Most Needed is a Passport to Reach the Village

Most Needed is a Passport to Reach the Village!

No one imagined disintegration of USSR even during first Gulf War!

Deepening Strategic Partnership with India : Bush

Indian Holocaust My father`s Life and Time - twenty SEVEN

Palash Biswas

Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com

The question that remains is: how much of what happened to the USSR was going to happen anyway, and how much resulted from the efforts of President Reagan and hisadministration? Was it just coincidence that the closing years of the Soviet empire mirrored those of the most anti-Communist President in U.S. history? The purpose of this paper is to inquire as m to the specificity of President Reagan’s plan to bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union and
to discover if his policies constituted a new form of containment. This Study is germane to a complete understanding of the United State’s part in the decline and fall of the Soviet Union and to the larger issues surrounding the appropriate application of national power to "contain" another nation’s growth. I have chosen recent works by former U.S. government and administration officials, and journalists for my research. These sources represent the continuum of opinion that places President Reagan, on one end, as the mastermind behind the demise of the USSR and, on the other, as an ill-informed, passive by-stander. I have chosen these particular works in order to highlight current disagreements on President Reagan’s rightful place and to offer a synthesis of
these views. Additionally, I have supplemented these sources with interviews from Johnn enczowski, Peter Rodman and Angelo Codevilla — all mid-level insiders during the Reagan years. Their perspectives, generally unbridled by concerns about attribution, assisted greatly in penetrating much of the myth about President Reagan and his administration.


My line of inquiry will begin with an overview of U.S. containment policies (1947– 1981) highlighting differences in President Reagan’s approach to containing the Soviet Union. I will then offer case Studies of the top five external events leading to the disintegration of the Soviet Union: the insurgencies in Angola, Afghanistan and Central America; the Solidarity movement in Poland; and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to see if they reveal a coordinated anti-USSR effort. I will then address the effects of these activities inside the Soviet Union and finish with my Ronald Reagan And The Fall Of The Soviet Union: Plot Or Serendipity

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/BMH.htm

As Reagan emerged as the God for the Western Capitalism and Imperialism to annihilate the Communist World, Bush is emergeing with similar images. Unfortunately, now we don`t refer USSR or Europe. It is India and Asia respectively. Indo US Nuclear Deal has opoend all military avenues for US strike power to disintegrate Asia and essentially India!

The US has announced it has taken the unprecedented step of agreeing to the creation of a civil nuclear enrichment facility in India even though India is not a signatory to the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The deal, which has taken almost two years to finalise after it was announced by Manmohan Singh and George W.Bush in Washington, is likely to face tough questions from the US Congress, which now has to approve it.

In a statement on Friday President Bush said that the deal marked an important step in “deepening our strategic partnership with India – a vital world leader”.

My usndergraduate son reacted sharply watching News Updates on TV channels and opined that India is not safe! They are going to break it as they succeeded to break soviet Union.
I rplied, ` I may not visit my anchestral village somewhere in Narail district (Jassore) and I am afaraid they won`t allow you to visit my village in Uttarakhand!

When I shifted from Bareilly, just one hour from my village, my father was living and he was pained. He objected. It was 1991. Soviet union was no more. I told him that if Soviet Union may be diluted, the turmoils within tyhecountry are enough indication for our fate. We are deprived of our identity and it is better that I should shift myself to West Bengal. my father disagreed and hoped that India is somewhat a different polity and despite the experience of partition holocaust we have to survive as Indian Nation!

No one imagined disintegration of USSR even during first Gulf War!

Well, I may not repeat the same words at present as it is quite transparent that disintegration is the agenda of zionist hindu US post modern Manusmriti Galaxy order and there happens no resistance at all.

The nationalities question in the Soviet Union was long an esoteric topic that Western specialists saw little purpose in studying. The Soviet authorities claimed to have resolved the national question, and Westerners who did not have a special interest in one or another region tended not to challenge that thesis. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought new interest, but not all the results of this suddenly refocused attention have been very satisfying. The book at hand, fortunately, is one of the better ones.

We have not even addressed the Nationality questions despit AFPSA experiences in Kashmir and entire North East, Khalistan Movement , Assam Movement, Gorkhaland movement and the latest one, Kamtapuri movement! Rather we seek military solutions! RAW is assisted by MOSAD! US presence is felt in our internal affairs since Indira days very well! Now, we have opend all doors and windows of terrorism and foreign interference!

Indian enslaved Masses are no better than detached, entertaining WWF audiance. The power game is another enterment for the people and the informations are nothing better than packed Entermaent or showbiz!

Well, sometime during 2001 or 2002, I am not sure, I wrote a paoem titled `Passport’ which was published in SHAKSTKAAR”, a reputed hindi monthly published from Bhopal, MP. I haven`t got the issue as I am not able to accomodate all published writeups in my rented room!
I wrote:
SABSE JAROOREE HAI PASSPORT
GAON TAK PAHUNCHNE KE LIYE
MOST NEEDED IS A PSSPORT
TO REACH ONE`S OWN VILLAGE
They published some of my poems on globalisation and information technology.Bengali poet sukana bhattachary once wrote that there should not be any place for poetry in a country of Hunger. I am writing hard prose nowadays!

The United States sees India as a key strategic partner and as a potential balance against China`s potential dominance of Asia, and is prepared to equip India for the role. Already one of the world`s biggest customers for arms, spending over $10 billion in the last three years, India is now planning to buy 126 multi-role combat jets. The US F-16 and F/A-18 Super Hornet are seen as the main contenders in a deal that could be worth another $10 billion. A new study by India`s Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, ‘Private Sector Participation in Defense,’ suggests that India`s imports of military hard and software should reach $30 billion by 2012.

This is the strategic context for the nuclear deal, which ends the isolation from the nuclear community that was imposed on India when it staged its first nuclear tests in 1998, and will allow India to import nuclear fuels and technology under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This will be important for India`s civilian nuclear power program, but its main impact is symbolic in asserting the new closeness of the U.S. strategic partnership.

My son is an engaged boy with his video games and virtual world and he is nowhere concerned with the day today world. But I am happy that he is worried of National unity and integration. But he and generation Next may not help it all as everything seems predestined in accordance with the great Karam theory. Our national leadership, political parties and intelleigentsia is least concerned for the future of Nation India until they lose the power game. No body cared for the outcome and suffring of the corores of Indians after Partition as our leaders were engaged in power transfer in favour and best interests of the ruling Brahminical Class.

It is a striking coincidence that the Indian and U.S. governments should have announced the successful conclusion of their long-stalled nuclear cooperation deal in the same week that India established its first overseas military base.

India`s new base, an electronic listening post and radar station on the island of Madagascar, is perfectly situated to monitor the international waterways around South Africa and the Indian Ocean with its oil tanker routes to Asia. India has also leased an atoll from Mauritius on which a similar facility is to be built. Its navy has secured berthing rights in Oman, and signed an agreement last year to patrol the Mozambique coast. In 2003, the Indian navy provided seaward protection for the African Union summit at Mozambique.

The Indian Ocean is increasingly under Indian management, led by a fast-growing navy that is buying advanced French-made Scorpene ’stealth’ submarines and has just acquired its first ever U.S. warship, the former USS Trenton, a large amphibious transport and landing ship, along with U.S. UH-3H helicopters. Three months ago, India completed a $1.1 billion deal with the United States for Hercules military transport.

Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state, who led the often difficult negotiations with his Indian counterparts, said it removed the “fundamental roadblock” in the way of a full global partnership between the world’s largest democracy and its richest.

Mr Burns denied the deal would act as an incentive for other countries to develop nuclear weapons outside the NPT. He said that Iran was “inside the NPT but cheating” whereas India was outside the NPT but had a good record of non-proliferation. “This agreement sends a message to outlaw regimes such as Iran that if you behave responsibly you will not be penalised,” said Mr Burns.

India denied that the agreement, which non-proliferation hawks say will free up indigenous Indian fissile material for use in the country’s atomic weapons programme, would contribute to an arms race in south Asia, destabilise the balance of power in the region and potentially prompt a copycat deal between Pakistan and China.
According to Indian negotiators, the agreement makes no explicit reference to the US Hyde Act, which allows the US to demand the return of all fuel and technology supplied under the deal in the event that India tests a nuclear weapon.

Shiv Shankar Menon, the Indian foreign secretary, said: “This is an agreement between two governments. It meets the concerns of the two governments. It’s not for us to interpret their laws, nor for them to interpret ours.” Mr Narayanan added: “We dealt with the administration and we believe they know how far they can go.”

However, Mr Burns yesterday said the deal left untouched Washington’s rights under the law, which was passed by an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress last December.

Mr Burns said he hoped the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-member nuclear suppliers group, whose agreement is essential for the deal to become operational, would approve it within “several months”.

The Indian nuclear establishment, represented in the negotiations by Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, has set aside its earlier reservations that the deal would compromise New Delhi’s strategic weapons programme. Mr Kakodkar said: “I don’t think there’s any reason for people to be concerned on that front.”

Nuclear security and the Green Revolution
During the 1971 War, the US had sent its Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal as a warning to India keep away from East Pakistan as a pretext to launch a wider attack against West Pakistan, especially over the disputed territory of Kashmir. This move had further alienated India from the First World, and Prime Minister Gandhi now accelerated a previously cautious new direction in national security and foreign policy. India and the USSR had earlier signed the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Cooperation, the resulting political and military support contributing substantially to India’s victory in the 1971 war.

But Gandhi now accelerated the national nuclear program, as it was felt that the nuclear threat from the People’s Republic of China and the intrusive interest of the two major superpowers were not conducive to India’s stability and security. She also invited the new Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Shimla for a week-long summit. After the near-failure of the talks, the two heads of state eventually signed the Shimla Agreement, which bound the two countries to resolve the Kashmir dispute by negotiations and peaceful means. It was Gandhi’s stubbornness which made even the visiting Pakistani Prime Minister sign the accord according to India’s terms in which Zulfikar Bhutto had to write the last few terms in the agreement in his own handwriting.[citation needed]

Indira Gandhi was criticized by some for not making the Line of Control a permanent border while a few critics even believed that Pakistan-administered Kashmir should have been extracted from Pakistan, whose 93,000 prisoners of war were under Indian control. But the agreement did remove immediate United Nations and third party interference, and greatly reduced the likelihood of Pakistan launching a major attack in the near future. By not demanding total capitulation on a sensitive issue from Bhutto, she had allowed Pakistan to stabilize and normalize. Trade relations were also normalized, though much contact remained frozen for years.

In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially code named as smiling Buddha, near the desert village of Pokhran in Rajasthan. Describing the test as for peaceful purposes, India nevertheless became the world’s youngest nuclear power.

Main article: Green Revolution
Special agricultural innovation programs and extra government support launched in the 1960s that had finally resulted in India’s chronic food shortages were gradually being transformed into surplus production of wheat, rice, cotton and milk. The country became a food exporter, and diversified its commercial crop production as well, in what has become known as the Green Revolution. At the same time, the White Revolution was an expansion in milk production which helped to combat malnutrition, especially amidst young children. ‘Food security’, as the programme was called, was another source of support for Mrs. Gandhi in the years leading up to 1975. [1]

Established in the early 1960s, the Green Revolution was the unofficial name given to the Intense Agricultural District Programme (IADP) which sought to insure abundant, inexpensive grain for urban dwellers upon whose support Gandhi — as indeed all Indian politicians — heavily depended. [5] The program was based on four premises: 1) New varieties of seed(s), 2) Acceptance of the necessity of the chemicalization of Indian agriculture, i.e. fertilizers, pesticides, weed killers, etc., 3) A commintment to national and internatonal cooperative research to develope new and improved existing seed varieties, 4) The concept of developing a scientific, agriculturial institutions in the form of land grant colleges. [6]. Lasting about ten years, the program was ultimately to bring about a tripling of wheat production, a lower but still impressive increase of rice; while there was little to no increase (depending on area, and adjusted for population growth) of such cereals as millet, gram and coarse grain, though these did, in fact, retain a relatively stable yield. Yet by the mid 1970’s the IADP and its "Green Revolution" had collapsed in all but name due to bad administration, human greed, and heavy-handed politics among all parties on both state and national levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi

The deal has been stalled over some of the terms imposed by the U.S. Congress under the Hyde Act, which sought to impose certain restrictions on India. The first was to hold the deal hostage, allowing it to be suspended if India staged more nuclear tests. The second was to bring some, but not all, of India`s nuclear rectors under the intensive inspection regime of the NPT and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The most authoritative opposition to the deal has come from Peter Iyengar, former chairman of India`s Atomic Energy Commission, who listed his concerns in an exclusive United Press International interview at his home in New Delhi with this reporter in February this year.

‘As currently drafted, the agreement would force us to stop re-processing nuclear fuel, something we have been doing for thirty years,’ Iyengar said. ‘It would terminate our strategic program (India`s nuclear weapons program) by exposing us to sanctions if we conducted nuclear tests. And it puts impossible barriers in our path to ongoing and future research, including our well-developed programs for fast-breeder reactors and to use thorium rather than uranium as a nuclear fuel,’ he added.

‘By saying that India shall not re-process fuel and not develop the fast-breeder reactors, this deal undermines our ability to produce energy in the future when uranium runs out,’ Dr Iyengar went on. ‘This is a question of national sovereignty, of India`s right and ability to decide such things for ourselves.’

The Hyde Act was designed to be watertight, but somehow the Bush administration has managed to accommodate India`s concerns. This was done, to widespread surprise last week, when Vice President Dick Cheney took personal charge of the talks in Washington with India`s National Security adviser M.K. Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and Anil Kakodkar, secretary of India`s Department of Atomic Energy

Menon was packed and about to check out from his hotel when Cheney intervened and brought Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice into the final phase of talks, which opened with Cheney saying, ‘This deal must be done.’ The White House national security adviser Steven Hadley was also brought into the talks to fine tune the text of a document called ‘The 123 agreement’ that spells out the details of the deal.

The precise terms have not yet been made public, and the final document is a frozen text, which means that it can now only be voted up or down, and not amended further. According to U.S. sources, it is based on Cheney`s traditionally robust view of the president`s prerogative over foreign policy and strategic issues, and allows George W. Bush or future presidents to give India a form of waiver under the terms of the Hyde Act when supreme U.S. national interests are deemed to be at stake.

The Democratic-controlled Congress may have doubts about this, but potential presidential candidates may see its usefulness. The increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court, with two new Bush-appointed justices, is likely to sympathize with Cheney`s view of the presidential prerogative.

The deal has been strongly backed by the wealthy and influential Indian community in the United States. Sanjay Puri, chairman of the U.S.-India Political Action Committee commented: ‘The United States and India have achieved what everyone thought was impossible when President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced their plan for a civil nuclear agreement in July 2005. Exactly two years later, the two nations have not only reached an agreement, but created a lifelong partnership between two nations that are committed to democratic principles and the idea of energy independence.’

This also seals the presence on the world stage of India`s emergence as a regional superpower in Asia, while becoming a close U.S. ally and a major economic and technological force. Next month, India will launch its first dedicated military reconnaissance satellite, CARTOSAT 2A, on one of its own launch vehicles. Two more advanced imaging satellites with Israeli synthetic aperture radars are to be launched next year for all-weather monitoring of Asian airspace, including China

It may also not be a coincidence that these developments come as China is upgrading its ballistic missile facility at central-north Delingha, where launch pads for older Dong Feng-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles are being modernized for new DF-21 medium-range missiles. A report this month by the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists concluded that the DF-21s ‘would be able to hold at risk all of northern India, including New Delhi.’



End of the Soviet Union

The August 1991 coup, designed to halt the weakening of the centralized USSR, ironically hastened the Union’s dissolution. Declarations of independence by the constituent republics, the abolition of all-Union institutions and the transfer of their assets to the republics, and increasing international acceptance of these developments sapped what little strength there had been in the Union. While Gorbachev tried desperately to find a formula to halt the centrifugal process, his former political allies, reading the signs, abandoned him one after the other. And yet, there was no inevitability about the decision to replace the Soviet Union with a Commonwealth of Independent States. That decision, adopted by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia, seems to have been made hastily if not whimsically.

On August 23, 1991 Boris Eltsin, as President of the RSFSR, decreed the suspension of the Russian Communist Party on the grounds that it had lent its support to the coup attempt and had otherwise violated Soviet and Russian laws. Gorbachev, who upon returning to Moscow after the coup had tried to absolve the party of any blame and announced his intention of continuing his efforts to reform the party, was left with little choice but to resign as General Secretary of the entire (All-Union) party, which he did two days later. Seeking to counter the further erosion of central authority, Gorbachev persuaded a majority in the Congress of People’s Deputies in early September to dissolve that body in favor of a State Council which would consist of republic leaders and Gorbachev and act in a temporary capacity until a new bicameral legislature could be elected. Aside from approving independence for the three Baltic republics, the State Council accomplished nothing and was largely ignored by republic governments. Eltsin, swelled with new powers granted by the Russian parliament, meanwhile accelerated the transfer of central institutions to Russian authority.

December turned out to be the month in which the fatal blows to the Soviet Union were delivered. On December 1, voters in Ukraine overwhelmingly approved a referendum on independence and by a smaller margin elected Leonid Kravchuk, a former Communist Party boss turned nationalist, as their first president. A week later, at a hunting lodge in Belovezhskaia Pushcha, not far from the Belorussian capital of Minsk, Eltsin, Kravchuk and the Belorussian leader, Stanislav Shushkevich, signed a declaration terminating the Soviet Union and replacing it with the Commonwealth of Independent States. Gorbachev, who had not been consulted or informed beforehand, publicly responded by declaring his "amazement" and urging republic parliaments to discuss the draft Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States on which he had worked tirelessly over the previous months. On December 21, the presidents of all the other republics with the exception of Georgia (already embroiled in civil war) and the three Baltic states, declared their willingness to enter the Commonwealth. Finally, on December 25, Gorbachev announced his acceptance of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and his resignation as its president.

In Lenin’s party-state, the nationalities question was supposed to occupy only a minor role, a question of form in the constitutional structure that in turn had to carry Out the directions of the superior party structure. While critics now may point to failures in Soviet nationalities policy, they should remember that relatively few saw this as a significant question before the mid-1980s - least of all, most major Western Sovietologists. As late as January 1990, when Gorbachev made his vain pilgrimage to Lithuania, he and his entourage were still insisting that ‘the national question is not the most important question in life’. As it turned out, this was a question of life and death for the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev inherited a centralised party-state that faced serious economic problems. As Fowkes points out, he experimented with both party reform and political decentralisation, but through it all he wanted to keep his own position as the leader who maintained the integrity of the Soviet Union. When the going became rough, he tried to make his peace with the conservatives. He failed: the Soviet Union collapsed, and he lost his job.

Please read:
History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1985-1991)
The Causes and Consequences of the Collapse of the Soviet Union
http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/guides/glo-sov.html

What were the causes of the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a socialist one party state?

Firstly, it is important to highlight that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 can be examined in two ways. It can be looked at in terms of the break-up of an empire; the reasons why the Soviet Union no longer exists as a federation of nations including Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia etc. Alternatively, it can be looked at in terms of reasons why the political system that governed the state collapsed. It is this latter perspective that will be examined in the course of this essay. While the former is no doubt an important question, it will only be considered to the extent that there is naturally a link between the government of a state and its component parts. Regional nationalism therefore shall only be examined in light of the effect…
http://www.coursework.info/I_B_/History/What_were_the_causes_of_the_disintegration_of_the_Soviet_L10411.html
Fall of the Soviet Union
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In December of 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. Its collapse was hailed by the west as a victory for freedom, a triumph of democracy over totalitarianism, and evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. The United States rejoiced as its formidable enemy was brought to its knees, thereby ending the Cold War which had hovered over these two superpowers since the end of World War II. Indeed, the breakup of the Soviet Union transformed the entire world political situation, leading to a complete reformulation of political, economic and military alliances all over the globe.

What led to this monumental historical event? In fact, the answer is a very complex one, and can only be arrived at with an understanding of the peculiar composition and history of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was built on approximately the same territory as the Russian Empire which it succeeded. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the newly-formed government developed a philosophy of socialism with the eventual and gradual transition to Communism. The state which the Bolsheviks created was intended to overcome national differences, and rather to create one monolithic state based on a centralized economical and political system. This state, which was built on a Communist ideology, was eventually transformed into a totalitarian state, in which the Communist leadership had complete control over the country.
http://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp

What are the main factors responsible for the disintegration of the Soviet Union?

First answer by anonymous. Last edit by 84.217.153.170. Question popularity: 146 [recommend question]

Answer
one very big factor was the economy or lack of one, the cold war was a full fledged war between the united states and russia, but rather than killing each other it was a war of weapons and development. we build a new rocket and they would try to build a better one to try to keep ahead, they send a man in orbit. we send one to the moon, they build a bigger bomber we build a faster one, etc.etc.etc…. this is a very expensive process on both sides, soon russia just could not keep up financialy any more. this was just one factor.

Answer
Russia fell primarily because the Great God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob caused it to fall. For more than 60 years Godless communism had enslaved and murdered people all over the globe and espoused that the state was God. It is humorous that He also used the false religion on Islam to break up the Soviet Union. Afganistan was the first chink in the mighty soviet armour. Then the other "stans" broke away. All those soviet vassel states with great numbers of muslems broke away and the communist lost control of their empire. Mainly God allowed thousands of Jews to return to return to Israel from Russia. The great red bully of the world was shaken to the core and split up when God decided that enough was enough!

Answer

The Soviet’s command-economy was not able to compete with the free-market economy of the US and its allies. In almost every area of competition - excepting only nuclear armaments - the Soviet system fell behind. One example of this can be found in the production of Soviet steel. Around and after WWII, the Soviet system was behind the US in steel production. Since they used a command economy, this was a factor that had to be settled not via supply and demand but rather through the Soviet government’s use of limited resources and time (e.g. currency and time). By the 1990s, Soviet steel production surpassed that of the US. Unfortunately for the Soviets, by this time there was a plethora of steel traded on the open markets. So while they did indeed begin to produce more steel than the US, it was more expensive for them to produce steel domestically than it was for the US to import it. This left the US with resources to spend on other "projects" - such as computer technology. This phenomenon was to repeat itself in a variety of other manners as well.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_main_factors_responsible_for_the_disintegration_of_the_Soviet_Union
One indicator that has been tabulated, if not quantified, to everyone’s satisfaction is that of the Soviet economy. It is know, for example, that in the 60s and 70s Soviet productivity in steel and coal caught up with and even surpassed that of the United States. But declines already had commenced in labor productivity and the quality of machine tools, while advances in science and technology increasingly proved illusory.

Nevertheless, economic reports drawn by Western experts basically found that the Soviet situation, while somewhat gloomy, was still redeemable. These half-way optimistic measurements were even seized upon by the Soviet leadership to buttress their own traditionally overly optimistic assessment. Consumer goods, meanwhile, increased in number during these years but the distribution system was so broken down that milk rarely got delivered before souring and, though Soviets produced more shoes than anyone else in the world, customers were forced to stand in line time and again to buy several pairs because the sizes were so askew that it was necessary to acquire many pairs to make a fit. Housing meanwhile was atrocious with couples required to wait years before qualifying for a small apartment; the wait for cars also dragged on interminable, and after one finally arrived, it was not unusual for it almost immediately to experience mechanical problems.

Defense costs, furthermore, were eating up an inordinate portion of Soviet expenditures. Because of the difficulty in measuring the Soviet GNP it was not always clear what percentage was being spent to this end. Experts now claim the West routinely underestimated the numbers. It is now believed that in years just prior to 1991 as much as 30 percent of the economy went toward the defense sector putting an enormous burden on the average citizen in terms of delayed consumer satisfaction. Then there were the costs incurred by shoring up overseas adventures such as those in Africa, not to mention the drain of the war in Afghanistan and the expense involved in maintaining Castro’s lifeline.