Comments by "Kameraden" (@Alte.Kameraden) on "Americans' Struggle to Improve Soviet Economy. Black on Red by Robert Robinson Book Review" video.

  1. External Capitalist forces kept the internal Socialist forces of the Soviet Union 'alive' which is often a great pun I like to throw at Commiboos and tankies. At least until the Cold War, but even then the USSR actively traded/worked with even many NATO countries. Importing/exporting materials/production goods, etc etc. I know a lot of Commiboos say the west starved the Soviet Union into submission. But when you hear that McDonalds and Pepsi were things in the USSR by the late 1980s I just don't see that being a reality. Biggest contrast I can think of between life in the USA vs life in the USSR though is my Grandparent's old 100+ year old farm home had running water, and eventually air conditioning. It had running water since the 1930s, and air conditioning since the 1980s. Meanwhile I saw a documentary which showed entire labor colonies in the USSR in which the homes didn't have running water. I mean if a Rural farmer in the USA could afford to install running water in their own home, sourced from a Local Well, I don't see why so many Rural people still have out houses in the Former Soviet States. It makes TIKhistory's video in which he argued whether the USSR ever recovered from WWII, and came to the conclusion that it's possible the USSR never recovered even from the Revolution itself, when it came to the average quality of life per capta throughout western/central Europe and the USA. Hearing horror stories of how many hospitals in the USSR didn't even have running water, and those that did didn't even all have hot water because they had no access to gas or wood furnaces to heat the water. TIKhistory came to the conclusion mostly based on nutrition, what the average food that was available pre-1914 Russian Empire vs what Russia had available to him for 70/80s USSR.
    7
  2.  @robbiecotner3666  "Head Start" is nonsense. As it's irrelevant. This isn't some stupid game like Rise of Nations which every nation has to research technology separately. You're also implying that Russia even after a full century never caught up even with 1930's America? Soviet Union was powerful indeed. laughs As even today in the 2020s there are plenty of areas in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus which do not have indoor plumbing. USSR did such a great job building infrastructure. Then you have say Japan, which went from chainmail and spears to Bullet Trains in a century, being a leading industrial and economic power for generations in Asia, and even gave the USA a run for it's money in the 1980s. With NO NATURAL RESOURCES of her own. Which means during her most prosperous times she had to buy/trade for all the resources which helped make her wealthy.
    4