History repeating?, China=Stalin's Soviet Union?

Hi Imperialist,

A much shorter list would be to detail where the USSR was ahead. Perhaps you would care to offer examples? Commercial airliners perhaps? Or motor cars? Or computers?

The USSR had some areas of non-military technical advantage, but these were usually spin offs from military projects. For example, it had a boat/plane that used ground effect to glide at very high speed just above the surface of water. This was an entirely Soviet invention. However, it seems to have no practical application and development has stopped.

Another thing was that much of the USSR's equipment, military and civil, was derivative. The T-34's distinctive suspension was derived from the American Christie tank. The T-26 from a Vickers design. Even the Stalinetz tractor used a Ford engine. The USSR copied the Dakota. It copied the Superfortress and all its turbo-prop strategic bombers were descended from it. The Lada was an Italian Fiat design. The Tu-144 was a virtual external copy of the Anglo-French Concorde, and moreover, never entered commercial service. The Soviet space programme and ballistic missile system was derived from the German V-2 programme and have never managed to go beyond the basic non-reusable rocket. (What ever happened to the Buran?). The AK47 was derived from a 1944 German design. Its atom bomb's development owed much to spies in the US.

The USSR was capable of innovation, but by virtue of the skewed nature of its economy, this mostly occurred in narrow sectors of the military field where most investment was made. But even here, usually when it came up against US high-tech military equipment it proved inadequate. Even when Soviet pilots flew their own aircraft against the Israelis from Egypt during the War of Attrition of 1967-70 they came off second best.

What embargo on Soviet consumer goods? For example, there were Lada dealers in the UK. However, despite being the cheapest car on the market few were sold because the quality was so poor and after sales service miserable. Look what happened to Skoda of Czechoslovakia. Before WWII it was fully competitive internationally as an automotive producer. After 50 years of Soviet domination its reputation had sunk so low that, although producing the best Commecon cars, Skodas were something of a joke in the West. (You may find some old Skoda jokes on the internet). Now however, Skoda has completely restored its reputation internationally. Other Soviet goods that were available in the UK at the bottom end of the market were Sekonda watches. Again, despite being the cheapest around, they made little impact due to their unreliability.

The Soviet system was a crushing burden on every country that suffered it. The Soviet Union had all the potential of the USA, but a system that prevented it being realised for the benefit of its population.

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid, you make it all sound too easy. They copied this, they copied that, as if its so easy to copy a project and make it work too.
From what I know the US used German scientist in their Manhattan project too.
The US was also inspired by the V-2 German experience.
Not to talk about the german futuristic fighters/bombers projects which provided similar inspiration.

Hi Imperialist,

Of course what I posted was a simplification. I was condensing seventy years into a single paragraph. The important point I note is that you disputed only one of the examples I raised - space rocketry.

Yes, the US used German rocket engineers. However, it developed beyond the expendable V-2 type rocket used by the USSR into reusable technology like the Space Shuttle. The USSR's reusable Buran failed to materialise as a workable project. I have already mentioned this.

It is, indeed, much easier to copy than to innovate. Much (although not all) of the USSR's technology was "slip-streaming" behind Western innovations throughout the state's 70+ years of existence.

Cheers,

Sid.

I am not quite agree with your opinions.The USA space program was fully inspired too by germans realizations(including famous <Apollo> program),under leadership of famous Werner von Braun.About reusable space shuttle,yes,was a step forward at that time,but look it now.The international space station will be verry probably suported by old russian <Soiuz> space ship(reusable too),because US space ship become to have too many problems.The Buran(yes,inspired by US one) failed because financial and economical problems,more than technical one.And yes,russians was inspired by foreigns technical realizations,but every country do this in some domains(including USA).And in weapons industry,i believe russians is better in many domains (Akula\Typhoon submarine class,small fire arms,fighter airplains-SU 30,35,37 series,MIG series).

True. German scientists (Oppenheimer being the best example) did participate in the Manhattan project. But it is worth looking at why they were in the US -- because they chose to move to the US, and the US accepted them, and made use of their talents.

Certainly there were people inspired by what Stalin was doing in Russia, too. But I'm not aware of the Soviets capitalizing on emigre's talents for the good of the nation. They were certainly watched, if they weren't shot on arrival. I'm not sure I would put captured scientists in the same category as someone who chose the country he was working for.

I'm not aware of a Western embargo. I remember seeing Ladas, Skodas, and eventually Yugos occasionally as a child (and Trabants in Germany). They were so rare that they had a sort of exotic appeal. But normal Soviet consumer goods? They had no appeal at all. There were only 2 areas where they were competitive with Western goods in the Western marketplace (with a possible 3rd):

(1) Bulk commodities -- oil, natural gas, timber, cement. Who cares about their politics?

(2) Cultural products -- symphony orchestras, ballet troops (maybe gymnasts and ice skaters count here too). The Soviets only sent the best, and both tickets to their live shows and recordings sold well.

The end of the Cold War made Russian hi tech goods available, and some of them are competitive too: decent quality at very attractive prices. I'm thinking of lasers, night vision scopes, binoculars for example. But these were sensitive military technologies the Soviets did not sell in the West.

In areas that were seen as important to national prestige, the Soviet Union produced some world-class products: their space program, missiles and some other military hardware, sports teams being only a few examples. But in the commercial area they were not competitive.

There was an embargo on technology exports or joint enterprises with countries from the communist block.

It appears that my claim on an embargo on soviet goods was wrong, though its highly probably there was one, created at least by the war psychology, if not by an open stated policy. I mean, I doubt there were many americans willing to buy "from the reds".

Buy what from the "reds"? Do you have an example of competitive consumer goods?

Like I said, talking about competition during those times is kind of out of place.
Therefore it is hard to judge what products would have been competitive in a free trade environment.
To judge the competitive level of a product during those times just by looking at its level of export in the US is not right, as that level was not the result of free trade demand/supply dynamics but of politics mostly. Therefore we'd have to look at distinct prices of each product in the US and USSR.
That would be quite an endeavour.

Hi Imperialist,

I think the best judge of the competitiveness of Soviet consumer goods is what happened after the USSR collapsed. None seem to have survived in a free market international environment. We don't even see Lada cars and Sekonda watches advertised any more. One suspects that these had been subsidised during the Soviet era in order to gain foreign currency.

The problem was not the inherent talents of the Russian and other peoples, it was the Soviet system that didn't allow them to flourish outside very narrow, officially sponsored areas.

Romania's car industry is another example. The Dacia was an old French Renault design, while the only mass-produced Romanian-designed car (I can't remember the name - was it Lastun?) was so inimicable to real consumer needs that it didn't even survive in the freed Romanian economy after 1991, let alone internationally. This was not because Romanians are poor engineers, it was because the Communist system stifled them.

Cheers,

Sid.

Russian-Chinese Wargames

http://www.adevarulonline.ro/index.jsp?pag...ticle_id=147916

Shortage of cheap labor in China

The shortage is pushing up wages and swelling the ranks of the middle class, and it could make Chinese-made products less of a bargain worldwide.


Because of these shortages, wage levels throughout China's manufacturing ranks are rising, threatening at some point to weaken China's competitiveness on world markets and prod many factories to relocate to other parts of Asia

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/02/business/labor.php