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Soviet Union: Countries
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The automobile industry in the Soviet Union is one of the most unique automobile industries in the world. Until the October Revolution, very few Russians could afford cars - the only (if few) cars that were around were imported into Russia from other countries, and even then the Czar and his family owned most of them. After the October Revolution, as part of the five year plans, the Kremlin felt a need for creating an indigenous automobile industry in the Soviet Union. The oldest Soviet automaker... was created in an unconventional way - GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, "Gorky Automobile Factory") was originally developed with the assistance of Ford because the Soviet Union lacked experience in creating a national automobile industry. Slowly, but surely, other automobile companies were created by the Kremlin, mostly to cater to certain aspects of the industry. Since the economy was centrally planned, there was virtually no competition, except by cars from other countries in the COMECON.
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By the time of the 1985 rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's last leader, the country was in a situation of severe stagnation, with deep economic and political problems which sorely needed to be addressed and overcome. Recognizing this, Gorbachev introduced a two-tiered policy of reform. On one level, he initiated a policy of glasnost, or freedom of speech. On the other level, he began a program of economic reform known as perestroika, or rebuilding. What Gorbachev did not realize was that by giving people complete freedom of expression, he was unwittingly unleashing emotions and political feelings that had been pent up for decades, and which proved to be extremely powerful when brought out into the open. Moreover, his policy of economic reform did not have the immediate results he had hoped for and had publicly predicted.
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For all its disadvantages, the former Soviet Union had one hugely overlooked advantage: it kept hackers, crackers and virus writers confined inside the country by restricting their access to the Internet. Comments from Gus Hosein, senior fellow at LSE.
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[T]he country's centrally planned economy was not able to keep up with developments in fast moving, decentralized industries like electronics, and eventually, the Soviet Union fell far behind western countries in technology. This was due largely to corruption that rapidly crept into the central planning committees (preventing reassignment of raw materials to those sectors that could use it more effectively) and the tendency of enterprises (the Soviet equivalent of corporations) to never produce more than their assigned quota and to keep their products essentially the same for as long as possible, since there was little reward for altering production lines and redesigning products. Consumer goods production never entirely took off either, largely due to the initial focus of the Five Year Plans on heavy industry, whose enterprises strongly guarded their assigned resources in the decades afterward. The increasing economic complexity in the late 20th century added to the troubles in the Soviet Union, creating a shortage economy as Gosplan (the planning agency) had to struggle to manage the sprawling nation's resources.
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Now that the Soviet Union, with its centralized political and economic system, has ceased to exist, the fifteen newly formed independent countries which emerged in its aftermath are faced with an overwhelming task. They must develop their economies, reorganize their political systems, and, in many cases, settle bitter territorial disputes. A number of wars have developed on the peripheries of the former Soviet Union. Additionally, the entire region is suffering a period of severe economic hardship. However, despite the many hardships facing the region, bold steps are being taken toward democratization, reorganization, and rebuilding in most of the countries of the former Soviet Union.
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From its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks). After the extraordinary economic policy of War Communism during the Civil War, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist with nationalized industry in the 1920s and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax (see New Economic Policy). Debate over the future of the economy provided the background for Soviet leaders to contend for power in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating his rivals within the party, notably Lenin's more obvious heir Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin became the sole leader of the Soviet Union by the end of the 1920s.
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