Russian Contraction

In 1989, the USSR was dissolved, satellite countries were declared sovereign and a smaller Russia became the Russian Federation. Even in its reduced state, Russia has a land mass of 6.6 million square miles and it’s the largest country on the planet.

In the US, we hadn’t been getting accurate news of relevant events for a long time.  In the 1970s we got a hint that Russian central planning was failing to deliver on their agricultural goals, because they were buying US wheat. In 1980, I was with an agricultural equipment manufacturer, we made custom fertilizer applicators and Russia wanted to buy some. We sent a team over to Russia to complete the deal and when they came back, they told us that Russia was a mess.

Russia had tried to build their own fertilizer applicator and failed. Russian employees would say “They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work. At the same time Russia was having trouble keeping order in its satellite countries and was entering their Afghanistan adventure from 1979 to 1989.

What was happening to Russia in the 1970s and 1980s was similar to what happened to Rome in the 4^th century BC. They were running out of money and didn’t have enough to pay their armies, so they had to pull out of Britain and then the rest fell to the Persians and the barbarians. Gorbachev came on the scene to downsize the USSR.

I was serving as the State Director for Kansas for the American Society for Personnel Administration (ASPA) in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was called to give a talk to the Wichita ASPA Chapter in 1980. My topic was Russia.  I described the problems in Russia to the group.  Reagan wasn’t there, but he knew.

When countries get overextended and run out of cash, it’s over. The USSR was dissolved in 1989. The US better get its fiscal house in order.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader