You guys always do a great job. But there is one major error here. I have studied North Korea for a decade and the effects of the USSR's collapse on the DPRK were actually substantial. North Korea had not distanced themselves from the USSR to the degree this video asserts. The USSR provided almost all of the below market cost fuel that the DPRK used to run most of its industry at the time. The loss of communist brotherhood fuel prices and other major pieces of economic assistance that the USSR gave North Korea combined with the loss of trade with the USSR played a significant role in exacerbating the effects of the North Korean famine of the 90s. The loss of below market cost fuel left the country without the power supply necessary to fuel its factories and industry. The loss of trade with the USSR left them without the means to exchange goods for food with the USSR. The loss of these and other assistance from the USSR led directly to collapse of industry in the DPRK. and left them without their major benefactor at the time of the famine. THE DPRK was one of the nations to suffer the most at the time from the collapse of the USSR.
When I heard the part that North Korea successfully weaned themselves off, I was waiting for a "just kidding" afterwards, specifically because I remembered the great famine that occurred only a few years after Soviet support disappeared
Kind of missed the fact that North Korean economy completely collapsed after the USSR dissolved and without soviet support and supplies they went through a 5 year famine
Actual joke from the USSR: Why do the secret police go around in groups of 3? One does the reading, the 2nd does the writing, and the 3rd keeps an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals
Well, it was well known in the USSR that the KGB didn't pick the smartest of individuals, or as my mom said it to me: "The KGB-ists don't really need brains"
Okay, in Chinese stand point of view, it's too much reform. Tian'anmen Square Massacre is what China is proud of. Since then China continued to reform economy, but politically nothing was reformed in China. Ask the question: how the Soviet ceased to exist? Because they reformed to let people vote for the parties they preferred, people in Soviet Union client states and Soviet Union member States voted out Communist party, Soviet Union did not respond by massacre to reverse the tide as early as possible like the Tian'anmen Square Massacre whose demands were exactly allowing people to vote other parties for government. So Gorbachev believed in the benevolence of communism, but people had already had enough of this brutal dictatorship model of governance around the world. If China reformed the way Gorbachev did, there would be no communists China today.
Soviet Union: "Our ideology is superior and our enemie's collapse is inevitable." USA: "Our ideology is superior and our enemie's collapse is inevitable."
The Cuban economic problem was an interesting one. When one of my high school teachers went on holiday there after the USSR collapse, the hotel's food got progressively more and more simplistic as the week went on. At the start, lobster, steak and other gourmet luxuries. By the end, bread, butter, cheese and maybe grapes. She's not Cuban btw. Like me, she's British.
Professor Shibe They were pro allied until a coup occurred in 1941 and Rasheed Gaylani (yes that’s actually his name) became the president and installed a pro-axis government
@@solaaace1453 Technically America didn’t declare war on Germany after Pearl Harbor, Congress declared war on Japan but only Japan. President Roosevelt wanted war with Germany but that was outside his power as it's Congresses authority to declare not the president and they didn't want war with Germany. It was Germany who declared war on the U.S, forcing them in anyway using there war declaration on Japan as an excuse to go to war with U.S since they were still technically allies with Japan due to the Axis pact. Hitler wanted war with the US for years due to the fact they kept supplying their enemies during the war (Britian and the Soviet Union.). So now they were at war Hitler can destroy all the U.S supply ships (or well try to).
2:15 _“North Korea had been weening itself off of Soviet support so the collapse wasn't too damaging."_ Umm... _what?!_ The collapse of the Soviet Union (and the subsequent end of aid/subsidies from the East Bloc) is widely regarded as one of the main contributing factors to NK's economic collapse and the 1990s North Korean Famine. NK was _infamous within the East Bloc_ for its chronic aid-dependence!
It had close ties with Eastern Block, that's for sure. You won't imagine how big party it was, when in 1980's general Wojciech Jaruzelski, 1st Secretary of Central Committee of Polish United Workers' Party at the time, visited North Korea.
0:43 I absolutely love how detailed this channel is!! If you look at the image of Cuba, you can see that the detail was enough that he included the American holding at Guantánamo
Well, vietnam wasnt invade Campu, the guy keep poking and killing vietnam ppls in the border in order to reclaim a part of a south vietnam(they lose it in the war with vietnam a long time ago, when ppls still use bow and arrow). Anyway, Vietnam asking for help but Nixon went to bed with China so they both ignore what the Red khmer was doing in there own country(killing there's own ppls like china ofc). They also kidnap about 500 vietnamese on an island of Vietnam. So Vietnam wass pissed off and over throw the red khrme. Fun fact, alot of khrme ppls still living in vietnam after they run off to vietnam during the war. China also pissed off because Vietnam over throw Red Khrme, basically a gov that China created to control the South East Asian. So they attack Vietnam in the north border. And Vietnam basically has to fight with two country at the same time. And they won both of them. After the red khmer is gone, vietnamese just leave and not taking anything from Campu, they also found out that 500 vietnamese that being kidnap is dead. A small quite dude in the class beated up all the big boi who messed with him, tbh. Til' now, vietnamese still hates China pretty bad. But the country is more freedom than China, ppls allow to speak up to the Gov if they not like what the Gov is doing, they also got Google and Facebook, which they can use to conected to the rest of worlds and talk about the bad and the good in vietnam. All stuff that Chinese cant do.
@Negativland this true tho, before the chinese coast guard infiltrating natuna water, indonesia is like "ok, lmao" after they got their ship inside natuna economic zone.. things has turned 180 degree
@@IrishCarney I understand what you are trying to say but giving up there nuclear weapons was one of the concessions that Ukraine had to make in order for Russia to grant them their independence. If they had tried to keep them then Russia would have had to use force and so would Ukraine meaning Civil War in the U.S.S.R and a Nuclear Holocaust.
@@IrishCarney no. Ukraine had no choice. First of all they were technically incapable of taking over those nukes. The maintenance infrastructure, supply chain and control infrastructure, were outside of Ukraine and totally under Yeltsin's control. If Ukraine kept the nukes it would be just a pile of useless poorly maintained bombs. The country would inevitably become a nukes black market. The USA had a very clear picture of this situation and threatened Kravchuk to destroy Ukraine economically if he don't let Russa to take away all their nukes.
@@daviddennen7479 Ukraine was already independent. In those days with collapsing economics and military morale and a newly democratic Russia it's highly questionable whether a war on Ukraine would have been feasible let alone sustainable. The major driver to de-nuclearize Ukraine was actually the USA and the West, who also wanted Belarus and especially Kazakhstan to give up THEIR nukes too. And while the Ukrainians lacked launch codes and other necessary things, they should have insisted on getting them in exchange for handing over Crimea and majority Russian areas in the East. That way they would not only have removed the excuse for future Russian intervention but also removed the means. Either lose the nukes or lose the territories. But as it turned out, Ukraine lost both.
You forgot to mention that the USSR was one of North Korea’s biggest trading partners and shortly after the collapse there was a famine due to insufficient amounts of food. That along with crippling sanctions from the west.
@@TheThundercow protectionism is not a socialist only measurement, true; it can be applied to several economic models, but protectionism plays a huge part in socialist economy since socialists/communists are against free market of every kind.
@Mail Fraud Rome survived 2000 or so years with a diverse set of cultural and religious groups of people living within its borders. I'm sure it can work if you know what your doing.
@@eri.ssddseff but the people of antiquity did have the concept of regionalism which is just a smaller scale version of nationalism but with the potential to be just as violent and powerful motivator, coupled with the fact that most of Romes subjects consisted of non Latins from it's provinces such as Iberia, Egypt, Greece, Anatolia and Gaul you'd be amazed just how long Rome lasted with such a large population that probably didn't even speak the same language of the people in the neighbouring province, let alone the Roman's.
The Chinese government was also relieved, as with the collapse of the USSR, there was less risk of a conflict with their rival in Asia, the main reason they sought better relations with the US was to counter the Soviet threat
China knew USSR was screwing China militarily, you can tell by Soviet-Chinese clash where China was force to steal USSR military tech such as T-62. That is why USSR collapsed because they pissed off the Chinese which allowed USA to help China block USSR in an alliance. If USSR wasn't fking with China like USA doing today. There wouldn't be a problem. Also, USSR is not like China, they are an empire of merger that is why USSR failed, they tried to force merge every country into the Union. China never did any of that to neighbouring countries that are not in the historical dynasty maps. That is why we have NK and North Vietnam.
@@makemap how could you say that.. they don't fkin care about empire map, even the ccp is puting their on the north pole for trade route and maybe surprise surprise they claim it as the part of the long lost empire you think russia don't have strategy for that?
Fuck no! Many Chinese Communists really despised the West for the fall of USSR. This is why Xi Jinping and his ardent Communists have been formulating plans to take down the West and fund socialist influence across the world.
In fact, China is still very sad. Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, China and the Soviet Union became good friends again. It is a strong proof that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia fell into civil strife. China did not send troops to attack the disputed territory, but peacefully resolved the territorial dispute with Russia. Another evidence is that the most profitable country in China's foreign aid is Russia.
@@garmenlin5990 The nuclear warheads all had permissive action links (PALs) for which Ukraine didn't have the codes. They were therefore worse than useless, as keeping them meant having to pay for maintenance and security, and the refusal could have been a casus belli for Russia to invade and reunify, a very real fear of all of the former republics who had declared independence since there were still politicians in Russia that called for it.
China's reaction was also a huge sigh of relief. After nixon the country has diplomatic relationship with the us. Its main military threat was its hegemonic northern neighbor. Huge projects were enacted to prepare for a Soviet invasion. For example a small islet was emptied out near my home town to store weapons and supplies in case we have to go back being partisans. Countless underground tunnels amd bunkers were made in northern china. People dont even remember some of them anymore
yeah lmao there was news some years ago on how ppl randomly found a tunnel site in shanghai stocked with emergency food in case of a nuclear invasion by the ussr that literally even the govt forgot about
Cuba: "This could have been avoided if you were not incompetent" China: "Oh no, anyway" Vietnam:"Well, I guess China is the big boss now" North Korea: "I gonna die" Yugoslavia and the rest: "Who cares?" Edit: Changed the Vietnam one.
Russia: So what did we do wrong? China: Not enough economic changes Cuba: Too much economic changes YugoSlavia: Ethnic majority is weak. Russia: Funny you should say that. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia: Sup. Yugoslavia: Fuck.
Watching your videos is GREAT when you already know the topic quite well, but forgot a part or need more context. I struggle with topics I have no idea about, because talking very fast while only providing the most essential information seems to be your channels general theme. It's less about teaching and more about recapitulating, so if that's what you're going for you're pretty much nailing it anyway.
China : Leave an F in the chat bois China : F Vietnam : F Cuba : F Laos : F North Korea : F Venezuela : F China : Who are you? Venezuela : I'm the new guy. China : Ok.
Small detail I just noticed. If you pause and look closely at Cuba at 0:43 you can see that Gitmo is in blue. These videos are such Hugh quality and packed with tiny but highly relevant details
After all of these videos I find myself wishing they'd been ~30 seconds longer. They're wonderful overviews of specific parts of complex issues and I love them, but I somehow walk away feeling like another sentence or two would somehow be a gamechanger in the information delivered.
@@linkofvevWhen you have bills to pay and mouths to feed it's hard to forced these people to do nothing and allowed there houses to be foreclosed and allow there families starving to death, and a 1,200 check from the government isn't always going to be enough.
@@IncaWarrior. not only on end of Soviet rule. I would say, that they were happening at least once in every 10 years. But in 1989 there were no massive protests, though - there were only presidential free elections, which Lech Wałęsa won, and so the Communism in Poland ended. Look, I'm not saying Communism is any good ideology (as someone from country that was Communist I know, that it's just as bad as Nazism (or worse, who knows), but if you look on other Communist regimes (e.c. in Soviet Union, China, Romania, etc.) every time the famine appears, due to poor redistribution of food there. However, it wasn't a problem in _Polish People's Commonwelth_ (also known as PRL), and here's how my mum (who lived there) describes it: _To be honest, in Socialist Poland you could eat how much you only wanted and surely no one was dying of hunger there. Only problem was diversity in every-day diet_ How we made it? It's simple: even Polish Communists weren't that stupid to believe, that state can feed everyone. Even during _6-year Plan_ in 1950's government didn't nationalise everything, only those companies, which were actually making any profit. In 1960's Poland made special economical reforms, and from then Polish government liked to call itself ,,Socialist" and not ,,Communist" (also from that moment on citizens were talking with government officials per ,,Citizen", and not ,,Comrade" as during Bierut's regime). Those reforms allowed companies, after some messing around with new law, to avoid exporting goods to USSR. And in 1970's and 1980's Polish economy looked like Soviet one during NEP policy - small level of street and farming trade was allowed (something like: you go to National farm (PGR), and buy from peasant whatever he was selling (but it wasn't that much)), and including fact that illegal trade was there all the time (and whatever government tried to do, it couldn't suppress it), we avoided such situation.
@@Admiral45-10 doesn’t poland have a social democratic government now? Id say the communist influence kept a relatively leftist government in power which is good
Wait, isn't the fall of the USSR one of the reasons of the 1990s North Korean famine and economical collapse? I was surprised when you said that North Korea wasn't too concerned. A video about that would be great.
Fun fact. All Chinese know the Tiananmen Square massacre as it is taught in our high school history class but most foreigners are deceived by their media to believe that we don’t know.
I love this channel for having concise and information-dense videos, if I have 5 mins before a meeting I can watch a really interesting video with no fluff or filler and still make my meeting on time
Heh in Cuba's case that was almost literal. Cuban sugar was its major export to the USSR, and the Soviets generously paid a huge markup for it, up to 11 times the world market price. After the USSR collapsed and took the Cuban economy with it, prostitution skyrocketed.
The USA will soon ended up like USSR but I and many others around the world don’t know what effect or how it gonna happen. Either like USSR and split up to into different countries or end up like Yugoslavia with civil war, a lot them. If the USA want to survive they will have to make a lot of big changes in the coming elections and no more stupid shit happening in the US by the end of the year ( this statement will not age well tbh). But from what I see the USA conditions is prom more to the USSR way, slowly and surely there would be another coup or civil war ( let hope just one). A new American Civil war this time we still have little information about what gonna happen so this is speculation.
The conclusion by communist party of China is actually “ too many political reforms, too less economic reforms. Economic reforms must go ahead of political reforms.”
Yugoslavia: You guys are running your states wrong i'll show you how to not Collapse Also Yugoslavia: **Disintegrates and Proceeds to fight the Bloodiest war in Balkan History** USSR: Are you sure this is how we're supposed to do this? China: Hey i've done this one before its a Classic
The Vietnam communist leader at the time (Nguyễn Văn Linh) had been pushing cultural reforms after the economic reforms (Đổi Mới) in 1986 and his trip to Romania to meet with Gorbachov. He was about to let the newspaper go free, when the news of the collapse came. He was like: Nope, stop that, it's no time for reforms, need to protect the Party now.
@@JBTriple8 their great empire was destroyed in 17th century. To this day the chinese were living under dictatorial regimes. I doubt any of them know how is it to live a good life
Edgar Rätsep *early 20th Century, Qing Dynasty. Also, if not for the Japanese deciding to invade China for no good reason at all, the China today would not be communist. Also, Nixon who opened China to the world just to piss USSR off.
Saw a lefty newspaper during that time with an editorial cartoon : man labeled "socialism" sweeping a broom and saying "I'm cleaning up not shutting down.". On brand with the blind optimism and dogmatic certainty.
FUN FACT::: I love you put the tank guy in there. I remember that. No Mandela affect here... But I imagine myself that the guy is James Bissonet. With the fight me sign
1:24 What problems? Surely you won't tell me that there were massive student-led protests in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in 1989 calling for democracy and freedom of the press, which were brutally suppressed by the government, who killed and injured many protestors, and then subsequently covered it all up; that would be crazy and also strangely specific
Actually no one forced those countries to join the EU... The EU is a club of rich countries where membership is voluntary and there are economic and democratic requirements to join. The EU has not forcefully occupied other countries, unlike the Soviet Union or the British Empire.
@@Bukmanpoderrojo you could even say that some of the former Eastern Block countries were let into the EU before they fulfilled the requirements... like how Romania and Bulgaria stopped their promised programs to combat corruption once a date was set for their membership.
You really should have gone into the massive economic problems in North Korea that were caused by the collapse of the USSR. NK was reliant on USSR selling them oil at a subsidized price that allowed their entire agricultural sector to flourish. When the oil stopped flowing in the 90s it caused a massive famine that was worse than anything that happened to Cuba.
Has there been any country or organization that actually do what Karl Marx wanted? Namely actually letting the workers take control of the factories and control the means of production? Not saying it would actually work (personally I think that model wouldn't work with real economics) but I find it funny that people who claim to be communist and socialist say they are but never advocate or actually do what the man they reference or revered so much intended communism to be.
The whole meme is stupid because neither people most Communist don’t understand how building ideology works or anti communists don’t understand what communism is a philosophy. Technically it was Socialism, they have not yet reached Communism, so if your criticism is towards Communism being unattainable then you should point out that it’s impossible to move pass Socialism
@@abandonedchannel281But there was never any real socialism anyway. At least how Karl Marx wanted neither in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, or Vietnam had they actually allowed the workers to control the means of production or the factories and businesses themselves.
@@brandonlyon730 I think you are mixing Socialism and Communism. In Socialism, the people (working class) are the direct owners of the factories and businesses since there is no bourgeois, no bosses, but the state itself makes the decisions since there is a need of bigger achievement, which is a completely Socialist World to getting to it's next and final phase, which is Communism, where the workers actually allowed the all control of the means of production and the factories and businesses and stuff.
And cranking that shit up to 11 and then some. Because you know, its just how things work in the balkans. Severe disregard for human life and one of the biggest destructions in Europe since ww2. "Powder keg of Europe" as they say.
@@cycomiles4225 And look out for another war in the Balkan in this decade (I just hope it doesn't erupt in my country, N.Macedonia, but it's a very high candidate unfortunately).
I like Yugoslavia claimed it was the ethnic Russians fault when Yugoslavia collapsed because of ethnic tensions as their government favored the Serbian population.
It also depended on the Party member in China. Some were smug and satisfied to see what they regarded as an enemy fall. Others, who had always hoped for a reconciliation, and believed to some extent in Socialism, were crestfallen.
MAJOR MISTAKE: North Korea did NOT wean itself off of soviet support, their biggest problem was that oil subsidies from USSR ceased to come, which meant their tractors and agricultural equipment could not be used Within less than 10 years, North Korea faced apocalyptic famine whose ramifications are felt to this day.
