Soviet System Quotes
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. Before the Russian Revolution large factories did not have to be very efficient as the labor was paid so little. After the Revolution, the workers were paid more and the inefficient procedures became even more disorganized with the workers in control for the first time without any management experience. At the same time, the small privately owned manufacturing businesses were making a profit with no help from the government. This was an embarrassment that the Communists eventually solved by shutting down the private businesses that were such an embarrassment. Russian manufacturing was never world class and efficient under the Soviets even after the post Revolution crises.
Russia suffered enormous casualties in WWII where over 20 million Russians were killed. None the less, at the end of the war Europe was devastated with no viable economy. The fascist states and the democracies were all devastated. But Russia was still functioning. Instead of crediting the enormous Russian land mass, the success of the Russian Army, and the enormous amount of aid that the U. S. had provided, Stalin concluded that the reason was the Soviet Communist System.
At the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in 1935 the new Popular Front policy was announced. To communist hard-liners and to the far left, the policy was an abandonment of the Marxist revolutionary line.
Truman had to deal with Stalin for many years and over time he became more and more soured on the Russians. See {626411} for his view 22 years later,
