The Developing Country Double Standard

[Firn]

I had a similar experience when I looked at West and East German economic growth of the Cold War era: Supposedly, the East German planning economy had ruined East Germany.
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While I don't know much about the East german economy one must add that it contained the German regions hit hardest by plans to deindustrialize Germany. The Soviets were certainly eager to shift as much East as possible for a long timeframe and they were very efficient in taking down whole industries, considerably less so in rebuilding them in the Union. (AFAIK the tonnage counted, not the quality of the work executed by the mostly unlearned and forced labor which resulted in many completely ruined machines)

This compared of course surprisingly badly to the own giant, incredible and successfull Soviet efforts to shift the own war industry east during Barbarossa, maybe one of the big Soviet war tales told too seldomly in the West.