YOU WON. YOU FUCKING WON THE COLD WAR. YOUR IDEOLOGY HAS DOMINION OVER THE WHOLE EARTH. THIS IS THE WORLD YOU MADE. THIS IS THE WORLD YOU WANTED. THIS IS WHAT YOU TRIUMPHING LOOKS LIKE.

  • Wordplay [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Tony Wood's Russia Without Putin is good on this. The first several chapters dig into how the Soviet system offered fertile soil for the growth of neoliberal capitalism via shock therapy. It doesn't touch as much on the Gorbachev years, though.

    In a similar vein, Stasi State or Socialist Paradise? has a few chapters unpacking a similar form of shock therapy that occurred during the fall of the GDR at the start of the 90's. For both, their end was a spectacular display of capitalist vultures picking apart artificially de-valued public properties and enterprises with zero regard for the citizens dependent upon them. This was done swiftly and brutally, resulting in widespread destabilization of the economy with waves of massive unemployment, poverty, and general disempowerment of the proletariat.