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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTGsUyv8IE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTGsUyv8IE - linked from the article. I still remember walking into those stores wi
by akurilin 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTGsUyv8IE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTGsUyv8IE - linked from the article. I still remember walking into those stores with my mother during that era, to my eyes at the time that looked "just fine", I didn't know any better. Looking back now, not so much.
And as someone on YouTube pointed out, that was in Moscow, which had it much better than regions further away from the sources of power.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoIt looked like people were paying money for food. Did they indeed pay, or was some food free? How did that work?
- BerislavLopac 7y agoWhy would it be free?
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoWell I think a certain amount of food should be free, and only really communists talk about that kind of thing historically. I was curious if that had been implemented there. For example in present day japan individuals do not pay for medical care. I wondered if the soviets ever tried to do that with food. I’d like to see free food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and internet access made available to all people. I just wondered if the soviets tried any of that.
- bgutierrez 7y agoLots of us are unfamiliar with the day-to-day details of soviet communism. Were people paid for their labor? Was everyone given ration cards? Was a party membership enough to get some basic food from one of these stores? I think the question is, was money abolished along with capitalism?
- Haga 7y agoMy grandfather visited Moscow after chernobyl on invitation by some radiation chemistry prof he knew. You had to stand in line to buy a weight quantity of bread and other basic necessitys like cheese, butter oder meat. There was only one type of bread. They ate their eveninglunch in a park. I can not tell how the food was for official delegations but this was what a privat dinner with a relative well off friend looked like.
- jackfoxy 7y agoI heard there was a Soviet-era joke along these lines: Q: Under true communism, will there be money? A: Yes and no. Some will have money, others won't.
- taejo 7y agoThe one I heard was this: When Ivan was a boy, he asked a Party Man, "How will we know when true communism has been acheived?" The Party Man thought for a little bit, and said, "The shops will be full of goods, and there will be no money." Decades later, in the early 1990s, Ivan is now an old man. He looks through the windows of the department stores, and sticks his hands in pickets. He smiles to himself, and whispers, "At last, true communism!"
- koverda 7y agoPeople were paid for work and you'd buy groceries with money.
- anoncake 7y agoWhy should it not be free? I'm not saying there aren't any reasons. But since the people nominally owned the Soviet economy, it's odd to assume by default that the people is charging itself.
- tlear 7y agoThey got away from that idiocy once they starved 10mil+ people to death. Money was there and barter(vodka as premium item that could get you anything, like seeing good doctor, getting car fixed, getting caviar). Also those stores also sold from the back to their friends
- anoncake 7y agoThe idiocy of not charging money unless there is a reason for it? Why does everyone get incapable of reading when it comes to this topic... Also, citation needed for the Holodomor (which I guess you are alluding to) being caused by free food.