Economic

Episode 2: The Agony of Reform

After the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia became the world’s first Communist country and became known

as the USSR (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

—“Soviet” is the Russian word for “Council”)

. For thenext several decades, the country seemed to enjoy highly impressive levels of economic growth anddevelopment. Noteworthy was the fact that the USSR continued growing and experiencing lowunemployment rates even during the Great Depression. In the early 20

th

century, the numbers seemedto support the conclusion that Capitalism was destined to fail and Communism was superior and wouldinevitably spread across the world.However, even from the start, Communism never worked as well as most people believed. The USSRsystematically lied about the size and performance of its economy, as just one example, by exaggeratingthe amount of steel it produced in a given year. The dictatorial Soviet government also maintained verytight control over its borders, of the movement of people within the country, and of the media. Becauseof this, foreigners were only let into the USSR in small numbers and were only allowed to visit the smallparts of the country that were well-

developed *“Potemkin Village”+

. All visitors to the Soviet Uniontherefore left with skewed impressions of how advanced the country was, which they in turn reportedto other people in their home countries, spreading the falsehood. Outsiders never saw the other 90% of the USSR, which was underdeveloped and marginally productive. The government also made it nearlyimpossible for Soviet citizens to ever leave the country except perhaps to visit other Communistcountries, which prevented the people of the USSR from figuring out that standards of living were farsuperior in Capitalist countries. Foreign news and entertainment were blocked within the USSR, and allmedia were state-run, which meant Soviet citizens were always told that their country was the best inevery way. As a...