NationStates

While surfing youtube came upon the following video (see below) of the East Germany (EG.) military parade of 1989. Question, yes, EG. politics and economy were in free fall but there military seemed fine. Why did the military not just take over when the bottom fell out of the government. Once in power they could have gone more to the right if they had chosen so. Or were the Soviets too entrenched in the EG. military to let that happen. Its kind of hard to believe that any nation with a functional military, unless invaded by a stronger enemy, could collapse overnight.

The video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_9jqxCVpLI

Maybe, the higher up in the military were too tightly kept in check by the government thus they could not act when the government collapsed. If they had been more independent of the government they could have acted.

So what do you think. Also, could it happen today. For example, if the Italian government collapsed and the EU. decided not to get involved, would there military step in to fill the power vacuum or also collapse.

That's a very good question; why didn't the East Germany military take over the government in 1989?

Here's the thing; German reunification was quick.

From 1970 to 1989, the hardliner Erich Honecker ruled East Germany. His rule, supported by Moscow until Gorbachev, fell apart and he was sent out of office by his own party.

The East German government wanted reunification. West Germany wanted unification. The USA would support unification, and so would the USSR. France was fine with it; Britain was the odd one out.

The military didn't take over the government because, like the rest of the East German government, they supported reunification.

To add on to your post; the East German government didn't "collapse overnight". East Germany and the rest of the communist bloc had been losing the Cold War since 1953 (or, arguably, 1969). Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power was the final nail in the coffin for the Eastern Bloc (not the USSR, mind you) and communism in Europe, but it wasn't the reason that it collapsed. The East had been in decline far longer than what happened in 1989 and 1990.

Here's a link to the Further Reading tab on Wikipedia if you want to delve into it a bit more.

Edit: Fixed the link.

Being a largely conscription-based force, the crumbling GDR system was as unpopular with your average NVA soldier as it was with the rest of the population. Trying to deploy the army against the peaceful protesters would have predictably led to mass fraternization rather than suppression, much like it happened in the Moscow Coup of 1991.

Because militaries do not build cars, housing, infrastructure, except in its relation to, you guessed it, military matters. And, surprise surprise, ain't nobody wanted a return of Prussia but with red standards instead of black.

Baltenstein wrote:Being a largely conscription-based force, the crumbling GDR system was as unpopular with your average NVA soldier as it was with the rest of the population. Trying to deploy the army against the peaceful protesters would have predictably led to mass fraternization rather than suppression, much like it happened in the Moscow Coup of 1991.

Also this
this is frankly more important than what I posted

It's very difficult to say why the military doesn't step into power, even when it feasibly can, in a generalisable manner. It's late here, so I really can't be bothered with a long response that many people wouldn't read anyway, but the possibility of military interventions into politics are determined - if we can use the term "determined" - by a very vast variety of factors.

For all we know, it could simply be that the military was/is not seen as a legitimate political actor. Authoritarian regimes do not necessarily make the military a legitimate political actor, indeed, I'd wager that single-party regimes are even less vulnerable to military interventions (compared to personalistic regimes or military regimes) due to the resources spent establishing legitimacy and an institutionalised power structure that is able to facilitate succession and allocation of resources, as opposed to being ad hoc and de-institutionalised.

Baltenstein wrote:Being a largely conscription-based force, the crumbling GDR system was as unpopular with your average NVA soldier as it was with the rest of the population. Trying to deploy the army against the peaceful protesters would have predictably led to mass fraternization rather than suppression, much like it happened in the Moscow Coup of 1991.

This, just as the Soviet military coup failed miserably as most Soviet conscripts were more likely to sympathize with rarer than want to fight the people opposing the system.

Also most make college students were forced to become officers, meaning the junior officers were often more sympathetic to the protesters than the regime.

The Soviet and satellites reliance on oversized conscript base militaries meant their militaries turned out to be unwillingly to fight for a regime they too had little love for.

Where a military attempt to stop the collapse of the Soviet system in 89-91 happened (Moscow, Romania) it failed because the average troops, forcibly draw from the same young people protesting the regime were not willing enough to fight for the regime.

The PRC was able to use the military to keep control because its military was much smaller relative to the population, meaning it could be carefully picked from those most loyal to the regime, something the Soviet system of conscripting virtually all young males could not do.

Atheris wrote:To add on to your post; the East German government didn't "collapse overnight". East Germany and the rest of the communist bloc had been losing the Cold War since 1953 (or, arguably, 1969). Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power was the final nail in the coffin for the Eastern Bloc (not the USSR, mind you) and communism in Europe, but it wasn't the reason that it collapsed. The East had been in decline far longer than what happened in 1989 and 1990.

I would say the early 1970s were the turning point in the Cold War because that was when economic stagnation began to set in and the Soviet economy was no longer capable of keeping pace with the West.

Vetalia wrote:

Atheris wrote:To add on to your post; the East German government didn't "collapse overnight". East Germany and the rest of the communist bloc had been losing the Cold War since 1953 (or, arguably, 1969). Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power was the final nail in the coffin for the Eastern Bloc (not the USSR, mind you) and communism in Europe, but it wasn't the reason that it collapsed. The East had been in decline far longer than what happened in 1989 and 1990.

I would say the early 1970s were the turning point in the Cold War because that was when economic stagnation began to set in and the Soviet economy was no longer capable of keeping pace with the West.

This was later propaganda.Economic studies show that the Soviet Union's economy still shows no signs of collapse in 1985. Although the economic data are not very good, they are not bad too.At the beginning of the reform, the Soviet Union's gold reserve was 2000 tons, and in 1991 it dropped to 200 tons. In 1985, the Soviet Union actually had no external debt; in 1991, the Soviet Union's foreign debt was about 120 billion US dollars.And all other data suggest that Gorbachev was an economic genius.Even if it can't keep up with the entire Western Script, the Soviet Union may still exist as a powerful entity.

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:

Vetalia wrote:
I would say the early 1970s were the turning point in the Cold War because that was when economic stagnation began to set in and the Soviet economy was no longer capable of keeping pace with the West.

This was later propaganda.Economic studies show that the Soviet Union's economy still shows no signs of collapse in 1985. Although the economic data are not very good, they are not bad too.At the beginning of the reform, the Soviet Union's gold reserve was 2000 tons, and in 1991 it dropped to 200 tons. In 1985, the Soviet Union actually had no external debt; in 1991, the Soviet Union's foreign debt was about 120 billion US dollars.And all other data suggest that Gorbachev was an economic genius.Even if it can't keep up with the entire Western Script, the Soviet Union may still exist as a powerful entity.

...This isn't the 1600's. Gold is not an indicator of economic strength, not even in the 80's.

Kowani wrote:

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:This was later propaganda.Economic studies show that the Soviet Union's economy still shows no signs of collapse in 1985. Although the economic data are not very good, they are not bad too.At the beginning of the reform, the Soviet Union's gold reserve was 2000 tons, and in 1991 it dropped to 200 tons. In 1985, the Soviet Union actually had no external debt; in 1991, the Soviet Union's foreign debt was about 120 billion US dollars.And all other data suggest that Gorbachev was an economic genius.Even if it can't keep up with the entire Western Script, the Soviet Union may still exist as a powerful entity.

...This isn't the 1600's. Gold is not an indicator of economic strength, not even in the 80's.

The country's gold reserves are used to stabilize the value of the currency... The sudden drop in gold reserves was an indication of the problems with the Soviet currency.

The Stasi had informants in the NVA. The SED maintained control of major state institutions right until the end. The NVA never showed signs of wavering in their loyalty to the SED, because the upper echelons of the NVA consisted of SED members. The SED removed Honecker, so they considered the problem done and dusted.

All reasons why the NVA never tried to do what you think they would have done.

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:

Vetalia wrote:
I would say the early 1970s were the turning point in the Cold War because that was when economic stagnation began to set in and the Soviet economy was no longer capable of keeping pace with the West.

This was later propaganda.Economic studies show that the Soviet Union's economy still shows no signs of collapse in 1985. Although the economic data are not very good, they are not bad too.At the beginning of the reform, the Soviet Union's gold reserve was 2000 tons, and in 1991 it dropped to 200 tons. In 1985, the Soviet Union actually had no external debt; in 1991, the Soviet Union's foreign debt was about 120 billion US dollars.And all other data suggest that Gorbachev was an economic genius.Even if it can't keep up with the entire Western Script, the Soviet Union may still exist as a powerful entity.

Gold reserves are not the important thing. GPD growth dropped greatly in the period from after 1975 and remained low. Low external debt does not help much either. Romania destroyed its economy trying to pay off its debt. The austerity measures used to avoid debt harm economic growth, borrowing money is actually quite useful if you spend it on projects that generate more GDP then the consume.

Gorbachev was an economic ignoramus as well, his wrongheaded economic reforms caused more problems in many cases. He cut support to SOE’s before liberalization of prices.
Basically they had to sell at a profit despite the state controlling prices of inputs and outputs.
For example if a widget takes 1kg of iron to make, and i have to buy iron at $10 per kg but sell widgets at $5 I cannot make a profit. The more I sell the more I lose. And if the government mandates I sell at least 1 million widgets, then I am basically mandated to lose $5,000,000.

But economic problems were not the only reason the Soviet Union collapsed. The nationality problem was just as big a factor.

Novus America wrote:

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:This was later propaganda.Economic studies show that the Soviet Union's economy still shows no signs of collapse in 1985. Although the economic data are not very good, they are not bad too.At the beginning of the reform, the Soviet Union's gold reserve was 2000 tons, and in 1991 it dropped to 200 tons. In 1985, the Soviet Union actually had no external debt; in 1991, the Soviet Union's foreign debt was about 120 billion US dollars.And all other data suggest that Gorbachev was an economic genius.Even if it can't keep up with the entire Western Script, the Soviet Union may still exist as a powerful entity.

Gold reserves are not the important thing. GPD growth dropped greatly in the period from after 1975 and remained low. Low external debt does not help much either. Romania destroyed its economy trying to pay off its debt. The austerity measures used to avoid debt harm economic growth, borrowing money is actually quite useful if you spend it on projects that generate more GDP then the consume.

Gorbachev was an economic ignoramus as well, his wrongheaded economic reforms caused more problems in many cases. He cut support to SOE’s before liberalization of prices.
Basically they had to sell at a profit despite the state controlling prices of inputs and outputs.
For example if a widget takes 1kg of iron to make, and i have to buy iron at $10 per kg but sell widgets at $5 I cannot make a profit. The more I sell the more I lose. And if the government mandates I sell at least 1 million widgets, then I am basically mandated to lose $5,000,000.

But economic problems were not the only reason the Soviet Union collapsed. The nationality problem was just as big a factor.

Indeed. The collapse of the USSR is not too dissimilar from the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, when you think about it - sure, one cause was the catalyst, but the revolts had mostly to do with nationalism.

Centrallonia wrote:While surfing youtube came upon the following video (see below) of the East Germany (EG.) military parade of 1989. Question, yes, EG. politics and economy were in free fall but there military seemed fine. Why did the military not just take over when the bottom fell out of the government. Once in power they could have gone more to the right if they had chosen so. Or were the Soviets too entrenched in the EG. military to let that happen. Its kind of hard to believe that any nation with a functional military, unless invaded by a stronger enemy, could collapse overnight.

The video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_9jqxCVpLI

Maybe, the higher up in the military were too tightly kept in check by the government thus they could not act when the government collapsed. If they had been more independent of the government they could have acted.

So what do you think. Also, could it happen today. For example, if the Italian government collapsed and the EU. decided not to get involved, would there military step in to fill the power vacuum or also collapse.

E. German Stalinism was brought down by a popular rebellion. Presumably if the officers had tried something like what you suggest, the pro-democracy ranks of the military would have stopped them.

Rightonrighton wrote:

Centrallonia wrote:While surfing youtube came upon the following video (see below) of the East Germany (EG.) military parade of 1989. Question, yes, EG. politics and economy were in free fall but there military seemed fine. Why did the military not just take over when the bottom fell out of the government. Once in power they could have gone more to the right if they had chosen so. Or were the Soviets too entrenched in the EG. military to let that happen. Its kind of hard to believe that any nation with a functional military, unless invaded by a stronger enemy, could collapse overnight.

The video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_9jqxCVpLI

Maybe, the higher up in the military were too tightly kept in check by the government thus they could not act when the government collapsed. If they had been more independent of the government they could have acted.

So what do you think. Also, could it happen today. For example, if the Italian government collapsed and the EU. decided not to get involved, would there military step in to fill the power vacuum or also collapse.

E. German Stalinism was brought down by a popular rebellion. Presumably if the officers had tried something like what you suggest, the pro-democracy ranks of the military would have stopped them.

East German Stalinism didn't fall until 1989 after Honecker was deposed.

Rightonrighton wrote:Presumably if the officers had tried something like what you suggest, the pro-democracy ranks of the military would have stopped them.

...who?

Novus America wrote:

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:This was later propaganda.Economic studies show that the Soviet Union's economy still shows no signs of collapse in 1985. Although the economic data are not very good, they are not bad too.At the beginning of the reform, the Soviet Union's gold reserve was 2000 tons, and in 1991 it dropped to 200 tons. In 1985, the Soviet Union actually had no external debt; in 1991, the Soviet Union's foreign debt was about 120 billion US dollars.And all other data suggest that Gorbachev was an economic genius.Even if it can't keep up with the entire Western Script, the Soviet Union may still exist as a powerful entity.

Gold reserves are not the important thing. GPD growth dropped greatly in the period from after 1975 and remained low. Low external debt does not help much either. Romania destroyed its economy trying to pay off its debt. The austerity measures used to avoid debt harm economic growth, borrowing money is actually quite useful if you spend it on projects that generate more GDP then the consume.

Gorbachev was an economic ignoramus as well, his wrongheaded economic reforms caused more problems in many cases. He cut support to SOE’s before liberalization of prices.
Basically they had to sell at a profit despite the state controlling prices of inputs and outputs.
For example if a widget takes 1kg of iron to make, and i have to buy iron at $10 per kg but sell widgets at $5 I cannot make a profit. The more I sell the more I lose. And if the government mandates I sell at least 1 million widgets, then I am basically mandated to lose $5,000,000.

But economic problems were not the only reason the Soviet Union collapsed. The nationality problem was just as big a factor.

Planned economy is not such a stupid thing. Your description is an attempt to use the theory of market economy to describe planned economy.Planned economy is run by mathematicians, not economists.The demand side will tell the government what it needs, and then all levels of government will conduct accounting and report. The budget is then approved by the finance department and approved by the relevant bureaucrats. Finally, the factory will be told what to produce.Obviously, in the Soviet era, when there were no high-performance computers, it all needed human computation.Even Stalin could not make arbitrary decisions about prices in violation of objective laws. When an enterprise wants to purchase a part to replace the damaged part, it also has to go through such a complicated process. Obviously, it is not as flexible as the market economy.It is also impossible to predict the constantly updated civil consumer goods.
The Soviet Union's problems were not just economic, but they were clearly not irreparable.In Russian history, many time's situation is much worse than it was in the 1980s. At that time, there were many countries worse than the Soviet Union.What the Soviet Union needed was a cautious and creative reform plan.Gorbachev carried out political reform after the failure of economic reform. After the failure of political reform, he carried out institutional reform and ideological reform.After all this failed, he thought about it and found that it was the fault of the Communist Party and socialism.At this time, the Soviet Union had no energy to pay attention to Eastern Europe.The oligarchs created by Gorbachev's reform have also taken away the power of the Central Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Yeltsin took control of the army and Russia.Government officials at that time became oligarchs today.
What the Soviet Union needed was to reduce its surplus troops and gradually introduce a market economy. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union should insist on controlling state-owned enterprises rather than selling them to capitalists.Abandoning the political ambition in Central Asia and the political control over Eastern Europe.And an agreement should be reached with NATO to withdraw nuclear bombs from western and Eastern Europe and to cut down on garrison.These actions are a burden on the Soviet economy.

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:

Novus America wrote:
Gold reserves are not the important thing. GPD growth dropped greatly in the period from after 1975 and remained low. Low external debt does not help much either. Romania destroyed its economy trying to pay off its debt. The austerity measures used to avoid debt harm economic growth, borrowing money is actually quite useful if you spend it on projects that generate more GDP then the consume.

Gorbachev was an economic ignoramus as well, his wrongheaded economic reforms caused more problems in many cases. He cut support to SOE’s before liberalization of prices.
Basically they had to sell at a profit despite the state controlling prices of inputs and outputs.
For example if a widget takes 1kg of iron to make, and i have to buy iron at $10 per kg but sell widgets at $5 I cannot make a profit. The more I sell the more I lose. And if the government mandates I sell at least 1 million widgets, then I am basically mandated to lose $5,000,000.

But economic problems were not the only reason the Soviet Union collapsed. The nationality problem was just as big a factor.

Planned economy is not such a stupid thing. Your description is an attempt to use the theory of market economy to describe planned economy.Planned economy is run by mathematicians, not economists.The demand side will tell the government what it needs, and then all levels of government will conduct accounting and report. The budget is then approved by the finance department and approved by the relevant bureaucrats. Finally, the factory will be told what to produce.Obviously, in the Soviet era, when there were no high-performance computers, it all needed human computation.Even Stalin could not make arbitrary decisions about prices in violation of objective laws. When an enterprise wants to purchase a part to replace the damaged part, it also has to go through such a complicated process. Obviously, it is not as flexible as the market economy.It is also impossible to predict the constantly updated civil consumer goods.
The Soviet Union's problems were not just economic, but they were clearly not irreparable.In Russian history, many time's situation is much worse than it was in the 1980s. At that time, there were many countries worse than the Soviet Union.What the Soviet Union needed was a cautious and creative reform plan.Gorbachev carried out political reform after the failure of economic reform. After the failure of political reform, he carried out institutional reform and ideological reform.After all this failed, he thought about it and found that it was the fault of the Communist Party and socialism.At this time, the Soviet Union had no energy to pay attention to Eastern Europe.The oligarchs created by Gorbachev's reform have also taken away the power of the Central Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Yeltsin took control of the army and Russia.Government officials at that time became oligarchs today.
What the Soviet Union needed was to reduce its surplus troops and gradually introduce a market economy. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union should insist on controlling state-owned enterprises rather than selling them to capitalists.Abandoning the political ambition in Central Asia and the political control over Eastern Europe.And an agreement should be reached with NATO to withdraw nuclear bombs from western and Eastern Europe and to cut down on garrison.These actions are a burden on the Soviet economy.

But Gorbachev was trying some form of market socialism, but he did it backwards.
That is the point. If you are doing a transition to a market economy you have to begin to liberalization prices FIRST.
Price liberalization has five the first thing you do, because a market economy without responsive prices clearly will not work.

Novus America wrote:

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:
Planned economy is not such a stupid thing. Your description is an attempt to use the theory of market economy to describe planned economy.Planned economy is run by mathematicians, not economists.The demand side will tell the government what it needs, and then all levels of government will conduct accounting and report. The budget is then approved by the finance department and approved by the relevant bureaucrats. Finally, the factory will be told what to produce.Obviously, in the Soviet era, when there were no high-performance computers, it all needed human computation.Even Stalin could not make arbitrary decisions about prices in violation of objective laws. When an enterprise wants to purchase a part to replace the damaged part, it also has to go through such a complicated process. Obviously, it is not as flexible as the market economy.It is also impossible to predict the constantly updated civil consumer goods.
The Soviet Union's problems were not just economic, but they were clearly not irreparable.In Russian history, many time's situation is much worse than it was in the 1980s. At that time, there were many countries worse than the Soviet Union.What the Soviet Union needed was a cautious and creative reform plan.Gorbachev carried out political reform after the failure of economic reform. After the failure of political reform, he carried out institutional reform and ideological reform.After all this failed, he thought about it and found that it was the fault of the Communist Party and socialism.At this time, the Soviet Union had no energy to pay attention to Eastern Europe.The oligarchs created by Gorbachev's reform have also taken away the power of the Central Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Yeltsin took control of the army and Russia.Government officials at that time became oligarchs today.
What the Soviet Union needed was to reduce its surplus troops and gradually introduce a market economy. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union should insist on controlling state-owned enterprises rather than selling them to capitalists.Abandoning the political ambition in Central Asia and the political control over Eastern Europe.And an agreement should be reached with NATO to withdraw nuclear bombs from western and Eastern Europe and to cut down on garrison.These actions are a burden on the Soviet economy.

But Gorbachev was trying some form of market socialism, but he did it backwards.
That is the point. If you are doing a transition to a market economy you have to begin to liberalization prices FIRST.
Price liberalization has five the first thing you do, because a market economy without responsive prices clearly will not work.

Price liberalization-----Many countries have failed because they believe in it.China did the same at first, and then within a month the economy was close to collapse.China adjusted its policy in time and chose to gradually liberalize prices in some industries.Even today, in the field of infrastructure and bulk goods, China has chosen to maintain both planned economy and market economy.
The Soviet Union did not. They were all open at one time.This is the stupid advice from western economists.Because Gorbachev was superstitious about western economics at that time,but he forget that western economics is based on the developed market economy countries as the theoretical source,not base on Soviet Union.There is no truth in economics, and all measures must be considered by themselves.

Shanghai industrial complex wrote:

Novus America wrote:
But Gorbachev was trying some form of market socialism, but he did it backwards.
That is the point. If you are doing a transition to a market economy you have to begin to liberalization prices FIRST.
Price liberalization has five the first thing you do, because a market economy without responsive prices clearly will not work.

Price liberalization-----Many countries have failed because they believe in it.China did the same at first, and then within a month the economy was close to collapse.China adjusted its policy in time and chose to gradually liberalize prices in some industries.Even today, in the field of infrastructure and bulk goods, China has chosen to maintain both planned economy and market economy.
The Soviet Union did not. They were all open at one time.This is the stupid advice from western economists.Because Gorbachev was superstitious about western economics at that time,but he forget that western economics is based on the developed market economy countries as the theoretical source,not base on Soviet Union.There is no truth in economics, and all measures must be considered by themselves.

But the PRC did eventually liberalize prices. The Soviet Union did not.

It can be done gradually (sometimes this is better(, but you simply cannot have a functioning market without responsive prices. The liberalization of prices (can be gradual yes) still is the first thing to begin.

Gorbachev refused to (even gradually) liberalize prices yet expected SOE’s to be able to work like market entrants.
It obviously failed. Prices were not liberalized until AFTER Gorbachev. Gorbachev did not support Western ideas of economics.

His failure to liberalize prices (amongst other things) doomed his economic reform.

You are confusing Yeltsin and Gorbachev. Who had very different economic ideas. Both flawed ideas but flawed for different reasons.

Although the best economic model one place might not be the same as in another place, there are some concepts that are consistent and cannot really be avoided.
Markets need responsive prices to work.

The military seizing control is an aberration rather than the norm. The military could pretty much seize power in any country but they don't.