18-The Soviet Unions Fatal Failure to Reform

Lecture 18 The Soviet Union’s Fatal Failure to Reform N ikita khrushchev, a former general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, correctly predicted that the Soviet Union would outproduce the United States in concrete, steel, iron, and coal—and by such a degree that the USSR would essentially bury the United States in these products . But by the time this happened, the United States had moved on to create aluminum alloys, plastics, structural glass, and other advanced technological products that replaced many uses for coal, iron, and concrete . This American advance—and Soviet stagnation—gives a hint of why, over time, the Soviet Union fell further and further behind U .S . ingenuity and prosperity .