5 ms·

> I don’t think there was a huge difference in lifestyle between East and West Europe for most people until the late 60’s / early 70’s For what it's worth, the

> I don’t think there was a huge difference in lifestyle between East and West Europe for most people until the late 60’s / early 70’s For what it's worth, the difference was huge. At the consumer, daily-grind kind of level the whole country was basically living just above the poverty level. Very few struggled, but the quality of things was shit as was their availability. Those who lived well and had access to the luxuries were still barely on par with the middle Western class. The only way up the ladder was through the party line, which required faking belief in the bright communist future in order to advance. It also restricted what you could and couldn't say, even if the truth was blatantly obvious. Everyone knew that everyone was faking it and that left a profound imprint on generations of people. It wasn't 1984 exactly, but it wasn't that far off either.

yogthos 3y ago
That's just completely false. Here's some actual research comparing quality of life between USSR and the west. Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth. * https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50... Study demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time: * https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1 A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life: * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amjph00269-0055.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amj... This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development. * https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  > levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life If this study really has that result then it collides pretty hard with the experience of people who actually lived there (like me having grown up in Eastern Germany). TBF, East Germany did have a pretty good health care system, which in turn may lead to a life expectancy similar to other countries at the time, but at the same time the level of environmental pollution was (literally) breathtaking. And for 'real-socialist' standards, East Germany was still pretty well off, but at best comparable with poor capitalist European countries like Portugal or Greece. Also, you simply cannot trust any public data about socialist countries from that time, because those numbers are almost certainly sugarcoated and had little to do with reality (that might at least partly explain how those studies above come to those 'unbelievable' results).
  - sireat 3y ago
    Those studies would have to explain why for 40 some years care packages (clothing, food items, small household goods, etc) sent from emigrees in the West to relatives left behind in Soviet sphere were highly prized in the black market. I don't think there were any care packages sent the other way around from USSR to US.. Although my father did a brisk trade trading Soviet records for Western records via western penpals - eventually bartering enough Western records for the highly prized Lada car. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAZ-2101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAZ-2101
  - yogthos 3y ago
    I grew up in USSR and it doesn't collide with my experience in the slightest. Nor does it collide with experience people report in polling after getting to live under both communism and capitalism. * A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country's economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country's switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary's integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/04/28/hungary-better-off-under-communism/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/04/28/hungary-bet... * The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied. https://web.archive.org/web/20210825152314/http://www.balkanalysis.com/romania/2011/12/27/in-romania-opinion-polls-show-nostalgia-for-communism/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210825152314/http://www.balkan... * Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an "illegitimate state." In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-... * A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -"during the time of socialism". The survey focused on the respondents' views on the transition "from socialism to capitalism", and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito. The standard of living during Tito's rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as "more or less the same". 45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 per cent selected present-day institutions. https://balkaninsight.com/2010/12/24/for-simon-poll-serbians-unsure-who-runs-their-country/ https://balkaninsight.com/2010/12/24/for-simon-poll-serbians... * 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say-soviet-era-was-greatest-time-in-countrys-history-poll-a69735 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say...
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  Stalins reign was one of the largest genocides in human history. Torture, starvation, slave labour, execution, was the fate for millions upon millions of innocent people. The horrors of Stalins regime is beyond any imagination and you can easily look it up if you wish. Think about what kind of spiritual dammage you are doing upon yourself with the lies you are trying to convince yourself and others of. That damage can be irrevocable.
  - yogthos 3y ago
    Meanwhile in the real world, Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world: * https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/ https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-prop... * https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/ https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequa... USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%: * http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm * http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm * http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960's, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Uni... * https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition: * https://www.scribd.com/document/430076844/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5-pdf https://www.scribd.com/document/430076844/CIA-RDP84B00274R00... * https://artir.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/compar1.png?w=640 https://artir.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/compar1.png?w=640 USSR moved from 58.5-hour work weeks to 41.6 hour work weeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960: * https://books.google.com/books?id=x8JYjwEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books?id=x8JYjwEACAAJ * https://b-ok.cc/book/2669908/77497f https://b-ok.cc/book/2669908/77497f USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996: * https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.p... * https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
- huhtenberg 3y ago
  > That's just completely false. Lol, no, it's not "completely false". There are academic papers and there are realities of life under the Soviet rule. Life was substantially shittier than on the West and you didn't need a slide ruler and statistical analysis to see that. It doesn't mean that it wasn't improving, but the focus of the state was, as others already said, on the industrial development rather than on consumer goods and services, leading to various curious facts such as the lack of mass-produced toilet paper until late 1960s. PQL that.
chiph 3y ago
People went to extraordinary lengths to escape. Here's a group swimming across the Spree river, with a police boat trying to stop them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E > Everyone knew that everyone was faking it I think that's what ultimately did them in - the fundamental dishonesty in the system as everyone told lies about their productivity. And this happened all the way up the reporting line, so any amount that was claimed above the plan got magnified. By the time the numbers arrived at Gosplan, Soviet farmers were the most productive in the world (despite widespread hunger).

yogthos 3y ago

That's just completely false. Here's some actual research comparing quality of life between USSR and the west. Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth. * https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.50... Study demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time: * https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1 A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life: * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amjph00269-0055.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amj... This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development. * https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/

flohofwoe 3y ago
> levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life If this study really has that result then it collides pretty hard with the experience of people who actually lived there (like me having grown up in Eastern Germany). TBF, East Germany did have a pretty good health care system, which in turn may lead to a life expectancy similar to other countries at the time, but at the same time the level of environmental pollution was (literally) breathtaking. And for 'real-socialist' standards, East Germany was still pretty well off, but at best comparable with poor capitalist European countries like Portugal or Greece. Also, you simply cannot trust any public data about socialist countries from that time, because those numbers are almost certainly sugarcoated and had little to do with reality (that might at least partly explain how those studies above come to those 'unbelievable' results).
- sireat 3y ago
  Those studies would have to explain why for 40 some years care packages (clothing, food items, small household goods, etc) sent from emigrees in the West to relatives left behind in Soviet sphere were highly prized in the black market. I don't think there were any care packages sent the other way around from USSR to US.. Although my father did a brisk trade trading Soviet records for Western records via western penpals - eventually bartering enough Western records for the highly prized Lada car. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAZ-2101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAZ-2101
- yogthos 3y ago
  I grew up in USSR and it doesn't collide with my experience in the slightest. Nor does it collide with experience people report in polling after getting to live under both communism and capitalism. * A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country's economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country's switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary's integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/04/28/hungary-better-off-under-communism/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/04/28/hungary-bet... * The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied. https://web.archive.org/web/20210825152314/http://www.balkanalysis.com/romania/2011/12/27/in-romania-opinion-polls-show-nostalgia-for-communism/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210825152314/http://www.balkan... * Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an "illegitimate state." In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-... * A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -"during the time of socialism". The survey focused on the respondents' views on the transition "from socialism to capitalism", and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito. The standard of living during Tito's rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as "more or less the same". 45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 per cent selected present-day institutions. https://balkaninsight.com/2010/12/24/for-simon-poll-serbians-unsure-who-runs-their-country/ https://balkaninsight.com/2010/12/24/for-simon-poll-serbians... * 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say-soviet-era-was-greatest-time-in-countrys-history-poll-a69735 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say...
carlosjobim 3y ago
Stalins reign was one of the largest genocides in human history. Torture, starvation, slave labour, execution, was the fate for millions upon millions of innocent people. The horrors of Stalins regime is beyond any imagination and you can easily look it up if you wish. Think about what kind of spiritual dammage you are doing upon yourself with the lies you are trying to convince yourself and others of. That damage can be irrevocable.
- yogthos 3y ago
  Meanwhile in the real world, Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world: * https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/ https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-prop... * https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/ https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequa... USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%: * http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm * http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm * http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960's, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Uni... * https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition: * https://www.scribd.com/document/430076844/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5-pdf https://www.scribd.com/document/430076844/CIA-RDP84B00274R00... * https://artir.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/compar1.png?w=640 https://artir.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/compar1.png?w=640 USSR moved from 58.5-hour work weeks to 41.6 hour work weeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960: * https://books.google.com/books?id=x8JYjwEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books?id=x8JYjwEACAAJ * https://b-ok.cc/book/2669908/77497f https://b-ok.cc/book/2669908/77497f USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996: * https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.p... * https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
huhtenberg 3y ago
> That's just completely false. Lol, no, it's not "completely false". There are academic papers and there are realities of life under the Soviet rule. Life was substantially shittier than on the West and you didn't need a slide ruler and statistical analysis to see that. It doesn't mean that it wasn't improving, but the focus of the state was, as others already said, on the industrial development rather than on consumer goods and services, leading to various curious facts such as the lack of mass-produced toilet paper until late 1960s. PQL that.

chiph 3y ago

People went to extraordinary lengths to escape. Here's a group swimming across the Spree river, with a police boat trying to stop them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E > Everyone knew that everyone was faking it I think that's what ultimately did them in - the fundamental dishonesty in the system as everyone told lies about their productivity. And this happened all the way up the reporting line, so any amount that was claimed above the plan got magnified. By the time the numbers arrived at Gosplan, Soviet farmers were the most productive in the world (despite widespread hunger).