Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Union

by Scott Shane

Release Date: September, 1995

Edition: Paperback

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Interesting but Rudimentary

Scott Shane does a good job of describing the collapse of the Soviet Union, mostly through the eyes of a few people he knew well. However, the book is rudimentary for anyone who has studied Russia, and if anyone is to choose one book it should be "Lenin's Tomb" by David Remnick.

He does add to the discussion about the fall by focusing on information, but it also seems a bit predictable that a journalist would emphasize the role journalism and information played in the collapse.

A denoument in the 3rd act

DISMANTLING UTOPIA

Scott Shane, an American educated journalist who also studied at Leningrad State University, was the Baltimore Sun's Russian speaking Moscow correspondent from 1988-1991. His book is the story of the Communist rulers of the USSR and their failure to comprehend the implications of the global telecommunications revolution. In trying to match the USA in military might, a feat presumed by many to be a foregone conclusion in 1980, the inhabitants of the politburo instead locked their country out of the global telecom revolution hastening the implosion of their already rotten and inefficient communist system. Shane weaves a fascinating tale of this unexpected transition, an event from which Hard Leftists of the world have yet to recover.

At the outset Shane tells of the banning of books, of the speech codes and of the virtual thought control so pervasive in the communist system. One can't help but compare it to the speech codes so popular today with the tenured radicals who run American universities. Moving right along Shane morphs into the early 80's when Gorbachev asked Andropov how much the USSR spent on defense? Andropov brushed him off. It was then that Gorbachev realized that nobody knew! This was a time when personal computers were 8 bit with 64K of RAM. Contrast this with the >10 gig PC hard drives of today, selling at a fraction of the cost of the 1980 PC. Contrast the decline of the Soviet economy with the rise of Americas' and you have the essence of this book.

As the Communist leviathan unraveled its shortage of hard currency became an untenable burden. They made more of everything than anyone else, but nobody wanted any of it. They couldn't feed their people and compete with American military might. Russia's decline can be paralleled with the fall in labor union membership in America where the only ascendant unions today are made up of government employees (hardly the laborers Marx had in mind when he encouraged workers to throw off their chains). The reason is that the global economy is moving away from industries that make things and move things and toward the development of intellectual capital and software.

As the plummeting of the Communist economy accelerated the phrase "Kogda ty znal - when did you know?" became a common one. "When did you know the accomplishments of the communist party were based on lies?" Information from smaller and smaller electronic units proved impossible for the Reds to block. The corrupt communist elite was on the ropes. Scott Shane describes this building pressure in Soviet society. Just as water pressure builds behind a dam after 40 days and 40 nights of rain, pressure built in Soviet society and when the dam finally broke, the apparatchiks were swept away and the party unity and organization did a face plant into the sidewalk of history.

An interesting vignette in the book occurs when the main apartment unit, in one of those dreary grey Soviet housing projects, plays a tape cassette of an American movie. Everyone is watching as all TV's in the building are hooked up to the same channel. The people watching are aghast, and not about the show. When they see a character in the sitcom open the refrigerator door and they see what is inside the refrigerator, they can't believe the varieties of food and furthermore are astounded that American consumers have cold beer. It's like the scene in the movie portrayal of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath where the Okies are going west in their cars. The Leftist screen writers in Hollywood were intent on making a statement about poverty in America, but when the movie was seen overseas the viewers were instead incredulous that America's poor had their own cars.

In Russia the fact that everyone in America seemed to have a car and excess living space was over the top. When Gorbachev's attempts at Socialism lite failed the end was in sight. Shane cataloges how the elite's could no longer get away with the Big lie as they had in the past. They were unequipped to deal with advances in telecommunications such as simple fax machines. Instead of keeping people in the dark while they were divided and conquered, the elites were exposed like the wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled back. They were just like he, bumbling little old men with lots of bluster. They lost their will to bring in the Tanks, to continue their rule by terror. Thus ended a century of intellectual support for the socialist ideal that promised so much, but delivered so little. Shane tells this tale with sympathy and understanding. He brings to life the relief of the people from the 70-year yoke of the Communist party. As he makes clear, if governments could control prices and quantities of goods and services then Communism would have worked. But, that will never happen and under strict regimes such as those found in Soviet Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Communist China, etc. the result has too often led to Genocide and Gulags.

A well told tale of a fascinating event in history which caught 99.999% of intellectuals completely by surprise.