Do you now live a thousand times better than during Soviet times?

[peacetraveler22]

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?

Comments

[sov0k.livejournal.com]

It's all bullshit. Simple as that.

And I know how a comment such as this looks, but sometimes there is not much else to say. Surely, the USSR was full of problems, some of them quite grave, seeing how it eventually collapsed. But rehearsing that sort of primitive anti-commie propaganda sheds not a sparkle of light on the nature of those problems.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Based on your username, I assume you're a lover of the Soviet system? Or no?

[sov0k.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am critically positive about it. I mean, the Red October has been the best thing that happened to the mankind since the beginning of time. That said, there are a lot of reservations to be made with respect to the particular developments (or lack thereof) that took place in Soviet Russia.

As for the username, it is a bit complicated. First of, I think the term "sovok" indeed originated as pejorative abbreviation of "homo sovieticus" which was originally neutral to positive. But as with the word "nigger", it also depends on the context, like it is only pejorative when a white man says it, but between the blacks it is considered chummy.

Then there is the matter of the compound "Soviet nation" which was more or less the goal of the internally incoherent national/ethnic policies of the CPSU, and was like 50% achieved by the time of the Perestroika, when all sorts of local nationalisms (including the Russian chauvinism) began to gain momentum quite rapidly as a direct result of the Glasnost (free press) policy, and it all went south.

BTW, there is a movie, "Red Heat", with Schwarzenegger playing a Moscow police officer coming in the late 1980s to Chicago to apprehend a "Russian" (ethnically Georgian) fugitive criminal. So he books in this lousy hotel, by his name, Ivan Danko, and the clerk asks him, like "Are you Russian?" And Ahnuld gives him that stone-cold look of his and replies: "Soviet." (note that it is strongly hinted he is in fact ethnically Ukrainian). So it's the same with me, although I am ethnically Russian, I don't identify with the Russian nation, I identify with the Soviet nation, which some sovki (myself not included) think still exists somehow and/or hope can be restored.


З. Ы.
Seeing how you're interested in food, I can testify that one thing made in USSR, and best in the world at that, definitely was ice-cream. You westerners simply have no clue how to make ice-cream properly! Vafelny Stakanchik = 1000 times better than Baskin Robbins^tm.

They still make it good here, but the vaunted free market led to price discrimination - cheaper sorts are not as good, and the ones that are made strictly by the old Soviet recipes, under labels such as "Kak ran'she" ("As it used to be") price at least twice as much.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Of course I know the film Red Heat. About ice-cream, have you ever tasted Ben & Jerry's? I don't think they sell it in Russia. This is absolutely the best ice-cream I've ever tasted. Made only with natural ingredients like cream, sugar and other organic ingredients. All sourced from local Vermont farmers, where the founders of the company live.