many ranking officers in the NKVD

As the NKVD was merged into the NKGD/MGB in 1946, and assuming that a “ranking officer” even after the Great Patriotic War would have had to have been in their thirties, this would make the cohort you’re talking about at least 75 years old. Not the most entrepreneurial of ages.

These services don’t come cheap. Nothing like putting old school skills on the market and at a good price I’d wager. Follow your own nose comrade.

Heh – Gogol gadget! But I digest…

Not seeing any entrepreneurialism there, Anthony. Would you like a third attempt at substantiating your assertion?

Oh yes, the Soviet Union was building a monster naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, [South] Vietnam.

That could not happen until after the US puppets were defeated in 1975.

Thereafter the Soviet Union spent itself into serious imperial overreach.

La Ruée au Larousse du Roux Russe

No, it’s tosh. Cam Ranh Bay had a negligible impact on overall Soviet defence spending.

Katz

Source?

Katz, since you are the one making the big claim the onus is on you, and not fyodor, to provide your sources and prove your claim.

(Hint: They weren’t building a monster base at Cam Ranh Bay. The Americans had already built it. They just moved in, in a very limited way, probably to annoy the Chinese and everyone else in East Asia, as well as getting a longed for all-weather port in the Pacific.)

In 1996 the Vietnamese offered to rent the base to the Americans- again probably to annoy the Chinese- but on that I’ll let you do your own research.

No, he didn’t, Katz. The estimates that I’ve seen suggest that Soviet military spending neither materially increased nor decreased as a share of GDP in the 1980s. No credit to Reagan or Gorbachev on that score.

Did you see these estimates in your dreams RRRRR? Or did the Angel Moroni bring them to you on golden tablets?

Close, Lolkatz, close.

In fact, ’twas the Angel Baloney wot delivered unto me Easterly and Fischer’s analysis of The Soviet Economic Decline and the WMEAT report of the US State Dep’t, borne aloft on wings of carbon fibre, with a little help from a droogy drogue.

What’s your source?

No, it doesn’t. Check the data – they do not mean what you think they mean.

And what do these data mean?

Not a lot, given they track nominal GDP in USD terms, not real GDP at a real exchange rate. The person who wrote your Wikipedia article was economically illiterate, but YOU know the difference between nominal and real growth, don’t you, Lolkatz?

No, it’s tosh. Cam Ranh Bay had a negligible impact on overall Soviet defence spending.

Source?

See above.

RRRRR @45: what, haven’t you heard of Vladimir Putin?

I have indeed, Anthony. However, I’ve been heretofore unaware of his entrepreneurial escapades. Please enlighten me.

No, he didn’t, Katz. The estimates that I’ve seen suggest that Soviet military spending neither materially increased nor decreased as a share of GDP in the 1980s. No credit to Reagan or Gorbachev on that score.

Did you see these estimates in your dreams RRRRR? Or did the Angel Moroni bring them to you on golden tablets?

No, it doesn’t. Check the data – they do not mean what you think they mean.

And what do these data mean?

No, it’s tosh. Cam Ranh Bay had a negligible impact on overall Soviet defence spending.

Source?

Indeed, after 1985, Gorbachev much reduced Soviet military expenditure.

No, he didn’t, Katz. The estimates that I’ve seen suggest that Soviet military spending neither materially increased nor decreased as a share of GDP in the 1980s. No credit to Reagan or Gorbachev on that score.

As dd noted, however, Soviet military spending was at all times a severe strain on the brittle Soviet economy.

From 1985 to 1991 the Soviet economy grew rapidly.

No, it didn’t.

The graph and discussion here suggests that economic failure could not have precipitated the end of the Soviet Union.

No, they don’t.

Note that the graph indicates unprecedentedly rapid growth in the Soviet economy after 1985.

No, it doesn’t. Check the data – they do not mean what you think they mean. Your source, a Wikipedia article, was written by an economic illiterate.

However, that does not preclude the possibility that the inability of the Soviet economy to satisfy rising economic expectations may have played a hand in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Sure, have it both ways.

Indeed, the period of economic stagnation as indicated in the above referred to graph occurred in the late 1970s.

What was happening to Soviet public expenditures around that time?

Oh yes, the Soviet Union was building a monster naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, [South] Vietnam.

That could not happen until after the US puppets were defeated in 1975.

Thereafter the Soviet Union spent itself into serious imperial overreach.

Could it not be argued, therefore, that Gerald Ford, by refusing to prop up his Saigon puppets, set the scene for the exhaustion of the Soviet economy?

No, it’s tosh. Cam Ranh Bay had a negligible impact on overall Soviet defence spending.

It is no surprise at all that many ranking officers in the NKVD went on to become the new entrepeneurs of the period of crude capital accumulation or the gangstas of Europe.

Really, Anthony? Which “ranking officers”? I can’t think of a single Russian entrepreneur who was a silovik.

Tis a peculiar discussion about the collapse of the USSR that attributes the collapse to external causes (gold standards, US policy intervention etc) and neglects the agency of the citizens of that benighted regime. They’d had enough, support for a centralised economy ceased, the history was far too bloody to be minimised and the repression of freedoms we take for granted too entrenched to be tolerable.

Word, AN.

A revolution of rising expectations swept important groups in Soviet society during the 1980s.

The young were particularly attached to the promise of these expectations. Revolutions in communication gave Soviet citizens for the first time the opportunity to perceive the freedoms of the West. Rock music was a particularly strong agent of these expectations.

The KGB was flat out during the 1980s not tracking down the influences of dissidents so much as attempting to staunch the inflow of Pink Floyd, Led Zepp, and Michael Jackson.

Soviet culture was stodgy and threadbare by comparison. And young people were angry that they could not listen to this music and to adopt openly the culture and lifestyles that went with it.