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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Johno" data-source="post: 401981" data-attributes="member: 4388">(green slime @ home)Hmmm... i suspected as much. I'll just say that not everyone agrees with the "Reaganites" (I use this term for lack of a better) on this analysis. But thanks for the book recommendation. I'll try to see if I can find in the library.I would argue that it wasn't the military buildup directly, but more that the political leadership in USSR lacked the force of will to risk the good will of the west in order to quell the rising voices for independance. Something the Chinese leadership had no qualms about doing at Tianamen Square. Once they let the cat out of the bag, there was no looking back. And once you let the Eastern European states go, They couldn't hold onto the "soviets" of Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia, and so on. (but had USSR continued to exist, there would be no real chechen rebel movement)The trouble with examining the Soviet economy is that it is like comparing apples to pears. It is so very different. There is no doubt, though, that the military and energy departments consumed huge amounts of resources. But so to do these departments in present China... And China too, has many diverse peoples who think they would enjoy freedom from the central authority. Yet I see noone seriously speculating that China is about to disintegrate...However should the voices for freedom be unrestrained and allowed to organise themselves within the country, then that would be a different matter entirely. (and the subject for a very different thread). This is something of which the Communist Party Leadership in China is all too aware.Side note: And judging by voting habits in the West over the last 50 years, it could be agrued that they have a point: People are not interested in freedom (as exercised in the right to vote), they are interested in affluence. I guess people want what they haven't got.Which considering that even in the West, the right for everyman to vote is still a very modern and young idea. (Sweden 1911; allowed the vote for everyman, even those non-landowners!; 1921; Women get the vote in Sweden) so only 90-100 years old.</blockquote>

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