10 ms·

there's so much literature about soviet people desiring democracy and the 'colorful' west. is there literature where the soviet people were happy with their lot

by uwagar 5y ago

there's so much literature about soviet people desiring democracy and the 'colorful' west. is there literature where the soviet people were happy with their lot in the soviet union?

kome 5y ago
they don't fit the narrative... happy people are boring news. Read Branko Milanovic take about Yugoslavia: "How I lost my past" https://glineq.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-lost-my-past.html https://glineq.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-lost-my-past.html
- uwagar 5y ago
  nice! give me more please!
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  I was going to encourage you to submit that. No need, I see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29680492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29680492 (Great essay.)
mc32 5y ago
The article mentions that the parents of the kids who grew up during the transition period were conservative and compliant and didn't make a fuss. They knew the system was not great, but for them, it was what it was. There wasn't much to do but get on with life. The kids were different, they began to have access to cartoons and other cultural experiences from the West and began to question why they had to make do with so little (during Brezhnev's time, GDP went into guns and away from butter). In any event, why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system -a system which stunted their potential? Their "police" were soviet milicija, so in a way they lived under occupation to booot.
- twelve40 5y ago
  > during Brezhnev's time, GDP went into guns and away from butter The peak of shortages happened not during Brezhnev but in the 80's during Gorby's rule. > a system which stunted their potential Did launch man in space somehow. Plenty of people realized their potential.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Stores had cigs, vodka, butter and milk and tubers (awesome!!) And so you stunt the growth not only of Russians but many other non-Russian nationalities so that a few scientists might have a summer dacha and a car and plane trips back to the city for wives to and fro the science town in nowheresville --while they are under threat to have their families sent to gulags if milestones aren't met... nice!
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      If you read Khalatnikov’s memoirs he realizes that whole country was turned into a gulag ostensibly for scientists’ sake and is remorseful of the fact
    - FpUser 5y ago
      >"while they are under threat to have their families sent to gulags if milestones aren't met... nice!" It was true during Stalin. Not sure about Kruschev era laws. After that nobody would be sent to gulag for not meeting milestones so cut the bullshit. It is like segregation in the US. It was true until it was not. Or that women in Canada could be jailed in specialized jails (they were called differently) for being of wrong moral character. Not true anymore either.
    - artem247 5y ago
      >> Stores had cigs, vodka, butter and milk and tubers (awesome!!) Where do you get it from? Of course it depended on time and place, but you can buy a lot of stuff in Kyiv (for example) in 70's and 80's. Some things were 'deficit', but they were more of a luxury items. Also the quality was rather good, due to not having cost cutting. >> a few scientists might have a summer dacha Dachas were not exactly a sign of the elite. Cars, on the other hand... >> science town in nowheresville These things existed for some sort of top-secret military research, there were plenty of R&D labs in big cities for a more mundane subjects. You just have an axe to bury with communism, don't you?
- VictorPath 5y ago
  > In any event, why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system -a system which stunted their potential? Their "police" were soviet milicija They can be happy to live in the US and have police kneeling on their neck until they're dead.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Don't swallow your contraband. In the US a callous cop gets tried and gets sent to prison. In the USSR you got taken around the back, shot in the head and dumped in a hole on the ground, or if slightly luckier you got a chance to freeze to death after the commander of the gulag had you tamp down the three foot snow for his truck to drive in in your ragged boots and in your escape attempt you get lost and starve and freeze to death a couple of miles away but the commander doesn’t bother with a search party knowing what your fate is.
    - skzv 5y ago
      It really hurts your credibility when you mix up distinct Soviet eras. The Gulag system began to be dismantled immediately upon Stalin's death and was fully dismantled by 1960.
      - wiseowise 5y ago
        Just because it began to dismantle it doesn't mean it was completely gone. Stories about KGB are popular for a reason, you know.
        int_19h 5y ago
        By late USSR, the KGB wouldn't put a bullet in the back of your head, either. They'd hand you over to "experts" who would declare you insane and shove you into a straitjacket - and even that treatment was generally reserved for active dissidents. By the way, the police and the KGB often didn't get along. There was a famous case where a couple of cops who were very drunk robbed a high-ranking KGB official (he was carrying food from one of those "special" stores). When their senior found out, he decided that it'd be better to cover it up, and had the KGB guy killed and dumped the body in the woods. The KGB eventually unraveled the case - and many other similar ones, of cops partaking in robberies and beatings. (https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-12-26-%0A---war-of-the-worlds--40-years-ago--there-was-a-murder-in-moscow-at-zhdanovskaya%0A--.r1773epN6D.html https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-12-26-%0A---war-of-th...) So on the whole, I suspect you'd be far more likely to be brutalized by the Soviet cops than by KGB.
- bruce511 5y ago
  >> why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system Because its the only system they know, and they've been told forever its the best system there is. For example; There exists a system where basic health issues can bankrupt you, where the police are above the law, where citizens can, and do, buy machine guns, where the courts are setup to protect the rich and powerful, where politicians can lie without consequence, that separates immigrant children (babies) from parents (and then has no way to reunite them), that has jailed over 1% of its population. Where people get no paid sick or holiday leave. Why would people feel happy about living under this oppressive system? Now you probably had some strong reactions to the question. And therein lies your answer. People everywhere, regardless of the system, believe what they are taught to belive, and they are taught that their existing way is the best.
  - refurb 5y ago
    where citizens can, and do, buy machine guns Sounds kinda awesome to be honest.
    - vkou 5y ago
      And Soviet corruption sounded pretty awesome for my grand-uncle, and his children, grand-children, and various hangers-on. He had an incredibly lucrative career over his life, floating from one bit of graft to another (He continued to be quite successful at it long after the fall of communism, with his career peaking during an 'obscure' international sporting event that took place in Sochi in 2014). I'm sure it sounded less awesome to the people he hurt, but hey, it's all relative to where you stand, what you personally value, and how concerned about externalities.
      - refurb 5y ago
        Who are the people who own machine guns hurting?
        vkou 5y ago
        An argument can easily be made that normalizing gun fetishism, and the prevalence of public carry leads to a society that, during tense situations is often a trigger pull away from escalating to immediately lethal violence. It's rare for people to get shot and killed at a, say, a political protest in a society without such norms. It's rarer yet for the killer to be found to have been in the right. You don't see teenagers in Canada think that it's a swell idea to drive across the country so that they could LARP Call of Duty at a protest with an AR-15. The two cultures' outlook on guns is different, and one very actively discourages that kind of behaviour... While the other one seems to encourage it.
- wruza 5y ago
  My grandma (born 1943, 30s in 1970s) says that these times were felt as very stable and carefree. She is a worker class which moved from Moscow to the East of Volga region at WW2, has a financial education and worked as an industrial accountant. Yes she was amazed in trips to Moscow and Eastern Europe, but she also never thought much of how to live a live. Nowadays she feels bad for us new citizens who must try hard to get even basic things. Most of older people in their 70’s I know personally are fond of these times, cause they felt “capitalism” on their own skin in the 90s. That regime solved all the issues any “honest worker” could have, and they weren’t ready or educated to solve them on their own. I know there is a survivorship bias and people who didn’t like it probably either not live here or are dead, but this is how people feel happy about living there. Personally I am not a travel-meet-talk-freedom guy (37yo) and wouldn’t mind living under such regime today, provided modern materials and products, e.g. China. I don’t see how my way of thinking or living would be any beneficial to me in “free western” countries, except maybe if I worked as an US military engineer or something like that, which isn’t realistic.
- artem247 5y ago
  >> (during Brezhnev's time, GDP went into guns and away from butter). Is there any empirical evidence supporting this? There were many improvements in the life typical citizen in the 1964-1982 era, a lot of better housing(which means more people were able to leave villages for cities, which had infinitely better infrastructure), in my city countless facilities were built in that era. >> The kids were different, they began to have access to cartoons and other cultural experiences from the West The cartoons mentioned in the article are Soviet cartoons. Access to Western 'cultural experiences' was more or less present from roughly death of Stalin to start of Perestroika. French films were frequently shown. I think after 1988 or so Western entertainment production flooded the Soviet Union. >> and began to question why they had to make do with so little That's an interesting take. For example, 'kids' in SU had access to free healthcare and higher education, and a better quality high schools, which the West didn't provide to it's citizens. And the WW2 devastated USSR and there was no Marshall plan. And, for example, Imperial Russia had GDP far below US at 1913 (So these countries were much poorer then the West to begin with) In any event, why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system -a system which stunted their potential? I don't think 'oppressive' system is something that has a clear meaning. There were restrictions on travel, on starting and owning the businesses, and political life was structured differently from representative democracy. For some people it was fine, for some it wasn't. As is the current marriage between capitalism and representative democracy. >> Their "police" were soviet milicija, so in a way they lived under occupation to booot. Baltic countries were indeed under occupation. They were integrated into Soviet union by military force, compared to other republics, which 'joined' the SU as a result of civil war. That explains that fervent Baltic anti-communism, because socialism was always something brought from abroad, from Russia, something basically not needed. "milicija" is just a term for police, so that has no relation to occupation.
wrp 5y ago
I indirectly knew Soviet culture during the late Brezhnev era and forward, but never lived in the USSR myself. It seems that Russians were generally proud of their society and optimistic about its direction during the 1950-1960s. It was in the 1970s that disillusion set in. There was much optimistic literature about Soviet life produced in the 1950-1960s that represented honest belief.
- cft 5y ago
  In the West that was the same too. Things jumped the shark around 1967-68: the "Summer of Love" and the moonshot. That was the peak of optimism.
VictorPath 5y ago
Soviet sailors would anchor in European ports in the years after the revolution, and people would ask if they wanted to defect to the West. Why would we want to live outside the USSR they replied. Actually, French and German authorities feared the ideas these sailors might put into the heads of their working class and tried to stifle them. Pictures like Battleship Potemkin were banned for similar reasons. This started changing in the 1950s. China declared during the Sino-soviet split that the USSR had played itself out and the Chinese communist party was now at the vanguard of fast-moving change, and that seems to have been correct.
- zqna 5y ago
  It was always possible that someone in the group of those sailors was affiliated with KGB, so nobody would ever say to the foreigners what they actually think. There would be also consequences for your family if one defects. In the end why would anyone leave your own country without having any prospects and social ties elsewhere. There were of course few naive people who managed to flee, but those were certainly not the stories with the happy end, once they realized that all these shiny bright colors were just empty shell that hides the ugliness of capitalism.
kgeist 5y ago
Oh, plenty of old folks fondly remember the Soviet past. Especially those people who liked the idea of communism and benefitted from being active communists, like my grandmother (and I don't mean that evil communist stereotype about sending everyone to Gulag, I mean being active in unions, organizing work etc.). Many people were simply indifferent. Soviet people desiring nothing but freedoms and American merchandise is a very one-sided narrative.
gumby 5y ago
My son had an assistant teacher who’d grown up in the DDR (East Germany). She was really sad that it was gone and felt West Germany was a disaster. She only moved west because her Land (state) was “mismanaged by the Westerners who showed up” so she couldn’t make a living. An example of one of the tragedies of unification? Her brother had become an entrepreneur and then had to work on Saturdays.
- paganel 5y ago
  > Her brother had become an entrepreneur and then had to work on Saturdays. In the second part of the 1980s (or maybe since the early 1980s? I can't remember exactly, I was just a kid) Ceausescu's regime imposed work on Saturdays, and for some domains even once every two Sundays (like it happened to my dad, who worked in constructions). One of the first decisions taken in 1990 by the new democratic regime once Ceausescu fell was to eliminate working Saturdays, i.e. to give a full weekend to working people. It's funny cause the newly formed opposition to that new regime (the forerunners of today's centre-right political, liberal forces) were pretty critical of that decision, saying things like "as bad as the Romania's economy left to us by Ceausescu is we need to work more, not less!".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hackart 5y ago
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30200112-secondhand-time https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30200112-secondhand-time
dainiusse 5y ago
As someone born in ussr ans still living in Vilnius I can tell you there was no much happyness back then. Obviously there are happy moments in life, no matter how poor you are, but we know it is a bit better when you have something to eat. I am not a fan of consumerism, but I take western culture for having a choice what you do. The soviet erra didn't do that. Orwell's Animal Farm describes well the reality in soviet time...
- vkazanov 5y ago
  As someone born in a smaller place in Lt I can totally relate to your words! But somehow my little part of lithuania (very north east) feels like an empty shell these days, compared to what it was 20-30-40 years ago.. No people, no economic activity, just empty. I know this is not how it feels in Vilnius - the place gets better by the day, but deeper Lithuania feels deserted. Is this happiness?
  - dainiusse 5y ago
    This is time and structure of society, not soviet times or not. I have been to deep Russia places where they had gulags, etc. 10 years ago. Inta, Vorkuta, Irkutsk and plenty small towns around and I can tell a few things which are very clearly seen - when the train passes 200kilometers from Moscow - it is deserted with nothing new. You could even experience that by going to Moscow by bus and back. You will be surprised how clean and amazing everything looks when you pass russian/latvian border on your way back. Yes - living in suburbs can be harder, but the difference in cleanliness and life quality (while can be worse than in city) is day and night in Russia and in the Baltics with Baltics being superior.
    - vkazanov 5y ago
      Maybe you are right, I've only been to, say, 5-7 major cities in Russia. What I am saying is that for people like my parents, grandparents and myself it's really hard to compare life in Lithuania these days and the older times as there's nothing left to compare, really. 27 of 30 of my classmates are spread throughout Europe, including myself. I have more lithuanian friends in uk than I do back in Lt. Good for them, I suppose, not so good for places I care about. And this is how many ppl from remote Lt places feel like.
daliusd 5y ago
I know at least one case where person was happier under Soviets than under democracy here in Lithuania, but I doubt that he did not want democracy. Lithuania had two problems occupation by Russia and soviet regime forced by Russia and you cannot really separate that. Here in Lithuania communism is almost equal to nazism.
oytis 5y ago
Lots of such things were written in the Soviet Union, not much is being read today or have been translated into English.
glogla 5y ago
Here in Czechia (not USSR but close), lot of older people long for the old days. They had one job for life, the state made sure. They had apartment or house, the state made sure (if you were young family expecting child, they would just give you one). The wages and pensions were enough to live on, the state made sure. In their eyes, there were a lot less existential threats (like losing a job or the rent getting too high you lose place to live) than under the new regime, life was "fair", no fancy enterpreneurs making millions while working people struggle. Jumping to a world where nothing is certain and you're two bad months from homelessness after a lifetime of working was quite a shock for them. The message (however not all that real) of the old system was "we're all in this together" and the new one was "everyone for themselves, no caring about others" especially in the wild years after revolution. Some people are still sad about that. (They also turn to fascist and populist politicians now as a replacement which isn't great.)
- uwagar 5y ago
  what happens to artists/musicians/poets? did they have to work at a day job compulsorily to have wages/house/pension etc?
  - glogla 5y ago
    As far as I know, the ones cozy with the regime were cared for (well beyond normal people) while underground artists worked odd jobs like night receptionists, janitors, boiler room operators or were in prison. (edit: also uranium mines for the ones who pissed off the state) Those tend to get overlooked by people longing for the old days.
    - uwagar 5y ago
      perhaps if the artist is cozy with the regime they cant be critical of the regime? can parents support their child that is an artist with their income? or the state knows everything about the artist (her age, fit to work so on) and will compulsorily draft them to work?
      - 5y ago
hutzlibu 5y ago
" is there literature where the soviet people were happy with their lot in the soviet union?" Of course. It was a propaganda regime after all, so there are tons of books where the heroic simple workers or even children fight along red soldieres or party members against corruption and the various evils of capitalism. I have some lying around and they are interesting, to get a feel of the time, but are not really the greatest literature ever written. Because to get success as a writer, it was encouraged to write like this. In the sense, that you would loose permission to write and publish, or worse, if the official thought you work was not helping the progressive spirit.
clavicat 5y ago
artem247 5y ago
I would say it is more about disillusionment with capitalism and democracy after the collapse of Soviet Union. In Ukraine for a decade after collapse the left-wing parties, such as Communists, Socialists, Agrarian party were very popular. I know a lot of people, who are in their 50's and 60's and older, who now see a lot of good in Soviet structure, yet in the late 80's almost everyone was either negative towards SU or apolitical
romanhn 5y ago
I'm part of this last Soviet generation. All in all, I would consider my childhood a happy one. I am of course much happier with my US-born children's quality of life and opportunities, but there was no point of comparison back then and I got to have experiences they will not.
vbezhenar 5y ago
I was born in Tselinograd in 1987. All Russian people of older age who I knew remember USSR with fondness. That could be just nostalgic. Some older Kazakh people are different though, they like independence from Russia.
sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
There's a lot - mostly in Russian, of course. In my opinion and experience, most people (no less than 80%) of the former USSR regret, many of them deeply regret, the fall of USSR. In the Western opinion bubble, opposite viewpoint prevails. "Incorrect" opinions are usually dismissed as propaganda.
int_19h 5y ago
There were such people. It really depends on what you want in life. One thing that 1960-80s USSR was very good at was stability. So, you might not have much food on your table, and it might not be particularly good, but you knew it'd be there. Ditto for housing, transportation etc. I can think of some people in US that'd take this deal, even if it meant they would have no freedom of speech or movement, and no political power, thereafter.

by uwagar 5y ago

there's so much literature about soviet people desiring democracy and the 'colorful' west. is there literature where the soviet people were happy with their lot in the soviet union?

kome 5y ago

they don't fit the narrative... happy people are boring news. Read Branko Milanovic take about Yugoslavia: "How I lost my past" https://glineq.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-lost-my-past.html https://glineq.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-lost-my-past.html

uwagar 5y ago
nice! give me more please!
dredmorbius 5y ago
I was going to encourage you to submit that. No need, I see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29680492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29680492 (Great essay.)

mc32 5y ago

The article mentions that the parents of the kids who grew up during the transition period were conservative and compliant and didn't make a fuss. They knew the system was not great, but for them, it was what it was. There wasn't much to do but get on with life. The kids were different, they began to have access to cartoons and other cultural experiences from the West and began to question why they had to make do with so little (during Brezhnev's time, GDP went into guns and away from butter). In any event, why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system -a system which stunted their potential? Their "police" were soviet milicija, so in a way they lived under occupation to booot.

twelve40 5y ago
> during Brezhnev's time, GDP went into guns and away from butter The peak of shortages happened not during Brezhnev but in the 80's during Gorby's rule. > a system which stunted their potential Did launch man in space somehow. Plenty of people realized their potential.
- mc32 5y ago
  Stores had cigs, vodka, butter and milk and tubers (awesome!!) And so you stunt the growth not only of Russians but many other non-Russian nationalities so that a few scientists might have a summer dacha and a car and plane trips back to the city for wives to and fro the science town in nowheresville --while they are under threat to have their families sent to gulags if milestones aren't met... nice!
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    If you read Khalatnikov’s memoirs he realizes that whole country was turned into a gulag ostensibly for scientists’ sake and is remorseful of the fact
  - FpUser 5y ago
    >"while they are under threat to have their families sent to gulags if milestones aren't met... nice!" It was true during Stalin. Not sure about Kruschev era laws. After that nobody would be sent to gulag for not meeting milestones so cut the bullshit. It is like segregation in the US. It was true until it was not. Or that women in Canada could be jailed in specialized jails (they were called differently) for being of wrong moral character. Not true anymore either.
  - artem247 5y ago
    >> Stores had cigs, vodka, butter and milk and tubers (awesome!!) Where do you get it from? Of course it depended on time and place, but you can buy a lot of stuff in Kyiv (for example) in 70's and 80's. Some things were 'deficit', but they were more of a luxury items. Also the quality was rather good, due to not having cost cutting. >> a few scientists might have a summer dacha Dachas were not exactly a sign of the elite. Cars, on the other hand... >> science town in nowheresville These things existed for some sort of top-secret military research, there were plenty of R&D labs in big cities for a more mundane subjects. You just have an axe to bury with communism, don't you?
VictorPath 5y ago
> In any event, why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system -a system which stunted their potential? Their "police" were soviet milicija They can be happy to live in the US and have police kneeling on their neck until they're dead.
- mc32 5y ago
  Don't swallow your contraband. In the US a callous cop gets tried and gets sent to prison. In the USSR you got taken around the back, shot in the head and dumped in a hole on the ground, or if slightly luckier you got a chance to freeze to death after the commander of the gulag had you tamp down the three foot snow for his truck to drive in in your ragged boots and in your escape attempt you get lost and starve and freeze to death a couple of miles away but the commander doesn’t bother with a search party knowing what your fate is.
  - skzv 5y ago
    It really hurts your credibility when you mix up distinct Soviet eras. The Gulag system began to be dismantled immediately upon Stalin's death and was fully dismantled by 1960.
    - wiseowise 5y ago
      Just because it began to dismantle it doesn't mean it was completely gone. Stories about KGB are popular for a reason, you know.
      - int_19h 5y ago
        By late USSR, the KGB wouldn't put a bullet in the back of your head, either. They'd hand you over to "experts" who would declare you insane and shove you into a straitjacket - and even that treatment was generally reserved for active dissidents. By the way, the police and the KGB often didn't get along. There was a famous case where a couple of cops who were very drunk robbed a high-ranking KGB official (he was carrying food from one of those "special" stores). When their senior found out, he decided that it'd be better to cover it up, and had the KGB guy killed and dumped the body in the woods. The KGB eventually unraveled the case - and many other similar ones, of cops partaking in robberies and beatings. (https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-12-26-%0A---war-of-the-worlds--40-years-ago--there-was-a-murder-in-moscow-at-zhdanovskaya%0A--.r1773epN6D.html https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-12-26-%0A---war-of-th...) So on the whole, I suspect you'd be far more likely to be brutalized by the Soviet cops than by KGB.
bruce511 5y ago
>> why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system Because its the only system they know, and they've been told forever its the best system there is. For example; There exists a system where basic health issues can bankrupt you, where the police are above the law, where citizens can, and do, buy machine guns, where the courts are setup to protect the rich and powerful, where politicians can lie without consequence, that separates immigrant children (babies) from parents (and then has no way to reunite them), that has jailed over 1% of its population. Where people get no paid sick or holiday leave. Why would people feel happy about living under this oppressive system? Now you probably had some strong reactions to the question. And therein lies your answer. People everywhere, regardless of the system, believe what they are taught to belive, and they are taught that their existing way is the best.
- refurb 5y ago
  where citizens can, and do, buy machine guns Sounds kinda awesome to be honest.
  - vkou 5y ago
    And Soviet corruption sounded pretty awesome for my grand-uncle, and his children, grand-children, and various hangers-on. He had an incredibly lucrative career over his life, floating from one bit of graft to another (He continued to be quite successful at it long after the fall of communism, with his career peaking during an 'obscure' international sporting event that took place in Sochi in 2014). I'm sure it sounded less awesome to the people he hurt, but hey, it's all relative to where you stand, what you personally value, and how concerned about externalities.
    - refurb 5y ago
      Who are the people who own machine guns hurting?
      - vkou 5y ago
        An argument can easily be made that normalizing gun fetishism, and the prevalence of public carry leads to a society that, during tense situations is often a trigger pull away from escalating to immediately lethal violence. It's rare for people to get shot and killed at a, say, a political protest in a society without such norms. It's rarer yet for the killer to be found to have been in the right. You don't see teenagers in Canada think that it's a swell idea to drive across the country so that they could LARP Call of Duty at a protest with an AR-15. The two cultures' outlook on guns is different, and one very actively discourages that kind of behaviour... While the other one seems to encourage it.
wruza 5y ago
My grandma (born 1943, 30s in 1970s) says that these times were felt as very stable and carefree. She is a worker class which moved from Moscow to the East of Volga region at WW2, has a financial education and worked as an industrial accountant. Yes she was amazed in trips to Moscow and Eastern Europe, but she also never thought much of how to live a live. Nowadays she feels bad for us new citizens who must try hard to get even basic things. Most of older people in their 70’s I know personally are fond of these times, cause they felt “capitalism” on their own skin in the 90s. That regime solved all the issues any “honest worker” could have, and they weren’t ready or educated to solve them on their own. I know there is a survivorship bias and people who didn’t like it probably either not live here or are dead, but this is how people feel happy about living there. Personally I am not a travel-meet-talk-freedom guy (37yo) and wouldn’t mind living under such regime today, provided modern materials and products, e.g. China. I don’t see how my way of thinking or living would be any beneficial to me in “free western” countries, except maybe if I worked as an US military engineer or something like that, which isn’t realistic.
artem247 5y ago
>> (during Brezhnev's time, GDP went into guns and away from butter). Is there any empirical evidence supporting this? There were many improvements in the life typical citizen in the 1964-1982 era, a lot of better housing(which means more people were able to leave villages for cities, which had infinitely better infrastructure), in my city countless facilities were built in that era. >> The kids were different, they began to have access to cartoons and other cultural experiences from the West The cartoons mentioned in the article are Soviet cartoons. Access to Western 'cultural experiences' was more or less present from roughly death of Stalin to start of Perestroika. French films were frequently shown. I think after 1988 or so Western entertainment production flooded the Soviet Union. >> and began to question why they had to make do with so little That's an interesting take. For example, 'kids' in SU had access to free healthcare and higher education, and a better quality high schools, which the West didn't provide to it's citizens. And the WW2 devastated USSR and there was no Marshall plan. And, for example, Imperial Russia had GDP far below US at 1913 (So these countries were much poorer then the West to begin with) In any event, why should people feel happy about living under an oppressive system -a system which stunted their potential? I don't think 'oppressive' system is something that has a clear meaning. There were restrictions on travel, on starting and owning the businesses, and political life was structured differently from representative democracy. For some people it was fine, for some it wasn't. As is the current marriage between capitalism and representative democracy. >> Their "police" were soviet milicija, so in a way they lived under occupation to booot. Baltic countries were indeed under occupation. They were integrated into Soviet union by military force, compared to other republics, which 'joined' the SU as a result of civil war. That explains that fervent Baltic anti-communism, because socialism was always something brought from abroad, from Russia, something basically not needed. "milicija" is just a term for police, so that has no relation to occupation.

wrp 5y ago

I indirectly knew Soviet culture during the late Brezhnev era and forward, but never lived in the USSR myself. It seems that Russians were generally proud of their society and optimistic about its direction during the 1950-1960s. It was in the 1970s that disillusion set in. There was much optimistic literature about Soviet life produced in the 1950-1960s that represented honest belief.

cft 5y ago
In the West that was the same too. Things jumped the shark around 1967-68: the "Summer of Love" and the moonshot. That was the peak of optimism.

VictorPath 5y ago

Soviet sailors would anchor in European ports in the years after the revolution, and people would ask if they wanted to defect to the West. Why would we want to live outside the USSR they replied. Actually, French and German authorities feared the ideas these sailors might put into the heads of their working class and tried to stifle them. Pictures like Battleship Potemkin were banned for similar reasons. This started changing in the 1950s. China declared during the Sino-soviet split that the USSR had played itself out and the Chinese communist party was now at the vanguard of fast-moving change, and that seems to have been correct.

zqna 5y ago
It was always possible that someone in the group of those sailors was affiliated with KGB, so nobody would ever say to the foreigners what they actually think. There would be also consequences for your family if one defects. In the end why would anyone leave your own country without having any prospects and social ties elsewhere. There were of course few naive people who managed to flee, but those were certainly not the stories with the happy end, once they realized that all these shiny bright colors were just empty shell that hides the ugliness of capitalism.

kgeist 5y ago

Oh, plenty of old folks fondly remember the Soviet past. Especially those people who liked the idea of communism and benefitted from being active communists, like my grandmother (and I don't mean that evil communist stereotype about sending everyone to Gulag, I mean being active in unions, organizing work etc.). Many people were simply indifferent. Soviet people desiring nothing but freedoms and American merchandise is a very one-sided narrative.

gumby 5y ago

My son had an assistant teacher who’d grown up in the DDR (East Germany). She was really sad that it was gone and felt West Germany was a disaster. She only moved west because her Land (state) was “mismanaged by the Westerners who showed up” so she couldn’t make a living. An example of one of the tragedies of unification? Her brother had become an entrepreneur and then had to work on Saturdays.

paganel 5y ago
> Her brother had become an entrepreneur and then had to work on Saturdays. In the second part of the 1980s (or maybe since the early 1980s? I can't remember exactly, I was just a kid) Ceausescu's regime imposed work on Saturdays, and for some domains even once every two Sundays (like it happened to my dad, who worked in constructions). One of the first decisions taken in 1990 by the new democratic regime once Ceausescu fell was to eliminate working Saturdays, i.e. to give a full weekend to working people. It's funny cause the newly formed opposition to that new regime (the forerunners of today's centre-right political, liberal forces) were pretty critical of that decision, saying things like "as bad as the Romania's economy left to us by Ceausescu is we need to work more, not less!".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hackart 5y ago

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30200112-secondhand-time https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30200112-secondhand-time

dainiusse 5y ago

As someone born in ussr ans still living in Vilnius I can tell you there was no much happyness back then. Obviously there are happy moments in life, no matter how poor you are, but we know it is a bit better when you have something to eat. I am not a fan of consumerism, but I take western culture for having a choice what you do. The soviet erra didn't do that. Orwell's Animal Farm describes well the reality in soviet time...

vkazanov 5y ago
As someone born in a smaller place in Lt I can totally relate to your words! But somehow my little part of lithuania (very north east) feels like an empty shell these days, compared to what it was 20-30-40 years ago.. No people, no economic activity, just empty. I know this is not how it feels in Vilnius - the place gets better by the day, but deeper Lithuania feels deserted. Is this happiness?
- dainiusse 5y ago
  This is time and structure of society, not soviet times or not. I have been to deep Russia places where they had gulags, etc. 10 years ago. Inta, Vorkuta, Irkutsk and plenty small towns around and I can tell a few things which are very clearly seen - when the train passes 200kilometers from Moscow - it is deserted with nothing new. You could even experience that by going to Moscow by bus and back. You will be surprised how clean and amazing everything looks when you pass russian/latvian border on your way back. Yes - living in suburbs can be harder, but the difference in cleanliness and life quality (while can be worse than in city) is day and night in Russia and in the Baltics with Baltics being superior.
  - vkazanov 5y ago
    Maybe you are right, I've only been to, say, 5-7 major cities in Russia. What I am saying is that for people like my parents, grandparents and myself it's really hard to compare life in Lithuania these days and the older times as there's nothing left to compare, really. 27 of 30 of my classmates are spread throughout Europe, including myself. I have more lithuanian friends in uk than I do back in Lt. Good for them, I suppose, not so good for places I care about. And this is how many ppl from remote Lt places feel like.

daliusd 5y ago

I know at least one case where person was happier under Soviets than under democracy here in Lithuania, but I doubt that he did not want democracy. Lithuania had two problems occupation by Russia and soviet regime forced by Russia and you cannot really separate that. Here in Lithuania communism is almost equal to nazism.

oytis 5y ago

Lots of such things were written in the Soviet Union, not much is being read today or have been translated into English.

glogla 5y ago

Here in Czechia (not USSR but close), lot of older people long for the old days. They had one job for life, the state made sure. They had apartment or house, the state made sure (if you were young family expecting child, they would just give you one). The wages and pensions were enough to live on, the state made sure. In their eyes, there were a lot less existential threats (like losing a job or the rent getting too high you lose place to live) than under the new regime, life was "fair", no fancy enterpreneurs making millions while working people struggle. Jumping to a world where nothing is certain and you're two bad months from homelessness after a lifetime of working was quite a shock for them. The message (however not all that real) of the old system was "we're all in this together" and the new one was "everyone for themselves, no caring about others" especially in the wild years after revolution. Some people are still sad about that. (They also turn to fascist and populist politicians now as a replacement which isn't great.)

uwagar 5y ago
what happens to artists/musicians/poets? did they have to work at a day job compulsorily to have wages/house/pension etc?
- glogla 5y ago
  As far as I know, the ones cozy with the regime were cared for (well beyond normal people) while underground artists worked odd jobs like night receptionists, janitors, boiler room operators or were in prison. (edit: also uranium mines for the ones who pissed off the state) Those tend to get overlooked by people longing for the old days.
  - uwagar 5y ago
    perhaps if the artist is cozy with the regime they cant be critical of the regime? can parents support their child that is an artist with their income? or the state knows everything about the artist (her age, fit to work so on) and will compulsorily draft them to work?
    - 5y ago

hutzlibu 5y ago

" is there literature where the soviet people were happy with their lot in the soviet union?" Of course. It was a propaganda regime after all, so there are tons of books where the heroic simple workers or even children fight along red soldieres or party members against corruption and the various evils of capitalism. I have some lying around and they are interesting, to get a feel of the time, but are not really the greatest literature ever written. Because to get success as a writer, it was encouraged to write like this. In the sense, that you would loose permission to write and publish, or worse, if the official thought you work was not helping the progressive spirit.

clavicat 5y ago

artem247 5y ago

I would say it is more about disillusionment with capitalism and democracy after the collapse of Soviet Union. In Ukraine for a decade after collapse the left-wing parties, such as Communists, Socialists, Agrarian party were very popular. I know a lot of people, who are in their 50's and 60's and older, who now see a lot of good in Soviet structure, yet in the late 80's almost everyone was either negative towards SU or apolitical

romanhn 5y ago

I'm part of this last Soviet generation. All in all, I would consider my childhood a happy one. I am of course much happier with my US-born children's quality of life and opportunities, but there was no point of comparison back then and I got to have experiences they will not.

vbezhenar 5y ago

I was born in Tselinograd in 1987. All Russian people of older age who I knew remember USSR with fondness. That could be just nostalgic. Some older Kazakh people are different though, they like independence from Russia.

sedan_baklazhan 5y ago

There's a lot - mostly in Russian, of course. In my opinion and experience, most people (no less than 80%) of the former USSR regret, many of them deeply regret, the fall of USSR. In the Western opinion bubble, opposite viewpoint prevails. "Incorrect" opinions are usually dismissed as propaganda.

int_19h 5y ago

There were such people. It really depends on what you want in life. One thing that 1960-80s USSR was very good at was stability. So, you might not have much food on your table, and it might not be particularly good, but you knew it'd be there. Ditto for housing, transportation etc. I can think of some people in US that'd take this deal, even if it meant they would have no freedom of speech or movement, and no political power, thereafter.