Actually the reason USSR failed was the state itself not being very agile. Different state entities would impede each other while fighting for funds, for their project to become standard (the competing projects would become standards as well, there'd be plenty of incompatible standards), for them to be more politically important (Politburo wasn't a dictatorial institution).

Naturally in such a climate any cooperation between state entities would involve more complex and obscure diplomacy and deals than how it happens between companies in typical market economies.

So this:

They addressed the productivity issues of decentralized socialism through centralization.

is the opposite of reality. Productivity was USSR's weakest side. It really honestly succeeded in some unexpected aspects, but efficiency is not one of them.

[–] galloog1@lemmy.world -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So, I agree. Decentralization of the Soviets was immensely worse early after the revolution though so they centralized early. The CCP early in its creation had the same criticisms of the USSR resulting in a much longer attempt at decentralization and actual famine.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

Decentralization of the Soviets was immensely worse early after the revolution though

If NEP is what you mean by "decentralization" (because nothing else makes sense even remotely, Soviets by definition are a vertical structure, like a tree with its root being the center), then it's generally accepted that NEP was the thing which allowed to restore Soviet Russia from a famished wasteland after the Civil War.

so they centralized early

They had almost a decade of slowly pushing out communist dissenters out of the political field (all non-communist leftists were already banned closer to the end of the Civil War, and the rest - hahaha), which may give you the wrong impression. However, they were heavily centralized from day one. That was part of the ideology. It's not some European leftists we are talking about.

For these people political competitiveness or pluralism or due process in courts or human rights were not high on the list of priorities. Building industries to arm heavily and "spread the revolution" was.

Their ideal was some sort of a communist version of the German Empire.