The Economic Crisis Behind Soviet Expansion: Does Russias “Business Cycle” Compel Foreign Aggression?
One of the more urgent mysteries, in a world where mysteries are becoming all too common, is the motive power behind the great expansionist drive of the Soviet Russian state: eastward into Asia and westward into Europe. Neither of the two most popular explanations—an unbridled lust for power or an intransigent social idealism on the part of the Soviet leadership—can do justice to the complicated pattern of events, for they start from erroneous premises. The fact is that the Kremlin houses neither mere adventurers, nor men propelled by passionate devotion to the idea of “world revolution” or “world Communism. On the contrary: they are prisoners of basic maladjustments in their own economic system, which drives them inexorably to seek an escape in external conquest. It is difficult for us to comprehend this—though it is no less difficult for the Russians, if that is any consolation. Russian economists show no ability to understand their own economic system, or even to observe and accurat
– Abstract One of the more urgent mysteries, in a world where mysteries are becoming all too common, is the motive power behind the great expansionist drive of the Soviet Russian state: eastward into Asia and westward into Europe. Neither of the two most popular explanations—an unbridled lust for power or an intransigent social idealism on the part of the Soviet leadership—can do justice to the complicated pattern of events, for they start from erroneous premises. The fact is that the Kremlin houses neither mere adventurers, nor men propelled by passionate devotion to the idea of “world revolution” or “world Communism. On the contrary: they are prisoners of basic maladjustments in their own economic system, which drives them inexorably to seek an escape in external conquest. It is difficult for us to comprehend this—though it is no less difficult for the Russians, if that is any consolation. Russian economists show no ability to understand their own economic system, or even to observe
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