Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich
From: eich@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Empires:  History Question - (nf)
Message-ID: <3983@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 20-Nov-83 15:45:23 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3983
Posted: Sun Nov 20 15:45:23 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Nov-83 02:38:02 EST
Lines: 20

#R:hou5d:-72900:uiuccsb:11000061:000:1018
uiuccsb!eich    Nov 17 11:15:00 1983

/***** uiuccsb:net.politics / fortune!notes /  9:50 pm  Nov  8, 1983 */
The Soviet Union is the first empire in history which supplies its
satellites, rather than the other way around.  It is squandering its
vast but mismanaged resources on small mismanaged colonies.
/* ---------- */

Wrong.  The Soviets, through such tricks as the `transferable ruble'
that they foisted on the Poles a few years back, which was undervalued
by 30% in the terms of the agreement and was not transferable, have
been siphoning off the fruits of their satellites' production.  Some
rural Polish communist party officials reported this a few months
before martial law.  The particular result was an unnatural scarcity
(Polish farmers would only produce enough food for their own needs,
because there were no goods to buy with profit from surplus effort);
this compounded the usual dreary performance of planned economies
in the east (Hungary is an exception, owing to economic liberalization),
and helped contribute to Solidarity's rise.