Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

They were non-competitive businesses producing outdated junk and in majority of cases there was no other way to survive apart of being sold for scrap.

Some manufacturers that produced basic sellable goods survived (steel foundries, fertilizer makers)




That’s exactly the narrative that was used. I guess that’s why Yeltsin was such a good friend to the west and why he’s despised by many Russians.

I mean, sure, many factories were not competitive since they were highly subsidized and faced no competition on internal market. But USSR had an immense R&D potential and engineering education was top-notch.


Price signals following the soviet collapse were non functioning ( see the current oligarchs ). It’s hard to know how many of these factories could have adapted over a slightly longer time frame or with some slight investment restructuring.

When the price of a corporation falls below their paper assets it tends to attract A certain kind of investor disinterested in long term value. I’d venture a good number of soviet parts suppliers saw their revenues dry up when their clients were dismantled, it wouldn’t have taken more than a few such links in the supply chain being dismantled to break the entire supply chain given the level of centralization.


No. There’s significant evidence that sudden overnight market manipulation (e.g. setting exchange parity to the eastern and western Deutsche Mark destroyed all eastern consumer goods industries, which were bought for symbolic sums and then deliberately shuttered.) it’s obvious that any such fundamentalist and radically liberalist policy would have tore through any economy, but the point was to smother Carthage, and sow salt on its ruins


https://i.imgur.com/jp4spsj.png

One country took the radical/liberalist path, another chose the one that doesn’t tarnish the economy.

As much as I hate libertarians today, in 1990s they did an awesome job.


this graph does not take into the account the massive geopolitical difference between ukraine and poland, especially considering poland had far more possibilities in regards to joining and integrating with western european economies compared to ukraine.

Don't forget that prior the collapse of the USSR, ukraine was not an independant country from russia, while poland has always been "independant" during socialist times.


As for geopolitical differences - how about Estonia/Lithuania/Ukraine? I’m not sure how the went about with their provatisation in 1990s.


This is not true, several precision mechanics factories (or parts of factories) in Hungary were producing for Western export and yet they let them rot apart.


Same happened in Latvia where the largest soviet chip maker ALFA was dismatled under silly (but efficient) propaganda premises. It was top notch and had great contracts with US and Russia at the moment. Decades later the retired goverment officials confirmed they were "advised" and said "we did not understand what we were doing very much back then". Of course, they were ex-soviet middle level officials and anti soviet activists who suddenly found themselves in power and needed such advices.

The true reason for those who wonder was the fact that ALFA was making electronics for MiG, Su, Tu and for missiles. I had family and friends working there btw.


Indeed. In my hometown - Gyula, Hungary - there was a precision mechanics factory, for phones, faxes, communication relays called Integra. It wasn't huge, employed a couple of hundreds people. In '89, Olivetti bought it for peanuts to close it down.

This was quite a classic move during the "privatisation" in '89-90.


Some fertiliser plants (Achema for example) still rely on exclusively signed contracts with Russia for buying cheap natural gas (its main cost) aka there’s some underwater influence there.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: