What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Brain]

Interesting tidbit--in 1913 world industrial production was as follows:

U.S. - 35.8%
U.K. - 14.0%
Germany - 15.7%
France - 6.4%
Russia - 5.3%

At this time Russia generated around 2 billion kWh of electricity.

By 1932 Russia had multiplied this 7 fold to 13.5 billion kWh.

By 1941 the Soviet Union had taken the #2 spot in the world for industrial output, second only to the United States.

Agriculture was 57% of the Russian economy in 1913, industry 43%, by 1933 industry was 70% of the economy.

There was also a massive expansion of education--in the decade ending 1940 alone, the number of technical schools and engineering schools quadrupled.

Considering the many ways the Soviets had to obliterate a number of traditional Russian economic practices, and how beholden the Tsarist regime was to those practices, I am extremely skeptical any form of Tsarist Russia could have replicated these results in the time between the Russian Revolution and the outbreak of WW2.

How do these numbers compare to the numbers for Russian industrial expansion in the decades leading up to 1913, or to other countries in the process of going from a largely agrarian society to an industrial society?

[Jacob]

...under Communism both countries fought off incredibly dangerous and powerful invaders, and both industrialized and modernized across the board.

I think your post and analysis is solid and I basically agree with it. One minor quibble, though... my understanding is that the Chinese Communist strategy against Japan was to let the Nationalists bear the brunt of the fighting while the CCP preserved their forces to win against the Nationalists once Japan was defeated. They, of course, then engaged in a massive propaganda effort to claim the credit for fighting off Japan and minimize the Nationalist effort.

So IMO it's a bit of an overstatement to say that Communism fought off the Japanese invaders. They did fight, but their effort was that of a junior partner to ensure they were strong enough to come out on top post-liberation. I still think your main thesis holds, that the totalitarian tendencies of Chinese and Russian societies independent of Communism is not given enough importance.

[The Minsky Moment]

Modernity is a pretty polysemic word. When Sheilbh is using it as "modernizing project", it really is about rethinking the relationship between humans, nature, and the purpose of the State. It encompasses more than only economic development.

Yes.

And I think to CC's point that I'd slightly disagree. From what I've read and I'm not an expert, I think I'd say post-civil war to Khrushchev's removal the USSR is engaged in a modernising project (as you describe) as its primary goal and it's a revolutionary project - and possibly, arguably (which Jos might hate too) that means the most "Communist" phase of the USSR is also its most repressive and cruel.

It may be a modernizing project, but it was definitely focused on economic development.  There wasn't much serious rethinking of humans, nature and the State, as least not after the early 1920s.  It was more about exploring the various tactics and modalities of squeezing the countryside to fund centrally directed investment into heavy industry, and honing the tools of bureaucratic terror to keep dissent firmly clamped down.

[crazy canuck]

And I think to CC's point that I'd slightly disagree. From what I've read and I'm not an expert, I think I'd say post-civil war to Khrushchev's removal the USSR is engaged in a modernising project (as you describe) as its primary goal and it's a revolutionary project - and possibly, arguably (which Jos might hate too) that means the most "Communist" phase of the USSR is also its most repressive and cruel.

Then with Brezhnev and Chernenko you have leaders who are basically conservatives and it's about stability and preserving the state as they conceive it. Andropov starts to attempt and then Gorbachev starts again on modernisation (in different directions and ways), which ultimately destabilises and destroys the USSR.

I agree with that generally. We could quibble about when the shift occurred, but I would just be splitting hairs.  Which, this being Languish, means I need to think about just how to split that hair to further the discussion. 

[crazy canuck]

Modernity is a pretty polysemic word. When Sheilbh is using it as "modernizing project", it really is about rethinking the relationship between humans, nature, and the purpose of the State. It encompasses more than only economic development.

Yes.

And I think to CC's point that I'd slightly disagree. From what I've read and I'm not an expert, I think I'd say post-civil war to Khrushchev's removal the USSR is engaged in a modernising project (as you describe) as its primary goal and it's a revolutionary project - and possibly, arguably (which Jos might hate too) that means the most "Communist" phase of the USSR is also its most repressive and cruel.

It may be a modernizing project, but it was definitely focused on economic development.  There wasn't much serious rethinking of humans, nature and the State, as least not after the early 1920s.  It was more about exploring the various tactics and modalities of squeezing the countryside to fund centrally directed investment into heavy industry, and honing the tools of bureaucratic terror to keep dissent firmly clamped down.

I think it likely there were still some true believers in positions of authority within the Bolsheviks within that time frame.  But those people who did not fully buy into the notion of an extractive empire designed to keep the party in power were not long for this world.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Sounds like you may have missed a few days in your Chinese history class, maybe better luck next time.

I don't follow.

That is more than obvious.

They had indeed run very very differently for more than 70 years. That's kinda the point.

And the point you are missing (or more likely being willfully obtuse about, as is your innate nature), is that looking at the results is fairly meaningless without looking at the starting point. The United States was more developed in 1991 than Russia too, but the United States was also more developed than Russia in 1913.

Finland was a modern early 90s country. In the Soviet Union things were like a movie from the 1930s. From groups of soldiers with scythes at work in the fields to very primitive post offices and what have you.

Yeah, again--no clue what you mean. The Soviet Union in 1991 had computers, mechanized agriculture, a large industrial sector, a modern military, nuclear weapons, jet fighters, jet commercial airplanes, automobiles, roads, electricity, access to the internet, high rates of access to medical care etc.

There's really nothing in the historical record to suggest 1991 Soviet Union was the same as a 1930s Western society and certainly not a 1930s Russian society.

I find the mention of a "post office" confusing. In America in 1991 post offices were little different than they had been 100 years prior--brick buildings that you went into and mailed things in, or bought stamps in. The postal system's "back end" was probably significantly modernized by then, but the end user experience back in the early 90s was pretty analog. I'm not sure what you consider a normal modern for 1991 post office, but frankly your whole line of thinking where you are making weird comments about some anecdotal experience of yours 30 years ago seems pretty dumb and low information to me.

[Oexmelin]

There wasn't much serious rethinking of humans, nature and the State, as least not after the early 1920s.  It was more about exploring the various tactics and modalities of squeezing the countryside to fund centrally directed investment into heavy industry, and honing the tools of bureaucratic terror to keep dissent firmly clamped down.

What you describe are basically tools of the modern project. They stem from concerns over outputs and forms of collective control that have been linked to that fundamental philosophical shift.

[crazy canuck]

There wasn't much serious rethinking of humans, nature and the State, as least not after the early 1920s.  It was more about exploring the various tactics and modalities of squeezing the countryside to fund centrally directed investment into heavy industry, and honing the tools of bureaucratic terror to keep dissent firmly clamped down.

What you describe are basically tools of the modern project. They stem from concerns over outputs and forms of collective control that have been linked to that fundamental philosophical shift.

But you are missing the intent of the tool and the further philosophical shift from a modernizing project to one of control and terror.

[crazy canuck]

The Soviet Union in 1991 had computers, mechanized agriculture, a large industrial sector, a modern military, nuclear weapons, jet fighters, jet commercial airplanes, automobiles, roads, electricity, access to the internet, high rates of access to medical care etc.

There's really nothing in the historical record to suggest 1991 Soviet Union was the same as a 1930s Western society and certainly not a 1930s Russian society.

I find the mention of a "post office" confusing. In America in 1991 post offices were little different than they had been 100 years prior--brick buildings that you went into and mailed things in, or bought stamps in. The postal system's "back end" was probably significantly modernized by then, but the end user experience back in the early 90s was pretty analog. I'm not sure what you consider a normal modern for 1991 post office, but frankly your whole line of thinking where you are making weird comments about some anecdotal experience of yours 30 years ago seems pretty dumb and low information to me.

I don't know how old you are or whether you have any experience with seeing what the Soviet Union and Soviet Block societies were like.  Your attack on Brain is unwarranted and makes you look pretty dumb and low information to me.

Take for example cars, yes it is true the Soviets had cars.  Shitty inferior small cars that broke down all the time.  But you are factually correct they did have cars.  Nothing which compared to the cars the Finns were driving.  And I think that is part of Brain's point.  I was not in Helsinki in 1991, but I was there, for the first time, in June 1989.  What I saw was a standard of living, consumer goods and freedom of citizenry very similar to Vancouver, Stockholm and Seattle.

It was very different just across the border in the Soviet Union. 

[Sheilbh]

I agree with that generally. We could quibble about when the shift occurred, but I would just be splitting hairs.  Which, this being Languish, means I need to think about just how to split that hair to further the discussion. 

I look forward to your response

It may be a modernizing project, but it was definitely focused on economic development.  There wasn't much serious rethinking of humans, nature and the State, as least not after the early 1920s.  It was more about exploring the various tactics and modalities of squeezing the countryside to fund centrally directed investment into heavy industry, and honing the tools of bureaucratic terror to keep dissent firmly clamped down.

I think the economics definitely has priority - but I think there are still other strands. In the Stalinist era the horrendous policies against nomads forcing them to settle - there was a class analysis but also to make them a part of the squeezable countryside rather than allowing them to slip through the nets of the state as nomads have for centuries. It's also reflected in the collective farms, communal apartments, education which I think are all I think part of Soviet modernisation - as is the general mastery and domination of nature to increase extraction which supports investment into heavy industry.

It's a world away from the Tsarist world of huge estates (with Stolypin trying to get smallholders - as another type of modernising project, as I think there's overlap between him and the Soviets), islands of heavy industry, nomads on the fringes and other forms of traditional societies across the countryside. I haven't read it yet but there's a new and interesting sounding book out that argues (from what I've read in reviews) that the twentieth century is about the rise and fall of the project state which I think may overlap with - or perhaps challenge any idea of modernisation.

It is, as you say, all underpinned by terror which is in its own way made bureaucratic and more all encompassing.

In part I think it's a large part of what the West found so terrifying about the Soviet Union. I think for a long time there was a real fear that it could overtake the West (or that it had) and, perhaps, most unsettling of all that perhaps it was the future. I think it's part of what made the Cold War so intense.

[The Brain]

That is more than obvious.

So help me understand. Are you saying that Japan in fact invaded China in the PRC era?

And the point you are missing (or more likely being willfully obtuse about, as is your innate nature), is that looking at the results is fairly meaningless without looking at the starting point. The United States was more developed in 1991 than Russia too, but the United States was also more developed than Russia in 1913.

That's why I gave some background about Finland as nothing special developmentwise. And over a period a long as 70 years the exact starting point becomes less important to gauge a system.

Yeah, again--no clue what you mean. The Soviet Union in 1991 had computers, mechanized agriculture, a large industrial sector, a modern military, nuclear weapons, jet fighters, jet commercial airplanes, automobiles, roads, electricity, access to the internet, high rates of access to medical care etc.

There's really nothing in the historical record to suggest 1991 Soviet Union was the same as a 1930s Western society and certainly not a 1930s Russian society.

I find the mention of a "post office" confusing. In America in 1991 post offices were little different than they had been 100 years prior--brick buildings that you went into and mailed things in, or bought stamps in. The postal system's "back end" was probably significantly modernized by then, but the end user experience back in the early 90s was pretty analog. I'm not sure what you consider a normal modern for 1991 post office, but frankly your whole line of thinking where you are making weird comments about some anecdotal experience of yours 30 years ago seems pretty dumb and low information to me.

And their stuff was generally greatly inferior to Western equivalents and not nearly as widely available (availability of some military hardware was fine). There is no way a sane visitor to the Soviet Union would get the impression that "hey this is like in the West".

[Oexmelin]

But you are missing the intent of the tool and the further philosophical shift from a modernizing project to one of control and terror.

It's not a shift. The whole point of Terror is that it is born from the same forces that underpin the modernity project - one that values output and compliance of collective bodies. That's why countless books have been written with the aim of showing how colonialist projects ("high modernity"), are not an anomaly of liberal regimes, but the same philosophical aims, simply pushed to their furthest extension; or that the French Terror isn't an anomaly of the revolutionary process, but contained within the contradictions of modernity that simultaneously value mechanistic coherence, control, and the paradoxical obedience of individual liberal subjects. 

[PJL]

I'd say by 1991 the Soviets were about 10 years behind the West, if the computing technology was anything to go by as a comparison.

[DGuller]

I hate arguments the rely on personal experience, but then again, I do have personal experience that most people here don't.  My family moved to the US in 1994, and by Soviet standards we were doing very well in USSR (when USSR still existed).  My dad's salary was pretty high up there by Soviet standards, although it's a less meaningful comparison when so much of Soviet economy was off the books.

When we moved to the US, we started off close to the bottom rung, being on welfare for the 1.5 years while my parents we re-training to be employable in the US.  Even in that 1.5 years I thought our material quality of life took a big upgrade over anything I've experienced in the USSR.  Obviously it took another huge upgrade once my parents started working.

I think Americans sometimes fail to appreciate just how good they have it.

[crazy canuck]

But you are missing the intent of the tool and the further philosophical shift from a modernizing project to one of control and terror.

It's not a shift. The whole point of Terror is that it is born from the same forces that underpin the modernity project - one that values output and compliance of collective bodies. That's why countless books have been written with the aim of showing how colonialist projects ("high modernity"), are not an anomaly of liberal regimes, but the same philosophical aims, simply pushed to their furthest extension; or that the French Terror isn't an anomaly of the revolutionary process, but contained within the contradictions of modernity that simultaneously value mechanistic coherence, control, and the paradoxical obedience of individual liberal subjects. 

Are you suggesting that liberal democracies which, functioning properly, protect individual rights from the state are the same as states which engage state terror to control their populations?