I see this claim made a lot: that the Soviet Union achieved economic growth that has never been seen before or after, so threw it at some angry Redditor. They brought up Japan/ South Korea from 1950-1990 and looking into it, it seems as though they are comparable, at least when using GDP South Korea actually does a lot better than the Soviet Union. Now this leaves out rapid Industrialization which I assume is what is meant with “unparraleled economic growth” and also GDP may not be the best indicator but it’s still impressive. Of course Japan and SK were also subsidized by the US. Am I missing something? and does anyone have good sources on the growth of the Soviet Economy from 1921-1990?
You should be more careful with comparing GDP numbers. For instance, GDP numbers suggest that Russia’s economy pretty much halved after 2014 due to sanctions, but most of this “loss” was simply the ruble’s price dropping. Russia’s industry did not collapse after 2014 like it did in 1991.