I've come accross in the Soviet-Empire forums a thread of pictures on the Soviet Union:
linky:http://neuraum.livejournal.com/28308.html
LOTS OF PICTURES WARNING
And life there doesn't seem to be as bad as western propagandists and historians make it out to be. I mean a few of these photographs are posed but the majority seem to be fairly normal. Note that these pictures were between 1960-70.

So I guess my question is: How bad/hard was life in the Soviet Union?
Was it really a police state or is it just a western myth?

I lived in communist Poland and it wasn't that great. ;)

A lot of those pics look like propaganda shots. Trust me, the communist governments were doing everything possible to try to convince us that we were leading wonderful lives and that everything was peachy.

My parents were both teachers and we couldn't afford a car.. or a phone!

Well, my girlfriend and I live in the affluent west and aren't burdened by children, but we can't afford a car either!

Admittedly, we can just about stretch to a phone...

There are similar pictures of North Korea. Those pictures don't tell the whole story.

BTW, What the hell is going on here?

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr144.

Based on my readings I'd have to say "it depends". Conditions varied considerably over time (and from place to place).

In terms of standard of living -- economical and social -- some things worked better than others and some things worked very badly. Compared with the latter years of the Tsarist regime, the disastrous early years of the revolution, and the hell that was WWII [1], the improvements from the late 50s through the 70s still seem quite impressive. Compared with the increasing affluence of the West, they seem less so.

Attitudes toward and treatment of political (and other) dissenters also changed quite a lot over time, largely tending towards becoming more mellow and gentler.

[1] The full extent of this war's awfulness in the East is often not appreciated by Westerners.

70's were apparently the best years for Soviet people in terms of what they could get. Car was really a luxury and not a necessity as it has become nowadays, same could be said about the phones. Comparing the lives of people in the modern capitalistic world I could say that in USSR people were equaly poor, but at the same time healthier and more educated than an average citizen of the world nowadays.

As I am the only person in this thread who had actualy lived in USSR I can say that the pictures look genuine. Was it that bad? No one can tell as no one can still say whats important to people. One thing is for certain - this is not propaganda work.

So I guess my question is: How bad/hard was life in the Soviet Union?
Was it really a police state or is it just a western myth?

Soviet Union had similiar regime as Czechoslovakia, some another Warsaw pact countries had less raw regimes. I dont know what you want to know exactly but I am ready to answer, my parents visited Moscow/St Peterburg in 1980 and living in same raw regime. I was talking with them about it many times. Only problem should be English, but if you have more concrete questions you should ask and I will try answer.

Maybe you think that USSR 1950 and USSR 1970 were similiar. I dont know much about western propaganda so dont know exactly what you expected from pictures.

Comparing the lives of people in the modern capitalistic world I could say that in USSR people were equaly poor, but at the same time healthier and more educated than an average citizen of the world nowadays.


The extension of decent medical care and education to the general population, in particular, stands as a very impressive achievement. (As does the academic tradition, although that goes back to well before the revolution it certainly prospered in many areas afterwards.)

When comparing standards of living between the modern capitalistic West and, well, any other society, we should keep in mind that it is the former which is the outlier.

My parents were both teachers and we couldn't afford a car.. or a phone!
Hmm:confused: How old are you and exactly where did you live?

http://www.bilhistorie.dk/Billeder/Skoda/Skoda_120.jpg
-my parents first car :D You should see this car on Czech roads even today

http://www.bilhistorie.dk/Billeder/Skoda/Skoda_120.jpg
-my parents first car :D You should see this car on Czech roads even today
Man, thats better than our first car! I so envy you :D

I remember Skodas and Ladas used to be fairly common around here as cheap "crap" (but actually fairly reliable) cars, back in the 1980s.

However, I also remember when there was a year-long waiting list to get a new telephone installed. In Norway.

I
And life there doesn't seem to be as bad as western propagandists and historians make it out to be. I mean a few of these photographs are posed but the majority seem to be fairly normal. Note that these pictures were between 1960-70.

That's because you picked the pictures promoted by Soviet propagandists!


So I guess my question is: How bad/hard was life in the Soviet Union?
Was it really a police state or is it just a western myth?

People weren't necessarily starving, but it was oppressive. You were stuck doing whatever menial tasks the state told you to do, and there was nothing you could do about it, even if you had ambition. It was more of an "ennui" kind of oppression.

Well there are pictures of pioneers, but I dont know what it has to do with propaganda, it shows life in this era. Of course, Russia wasnt never most productive economy and life in some asian village is different from europe Russian cities. On the other hand, village life should be quite same now.

Even here in the USA life isn't exactly peachy for everyone. When I was growing up there were times we didn't have running water or electricity.

The problem wasnt with running water or telephones. Many people from Eastern Europe are not confident with today and want communism back. But main problem was with freedom. Pictures dont show soldiers from wwII in prison, pictures dont show people working in uranium mines, dont show books which cant be distributed and dont show everydays propaganda which was destroying individualism and free mind. My grandfather was in Uranium mine for 4 years, my mother had very problems with get education. Some people were even murdered, for example Milada Horáková (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milada_Hor%C3%A1kov%C3%A1), who even nazists havent been able to kill. The fact, that somewhere were fronts for some goods arent so important in comparision with this. Everyday you have to showing nonresistence. Criticism of regime? No way. The regime was liberalizating during time, but still there were people watched and opposition opressed.

http://www.bilhistorie.dk/Billeder/Skoda/Skoda_120.jpg
-my parents first car :D You should see this car on Czech roads even today

My parents couldn't afford a car at all. :(

Yours is much better. ;)

See the movie "The Others", about east Germany!

Well, my girlfriend and I live in the affluent west and aren't burdened by children, but we can't afford a car either!

Admittedly, we can just about stretch to a phone...

Did you have to wait in a crazy line for meat at the beginning of each month, being limited to how much of what you could buy by food stamps & availability..? how about having to spend your life savings on a tiny 1 bedroom apartment for a family of 5 and having to wait 10 years for it?.. Having to plan and execute a complicated escape plan that would see your family live in poverty in West Germany & Canada for several years?

Hmm How old are you and exactly where did you live?

Czestochowa and 29. Why?

My parents went to East Berlin (I want to say during the 70s, but I can't be sure). They basically remember everything being very cheaply made more than anything else.

Of course, living conditions depended a lot on where you lived. In East Germany, which was devistated by the war and never really had as serious an effort to be rebuilt as Western Germany, things aren't very good. In the Western part of Russia, things might be better. Of course, this is only economically speaking. Corruption by party members, oppression of almost all free will, etc., were genuine problems that can't be represented by a picture.

Czestochowa and 29. Why?
Because I have quite some experience with Poland and Poles, admittedly mostly from the Western part, and it doesn't quite correspond with what I heard.
As for this, pretty much the same:

Did you have to wait in a crazy line for meat at the beginning of each month, being limited to how much of what you could buy by food stamps & availability..? how about having to spend your life savings on a tiny 1 bedroom apartment for a family of 5 and having to wait 10 years for it?.. Having to plan and execute a complicated escape plan that would see your family live in poverty in West Germany & Canada for several years?

Just to balance it a bit; just the other day I posted a link in another thread about the rise of severe poverty in God's Own Country. I guess that Plotinus, as a Brit, is also not unfamiliar with the concept of homeless people, that is people without an apartment...

Was life really that bad in the Soviet Union?

An interesting question! Although I have to say i have ZERO personal experience with life in the soviet union, I'll throw in my $0.02....

I think its hard tp compare life from the soviet union to that in the west during the 20th century because of the different priorities of each system. In the soviet union, the vast majority of people (those not belonging to the political elite or other groups deemed 'priviledged' by the state) were accorded the exact same level economic privilege: luxuries were few, you didn't always have enough food, you had to wait in lines, but everybody (save those mentionned above) was in the same boat. Compare that to say, the United States, where you had the freedom to pursue greater riches or rewards to live a better lifestyle. A good idea, but of course not everyoe canshare in those riches; some live in priviledge, others in extreme poverty.

So when you see stalinists still parading through the streets of moscow talking about the 'good old days', I think that for the most of them, life was better under soviet rule. But if you applied those same practices to Russia today, more than a few people would have to take a large 'paycut' in order to even out the economic classes and raise the standard of living of the poor.

I guess that Plotinus, as a Brit, is also not unfamiliar with the concept of homeless people, that is people without an apartment...

Certainly - I see them all the time. I believe that two or three hundred people sleep on the streets of London every night. Not that many, perhaps, but there are many, many more living in temporary accomodation or squats that are not much better.

[Warpus] No, certainly I haven't experienced such grinding poverty, although my girlfriend did when she was growing up in London. But the deprivations you describe there seem to me far worse than not being able to afford a car, which is something I'm beginning to doubt I'll ever be able to do (not that I would want a car anyway, but it would be nice to lack one out of choice rather than necessity).

"So when you see stalinists still parading through the streets of moscow talking about the 'good old days', I think that for the most of them, life was better under soviet rule. But if you applied those same practices to Russia today, more than a few people would have to take a large 'paycut' in order to even out the economic classes and raise the standard of living of the poor."

Russia is Russia, to vast and sluggish for enough of people to even get a chance at the upsides of capitalism.

Estonia on the other hand is a virtual comet in comparison.

The main problem, or lag, in post Communist countries is a relatively small middle class. For people to get poor or very rich can go very fast, because: few rich, easy to become poor. But to build a large middle class, which is the base and majority of the population of western nations, takes a lot of time and effort, not to mention a lot of changes in society.

Plotinus

I take it that you are still young and relatively new on the job market, whilst a settled couple in their late thirty's, early forty's usually have a better money situation whilst they are established on said job market and therefor can afford a car.

In Commie Poland, no matter how settled you where, unless you where a Party member, or otherwise very important for party members, it was difficult to get a car.

And the main problem was that if you where a member of some sort of opposition you deffinetly didn't have a car. Which , I daresay, is not a big car ownership issue/prerequisite in the "west".

Luceafarul

Maybe you know a bunch of commies?:D

There was problem that after revolutions only people who were rich to buy state corporations were big prominences of regimes. Another was large foreign stealing, many people were still naive, statues werent fully implented so they were trusting to lies and giving their money to these hyenas.

I never heard of problem get a car.

http://www.bilhistorie.dk/Billeder/Skoda/Skoda_120.jpg
-my parents first car :D You should see this car on Czech roads even today
Better (bigger at least) than my parents first car i would say.
http://www.orihueladigital.es/orihuela/seiscientos_250404_A.JPG

Well, in Romania, during late communist regime, when it was most harsh here, the following things were NORMAL:

- no imported material whatsoever. No oranges, bananas, chocolate, etc etc etc
- it was forbidden to leave the country
- (almost) every weekend, you HAD to go to some square or stadium and sing about how good communism is
- (unbearable) limits on bread, eggs, sugar, oil (and by this I mean the food, not the combustible), honey, etc.
- if you were found with 1 more egg or bread or etc in your house, when the police came to inspect your house (which happened frequently, with no warning, they just ran around checking houses) you could spend up to 10 years in prison
- you were never allowed to carry foreign money. Not even to keep them in your house and do nothing with them
- the taxes were amazingly high, and what was built with them were useless stupid megalomaniac buildings like the People's House (which was and still is the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon), while NOBODY needed it to be that big
- hundreds of thousands of people were evicted from their homes, which were bulldozed, being replaced by blocks. Imagine living in a 6 room house, with a nice garden, and being suddenly forced to move in a 2 room apartment with a 2.5 x 5m kitchen
- meat and fish were SO rare, that you had to wait up to 12 hours in a queue to get A LIMITED AMOUNT, and there might be nothing left when you get to buy the products.
- the huge majority of 13 year old children did not even know how chocolate or oranges look like
- absolutely no entertaining - the TVs were working only 3 hours on Sundays (or was it Saturdays?), every week, from which 1 hour was "The Majestic Romania", which was an ode to "The most beloved son of the people, Nicolae Ceausescu"
- only one party to vote for
- no way to voice your opinion. This was much worse than in other countries. If you said "Why the hell did Ceausescu do that" you could end up in prison for up to 2 years. I know personally a person who had this happening
- no foreign goods whatsoever means also no foreign cars, TVs, etc
- young children were forced to learn at school how great the regime is, and were brainwashed for the rest of their lifes (and unfortunately this is still in effect. That's a big reason why we are behind other ex-communist countries: because the brainwash was stronger; there are countries where the brainwash was even stronger, and those are the only ones that are worse: example: Moldova)
- the secret police, Securitatea, was the worst from ALL the communist countries, excluding Russia. You could literally be executed for saying in public something that they didn't like (even if you didn't have the slightest intention to offend them or the party)
- EVERYTHING was censored, even books from the 17th century! All movies, books, articles were censored

Do I need to give more examples about life during communism?

When Kapuscinski Published his book, "The Shah of Shahs", wich depicted the gruesome condition in Iran during the rule of the Shah, some thought it to be a hidden description of Poland in those days.

According to my father...

You should watch the movie "Good bye Lenin", nice German comedy about the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

My moms first (only) car that she got after years of waiting in 1982, was a black Fiat 126P. Crappy deathtrap.

Yes yes, I got carried away, it was not that difficult to get a car, at least not in the eighties. Bit edgy right now...

I knew a east german and he said it wasn't as bad as portrayed in the west. You were a poorer but still could fall in love, enjoy life etc. he actually enjoyed the miliary training he had in the communist youth as they went camping and got to play with guns.

My parents went to East Berlin (I want to say during the 70s, but I can't be sure). They basically remember everything being very cheaply made more than anything else.

Of course, living conditions depended a lot on where you lived. In East Germany, which was devistated by the war and never really had as serious an effort to be rebuilt as Western Germany, things aren't very good. In the Western part of Russia, things might be better. Of course, this is only economically speaking. Corruption by party members, oppression of almost all free will, etc., were genuine problems that can't be represented by a picture.

Actually East Germany and especially East Berlin (both West and East invested heavily in their side of Berlin for Propaganda Purposes) was probably the richest east-aligned state after some time. When it was first founded the Russians dismantled many factories and railroads and took them with them. East Germany did recover, though. It just never became as rich as the west part.

I'd say beginning from maybe the seventies live in East Germany wasn't bad. Education and Health Care were very good, most people got an car (eventually), everyone had work. Despite lacking freedom of expression and others things we consider essential, the quality of living was higher for a considerable part of the population that it is now. Thus there is quite some disaffection with the new system.

In south america phones didnt really become easy to get till the late 80´s

I think the people in eastern europe didnt have the luxuries of wealthy west euro countries, but for sure were not "poor"

For comparison, the gdp per capita of the Soviet Union in 1987, was the same as that of Mexico or Chile nowadays, around 8.000 dollars, which 20 years ago was more than nowadays.
Other commie countries, Czechslovakia and East Germany, were singnificantly wealthier than the SU

I have a friend who lived in the Ukraine when she was young, she said she would go with her mom, just a few years old, to a market because you got as many chickens as you could carry. Something like that anyway. And she said history books were, to western standards, wack, I'm pretty sure the was a whole alternate history given to the end of WWII, IIRC. I'll have to check on that.

In south america phones didnt really become easy to get till the late 80´s

I think the people in eastern europe didnt have the luxuries of wealthy west euro countries, but for sure were not "poor"

For comparison, the gdp per capita of the Soviet Union in 1987, was the same as that of Mexico or Chile nowadays, around 8.000 dollars, which 20 years ago was more than nowadays.
Other commie countries, Czechslovakia and East Germany, were singnificantly wealthier than the SU

Oh everyone I knew in Poland was poor alright. Sad part is that all these people had parents who had decent jobs.. such as teachers, dentists, etc. It just didn't matter - unless you were a party member you all made a similar amount of money. Not only that, OVER HALF of this money went towards rent each month, from what my parents tell me.. that's the income of 2 teachers.

It was ridiculous and it sucked out the will to live a meaningful life out of a lot of people. There was just no room for improvement. Fortunately my parents had the balls to run away.

Communism varies from place to place. Pol Pot's Cambodia or Ceaucescu's Romania hardly compares with Tito's Yugoslavia or Khrushchev's USSR. Life was some place harder than others eg in East Germany where the Soviets use the industry as source of war reparation and neglected the economy or where communist elites turn their country into a kleptocracy. As far as the USSR is concerned, AFAIK it's not as bad as western propaganda made it out to be. It's not worker's paradise by any measure, but it seemed things get worse ever since the fall of the USSR, especially for the poor unable to survive in the capitalist environment.

First of all, my apologies for quite a messy post, I am in some hurry today.

I think its hard tp compare life from the soviet union to that in the west during the 20th century because of the different priorities of each system. In the soviet union, the vast majority of people (those not belonging to the political elite or other groups deemed 'priviledged' by the state) were accorded the exact same level economic privilege: luxuries were few, you didn't always have enough food, you had to wait in lines, but everybody (save those mentionned above) was in the same boat.
OK, since this is the history forum, and I like asking questions in here, here is one:
Why doesn't it make much sense to directly compare the USSR and its satelites with the so-called West?
Answer below.

So when you see stalinists still parading through the streets of moscow talking about the 'good old days', I think that for the most of them, life was better under soviet rule.

You think that all the new poor in the former Soviet Bloc are stalinists?:crazyeye:
Actually many a stalinist did quite well, just turning rightwing-jacobine (or freemarketeer, if you like that better) overnight.

But if you applied those same practices to Russia today, more than a few people would have to take a large 'paycut' in order to even out the economic classes and raise the standard of living of the poor.
So what?

Certainly - I see them all the time. I believe that two or three hundred people sleep on the streets of London every night. Not that many, perhaps, but there are many, many more living in temporary accomodation or squats that are not much better.
Exactly. Even affluent England can't give all its citizens a decent life.

Luceafarul

Maybe you know a bunch of commies?:D
No I don't. Not that I see that that is disqualifying in any way. On this board I run into a host of fanbois of capitalism when discussing Western political issues, but I try to take their opinions just as seriously.
Actually my wife is Polish. She comes from a family of academics, who never seemed to go through such suffering. And before somebody pulls out the communist card, none of them were in any way aligned to the Communist Party. As a matter of fact, since they are both of Baltic origin, and belonged to those from the Eastern part who were forcibly resettled in the West, one can easily understand that.
But still. Even if my-father-in-law experienced certain difficulties with his company due to this, and even if my-mother-in-law being a psychiatrist (she knew quite a few "poor" dentists, by the way) could have earned even better if she had joined the party, they lived quite comfortably with both cars, phone and a house with four walls.
But I also know more than one with less glorious occupations. And many of them struggle in this new glorious era of freedom and Christianity. Housing is expensive, food is expensive, health care costs more, and unemployment is high. Higher education is more or less reserved for those who come from opulent families nowadays. While not being stalinists, quite a few of them thought that life was easier before in many ways.

Well, in Romania, during late communist regime, when it was most harsh here, the following things were NORMAL:
My dear friend, I hope you understand that your country was an anomaly. Ceausescu was a tinpot dictator who ruled in a Roman Emperor fashion; he even showed nepotist tendencies and had praetorians.

When Kapuscinski Published his book, "The Shah of Shahs", wich depicted the gruesome condition in Iran during the rule of the Shah, some thought it to be a hidden description of Poland in those days.
Then those some are morons. And yes, I have read plenty of Kapuscinski including that one. He is one of my favourite writers.

You should watch the movie "Good bye Lenin", nice German comedy about the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I have seen it. I don't see your point, though.

My moms first (only) car that she got after years of waiting in 1982, was a black Fiat 126P. Crappy deathtrap.

Yes yes, I got carried away, it was not that difficult to get a car, at least not in the eighties. Bit edgy right now...
In the eighties? You are aware that a lot of things happened then, don't you?

In south america phones didnt really become easy to get till the late 80´s

I think the people in eastern europe didnt have the luxuries of wealthy west euro countries, but for sure were not "poor"

For comparison, the gdp per capita of the Soviet Union in 1987, was the same as that of Mexico or Chile nowadays, around 8.000 dollars, which 20 years ago was more than nowadays.
Other commie countries, Czechslovakia and East Germany, were singnificantly wealthier than the SU
:clap: Bravo! Finally somebody got it. And that is the answer to the question above.
It makes no sense to compare the USSR and the countries in the Eastern Bloc with those in the West, simply because contrary to what many seem to believe, history didn't start in 1945. In comparison with the former colonial powers in the West, the Eastern and a large part of Central Europe was poor and underdeveloped. A comparison with Latin America, while also that being a bit problematic, seems more reasonable.
Oh everyone I knew in Poland was poor alright.
Then either you didn't know too many or your definition of poor is quite different than mine.
Sad part is that all these people had parents who had decent jobs.. such as teachers, dentists, etc.
Dentists poor? No way, Jose.
But of course, language is always revealing. Personally I find any job "decent".
But I seem to have made an observation which is a bit disturbing; namely that nobody whines more than people from the former Soviet bloc and nobody seems to be more indifferent to the plight of people elsewhere. I have known among others people who where tortured by the Shahs secret police, people who served long years in Turkish prison, people who ran away from Pinochet, but rarely you could find the same self-centerism and lament in falsetto as the typical run-of-the-mill Central European academic. There is certainly food for thought in that.

Poland wasnt wealthy developed country before WW and was largely wasted during war. Soviets also behave againist Poles more agressivelly, so maybe there was problem buy car.

However the regime was more free in comparision with Czechoslovakia, for example Poland had some private agriculture and less propaganda. Poles resisted also thanks USSR behave in history and their catholic belief.

Romania was since one time isolationist country even againist eastern bloc and started be rebellious. Not like Albania, but something near it.

Plotinus

I take it that you are still young and relatively new on the job market, whilst a settled couple in their late thirty's, early forty's usually have a better money situation whilst they are established on said job market and therefor can afford a car.

Well, I'm youngish - 31 this month - so it'll be ten years since I finished my degree and have been on the job market. When I finished my master's I went straight onto the dole. Now of course I've never known grinding poverty such as has been described on this thread - although, as I say, my girlfriend has - but to me, being able to afford a car means being rich.

I must also add that over half of my income has always gone on rent too, but this probably has more to do with ludicrous property prices in Britain than with anything else. I've been amazed, living in Singapore, to find that one can spend as little as a quarter of one's income, or even less, on rent; I've also been amazed to find other people there complaining about high rent and bickering over a few dollars a month. They should live in London for a bit and learn to appreciate what they've got!

[Luceafarul] To add to your point, it's of course worth mentioning that the countries of eastern Europe never had colonial empires like those of western Europe. Thus, the latter exploited the wealth and resources of half the globe, while the former did not. That created a big difference between them long before communism ever appeared on the scene.

Dentists poor? No way, Jose.
But of course, language is always revealing. Personally I find any job "decent".
But I seem to have made an observation which is a bit disturbing; namely that nobody whines more than people from the former Soviet bloc and nobody seems to be more indifferent to the plight of people elsewhere. I have known among others people who where tortured by the Shahs secret police, people who served long years in Turkish prison, people who ran away from Pinochet, but rarely you could find the same self-centerism and lament in falsetto as the typical run-of-the-mill Central European academic. There is certainly food for thought in that.

Compare the life of the average Polish city-dweller today to the average Polish city-dweller in the 70s. In the 70s the economy was controlled by the state, of course. Currently the free market rules. The Polish economy was not allowed to prosper. When I say "poor", I am comparing what was to what could have been.

Spending over half of the income of two teachers on rent of a small 1 bedroom apartment is not acceptable, in Poland, today. It was certainly not acceptable in the 70s and 80s, either. That is how I derive the term "poor"

In south america phones didnt really become easy to get till the late 80´s

I think the people in eastern europe didnt have the luxuries of wealthy west euro countries, but for sure were not "poor"

For comparison, the gdp per capita of the Soviet Union in 1987, was the same as that of Mexico or Chile nowadays, around 8.000 dollars, which 20 years ago was more than nowadays.
Other commie countries, Czechslovakia and East Germany, were singnificantly wealthier than the SU

Well, the income here was about $150 a month for an university teacher, doctor in something. This makes $1800 dollars a year. And also the average spending of the salary per month for food was 50%. This is way over the poverty limit, considered at 30%.

But I do agree we were an anomaly with a crazy megalomaniac idiotic dictator, and the comparison might not be accurate. :)

[warpus] But there are so many factors that might lie behind that. Would a teacher have had a relatively high wage or a relatively low wage compared to most people? Were property prices massively inflated compared to other things? And so on.

As I said before , I over did it, because I’m somewhat edgy lately, meaning my feelings got in the way of my better judgement.

My parents live some 300 kilometres away so I haven’t had an occasion to talk about this with them lately.

What I know for sure is that my dad who was brought up in the centre of Warsaw had it really tough, his parents were divorced and he lived with his half-brother and mother in an apartment (don’t know size). Grandmother was a seamstress, money was short. Only my fathers older half-brother went to the university whilst my dad had to get a job when he turned eighteen. They never could afford a car, didn’t get a phone or TV until the eighties.

My mothers family had it better on the fringe of Warsaw, Grandfather was a tailor by profession and the head of a sowing compound of some sort, grandmother was a hat maker by profession but only had black jobs and was officially a housewife. They got a TV as soon as they became broadly available (don’t remember well but think it was in the seventies), but never had a car until 82 and no phone until mid eighties.

Now I know for sure that meat was hard to get, but happily my moms family had a lot of relatives on the countryside who had farms and they sent them half a pig (I think it was) once a year which my grandparents swiftly made in to sausages that they smoked in a makeshift device in the back yard, so that it would last longer.

They lived in a house Grandfather helped to build himself in the seventies after getting approval from the state that controlled their previous living quarters and deemed the Two rooms to small for five people which they had lived in for ten years. They cultivated basically their whole back and front yard for vegetables. Grandfather build his own lawnmower from scrap in the eighties.

Food shortage during communism is the main reason for there being such a huge large of farmers in Poland. Most of the farms are very small, just large enough for the family to be self sufficient. This way food was guarantied and the state largely kept out of your face. I believe some forty percent of Poland’s population still lives outside urban areas. And these people are the ones who had it most difficult after the toppling of communist rule and are one the major reason behind the high level of unemployment and poverty nowadays.

But things are improving, all dough a bit slowly as of late, still nine million people out of thirty-eight million have the same high standards of living as in Sweden, which has a total population of nine million.

Luceafarul

The “commie card” was meant as somewhat of a joke. Note the smiley.

“She comes from a family of academics, who never seemed to go through such suffering.”

Academics had it easier as long as they kept themselves clear of anti communist activities.
Much like my fathers half brother who was a professor in History and Polish and is a dean of an university now.

If I remember correctly, typewriters where licensed much like guns are nowadays.

About the "The Shah of Shahs" thing, admittedly that regime in Iran is often said to be one of the harshest ever in the world, and I do not believe Poland was as bad. All dough not as bad, not dissimilar methods were used against dissidents in Poland, and the people you know you haven’t described as any sort of dissidents, yes people who did nothing forbidden could have it rather comfortable, so chill on the “moron“ calling mister.

I have friends who had it really bad in Shah Iran, and some who had it really good. Actually my workmates family had it bad, but his wife’s family remember those days as good.

Glad you like Kapuscinski, which one is your favourite book? Mine is “The Emperor”.

"Good bye Lenin" was a nice movie, was it not? I just mentioned it as something someone could watch if interested in those times, is all.

“The Others” my parents recommend, apparently manages to show the downsides of communist East Germany very well. What is shown is reportedly (by my mom) worse than what was going on in Poland. Admittedly she does not have so much experience of those things.

”In the eighties?” my mom got her car just before the ”stan wojenny”.

Well I have heard it claimed that Poland would have at least been as wealthy as Spain is today if it weren’t for the commies. Probably would have at least one good car manufacturer, maybe even some avionics…

There where strict restrictions on car manufacture and development in Commie Poland so that the economy planers would have it easier to plan.

Some wise guy once said that a typical woman from the Soviet Union was preoccupied with two problems:

1) Where to find something to eat;
2) How to get thinner.

__________________________________________________ ____________

Actually, some people in the blog found by FranciscoHernan were expressing nostalgia... Of course, these people were remembering their young years, when grass was greener and the sun was brighter, not the regime itself. But if their lives had been REALLY bad under that regime, they wouldn't remember it with warm feelings...

Althrough there were posters who expressed satisfaction, because they will see something like that no more. And yes, there were huge queques at the shops etc.

But you really can't compare Kim Chen Ir, Pol Pot and Chruschov. After all, people were not STARVING in the USSR in the 70's.


Anyway,

"The one who does not regret the fall of USSR has no heart. The one who thinks that it was possible to keep the USSR as it was, has no brains".

-A Russian saying.

[warpus] But there are so many factors that might lie behind that. Would a teacher have had a relatively high wage or a relatively low wage compared to most people? Were property prices massively inflated compared to other things? And so on.

Most people? Everyone made almost the same. That's communism for ya ;)

You had to wait 5-15 years for an apartment. You spend most of your life savings for one, then wait for many years.. and when you finally get it, it's a small POS that doesn't really suit a family of 5.

On top of that there is so much bureaucracy to make you want to rip your hair out, the simplest things take months if not years to accomplish, the stores are empty, you are unable to fully express yourself, especially if you had anti-communist views (which most people had), you are able to travel outside of the country, but once again the bureaucracy is a huge pain and basically prevents most people from doing so..

and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I heard that life in Moscow and East Germany wasn't "that bad", but elsewhere in the East Bloc? Pshhh

Now I know for sure that meat was hard to get

Sure was. My mom had to pretend that she was pregnant from time to time to ensure that our family got meat for that month. People let her skip to the front of the line, knowing that those in the back would not get any meat and would have to wait a MONTH for some.

Hungary and East Germany were most free I think. But Hungary was poor.

Meat was problem after WWII, but in Czechoslovakia 1970 not. Main problem were electronics (3x more expensive than in west), modern western clothes and exotic fruits. In the Czechoslovakia was also problem with waiting on flat. You should wait long time and flats were in ugly big buildings (dont know how they are called in English).

Hungary and East Germany were most free I think. But Hungary was poor.

Meat was problem after WWII, but in Czechoslovakia 1970 not. Main problem were electronics (3x more expensive than in west), modern western clothes and exotic fruits. In the Czechoslovakia was also problem with waiting on flat. You should wait long time and flats were in ugly big buildings (dont know how they are called in English).

They are called big ugly gray cube-shaped soviet blocks of flats. And we have most! :smug:
(now the EU is trying to get rid of them, but it'd require huuuuuuge funds)

Plotinus

"Well, I'm youngish - 31 this month - so it'll be ten years since I finished my degree and have been on the job market. When I finished my master's I went straight onto the dole. Now of course I've never known grinding poverty such as has been described on this thread - although, as I say, my girlfriend has - but to me, being able to afford a car means being rich."

Well Ive been living in Sweden since I was four, I'm 27 this year, got my degree four years ago, have worked for three. Me and my girlfriend have been able to afford to buy an apartment in a smaller town, a car and a cat. And we have rather "low"wages. So unless we get kids were pretty much OK, or buy an apartment in Stockholm where they are three times more expensive in a similar location.

Maybe you should move to Sweden, the language in uncomplicated.:D

OK, this is my last performance on this thread, I have said what I wanted and even if I type fast I have other stuff on my agenda.Besides, i feel we are deviating somewhat; this thread is supposed to be about USSR; not Poland.
Well, I'm youngish - 31 this month - so it'll be ten years since I finished my degree and have been on the job market. When I finished my master's I went straight onto the dole. Now of course I've never known grinding poverty such as has been described on this thread - although, as I say, my girlfriend has - but to me, being able to afford a car means being rich.
Pots saperment! You are only 31??:eek:
Sir, you are wise way beyond your years.:hatsoff:
I must also add that over half of my income has always gone on rent too, but this probably has more to do with ludicrous property prices in Britain than with anything else. I've been amazed, living in Singapore, to find that one can spend as little as a quarter of one's income, or even less, on rent; I've also been amazed to find other people there complaining about high rent and bickering over a few dollars a month. They should live in London for a bit and learn to appreciate what they've got!
It is quite expensive here as well.

[Luceafarul] To add to your point, it's of course worth mentioning that the countries of eastern Europe never had colonial empires like those of western Europe. Thus, the latter exploited the wealth and resources of half the globe, while the former did not. That created a big difference between them long before communism ever appeared on the scene.
Yes of course, a very good point.:goodjob: I deserve a jolly good trashing for not having mentioned that.

As I said before , I over did it, because I’m somewhat edgy lately, meaning my feelings got in the way of my better judgement.
No problem, brother, we are all friends here even if we bark a little at times.:)

What I know for sure is that my dad who was brought up in the centre of Warsaw had it really tough, his parents were divorced and he lived with his half-brother and mother in an apartment (don’t know size). Grandmother was a seamstress, money was short. Only my fathers older half-brother went to the university whilst my dad had to get a job when he turned eighteen. They never could afford a car, didn’t get a phone or TV until the eighties<snip>.
I wasn't brought up in abundance either.
Admittedly we had a small house, which was from my great grandfather. But we had no water closet; no bathroom, and my old man who sometimes had to go ill at work since he couldn't afford staying at home got his first car when I was 11. Later in life, after ruining my first marriage and health, I even lived on the streets for an admittedly short while. Contrary to some people's opinion, not everybody in the West grew up with Mercedes and swimmingpools (I am from Norway, by the way).
And keep in mind:
1. Poland was probably the country that suffered most during ww2 and rebuilding demanded quite an effort.
2. The Yanks didn't stuff your pockets with money, as they did with ours (I realize of course that this was not for altruistic motives, but it helped).
3. During the whole Cold War, the Western countries utilized their inherited economic superiority to keep Eastern Bloc countries down (like the COCOM rules).
4. The benefit of neo-colonialism, as pointed out by Plotinus, should also not be forgotten.
But things are improving, all dough a bit slowly as of late, still nine million people out of thirty-eight million have the same high standards of living as in Sweden, which has a total population of nine million.
I am not so optimistic about this, seeing a new underclass emerging.
And the argument about Sweden doesn't make much sense to me, a society should always be judged by how it treats it least fortunate.

The “commie card” was meant as somewhat of a joke. Note the smiley.
I understood that much, but I was addressing everybody.
There are a lot of usual suspects roaming freely around here who usually would pull that out.

Academics had it easier as long as they kept themselves clear of anti communist activities.
Much like my fathers half brother who was a professor in History and Polish and is a dean of an university now.
I never disagreed with that, but it was mentioned because somebody was claiming that everybody was living in squalor.

If I remember correctly, typewriters where licensed much like guns are nowadays.
I can't verify that either, but I will check it out.

About the "The Shah of Shahs" thing, admittedly that regime in Iran is often said to be one of the harshest ever in the world, and I do not believe Poland was as bad. All dough not as bad, not dissimilar methods were used against dissidents in Poland, and the people you know you haven’t described as any sort of dissidents, yes people who did nothing forbidden could have it rather comfortable, so chill on the “moron“ calling mister.
No chilling; reread the first paragraph above yourself.
There is such a thing as proportions, if not any political or historical debate is meaningless.
Besides, I knew people who got into difficulties with the authorites, even my mother-in-law was fired during the time of martial law for refusing to sign an oath of loyalty to the government. I also know people who experienced the riots in 1970 in Szcecin (my wife's city).
I also don't know if you ever thought about this, but no oppositionals got so much media attention as the dissidents in the Eastern Bloc. Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman made an instructive in "Manufacturing Consent" where they compared the murder of Popieluszko with those of a couple of hundred of clergy in El Salvador.
Try guessing which of those the media focused on?
It is my humble opinion that oppositionals in US client states were victims of much harsher treatment and ran greater personal risks, without that being an excuse for political oppression and violation of human rights in your country, of course.

Glad you like Kapuscinski, which one is your favourite book? Mine is “The Emperor”.
Actually that is mine too, together with the one about the Shah.

"Good bye Lenin" was a nice movie, was it not? I just mentioned it as something someone could watch if interested in those times, is all.
Yes it is good and yes I see your point then.:)

“The Others” my parents recommend, apparently manages to show the downsides of communist East Germany very well. What is shown is reportedly (by my mom) worse than what was going on in Poland. Admittedly she does not have so much experience of those things.
I believe that STASI was more eager than any other similar organization elsewhere.
That said, people here was also monitored and registered for political activities not appreciated by the rulers.

”In the eighties?” my mom got her car just before the ”stan wojenny”.
OK, slight misunderstanding then.

Well I have heard it claimed that Poland would have at least been as wealthy as Spain is today if it weren’t for the commies. Probably would have at least one good car manufacturer, maybe even some avionics…
I would have liked to see the argumentation for that.
I would also like to think how the distribution of wealth would have been, how many of the hoi polloi who would have had higher education etc.
A country being wealthy doesn't mean its citizen being it as well.

There where strict restrictions on car manufacture and development in Commie Poland so that the economy planers would have it easier to plan.
I am aware of the downfalls of a centrally planned economy.
On the other side, and on the risk of repeating myself; capitalism is also an underachiever in central issues regarding human welfare.


Actually, some people in the blog found by FranciscoHernan were expressing nostalgia... Of course, these people were remembering their young years, when grass was greener and the sun was brighter, not the regime itself. But if their lives had been REALLY bad under that regime, they wouldn't remember it with warm feelings...
That would have been the case anywhere.But some people lives are much worse now. Just think about the drastic decline in life expectancy.

"The one who does not regret the fall of USSR has no heart. The one who thinks that it was possible to keep the USSR as it was, has no brains".
Sounds like a variation over that conservative/radical triteness attributed to Clemenceau, Churchill et alt. It has a ring of truth around it, some reforms would been called for. But if I switched "USSR" with "USA" the saying would still make sense..:mischief:

Compare the life of the average Polish city-dweller today to the average Polish city-dweller in the 70s.
There are certain difficulties involved in that.

In the 70s the economy was controlled by the state, of course. Currently the free market rules.
I think the free market mostly rules the poor there as everywhere else.

The Polish economy was not allowed to prosper. When I say "poor", I am comparing what was to what could have been.
Counterfactual history is bunk; to paraphrase Henry Ford.
And as already noted; what is important is not for the "economy" to prosper, but for the people to do so. That is by no means necessarily the same.

Spending over half of the income of two teachers on rent of a small 1 bedroom apartment is not acceptable, in Poland, today.
But homelessness for non-teachers obviously is for the "free market".

It was certainly not acceptable in the 70s and 80s, either. That is how I derive the term "poor"
Then you have another definition than me. besides, that would certainly invalidate your claim that everybody was poor, because neither you nor anybody else should tell me with a straight face that everybody were in such a situation.

Most people? Everyone made almost the same. That's communism for ya ;)
If that was true, it was not at all bad.

You had to wait 5-15 years for an apartment.
I see that the hyperinflation has brought it up to 15 years now. By tomorrow 30 is probably to be expected.

You spend most of your life savings for one, then wait for many years.. and when you finally get it, it's a small POS that doesn't really suit a family of 5.
I have seen quite another reality, so this just can't be the general truth.
But I wonder if regional variations could play a part. Chestochowa was never exactly the most advanced and prosperous part of Poland.
And please correct me if I am wrong; isn't it like that that many people don't get apartments today simply because they can't afford it?

On top of that there is so much bureaucracy to make you want to rip your hair out, the simplest things take months if not years to accomplish, the stores are empty, you are unable to fully express yourself, especially if you had anti-communist views (which most people had), you are able to travel outside of the country, but once again the bureaucracy is a huge pain and basically prevents most people from doing so..
Again I know people who would not recognize all this to put it mildly (and still; they were not evil party members).
But indeed, life wasn't all rosy. It never is for many people anywhere.

I heard that life in Moscow and East Germany wasn't "that bad", but elsewhere in the East Bloc? Pshhh
Um, as far as I know the living standard of the majority in Moscow was below that of for instance Budapest, Praha or Warszawa.

They are called big ugly gray cube-shaped soviet blocks of flats.

Oh, that stuff can be seen in every Russian city... especially far from center. They are a horrible and depressing sight. :vomit:
Everyone hates them. They are really **** legasy of the Soviet regime...

I have seen quite another reality, so this just can't be the general truth.
But I wonder if regional variations could play a part. Chestochowa was never exactly the most advanced and prosperous part of Poland.
And please correct me if I am wrong; isn't it like that that many people don't get apartments today simply because they can't afford it?

Are any of them teachers?

My point is that life was not acceptable and should have been much better, considering.

We have been mainly discussing the economic hardships in communist Poland, but that is only one aspect of it. Lack of personal freedoms, unions, lack of ability to travel abroad, propaganda, censorship, etc. are other reasons why life was anything but "great", such as the pictures in the OP may suggest.

I’ll just repost a Soviet joke that fits most of the Warsaw Pact:

A man walks into a store and asks “I guess that you don’t have any meat today either?”
The clerk answers “No we don’t have any fish, the store with no meat is next door.”

A friend told me a joke from former Yugoslavia:

“Do you have a job?”
“Yes”
“Does your wife have a job?”
“Yes”
“Then how do you survive?”
“We have a grandmother!”

(Meaning that the grandmother had time to stand in cues every day)

Luceafarul

“I believe that STASI was more eager than any other similar organization elsewhere.
That said, people here was also monitored and registered for political activities not appreciated by the rulers.”

Where is this "here", that your talking about, and by the way there is a lot more to Stasi and KGB and their likes than simply “monitored and registered for political activities”, they notably also threatened, gave beatings, tortured and killed people.

The secret police in Poland had a way to beat people during interrogation that left no marks on the skin. They put a wooden plank over the chosen area, like a persons kidneys, and beat the plank with a club. No marks on the skin, but a badly bruised or ruined kidney, presto!

“I am aware of the downfalls of a centrally planned economy.
On the other side, and on the risk of repeating myself; capitalism is also an underachiever in central issues regarding human welfare.”

Well then there is no need to be so extreme and vouch for Communism or total Capitalism then? Why not go for a nice mild socialism not that dissimilar from the one they have in Sweden, but with a tad more liberalism. Sounds heavenly to me!:king:

Nothing changes.

In the Soviet Union the Party ruled in the guise of achieving communist utopia
In today's Russia oligarchs control the country in the name of the free-market and "democracy"

Maybe you should move to Sweden, the language in uncomplicated.:D

Oh believe me, I would if I could!

I’ll just repost a Soviet joke that fits most of the Warsaw Pact:

A man walks into a store and asks “I guess that you don’t have any meat today either?”
The clerk answers “No we don’t have any fish, the store with no meat is next door.”

A friend told me a joke from former Yugoslavia:

“Do you have a job?”
“Yes”
“Does your wife have a job?”
“Yes”
“Then how do you survive?”
“We have a grandmother!”

(Meaning that the grandmother had time to stand in cues every day)


Here are some others, from Romania:

Some people hear that there is meat somewhere in the center {of Bucharest}. They all rush there, hundreds and hundreds of people. After 24 hours of waiting, a guy there goes mad and says "I'll shoot him! I'll shoot him!!!" {Ceausescu}.
After 10 hours he returns, and finds his neighbors still waiting in the queue. They ask: "So, did you kill him?"
He answers: "No... I'm so sorry, the queue was even bigger there!"

An American asks: What's the average salary of a worker in communist Romania?
Answer: You also kill the blacks.

Question: Can you spend 10 years in prison for claiming loudly in the red square the Stalin is an idiot?
Answer: Yes, that's a state secret.

All the ex-communist countries were freely falling, until they reached the bottom of the hole. They all then started clibming slowly up again, except Romania who started to dig deeper.

They sound much better in their original language. :p

It is interesting that somewhat mentioned Singapore.

Despite few resources, it is a wealthy country that has become so by strongly supplementing its free market with a public system to ensure basic needs are easily met, including shelter. Everyone is given a mortgage for state-housing, and they are required to pay a percentage of their income until it is paid off - however, that percentage is not exorbinant, and you can NEVER be evicted from your home. Sure some people may carry the burden of the system more than others, but the benefits of having an entire society securely sheltered is probably worth it. There is such a thing as market failure, and affordable housing is definitely an area where markets tend to fail.

I don't have some grand point to make supporting one side or the other, because others have set up a nice base for this thread. I am merely pointing that there are other ways to structure an economy than rigid free markets or rigid central planning. Singapore has historically shown the possibilities for the deft use of both "tools" in overcoming a difficult situation (small island, millions of people, and no natural resources other than a harbour).

My dear friend, I hope you understand that your country was an anomaly. Ceausescu was a tinpot dictator who ruled in a Roman Emperor fashion; he even showed nepotist tendencies and had praetorians.

Everything that Mirc said was true in the Soviet Union from 1917-1953. Quite a bit of it was true for a long time after that. Virtually all of it is true about North Korea today.

Apologize for that.

Or for these:
Cambodia, Vietnam, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cuba, East Germany, and others.

Compare poverty in the West to conditions in any one of those countries during the communist era. Do it! I dare you.

By the way, Germany and Japan were also heavily devastated by WWII, and neither had a very large colonial empire. But, West Germany and Japan both became prosperous quickly after the war, while East Germany and Eastern Europe got poorer and poorer. All of Korea was destroyed in the Korean War. Today the South is one of the largest economies in the world, and the North is maybe the poorest country in the world with rampant starvation.

How to account for these differences? Anybody?

My GrandFather was Manager of or Owner of some Candy factory and my parents were both Docters and a priest but I can't really say much about like average people but Life wasn't that bad,
We lived in a Rural Village that was very old fashioned and slavic and not in one a big ugly Modern Apartment
City of Yaroslav, outskirts
it was a big house with a lake and forest there was still romanticism and love there so and if you needed extra food you could just grow it
But it was worse off in other decades my grandfather was relocated many times, this was late of course becuase my father could become a Priest at the Monastery

Yes Communism is responsible for Woman's Suffrage (though Russia alreadyhad something similar before) CHild Labur and Fair Labour, persoanlly I would love to live in the Utopia dscreibed by Communism

And todaythere is enough wealth and food to feed and support everyone on the world, if the whole world was communist then perhapos we could have realized this UPtopia

I think that Soviet Union became harsh becuase mistakes made, like you could not say that outside pressure made it become so paranoid because Stalin reigned before the "COld War" but Paranio had some role to play in making it harsher, the rulers knew that life wwas better in the other's Land, and they have been slowly been adopting Communist Values like Equality, Fairness and Freedom and even adopting them better like when Relgion was banned

These leaders knew that but of course you have to win, so do what ever it takes

After the fall of Communism People in East Europe have started to live under 1 american dollar, but there is now a larger and growing Middle Class, the middle class is most important requsite to a successful society, (unless you live in a Wild Paradise like me ;) ) As soon as people have developed Middle Class the people have gotten richer, See Kieven Rus, the Middle class supported it and those that did not could live a good life simply by building themsleves a house in the woods and just plain loving

Ok i don't know where I babbled on about and I am very dumb so I hope this makes sense
And Tropico is good example of a communist society, People will starve if there is not enough farms, If people have worse job like uneducated Jobs they will only get so much money and will only be able to go to take part in so many things (ex. A Construction Worker will not have enough money to go to a Nightculb but will have enough to eat out at a resturant or go to a pub)

By the way, Germany and Japan were also heavily devastated by WWII, and neither had a very large colonial empire. But, West Germany and Japan both became prosperous quickly after the war, while East Germany and Eastern Europe got poorer and poorer. All of Korea was destroyed in the Korean War. Today the South is one of the largest economies in the world, and the North is maybe the poorest country in the world with rampant starvation.

How to account for these differences? Anybody?

I wouldnm't say they got poorer and poorer, living got better as time progressed or maybe that was Cheburashka's fault,
HEY THAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT COMMUNISM!
CHEBURASHKA IS AWESOME YO!:goodjob:

In today's Russia oligarchs control the country in the name of the free-market and "democracy"

In fact, they are now changing their ideology. Now they again criticize the West, enrage over the actions of NATO, (and sometimes they do speak the true things, after all - the West sometimes DOES evil deeds!). And recently, they tried to make a new ideological concept of "Soveregin democracy", a special Russian democracy, different from the Western one. It didn't work, through...

And they certainly do want to have their rest in Bahamas etc., so I doubt they will put their words into actions, for if they will, there will be no Bahamas for them. ;)

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____________

And what do you think about the scandal in Estonia about the Momument of Russian Liberating Solider, which half the parlament wants to delete? (:shake:) I can understand them...partially. But I still think they are horribly wrong, that despite what the USSR done to them, they would suffer from the German occupation much more. And I am really enraged that they create new momuments in honor of some facscist scum. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
At least, hate the USSR and the Nazi Germany equally, please! :twitch:

It is interesting that somewhat mentioned Singapore.

Despite few resources, it is a wealthy country that has become so by strongly supplementing its free market with a public system to ensure basic needs are easily met, including shelter. Everyone is given a mortgage for state-housing, and they are required to pay a percentage of their income until it is paid off - however, that percentage is not exorbinant, and you can NEVER be evicted from your home. Sure some people may carry the burden of the system more than others, but the benefits of having an entire society securely sheltered is probably worth it. There is such a thing as market failure, and affordable housing is definitely an area where markets tend to fail.

I don't have some grand point to make supporting one side or the other, because others have set up a nice base for this thread. I am merely pointing that there are other ways to structure an economy than rigid free markets or rigid central planning. Singapore has historically shown the possibilities for the deft use of both "tools" in overcoming a difficult situation (small island, millions of people, and no natural resources other than a harbour).

Singapore is a sham. Beautiful on the outside, rotten inside. Nepotism is rampant and actually open, it's just that nobody is willing to see it. The government pays lip service to helping the poor. Low and middle-income earners face long working hours and relatively low wages. Yes, you get subsidized housing and maybe a few small freebies here and there, but that's only if you vote the ruling party. If the majority of a constituency does not vote the party, it is threatened with all kinds of disadvantages. Why? Because the ruling party controls all the government apparatus. The housing board, for one, is under the control of the party. And guess who's in charge of the election commitee? There's no such thing as neutrality here. Everything is partisan, and there's always only one party that matters.

An epitome of Asian nepotism and corruption with cosmetics, that's what Singapore is.

Actually WorldAudit ranked Singapore as 4 on corruption rank, that is one of the least corrupt countries, after Finland, New Zealand, Denmark. Now compare that to other Asian countries:

China 57, Thailand 53, Myanmar 143, Japan 14, South Korea 33, Malaysia 33, Philippines 105, Cambodia 134, Vietnam 96, Laos 105.

In other words, compare to other places Singapore is tolerable corruption-wise.

Source: http://www.worldaudit.org/corruption.htm

All of Korea was destroyed in the Korean War. Today the South is one of the largest economies in the world, and the North is maybe the poorest country in the world with rampant starvation.

Now I'm no expert on all this, but I really don't think this is exactly true - all of Korea did not get destroyed in the Korean War. The South did not suffer nearly as much under the invasion by the North as the North did under the counter-invasion by the Americans. North Korea was absolutely devastated by the Americans and has never recovered.

Singapore is a sham. Beautiful on the outside, rotten inside. Nepotism is rampant and actually open, it's just that nobody is willing to see it. The government pays lip service to helping the poor. Low and middle-income earners face long working hours and relatively low wages. Yes, you get subsidized housing and maybe a few small freebies here and there, but that's only if you vote the ruling party. If the majority of a constituency does not vote the party, it is threatened with all kinds of disadvantages. Why? Because the ruling party controls all the government apparatus. The housing board, for one, is under the control of the party. And guess who's in charge of the election commitee? There's no such thing as neutrality here. Everything is partisan, and there's always only one party that matters.

An epitome of Asian nepotism and corruption with cosmetics, that's what Singapore is.

It's not really relevant to this thread, but I think this is a very harsh judgement. Long working hours and relatively low wages for some people, true - but virtually nowhere in Singapore is there the grinding poverty that many people in practically every other country suffer from. Certainly there is unfair hegemony by the ruling party, and a rather alarming confusion between the party and the government, but most people in Singapore couldn't care less about that, because the ruling party happens to rule very wisely and beneficiently, on the whole. The only things Singaporeans seem to care about are food and shopping; they're not interested in politics. And really, why should they be? They're all doing fine. The Chinese are generally fairly pragmatic, and as long as everything is working well, they're not bothered about ideals.

I agree that the government does not do enough to help the poor; there is virtually no welfare state in Singapore. However, this is typical of Asia - there is no welfare state to speak of in Japan either, which is why there are so many people living on the streets or in temporary accommodation who lost their jobs after the bubble collapsed. They don't get unemployment benefits. In Singapore, the idea is that if you are poor or cannot work, your family must look after you. And if they don't you can actually go to court and force them to. Personally I find this utterly abhorrent and another example of the tyranny of the family in Chinese culture - but that's Chinese culture for you. It's their way of ensuring that the poor are looked after - it's just a very different system from what we're used to in Europe, where it's done more directly by the state.

I am not expert too, but in one book I read that Norh Korea was more industrialized than South.

I think that some comparisions should be misleading, because rich communist countries were exploited by USSR and poor capitalistic were supported by USA. But I think that its clear that in economy communism is much worse than capitalism. But idea of communism is supported not because more effective economy.

There's a raise of Nationalist sentiment in Russia. Putin is an advocat of Nationalism, although he may speak of healthy patriotism or something of the sort.

Patriot aknowledges that his nation did have and still has faults, he may even point them out. There could have been atrocities and terrible things in a nation's history but patriot accepts this as he works for his country's future. He is ready sacrifice a part of his personal well-being for his country by paying taxes, by serving in military forces, by voting. Patriot in turn has demands. He isn't strictly tied to some ideology, but he expects certain everyman's rights and liberties in addition of fulfilment of basic needs. He isn't happy if he feels controlled by his nation's current govern. If his terms aren't met at all he may turn against his current governement, which is different than turning against his nation as often what is best in country is ruined by bad leaders. A patriot is a citizen.

Nationalism is another thing. Nationalism often advertises itself with patriotist principles to gain credibility for itself but it usually demands more than a patriot is really willing to give. This is why rights and liberties are less important, as nationalist system expects total commitment and obedience first, or even the basic requirements will not be met. Nationalism is all about might and power, but it's core is very vulnerable and doesn't like daylight. Nationalist nation has all glorious past with all glorious leaders, except the last ones the power was taken from. This all glorious history becomes a sort of replacement for rights and liberties, as the people are expected to strive as one for making the current govern glorious. In a nationalist system people are subjects.

In this spirit these kind of photos are to be seen more in the future. Putin's Mother Russia was great, is great and will be great.

Ukas what are you on about? This thread is about the quality of life in USSR. What does this have to do with rising Russian nationalism? I'm telling you the photos are not propaganda work and quite frankly I dont see anything "great" about them. Its just life, the way that it was.

Actually WorldAudit ranked Singapore as 4 on corruption rank, that is one of the least corrupt countries, after Finland, New Zealand, Denmark. Now compare that to other Asian countries:

China 57, Thailand 53, Myanmar 143, Japan 14, South Korea 33, Malaysia 33, Philippines 105, Cambodia 134, Vietnam 96, Laos 105.

In other words, compare to other places Singapore is tolerable corruption-wise.

Source: http://www.worldaudit.org/corruption.htm

The corruption does not happen in broad daylight, of course. No, they're too smart for that in Singapore. Some people here know it, but they either pretend that it's alright or simply choose to do and say nothing. On an interesting note, the corruption bureau answers directly to the Prime Minister, who is incidentally the leader of the ruling party.

Plotinus, you make some fair points. However, I disagree about not having to care about politics. Apathy is not a good thing at all. What if one day the Party decides to rule for the benefit of itself (not that it's not already doing so, just not so openly)? There would be no one with sufficient experience and knowledge to oppose them an establish a better alternative. Anyway, I don't know how much you know about how opposition and dissidence is handled here (which is part of what makes people here so apathetic), but I suspect most Westerners would not applaud and cheer at the methods.

Singapore is definitely not a democracy. The ideology is best described as national socialism. The Party has a hand in almost everything connected to daily life here. It has control over the media, telecommunications, education and etc. Any intelligent person knows that many of the big companies here have ties to the government. The media is censored and propaganda abound in schools. Elections are manipulated where and when it is necessary. And a lot of the things the government claims are simply not true. For example, AFAIK, the government promises to narrow the income gap and help low and middle-income workers this year, but it has actually cut the corporate tax while raising the regressive Goods and Services Tax. Some people actually see through such lies, but most of them either resort to doublethink or shrug sadly and do nothing except harbour dreams of leaving. In going so far as to openly criticise the system, I'm already making an extraordinary effort.

Well, maybe this isn't so much OT. After all, this is about life in the Soviet Union, and there are still some parallels to it today.

Ukas: You wanted to say that most Russians wanted strong hand leadership? You are right.

Now I'm no expert on all this, but I really don't think this is exactly true - all of Korea did not get destroyed in the Korean War. The South did not suffer nearly as much under the invasion by the North as the North did under the counter-invasion by the Americans. North Korea was absolutely devastated by the Americans and has never recovered.


Actually, the North was much more industrial to begin with, and South Korea suffered as much or more during the war, especially demographically. The bottom line is that, in 1953, both Koreas were at the same place: rock bottom. In the next 40 years, South Korea transformed itself into an economic powerhouse. North Korea did okay for a while, when Soviet money was pouring in, but as soon as it lessened people began starving. Both Koreas had nothing in 1953, and both recieved huge amounts of foreign aid. Look at them now.

Was life good in the Soviet Union? I'll answer that question with a question of my own: why would they need to build walls to keep the people from fleeing the country?

Man, why is it that I am sure you think Berlin is located in Soviet Union :(

Because the influence of the Soviet Union stretched to the edges of the Iron Curtain.

Gelion

Considering your signature....Aren't the Czechs supposed to get the sensory part and the Poles the weapons systems? Meaning two parts of of one system, I think you missed that part.:p

I think his signature was the result of a debate with Winner, who is from the Czech Republic. ;)

Ooooh! The man (Mr G) has "luggage"!:eek: :run:

Damn, am I in a silly mood now!

Ukas what are you on about? This thread is about the quality of life in USSR. What does this have to do with rising Russian nationalism? I'm telling you the photos are not propaganda work and quite frankly I dont see anything "great" about them. Its just life, the way that it was.


Well yes, my conx only downloaded few photos when I looked them for the first time, others were boxes with tiny red x in them. The pics I saw were about happy pioneers and such.

But, if you connect these photos with the title of the post, you'll get an answer like "no, it wasn't that bad". This doesn't include oppression the people faced. Dissidents closed in prisons and mental hospitals, terrible conditions and training in the Red Army, artists forced to praise the system in their creations etc.

Life wasn't that bad if you worked, kept your mouth shut and praised the system every now and then - even though you lived in a closet, didn't have much to eat, couldn't travel etc.

I think the OP was more focused on the economical and social aspect of that life. Don't think anyone here argues the political component.

Was life good in the Soviet Union? I'll answer that question with a question of my own: why would they need to build walls to keep the people from fleeing the country?



Because your neighbours are much wealthier?

But that doesnt mean you are poor, maybe because I come from the poorest country in south america I have a different concept of poverty.

My father used to say, the german reunification happened, not because east germans were poor, but because they saw west germans had much better cars.


Thats germany, not the soviet union, altough if I recall correctly you needed special permits to travel from one place to another inside the soviet union.

why would they need to build walls to keep the people from fleeing the country?

Are you refering to the Berlin Wall? Well, technically, East Germany was not a part of the USSR. It was its vassal, through.

EDIT: Oh, it was already meitoned.

I'm telling you the photos are not propaganda work and quite frankly I dont see anything "great" about them. Its just life, the way that it was.

Maybe most of them are not. But I tend to think that something is wrong with photos with a great abundance of food in shops. You were never in the danger of starving, but sometimes you had to wait at quite long queques... but I don't see them on these photos. :scan:

Because your neighbours are much wealthier?

But that doesnt mean you are poor, maybe because I come from the poorest country in south america I have a different concept of poverty.

Poverty is a relative thing.

If all your neighbours are much wealthier than you, then relatively speaking, you are poor.

Well coincidentally, Ive met a lot of people from the soviet bloc. My first girlfriend in fact was born in Dresden Germany, around 1975. And a buddy I had thru high school was from Moscow, around the same age.
People I meet from that place all have the same, pained, traumatic, refuse to even discuss it cause its too much for me to handle right now attitude to that life. A lot of them maybe over-embrace capitalism and really go crazy with it, becoming to most people, too materialistic and greedy. But they seem to genuinely despise the life they had before, almost more haunted by it than people seem to be by more obvious traumas, such as being a foster child or whatever. So my guess, it wasnt fun at all.
However, my girlfriend did at one time mention, which was interesting, that at the TIME, she really had no idea how bad a situation she was in, and America was kinda like the bad guys, but it was also like the bad guys that everyone secretly admires, you follow? like gangsters or something in the modern world, because they were fed so much propoganda about how terrible they were, and you didnt have to be that clever, to eventually realize that this propoganda dont really add up....
edit: anyway, im reading the post history, and luceafarul seems rather intelligent and educated on the manner, (caucescou was an ardent anti-soviet, for example), but he gets a little overboard with his thinking, and it remains obvious, that when people are AS UPSET as many people are who genuinely feel they suffered oppresion under soviet rule, then they cant possibly be simply imagining everything...You even become maybe a little cruel in your backhand assesment of them. but this is probably typical overcompensation for an opposite overcomensation. Im sure it was bad to live in the soviet bloc. But ill take it over Auchwitz.
Its not a secret, you can put political ideaologies aside and be purely academic, as an economist, completely objectively considering the effects of communism versus free market on a macroscopic scale to the economy. And bascially communism is crap. Its jsut terrible. There is no way to avoid massive waste. To amke matters worse, in the specific instance of soviest russia, it was also a dictatorship, which was a cute fuzzy enough dictatorship under Lenin, but had of course plenty of potential to be,and in fact often was, autocratic and elitist. This is according to my understanding,, i suppsoe, but i didnt think taht this was open for debate. This is a closed case, is it not? And what a mixture...communism, and elitism....ugh....
psychologically speaking, the US isnt a bad place to live...maybe you arent born in one of the jet set priveleged ivory tower families, but its easy to keep your dignity, and its also easy to have hope for any situation to change...scoff all you want, a lot of peopel like to, but anybody in the US could find a way to break into the market, say by getting come neat idea and patenting it, and make a fortune off of it. There are barriers to social mobility, of course, and some people love to point them out with passion, but the fact remains, social mobility occurs a lot in the US, still occurs, is always feasible.

The truth lies plain before your eyes!

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr01.jpg
School uniforms are already widely used tools to strip youth of any identity (aka western individualism) that might be budgeoning in them.

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr07.jpg
Half of those jugs don't even come with milk!

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr10.jpg
Lines lines lines lines & more lines!

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr104.jpg
The communal newspaper

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr106.jpg
The communal assignment sheet

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr117.jpg
Pool tables have only 4 holes and no balls!

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr129.jpg
A picture of Lenin in every room to watch you masturbate

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr132.jpg
Sure, that poster isn't watching you:rolleyes:

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr139.jpg
Calculators are evil tools of capitalist pigs!

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr142.jpg
Parental child rearing is not allowed. Parent's authority would undermine that of the state. Nope, all toilet training is run communally.

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr144.jpg
Duh! Human radiation experimentation!

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr32.jpg
more lines

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr47.jpg
All girls must wear dresses and regulation-length socks

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr48.jpg
...even if they might get caught in the paper roller

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr125.jpg
If they fall to their death, it's not from the lack of safety equipment, but only because they aren't loyal enough to the party.

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr54.jpg
Shopping carts are another symbol of capitalist imperialism

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr60.jpg
Speaks for itself

http://www.alex-hartmann.net/ljn/2007/220207_ussr/100fotoussr55.jpg
Fashionable haircuts are not allowed!

Methinks someone has a problem. Troll?

U can tell that a lot of the girls in these photos are gonna grow up to be super hot. Man how come there arent so many hot women in the US? Almost worth the whole communism thing, imo.

Plotinus, you make some fair points. However, I disagree about not having to care about politics. Apathy is not a good thing at all. What if one day the Party decides to rule for the benefit of itself (not that it's not already doing so, just not so openly)? There would be no one with sufficient experience and knowledge to oppose them an establish a better alternative. Anyway, I don't know how much you know about how opposition and dissidence is handled here (which is part of what makes people here so apathetic), but I suspect most Westerners would not applaud and cheer at the methods.

I agree that apathy isn't a good thing. My point was simply that most Singaporeans wouldn't see any need not to be apathetic. And while that is undesirable, it is an undesirable consequence of the fact that the country is, on the whole, very well governed. Certainly you're right that there is dissatisfaction in some quarters, especially in the younger generation, and perhaps there are many people who want to leave; but I'm afraid that to most outsiders, Singaporeans seem very lucky with their lot, even spoiled. Unless they're gay, of course...

However, it's important to bear in mind that, where you have a de facto one-party state, that doesn't mean there's no more politics; it just means it takes place within the party rather than between rival parties. You get the same thing in Japan, though certainly to a greater extent than Singapore (which is a pretty tiny place, after all). It's impossible that the entire PAP could suddenly go tyrannical and begin oppressing the people, because the PAP is (thanks to its complete political hegemony) a very large organisation, and all its members wouldn't go evil at once! That is, there would be internal dissent at such a thing.

Singapore is definitely not a democracy. The ideology is best described as national socialism. The Party has a hand in almost everything connected to daily life here. It has control over the media, telecommunications, education and etc. Any intelligent person knows that many of the big companies here have ties to the government. The media is censored and propaganda abound in schools. Elections are manipulated where and when it is necessary. And a lot of the things the government claims are simply not true. For example, AFAIK, the government promises to narrow the income gap and help low and middle-income workers this year, but it has actually cut the corporate tax while raising the regressive Goods and Services Tax. Some people actually see through such lies, but most of them either resort to doublethink or shrug sadly and do nothing except harbour dreams of leaving. In going so far as to openly criticise the system, I'm already making an extraordinary effort.

While at least some of the things you list are not desirable, I don't really see that they make the country not a democracy; if everyone can vote for who they want in power, it's a democracy. And that is still the case in Singapore. Government ownership of business, control of the media, etc may be good or bad but I don't see that it's got much to do with democracy. I would agree that "national socialism" - in the literal and not historical sense of the term, of course - would be quite a good way of describing it, apart from the lack of social welfare. Asian politics obviously doesn't divide along western "left-right" categories, so in some respects the PAP is very left-wing, and in others it's pretty right-wing, although I think on the whole it's better defined as left-wing. The real difference between Singapore and the Soviet Union, though, is that Singapore actually works.

I don't think it's fair to accuse the government of lying on the grounds that it says it wants to reduce the income gap while also raising GST. Obviously the government believes that this is the best option available to it. It may be wrong to think that, arguably, but that doesn't make it actually deceptive. And I might add that posters have actually gone up in HDB blocks explaining why the government has done this and what its reasoning is. You don't see that in many countries!

We started discussing USSR, now we are discusing Singapore... after a week we will be discussing strawberries, I think. :crazyeye: :rolleyes:

Sorry: as we said, though, it is vaguely relevant, as a country that is in some respects similar to the USSR, but a highly successful one. Looking at cases like that helps to recognise what was, and what was not, wrong about the USSR and similar countries. Perhaps.

I'm afraid that to most outsiders, Singaporeans seem very lucky with their lot, even spoiled. Unless they're gay, of course...

Until they've lived here long enough and see not only the good things. In fact, I think I'll have a happier life in Britain (will be going there to study soon) :D I'll feel more like a free man.

However, it's important to bear in mind that, where you have a de facto one-party state, that doesn't mean there's no more politics; it just means it takes place within the party rather than between rival parties.

I don't know if this is true to any significant extent. A party member goes through even more indoctrination than the average citizen. I was offered the prestigious civil service scholarship at one point. I know what's in store for them. It might actually be true in the Orwellian sense that the highest ranking members are the ones most convinced by their own lies. They believe they are helping the country, but they also think that they have the right to enrich and entrench themselves.

It's impossible that the entire PAP could suddenly go tyrannical and begin oppressing the people, because the PAP is (thanks to its complete political hegemony) a very large organisation, and all its members wouldn't go evil at once! That is, there would be internal dissent at such a thing.

Well, the dissenters will break off from the party and end up getting thrown in jails, just like the Barisan Sosialis in the old days :p

While at least some of the things you list are not desirable, I don't really see that they make the country not a democracy; if everyone can vote for who they want in power, it's a democracy. And that is still the case in Singapore. Government ownership of business, control of the media, etc may be good or bad but I don't see that it's got much to do with democracy.

You can't call a country where the elections are manipulated (what do you think the redrawing of the borders of constituencies before elections is for?) a true democracy. It's true that many people still support the ruling party, but the extent of disatisfaction with it is always under-represented. The party would have lost more seats if elections were conducted honestly.

I would agree that "national socialism" - in the literal and not historical sense of the term, of course - would be quite a good way of describing it, apart from the lack of social welfare. Asian politics obviously doesn't divide along western "left-right" categories, so in some respects the PAP is very left-wing, and in others it's pretty right-wing, although I think on the whole it's better defined as left-wing.

Actually, I meant national socialism in the historical sense (was there ever a real socialist country?). It's remarkable how similar the Singapore system is to the Nazi one (without the racial theories and expansionism, of course - though, interestingly enough, Lee Kuan Yew believes in eugenics): the militarism (though, I repeat, without expansionist ambitions), the national labour union, the policy of every Singaporean having a home (People's Car in Nazi Germany), the propaganda ads and posters, the systematic purging of political opposition (though not as brutally), etc. That's what national socialism is - a dictatorship of a party based on nationalism with martial overtones and 'the good of the people'.

The real difference between Singapore and the Soviet Union, though, is that Singapore actually works.

I think the Cold War is a major factor for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Anyway, having the USA seriously oppose you is bad thing (Singapore is a regional ally of the USA and, IIRC, has an FTA with it). Like it or not, the USA has commanded unparalleled political power and influence on the world stage since WW2. Besides, like you said, the Asian mentality helps to achieve some political stability. And I guess there's less bad blood in the history of Singapore than, say, the history of the Russian Revolution.

I don't think it's fair to accuse the government of lying on the grounds that it says it wants to reduce the income gap while also raising GST. Obviously the government believes that this is the best option available to it. It may be wrong to think that, arguably, but that doesn't make it actually deceptive. And I might add that posters have actually gone up in HDB blocks explaining why the government has done this and what its reasoning is. You don't see that in many countries!

Because it's just more propaganda? ;) But, really, I don't see the government doing anything to improve the lives of people like me. Instead, all I'm feeling is the pinch of the fare hikes, the GST increase and constant wages.

Well, things have improved in recent years. The younger generation is more vocal than ever and there seems to be a general loosening up in the country. I guess we'll have to see how things go in several years' time.

"in Soviet Russia, pictures look at YOU"

Got to agree with Warpus, alot of the pics look like propaganda shots, Soviets were very good at pulling the wool over peoples eyes.

I was born and raised in the Soviet Union. I am not going to indulge into profound debate over the multitude of issues raised in the confines of this thread, however I will try with some degree of certainity to assure you in the following.
USSR was not a police state, apart from the periods of War Communism(1918-21) and Stalin Era (1930-1953, please note that although he officially came into power in 1922, the actual terror began in the 30s).
The life of the Soviet citizen was generally characterized by economical,financial and socio-cultural stability, meaning that everyone was guaranteed good education, good standard of living and provided with average goods, such as an appartment, telephone, possibly a car and things of that nature. However, ideological and political flexibility were virtually non-existent. This could pose a problem for an intelectually aspiring part of society, but generally, stability in other spheres of existence was sufficent to supress such aspirations. Simply put, people want "bread and entertainment," and this was surely given.
Now, the issue of lines ,and food shortages, and other multifarious problems had appeared mostly during the latter part of Gorbachev Era, when things like Glasnost', financial crisis and economical malfunctions largely caused by the arms race with the US and eventual ineffectiveness of plan economy became apparent.
So, in short, the view of the USSR that is presented in Western political thought is to a large extent ideologically charged, or remains simply "half-baked" due to the "us and them" thinking during the most of XXth century.

:goodjob: :yup:

I was born and raised in the Soviet Union. I am not going to indulge into profound debate over the multitude of issues raised in the confines of this thread, however I will try with some degree of certainity to assure you in the following.
USSR was not a police state, apart from the periods of War Communism(1918-21) and Stalin Era (1930-1953, please note that although he officially came into power in 1922, the actual terror began in the 30s).
The life of the Soviet citizen was generally characterized by economical,financial and socio-cultural stability, meaning that everyone was guaranteed good education, good standard of living and provided with average goods, such as an appartment, telephone, possibly a car and things of that nature. However, ideological and political flexibility were virtually non-existent. This could pose a problem for an intelectually aspiring part of society, but generally, stability in other spheres of existence was sufficent to supress such aspirations. Simply put, people want "bread and entertainment," and this was surely given.
Now, the issue of lines ,and food shortages, and other multifarious problems had appeared mostly during the latter part of Gorbachev Era, when things like Glasnost', financial crisis and economical malfunctions largely caused by the arms race with the US and eventual ineffectiveness of plan economy became apparent.
So, in short, the view of the USSR that is presented in Western political thought is to a large extent ideologically charged, or remains simply "half-baked" due to the "us and them" thinking during the most of XXth century.

USSR was not a police state, you say. Got anything to back that up? :)

And do you mean that an average USSR citizen had a "possible" car? Maybe the situation is totally different, but in 1980 there were 300 cars in Bucharest, which had 1.600.000 people at the time. That's not exactly "a car for the average person"...

in 1980 there were 300 cars in Bucharest
I find that hard to believe.

"in Soviet Russia, pictures look at YOU"

Got to agree with Warpus, alot of the pics look like propaganda shots, Soviets were very good at pulling the wool over peoples eyes.

I am interested what you find great in these pictures to call it propaganda:crazyeye:
It shows some pioneers and poor life.

I have a bit of an anecdote to contribute to the conversation.

Before I could even speak, my parents taught me to spit on pictures of Lenin & Stalin whenever I encountered them. They would give me a book, I would go through it, and whenever I ran into Stalin or Lenin they would get spat on.

Tells you a bit of how much we appreciated life under Russian occupation ;)

Warpus are you serious? If not what is so funny about it?
Seriously, I dont get the joke and I want to know.

USSR was not a police state, you say. Got anything to back that up? :)
Lol, no more proofs than what you can come up with to back up the claim that Bucharest had 300 cars in 1980.

And do you mean that an average USSR citizen had a "possible" car? Maybe the situation is totally different, but in 1980 there were 300 cars in Bucharest, which had 1.600.000 people at the time. That's not exactly "a car for the average person"...
There were few cars, but having a car in USSR was like having 2-3 cars in the West (per family) nowadays. Also since when do we compare USSR to Romania? Despite both countries being communist there were significant differences between them.

On a side note I'd like to say tha USSRs of:
1921-1933
1933-1953
1953-1970
1970-1986
and 1986-1991
were very different from each other. I believe we are discussing 1960's - 1970's period.

I have a bit of an anecdote to contribute to the conversation.

Before I could even speak, my parents taught me to spit on pictures of Lenin & Stalin whenever I encountered them. They would give me a book, I would go through it, and whenever I ran into Stalin or Lenin they would get spat on.

Tells you a bit of how much we appreciated life under Russian occupation ;)

Im fine with spitting on pictures of Stalin...

But you try pulling a country from the first World War, rebuilding it and doing what was needed to stabalize it. Lenin, in my opinion did what was needed due to the situation.

Stalin was a monster before WWII even began...

I find that hard to believe.

Actually, I have proof. But it's in Romanian. But yeah, I mentioned it could have been different.

Warpus are you serious? If not what is so funny about it?
Seriously, I dont get the joke and I want to know.

I am serious and I understand why my parents did it.

If your country was occupied and ran by the USSR, I'm sure you would despise the people responsible for it in the first place, too.

Im fine with spitting on pictures of Stalin...

But you try pulling a country from the first World War, rebuilding it and doing what was needed to stabalize it. Lenin, in my opinion did what was needed due to the situation.

Stalin was a monster before WWII even began...

I agree that Lenin was a poor choice.. but it was not the person I was spitting at, but rather the things he represented.

It was all pretty symbolic :)

I am serious and I understand why my parents did it.

If your country was occupied and ran by the USSR, I'm sure you would despise the people responsible for it in the first place, too.
I may understand how you feel, but sorry there's something sickening about parents teaching a kid to spit on something.

I may understand how you feel, but sorry there's something sickening about parents teaching a kid to spit on something.

I find the occupation and subjugation of my country by another magnitudes more sickening, to the point of rendering your point that my parents actions are sickening meaningless.

I find the occupation and subjugation of my country by another magnitudes more sickening, rendering your point that my parents actions are sickening meaningless.
Not your parents, only that part they taught you.

Frankly I could hate Hitler for what he has done to my nation. I dont spit on his photos.
I could hate Yeltsin for how much he has stolen. I dont spit on his photos.
I could hate Bzejinsky for wanting to subdue and destroy my country. I dont spit on his photos.

I dont know how to react because your words remind me of those people who hated everything Soviet and wanted to leave the country because everything sickened them back home. I dont have a problem with that. I have a problem with people who continue to sh*t on everything Soviet while living somewhere else. Spitting on the photos of Stalin fits well into that category.

I really hope I am wrong about you and your parents. Its just that I've met too many people from the abovementioned category.

Frankly I could hate Hitler for what he has done to my nation. I dont spit on his photos.
I could hate Yeltsin for how much he has stolen. I dont spit on his photos.
I could hate Bzejinsky for wanting to subdue and destroy my country. I dont spit on his photos.


Since you say you could hate them, does that mean you don't really? If so, not spitting on them makes sense.

Since you say you could hate them, does that mean you don't really? If so, not spitting on them makes sense.

I have a few more important things to worry about than ritually spit on someone's photo every morning or have 5 minutes of hate on a certain day ;)

I dont know how to react because your words remind me of those people who hated everything Soviet and wanted to leave the country because everything sickened them back home. I dont have a problem with that. I have a problem with people who continue to sh*t on everything Soviet while living somewhere else. Spitting on the photos of Stalin fits well into that category.

I really hope I am wrong about you and your parents. Its just that I've met too many people from the abovementioned category.

Uhm.. I was like 3 years old dude.

As for my parents, their country was occupied by a foreign power. Of course they weren't going to show it any respect!

Sheesh

We could care less about the USSR now, it is long dead.

USSR was not a police state, you say. Got anything to back that up? :)

And do you mean that an average USSR citizen had a "possible" car? Maybe the situation is totally different, but in 1980 there were 300 cars