so how did the space race help the communists stay alive??
The Mongols successfully invaded Russia, I don't see why ISIS couldn't do it.
Well they collapsed so I guess you could say it didn't, if anything they got BTFO even faster by America because they landed on the moon and had their missile defense program
>>356315
The Chechens actually won one war against Russia.
>>356325
Because cavalry and archers and medieval siege engines aren't really that effective on a modern day battlefield.
>>356334
And then sold themselves back to the Russians, what's your point?
>>356315
Book on this topic actually.
Basically a huge propaganda boost while giving hope to the Communists themselves that the dream of Communism was just around the corner (Khrushchev himself believing they would have full Communism and a Communist space empire by the end of the 1970s).
It also scared the fuck out of the rest of the world along with huge economic growth numbers coming out of the USSR at the time. Imagine its 2015, nobody has been in space, China's economy is growing a percentage every single year then China reveals "Oh we're in space already bro and we are going to colonize the moon and mars!". In the 1950s, people legit thought the USSR was going to win and that Soviet Communism was proving itself the superior system.
>>356325
it wasnt even unified russia at that point
>>356351
was it expensive? There's lots of theories people tell me that america tricked them into buying themselves to death, i don't believe they could be that stupid
>>356351
Communist ideology was appealing to a whole bunch post-colonialist countries. Of course it turned out it was all smoke and mirrors and communism couldn't adapt to a consumer based market and sustain the needs of the people.
>>356377
>tricked them
You mean overmilitary spending in response to Reagan and his arms buildup? No. The USSR was already in trouble by then. It was structurally moribund with n ossified leadership and degrading industrially. It would have died regardless though if Gorbachev had been successful it might have hobbled along for a decade or two.
>>356377
Military spending in the USSR was off the rails, but the USSR was fucked economically when reforms, even reforms to improve planning through computers were trialed but abandoned despite massive improved productivity in 1969. (..Th...thanks Brezhnev!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Kosygin#The_.22Kosygin.22_reform
>>356384
It wasn't ALL smoke and mirrors. Top down economies combined with moral incentives towards growth can be really effective in highly simplified economies.
The problem is once you've maximized growth in those basic commodities, yeah, you've got to adapt to a consumer based market system.
>>356427
Right which is the problem. They need to adapt to the consumer market and that usually happens by privatization and/or making the SOEs more efficient. That model of course isn't possible and feasible ideologically in those countries that were imitating the Soviets.
>>356463
Agreed. But in the 1950s, this formed an additional reason why Soviet ideology seemed so appealing to post-colonial nations.
Western models of competition, entrepreneurship, etc. seemed abstract at best and the proponents of these seemed at times willfully ignorant of the problems of the third world.
When 90% of your labor force is involved in rice farming, it does make a lot of sense to say "Why doesn't a central committee draw up some plans for land clearance?"
You do that and you'll see solid, impressive growth for a decade. Back in the 1950s, these problems hadn't emerged yet, partially because the soviet economy itself fell back to a massively simplified state because of Barbarossa.
>>356315
never get involved in a land war in Asia
>>356334
They didn't invade it though.
