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>”He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like?” Take this all with a grain of salt because this is just what I remember from reading stories

>”He didn't have intelligence on what a US supermarket was like?” Take this all with a grain of salt because this is just what I remember from reading stories online of people who used to live in the USSR, but the average person realized the West had more material prosperity but they were under the impression the upper class folks were the only ones with real access to it. They believed the common worker still had to deal with limited selection and shortages, much like they did. Additionally, with whatever glimpses they saw of western consumerism they were told that the abundance was intentionally staged, like a Potemkin village. This was not uncommon for the USSR to do when dignitaries or journalists came to visit. So it made sense that the West would do this too. I have to imagine that as a Soviet citizen and dignitary he assumed everything he saw on his trip was staged or choreographed in some way. They intentionally made an unplanned stop to try and confront this. Perhaps he and his entourage already knew he was going to find a well stocked supermarket, but I can’t help but think cognitive dissonance kept him from really accepting it until he saw it firsthand.

e1g 4y ago
In 1989, I was a child growing up on the streets of a small town in Siberia. During those years, I believed everyone in America was prosperous - the 'common worker' didn't exist, and it was wealth all the way down. My family was not connected, and we were firmly middle class (in the "all animals are equal" way). The Soviet propaganda machine was compelling before my time, but by the 90s, common folks in the USSR were not under any delusion that life in the US was equally bad.
- actinium226 4y ago
  My grandfather was born in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) and lived there as a child through the Nazi siege. In the 40's and 50's in the USSR he and his friends saw through the propaganda and knew that things in the US were much better. But you know what's strange? He lives in NJ now, he's been there for the last 25 years. He watches Russian state TV and also CNN and thinks he gets both perspectives. When Russia invaded Ukraine, he defended Russia, and spit out all the lines about the "nazi leadership" of Ukraine. "Bucha was faked," all that. I think he realized that he was in the minority and toned it down, but this definitely made an impression on me. It's not that certain people are immune to propaganda and some aren't. Anybody can fall into it.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    What has you convinced you’re not falling for propaganda on Ukraine — that it’s him who is wrong?
    - thefounder 4y ago
      Well, one year long invadion should give you a hint. Detaining people for calling it war instead of "special operation" is another one. Calling other neighbours "fake/artificial" countries is another bad sign that Russia's intentions are not good.
      - nerdbert 4y ago
        People were not detained in the USA for using the wrong nomenclature to describe the Iraq invasion, and yet that was also an unspeakably cruel, venal war of cynical aggression knowingly perpetrated on laughably false pretenses. To this day roughly half of Americans think it was the right move - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-continues-to-divide-u-s-public-15-years-after-it-began/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-co... So I don't think factors like that are so good at separating "good" invasions from "bad" ones.
        freeone3000 4y ago
        Maybe the invasion of Iraq was also bad!
        mlyle 4y ago
        The thing is, there's vanishingly few "good invasions". Even fewer when you're intent on annexing territory and capturing resources and large numbers of people. The logic error you've committed above: Stifling dissent about the war with authoritarian measures may not be a necessary condition for an invasion to be bad, but it still can be a hint that the invasion is bad. Rejecting the territorial integrity of the country invaded, similarly, can be a pretty good hint.
- FpUser 4y ago
  I was born in 1961, was a child growing up on the streets of a small town in Siberia just like yourself but I guess I am an older version by what looks to be 10-15 years. The town was satellite science type called Akademgorodok. We were middle class "equals" just as you described but that was in 70s. In the 80s as far as I can remember neither myself nor my friends believed any of that Soviet Propaganda. Our parents were mostly scientists and some (very few yet) had visited the West and we had pretty good ideas what's in the stores over there ;)
suzzer99 4y ago
> but the average person realized the West had more material prosperity but they were under the impression the upper class folks were the only ones with real access to it This propaganda technique is called reverse cargo cult. They don't try to directly refute the facts on the ground. They just claim that clever people realize it's all an illusion. It's devastatingly effective. No one wants to be on the wrong side of a sneer. https://hanshowe.org/2017/02/04/trump-and-the-reverse-cargo-cult/ https://hanshowe.org/2017/02/04/trump-and-the-reverse-cargo-... "In a regular cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw, hoping for the same outcome. They don’t know the difference between a straw airstrip and a real one, they just want the cargo. In a reverse cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw. But there’s a twist: When they build the straw airstrip, it isn’t because they are hoping for the same outcome. They know the difference, and know that because their airstrip is made of straw, it certainly won’t yield any cargo, but it serves another purpose. They don’t lie to the rubes and tell them that an airstrip made of straw will bring them cargo. That’s an easy lie to dismantle. Instead, what they do is make it clear that the airstrip is made of straw, and doesn’t work, but then tell you that the other guy’s airstrip doesn’t work either. They tell you that no airstrips yield cargo. The whole idea of cargo is a lie, and those fools, with their fancy airstrip made out of wood, concrete, and metal is just as wasteful and silly as one made of straw. 1980s Soviets knew that their government was lying to them about the strength and power of their society, the Communist Party couldn’t hide all of the dysfunctions people saw on a daily basis. This didn’t stop the Soviet leadership from lying. Instead, they just accused the West of being equally deceptive. “Sure, things might be bad here, but they are just as bad in America, and in America people are actually foolish enough to believe in the lie! Not like you, clever people. You get it. You know it is a lie." I see parallels to this now all the time - in conspiracy believers, and people from the Midwest who take it as common knowledge that life in California is a complete hellscape right now, because their preferred media sources tell them so every day.
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  Aka "everybody does it". People paid to go to pro-Putin demonstrations don't believe that people who go (maybe... used to go) to contra-Putin demonstrations were not paid. That's where I first heard about it.
rhino369 4y ago
Their intelligence officers must have known. They lived here as diplomats and free access to just travel around. Maybe people like Yeltsin didn't believe them or the KGB was afraid to tell people, but they should have known.
cm2187 4y ago
There is a soviet joke. Two workers in France discuss, one really wants to move to the soviet union, the paradise for workers, the land of plenty. The other is more hesitant, he also heard stories of famine and repression. All capitalist propaganda, says the first one, and I made up my mind, I am going. Well, says the other one, I might join you, but first you go, and you tell me how it is, and if it is what you say it is, I go too. But if it is what those capitalists say it is, you might not be free to write your mind so let's devise a code: if you can write freely, write in black ink, if you are coerced, use red ink, and I will know I shouldn't come. A month later, he receives a letter, in black ink, saying "the soviet union is fantastic, workers are really cared for here, we have freedom, food, prosperity, everyone is happy. The only inconvenience is that I really cannot find any red ink anywhere".
wrp 4y ago
In the 1970s, one of my professors was assigned to be guide/translator for a group of visiting Soviet social scientists in Los Angeles. He asked them what they wanted to see and they insisted on a tour of Watts, so they could see the "real America" behind the Potemkin villages. So they all got into a schoolbus and went over to Watts. The Soviets wouldn't believe that they were really seeing Watts, because this neighborhood singled-out in Soviet propaganda as a pit of misery actually seemed to show a better quality of life than what they had at home. So, they insisted on getting off the bus to ask random people on the street what area they were really in.

e1g 4y ago

In 1989, I was a child growing up on the streets of a small town in Siberia. During those years, I believed everyone in America was prosperous - the 'common worker' didn't exist, and it was wealth all the way down. My family was not connected, and we were firmly middle class (in the "all animals are equal" way). The Soviet propaganda machine was compelling before my time, but by the 90s, common folks in the USSR were not under any delusion that life in the US was equally bad.

actinium226 4y ago
My grandfather was born in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) and lived there as a child through the Nazi siege. In the 40's and 50's in the USSR he and his friends saw through the propaganda and knew that things in the US were much better. But you know what's strange? He lives in NJ now, he's been there for the last 25 years. He watches Russian state TV and also CNN and thinks he gets both perspectives. When Russia invaded Ukraine, he defended Russia, and spit out all the lines about the "nazi leadership" of Ukraine. "Bucha was faked," all that. I think he realized that he was in the minority and toned it down, but this definitely made an impression on me. It's not that certain people are immune to propaganda and some aren't. Anybody can fall into it.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  What has you convinced you’re not falling for propaganda on Ukraine — that it’s him who is wrong?
  - thefounder 4y ago
    Well, one year long invadion should give you a hint. Detaining people for calling it war instead of "special operation" is another one. Calling other neighbours "fake/artificial" countries is another bad sign that Russia's intentions are not good.
    - nerdbert 4y ago
      People were not detained in the USA for using the wrong nomenclature to describe the Iraq invasion, and yet that was also an unspeakably cruel, venal war of cynical aggression knowingly perpetrated on laughably false pretenses. To this day roughly half of Americans think it was the right move - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-continues-to-divide-u-s-public-15-years-after-it-began/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/19/iraq-war-co... So I don't think factors like that are so good at separating "good" invasions from "bad" ones.
      - freeone3000 4y ago
        Maybe the invasion of Iraq was also bad!
      - mlyle 4y ago
        The thing is, there's vanishingly few "good invasions". Even fewer when you're intent on annexing territory and capturing resources and large numbers of people. The logic error you've committed above: Stifling dissent about the war with authoritarian measures may not be a necessary condition for an invasion to be bad, but it still can be a hint that the invasion is bad. Rejecting the territorial integrity of the country invaded, similarly, can be a pretty good hint.
FpUser 4y ago
I was born in 1961, was a child growing up on the streets of a small town in Siberia just like yourself but I guess I am an older version by what looks to be 10-15 years. The town was satellite science type called Akademgorodok. We were middle class "equals" just as you described but that was in 70s. In the 80s as far as I can remember neither myself nor my friends believed any of that Soviet Propaganda. Our parents were mostly scientists and some (very few yet) had visited the West and we had pretty good ideas what's in the stores over there ;)

suzzer99 4y ago

> but the average person realized the West had more material prosperity but they were under the impression the upper class folks were the only ones with real access to it This propaganda technique is called reverse cargo cult. They don't try to directly refute the facts on the ground. They just claim that clever people realize it's all an illusion. It's devastatingly effective. No one wants to be on the wrong side of a sneer. https://hanshowe.org/2017/02/04/trump-and-the-reverse-cargo-cult/ https://hanshowe.org/2017/02/04/trump-and-the-reverse-cargo-... "In a regular cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw, hoping for the same outcome. They don’t know the difference between a straw airstrip and a real one, they just want the cargo. In a reverse cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw. But there’s a twist: When they build the straw airstrip, it isn’t because they are hoping for the same outcome. They know the difference, and know that because their airstrip is made of straw, it certainly won’t yield any cargo, but it serves another purpose. They don’t lie to the rubes and tell them that an airstrip made of straw will bring them cargo. That’s an easy lie to dismantle. Instead, what they do is make it clear that the airstrip is made of straw, and doesn’t work, but then tell you that the other guy’s airstrip doesn’t work either. They tell you that no airstrips yield cargo. The whole idea of cargo is a lie, and those fools, with their fancy airstrip made out of wood, concrete, and metal is just as wasteful and silly as one made of straw. 1980s Soviets knew that their government was lying to them about the strength and power of their society, the Communist Party couldn’t hide all of the dysfunctions people saw on a daily basis. This didn’t stop the Soviet leadership from lying. Instead, they just accused the West of being equally deceptive. “Sure, things might be bad here, but they are just as bad in America, and in America people are actually foolish enough to believe in the lie! Not like you, clever people. You get it. You know it is a lie." I see parallels to this now all the time - in conspiracy believers, and people from the Midwest who take it as common knowledge that life in California is a complete hellscape right now, because their preferred media sources tell them so every day.

ahartmetz 4y ago
Aka "everybody does it". People paid to go to pro-Putin demonstrations don't believe that people who go (maybe... used to go) to contra-Putin demonstrations were not paid. That's where I first heard about it.

rhino369 4y ago

Their intelligence officers must have known. They lived here as diplomats and free access to just travel around. Maybe people like Yeltsin didn't believe them or the KGB was afraid to tell people, but they should have known.

cm2187 4y ago

There is a soviet joke. Two workers in France discuss, one really wants to move to the soviet union, the paradise for workers, the land of plenty. The other is more hesitant, he also heard stories of famine and repression. All capitalist propaganda, says the first one, and I made up my mind, I am going. Well, says the other one, I might join you, but first you go, and you tell me how it is, and if it is what you say it is, I go too. But if it is what those capitalists say it is, you might not be free to write your mind so let's devise a code: if you can write freely, write in black ink, if you are coerced, use red ink, and I will know I shouldn't come. A month later, he receives a letter, in black ink, saying "the soviet union is fantastic, workers are really cared for here, we have freedom, food, prosperity, everyone is happy. The only inconvenience is that I really cannot find any red ink anywhere".

wrp 4y ago

In the 1970s, one of my professors was assigned to be guide/translator for a group of visiting Soviet social scientists in Los Angeles. He asked them what they wanted to see and they insisted on a tour of Watts, so they could see the "real America" behind the Potemkin villages. So they all got into a schoolbus and went over to Watts. The Soviets wouldn't believe that they were really seeing Watts, because this neighborhood singled-out in Soviet propaganda as a pit of misery actually seemed to show a better quality of life than what they had at home. So, they insisted on getting off the bus to ask random people on the street what area they were really in.