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peacetraveler22) wrote2015-09-19 10:34 pm
Do you now live a thousand times better than during Soviet times?
If time travel ever becomes possible, I would transport myself back to Moscow or the province in the 1970's or 80's to better understand the realities of life in Soviet times. Looking at old photos in books or online, I can hardly envision such a system of life where everything is so structured and predestined. This is the eternal debate amongst my older Russian friends and readers - the pros and cons of life in the USSR vs. modern day Russia. Tonight I read an article written by a man who was only nine years old when the Soviet Union collapsed. However, he claims this was long enough to form a strong enough opinion about life in the USSR to know that he never wishes to return. His observations seem a bit shallow and naive on the surface. He takes a few of the most commonly expressed strengths of the Soviet system, and explains why they are misconceptions. Please remember these are not my personal views, but the opinions of a former resident in the Soviet Union. Let's begin with education...
Myth 1: The Soviet education was the best in the world 
There's a common belief that education in the Soviet system was good, perhaps even the best in the world. However, this was largely a result of propaganda, and it's important to ask the primary question of how a "great" education should be measured? It's clear that scientific progress in the West was no less than in the USSR. Moreover, if everyone was so smart in the USSR, why couldn't they make good cars and VCRs? Something is wrong here, and doesn't add up.
Myth 2: Soviet medicine was better
Obviously, the quality of medical care was worse in Soviet times. It has always been worse when compared to decaying capitalist countries. Life expectancy in the USSR was lower than the "enemy" at all times.
Reasons for lower life expectancy are simple - lack of modern medicines and treatments. While every effort was being made to create the next warheads, citizens died without having access to advanced diagnostics or care.
Myth 3: Free housing
A common misconception about the USSR is that everyone lived for free. In fact, there was no free housing but cooperatives, which cost an average sum, payable through reasonable installments for 25 years. Everyone in the USSR had a roof over their head, but the quality of housing was horrible and inferior in quality. After the collapse of the USSR, the owners of these apartments were faced with the need to privatize for big money, otherwise the housing became the property of the city. What, in general, makes housing better during Soviet times? Nothing. 
Myth 4: In the Soviet Union, there was no unemployment or homeless
The main problem here was the equalization of labor in low wages, where many people lived paycheck to paycheck, creating a low standard of living for the majority. It's better to provide economic incentives for high quality work, rather than simply handing people wages. The latter creates lazy and entitled workers. Side note from me: I dont' understand employment during Soviet times? How were people hired? They picked their own jobs, or the choice was made by the government?
Myth 5: The most powerful army in the world!
Classic point of discussion for lovers of the USSR! Yes, the Union had a strong army, to the "defense industry" money was never spared. The Soviet forces were greatly feared abroad, but there are two important points. (1) A strong army has no effect on the lives of ordinary people, except in the negative direction (when all power goes to the creation of tanks, there remains no funds for infrastructure and other improvements); and (2) the Armies of Western countries were no less strong.
Myth 6: Products and clothes were better in the USSR 
This is complete nonsense according to the author. In Soviet times, everything was worse with clothing and consumer choice. People wore shoes for ten years, and it was the same with all other clothes which were of poor quality. Remember how everyone was so desperate for Levis and other American jeans?
In his opinion, the absolute worst part of life in the USSR was the lack of choice in everything - education, work, food, clothing. Soviet citizens couldn't leave the country or really choose the accommodations which best fit their own personality, goals or comfort. Individuality was suffocated. The government planned human life from birth to death. In general, it completely ruined the country and strangled motivation.
The author's final words - "God forbid that we all go back. Now we live a thousand times better." Do you agree?
P.S. - is the term "совок" offensive and derogatory, or it's okay to use?
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I was born during Gorbytime, so all of my suggestions can be easily torn to pieces by older mates. Maybe.
But surely I was surrounded by elders and I was graduated as modern history schoolteacher, so I hope I can make an honest contribution to this topic.
I'll try to make my suggestions on this "five myths" and after that I'll continue with my own explanation.
Myth 1: The Soviet education was the best in the world
Like all the matters it's complicated. Soviet schools were definitely not the best in the world. Not the worst either. The whole point of mass education was in... mass education, yes. There were specialised schools in most of the cities, which population was over 200'000. They provided the specialised education for kids with sharp abilities in math, biology or languages. If ypo lived in the small citiy or in the rural are, you must satisfy yourself with average schooling facilities. Equality was guaranteed, so you'll receive free books and free school chess or gym club, but rarely more. I don't think this is very bad in comparison with our times. State was very interested in mass education and mass indoctrination, bound together, so it was an honest deal, imho. My aunts were school teachers and during soviet times they spent a lot of time with poor or undeveloped kids - you simply cannot allow yourself to be a bad pupil, everyone must help you! Now no one is spending money on additional courses or forces the bullies and dummies to study harder - it's up to you, socialism has gone! :) Like most things in SU this was like parental control, and, surely, someone liked it, someone hated this "nurturance".
On the higher education tiers there was a lot of possibilities to escape this parental control. Soviet state was not almighty and was not going to be a sitter-hen. Most of social science was heavily influenced by stubborn marxism-leninism, but you could always choose something like philology or ancient history and escape the choke of ideology. Margareth Thatcher once said that you need to be a very wealthy person to allow yourself a course of history or philology. In the socialist state, where you're mostly free from day-to-day money grinding, you could allow such a "useless" profession. It was one of the strange fringes of equality - state was very interested in heavy and aerospace industries, but allowed thousands of students to spent their entire life dissecting ancient languages or discussing archeology with their respective colleagues.
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Originally I finished specialised math school, so my first try in tertiary study was in radiophysical college like most of my mates.
But in the middle of my terms I realised how I ran out of steam with all of this abstract math and physics. If I'd continued this path, I would bind myself with serious scholarly endeavor for my entire life.
I was already part-time junior quality assurance engineer, thanks to my friends and their job community, so I've left my radiophysics college as ungraduated student and began with quality assurance and quality control trainings.
Now I'm an advanced QA engineer and I'm working for IT industry now. This "pedagogical history" grade was my hobby grade unrelated to my main profession, I was always interested in modern history and psychologies of youth. But I had one year of probation training as one of the teachers in one of the town schools during my graduation. Many of my relatives were school teachers or school authorities, so there is kind of teacher blood in my veins :)
I hope I could try myself as school teacher one more time, when I'd became tired of business logic, fail-safe testing and countless testing checks of QA industry :)
Unfortunately, school teaching is very tricky profession in the modern Russia.
It's get slightly better with money and school environment nowadays, but overwhelming bureacracy, formal paperwork and constant experiments falling from the Ministry above... this makes modern teaching very obstruct. All of my friends working in the school or university education speaks about "more paperwork, less gentle education and human contact" rule.
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Of course, you can never relax end juct enjoy your noble educational cause somewhere in the middle of nothere.
In rural areas or in the very small villages teachers are still ,essentially, very poor.
But they may be the most educated or the most respected people in the entire district - they are still the symbols of something bright or something promising. People usually respects education, especially in backwater districts.
In towns the situation is different. Teachers are often respected as another kind of servitude. You can be a private teacher, maybe even well-paid, but you are still in need to do an AWFUL lot of bureacracy and paperwork. And you job is just another kind of civil service - you're the talking machine.