When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
InterNations
Russia

Did The Soviet Union Drink Itself To Death?

Overly reliant on commodities and energy exports, and grossly out of balance on the agricultural front, Russia’s Soviet-era economy was doomed to collapse, argues Hungarian historian György Dalos. It didn't help that the USSR kept boosting alcoho

Did The Soviet Union Drink Itself To Death?

*NEWSBITES

It's been 20 years since the fall of the Soviet empire and hardly a year goes by without at least one new book offering to explain the collapse. This year is no exception. Berlin-based Hungarian historian György Dalos adds his views in the recently published Lebt wohl, Genossen (Goodbye, Comrades). But while the subject itself may be a bit old hat at this point, Dalos' contribution – which contains some novel and very interesting details – is nevertheless worth paying attention to.

The Hungarian author starts his argument by quoting British historian Norman Davies: "The most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course." Unlike the Roman Empire, the Soviet Union wasn't attacked by barbarians. Nor was it carved up by hungry neighbors, or worn down by a major war. "It died because it had to," said Davies.

Dalos spells out that "natural course" by sketching some political, cultural and everyday realities of late socialism that illustrate how Communism was not destroyed from the outside but simply disintegrated, came unglued at the seams, collapsed under its own weight. Die-hard Communists will no doubt resist Dalos' arguments, but the number of examples he provides to illustrate his thesis is substantial.

Dalos mentions the work of Soviet economists working with Tatjana Saslawskaja and Abel Aganbegjan at the prestigious Novosibirsk Institute of Economics in Siberia. Those researchers showed early on that a controlled economy was the underlying reason for the stagnation of the Soviet economy.

Exports were particularly unhealthy: they increasingly consisted of commodities and energy and less and less of machines and manufactured products – a situation that Russia still suffers from today.

Things didn't look much better in the agricultural sector, with imbalances that had the Soviets producing six times more tractors than the United States, which had more grain. Again, Dalos concludes, unless today's Russia comes up with sustainable reforms, the rebirth of anything resembling an empire is not in the cards.

One of the most compelling arguments Dalos advances for the implosion of the Soviet Union is the role played by alcohol. Between 1936 and 1970, alcohol production rose by 157%. By 1975, it increased by 214%, and by 1976 it reached 327%. The state alcohol monopoly may have been pulling in 20 billion rubles yearly during the 1970s, and 40 billion in the 1980s, but the cost to the economy of lowered production due to alcohol-related causes, not least sickness, was far, far higher.

Read the full story in German by Thomas Speckmann

Photo - Leo Smith Photos / gaucho74

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

Iran's War On Abortion Rights, A Toxic Mix Of Theocracy And Demographic Panic

Ending a pregnancy has become a major complication, and a crime, for Iranian women who cannot or will not have children in a country wracked by socio-economic woes and a leadership.

photo of a young child surrounded by women in chadors

Iran's government wants to boost the birth rate at all costs

Office of Supreme Leader/ZUMA
Firoozeh Nordstrom

Keen to boost the population, Iran's Islamic regime has reversed its half-hearted family planning policies of earlier years and is curbing birth control with measures that include banning abortion.

Its (2021) Law to Support the Family and Rejuvenate the Population (Qanun-e hemayat az khanevadeh va javani-e jam'iyat) threatens to fine the women who want to abort, and fine, imprison, and dismiss the performing physician, if the pregnancy is not deemed to be life-threatening. The law also bans contraceptives.

For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.

The measures are in line with the dictates of Iran's Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. He was already denouncing birth control policies by 2018-19, though conservative elements among Iran's rulers have always dismissed birth control as a piece of Western corruption.

Today, measures to boost families include land and credit incentives for young couples, but it is difficult to say how far they will counter a marked reluctance among Iranians to marry and procreate. Kayhan-London had an online conversation with individuals affected by the new rules in Iran.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest