There were no major shortages prior to Perestroika. There was slower economic growth as a result of the oil crisis of the 1970s, but otherwise the economy of the socialist bloc was doing fine pretty much until the USSR decided to liberalize. They did this primarily for ideological reasons, not material ones. Then everything became severely fucked up and this had downstream effects on other socialist countries, where you had the dual shock of losing the strong economic anchor of the USSR coupled with their own liberalization reforms inspired by the ideological movement for liberal reform that was emanating from the USSR, which then destroyed the basis of their socialist economies. Even countries such as Romania, which did not liberalize and which was doing very well up until the 1980s with some pretty incredible growth, had the rug pulled out from under them when the USSR started wrecking its own economy and abandoning its allies, and this forced Romania to go into austerity to repay IMF loans which in turn created the shortages.
I thought his privatizations were in response to shortages. Or was it just to get the US off their back?
There were no major shortages prior to Perestroika. There was slower economic growth as a result of the oil crisis of the 1970s, but otherwise the economy of the socialist bloc was doing fine pretty much until the USSR decided to liberalize. They did this primarily for ideological reasons, not material ones. Then everything became severely fucked up and this had downstream effects on other socialist countries, where you had the dual shock of losing the strong economic anchor of the USSR coupled with their own liberalization reforms inspired by the ideological movement for liberal reform that was emanating from the USSR, which then destroyed the basis of their socialist economies. Even countries such as Romania, which did not liberalize and which was doing very well up until the 1980s with some pretty incredible growth, had the rug pulled out from under them when the USSR started wrecking its own economy and abandoning its allies, and this forced Romania to go into austerity to repay IMF loans which in turn created the shortages.