How food destroyed socialism

During a visit to the United States in 1989 he became more convinced than ever that Russia had been ruinously damaged by its centralized, state-run economic system, where people stood in long lines to buy the most basic needs of life and more often than not found the shelves bare. He was overwhelmed by what he saw at a Houston supermarket, by the kaleidoscopic variety of meats and vegetables available to ordinary Americans.

Leon Aron, quoting a Yeltsin associate, wrote in his biography, “Yeltsin, A Revolutionary Life” (St. Martin’s Press, 2000): “For a long time, on the plane to Miami, he sat motionless, his head in his hands. ‘What have they done to our poor people?’ he said after a long silence.” He added, “On his return to Moscow, Yeltsin would confess the pain he had felt after the Houston excursion: the ‘pain for all of us, for our country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments.’ ”

He wrote that Mr. Yeltsin added, “I think we have committed a crime against our people by making their standard of living so incomparably lower than that of the Americans.” An aide, Lev Sukhanov was reported to have said that it was at that moment that “the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed” inside his boss.

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>food destroyed socialism
>socialists are often hipster foodies
I guess the food lines of the future wont be for borsht but pho

Is there a nation in the world with an agricultural sector that is not buoyed by the state?

probably

Communism in Soviet Russia was never about helping the people, it was a lie sold to them so the masses would accept insufferable living conditions while the inner party lived in private decadence on the spoils of the economy.
By the time Yeltsin was in charge, the nation had already been run into the ground, and the people responsible for it had moved on to greener pastures, which is why he was so amazed and sorrowed for his country: the vanguard had never revealed the truth of things to him; it took a visit to the US to open his eyes to the lie.
If the Bolsheviks had really cared about agriculture succeeding, they wouldn't have exterminated the Kulaks---the very people who knew best how to farm--- at the very start of their rule.
The same thing happened under Communist-influenced rule in Zimbabwe and South Africa after they confiscated farms and handed it off to people with no knowledge or experience: The breadbasket of Africa became a gross importer of food.

Food didn't destroy socialism, OP, the truth did, and it took food to expose it.

Champagne socialist
Latte liberals

I was in the Army when he visited. He came to our post (Fort Bragg). We conducted an airfield seizure. We were dropped in the treeline instead of the drop zone. He turned to our Division commander and remarked, " It appears your air force is a greater enemy than we are."

Yeltsin was a Soviet elite and was already living fat. He didn't give a shit.

I mean, the fucken guy knew about pizza.

Nice.
Sounds like you've lived quite the life.

IIRC, he thought it was a setup like North Korea. With fake food and fake employees. Or just this one store was stocked to look especially good. They took him to a few more and that's when the reality set in that this was the standard of living.