Why did communism fail in the USSR?

@Crocio said:

A centralized, inefficient economy.

lol this post shows such a ridiculous misunderstanding of history & modern events its almost insane  if you're going to call the Soviet economy inefficient, what do you call today's economy, which has the capacity to feed, clothe, and house the entire world, but doesn't?  

I'm no political historian, but I'm pretty sure it's because communism sucks.

Communism is ridiculous because there it gives literally no motivation for greatness, and practically discourages it.

Oh right, and let me follow that up. 
 
Of course, centralization leads to economic inefficiency, but it's not necessarily enough to dissolve a country e.g. North Korea also has a centralized police state, but it keeps it's population docile. What triggered the collapse was Gorbachev's more open policy of immigration and economic freedom. In essence, he saw the problems with the Soviet Union and tried to fix the country by reducing the military enforcement, expenditures and opening up more trade with the west. However, this actually led to waves of immigrants fleeing the country and movements towards independence from each of the satellites that eventually collapsed it. Gorbachev basically loosened the valve of the police state, only to have it flood.

It failed because they built more bombs then us.

Turns out people DONT like living in the dirt while the leader and his friends live like kings?

@DeeGee said:

@Mcfart said:

@billnyethesciencepie said:

Turns out people DONT like living in the dirt while the leader and his friends live like kings/ Hmm, thats weird

But isn't that the majority of capitalist society as well? You could say that compared to big business owners/goverment, we live in dirt as well. EDIT: During Stalin's time, there was a cult of personality in the USSR. John Scott visited the USSR in the 30's and said that despite their living standards, the citizens loved their country.

Oh you COULD say that for sure. Doesn't really work though, since they LITERALLY lived in dirt.

So you're saying that AFTER the atrocities by the government in the 30's (great purge, 2 five year plans, Stalin telling Red Army not to attack Germans during Hitler's surprise attack), people decided that communism was a bad idea? I would see your point, IF a violent revolution overthrew communism in the USSR, but that wasn't the case. The government abolished it because of stagnation, and it doesn't seem that you're attributing living conditions to economic stagnation.

If you want the most direct cause for why it failed, it would be Gorbachev giving some measure of independence to the satellite Soviet states - perestroika and glasnost, etc. However, once the process started it accelerated until the regime lost all authority, because G. was unwilling or unable to simply roll in the Soviet tanks and remove the problem. Before that were some serious blunders and popular movements that eroded goodwill towards the USSR: Chernobyl, Prague, endemic Party corruption and so on. As for the economy, one historiographical argument is that Stalin's measures were necessary (at least to some extent) to force Russia to modernise its economy. It came at tremendous cost because it was an agricultural, feudal society essentially. I imagine while that process was underway wealth would be generated, but after industry became established the economy would stagnate. Low productivity, lack of initiative, or putting party policies over the most sensible policy. Not really my area of expertise but that's what I've gleaned from history texts.

Heres why communism fails.  In a communist state, or socialist if you are scared to call a country communist, I'm going to theoretically live the same as everyone else no matter what I do.  Whether I go to college for ten years and get  a doctorate or go work at a grocery store, I have very little reason to work hard to achieve a more meaningful(?) job or life, because I can't.  Why the fuck should I get up in the morning and go to work if I can't advance in the world and better my life?  Why should I put forth any effort at work?  Why don't I just sit at home and play games all day?  I do it now because I can work hard and get a raise and go to college and live in a nice house and drive a nice card.  Communism removes most of this motivation, because without out it I know I wouldn't do most of these things.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  

Heres why communism fails.  In a communist state, or socialist if you are scared to call a country communist, I'm going to theoretically live the same as everyone else no matter what I do.  Whether I go to college for ten years and get  a doctorate or go work at a grocery store, I have very little reason to work hard to achieve a more meaningful(?) job or life, because I can't.  Why the fuck should I get up in the morning and go to work if I can't advance in the world and better my life?  Why should I put forth any effort at work?  Why don't I just sit at home and play games all day?  I do it now because I can work hard and get a raise and go to college and live in a nice house and drive a nice card.  Communism removes most of this motivation, because without out it I know I wouldn't do most of these things.  Maybe I'm just lazy.  

Because Communism and humanity cannot co-exist peacefully.

We all know why it failed, but at the drawing board, communism seemed really good...we managed to fuck that up too, good job humans!

Fundamentally it was generational change. In the 1930s, the pre-Revolution era of people living literally like Serfs was in living memory, additionally the hardships of the civil war and WWI were also only recent, so comparatively, the Communists were ok, as the people weren't usually getting the shit kicked out of them by the aristocracy, and there was at least superficially some form of representation through the communes. As the generations changed, the USSR had to increasingly rely on repression to maintain order, as the new generations realised that living standards were so low, and corruption took its toll in addition to existing ethnic disputes (which are still present today). By the late 80s the new generation (now the third under Communism) had had enough. As has been additionally noted, the substantial arms race took a financial toll on the Soviet economy, although I would submit that this would not have been such a problem in more nationalist societies like Nazi Germany. 
 
As to the people arguing the Soviet system wasn't Communist, I would agree, however it was certainly socialist (just horribly crippled socialism weighed down by corruption), but in essence such arguments are semantics, Communism is what it was called, even if technically the theory dictates it was only a planned, centralised, socialist economy. 

I believe you have had your answer, but my 2p is what was the USSR was advanced feudalism shrouded in another name, which means the natural evolution would be failure and capitalism, a stage russia is working on now.

I love all the US propaganda here.

consolidating control of a nations capital in the hands of a few creates problems allocating information as information is not centralized.

Lack of resources/poor resource management.

Neo-marxists would argue that what the USSR had going was stalinism (and china had maoism) and that we'll only see true marxism following the fall of capitalism.

Not to get deep into conspiracy theories but proxy wars between the US and Russia during he Cold War must have been a big part of the strain on Russia's economy and eventual collapse.

Because FPSRUSSIA wasn't around at the time.

@Mcfart: Reagan got them by starting an expensive arms race that they could not finance. So as America began designing a bullshit plan to design a missile shield that would destroy missiles from space, the USSR, not wanting to be one upped by uncle Sam, became mass producing nukes which drove its economy into the ground (this was during Brejnev). When Ghorbatchev arrived, he realized that everything was fucked and tried to get the economy back on foot with the Perestroika that gave way too many liberties to the other soviet states who decided to say good bye to communism rendering the USSR obsolete.

Corruption in government, poor decisions by leadership and the United States. The Soviets couldn't compete economically with the United States because Capitalism is a better economic system. Their economy collapsed and they were unable to recover. 
 
Socialism does not work because people aren't motivated to do anything. Say farmer A works his ass of farming day and night to produce the most and best crops he can and farmer B is a lazy underachiever who does the bare minimum his government requires him to do. In a socialist economy both farmers get paid the same amount of wages. Farmer A is going to get fed up and become the same as farmer B and eventually there isn't going to be enough crops to feed the population.
 
Competition breeds evolution and better markets for both consumers and producers. 

I didn't want to flame or troll this or anything but...
 
Communism ain't viable. Period.

Where as communism is based on everyone being equal when actually implemented in real life, like Orwell said, some are more equal than others.