The Soviet Union has strong military-industrial strength as a superpower that once competed with the United States. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited most of the Soviet territory and population. Russia has a large number of senior technicians, a large domestic market, and rich natural resources. This meets almost all the prerequisites for industrial development, but today Russia is a country that mainly relies on energy exports economically. Western developed countries mainly make money by selling industrial products, while Russia, like , Saudi Arabia, makes money by selling energy. In 2020, Russian oil and natural gas export revenue accounted for about 28% of fiscal revenue.
Russia's manufacturing industry not only has not developed compared to the Soviet era, but it can even be said to have regressed in a sense. This is first because Russia's industrial system inherited from the Soviet Union has great problems. At the beginning of the founding of the Soviet Union, against the backdrop of strong enemies, the economic policy was greatly tilted towards heavy industry to deal with wars that could break out at any time. During the Second World War , the Soviet Union's heavy industry was completely released: tanks, cannons, and aircraft continued to move to the front line like magic, which strongly supported the Soviet army's combat effectiveness.
After the end of World War II , the Soviet Union has become the second largest economy in the world after the United States. However, due to the need to compete with the United States for hegemony, the Soviet Union has always been committed to heavy industries such as military industry and energy, and has long ignored the development of agriculture and light industry that is directly related to the living standards of ordinary people. So much so that a superpower that can trick up the nuclear weapon actually has a shortage of food and daily necessities. In 1988, the Soviet Union official statistics on the sales of grain and daily necessities in the market were as follows: 95% of the more than 1,200 basic consumer goods supplied in the market were often short of; 188 of the 211 foods were often short of.
There is a special term in economics called "path dependence" which means: if you walk too much on a road, you will be addicted, so you will often be easily lost. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union had already fallen behind in the electronics industry when Western developed countries were in full swing. In the 1980s, Europe and the United States began to engage in integrated circuits, but the Soviet Union was still studying the old-fashioned tube . Russia almost inherited the Soviet industrial model intact, so the problems existing in Soviet industry also exist objectively in today's Russia.
The Soviet Union had the problem of imbalance in the proportion of light and heavy industries, and today's Russia also had this problem. In Russia, a country that can send satellite to heaven, there are almost no domestic cars, and there are almost no domestic computers in the offices of Russian companies. In the fields of daily light industrial products such as mobile phones, the Internet, cars, and clothing, few people hear about any internationally renowned brands in Russia. The Soviet Union lags behind Western developed countries in the emerging electronics industry in the 1980s, and Russia still has no breakthrough in the electronics industry.
In the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, electronic warfare is indeed a major weakness of Russia. Russia is indeed ahead of the world in terms of high-end weapons such as nuclear weapons and aerospace weapons, but the Russian army's command information system is actually a whole generation behind the Western army. Russia inherited the shortcomings of the Soviet Union's unreasonable proportion of light and heavy industries and weak electronics industry, but Russia failed to inherit the complete industrial system of the Soviet Union. The industrial system of the Soviet era was distributed in each franchised republic: some were responsible for providing raw materials, some were responsible for producing parts, and some were responsible for assembling. Many Soviet industrial enterprises were not in Russia at all.
For example, as the Soviet aircraft carrier assembly factory, the Black Sea Shipyard is located in Ukraine. Therefore, the shipbuilding industry in the Soviet era was basically distributed in Ukraine, so Russia's shipbuilding industry suffered a significant blow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet era, nine aircraft carriers, were built, but it was difficult for Russia to build aircraft carriers after losing the Black Sea shipyard. Now Russia only has an old aircraft carrier left from the Soviet era.Similarly, the steel industry in the Soviet era was largely distributed in the Baltic Republic, so the independence of the three Baltic countries hit Russia's steel industry.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia actually inherited part of the Soviet Union's industrial system. Although Russia's share inherited was far greater than that of other franchised republics, the originally complete heavy industrial system in the Soviet era had been dismantled. Now Russia is taking advantage of the old capital left by the Soviet Union in terms of industry. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia not only failed to develop any independent industrial innovation brand, but even Izmash company , which produced an internationally renowned brand such as AK-47, declared bankruptcy due to business system issues. Today, the equipment of many Russian factories is still old products from the Soviet era.
The failure of shock therapy in Yeltsin era almost made the Russian economy really face the fate of shock collapse: the failure of shock therapy almost reduced Russia's GDP in almost half, and the world's second only to the United States in the Soviet era became only 1/10 of that in the United States and was surpassed by Japan, Germany, Britain, France and other countries. From 1992 to 1999, Russia's economy has always been in a state of negative growth. In this process, Russia's social wealth lost $1.7 trillion. This is equivalent to 2.5 times the economic losses of the Soviet Union in Patriotic War . The direct consequence of this is that Russian companies lack funds for innovation technology and updating equipment.
Russia's economic downturn and continued social turmoil in the Yeltsin era caused a large number of high-tech talents to flow out of the Soviet era. In the process, Russia's scientific researchers dropped from 2.5 million to less than 800,000. Russia's manufacturing industry therefore faces a situation of lack of equipment, technology, funds and talents. Putin After taking office, his main energy was focused on military and diplomatic aspects, rather than on industrial upgrading and development. After Putin came to power, Russia's economic situation has indeed improved significantly compared with the Yeltsin era, so Russia was able to be called " BRICS " together with China, India, Brazil and other countries.
The improvement of Russia's economic situation in the early days of Putin's rule was not because the Russian industrial system had overcome its inherent disadvantages, but because the Putin government cleverly used Russia's own advantages: it contained rich natural resources on Russia's vast territory, and the Soviet era laid a solid military-industrial foundation for Russia. It is precisely with these advantages that Russia has made foreign exchange through exporting oil and gas resources and weapons and equipment. Putin's cleverness is that he clearly knows Russia's advantage and gets rid of the situation in which Russia held a golden rice bowl in Yeltsin's era.
Russia's resources are really rich. Russia can make a lot of money by selling oil and natural gas alone, so the Russian leadership can easily think that it doesn’t matter whether it is innovating or not. In fact, Putin has never made any reforms to Russia's industrial system and economic system. Russia not only creates high foreign exchange income through its foreign energy exports, but also often uses cutting off oil and gas supply as a diplomatic means to curb strategic opponents. However, due to the lack of institutional and technological reform and innovation, this development model that simply competes for advantages will always be exhausted.
The Russian energy industry has long dominated the country, which has squeezed the space and resources for developing other industries. If Russia wants to develop a modern industry, it must update its equipment and technology, but most of these things need to be purchased from external countries. Although Russia's vast territory contains rich natural resources, Russia's development can only rely on its own resources, because the international market is in the hands of developed European and American countries led by the United States. Developed European and American countries led by the United States certainly do not want to see a powerful Russia.
If Russia wants to purchase advanced equipment and technology from developed countries in Europe and the United States, it will definitely not work, so Russia must prepare a large amount of US dollars and euros. Of course, in recent years, Russia has also tried to get rid of this dilemma through de-dollarization.Currently, Russia will require the other party to trade in Russian currency or its own currency as much as possible in trade with other countries. The problem is that most countries that intend to de-dollarize with Russia are third world countries such as Syria , Venezuela . The production level of these countries is actually not as good as Russia, so what Russia can import from these countries is only raw material resources.
But Russia itself does not lack resources, what Russia lacks is equipment and technology. This is obviously not provided by third world countries such as Syria and Venezuela. After all, those who master advanced equipment technology and international markets are still developed European and American countries led by the United States. To import equipment and technology from these countries, you can only pay a large amount of US dollars and euros. Sometimes even if Russia is willing to pay for it, it cannot solve the problem. European and American countries will set technical barriers to Russia in some core technology fields - even if Russia is willing to give money, it cannot buy the equipment and technology they want.
