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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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Yes, it was a little bit of a mystery.
Say, you graduate from a university. If you are not a Jew, you will be "distributed" to an enterprise, where, if nothing horrible happens, you could stay until retirement. It was harder for the Jews; also, it was harder for married people, because, by the law, if you are married, you are supposed to get an apartment from the enterprise - that was, of course, a total fantasy (but worked for some, in the Far North).
If you do not graduate a university, you could have go get some technical education, and be distributed as well.
If you did not go anywhere, and just dropped out of school, militia would help you find a job that really sucks. But a job.
Next stage is to find a decent job. Of course if you wanted to earn good money, you would enroll into something a little bit dangerous and uncomfortable, like oil drilling in Siberia, or a fishing boat, and return with tons of money. If not interested, you need to have friends. That's what was happening to me after I spent my obligatory 3 years at a factory (as an engineer), and then started looking. Interviewing was pretty much the same as these days in software industry; and I was interviewing people pretty much the same way I do now. Except that I was also testing their English, since, in software, you are an idiot if you do not read in English.
Again, for the Jews it was more complicated, so me and my friends, we had a strong principle: Jews come first. It does not mean I would hire anybody just because.
Then, when some economic freedom was announced, we set up a startup, and we picked the best of the best of the best (and kicked them out as easy if they were not). Later I was just hiring contractors to do a specific job, and to me it was the best solution.
See, there was an advantage in the system. A young woman could get an engineering job, and stay there while giving birth to her kids. Several months of paid leave, then a year of unpaid maternity leave, that was cool for the employees, and for the employers it was a double problem: a) replace here with someone while she's away; b) retrain her after she returns having forgotten almost everything. It was all doable; in my team the majority of the engineers were females; it just required some efforts and 0 male chauvinism, which was, and still is, the backbone of Russian society.
In all this (restricted) mobility we have to keep in mind one important factor: прописка, residence registration. You could easily move from Moscow to Siberia, but there was no way you could move from Siberia to Moscow. Almost no way. That's where all the drama was. Husbands not registering their wives in their apartments, and the like.
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LOL
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It was hardly ever a secret. If a guy has a Jewish last name, the guy is a Jew; etc. If the guy is called Boris Nikolaev, I would have never guessed, but well, he did have these problems too. So it was hard not to guess.
But I never felt, I'm still kind of clueless.
By the time I was in a hiring position, I mostly knew who's who in our company.
Are you from Russia? Do you imply there's something wrong in being a Jew? Or something like that?
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Yes I am from Russia in a sense that I was born in Moscow and lived there for bigger half of my life; not anymore.
I was never able to see or feel that someone is a jew. The only way is to know: someone tells you, often with a sense of sacral importance to it, being self-reported or telling on another. That created a rather awkward feeling, feeling of being socially inept for not acting on the information of apparently grave importance. Really, I am still puzzled. Can anyone help?
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