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Education was pretty good there comparing to USA. However, what is more important, are chances after education. Where are you gonna end? In USSR, only in some n

Education was pretty good there comparing to USA. However, what is more important, are chances after education. Where are you gonna end? In USSR, only in some national soviet office, wasting all your talent...

nosianu 4y ago
Two personal anecdotes: (1) I grew up in the GDR (East Germany). During the standard ten year "polytechnical secondary school" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytechnic_Secondary_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytechnic_Secondary_School) when it came to deciding what I wanted to become I chose... officer in the East German army, specifically, engineering, airplane maintenance. It never came to that because the wall came down and I switched target to computer science and the civilian sector - for the exact same reason why I wanted to go to the army: A civilian engineering job seemed quite useless. During school we had lots of contact with real world jobs. Apart from summer jobs, where I usually ended up in some food production factory (brewery, chocolate, sausages - everything was very clean and sanitary, not a single bad anecdote here in any of them), we had "lessons" where we went to the factory and did some limited production of household goods ourselves, learning factory life, processes and various machines. It was a lot of fun and an unambiguously good experience by the way. Anyway, during my time in the (huge, extremely run-down chemical fiber) factory I saw engineers with shovels digging. That was the last straw, for good pay, good advancement, good social standing and better job satisfaction than the pretty much non-existent one one of an engineer in the GDR (as far as I could witness) the army was the only real option. Ironically, for the exact same selfish reason I switched to desiring a company job immediately after reunification, to the dissatisfaction of the guy in the recruitment office who still hadn't realized how everything had changed around him including his own citizenship. (2) The German equivalent of "Business Week", which is called "Wirtschaftswoche", even before the actual reunification had a thick special edition for students about to leave high-school, for the first time issued for both East and West Germany. It included some really big test that one could fill out to get some free advice for oneself based on the result. It was popular enough that tens of thousands of results were available from both West and now also from East Germany, I had submitted one of them (by letter). It had taken a whole afternoon to fill out. The result was that overall the East Germans were better than the West Germans in the STEM fields, worse in languages (East German language education sucked, mostly rote learning - even though I had had not just Russian but English too) and in text interpretation.
stanislavb 4y ago
That’s a very good point.
_yo2u 4y ago
They came to US ;)
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Then the us monopolized and came to the USSR but with company instead of party.
geenew 4y ago
Are there any books you could recommend that give a good description of what typical daily middle-class life was like in the Soviet Union? Preferably nonfiction, but fiction would be good too.
- nickpp 4y ago
  As someone who lived in the Eastern Block (not USSR though), I can tell you: struggle and no hope. Struggle to get the basics for life: heat, food, clothing, books, disposables. It all took queues, friends, relatives, and black markets. No hope for the future: no matter what you did, how hard you tried, there was no way to improve your lot in life. It was all outside your influence, all controlled by The Party. The only dream we had was to somehow escape to the Free West. It was dangerous and you could lose your (or your loved one's) life in the process, but for many it was worth it.
- ivan_gammel 4y ago
  Middle class in a big city on Urals, late USSR (1970-1980s): My grandfather was repressed (forced labor) in Stalin times, but later became a worker at very large steel mill and made very good money there, even traveling to Egypt as a consultant. He had a good car — Volga (white, the black ones were reserved for party VIPs), moved to a new apartment couple times. We spent enjoyable weekends on dacha (a small plot of land with a house and a garden) or went to a nearby lake to swim or to fish. Spending a week or two in sanatorium in the mountain area was also possible (I think this was sponsored by trade union — still a thing in some large companies in Russia). My parents were engineers back then, they also had a good job, separate apartment (no morgage, no expensive payments) and dacha. Travel abroad wasn’t really accessible (my father was in Hungary once), but within the country it was a normal thing, flights were relatively cheap. This was the lifestyle of many our family members and their friends. Of course, there were many people which lived much worse, but for sure life in SU was not eternal suffering of everyone and you did not have to be a party member to live well.
  - estaset 4y ago
    Congrats, your grandfather was part of nomenklatura (establishment), that's 2% of the population. They "repressed" each other, no surprises here. It had nothing to do with the "middle class" (in an alegedly "classless" society, lol).
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
A lot of this culture still exists today in the post communist countries. Romania has a poor education system that fails most average people who don't go to the handful of elite schools in its wealthiest cities, but leads Europe in medals won at STEM olympiads versus Finland which has the best school system in EU but doesn't win any olympiad medals. This system creates and endemic educational inequality in Romania where few students are very well educated, above western standards, and the vast majority of students are poorly educated and will be stuck in a circle of poverty and sometimes crime and alcohol abuse in the countryside. It's a relic from the past where the eastern socialist block was very preoccupied with projecting an image of power superiority over the "dumber" and "weaker" west, so investing massive resources in prepping a few younglings in STEM olympiads, along with sports olympics and chess were a way to assert that superiority over the west. As such, back then, if you studied hard and got into a good STEM university you were set for an easy and stable carrier in a big city where the government would provide you with a nice apartment and great school for your future kids. It's how my dad managed to escape one of the poorest villages in the country and move to a big city with a nice job, until everything collapsed in '89 that is and everyone was now broke. Now it's a pointless endevour as those olympiad medal winners immediately go to ivy league universities, propping up the US economy instead, who doesn't need to invest much in its lower education system as it gets the best students from abroad anyway.
- petre 4y ago
  It doesn't matter if a few elite students win the olympiad. They'll leave the country anyway, making its investment into education moot.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >It doesn't matter if a few elite students win the olympiad. It matters in the way that it projects an image abroad that the Romanian education system must be really good if so many grads from there win medals and go to ivy league universities. Even though this ads absolutely no value for Romania.
    - 4y ago
iopq 4y ago
In post-Soviet states they may not have TVs in classrooms, or swimming pools on the school grounds, but teach algebra in the 7th grade
- chupasaurus 4y ago
  Elementary algebra on linear formulas starts in 5th
  - iopq 4y ago
    When I went to school we skipped 4th grade going from 3rd to 5th, so our 7th grade was equivalent to the 6th grade in the US
    - chupasaurus 4y ago
      Yes if we talk about most of ex-USSR countries during the transition to 11-grade system. Some switched to 12, Lithuania switched back to 10 so grade comparison is a mess. To add some, that switch back in 1990 was done via extending elementary school, so actual 5th grade was equal in both 10- or 11-year program.
- patrakov 4y ago
  > swimming pools on the school grounds That's still not the norm in Russia. Instead, there are agreements between the schools and the nearby public swimming pools that their instructors will teach school children at a certain predefined time of the week. E.g., "between 10am and 11:30 am, the first three lanes in this pool are reserved for school number 42".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
meerita 4y ago
The Soviet Union was a vast and diverse territory with a wide range of cultural and educational systems. However, the reality for many in the scientific community was one of forced labor and control by the politburo. Fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and academic freedom were suppressed and non-existent. Modern people must remember that they were told what to work on, when, and how much they would get paid. There wasn't the concept of Sundays or vacations as we have today. There were no choices, only the government's choice.
- ivan_gammel 4y ago
  This is not true.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    I can attest that in the Eastern Block (not USSR) where I lived, this was indeed true. Things could've been different in the USSR which was the conquering country while the Eastern Block their vassals. Many goods produced went straight to the benefit of Russian occupiers while lacking in the Eastern European countries.
    - ivan_gammel 4y ago
      So you can attest something different than life of middle class of SU. How is this relevant? I lived in middle class family in SU and I see it differently.
    - meerita 4y ago
      Just look at the evidence: scientists fleed USSR as soon as they had the chance and not the reverse, scientists invading USSR begging to be in the science paradise the propapaganda sells. If you go to Cuba to learn medicine, you will realise everything is so outdated that cannot be treated seriously. Same happened in USSR, but the propaganda aparatus still works trying to sell the idea of the science paradise, all I've seen traveling to ex USSR, and some communist-socialist places is quite the opposite.
LatteLazy 4y ago
I don't actually advocate for communism but... Is that that different to the Western model: I have a masters degree in physics. I either have to give up on having a family and buying a house and do research / teach. Or I can go work at a bank doing something with no real social value and have an Ok life. Even down to "if my parents were rich and connected I would have more options" our system mirror the soviet one in actual opportunities and outcomes. We just have better marketing...
- nickpp 4y ago
  The difference is you: you have choices, and they are your choices. Under communism you'd just get told what to do, by others. In capitalism, if the system is not providing you opportunities, you can go out and attempt to make your own opportunity. It's damn hard, near impossible, but nobody is stopping you try. Under communism, it was illegal and they would shoot you for it.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    Not really though. My choice is to do what others say or go starve on the street. That's the exact same choice communism offered. Capitalism only actually offers choices when there is a lot of opportunity. But we have drained the opportunity out of the current system. I don't think people actually really care about communism vs capitalism. They want opportunity. When communism provided that, it did great. When it stopped it fell (after a few shitty decades). Now capitalism has stopped actually giving people actual opportunities...
- Dma54rhs 4y ago
  In Soviet Union you were expected to do both and for lousy pay. The joke about women was that they were expected to with in male fields and be there traditional housekeeper at the same time.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    The great success of the soviets was getting people from farms to factories (big gain in income and opportunities). The great failure was not getting them any further. It's sort of interesting looking at the stats from Stalin's time. He took the USSR from a feudal society to industrial society. I think this is an under appreciated ability of communism (the same thing has happened in China, Vietnam, Cuba etc). The problem is communism cannot get you any further than that (or so it seems). Hence countries stating "communist" and embracing private industry and free markets (Vietnam and China). It makes me wonder what we will do next. Is the service economy the final form? Will we need different political/economic models to move to whatever the next form is?
ivan_gammel 4y ago
TBH that’s not exactly true. For entrepreneurs possibilities were indeed limited (it was not impossible, but very hard to enrich yourself), for everyone else the career ladder did exist and you could make considerable impact by your work. SU was running a space program, there was a lot of scientific research and engineering. It raised several generations of dreamers, who now miss that time dearly, when they could just work on what they liked, whether it’s science or city planning, get a free apartment from state, go to parental leave without worries for the future etc. It was empire of evil for sure, but it does not mean people could not use their education for something meaningful.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >now miss that time dearly, when they could just work on what they liked, whether it’s science or city planning, get a free apartment from state, go to parental leave without worries for the future etc. The problem is, such an utopic system where everyone works on whatever they want and gets free housing from the state was economically unsustainable long term. Which is why it collapsed and most of those people working in science immediately packed their bags and move to the US when it happened because talented people working on interesting things don't like living with shortages in a strict oppressive environment where you had to constantly watch your mouth or risk having your career or life ended swiftly. It was only sustainable back then due to the massive natural resources the SU had, while enduring shortages and exploiting the forced/slave labor the SU had access to. Not something replicatable or desired in free societies today, though plenty of modern slave labor practices exists in rich western nations today where some industries only survive due to access to cheap labour willing to work below market rate and live in worse conditions than the locals.
  - Muromec 4y ago
    There isn't anything unsustainable in free housing. If everyone is working for the state and state is also everybody's landlord, it's not free, it's just part of compensation. And the housing was really basic anyway, as you can't choose. Unsustainable part of USSR was military spending, not free housing.

nosianu 4y ago

Two personal anecdotes: (1) I grew up in the GDR (East Germany). During the standard ten year "polytechnical secondary school" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytechnic_Secondary_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytechnic_Secondary_School) when it came to deciding what I wanted to become I chose... officer in the East German army, specifically, engineering, airplane maintenance. It never came to that because the wall came down and I switched target to computer science and the civilian sector - for the exact same reason why I wanted to go to the army: A civilian engineering job seemed quite useless. During school we had lots of contact with real world jobs. Apart from summer jobs, where I usually ended up in some food production factory (brewery, chocolate, sausages - everything was very clean and sanitary, not a single bad anecdote here in any of them), we had "lessons" where we went to the factory and did some limited production of household goods ourselves, learning factory life, processes and various machines. It was a lot of fun and an unambiguously good experience by the way. Anyway, during my time in the (huge, extremely run-down chemical fiber) factory I saw engineers with shovels digging. That was the last straw, for good pay, good advancement, good social standing and better job satisfaction than the pretty much non-existent one one of an engineer in the GDR (as far as I could witness) the army was the only real option. Ironically, for the exact same selfish reason I switched to desiring a company job immediately after reunification, to the dissatisfaction of the guy in the recruitment office who still hadn't realized how everything had changed around him including his own citizenship. (2) The German equivalent of "Business Week", which is called "Wirtschaftswoche", even before the actual reunification had a thick special edition for students about to leave high-school, for the first time issued for both East and West Germany. It included some really big test that one could fill out to get some free advice for oneself based on the result. It was popular enough that tens of thousands of results were available from both West and now also from East Germany, I had submitted one of them (by letter). It had taken a whole afternoon to fill out. The result was that overall the East Germans were better than the West Germans in the STEM fields, worse in languages (East German language education sucked, mostly rote learning - even though I had had not just Russian but English too) and in text interpretation.

stanislavb 4y ago

That’s a very good point.

_yo2u 4y ago

They came to US ;)

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Then the us monopolized and came to the USSR but with company instead of party.

geenew 4y ago

Are there any books you could recommend that give a good description of what typical daily middle-class life was like in the Soviet Union? Preferably nonfiction, but fiction would be good too.

nickpp 4y ago
As someone who lived in the Eastern Block (not USSR though), I can tell you: struggle and no hope. Struggle to get the basics for life: heat, food, clothing, books, disposables. It all took queues, friends, relatives, and black markets. No hope for the future: no matter what you did, how hard you tried, there was no way to improve your lot in life. It was all outside your influence, all controlled by The Party. The only dream we had was to somehow escape to the Free West. It was dangerous and you could lose your (or your loved one's) life in the process, but for many it was worth it.
ivan_gammel 4y ago
Middle class in a big city on Urals, late USSR (1970-1980s): My grandfather was repressed (forced labor) in Stalin times, but later became a worker at very large steel mill and made very good money there, even traveling to Egypt as a consultant. He had a good car — Volga (white, the black ones were reserved for party VIPs), moved to a new apartment couple times. We spent enjoyable weekends on dacha (a small plot of land with a house and a garden) or went to a nearby lake to swim or to fish. Spending a week or two in sanatorium in the mountain area was also possible (I think this was sponsored by trade union — still a thing in some large companies in Russia). My parents were engineers back then, they also had a good job, separate apartment (no morgage, no expensive payments) and dacha. Travel abroad wasn’t really accessible (my father was in Hungary once), but within the country it was a normal thing, flights were relatively cheap. This was the lifestyle of many our family members and their friends. Of course, there were many people which lived much worse, but for sure life in SU was not eternal suffering of everyone and you did not have to be a party member to live well.
- estaset 4y ago
  Congrats, your grandfather was part of nomenklatura (establishment), that's 2% of the population. They "repressed" each other, no surprises here. It had nothing to do with the "middle class" (in an alegedly "classless" society, lol).

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

A lot of this culture still exists today in the post communist countries. Romania has a poor education system that fails most average people who don't go to the handful of elite schools in its wealthiest cities, but leads Europe in medals won at STEM olympiads versus Finland which has the best school system in EU but doesn't win any olympiad medals. This system creates and endemic educational inequality in Romania where few students are very well educated, above western standards, and the vast majority of students are poorly educated and will be stuck in a circle of poverty and sometimes crime and alcohol abuse in the countryside. It's a relic from the past where the eastern socialist block was very preoccupied with projecting an image of power superiority over the "dumber" and "weaker" west, so investing massive resources in prepping a few younglings in STEM olympiads, along with sports olympics and chess were a way to assert that superiority over the west. As such, back then, if you studied hard and got into a good STEM university you were set for an easy and stable carrier in a big city where the government would provide you with a nice apartment and great school for your future kids. It's how my dad managed to escape one of the poorest villages in the country and move to a big city with a nice job, until everything collapsed in '89 that is and everyone was now broke. Now it's a pointless endevour as those olympiad medal winners immediately go to ivy league universities, propping up the US economy instead, who doesn't need to invest much in its lower education system as it gets the best students from abroad anyway.

petre 4y ago
It doesn't matter if a few elite students win the olympiad. They'll leave the country anyway, making its investment into education moot.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >It doesn't matter if a few elite students win the olympiad. It matters in the way that it projects an image abroad that the Romanian education system must be really good if so many grads from there win medals and go to ivy league universities. Even though this ads absolutely no value for Romania.
  - 4y ago

iopq 4y ago

In post-Soviet states they may not have TVs in classrooms, or swimming pools on the school grounds, but teach algebra in the 7th grade

chupasaurus 4y ago
Elementary algebra on linear formulas starts in 5th
- iopq 4y ago
  When I went to school we skipped 4th grade going from 3rd to 5th, so our 7th grade was equivalent to the 6th grade in the US
  - chupasaurus 4y ago
    Yes if we talk about most of ex-USSR countries during the transition to 11-grade system. Some switched to 12, Lithuania switched back to 10 so grade comparison is a mess. To add some, that switch back in 1990 was done via extending elementary school, so actual 5th grade was equal in both 10- or 11-year program.
patrakov 4y ago
> swimming pools on the school grounds That's still not the norm in Russia. Instead, there are agreements between the schools and the nearby public swimming pools that their instructors will teach school children at a certain predefined time of the week. E.g., "between 10am and 11:30 am, the first three lanes in this pool are reserved for school number 42".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

meerita 4y ago

The Soviet Union was a vast and diverse territory with a wide range of cultural and educational systems. However, the reality for many in the scientific community was one of forced labor and control by the politburo. Fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and academic freedom were suppressed and non-existent. Modern people must remember that they were told what to work on, when, and how much they would get paid. There wasn't the concept of Sundays or vacations as we have today. There were no choices, only the government's choice.

ivan_gammel 4y ago
This is not true.
- nickpp 4y ago
  I can attest that in the Eastern Block (not USSR) where I lived, this was indeed true. Things could've been different in the USSR which was the conquering country while the Eastern Block their vassals. Many goods produced went straight to the benefit of Russian occupiers while lacking in the Eastern European countries.
  - ivan_gammel 4y ago
    So you can attest something different than life of middle class of SU. How is this relevant? I lived in middle class family in SU and I see it differently.
  - meerita 4y ago
    Just look at the evidence: scientists fleed USSR as soon as they had the chance and not the reverse, scientists invading USSR begging to be in the science paradise the propapaganda sells. If you go to Cuba to learn medicine, you will realise everything is so outdated that cannot be treated seriously. Same happened in USSR, but the propaganda aparatus still works trying to sell the idea of the science paradise, all I've seen traveling to ex USSR, and some communist-socialist places is quite the opposite.

LatteLazy 4y ago

I don't actually advocate for communism but... Is that that different to the Western model: I have a masters degree in physics. I either have to give up on having a family and buying a house and do research / teach. Or I can go work at a bank doing something with no real social value and have an Ok life. Even down to "if my parents were rich and connected I would have more options" our system mirror the soviet one in actual opportunities and outcomes. We just have better marketing...

nickpp 4y ago
The difference is you: you have choices, and they are your choices. Under communism you'd just get told what to do, by others. In capitalism, if the system is not providing you opportunities, you can go out and attempt to make your own opportunity. It's damn hard, near impossible, but nobody is stopping you try. Under communism, it was illegal and they would shoot you for it.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Not really though. My choice is to do what others say or go starve on the street. That's the exact same choice communism offered. Capitalism only actually offers choices when there is a lot of opportunity. But we have drained the opportunity out of the current system. I don't think people actually really care about communism vs capitalism. They want opportunity. When communism provided that, it did great. When it stopped it fell (after a few shitty decades). Now capitalism has stopped actually giving people actual opportunities...
Dma54rhs 4y ago
In Soviet Union you were expected to do both and for lousy pay. The joke about women was that they were expected to with in male fields and be there traditional housekeeper at the same time.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  The great success of the soviets was getting people from farms to factories (big gain in income and opportunities). The great failure was not getting them any further. It's sort of interesting looking at the stats from Stalin's time. He took the USSR from a feudal society to industrial society. I think this is an under appreciated ability of communism (the same thing has happened in China, Vietnam, Cuba etc). The problem is communism cannot get you any further than that (or so it seems). Hence countries stating "communist" and embracing private industry and free markets (Vietnam and China). It makes me wonder what we will do next. Is the service economy the final form? Will we need different political/economic models to move to whatever the next form is?

ivan_gammel 4y ago

TBH that’s not exactly true. For entrepreneurs possibilities were indeed limited (it was not impossible, but very hard to enrich yourself), for everyone else the career ladder did exist and you could make considerable impact by your work. SU was running a space program, there was a lot of scientific research and engineering. It raised several generations of dreamers, who now miss that time dearly, when they could just work on what they liked, whether it’s science or city planning, get a free apartment from state, go to parental leave without worries for the future etc. It was empire of evil for sure, but it does not mean people could not use their education for something meaningful.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>now miss that time dearly, when they could just work on what they liked, whether it’s science or city planning, get a free apartment from state, go to parental leave without worries for the future etc. The problem is, such an utopic system where everyone works on whatever they want and gets free housing from the state was economically unsustainable long term. Which is why it collapsed and most of those people working in science immediately packed their bags and move to the US when it happened because talented people working on interesting things don't like living with shortages in a strict oppressive environment where you had to constantly watch your mouth or risk having your career or life ended swiftly. It was only sustainable back then due to the massive natural resources the SU had, while enduring shortages and exploiting the forced/slave labor the SU had access to. Not something replicatable or desired in free societies today, though plenty of modern slave labor practices exists in rich western nations today where some industries only survive due to access to cheap labour willing to work below market rate and live in worse conditions than the locals.
- Muromec 4y ago
  There isn't anything unsustainable in free housing. If everyone is working for the state and state is also everybody's landlord, it's not free, it's just part of compensation. And the housing was really basic anyway, as you can't choose. Unsustainable part of USSR was military spending, not free housing.