21 ms·

Vacations in the Soviet Union

246 points by onychomys 3y ago

EarthIsHome 3y ago
Happy May Day! Here's a Twitter thread [0] that has excerpts/paraphrases from an old Soviet pamphlet called "How Soviet Workers Spend Their Leisure." (rolled up version [1]) You can find a scanned version of the pamphlet here [2]. There were many of these pamphlets published. One day I will scan them and post them. There was one on Waterways & Transport in the USSR, one about Soviet theater, one about the food industry in the USSR, one about light industries of the USSR, and one about the countryside of past and present of the USSR. I think these were a series published in 1939. Article 119 of the Soviet Constitution: > ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. > > The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people. 'Sanatoria' being health/medical centers or hospitals. [0]: https://twitter.com/REVMAXXING/status/1594499770990608385 https://twitter.com/REVMAXXING/status/1594499770990608385 [1]: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1594499770990608385.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1594499770990608385.html [2]: https://digital.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/show/4595#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-332%2C-1%2C1064%2C600 https://digital.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/show/4595#?c=...
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  Sounds similar to how the Chinese constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech.
- ahelwer 3y ago
  Prolonged periods of time spent without obligation to work for pay is one of the greatest luxuries you can have in this life. People shouldn't have to wait until retirement to enjoy it. Sabbatical, basically, although even sabbatical often comes with obligations for self-improvement serving the company offering it. A lot of discourse on working hours revolves around decreasing the hours worked per week. I would also like to see people talk about a right to take 6-12 months of unstructured leave after 3-4 years of service. Seems unrealistic? What is all this wealth and automation and productivity growth for, then?
  - arsome 3y ago
    > What is all this wealth and automation and productivity growth for, then? Why, more wealth and automation and productivity growth to no end of course.
    - explorer83 3y ago
      I know all of these things sound nice. But in the real world a lot of businesses aren't making the kind of profit that allows workers to just take time off and not generate any revenue for the company. Sure there are some that could pull it off. But most small businesses aren't making that kind of profit. Unless you are assuming workers are supposed to take unpaid time off. But then how are they going to afford to take time off?
      - hkt 3y ago
        If your business can't pay its bills without forgoing its legal and moral responsibilities, it has failed.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        If it can't for any reason, it's failed. The problem is the more things you pile on, the harder it gets. The main point of a business, and the main good it does, is not employing people. It's what goods or services it provides its customers, at a lower price. If you moralise and add more things for a business to do, the big ones will do some performative stuff and spend their vast marketing budgets on it, and the small ones will go under, and we all lose because we get less choice and higher prices.
        explorer83 3y ago
        Not really. It could be a new business that is only a few years old and is still trying to grow and become the type of business can afford these. Or an established business that lost a major client. Your viewpoint is really limited.
      - ivan_gammel 3y ago
- uristohkrat 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ahelwer 3y ago
    We do have that, it's called the global south under neocolonialism.
    - TheGigaChad 3y ago
      [dead]
  - onion2k 3y ago
    In a very literal sense, most countries and especially the USA, do have that pool of labor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex#Prison_labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_comp...
    - HideousKojima 3y ago
      Prison labor != Political prisoner labor
      - benmanns 3y ago
        To some extent, the war on drugs is a war on minorities is a political war on the left.
        Forbo 3y ago
        The down voting of the parent is wholly unjustified. This is a factual reality that has already taken place and continues on to this day. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
- vondur 3y ago
  Did the Soviet government actually follow the Constitution of The USSR? I believe it also mentioned freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly, all of which seemed to be ignored.
  - 0xDEF 3y ago
    >Did the Soviet government actually follow the Constitution of The USSR The Soviet Union did allow some internal dissent and freedom of speech from 1985 to 1991. That might have accelerated its downfall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost
    - sidewndr46 3y ago
      I seem to remember a similar thing happening under Mao for a brief period of time, followed by a near total crackdown on anyone who had decided to speak up.
  - flowerbreeze 3y ago
    I think more accurate would be to say it allowed freedom from expression, freedom from religion and freedom from assembly. Unless in the service of the communist party of course.
    - lb1lf 3y ago
      A former colleague of mine, born and raised in the USSR, liked to quip that there was only one minor difference in the way freedom of expression was implemented in the USSR and in the West. Both places guaranteed the freedom to express oneself, but only the West guaranteed your freedom also after you'd expressed yourself.
      - lovecg 3y ago
        “In America we have freedoms. I can stand in front of the White House and shout, ‘President Truman is a moron!’” “Big deal, it’s the same here. I can also stand in the middle of the Red Square and shout ‘President Truman is a moron’”.
- martythemaniak 3y ago
  As always, the gap between reality and propaganda is hilarious. Soviet workers and their colonized subjects spent their leisure time filling in for the massive failures of the state to provide anything resembling their promises. Some excerpts from my childhood: * Family outing to the fields to harvest carrots to pickle for the winter. This would be bartered with other families who went to harvest other veggies, so that your turshia would not be too monotonous. * Going to my friend's apartment to roasting and canning peppers, because no one has to money to buy the factory made stuff. And if you did, you still wouldn't want such poor quality. * Helping my dad unload window frames for firewood. He worked at a window factory and was able to redirect a small truck full of finished wooden frames, which we could break down and burn for heat over the winter. Sure, it would have made more sense to buy actual firewood or coal rather than steal finished industrial output, but you can't afford that on a regular salary. And it would have made even more sense to offer district heating, and the government had such plans, but you'd freeze long before this became a reality. Eventually we did get district heating - about 6 years after communism fell.
  - t-3 3y ago
    Not exactly different from my parents experiences growing up in the US, where "summer vacation" was a trip to uncle's farm to detassel corn or pick cotton, hunting to get meat, etc.
    - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
      Yep, all of my vacations growing up were either hunting or fishing trips. While getting out in nature is nice, when you take your kids out on a boat for 10h / day because you haven't caught enough fish it very quickly stops feeling like a vacation and more like work.
  - lawrenci 3y ago
    These examples highlight the deficiencies of the Soviet economy, and it's evident that such failures caused considerable suffering among the population. Nevertheless, given more time to engage in activities akin to the first two examples, and separated from the threat of malnourishment, I believe I would experience greater happiness and a stronger connection to both my food and community. Through shared struggle, bartering, and communal work, we can create a sense of connection that is absent from the isolation brought about by specialization, which, although more economically efficient, also contributes to the social problems present in western society.
- lp0_on_fire 3y ago
  the Soviet citizen also had “freedom of expression” and the right to freedom of speech and to redress the government. That this farce of a “constitution” is being quoted without irony on hacker news astounds me.
- andrewmutz 3y ago
  I clicked through to the twitter account that posted the tweetthread and it does not seem like the most reliable source of information.
  - clnq 3y ago
    The information presented by the quote and JSTOR is accurate, at least insofar as it reveals that a significant number of individuals in USSR went on either tourist tours or sanatoria each year for rejuvenation. In the 90s, state sanatoria maintained their popularity in post-Soviet countries. To this day, travel agencies in some of these nations primarily focus on two types of journeys: relaxation and "learning" holidays. This deeply ingrained cultural practice persists throughout the region. I don't know how many and which groups of people went on annual holidays in the USSR, but I know it wasn't an insignificant number from what I've observed living there as a kid.
atemerev 3y ago
The Soviet economy was somewhat surreal and it is difficult to explain it well to the Western audience. Including vacations, vacation tickets («путёвки»), summer camps, sanatoriums and the like. I still remember some parts though, so if you are interested in how it worked, I can answer your questions. Most definitely it wasn't all that rosy.
- Aaronstotle 3y ago
  My grandparents and my father grew up in the Soviet Union. I always find it fascinating hearing about my grandparent's childhood and what it was like to grow up there. One anecdote for not all rosy: My father is permanently traumatized because he had to get his tonsils removed when he was young and they didn't give him any anesthetics.
  - helge9210 3y ago
    > they didn't give him any anesthetics This is a description of the most of the Soviet health services. For example, dentists were using short metal pipe on a thumb when treating kids, so they don't bite or close their mouth.
    - diuddnbsb 3y ago
      >"and there was boy in sewer... and he was eating the rat...and the rat was eating the dog...and the dog was eating me...but i was runned away... and it was so bad..." >"and then the police shoot the dog...and the dog raped the boy...and then the rat shot the police..." >"and then you have to eated the police...but the dog was eating the rat..." >"and my grandmother ate the police...and the police turned the dog into lampshade....but the rat raped the police...and now my grandmother is dead inside lampshade dog...."
  - Toutouxc 3y ago
    I got my (pharyngeal) tonsil removed without anaesthesia, in 2001 I think, as a kid, in the Czech Republic. It didn't hurt at all, but I still remember the loud crunch of the cutting and the whole setup — I sat on one doctor's lap, he grabbed me with his arms around my whole body AND my arms, so I couldn't move at all, and a second doctor did the cutting. It only took a few seconds, there was a lot of blood, but I got many cold drinks and ice-cream in the next few days, so that was good. But I can definitely see someone getting traumatized by this.
danielodievich 3y ago
Growing up in USSR, my mother would take us for a summer in some mountains/vacation destination and work there as a guide. One time in Kandalaksha gulf in White Sea near Murmansk she was a wilderness guide for a few rounds of tourists from elsewhere in Soviet Union for a 8 day hiking in mountains/sailing on the White Sea trip. We had such wide range of people - from experienced outdoors people to the elderly pensioners who were hardly mobile. It was wild, remote with sun endlessly circling and never setting, salmon fishing in rivers/herring fishing in the White Sea. I got to see a nuclear sub float by once, and we came by a remote nuclear-powered remote listening station festooned with antennas, but otherwise it was really remote. Since then and until recently most people go to Turkey, though. White Sea was hypothermia inducing within a minute even in the height of July.
- samstave 3y ago
  There is so much amazing beauty in the world, including the largest country on the planet, Russia - and then especially areas in China, which I would LOVE to visit, but the governments of each country kinda suck, so its not a place I'll likely go (imagine mtn biking through some of the amazing landscapes of either) With that said, I'd love to hear Lex Fridman's opinion on all of this.
  - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
    It's not difficult to visit China (except that you'll probably have to apply for a visa, but Chinese people have to do that to visit Western countries too). You won't experience much about the government while there. Police aren't really that present in public. Border control is like any other country. The only issue you're likely to run into is the Great Firewall, for which you can just install a VPN before arriving in country. Many Westerners experience a sort of shock when they first visit China, because the dystopia they're expecting to see never materializes.
    - atdrummond 3y ago
      Very much this. The only area where I felt uncomfortable was in Xinjiang, as two friends in that region have effectively been “disappeared”. While I am skeptical of much of what has been written on this topic, due to its obvious use as propaganda, many of the tours I had there reminded me of those in DPRK. There was an obvious level of orchestration designed to show you a face of Xinjiang which lacked any warts.
snickerbockers 3y ago
>It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. maybe it's just because I don't have much of a social circle, but this seems appealing to me.
- mantas 3y ago
  It was not exactly appealing if husband and wife keeps getting different vacation for years and can't go on vacation together. Bribes would fix that though.
- jamilton 3y ago
  Yeah, I think this is an experience some people seek out today.
- beepbooptheory 3y ago
  Agreed. So many articles and discussions these days about how everyone is so lonely and isolated. The article seems to want to imply this system is kind of a bad thing, or at least weird, but I have trouble seeing anything but good things in it.
  - Dma54rhs 3y ago
    There are so many possibilities to go on vacations like that where everything is pre-arranged and with strangers. From fancy cruise ships to regular travel company arranged stuff.
    - dubcanada 3y ago
      I think the difference is the forced separation. Most people go with friends, family, groups, what not. If you go alone you are the outsider. Forcing everyone to go by themselves opens up true "stranger" vacations.
  - tsukikage 3y ago
    It’s awesome when you’re single, not so appealing once you start a family.
ur-whale 3y ago
[flagged]
- atemerev 3y ago
  The delta is very much _not_ negligible. Even people’s apartments were not in their property. No private business allowed, all production was government-managed. It is difficult to understand how USSR worked, unless you lived there.
  - throwaway426079 3y ago
    Vast numbers of people in the West don't own their own home either. Not really the same as living in the old East since you can choose where you live here, within your budget, but I wanted to highlight that a lot of our freedom ends when the money does.
- johlindenbaum 3y ago
  Examples?
- catiopatio 3y ago
  > I'd claim the delta is negligible. … and you’d be demonstrating profound ignorance if you did. I spent six months living in post-Soviet Prague in the late 1990s. The stories I heard were nothing like our existence in a wealthy western democracy.
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  Who is telling you where to work? What profession you're in? Where you will eat lunch? Who you are allowed to associate with? I order for it to be less confusing, perhaps the article could have said "government prescribed behavior in almost every aspect of life" and I claim the delta is not negligible. Taxation is not theft.
  - mantas 3y ago
    Well, to be honest, people were allowed to pick a profession. And you had some wiggle room to pick your placement and change works later on. And you were allowed to drink in your kitchen with whoever you want. Although if KGB noticed you were partying with known dissidents or on certain days (e.g. independence day of the republic that was then occupied by soviets)... you'd be, let's say, cancelled :) Or if you kids had poppy seeds in dental inspection that was accidentally held on christmas day...
sturza 3y ago
The Soviet Union's approach to paid time off (PTO) was unique, as it not only provided workers with time off but also determined how they spent it, often with groups of strangers instead of friends and family. This policy aimed to promote the collective as the most important social unit and provided subsidized vacations to a select number of workers. Although Soviet vacations initially served as team-building exercises, over time, citizens' desire for family vacations increased, challenging the state's policies. The rise of family vacations and personal investment in holidays led to a shift from purposeful production to popular consumption. Soviet vacations played a role in loosening ideological restrictions on freedom, and as travel policies opened the door for political dissent to spread, the government struggled to maintain control over leisure time.
- medo-bear 3y ago
  chatgpt summary?
  - sturza 3y ago
    Yes.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - gwright 3y ago
    That is quite the stretch to think those situations are "a bit [a]like".
    - gumballindie 3y ago
      Two sides of the same coin. I know it’s difficult to see it while stuck inside the loop but corporate work is like soviet work with fancy iphones and the illusion of free choice (you can chose as long as the choice is right). The politburo is replaced by the board while the apparatus by management. Conformity and obedience are not just desired are actively encouraged. Spreading corporate propaganda and preventing workers from organising are also shared values. All in all both are systems of oppression with the exception that in free societies you can escape - until of course they find a way to replace people at scale. Then you get sucked back in while the proletariat cheers from the sides.
zelphirkalt 3y ago
PTO = Paid time off, apparently.
- falcolas 3y ago
  Huh. Is that not common vernacular where you're from?
  - guessmyname 3y ago
    > Huh. Is that not common vernacular where you're from? I don’t know about the parent commenter, but I am of the opinion that regardless of how common an abbreviation is, it should always be expanded, unless the circumstances prevent you from doing that. Here, in Hacker News, submissions must have a title with maximum 80 characters, but look at this: 30 characters -> Workers of the World, Take PTO 46 characters -> Workers of the World, Take Paid Time Off (PTO) I can only speculate why the original poster decided to use the abbreviation alone. Wouldn’t you prefer to err on the side of caution and expand abbreviations whenever possible? Particularly in contexts where the audience may not be familiar with the abbreviation or where clarity is particularly important. I believe that expanding abbreviations is a simple but effective way to demonstrate inclusiveness and promote greater understanding and participation in communication, especially in multicultural contexts, like Hacker News, where different people have different levels of familiarity with certain terms.
    - samstave 3y ago
      This is very common in technical documentation, specifically things like RFPs (Request for Proposals) <-- Is to state the acromyn the first time, and expand it and throughout the RFP you can then use the acronym, the real reason this is important is that RFPs --> $MONEY and thus, will be scrutinized by the "penny pinchers" who will lack a lot of domain knowledge being addressed with an RFP for a project. For example, I, as a Director of OPs was constantly educating our CFO on cloud spend, and would have to kind of train him on technical matters while at the same time explaining where all our costs are etc... Or when designing a huge project (I have worked on many projects with budgets over $1 billion) and going through vendor selection processes, where we review the RFPs with the vendors and the finance holders for the project, there are many times when one has to justify telling Mr. Money Bags why simply accepting the cheapest offer is not sufficient. This was actually a type of work, which at the time felt tedious, but now I realize how much I actually liked this aspect of my career.
fweimer 3y ago
> In the West, what you do when you leave the office was and is your own business. In the USSR, it was everyone else’s. Is this actually true? In Germany at least, vacation from work is not truly our own time. We are legally required to use it to relax and restore our capacity for future work. Few people probably see it that way, admittedly. Of course, there is still a huge difference, but it's awkward to view everything through that us-versus-them lens.
- justinpombrio 3y ago
  What do you mean "legally required"? E.g. is there a law that says that specifically, or a common interpretation of a law that says something vaguer, or a common clause in employment contracts, or were you being metaphorical and it isn't actually legal? I'm from the US, and this sounds very strange to my ears.
  - evilspammer 3y ago
    it's more to prevent employers from making you work during vacation
    - fweimer 3y ago
      Literally, it's about preventing taking a second, paid job during vacation from your first employer. So it's not entirely clear whether this is about protecting employers or employees. As far as I know, non-competes for blue collar workers are uncommon (or at least they used to be).
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - izacus 3y ago
    The OP just decided to strangely translate a clause that asks for employees to not demand work during cation (the usual US "I'm still reading my emails") and that they cannot work at another job in that time.
0xDEF 3y ago
It's fascinating how the ideology of Marxism–Leninism (Communism) today is more popular than ever among young people in former capitalist heartlands like the US, Canada and UK. A simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare is all you need to satisfy 90% of people but the elites in the US and the UK refuse to provide that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  Perhaps young people in the US, UK, and Canada understand that elites will only settle for “a simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare” with the explicit threat of Communism? Historically, that seems to have been the case.
  - oriolid 3y ago
    I think the process goes something like this: Conservative parent/teacher/etc: "So you want free education and healthcare for everyone, are you some kind of communist or what?" Young person, after reading the philosophy textbook chapter about Marx and ignoring a lot of history: "I guess I am one then"
  - int_19h 3y ago
    Why would young people from UK and Canada think that, given that they already have a European-style welfare state with universal healthcare? Canada actually pushes it further than most of Europe with their single-payer healthcare system that effectively prohibits private coverage for things covered by the public system. Canadians of all people also ought to remember how they got their system, which was by voting[1] for parties that supported it in elections. It had basically nothing to do with threat of communism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_elec...
- kfrzcode 3y ago
  [flagged]
pierat 3y ago
Sigh, that's not always easy with many of the people here with "unlimited PTO" without guaranteed minimums. Most of the unlimited clauses are based on manager approval. The base HR justification for unlimited PTO is to not have to pay out unused PTO when they leave. Naturally, it sounds good on face, but leads to less PTO taken due to inherent worries of "how much is too much", lack of manager approval, and the like. I reject companies that force 'unlimited' PTO. I demand a minimum hard number in place on the offer letter. I've turned down places for that reason. I work in a place that offers 20 days plus all federal holidays. It's a good compromise, but I'd prefer more.
- kfrzcode 3y ago
  20 + 10 = one full calendar month (that's 6 business weeks) of work. You're asking for more than six weeks per year where you can just get paid for not working. Sure, there's plenty of holistic value-add to being a well rested, happy employee, but if the difference for your happiness and well-being is somewhere above having six weeks of paid vacation (plus assumed sick days as needed for actual sicknesses) and getting paid for doing nothing. . . what's that quantitative number, and how did you arrive there? If your job is so stressful that the aforementioned six weeks plus sick days is not enough vacation for you to recuperate, you're likely underpaid, in the wrong field, or something else is driving your discontent. I'd suggest using your PTO to do some introspection and accounting for where those capacities may be needing some care.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    Honestly, your suggestion that the desire for more time off must be caused by some mental problem is pretty rude. I also don't understand why is it such a mystery that people might want to pursue other interests than just work and that requires time off work. Here in Europe, 20+10 is the bare minimum, with most people getting more and still striving for more.
    - kfrzcode 3y ago
      I'll concede rudeness as it's perceptive and not intrinsic in this case; I apologize for the timbre of my approach. My stance is more of one rooted in individualism and self-advocation, i.e. if you're dedicated to a job that's considered a full time commitment, that's the social construct. We're not in a society post-labor, idealistic techtopia yet, and that transition if it occurs will be painful and bloated. The reality is if you want the future of work when, how, where you want, then you have to recognize, admit and accept that your mental model of "employee/employer" relationship has to shift. You must not be the one exchanging what you are claiming to be your most precious asset - unburdened time - to the employer. There is no sense in continuing to enslave yourself to the constructs of yore. It is, ostensibly, within your control and power to become the master of your domain. Of course, this is going to look very catered to your particular requirements and value-adding skillsets.... do you have a set of diverse skills that can be leveraged into one-to-many income streams? Why should the organization, that which agrees to give you quite a generous offer by any standard on a global measure, be responsible for ensuring the rest of your life is as you desire? You are the captain of the ship on this journey, only you are in control of the choices you make. Truth is if your employer wanted to you be happy they would give you a full pension and send you on your way. They want your labor, intelligence, work product, but it's all the same. They want your TIME. Build businesses. Choose lifestyles that reduce dependency on extrinsic systemic operational uptime. Expose your raw value to the world as you decide and don't undermine your only static asset in life - time. It's incredible how variable the dollar-amount people set on their hours. . .
neerajk 3y ago
TIL: there exists a 14X miner!
- ksherlock 3y ago
  The history of Stakhanov's feat, however, tells a somewhat different story. The push for a record on the night of Aug. 30 was, in fact, carefully planned and prepared by the Communist Party organization of the Tsentralnaya-Irmino mine in the Donets basin. The mines, short of skilled workers and machinery, were failing to produce their quotas of coal. The party tapped Stakhanov, a little-educated, hard-working peasant-turned-miner, to set a record that would become an inspiration and example. Konstantin G. Petrov, the chief of the mine's party organization, recalled that Stakhanov's wife strenuously resisted his attempt to make her husband a hero until she was silenced with the gift of a cow. To increase Stakhanov's chances, the pattern of work was changed to free him from his usual task of shoring up the tunnel as he dug into the seam. Instead, two timberers followed after him, and Mr. Petrov himself held a light to the coal-face. What Stakhanov did, to be sure, was still impressive, especially with the unreliable jackhammers of those days. Contemporaries described the big miner wrestling his hammer for hours, coal dust choking his throat and nose and grinding between his teeth. ''I suppose Stakhanov need not have been the first,'' said Mr. Petrov in an interview several years ago. ''It could have been anybody else. In the final analysis it was not the individual face-worker who determined whether the attempt to break the record would succeed, but the new system of coal extraction. https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/31/world/in-soviet-eager-beaver-s-legend-works-overtime.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/31/world/in-soviet-eager-bea...
zvmaz 3y ago
In the past, a was skeptical of writings describing totalitarian societies/states, especially since it was often politically motivated. Until becoming a subject of one. Edit: I am curious as to why I get downvoted. Is it a political trope in a particular country to say that one lives in a totalitarian society/state? A rhetorical ploy? I use it in a literal sense: no freedom of expression, no freedom of the press, jailed political opponents and journalists, criminalization of political movements, jailed citizens for saying thinks on Facebook, jailed citizens for having been in a protest, the constant threat of prison for almost any trifle...
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  And what coup happened in your country?
- mym1990 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zvmaz 3y ago
    I am not from the west. Now I think I understand why I get downvoted.
    - vorpalhex 3y ago
      Don't pay too much attention to scores on HN, they mean very little. Usually over 24 hours or so things will normalize anyways.
    - mym1990 3y ago
      Actually not sure why you got downvoted, I was just making a snarky comment, I deserve it haha
- WC3w6pXxgGd 3y ago
  [dead]
DubiousPusher 3y ago
This is great. I've been interested in understanding how the Soviet economy worked for a long time. I've found only a handful of articles like this one. Unless you're willing to delve into hardcore economic academic papers (I am not) it's hard to get an actual informed perspective. Most Googling around will basically return you the rote response that it basically didn't work. Which, despite the many issues with the Soviet economy, is obviously not true.
- bananaoomarang 3y ago
  I found Zubok's recent book 'Collapse' to be quite informative in this regard if you haven't read it, not exactly what you are looking for but in the first half it deals with Gorbechev's economic reforms and there is some fairly detailed discussion of the economy and how it functioned.
- izacus 3y ago
  It's probably the language barrier - anything English is basically one-sided cold war propaganda repeated ad nauseam. Anything more detailed tends to be Russian, German or generally Eastern European since US literature tends to not care about more detailed looks into how the country worked besides repeating the same lines about food queues and other cliches. (And that makes sense, we tend to focus on our own country and environment.)
- century19 3y ago
  BAM is an interesting case. One of the largest engineering projects of the 20th century, and they had to convince volunteers to join. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal%E2%80%93Amur_Mainline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal%E2%80%93Amur_Mainline
- quacked 3y ago
  > Which, despite the many issues with the Soviet economy, is obviously not true. The first thing I hear from any ex-Soviet who grew up in the USSR is how their lives were impacted by the constant shortages and censorship of issues with the supply chain. There's a classic joke from the USSR that goes: "Comrade, aren't you excited for when the USA finally falls?" "No, who will we buy our grain from?" Another one: "Isn't it true that the USA is rotting from within?" "Yes, but what a smell!" Millions of people in the USSR starved to death, and their consumer tech was among the most unreliable and poorly-made available internationally. This despite Soviet mathematicians and engineers being among the finest and hardest-working on the planet. They could only just overcome the constraints that the centrally-governed economy placed on them. The only notable exception is military hardware, which was actually funded. What do you mean "it's obviously not true [that the Soviet economy didn't work]"?
boveus 3y ago
>It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. This can actually work out well. I experienced something similar in the US while on vacation. I was traveling with someone from Glenwood Springs, CO to Denver, CO via Amtrak. We went to the dining car for lunch an since there were two of us and space is at a premium, the Amtrak policy was to seat us with one or two random strangers. We sat and had lunch with an oil executive and someone's grandmother and it was quite an interesting experience and we got to meet two strangers. It was actually a highlight of that train trip. I feel like the experience of having unplanned social interactions with strangers is often missing in modern American life. I don't know if the Soviet style of assigning vacation groups via a worker's committee would be pleasant, but I can't help but think things would be better if we had more situations where we are "forced" to engage with strangers.
- dfxm12 3y ago
  It's more common even in the west than it seems like people realize. I've been on a bunch of vacations with strangers. From companies who offer tours of Italy, etc., bus day/overnight trips to somewhere sorta locally, cruises, etc.
  - radicaldreamer 3y ago
    This happens all the time when traveling, on cruise ships, at national parks etc.
- ActorNightly 3y ago
  This is a very good idea for teenagers and younger adults to break them out of the online world. For working class though, its probably best not to force people to socialize. The thing that doesn't get talked enough about in socialization is that its not all positive, and people have different tolerance to each others bullshit.
  - jedberg 3y ago
    As long as it's a situation where you can opt out of further interactions, it's no so bad. You meet, you decide if you want to keep talking, and then move on.
BigCryo 3y ago
A neoliberal rat race to the bottom, if you can keep it
FpUser 3y ago
>"The Soviet Union's approach to paid time off (PTO) was unique, as it not only provided workers with time off but also determined how they spent it" Utter bullshit. I was able to travel to every part of USSR (except of course restricted areas and abroad) during my vacation time without any problems. USSR had gobbles of big problems and general lack of freedom but vacations were not part. As a matter of fact I spent more vacation time in more places than the average North American. Yes if one wanted they could join some semi-/organized form but there was nothing mandatory about it.
- tsukikage 3y ago
  The article focuses on early/mid century, less on the 80s/90s. It doesn’t mention dacha villages either.
  - FpUser 3y ago
    You might include 70s as well. I do not have personal experience on how it was before. As for "focuses" - then it is not an article but a piece of propaganda. Hence it has a deserved place in a trash.
- legitster 3y ago
  I think there is not a distinction being made between "time-off" and "vacation" - the author seems to be focused entirely on travel destinations and resorts.
  - mantas 3y ago
    There was no distinction between time-off and vacation in USSR either.
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  You are right with your disagreement, because the article starts quite sensational with this phrase and does not make it clear enough how different was USSR in different times. It is a typical mistake that many Western writers and readers make to judge Soviet Union based on Stalinism, NEP or Perestroika. Yet as the story in the article develops, you can find there that there was indeed some freedom about travel in Soviet Union. It is unfortunate that it does not cover all aspects of Soviet tourism and the rich culture around it.
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
There are a bunch of zoomers out there who un-ironically claim Communism is the ideal way of life. I've worked with some of them. I still can't fathom what's going on in their brains.
- vkou 3y ago
  There's a bunch (Well, a lot) of people at all ages who unironically think that we've reached some kind of end of history, and that our current state of society resembles some kind of maximum. They are generally unable to engage with good-faith criticisms of the parts of it that don't work. Don't let it get to you.
- lawn 3y ago
  And there's a lot of people who dream about going back to the Soviet glory days. And with how the war against Ukraine is going, Russia is on a fast track to relive those memories.
- bequanna 3y ago
  One explanation I've found pretty accurate: When the young start to become educated (late teens, early 20's) they face the realization that they will be entering the world on the bottom of the economic totem pole. There are two primary responses to this: 1. Realize that the real world is competitive and difficult and much self-improvement and hard work will be needed to thrive. These people put their heads down and get to work. 2. Refusal to address the truth of #1. Frame the real world as some unwinnable game to avoid putting in the required effort to succeed. Distract yourself with structural problems (real or imaginary) far too big for you to have any effect on but keep you from the painful self-improvement that is really needed. Communism preys on the people who are susceptible to the second path.
  - medvezhenok 3y ago
    Sort of. I think it's more nuanced than that. Communism rebalances the relative worth of people in society. I.e. my grandfather, an engineer, earned less than a factory worker. An average or passing artist could earn a decent living in the Soviet Union, compared to having scraps today (in relative terms). I notice this calculus as I have an artistic career and a software career. I would like to pursue the artistic career (and am actually pretty good at it), but I would make many multiples less than I currently do in software. This is partly because of how we've financialized/structured the economy (i.e. software monopolies should have been broken up, taxes imposed, etc), not because the work is actually worth less in some sense.
tsukikage 3y ago
“Designed to refresh and reenergize workers for upcoming Five-Year-Plans, these resorts subjected their guests to daily wellness procedures, such as massages and mineral baths.” A spa. We call that a spa break here in the decadent West. It’s a whole luxury industry thing.
avodonosov 3y ago
I haven't finished the text, but it's a bad write up. The author tries to make it impressive, and for that brings unneeded speculations. > Failing to applaud a speech by Joseph Stalin could get a person arrested. So could listening to bootlegged copy of the Beatles. The Beatles were published in USSR officially, as well as many other western artists. At least in late USSR. I still have many those vinyl discs. In earlier years, when my father was young, he and his friends had all rock records: Beatles, Creedence, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, everything. Without any problems. Stalin and the Beatles are two different ages. Also, life in USSR was not always the same during its existence. > That fact drove Soviet policy toward time off.. No evidence is given, what driven the policy. That's just a speculation. > As the country industrialized, it became evident workers needed time away from the job if they were to remain productive when they were on it. What? That had always been evident. Rest and free time was a theme of socialist movements all over the world long before the October Revolution. > Following this train of thought, hardliners feared... I always love when journalists have telepathic abilities. Not only they know what people do, but also what they think and feel. > They also believed that, once the science of work systems had been perfected, workers would no longer need rest, rendering time off obsolete. Really? A reference is needed. Vacation time was only growing with years. As far as I understand, the ideology was that with time the growing work efficiency will give more and more free time to workers. In short, in this text true facts are mixed to produce some bullshit picture of the author's fantasy. Journalism.
- bscphil 3y ago
  > Failing to applaud a speech by Joseph Stalin could get a person arrested. So could listening to bootlegged copy of the Beatles. Moreover, Stalin died in 1953. The Beatles were not even formed until 1960. It's fair too sweeping a way to paint a picture of a very complicated country.
cosmodisk 3y ago
I'll add to the list: The closes my dad ever was to 'travelling abroad' during the soviet occupation was when they filled up a bus and went to Yugoslavia. He knew everyone on the bus except a couple of guys who showed up last minute and sat in the front row of the bus all the time. It was quite of a journey for him at the time, because he mentioned it at least hundred times when we were growing up.
CalChris 3y ago
I worked for Olivetti in Milan and Ivrea the mid/late 80s. In particular, that was before the wall came down. When I landed at Malpensa in Milan for the first time, I noticed there was an Aeroflot airliner parked on the tarmac. This seemed odd to me. Why would someone want to fly from Milan to the USSR? Olivetti was a massive (at the time) paternal Italian company. It had a department called Gestione Varie, miscellaneous management, which handled various things including vacations and sports programs for Olivetti employees. Among the many vacation packages offered were very reasonably priced summer vacations to Leningrad.
- rospaya 3y ago
  Did you read the Misterious Affair at Olivetti? What did you think about it? I don't buy the conspiracy part but liked the rest. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/544552/the-mysterious-affair-at-olivetti-by-meryle-secrest/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/544552/the-mysterio...
- penneallagricia 3y ago
  > I worked for Olivetti in Milan and Ivrea the mid/late 80s. Really interesting, you're the first I meet that has. Olivetti still has a stellar reputation in Italy, disliked by other enterpreneurs and (so they say) loved by his employees. What's sure is that the work conditions were really progressive and I think still unparalleled today, at least in Italy. Do you have any anecdote or interesting fact to share about your time there?
  - CalChris 3y ago
    The typewriter factory in Ivrea was ... a typewriter factory. Yeah, I worked on compilers but the building still built typewriters. I was there for a month before I was "allowed" to go to lunch by myself for fear of getting lost. The main hotel in town, the Hotel La Serra, is shaped like a ... typewriter. The Brigate Rosse was a threat when I was there and Adriano Olivetti was very afraid of them. You'd never see him. If you drove at night you were likely to be pulled over by the Carabinieri and have a machine gun stuck in your stomach while they figured out who you were. Everyone was on edge. But it was a cool time. Ivrea was a company town and I think if I wanted to dial the Olivetti operator from my apartment I dialed 6. But taking a shower meant getting up at 4am so that there would be enough water pressure.
obscurette 3y ago
I lived half of my life in Soviet Union and would say that this article is simplification with sources more from instate propaganda than from reality. The article basically describes russian upper middle class (yes, there were classes within soviet society) after WWII. Most of people couldn't even dream about Sochi. Soviet Union was huge and differences between regions, classes, nationalities etc were very much there. The life of intelligence in Moscow was very different from the life of intelligence in Baltic republics or the life of farmer in Central-Asia republics etc. Even in seventies it was common that people in many regions weren't even allowed to move from their hometown or village.
- whitemary 3y ago
  > there were classes within soviet society Karl Marx's definition of communism was literally "a classless society"
  - lnsru 3y ago
    That’s why soviet union had communism written on the facade and caste system inside. Party members had every luxury westerners had. And stupid dissidents silently disappeared to some far far away places behind Arctic circle.
    - ymolodtsov 3y ago
      I wouldn't say they had everything, but they surely had more. It's basically like in 1984. If nobody has chocolate and you have a little, you already feel richer.
      - lnsru 3y ago
        I am king if I have original Levi’s jeans :-)
  - int_19h 3y ago
    Soviet Union never claimed to actually be communist - it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, after all. Communism was supposed to be that thing that'll eventually happen after you had socialism for long enough for the "new type" of people to emerge. The Soviet joke about it went, "communism is like the horizon: an imaginary line that is always the same distance away as you walk towards it".
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
> "In the Soviet Union, the government regulated almost every aspect of life. Censors decided which books could be published. Comedians had to submit material for approval before they could step behind a mic. Failing to applaud a speech by Joseph Stalin could get a person arrested. So could listening to bootlegged copy of the Beatles." Its amazing how the author feels the need to parrot these hysterics in order to write an article about how Soviet workers generally had far more leisure time and opportunity compared to western contemporaries. Imagine starting an article about sockhops in the 50's with: >"In the United States, the government regulated racial boundaries with strict enforcement. Slavery was over but vagrancy charges were regularly used to traffic southern blacks to northern coal mines to work for no pay in dangerous conditions. Entertainers were getting called in front of the Anti-American Activities Committees for donating to civil rights bail funds. Failing to support the war in Korea could have you black listed from any real career. > But you had dance halls" Absolutely insane.
GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
If you're 18 or older you can experience a similar thing in the US. Join the Navy

246 points by onychomys 3y ago

Happy May Day! Here's a Twitter thread [0] that has excerpts/paraphrases from an old Soviet pamphlet called "How Soviet Workers Spend Their Leisure." (rolled up version [1]) You can find a scanned version of the pamphlet here [2]. There were many of these pamphlets published. One day I will scan them and post them. There was one on Waterways & Transport in the USSR, one about Soviet theater, one about the food industry in the USSR, one about light industries of the USSR, and one about the countryside of past and present of the USSR. I think these were a series published in 1939. Article 119 of the Soviet Constitution: > ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. > > The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people. 'Sanatoria' being health/medical centers or hospitals. [0]: https://twitter.com/REVMAXXING/status/1594499770990608385 https://twitter.com/REVMAXXING/status/1594499770990608385 [1]: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1594499770990608385.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1594499770990608385.html [2]: https://digital.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/show/4595#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-332%2C-1%2C1064%2C600 https://digital.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/show/4595#?c=...

HideousKojima 3y ago
Sounds similar to how the Chinese constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech.
ahelwer 3y ago
Prolonged periods of time spent without obligation to work for pay is one of the greatest luxuries you can have in this life. People shouldn't have to wait until retirement to enjoy it. Sabbatical, basically, although even sabbatical often comes with obligations for self-improvement serving the company offering it. A lot of discourse on working hours revolves around decreasing the hours worked per week. I would also like to see people talk about a right to take 6-12 months of unstructured leave after 3-4 years of service. Seems unrealistic? What is all this wealth and automation and productivity growth for, then?
- arsome 3y ago
  > What is all this wealth and automation and productivity growth for, then? Why, more wealth and automation and productivity growth to no end of course.
  - explorer83 3y ago
    I know all of these things sound nice. But in the real world a lot of businesses aren't making the kind of profit that allows workers to just take time off and not generate any revenue for the company. Sure there are some that could pull it off. But most small businesses aren't making that kind of profit. Unless you are assuming workers are supposed to take unpaid time off. But then how are they going to afford to take time off?
    - hkt 3y ago
      If your business can't pay its bills without forgoing its legal and moral responsibilities, it has failed.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        If it can't for any reason, it's failed. The problem is the more things you pile on, the harder it gets. The main point of a business, and the main good it does, is not employing people. It's what goods or services it provides its customers, at a lower price. If you moralise and add more things for a business to do, the big ones will do some performative stuff and spend their vast marketing budgets on it, and the small ones will go under, and we all lose because we get less choice and higher prices.
      - explorer83 3y ago
        Not really. It could be a new business that is only a few years old and is still trying to grow and become the type of business can afford these. Or an established business that lost a major client. Your viewpoint is really limited.
    - ivan_gammel 3y ago
uristohkrat 3y ago
[flagged]
- ahelwer 3y ago
  We do have that, it's called the global south under neocolonialism.
  - TheGigaChad 3y ago
    [dead]
- onion2k 3y ago
  In a very literal sense, most countries and especially the USA, do have that pool of labor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex#Prison_labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_comp...
  - HideousKojima 3y ago
    Prison labor != Political prisoner labor
    - benmanns 3y ago
      To some extent, the war on drugs is a war on minorities is a political war on the left.
      - Forbo 3y ago
        The down voting of the parent is wholly unjustified. This is a factual reality that has already taken place and continues on to this day. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
vondur 3y ago
Did the Soviet government actually follow the Constitution of The USSR? I believe it also mentioned freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly, all of which seemed to be ignored.
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  >Did the Soviet government actually follow the Constitution of The USSR The Soviet Union did allow some internal dissent and freedom of speech from 1985 to 1991. That might have accelerated its downfall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost
  - sidewndr46 3y ago
    I seem to remember a similar thing happening under Mao for a brief period of time, followed by a near total crackdown on anyone who had decided to speak up.
- flowerbreeze 3y ago
  I think more accurate would be to say it allowed freedom from expression, freedom from religion and freedom from assembly. Unless in the service of the communist party of course.
  - lb1lf 3y ago
    A former colleague of mine, born and raised in the USSR, liked to quip that there was only one minor difference in the way freedom of expression was implemented in the USSR and in the West. Both places guaranteed the freedom to express oneself, but only the West guaranteed your freedom also after you'd expressed yourself.
    - lovecg 3y ago
      “In America we have freedoms. I can stand in front of the White House and shout, ‘President Truman is a moron!’” “Big deal, it’s the same here. I can also stand in the middle of the Red Square and shout ‘President Truman is a moron’”.
martythemaniak 3y ago
As always, the gap between reality and propaganda is hilarious. Soviet workers and their colonized subjects spent their leisure time filling in for the massive failures of the state to provide anything resembling their promises. Some excerpts from my childhood: * Family outing to the fields to harvest carrots to pickle for the winter. This would be bartered with other families who went to harvest other veggies, so that your turshia would not be too monotonous. * Going to my friend's apartment to roasting and canning peppers, because no one has to money to buy the factory made stuff. And if you did, you still wouldn't want such poor quality. * Helping my dad unload window frames for firewood. He worked at a window factory and was able to redirect a small truck full of finished wooden frames, which we could break down and burn for heat over the winter. Sure, it would have made more sense to buy actual firewood or coal rather than steal finished industrial output, but you can't afford that on a regular salary. And it would have made even more sense to offer district heating, and the government had such plans, but you'd freeze long before this became a reality. Eventually we did get district heating - about 6 years after communism fell.
- t-3 3y ago
  Not exactly different from my parents experiences growing up in the US, where "summer vacation" was a trip to uncle's farm to detassel corn or pick cotton, hunting to get meat, etc.
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    Yep, all of my vacations growing up were either hunting or fishing trips. While getting out in nature is nice, when you take your kids out on a boat for 10h / day because you haven't caught enough fish it very quickly stops feeling like a vacation and more like work.
- lawrenci 3y ago
  These examples highlight the deficiencies of the Soviet economy, and it's evident that such failures caused considerable suffering among the population. Nevertheless, given more time to engage in activities akin to the first two examples, and separated from the threat of malnourishment, I believe I would experience greater happiness and a stronger connection to both my food and community. Through shared struggle, bartering, and communal work, we can create a sense of connection that is absent from the isolation brought about by specialization, which, although more economically efficient, also contributes to the social problems present in western society.
lp0_on_fire 3y ago
the Soviet citizen also had “freedom of expression” and the right to freedom of speech and to redress the government. That this farce of a “constitution” is being quoted without irony on hacker news astounds me.
andrewmutz 3y ago
I clicked through to the twitter account that posted the tweetthread and it does not seem like the most reliable source of information.
- clnq 3y ago
  The information presented by the quote and JSTOR is accurate, at least insofar as it reveals that a significant number of individuals in USSR went on either tourist tours or sanatoria each year for rejuvenation. In the 90s, state sanatoria maintained their popularity in post-Soviet countries. To this day, travel agencies in some of these nations primarily focus on two types of journeys: relaxation and "learning" holidays. This deeply ingrained cultural practice persists throughout the region. I don't know how many and which groups of people went on annual holidays in the USSR, but I know it wasn't an insignificant number from what I've observed living there as a kid.

atemerev 3y ago

The Soviet economy was somewhat surreal and it is difficult to explain it well to the Western audience. Including vacations, vacation tickets («путёвки»), summer camps, sanatoriums and the like. I still remember some parts though, so if you are interested in how it worked, I can answer your questions. Most definitely it wasn't all that rosy.

Aaronstotle 3y ago
My grandparents and my father grew up in the Soviet Union. I always find it fascinating hearing about my grandparent's childhood and what it was like to grow up there. One anecdote for not all rosy: My father is permanently traumatized because he had to get his tonsils removed when he was young and they didn't give him any anesthetics.
- helge9210 3y ago
  > they didn't give him any anesthetics This is a description of the most of the Soviet health services. For example, dentists were using short metal pipe on a thumb when treating kids, so they don't bite or close their mouth.
  - diuddnbsb 3y ago
    >"and there was boy in sewer... and he was eating the rat...and the rat was eating the dog...and the dog was eating me...but i was runned away... and it was so bad..." >"and then the police shoot the dog...and the dog raped the boy...and then the rat shot the police..." >"and then you have to eated the police...but the dog was eating the rat..." >"and my grandmother ate the police...and the police turned the dog into lampshade....but the rat raped the police...and now my grandmother is dead inside lampshade dog...."
- Toutouxc 3y ago
  I got my (pharyngeal) tonsil removed without anaesthesia, in 2001 I think, as a kid, in the Czech Republic. It didn't hurt at all, but I still remember the loud crunch of the cutting and the whole setup — I sat on one doctor's lap, he grabbed me with his arms around my whole body AND my arms, so I couldn't move at all, and a second doctor did the cutting. It only took a few seconds, there was a lot of blood, but I got many cold drinks and ice-cream in the next few days, so that was good. But I can definitely see someone getting traumatized by this.

danielodievich 3y ago

Growing up in USSR, my mother would take us for a summer in some mountains/vacation destination and work there as a guide. One time in Kandalaksha gulf in White Sea near Murmansk she was a wilderness guide for a few rounds of tourists from elsewhere in Soviet Union for a 8 day hiking in mountains/sailing on the White Sea trip. We had such wide range of people - from experienced outdoors people to the elderly pensioners who were hardly mobile. It was wild, remote with sun endlessly circling and never setting, salmon fishing in rivers/herring fishing in the White Sea. I got to see a nuclear sub float by once, and we came by a remote nuclear-powered remote listening station festooned with antennas, but otherwise it was really remote. Since then and until recently most people go to Turkey, though. White Sea was hypothermia inducing within a minute even in the height of July.

samstave 3y ago
There is so much amazing beauty in the world, including the largest country on the planet, Russia - and then especially areas in China, which I would LOVE to visit, but the governments of each country kinda suck, so its not a place I'll likely go (imagine mtn biking through some of the amazing landscapes of either) With that said, I'd love to hear Lex Fridman's opinion on all of this.
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  It's not difficult to visit China (except that you'll probably have to apply for a visa, but Chinese people have to do that to visit Western countries too). You won't experience much about the government while there. Police aren't really that present in public. Border control is like any other country. The only issue you're likely to run into is the Great Firewall, for which you can just install a VPN before arriving in country. Many Westerners experience a sort of shock when they first visit China, because the dystopia they're expecting to see never materializes.
  - atdrummond 3y ago
    Very much this. The only area where I felt uncomfortable was in Xinjiang, as two friends in that region have effectively been “disappeared”. While I am skeptical of much of what has been written on this topic, due to its obvious use as propaganda, many of the tours I had there reminded me of those in DPRK. There was an obvious level of orchestration designed to show you a face of Xinjiang which lacked any warts.

snickerbockers 3y ago

>It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. maybe it's just because I don't have much of a social circle, but this seems appealing to me.

mantas 3y ago
It was not exactly appealing if husband and wife keeps getting different vacation for years and can't go on vacation together. Bribes would fix that though.
jamilton 3y ago
Yeah, I think this is an experience some people seek out today.
beepbooptheory 3y ago
Agreed. So many articles and discussions these days about how everyone is so lonely and isolated. The article seems to want to imply this system is kind of a bad thing, or at least weird, but I have trouble seeing anything but good things in it.
- Dma54rhs 3y ago
  There are so many possibilities to go on vacations like that where everything is pre-arranged and with strangers. From fancy cruise ships to regular travel company arranged stuff.
  - dubcanada 3y ago
    I think the difference is the forced separation. Most people go with friends, family, groups, what not. If you go alone you are the outsider. Forcing everyone to go by themselves opens up true "stranger" vacations.
- tsukikage 3y ago
  It’s awesome when you’re single, not so appealing once you start a family.

ur-whale 3y ago

[flagged]

atemerev 3y ago
The delta is very much _not_ negligible. Even people’s apartments were not in their property. No private business allowed, all production was government-managed. It is difficult to understand how USSR worked, unless you lived there.
- throwaway426079 3y ago
  Vast numbers of people in the West don't own their own home either. Not really the same as living in the old East since you can choose where you live here, within your budget, but I wanted to highlight that a lot of our freedom ends when the money does.
johlindenbaum 3y ago
Examples?
catiopatio 3y ago
> I'd claim the delta is negligible. … and you’d be demonstrating profound ignorance if you did. I spent six months living in post-Soviet Prague in the late 1990s. The stories I heard were nothing like our existence in a wealthy western democracy.
unethical_ban 3y ago
Who is telling you where to work? What profession you're in? Where you will eat lunch? Who you are allowed to associate with? I order for it to be less confusing, perhaps the article could have said "government prescribed behavior in almost every aspect of life" and I claim the delta is not negligible. Taxation is not theft.
- mantas 3y ago
  Well, to be honest, people were allowed to pick a profession. And you had some wiggle room to pick your placement and change works later on. And you were allowed to drink in your kitchen with whoever you want. Although if KGB noticed you were partying with known dissidents or on certain days (e.g. independence day of the republic that was then occupied by soviets)... you'd be, let's say, cancelled :) Or if you kids had poppy seeds in dental inspection that was accidentally held on christmas day...

sturza 3y ago

The Soviet Union's approach to paid time off (PTO) was unique, as it not only provided workers with time off but also determined how they spent it, often with groups of strangers instead of friends and family. This policy aimed to promote the collective as the most important social unit and provided subsidized vacations to a select number of workers. Although Soviet vacations initially served as team-building exercises, over time, citizens' desire for family vacations increased, challenging the state's policies. The rise of family vacations and personal investment in holidays led to a shift from purposeful production to popular consumption. Soviet vacations played a role in loosening ideological restrictions on freedom, and as travel policies opened the door for political dissent to spread, the government struggled to maintain control over leisure time.

medo-bear 3y ago
chatgpt summary?
- sturza 3y ago
  Yes.
gumballindie 3y ago
[flagged]
- gwright 3y ago
  That is quite the stretch to think those situations are "a bit [a]like".
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    Two sides of the same coin. I know it’s difficult to see it while stuck inside the loop but corporate work is like soviet work with fancy iphones and the illusion of free choice (you can chose as long as the choice is right). The politburo is replaced by the board while the apparatus by management. Conformity and obedience are not just desired are actively encouraged. Spreading corporate propaganda and preventing workers from organising are also shared values. All in all both are systems of oppression with the exception that in free societies you can escape - until of course they find a way to replace people at scale. Then you get sucked back in while the proletariat cheers from the sides.

zelphirkalt 3y ago

PTO = Paid time off, apparently.

falcolas 3y ago
Huh. Is that not common vernacular where you're from?
- guessmyname 3y ago
  > Huh. Is that not common vernacular where you're from? I don’t know about the parent commenter, but I am of the opinion that regardless of how common an abbreviation is, it should always be expanded, unless the circumstances prevent you from doing that. Here, in Hacker News, submissions must have a title with maximum 80 characters, but look at this: 30 characters -> Workers of the World, Take PTO 46 characters -> Workers of the World, Take Paid Time Off (PTO) I can only speculate why the original poster decided to use the abbreviation alone. Wouldn’t you prefer to err on the side of caution and expand abbreviations whenever possible? Particularly in contexts where the audience may not be familiar with the abbreviation or where clarity is particularly important. I believe that expanding abbreviations is a simple but effective way to demonstrate inclusiveness and promote greater understanding and participation in communication, especially in multicultural contexts, like Hacker News, where different people have different levels of familiarity with certain terms.
  - samstave 3y ago
    This is very common in technical documentation, specifically things like RFPs (Request for Proposals) <-- Is to state the acromyn the first time, and expand it and throughout the RFP you can then use the acronym, the real reason this is important is that RFPs --> $MONEY and thus, will be scrutinized by the "penny pinchers" who will lack a lot of domain knowledge being addressed with an RFP for a project. For example, I, as a Director of OPs was constantly educating our CFO on cloud spend, and would have to kind of train him on technical matters while at the same time explaining where all our costs are etc... Or when designing a huge project (I have worked on many projects with budgets over $1 billion) and going through vendor selection processes, where we review the RFPs with the vendors and the finance holders for the project, there are many times when one has to justify telling Mr. Money Bags why simply accepting the cheapest offer is not sufficient. This was actually a type of work, which at the time felt tedious, but now I realize how much I actually liked this aspect of my career.

fweimer 3y ago

> In the West, what you do when you leave the office was and is your own business. In the USSR, it was everyone else’s. Is this actually true? In Germany at least, vacation from work is not truly our own time. We are legally required to use it to relax and restore our capacity for future work. Few people probably see it that way, admittedly. Of course, there is still a huge difference, but it's awkward to view everything through that us-versus-them lens.

justinpombrio 3y ago
What do you mean "legally required"? E.g. is there a law that says that specifically, or a common interpretation of a law that says something vaguer, or a common clause in employment contracts, or were you being metaphorical and it isn't actually legal? I'm from the US, and this sounds very strange to my ears.
- evilspammer 3y ago
  it's more to prevent employers from making you work during vacation
  - fweimer 3y ago
    Literally, it's about preventing taking a second, paid job during vacation from your first employer. So it's not entirely clear whether this is about protecting employers or employees. As far as I know, non-competes for blue collar workers are uncommon (or at least they used to be).
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- izacus 3y ago
  The OP just decided to strangely translate a clause that asks for employees to not demand work during cation (the usual US "I'm still reading my emails") and that they cannot work at another job in that time.

0xDEF 3y ago

It's fascinating how the ideology of Marxism–Leninism (Communism) today is more popular than ever among young people in former capitalist heartlands like the US, Canada and UK. A simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare is all you need to satisfy 90% of people but the elites in the US and the UK refuse to provide that.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bugglebeetle 3y ago
Perhaps young people in the US, UK, and Canada understand that elites will only settle for “a simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare” with the explicit threat of Communism? Historically, that seems to have been the case.
- oriolid 3y ago
  I think the process goes something like this: Conservative parent/teacher/etc: "So you want free education and healthcare for everyone, are you some kind of communist or what?" Young person, after reading the philosophy textbook chapter about Marx and ignoring a lot of history: "I guess I am one then"
- int_19h 3y ago
  Why would young people from UK and Canada think that, given that they already have a European-style welfare state with universal healthcare? Canada actually pushes it further than most of Europe with their single-payer healthcare system that effectively prohibits private coverage for things covered by the public system. Canadians of all people also ought to remember how they got their system, which was by voting[1] for parties that supported it in elections. It had basically nothing to do with threat of communism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_elec...
kfrzcode 3y ago
[flagged]

pierat 3y ago

Sigh, that's not always easy with many of the people here with "unlimited PTO" without guaranteed minimums. Most of the unlimited clauses are based on manager approval. The base HR justification for unlimited PTO is to not have to pay out unused PTO when they leave. Naturally, it sounds good on face, but leads to less PTO taken due to inherent worries of "how much is too much", lack of manager approval, and the like. I reject companies that force 'unlimited' PTO. I demand a minimum hard number in place on the offer letter. I've turned down places for that reason. I work in a place that offers 20 days plus all federal holidays. It's a good compromise, but I'd prefer more.

kfrzcode 3y ago
20 + 10 = one full calendar month (that's 6 business weeks) of work. You're asking for more than six weeks per year where you can just get paid for not working. Sure, there's plenty of holistic value-add to being a well rested, happy employee, but if the difference for your happiness and well-being is somewhere above having six weeks of paid vacation (plus assumed sick days as needed for actual sicknesses) and getting paid for doing nothing. . . what's that quantitative number, and how did you arrive there? If your job is so stressful that the aforementioned six weeks plus sick days is not enough vacation for you to recuperate, you're likely underpaid, in the wrong field, or something else is driving your discontent. I'd suggest using your PTO to do some introspection and accounting for where those capacities may be needing some care.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  Honestly, your suggestion that the desire for more time off must be caused by some mental problem is pretty rude. I also don't understand why is it such a mystery that people might want to pursue other interests than just work and that requires time off work. Here in Europe, 20+10 is the bare minimum, with most people getting more and still striving for more.
  - kfrzcode 3y ago
    I'll concede rudeness as it's perceptive and not intrinsic in this case; I apologize for the timbre of my approach. My stance is more of one rooted in individualism and self-advocation, i.e. if you're dedicated to a job that's considered a full time commitment, that's the social construct. We're not in a society post-labor, idealistic techtopia yet, and that transition if it occurs will be painful and bloated. The reality is if you want the future of work when, how, where you want, then you have to recognize, admit and accept that your mental model of "employee/employer" relationship has to shift. You must not be the one exchanging what you are claiming to be your most precious asset - unburdened time - to the employer. There is no sense in continuing to enslave yourself to the constructs of yore. It is, ostensibly, within your control and power to become the master of your domain. Of course, this is going to look very catered to your particular requirements and value-adding skillsets.... do you have a set of diverse skills that can be leveraged into one-to-many income streams? Why should the organization, that which agrees to give you quite a generous offer by any standard on a global measure, be responsible for ensuring the rest of your life is as you desire? You are the captain of the ship on this journey, only you are in control of the choices you make. Truth is if your employer wanted to you be happy they would give you a full pension and send you on your way. They want your labor, intelligence, work product, but it's all the same. They want your TIME. Build businesses. Choose lifestyles that reduce dependency on extrinsic systemic operational uptime. Expose your raw value to the world as you decide and don't undermine your only static asset in life - time. It's incredible how variable the dollar-amount people set on their hours. . .

neerajk 3y ago

TIL: there exists a 14X miner!

ksherlock 3y ago
The history of Stakhanov's feat, however, tells a somewhat different story. The push for a record on the night of Aug. 30 was, in fact, carefully planned and prepared by the Communist Party organization of the Tsentralnaya-Irmino mine in the Donets basin. The mines, short of skilled workers and machinery, were failing to produce their quotas of coal. The party tapped Stakhanov, a little-educated, hard-working peasant-turned-miner, to set a record that would become an inspiration and example. Konstantin G. Petrov, the chief of the mine's party organization, recalled that Stakhanov's wife strenuously resisted his attempt to make her husband a hero until she was silenced with the gift of a cow. To increase Stakhanov's chances, the pattern of work was changed to free him from his usual task of shoring up the tunnel as he dug into the seam. Instead, two timberers followed after him, and Mr. Petrov himself held a light to the coal-face. What Stakhanov did, to be sure, was still impressive, especially with the unreliable jackhammers of those days. Contemporaries described the big miner wrestling his hammer for hours, coal dust choking his throat and nose and grinding between his teeth. ''I suppose Stakhanov need not have been the first,'' said Mr. Petrov in an interview several years ago. ''It could have been anybody else. In the final analysis it was not the individual face-worker who determined whether the attempt to break the record would succeed, but the new system of coal extraction. https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/31/world/in-soviet-eager-beaver-s-legend-works-overtime.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/31/world/in-soviet-eager-bea...

zvmaz 3y ago

In the past, a was skeptical of writings describing totalitarian societies/states, especially since it was often politically motivated. Until becoming a subject of one. Edit: I am curious as to why I get downvoted. Is it a political trope in a particular country to say that one lives in a totalitarian society/state? A rhetorical ploy? I use it in a literal sense: no freedom of expression, no freedom of the press, jailed political opponents and journalists, criminalization of political movements, jailed citizens for saying thinks on Facebook, jailed citizens for having been in a protest, the constant threat of prison for almost any trifle...

selimthegrim 3y ago
And what coup happened in your country?
mym1990 3y ago
[flagged]
- zvmaz 3y ago
  I am not from the west. Now I think I understand why I get downvoted.
  - vorpalhex 3y ago
    Don't pay too much attention to scores on HN, they mean very little. Usually over 24 hours or so things will normalize anyways.
  - mym1990 3y ago
    Actually not sure why you got downvoted, I was just making a snarky comment, I deserve it haha
WC3w6pXxgGd 3y ago
[dead]

DubiousPusher 3y ago

This is great. I've been interested in understanding how the Soviet economy worked for a long time. I've found only a handful of articles like this one. Unless you're willing to delve into hardcore economic academic papers (I am not) it's hard to get an actual informed perspective. Most Googling around will basically return you the rote response that it basically didn't work. Which, despite the many issues with the Soviet economy, is obviously not true.

bananaoomarang 3y ago
I found Zubok's recent book 'Collapse' to be quite informative in this regard if you haven't read it, not exactly what you are looking for but in the first half it deals with Gorbechev's economic reforms and there is some fairly detailed discussion of the economy and how it functioned.
izacus 3y ago
It's probably the language barrier - anything English is basically one-sided cold war propaganda repeated ad nauseam. Anything more detailed tends to be Russian, German or generally Eastern European since US literature tends to not care about more detailed looks into how the country worked besides repeating the same lines about food queues and other cliches. (And that makes sense, we tend to focus on our own country and environment.)
century19 3y ago
BAM is an interesting case. One of the largest engineering projects of the 20th century, and they had to convince volunteers to join. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal%E2%80%93Amur_Mainline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal%E2%80%93Amur_Mainline
quacked 3y ago
> Which, despite the many issues with the Soviet economy, is obviously not true. The first thing I hear from any ex-Soviet who grew up in the USSR is how their lives were impacted by the constant shortages and censorship of issues with the supply chain. There's a classic joke from the USSR that goes: "Comrade, aren't you excited for when the USA finally falls?" "No, who will we buy our grain from?" Another one: "Isn't it true that the USA is rotting from within?" "Yes, but what a smell!" Millions of people in the USSR starved to death, and their consumer tech was among the most unreliable and poorly-made available internationally. This despite Soviet mathematicians and engineers being among the finest and hardest-working on the planet. They could only just overcome the constraints that the centrally-governed economy placed on them. The only notable exception is military hardware, which was actually funded. What do you mean "it's obviously not true [that the Soviet economy didn't work]"?

boveus 3y ago

>It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. This can actually work out well. I experienced something similar in the US while on vacation. I was traveling with someone from Glenwood Springs, CO to Denver, CO via Amtrak. We went to the dining car for lunch an since there were two of us and space is at a premium, the Amtrak policy was to seat us with one or two random strangers. We sat and had lunch with an oil executive and someone's grandmother and it was quite an interesting experience and we got to meet two strangers. It was actually a highlight of that train trip. I feel like the experience of having unplanned social interactions with strangers is often missing in modern American life. I don't know if the Soviet style of assigning vacation groups via a worker's committee would be pleasant, but I can't help but think things would be better if we had more situations where we are "forced" to engage with strangers.

dfxm12 3y ago
It's more common even in the west than it seems like people realize. I've been on a bunch of vacations with strangers. From companies who offer tours of Italy, etc., bus day/overnight trips to somewhere sorta locally, cruises, etc.
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  This happens all the time when traveling, on cruise ships, at national parks etc.
ActorNightly 3y ago
This is a very good idea for teenagers and younger adults to break them out of the online world. For working class though, its probably best not to force people to socialize. The thing that doesn't get talked enough about in socialization is that its not all positive, and people have different tolerance to each others bullshit.
- jedberg 3y ago
  As long as it's a situation where you can opt out of further interactions, it's no so bad. You meet, you decide if you want to keep talking, and then move on.

BigCryo 3y ago

A neoliberal rat race to the bottom, if you can keep it

FpUser 3y ago

>"The Soviet Union's approach to paid time off (PTO) was unique, as it not only provided workers with time off but also determined how they spent it" Utter bullshit. I was able to travel to every part of USSR (except of course restricted areas and abroad) during my vacation time without any problems. USSR had gobbles of big problems and general lack of freedom but vacations were not part. As a matter of fact I spent more vacation time in more places than the average North American. Yes if one wanted they could join some semi-/organized form but there was nothing mandatory about it.

tsukikage 3y ago
The article focuses on early/mid century, less on the 80s/90s. It doesn’t mention dacha villages either.
- FpUser 3y ago
  You might include 70s as well. I do not have personal experience on how it was before. As for "focuses" - then it is not an article but a piece of propaganda. Hence it has a deserved place in a trash.
legitster 3y ago
I think there is not a distinction being made between "time-off" and "vacation" - the author seems to be focused entirely on travel destinations and resorts.
- mantas 3y ago
  There was no distinction between time-off and vacation in USSR either.
ivan_gammel 3y ago
You are right with your disagreement, because the article starts quite sensational with this phrase and does not make it clear enough how different was USSR in different times. It is a typical mistake that many Western writers and readers make to judge Soviet Union based on Stalinism, NEP or Perestroika. Yet as the story in the article develops, you can find there that there was indeed some freedom about travel in Soviet Union. It is unfortunate that it does not cover all aspects of Soviet tourism and the rich culture around it.

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

There are a bunch of zoomers out there who un-ironically claim Communism is the ideal way of life. I've worked with some of them. I still can't fathom what's going on in their brains.

vkou 3y ago
There's a bunch (Well, a lot) of people at all ages who unironically think that we've reached some kind of end of history, and that our current state of society resembles some kind of maximum. They are generally unable to engage with good-faith criticisms of the parts of it that don't work. Don't let it get to you.
lawn 3y ago
And there's a lot of people who dream about going back to the Soviet glory days. And with how the war against Ukraine is going, Russia is on a fast track to relive those memories.
bequanna 3y ago
One explanation I've found pretty accurate: When the young start to become educated (late teens, early 20's) they face the realization that they will be entering the world on the bottom of the economic totem pole. There are two primary responses to this: 1. Realize that the real world is competitive and difficult and much self-improvement and hard work will be needed to thrive. These people put their heads down and get to work. 2. Refusal to address the truth of #1. Frame the real world as some unwinnable game to avoid putting in the required effort to succeed. Distract yourself with structural problems (real or imaginary) far too big for you to have any effect on but keep you from the painful self-improvement that is really needed. Communism preys on the people who are susceptible to the second path.
- medvezhenok 3y ago
  Sort of. I think it's more nuanced than that. Communism rebalances the relative worth of people in society. I.e. my grandfather, an engineer, earned less than a factory worker. An average or passing artist could earn a decent living in the Soviet Union, compared to having scraps today (in relative terms). I notice this calculus as I have an artistic career and a software career. I would like to pursue the artistic career (and am actually pretty good at it), but I would make many multiples less than I currently do in software. This is partly because of how we've financialized/structured the economy (i.e. software monopolies should have been broken up, taxes imposed, etc), not because the work is actually worth less in some sense.

tsukikage 3y ago

“Designed to refresh and reenergize workers for upcoming Five-Year-Plans, these resorts subjected their guests to daily wellness procedures, such as massages and mineral baths.” A spa. We call that a spa break here in the decadent West. It’s a whole luxury industry thing.

avodonosov 3y ago

I haven't finished the text, but it's a bad write up. The author tries to make it impressive, and for that brings unneeded speculations. > Failing to applaud a speech by Joseph Stalin could get a person arrested. So could listening to bootlegged copy of the Beatles. The Beatles were published in USSR officially, as well as many other western artists. At least in late USSR. I still have many those vinyl discs. In earlier years, when my father was young, he and his friends had all rock records: Beatles, Creedence, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, everything. Without any problems. Stalin and the Beatles are two different ages. Also, life in USSR was not always the same during its existence. > That fact drove Soviet policy toward time off.. No evidence is given, what driven the policy. That's just a speculation. > As the country industrialized, it became evident workers needed time away from the job if they were to remain productive when they were on it. What? That had always been evident. Rest and free time was a theme of socialist movements all over the world long before the October Revolution. > Following this train of thought, hardliners feared... I always love when journalists have telepathic abilities. Not only they know what people do, but also what they think and feel. > They also believed that, once the science of work systems had been perfected, workers would no longer need rest, rendering time off obsolete. Really? A reference is needed. Vacation time was only growing with years. As far as I understand, the ideology was that with time the growing work efficiency will give more and more free time to workers. In short, in this text true facts are mixed to produce some bullshit picture of the author's fantasy. Journalism.

bscphil 3y ago
> Failing to applaud a speech by Joseph Stalin could get a person arrested. So could listening to bootlegged copy of the Beatles. Moreover, Stalin died in 1953. The Beatles were not even formed until 1960. It's fair too sweeping a way to paint a picture of a very complicated country.

cosmodisk 3y ago

I'll add to the list: The closes my dad ever was to 'travelling abroad' during the soviet occupation was when they filled up a bus and went to Yugoslavia. He knew everyone on the bus except a couple of guys who showed up last minute and sat in the front row of the bus all the time. It was quite of a journey for him at the time, because he mentioned it at least hundred times when we were growing up.

CalChris 3y ago

I worked for Olivetti in Milan and Ivrea the mid/late 80s. In particular, that was before the wall came down. When I landed at Malpensa in Milan for the first time, I noticed there was an Aeroflot airliner parked on the tarmac. This seemed odd to me. Why would someone want to fly from Milan to the USSR? Olivetti was a massive (at the time) paternal Italian company. It had a department called Gestione Varie, miscellaneous management, which handled various things including vacations and sports programs for Olivetti employees. Among the many vacation packages offered were very reasonably priced summer vacations to Leningrad.

rospaya 3y ago
Did you read the Misterious Affair at Olivetti? What did you think about it? I don't buy the conspiracy part but liked the rest. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/544552/the-mysterious-affair-at-olivetti-by-meryle-secrest/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/544552/the-mysterio...
penneallagricia 3y ago
> I worked for Olivetti in Milan and Ivrea the mid/late 80s. Really interesting, you're the first I meet that has. Olivetti still has a stellar reputation in Italy, disliked by other enterpreneurs and (so they say) loved by his employees. What's sure is that the work conditions were really progressive and I think still unparalleled today, at least in Italy. Do you have any anecdote or interesting fact to share about your time there?
- CalChris 3y ago
  The typewriter factory in Ivrea was ... a typewriter factory. Yeah, I worked on compilers but the building still built typewriters. I was there for a month before I was "allowed" to go to lunch by myself for fear of getting lost. The main hotel in town, the Hotel La Serra, is shaped like a ... typewriter. The Brigate Rosse was a threat when I was there and Adriano Olivetti was very afraid of them. You'd never see him. If you drove at night you were likely to be pulled over by the Carabinieri and have a machine gun stuck in your stomach while they figured out who you were. Everyone was on edge. But it was a cool time. Ivrea was a company town and I think if I wanted to dial the Olivetti operator from my apartment I dialed 6. But taking a shower meant getting up at 4am so that there would be enough water pressure.

obscurette 3y ago

I lived half of my life in Soviet Union and would say that this article is simplification with sources more from instate propaganda than from reality. The article basically describes russian upper middle class (yes, there were classes within soviet society) after WWII. Most of people couldn't even dream about Sochi. Soviet Union was huge and differences between regions, classes, nationalities etc were very much there. The life of intelligence in Moscow was very different from the life of intelligence in Baltic republics or the life of farmer in Central-Asia republics etc. Even in seventies it was common that people in many regions weren't even allowed to move from their hometown or village.

whitemary 3y ago
> there were classes within soviet society Karl Marx's definition of communism was literally "a classless society"
- lnsru 3y ago
  That’s why soviet union had communism written on the facade and caste system inside. Party members had every luxury westerners had. And stupid dissidents silently disappeared to some far far away places behind Arctic circle.
  - ymolodtsov 3y ago
    I wouldn't say they had everything, but they surely had more. It's basically like in 1984. If nobody has chocolate and you have a little, you already feel richer.
    - lnsru 3y ago
      I am king if I have original Levi’s jeans :-)
- int_19h 3y ago
  Soviet Union never claimed to actually be communist - it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, after all. Communism was supposed to be that thing that'll eventually happen after you had socialism for long enough for the "new type" of people to emerge. The Soviet joke about it went, "communism is like the horizon: an imaginary line that is always the same distance away as you walk towards it".

MSFT_Edging 3y ago

> "In the Soviet Union, the government regulated almost every aspect of life. Censors decided which books could be published. Comedians had to submit material for approval before they could step behind a mic. Failing to applaud a speech by Joseph Stalin could get a person arrested. So could listening to bootlegged copy of the Beatles." Its amazing how the author feels the need to parrot these hysterics in order to write an article about how Soviet workers generally had far more leisure time and opportunity compared to western contemporaries. Imagine starting an article about sockhops in the 50's with: >"In the United States, the government regulated racial boundaries with strict enforcement. Slavery was over but vagrancy charges were regularly used to traffic southern blacks to northern coal mines to work for no pay in dangerous conditions. Entertainers were getting called in front of the Anti-American Activities Committees for donating to civil rights bail funds. Failing to support the war in Korea could have you black listed from any real career. > But you had dance halls" Absolutely insane.

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago

If you're 18 or older you can experience a similar thing in the US. Join the Navy