In 1941, when the Soviet Union was almost destroyed, the Soviet Union exploded into a terrifying state power, soldiers kicked in front of the bombing of airplanes on Red Square, Siberian Orions engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Germans in the streets of Stalingrad, and the Soviet Union sent almost all the forces it could mobilize to the battlefield.
By the summer of 1942, the retreating more than 1,000 military industrial enterprises broke out with terrifying productive forces, and the wartime economy of the Soviet Union began to function, which laid an absolute material foundation for the later strategic large-scale enterprises.
Today, the advantages of collectivization in the Soviet era are being re-enacted, Putin has completely reshaped Russia through a war, and the country's economic and social structure is gradually changing.
You must know that the Soviet Union collapsed in the 90s of the last century, and Russia almost collapsed the country with the full cooperation of the powerful and compradors.
According to statistics, from 1992 to 1999, Russia's economy was negative, GDP was cut in half, the industrial level fell by 46%, and by 2005, Russia's total economy was less than half of China's.
In this loser operation led by Yeltsin, the social wealth of Russia was lost by 17 trillion dollars, which is equivalent to hitting 2In the five Great Patriotic Wars, the population lost more than 3.4 million, which was basically repeated temptations on the verge of national destruction.
Before Putin came to power, Russia was labeled as oligarchs, who not only controlled the country's economic lifeline, but also controlled society**, and could even influence **'s career.
At that time, 4% of Russia's wealthy people controlled more than 80% of the country's wealth, 22 large private enterprises controlled 40% of Russia's total industrial production and 40% of the total number of employed people, and 80% of industrial enterprises had been fully privatized.
After Putin came to power, he carried out a complete liquidation of the oligarchy, and he demanded that the oligarchs operate in accordance with the law, pay taxes according to the law, and are not allowed to participate in politics.
Since then, Russia has gotten rid of the situation of oligarchs interfering in politics, and the country's economy has gradually improved.
From 2000 to 2007, Russia's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 69%, which is more than the average growth rate of the world economy. The total economic output also soared to $431.5 billion to 1$3 trillion.
In 2003, the wealth of the 10 richest people in Russia accounted for 31% of the country's GDP and 22% of Russia's per capita income30,000 times, but by 2019 the proportion had dropped to 8%, and the income gap had narrowed to 570,000 times.
While the oligarchy economy has been suppressed, the distribution of social wealth has also become relatively fairer.
But it should be noted that Russia's economy mainly relies on energy, industry is basically abandoned, and the oligarchy has not completely disappeared, but is closely united around Putin, focusing on money rather than politics, and also contributing to some national strategic projects, which is a bit of a new era of Russian version of the red-top businessman.
For example, the former Chelsea owner who fans are more familiar with, Roman Abramovich, is one of the main shareholders of Rosneft and has invested in a large number of infrastructure and social projects in the country, and the early negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are also led by this bigwig.
Sechin, president and CEO of Rosneft and a close ally and adviser to Putin, has accelerated the development of Siberia and signed long-term oil contracts with China and India, and even reached production cuts with Middle Eastern countries on behalf of Russia, stabilizing oil prices.
There is also the mercenary boss who has gone offline, who used to be Putin's chef, and later was ordered to form a private army, and successively supported the Russian army on the battlefields in Africa and Ukraine.
It can be said that in Russia under Putin, the oligarchs shut up and worked, and the main focus is to accompany them with their hearts.
In addition, Russian state-owned enterprises have a growing influence on society, such as Gazprom, which owns several **, and it also provides technicians, equipment and funds for the military, and Rosneft, in addition to drilling and digging oil, is also responsible for the construction of large ships and oversees research projects on the Eurasian variant of the human genome.
Industries that seem to be unrelated to each other are actually related to Russia's strategic development, and the style of concentrating on big things in the Soviet era seems to be being embodied in Russia.
At the beginning of the war, Russia also experienced a chaotic situation in which rubles**, opposition spread across major cities, and hundreds of thousands of people went abroad to avoid military service.
But soon, Putin succeeded in stabilizing the economy with high oil prices.
In 2022, Russia's export earnings were $590 billion, most of which came from oil and gas, which is $160 billion higher than the annual average of the past decade, and revenues are expected to decline in 2023, but also more than $60 billion above the average.
According to the annual war expenditure of 100 billion US dollars, Russia's finances are still under control, as long as the international oil price remains high, then the Russian army has the ability to fight for a long time, and the pressure has come to the side of Europe and the United States.
Because Ukraine has no resources and no industry, and its economy and military are completely dependent on the West for blood supply, once the aid from Europe and the United States cannot keep up, the battlefield will basically be cold.
Obviously, energy revenues have given Russia the confidence to fight a protracted war, Putin's budget increased by 26% last year, and next year it is planned to increase by another 16%, and defense spending has doubled in two years, accounting for 6% of GDP, which is also the highest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union, accounting for about 1 3 of ** spending.
According to the words of the Minister of Finance of Russia, the main task now is to ensure the victory of the Russian army, everything that is needed for the front, everything that is needed for victory is in the budget of the first country.
Of course, ** people have always liked to hold high and fight, and the words are beautiful, but there is no way to hide the objective reality of the economy.
Inflation in Russia in the third quarter of this year has reached 12%, and the central bank had to raise the interest rate to 15%.
In the eyes of the majority of ordinary Russians, the economy will deteriorate in the next year or two, and only a small number of people think that the economy will improve.
In addition, the collective exodus of Western companies has a very large impact on Russia, but at the same time, it has also ceded mature markets for Chinese and local companies.
For example, Europe and the United States banned Russia from importing high-tech products such as chips and semiconductors, which directly caused the rapid contraction of machinery manufacturing and commercial retail, of which automobile manufacturing fell by 40% in the first half of 2022, and offline retail sales fell by 7%.
After a year of adjustment, Russia has begun to bind China's economy in all aspects.
According to data from the General Administration of Customs of China, from January to November 2023, the amount of China and Russia reached 216 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 286%, Russia has become China's main importer of oil, natural gas and coal**, and the annual delivery of natural gas has reached 38 billion cubic meters.
China, on the other hand, has become Russia's largest export market for agricultural products and automobiles, accounting for six of the top 10 Russian car brands in one go.
Due to wartime controls, Russian netizens have been banned from using Facebook and Instagram, which has made local social media reap a wave of traffic, and Vkontakte has skyrocketed by 4 million users in just a few weeks, and now has a penetration rate of more than 75%, has become the largest platform in Russia.
In the e-commerce industry, due to the large-scale closure of Western retail companies, online sales in Russia have skyrocketed, and the local e-commerce platform Ozon has a market share of more than 30%, and plans to recruit 100,000 Chinese merchants by 2024, which has the momentum to replace Amazon.
In the telecommunications industry, after Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei left the Russian market, local manufacturers began to exert force, and the market share of mobile network equipment also increased from 116% to 252%。
Although when it comes to technical strength, Russian local enterprises are somewhat meaningless, but in the absence of a choice, the people are basically enough, but more importantly, due to the implementation of capital controls by the central bank, Russian companies can only stay in the country to invest when they make money, but also accelerate the market recovery.
In 2023, 18 large foreign companies were nationalized by Russia**, and the courts heard a total of 24,000 cases involving the loss of state property, which can be regarded as using the assets of foreign companies to make up for part of the losses overseas.
With the normalization of the Russia-Ukraine war, there have also been some subtle changes in Russia's wealth landscape.
For example, Izhevsk in the Ural Mountains, which was once an important industrial city in the Soviet era, was famous for producing machinery and **, and it was here that Kalashnikov designed the "AK-47".
But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Izhevsk has been wiped out, and due to the sharp decline in the military industry and automobile manufacturing, the region has gradually fallen below the poverty line, with a GDP per capita of only $13,900 and a real disposable income that may be even lower, far from the average of the country's cities.
After the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the production line in Izhevsk has regained its vitality, not only producing missiles and electronic warfare equipment, but also producing missiles and electronic warfare equipment, and the average salary of workers has increased by 25%, almost catching up with the income level of first-tier cities.
In addition, large-scale military mobilization has also reaped the dividends of war in the vast and impoverished inland areas.
At present, the total strength of the Russian army exceeds 1 million, and excluding Wagner, the number of contract soldiers and conscripts participating in the war is about 300,000 to 400,000.
But judging from the scene of the war, the Russian army's tactics are retro, the equipment is very collapsed, and the consumption of personnel is very huge, and it is conservatively estimated that since the start of the war, the number of the Russian army is about 100,000.
So starting in April 2022, Putin has started three rounds of conscription, and the first round of conscription was 13Of the 50,000 reserves, 150,000 were recruited in the second round, 200,000 were planned to be recruited in the third round, and the conscription period was expanded from 27 to 30 years old.
Most of these soldiers come from remote areas of Russia, and their monthly salary is about 195,000 rubles, equivalent to 15,000 yuan, which is more than twice the average income in Moscow and nearly 4 times the per capita income of the locals.
Although the numbers are cold, the benefits are real.
The average life expectancy of a Russian man is only 59 years, and it will take at least 30 years to earn so much money.
But this huge military spending does not last long, so Russian society accepts the fact of the war and the long-term sanctions of Western countries, but more than 70% still hope that Putin will sign a peace agreement with Ukraine as soon as possible.
It turns out that Putin is reshaping Russia, and after experiencing the backstabbing of capitalism and the collective turn of Western countries, Russia's military has not been very successful, but the economy has found its own logic of operation.
In this war, Ukraine is only a battering ram to fight Russia, and the rules of the game set by the West are the main goal of Putin's long-term confrontation.
With the redistribution of power and resources, Russia seems to be regaining the power era of the Soviet Union.
End of this article.