make a community post announcing it.

[@Soundwave3591]

@@himanshusatav4343 2 days heck, i've seen some channels Premier-baiting a MONTH in advance!

[@triibustevonkass9100]

Fun fact: Harry Egipt (Egipt with an "i") was actually a secret... agent? Oh nooo! He was a secret erotic photographer! It was an absurd Soviet system where you worked officially (in factory or in communal farm) and then in addition somewhere else, which was forbidden but necessary for the Soviet nomenclature. Our family had a tiny forbidden farm, 3 cows, 50 sheep, 2-5 pigs and a particularly secret personal horse (it was forbidden in the entire Soviet Union, except for herders in southern Siberia). The high-quality meat and lamb produced by us and similar "secret" households went to the table of the nomenclature. Also, high-quality wool from sheep raised on pastures by the sea went directly to Moscow. And it is true that in the 1980s, the entire trade in the Soviet elite disappeared "down the counter" - there were empty counters in the shops, where some kind of complete garbage was floating around, which was produced by some factories due to the planned economy. Everything people needed, from food to clothes and household appliances (as much as they were produced by the by copying what was stolen from the West by KGB) was available only on the black market, which operated in the very premises of the same empty store. Entance from back dore only. And the cherry on the cake was that my grandfather's picture hung on our wall all the time in 80ties. My grandfather was an Estonian officer and resistance fighter who died of wounds received in battle in 1974. The last battle between the Estonian resistance fighters and the Russian occupiers took place in 1976, when the last fighter was killed in fire exchange.

[@jameswyre6480]

Ultimately, for all the external factors, the Soviet Union did itself in. The main object lesson I guess is that any place where a real republic isn’t going to happen will always have unusually bad cycles of collapse. Non-republics tend to fail to compete economically. While all govts have problems, in non-republics there is a lack of base competence as well as so much corruption they tend to fail spectacularly. The secret sauce of government accountability and a citizenry used to demanding it is less powerful magical juju and more of a ‘how things should generally be to avoid losing big’ type of thing.

[@Revkor]

one basica factor. many of the soviet occupied lands still had build's with WW2 scars like bullet holes. while the freed areas easily rebuilt. heck the Berlin wall came about because the contrast was already there.

[@Jhossack]

Republics are no garuntee of anything. Democracy on the other hand, be it republicans, parliamentary, whatever, is indeed a secret sauce.

[@Soundwave3591]

"NONO N-NO IT WAS BECAUSE OF THE DECADENT CAPITALIST WEST AND THE NATOFASCISTS! THE USSR WAS THE PERFECT GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY AND WOULD NEVER HAVE FALLEN IF REEEEEE-!" might as well get it out of the way before someone tries to "argue" with Tankie propaganda soundbytes gotten off of Russia Yesterday and Video Games.

[@kongomongo2]

Really nice video. Thank you. I personally think it would be nice, to have a bigger focus on how, after Breschnew was instated, Andropow took control over the KGB. He kept his hold on power for over 15 years and turned it in this big opressive machine we all know. He and his co-conspiritors even held Breschnew "hostage" as he had several strokes and wanted to resign. But that would have caused "change" and "instability" in the country and would have risked his position. So they kept everything as it was. People seldom moved up in the state process, new ideas were frowned apon and the bourocracy turned into this old people world. Where everyone and everything got old and broken and that "we do nothing new" mentality took really hold. I am no expert in history but I think that had a really big impact on the whole era of stagnation.

[@johnmcfuck9230]

I guess it wouldn't be out of place for me to state my opinion. USSR was destined to fall from nearly day one. When the civil war began, Soviets had to build a hyper-centralised system to combat white movements and interventions. And when they won they kept it and continued sucking off the power of local councils and giving even more of it to party. Which would cause absolute most of issues soviets faced ever since.

[@Poctyk]

Depends on how much Russia would've left with afterward. It could've left with more, and could've with less, especially with each passing decade of Russification. Let's imagine an alternative scenario where the only things that ran from Moscow were Baltic republics, while in U(kr)SSR troops from Moscow crush local resistance because communists in parliament block usage of army located in UkrSSR. Is it a collapse? Technically, I guess.

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Its hard to believe that you must sacrifice everything for atleast the army being strong when the army clearly isnt as strong as it should be.

[@britishsamurai1596]

a 70 day HOI4 focus

[@LordBaldur]

When you give people the right to say what they want while in a dictatorship, you will inevitably receive calls for democracy. That’s exactly what happened in the USSR. It wasn’t economics because the Soviets could’ve just made society more draconian in order to keep it together.

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

When you literally do not have the resources to keep everything together, it's a bust. Sure, you can keep making society more draconian. Until you become unable to afford it.

[@thehorselesshussar9813]

I used to work with a Russian Oil Tanker Captain, was a young man during the fall etc. One day on the Bridge he turns to me, "do you know what killed the Soviet Union?" "The Beatles" I kid you not.

[@snegglepuss6669]

One theory I remember reading is that one of the big things that brought the USSR down was them watering down the recipe for doktorskaya kolbasa(doctor sausage), the baloney-like pink foam sausage. So a lot like comparing the propaganda on TV and how they actually live, the public could see the reports about how amazing the economy is, and a more honest report on the state of the economy in the quality of their lunchmeat that was never exactly gourmet to begin with

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

You know I have tried it, my honest thought is that it was like low quality spam

[@snegglepuss6669]

@@HistoryofEverythingChannel Serves much the same purpose, too, processed meat that isn't too fussy about being refrigerated the whole time. There's a reason the Pacific Islands are crazy about spam, if you want to transport meat around in tropical environments safely, your options are keep it alive until it reaches its destination, or spam

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

Spams good though. Fried spam tastes great with baked beans

[@erikhallberg2248]

It’s so co to see this channel has nearly hit 30k

[@adenkyramud5005]

It's always such a weird feeling to watch a video in english, specifically from some aussie bloke, and suddenly hearing ARBEITER BAUERN NEHMT DIE GEWEHRE 😂

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

That song is just such a damn banger

[@adenkyramud5005]

@@HistoryofEverythingChannel it absolutely is. Just weird listening to someone Talk in english, about russia, and suddenly hearing my own language 🤣

[@WynnofThule]

Ngl though, their propaganda had one of the hardest aesthetics ever, and I'd like to see a similar kind of breakdown to the one you did with that French revolution poster but with Soviet propaganda.

[@HistoryofEverythingChannel]

I am highly considering doing this live

[@robertgonzales8478]

Ordinary things made a video similar in nature to this one about how the USSR collapsed on TV. It’s such an interesting thing to watch

[@pi.actual]

There was a vote. They were all asked if they wanted to stay in the union or not and they all said no. Not just some of them, all of them. Turned out that mother Russia wasn't their mother after all yet when Russian tanks drove across the Ukraine border in 2022 they flew Soviet flags. They still just don't get it.

[@compatriot852]

The real question is how was the Soviet union able to last as long as it did. It was a house of cards that had forcibly occupied multiple groups

[@Revkor]

desperation and power.

[@lexx348]

Force and propaganda. Communism in Czech Republic managed to dwell only 20 years after 1968 uprising crushed.

[@erf3176]

The Soviet gerontocracy and inability to adapt/change/reform are such seemingly conservative elements in the sense of wanting things to remain the same or to stubbornly hold onto some ideal of your nation's past glory and traditions. In this case, a not so distant past given the USSR's relative youth (but all the same). Seems kinda strange that the USSR, an empire born out of a total revolutionary change not so long before its fall, would succumb to becoming stagnant in such ways. Russians can try to blame Gorbachev all they want but he didn't try to do all these reforms as he did because things were going great. The stagnation already had them in a freefall. The man was no fool. He might have underestimated the dangers of losening the grip on power but he was aware. But at that point the USSR was basically a fish out of the water. It may not know where the next flip/flop is gonna take it but it sure as heck knows it is suffocating in the current spot and something needs to be done.

[@johndoeyedoe]

Read up on the 1917 February revolution.

[@Brent-jj6qi]

@@johndoeyedoewhy?

[@RockNRoll_Knight]

For some context "Uskorenie" at ~ 2:09 means "Acceleration", or "Speeding up".

[@give_me_my_nick_back]

Wrong question, how comes it survived so long with this much of corruption, missmanagement, political mistakes on every level, religious and ethnical divercity and many more problems that would have destroyed any other country

[@disastrousduckling]

Right after Stalin's death, Beria tried to dismantle the whole thing. Way too early.

[@kostka4876]

Another missed opportunity to explain why Kazakhstan WAS the Soviet Union for 4 days

[@steezydan8543]

that chicken minced meat song + video is an absolute banger but it kinda looks like its made with people

[@cmd31220]

What collapsed the Soviet Union? The Soviet Union lol

[@AlexxMk2]

The audio levels of the Soviet adverts are quite jarring for headphone users. Some video editing software has audio normalizing tools available. Still, good video.

[@RT-qd8yl]

This is the 6th time I've seen that chicken commercial. After every time I've seen it, I have a surreal dream about it the next night. Thanks a lot. Great video though.

[@mikoto7693]

I could have happily gone through life without having seen that advert.

[@jumpergamer1913]

​my guess is that it was the URSS that destroyed the URSS

[@battlefield3112011]

Why did the USSR collapsed? Because it had US in its name 😂😂

[@user-qd8yy9lc4g]

My mother, at time of Chornobyl, was a junior PromStroyBank employee at the republican-level department in Kyiv. Stroybank handled funds of all construction projects, and Kyiv department was the one handling things in all of Ukraine, of course. They had an inkling of knowledge about the disaster early because the inspection sent to see the construction projects in town of Chornobyl itself were sent back early. Her mother was a senior engineer at a construction bureau that would've handled the bridge across Pripyat near its confluence with Dnieper. The funds were delayed for years, and alas, the year when bureaucrats have deigned to actually start doing it was 1986. She was in process of doing early material cost approximations at time of the disaster; she received a phone call telling her that the bridge won't be built. In the Monday evening USSR has deigned to inform its populace that something was wrong. As for washing machine - my mother bought one after USSR fell, to great objections of her father of the cost. Before that, women had to do the home washing on their own! It took a lot of time and energy to say the least.

[@Zuiderzee-Lives]

The short answer, clearly, is having to watch that ad for minced chicken.

[@kevinnickel7529]

Im not a communist, nor am I Russian but the Afghan war era Soviet folk songs stay in heavy rotation at my house. Even pop music from bands like Kino seems better than most American and British music at the time. The lyrical content is on a different level.

[@stephenwest6738]

Russian media of many types was in a constant state of self commentary that bordered on parody. The cultural self awareness created some intense niches in which it was so self referential that it encompassed entire eras of innovation, stagnation, and nostalgia simultaneously. It makes for interesting bouts of assimilation and appropriation, but this is a result of being behind the curve. Pop music is probably a pretty good venue to see the results.

[@lexx348]

Ugh, afghan war songs are pretty lame. And Soviet pop music? Most people were trying to get foreign vinyls or copy tapes, those who could afford it, that is

[@craiglarge5925]

Remember December 26, 1979 ? I for one remember it very well.

[@mlmmt]

"Hmm, I think they might be bullshitting us"

[@strategicperson95]

The more info I come across about the USSR, the more I believe the government lasted longer than it really had any right to. The USSR really had no right to have even lasted under Lenin, but by sheer luck more often than not the USSR just marched on despite how fragile it was internally.

[@fakeplaystore7991]

Communism tends to last way over what it has the right to last - Socialism is rooted on state violence, control and vigilance, so they at the same time can completely disregard the population's woes while completely control their means to fight back. Just look at Cuba, North Korea, China, or even places that aren't nominally commies anymore but still basically keep their commie structures, like Belarus or Turkmenistan.

[@p.strobus7569]

As one Soviet citizen put it ‘we were taught that the Soviet nation required revolutionary sacrifice and we got very good at it.’ A nation can survive on pine needles and boiled tree roots if it’s motivated to sacrifice for a great cause. The problem is that the cause failed early and all they were left with was sacrifice.

[@sirius6738]

Except WW2 prouved the contrary

[@4grammaton]

"Things I don't understand must have just happened by luck 🍀" No need to revise your understanding or your sources, just write off failed retrodictions with a "eh they just got lucky", like a terrible poker player.

[@p.strobus7569]

@@sirius6738 WWII proved that when supported by the free world and engaged in a win or die war with a neighbor, the USSR had enough people to sacrifice and willing to make sacrifices in order to win. Even Khrushchev understood this when in his memoirs he wrot “without spam we would not have been able to feed our army.”

[@JohnRodriguesPhotographer]

Premier Gorbachev has stated the final straw was the Chernobyl disaster.

[@baddolphin1423]

SU - invades Afghan, crumbles. Russian Federation (smaller, fewer young people, fewer educated people, shittier overall industry) - invades Ukraine. I wonder what the result of that will be...

[@mikoto7693]

I’m hoping that history will rhyme.

[@Calbeck]

And Putin wants a return to THESE "good old days"- when everything was still screwed up, but you weren't allowed to think about it.

[@PaulAngileri]

New boss same as the old boss…

[@anzaca1]

11:37 There's also the somewhat comical incident where the Soviets got lost during a mission without realising it, and ended up attacking a small plant/facility in Iran, killing some Iranian civilian workers.

[@graysonwilliams4826]

No, the US didn’t “win the war by themselves,” BUT without the US the allies would’ve 100% lost. That isn’t contested by basically anyone who knows history.

[@hgbugalou]

Don't under estimate the influence of the free flow of information that radio and TV began to provide and by the 80s was widely available, even to the poor. That is one factor that is not discussed enough about the soviet collapse and one of the primary reasons Russia tries do hard to inject noise and misinformation into the internet today.

[@TheMormonPower]

So, If the Soviet Peoples faith was shattered by the loss in Afhanistan, when 90k were killied in 10 yrs, why isn't there the same internal revolt, when today 250K have been lost in 2.5 yrs ?

[@mikoto7693]

Yeah I wonder that too. When are the Russian civilians going to say “enough is enough” and put enough pressure on the Kremlin to get out of Ukraine including Crimea?

[@jorenvanderark3567]

​@mikoto7693 When it hits their televisions... which is not going to happen. The Russians learned from that mistake.

[@ernestcote3398]

I'm wishing the Russian people would rise up just as strongly against internal evil as they overcame the atrocious attacks and eventually threw back Nazi Germany. They should take the reins of power to themselves. What a life change that could be for them.

[@Aakkosti]

That chicken commercial is extra cursed when you speak Finnish: you can understand it, but it sounds off.

[@Snipe4261]

Thank you so much for exposing me to the uniquely weird world of soviet television advertisements.

[@michaelho1041]

Lesson learned for dictatorships : never back away from turning protesters into pink mist and your dictatorship will be alright.

[@baneofbanes]

Until the entire civilian populace rises up in response and the military begins to defect, and soon you have a civil war you can’t win.

[@7thsealord888]

I feel like Gorbachev got a lot of unfair press about the USSR's fall. I remember when he first came to leadership, he was generally seen as a a "safe" selection by the Politburo - uncontroversial, middle-of-the-road politically, familiar with the West, young enough to stay around for a while (unlike his predecessor), and with (by Politburo standards) a few mildly progressive leanings. It's a familiar story. Guy is promoted to leadership of his workplace or whatever. He has worked for this, he is ambitious, he is optimistic, and he already has clear plans on how to fix what he sees as the main problems. THEN, he gets his first proper look at the account books, and only then does he realize just how catastrophically *SCR**#W**#D* he is. That was Gorbachev, imo. The changes he brought in so fast and hard were likely things he'd planned to be a slow long-term process. But there was no time for caution, meaning that doing nothing and watching the entire structure burn OR going 'All In' with his changes, were the only choices he had. I still feel for the guy. Whether or not he was the right man at the right time for the job, people will always debate. But it's hard to see how anyone else could have managed that entire mess any better.

[@hydronpowers9014]

Who knew people bad at economics are NOT the best people to run a country! 😂

[@stevemc01]

Gorbachev was the guy who broke the landing gear on the runway instead of crashing the plane of the former USSR into a tower.

[@TheArklyte]

"What destroyed the Soviet Union?" Soviet Union. The end. Longer version: none of the soviet leaders were sent to USSR by an outsider force and came to power with external help. AI developers call this situation "sh//t in, sh//t out" as to when AI can't give a proper answer unless it was given proper information and description of the task at hand no matter how you program it.

[@fredro2363]

Good analogy 🤝

[@Sorcerers_Apprentice]

The problem at the root of everything was their centrally planned government and economy that promoted a message of collective unity, but in reality made no sense and incentivized dishonesty. You had a quota to fill, but there was no concern about quality, so you just did good enough, skimmed off some material to sell/trade on the black market, then went home early so you could tend to your backyard vegetable patch. You got paid money that was effectively worthless because the store shelves were either empty or had crappy quality goods, so you smuggled and bartered just to get what you needed. You couldn't leave or vote out your idiotic leadership, so you just smiled and went through the motions. Answering complaints with tanks, bullets and disappearances was the only thing holding it all together (along with oil money), so it all fell apart the moment the repression stopped. The only good things to come out of the USSR were their metro stations, dug large and deep into the ground so they could double as emergency shelters in the event of a war with NATO. Also their arts and animation, where a lot of creative types who were unable/unwilling to leave could create without worrying about profits.

[@frankthetank5708]

A centralized economy works in China. That's not the point. Inefficiency, lack of control, corruption and the arms race has finished the country.

[@4grammaton]

" You had a quota to fill, but there was no concern about quality, so you just did good enough, skimmed off some material to sell/trade on the black market" And here, in the comments section, predictably we have another expert whose qualifications include watching "Enemy at the Gates" as a teen. Please google what the "GOST" system was (and is), which strictly regulated standards and definitions for every possible method and object of production, setting quality and tolerances within strict limits, and also Soviet laws on counterrevolutionary and industrial sabotage, which is what you would be tried under if you were cutting corners at the production line. Also google information on worker's premiums in the Soviet union, rewards for achieving certain quotas or doing good work without incident (state-paid trips to sanatoriums, resorts, summer camps, bonuses), career progression and promotions, along with differences in salary between various professions and rungs on the managerial hierarchy. Then come back and tell me about "no incentives". I have 4 Soviet-Russian grandparents, 2 Soviet-Russian parents (2 grandparents are still alive here in Moscow), and at least 3 grandparents spent their lives working their asses off, committing themselves to their careers and their profession, and making a decent living as a result, compared to many of their peers. "skimmed off some material to sell/trade on the black market" Please tell me all about this average Soviet timetable. I'm absolutely fascinated. Would the black market sale happen before or after the bus-ride home? Where was this "black market" located, at the abandoned warehouse next to the sausage shop, or in the basement of a disused train depo? Did everyone have their own little stall with a table and big sign that said where they worked at, so lucky shoppers could identify what kind of stolen goods they could buy? "The usual today, Ivan?" "Yes, Dimitry, I'd like the industrial lathe today please, and 10 boxes of paperclips". "then went home early so you could tend to your backyard vegetable patch." Please tell me more about the "backyard vegetable patches" in the city apartment. Would it hang off the window-sill in a big tray? And in the winter, would they bring it inside and set up a big indoor-greenhouse for the onions? I'm guessing the big industrial lights and glass panes would be purchased at the black market sale after work? I struggle to imagine how this would all fit on the subway carriage. Please, I'm dying to know more about my parents' and grandparents' lifestyles. They never told me about any of this, you see, I'm glad I finally have a youtube comment to enlighten me. "You got paid money that was effectively worthless because the store shelves were either empty" Yes, absolutely. For over half-a-century, the Gosbank of the USSR issued money for the Soviet economy, printing millions of paper rubles for circulation, and everyone conveniently rolled it up into toilet paper and wiped their asses with it. Shops just existed for show, you know, for background noise. In reality the real shops (and civilisation) were underground, in the subway, I assume (the only good thing the Soviet system made). Like Metro 2033. "You couldn't leave or vote out your idiotic leadership" You know, apart from Khruschev, the head of the country, who was voted out for idiotic leadership. "Answering complaints with tanks, bullets and disappearances" Try googling what a "book of complaints and suggestions" was in Soviet shops. You know, the ones that were perpetually empty and nobody went to anyway, because they all went to the big black market sale in the subway instead, filled to the brim with stolen goods from work, where everyone got paid with worthless money. "The only good things to come out of the USSR were their metro stations" ("The only good things to come out of the USSR which the youtube algorithm showed me and which I see in my favorite video game, 2033") "Also their arts and animation, where a lot of creative types who were unable/unwilling to leave could create without worrying about profits." How so? Why would they be able to create without worrying about profits? There was no quality control, right? And whatever they were paid, it was worthless toilet paper money, no? The only way they would be able to survive would be by growing onions in the backyard and by stealing pencils at work to barter at the black market next to the sausage shop that was always empty. So where was the incentive to produce anything? And you said "unwilling" to leave along with "unable"? Who would be "unwilling" to leave the hell you described?

[@user-bw6jg4ej2m]

Amen, brother/sister. Also, ironic how the war with NATO never came, but those deep metro stations in Ukraine finally saw their defensive use... against fas**st ruZZia itself. (YT censorship at its best: vatnik comments calling ukrainians naz*s (without asterisk!) get through, but I can't call ruZZia fas**st without asterisks 🤦‍♂)

[@user-bw6jg4ej2m]

@@4grammaton Well of course there's a russian defending USSR in the comments 😁 (but hey, that's why I scrolled down so I'm not even mad) People living in moscow telling the rest of ruZZia / USSR that it wasn't/isn't so bad - some things never change 🤣

[@BeepBoop2221]

​@@user-bw6jg4ej2m there are critiques to be made of the USSR, but what you are doing here isn't addressing what they said.

[@NickJohnCoop]

What tankies will never admit is that the idea of communism have always been more popular in countries were it was never implemented.

[@AriEl93333]

I know many won't agree But throughout the whole history of the USSR Stalin was the perfect leader He knew what the nation needed Albeit using means and methods that were inhumane Yet he knew how to keep the party, people, military, and economy in line

[@RedCommunistDragon]

Stalin and Khrushchev were definitely the best (but I think Khrushchev was better though). Stalin just had to be the next Ivan the Terrible.

[@Sean12248]

I remember I had a political science class in college and this wad one of the questions. I answered it in a 4 page summary of what you said 😂

[@immikeurnot]

Communism. Communism destroyed the USSR. There. I saved everybody 25 minutes.

[@jameslewis2635]

Michiel Gorbachev said that the thing that doomed the Soviet Union was the Chernobyl disaster. The reason for this is that the society depended on the prevent idea that those of higher ranks knew better than anyone below them. This illusion was shattered after people found out what happened.

[@headsup2433]

You can`t have anything to eat, but you can have a TV, and they excepted that.

[@Blader445]

In modern day China, there’s the saying of Cha Ba Du Wo, ie-good enough. A very communist and Soviet mindset, if you stare at infrastructure long enough.

[@sodadrinker89]

I mean, the 差不多 mentality satirized by Chinese writers even before the Communist era.

[@Jump-Shack]

This video gives me a whole new perspective on why the soviet union collapsed in a lot more detail also ngl that chicken ad is oddly surreal