The Soviet Union Rose From Peasant Nation to Industrial Superpower — So Why Did Its Economy Colla...

In 1928, 80% of Soviet citizens were peasants. By 1961, they had put the first man in space. So what went so catastrophically wrong that by 1991, people were standing in bread lines? This is the story of the most breathtaking industrial rise in human history — and the slow, rotting collapse that followed. I go inside the command economy that built steel cities from frozen wasteland, moved entire factories across Siberia during wartime, and terrified Washington for decades, then trace exactly how and why it all came apart from the inside. • How Stalin's Five-Year Plans transformed a peasant nation into the world's second-largest economy in less than two decades • The catastrophic human cost of collectivization — millions dead while the government kept exporting grain • Why the T-34 tank that won World War II was only possible because of brutal 1930s industrialization • The structural flaw baked into the Soviet system from day one — and why it could never be fixed • How oil wealth let Brezhnev ignore a dying economy for twenty years • What perestroika and glasnost actually did — and why Gorbachev's reforms accelerated the collapse instead of stopping it ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Introduction: From Wooden Plows to Nuclear Warheads 02:15 - 1917, Lenin, and What the Bolsheviks Actually Inherited 06:30 - Stalin's Five-Year Plans: The Greatest Industrial Revolution in History 11:00 - Collectivization: The Price Paid in Human Lives 15:30 - The Cold War Golden Age — and the Cracks Nobody Wanted to See 19:45 - Oil Dependency, Military Spending, and the Era of Stagnation 24:00 - Gorbachev, Glasnost, and the Final Collapse The events described in this video are based on historical records and the work of economic historians. Figures and estimates reflect the range of scholarly sources available. #Economics #History #Documentary #Finance #RealEstate #Trade #Capitalism #EconomicHistory