There were posts in the Top where people recalled what was bad and good in the USSR. There are a lot of comets there. At the same time, it must be taken into account that most of the memories were made by young people who lived under socialism only during their childhood. But they, of course, rely not only on their memories, but also on the experience of their parents and grandparents.
To summarize, people in the USSR considered predictability, free education, healthcare, the opportunity to get free housing, very cheap trips to pioneer camps, some products (bread, ice cream, condensed milk, canned meat), some television and radio programs, some films, in general, good things. focus on culture, simpler relationships between people, the opportunity to be proud of your country, love your country, live the same life with it.
Here are some comments that I found funny or typical.
In the USSR, in addition to the population, there were quite a lot of people in the country.
Zadornov was also funny.
Another wonderful radio theater.
And practically free museums.
Yes, a lot of things, including firm confidence in the future - bread will cost 14 kopecks, a bus ticket will cost 85 kopecks. hard and 1 rub. 17 kopecks. soft. Girlfriends, books hard-earned and passed from hand to hand, packed cinemas, etc. and so on.
A sense of meaning and prospects for the life of the country and your life with it.
I remember how, leaving the house in the morning, we ran in the yard until the evening. (these are private houses). We had a lot of games and good times. We didn't fight or really hurt each other. I remember how factories and kindergartens worked in my hometown.
Now there are no children in the yard, my kindergarten is an abandoned building, the factory was demolished and sold for plots for the construction of cottages. We didn’t know a good life then and were still somehow happy. Now we have money, but we can’t say we’re happy, we’re just learning how to do it all over again.
In the USSR they didn’t know that the Westerners were Bandera, and the Donetsk people were cattle
and that the Russians are enemies
the miner was a respected man
and teacher
and military
there was no teenage alcoholism
those who started smoking under the USSR still instinctively hide cigarettes from their elders
there was not so much garbage on the roadsides, in the forest and river banks
The bagels were excellent, for sure. With firm butts.
There were real prospects. It was possible to rise very high. The country was highly intellectual. You get on the train and while you go to Moscow, everyone is reading something. So many scientists, poets, writers. There was a future. Well, in general, like now in the USA.
There was less mutual hatred (at least in the 70s and early 80s). And bottled kefir, of course))
Still, it’s an opportunity for a young specialist to get housing.
A higher education guaranteed a job, a roof over your head and food.
Yes, everything was fine. Who knew it was a scoop?
People were different for the better. If your car broke down on the highway, the cars would stop themselves and offer help.
I was a child, the leaden abominations of life had not yet touched me, and nothing stopped me from loving my country. "Fifteen republics - fifteen sisters" "Moscow is the capital of our Motherland." I had a homeland. I'm trying to convince myself now that my home is planet Earth. But somehow that feeling is not there.
yes, housing and communal services were not half the salary, but almost invisible
everything was done and working
I don’t remember that the water was turned off for 3 months, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, while squealing that the networks are always 146% worn out and the horse tariffs are not enough for anything
Confidence in your future, in the future of your children... Confidence in everything. Goodwill in communicating with any people (even with police officers, if you are not a criminal. A small example. I traveled a lot then. And in any city that was unfamiliar to me, I turned to the police officers and the way to the hotel. or wherever else... WITHOUT PROVIDING DOCUMENTS (!) Try it now (!) They were not divided according to nationality. IT WAS COMFORTABLE TO LIVE!
1. People’s pride in everyday achievements. People respected themselves and they were respected for the fact that they “built an apartment”, “raised two children”, “honestly worked at the factory for 20 years”. Now all this has been trampled. The apartment is where the money comes from, he got a good job and is getting paid in vain, they gave birth to children, idiots work at the factory... It seems to me that internally it is for this feeling that they are nostalgic, not being able to verbalize normally and not understanding that it is precisely in European countries talk quite like this, but they trample on us (((
2. The smell of fresh bread, quickly delivered and not packed in a bag.
The belief that everything is wonderful “over the hill”: honest media, honest politicians who care about the people, a great many great writers who are simply not published here, good relations between people and between countries - and as soon as we, the backward and oppressed, join to this wonderful world... oh, where is that faith?..
Well, I liked the milkshakes for 11 kopecks. And in general, the child had a very good life :))
Workers of art and culture considered it their duty to bring good to people. Teach them something good. This is especially clear in the movies. Compare the good old comedies with modern stupid vysers of former KVN players.
If we summarize the bad things that people remember about the USSR, it would be the ideologization of many aspects of life, forcing people to publicly say out loud what they do not think and thus giving rise to doublethink, commodity shortages, queues, poverty, poor quality of household goods, lack of opportunity to freely travel abroad, lack of opportunity to read, listen and watch some foreign books, music, films.
Some mention the feeling of humiliation that they experienced when they stood in lines, could not purchase quality goods, when they were forced to go to the potato or vegetable warehouse, attend Komsomol meetings, subbotniks, when they had to present a reference somewhere. Dental treatment without anesthesia is mentioned many times as a separate point.
I also remember the last one. I had a doctor who injected painkillers during dental treatment, although usually they were injected only when a tooth was removed. But after one incident he stopped doing this. While being treated for pain by another doctor on a different shift, the patient died of anaphylactic shock. And that first aid kit against such things, which is in every dental office, and the fact that it was an office in a large clinical hospital where there is an intensive care unit - nothing helped. Did not have time. So my doctor stopped injecting painkillers – out of fear. And now they are not afraid. They will ask: “Do you tolerate such and such well?” and inject. As if the patient knows. But now doctors are taking risks. Who was right? It's difficult for me to answer this question. Those who had anaphylactic shock will no longer write a comment.
So, some comments about what was bad in the USSR.
Shortage
the postulate “the adult is always right.” at school, the teacher could slander you in any way, and they would believe him, not you.
Political information and red corners.
forcing collective action and collective consciousness
minimizing personal responsibility
Characteristics from school for admission to a university, exit visas, currency ban, lack of goods (take turns at work for a killer TV, sofa, mixer, etc.), criminal liability with terms of 20 years or more for entrepreneurship.
The most important thing is the old assholes in power (Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorby too), but this, however, remains...
Program "Rural Hour"
At school, essays on Brezhnev's trilogy "Malaya Zemlya", "Renaissance", "Virgin Land", as well as essays on a free topic such as "Komsomol - the faithful assistant of the party."
1. Lack of decent packaging of goods. Cellophane bags were washed and reused, and large bags were sealed with tape where they were torn. In general, a bright package from a foreign supermarket was a wonderful souvenir from the lucky ones who visited overseas.
2. Humiliating lines for everything, plus all sorts of beneficiaries who were served out of turn. And then they immediately resold you what they managed to snatch at a markup.
3. Only WWII participants were allowed to buy VCRs.
4. They were forced to take an interest in politics, all kinds of political information + mandatory attendance at open party meetings for non-party members. They were taught to lie and fake.
technology lag. iron curtain.
Fear, yes. We lived in a scientific dormitory and my parents warned me, when I was still young: that aunt is a snitch, be careful around her, no repeated jokes, don’t say this, don’t say that, it’s better not to tell anyone about this at all.
True, all this is already coming back.
The worst of all the ills of the USSR is the lack of freedom, the humiliation of the individual, the compulsion to active unfreedom, i.e. everyone was obliged to conduct official propaganda of lies, hatred and hypocrisy...
Against the background of such state intervention in the sphere of morality, all other shortcomings do not matter, because they are nothing in comparison with the disfigured morality of an entire people!
Deficit. Lack of intimate hygiene products (sorry for the piquant details) and quality medicines.
Low quality of consumer goods.
one of my worst fears was the fear of the dentist... today I have no teeth of my own - but I got rid of the fear :))))))))
The worst thing was that I had to say one thing and think another
unbearable melancholy, a feeling of the impossibility of humanity
I didn’t notice something - no one seemed to mention registration. It’s almost impossible to move to Moscow or St. Petersburg. Fear of the KGB - yes, but this is rather theoretical. Actual reprisals were rare.
Deficit.
2. Iron Curtain.
3. General poverty.
4. Total ideologization of society.
5. Very high level of aggression within society.
6. Cultural isolation.
shortage of funds among the population
inability to travel abroad (Bulgaria does not count)
distribution for 3 years after university
1-2 TV programs
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Komsomol alone have sickened the whole people
the wretchedness of the theater and film repertoire
lack of alternatives in all areas of life.
senile people in power. although...it’s the same now
Humiliation. Everywhere and everywhere you had to provide a reference, which was accepted at meetings by people who are essentially nobody to you. But you depended on them.
It was humiliating to stand in line for an apartment. and ask for everything - an apartment, a trip, a place in kindergarten. It's humiliating to stand in line every day. It is humiliating to talk to a salesman, a waiter, a taxi driver, a hotel administrator, or an airline ticket office cashier.
In order to get a part-time job, you had to get a certificate at work stating that you are allowed to work part-time.
Honestly, even from these comments it is clear that we lost more than we gained. Moreover, some of the bad things would disappear on their own, if only because of the development of technology. The bad comes back, or can come back, but the good doesn’t.
On a winter day on December 30, 1922, the 1st Congress of Soviets adopted the Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 90 years have passed since then, and we still cannot decide what “the world’s first state of workers and peasants” was. An unprecedented leap to freedom - or an unprecedented experiment on the people, designed to show the whole world how not to develop the national economy?
Power and justice...
Army. The USSR was one of the world's two superpowers, and the Soviet army was the most powerful in the world. There were 63.9 thousand tanks in service - more than in all other countries. The nuclear missile shield included 1,200 ballistic missiles on land and 62 nuclear submarines at sea. The size of the Armed Forces after the war reached 3.7 million people.
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Equality. The level of well-being of the “lower classes” and “higher classes” in the country differed, but not tenfold; the Soviet middle class made up the overwhelming majority of the population. A skilled worker could earn even more than the director of the plant where he worked.
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Rest. The right to rest was not an empty phrase for the Soviet people. By 1988, there were 16,200 sanatoriums and rest homes operating in the country, where citizens partially paid for accommodation and treatment.
...or beggar slavery?
Decline. The vaunted universal education and health care at the end of the twentieth century. hopelessly behind the world level.
Leadership in the defense industry turned into a failure in the production of industrial goods for the population: consumer goods were produced on a residual basis and for the most part were of disgusting quality.
Prisons. From 1921 to 1940 alone, approximately 3 million people were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.
In 1930 - 1931 More than 380 thousand peasant families were dispossessed and evicted. At the stage of formation of the USSR, entire groups of the population were repressed: entrepreneurs, priests, etc. The Gulag became one of the symbols of the Soviet system.
Deficit. The Soviet people have never lived in abundance in their entire history. Even in the relatively prosperous 70s, there was a shortage of toilet paper, tights, beer, not to mention sausage.
Censorship. Censorship in the USSR covered all areas of life, including the media, literature, music, cinema, theater, ballet and even fashion. Outstanding writers and poets - Solzhenitsyn, Voinovich, Dovlatov, Brodsky and others - were forced to leave their homeland.
Some Soviet realities really can evoke a feeling of nostalgia.
Free housing
It is known that there were no homeless people in the Soviet Union. That is, they were, of course. Only the prevalence of these antisocial characters then and now cannot be compared. Rare homeless people, along with other “declassed elements,” were sent 101 kilometers from Moscow so as not to spoil the overall picture of happiness and prosperity.
To remain without a roof over your head, you had to try very, very hard. The state guaranteed the right to free housing, even poor housing, even in a communal apartment, even in a hostel, to every citizen of the USSR.
Moreover, separate apartments were also given to everyone. Even though we had to wait in line for many years, it was worth it. New residents of so-called departmental houses, built for employees of various institutions and factories, received keys faster than others. Now the institution of departmental housing has been almost completely destroyed
If you didn’t want to wait and had some savings, people bought cooperative apartments. Some people took as long to pay off their shares as it takes to pay off a mortgage now, but the payments were interest-free.
Free education and medicine
Two more important social guarantees that were provided to citizens of the USSR, and which the current state system provides with difficulty and only partially.
All types of education were free - secondary, additional, specialized secondary and higher. Like all types of medical care.
Of course, there were cases of corruption (when bribes were given for admission or grades) and cronyism (when people were admitted to the institute through patronage or acquaintance), but, as they say, rumors about this are greatly exaggerated. Anyone could enter a university, paying only by carefully preparing for exams.
Working professions were also honored. Therefore, after the 8th or 10th grades, children with desire and confidence in the future went to secondary specialized educational institutions, where they received specialties as turners and plumbers.
There is now ongoing debate about whether Soviet education and medicine were the best in the world, as they were positioned. The issue is truly controversial. Probably, as always, everywhere and in everything, a lot depended on the people who taught and treated, studied and were treated.
By the way, the professions of a teacher and a doctor were considered the most prestigious in the USSR after the profession of an astronaut. Then they were chosen not because of money and not according to the residual principle (“I didn’t get into anywhere, I’ll go to pedagogy”), but for the idea (“I want to help people!”) or by vocation.
It’s a paradox: Soviet science lagged behind in development, but our specialists from many fields, in particular physics and mathematics, were rated very highly in the world.
Movie
Surely there will be people who will say that Soviet cinema sucks and is boring, but even they cannot deny that much more feature-length films were produced in the USSR than now. Moreover, for the most part, these were films that were of high quality in all respects - directorial, acting, cinematography and other works.
Many Soviet comedies, melodramas, film adaptations of domestic and foreign classics, historical and adventure films want to be watched again and again, which cannot be said about modern products of the domestic film industry.
Severe ideology prevented the implementation of bold avant-garde ideas, but no artistic councils could kill the art and professionalism of people involved in film production of that time.
Stability and absence of pronounced social stratification
Social guarantees provided by the state, stable prices for food, manufactured goods and services - all this instilled in citizens peace of mind and confidence in the future.
Let's put it this way: planning your future in the Soviet Union was easier than in the new Russia. Although the plans themselves were much more modest.
The average salary made it possible to provide oneself and one’s family with basic food, clothing and rest in some health resort with a voucher, which the trade union paid for in whole or in part.
An engineer with a PhD in a small management position received 200-300 rubles, a junior researcher - 120-150, unskilled workers on average earned 70-100 rubles. The salary of a director of a large enterprise could be about 500 rubles per month.
Of course, the USSR also had its own elite - high-ranking officials, honored figures of science, art and culture, who had the right to a number of benefits, such as: a state dacha or “orders” with scarce products.
However, the gap between the income of “top managers” and ordinary workers was not as cosmic as it is now. Thanks to a transparent payment system, a worker at the plant knew how much the director received. This protected the country from the emergence of “class inequality” and internal social tension.
Although the Soviet “equalization” was not to the liking of all citizens.
Absence of drug addiction as a mass phenomenon
Most residents of the Union did not even know that narcotic substances could be used for anything other than pain relief. And poppies were grown in gardens exclusively for decorative purposes. This was one of the few “advantages” of the Iron Curtain - isolation from the processes taking place in the West.
Drug addiction as a mass phenomenon came to our country along with capitalism, gradually wiping out an entire generation of people whose youth occurred in the 1990s.
The real scourge for the entire social system in the USSR was alcoholism, which they tried to fight with “dry laws”, sobering-up stations and public censure. But is it possible to compare the consequences of this disaster with the mortality and crime rates that drug addiction brought...
Yard games
Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, those times when gangs of children gathered in the courtyards, creating hordes of Cossack robbers, musketeers, and soldiers of the Great Patriotic War, disappeared into oblivion; when the girls jumped into hopscotch and rubber bands, buried “secrets”; when the simplest thing, accidentally found right here on the street, could become an important part of a complex, well-thought-out game.
These simple-minded fun were gradually replaced by gadgets and social networks. Whether this is good or bad, time will tell.
As the heroes of the cult cartoon said about Masyan: “And we in Soviet times - oh!..”, meaning that, supposedly, there was still gunpowder in the flasks. For many living today, the Soviet Union is closely connected with the memories of childhood and youth. And for them, no matter what, those times will forever remain the best in life.
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It is not surprising that some people have nostalgia for the Soviet Union. After all, everyone knows the property of human memory (bad things are usually forgotten, good things are remembered). In addition, the USSR evokes positive feelings mainly among the oldest or already elderly generation (of course, taking into account the extreme generations that also experienced the USSR). The reason for this is simple. Everyone was young then. And everyone usually remembers the past youth with regret and often feels nostalgic for the most memorable, bright glimpses of life of that period. In 2011 or 2012, by chance, on one of the forums, I came across a short sketch of life under the USSR. I will try to convey it (with minor changes and additions).
There was much less chernukha in the USSR. People tried not to focus too much on the negative and, thanks to this, lived more cheerfully. In those days, whiners and grumblers were perceived precisely as whiners and grumblers, and not as truth-telling heroes. Roughly speaking, a person who trumpets about a bad life, bestial working conditions, the regular use of child labor, voluntary-forced, unpaid, hard labor, etc., was perceived in society precisely as a whiner, and not as a fighter for the rights and freedom of people, capable change something. In the opinion of the majority, it was still impossible to change anything in politics, attitudes towards religion, freedom of speech, etc. So why shout about it? And a person, as a rule, obeyed this majority, forgetting that the Majority, at all times, were followers (subordinates, the “gray mass”, “herd”), and the Minority, trying to change something in the lives of millions of people, were leaders . The majority, by definition, cannot be leaders. And vice versa. In addition, public opinion played a very important role in the life of a Soviet citizen (“What will people say, huh?”). But he didn’t even think about what “public opinion” actually was and was very afraid of it and listened to it, discussing “forbidden” topics “in the kitchen.”
The Soviet people had a level of pride in the country, but not particularly high. Everything foreign was valued much higher than the Soviet one, even if there was no particular reason for this (as we know, nothing has changed in our country). In the USSR, the cult of holy fools' non-covetousness paradoxically coexisted with the bourgeois cult of things. It’s hard to believe now, but in the USSR they could easily kill for jeans (yes, just for them!). And it was not at all a matter of the oppressive poverty in which many Soviet citizens lived. Everyone barely had enough money for bad food and bad clothes. It was precisely the cult of things that reached incredible heights in the USSR. Now it’s funny to even think about it, but in Soviet times, adults seriously considered a well-furnished apartment to be one of the main indicators of success in life, can you imagine! Poor, by modern standards, carpets hanging on the walls (to save scarce wallpaper and covering holes in this same wallpaper), costing ten average salaries (the average salary of many citizens was 120 rubles), scarce “walls” (which, in addition, served other things, the same function as carpets), filled with scarce books and crystal, foreign-made household appliances and trinkets, suede jackets (three jackets), foreign movie cameras, etc. - all this was an indicator of status. I don’t think it’s worth mentioning such foreign-made things, which were in short supply at that time, but banal today, such as cigarettes, cosmetics, alcohol, perfumes, chewing gum (yes!) and much more. Many Soviet people were willing to exchange their lives for the pursuit of rags and other junk. Now (thanks to capitalism) the cult of things is still far from being so relevant. We (meaning adults) have already learned to use things in a purely utilitarian way. To use it, and not to possess it like Plyushkin. In fairness, I note that the extraordinary passion of Soviet people for things was largely caused by a simple circumstance: things were more liquid than money. Simply put, a good thing was easy to sell, but quite difficult to buy. When people who lived in the USSR are outraged that inflation has eaten up their money, they forget that this money was much more like coupons than money. You could buy as much canned seaweed with rubles as you wanted. But, for example, normal clothes, household appliances, or normal cars no longer exist. Because of this, the national sport in the Soviet Union was the hunt for scarce goods (often for the purpose of further profitable resale). Instead of just going and buying the right thing, as is happening now, a Soviet person had to inevitably become a huckster (which, by the way, was severely punished by law, called profiteering). Moreover, the person became a huckster in the bad sense of the word. As the most harmless example: seeing scarce women's boots or foreign tights, a Soviet person (even a man) bought them immediately, without thinking or looking at the size. He knew that later he could always find among his acquaintances a lady with feet of the right size and exchange with her for these, say, boots, some thing he needed for himself. And not always, by the way, a thing. Paying representatives of the oldest profession with foreign wardrobe items or, say, cosmetics was completely normal (since, for obvious reasons, these things were valued higher than Soviet money). In addition, the corruption associated with things was simply total and permeated the entire Soviet society. Without a bribe to the butcher, you could only count on a frail chicken frozen to a crystal state. Fresh, fresh meat, for most Soviet citizens, was something unrealistic (with the rare exception of citizens of large cities). The recreation infrastructure was absolutely undeveloped. Suffice it to say that to get into a restaurant you often had to either pay a bribe or stand in line for several hours. There were no Japanese food or pizza delivery services. For some reason I remembered the first opening of McDonald's in Moscow.
There was free education, of course. But those who studied well studied for free. Just like today. In addition, applicants, citizens of the USSR, were often divided according to nationality, giving preference to more “convenient” candidates of Slavic origin. For example, Jews (being citizens of the USSR) had some restrictions on their rights when entering a university. Of course, no one spoke about this out loud, as well as about drug addiction, pedophilia, prostitution, etc. among students. However, today, with regards to education, the situation is similar (it is much “more convenient” for a school or university to accept, for free education, 30 Russian children (of Russian nationality) than 15 children, say, of Chechen or Uzbek nationality, but also who are citizens of the Russian Federation ). It was a problem to enter a prestigious institution of higher education under the USSR, without having cronyism or the means to give a bribe. By the way, the son is, say, aram-zam-zam. Secretary of the district party committee, upon entering the university, had much more privileges over “mere mortals” than the son of some official of the same level has today over the majority of “common opponents.” There was great competition almost everywhere. There was no “official” paid training back then. They did it for bribes. Moreover, for the medical and law faculties, the amounts involved were quite considerable.
In the USSR, medicine was indeed free. But it was very backward and of poor quality. There were no medicines (even the simplest ones). They said this: “Treatment is for nothing, treatment is for nothing!” Standing in line at the clinic for several hours, and then, for lack of medicine, leaving without a sip was the most common thing. About the peculiar “anesthesia”, dental prosthetics, which was already prohibited in many developed countries at that time, or about the “green stuff” with Castelani, I am generally silent. Incredible, but true, “green stuff” is still sold in pharmacies!
In theory, there were various kinds of water parks and attractions, but compared to what we have now, they looked pretty poor, just like the cinemas of that time. I don’t even mention trips to different Maldives, Thailand or Egypt, car tours in Europe. For a Soviet citizen it was some kind of completely unreal, transcendental chic. Theaters, of course, were at their best in the Soviet Union (at least in large cities). But again, there was corruption there too. Ticket speculation was the most common thing. By the way, about tickets. A gigantic queue for airline tickets was quite common in the Soviet Union. Tickets, like many other things, had to be “obtained”. By giving a bribe, for example. Or, as an option, when standing in queues. Queues in general were an eternal problem of socialism. They swore and fought. Comedians said that Soviet people know why they live. To stand in lines. A huge part of my life was spent waiting in line. By the way, the fear of queues passed through several generations and, as if, had already been absorbed into the DNA of first the Soviet, and then into the DNA of the Russian citizen. Has anyone nowadays paid attention to people, for example, on trams or buses? Often, many people (both the older generation, who have experienced what it’s like to live in queues, and the younger generation, taught by the elders), even before the bus or tram stops, jump out of their seats and try to be the first to stand at the exit, even if no one else is there. and is not going to go out. That is, these people (including older people, roughly speaking, who can barely move their legs), while the same bus is moving, dangling from side to side, move around the cabin, counting small change, and sacrifice their safety for the sake of an extra 10-30 seconds of possible idle time in queues to exit. You don’t need to mention banks, clinics, post office, etc. In the USSR, they had never even heard of service. There is rudeness and swearing everywhere. And for your own money. Of course, one could be satisfied with the meager range of goods and services that were freely available in stores. But not all women wanted, for example, to wear quilted jackets. Consequently, they first had to get things somewhere, and then also alter them to suit themselves (it was not always possible to get an item of the right size right away). Again, sometimes I wanted meat. And fresh meat rarely found its way onto the table of “mere mortals.” Perhaps, in some oases of well-being. As well as high-quality fruits and vegetables. In general, many people associate the smell in fruit and vegetable stores of that time with the smell of dampness, mold, rot (a frequent comparison is the smell in the cellar).
There is a myth that in the Soviet Union everyone had pockets full of money. This is both true and not true at the same time. On the one hand, yes. Some people had much more money than they had time to spend in empty stores. And the director of a plant in Moscow, for example, lived a much more prosperous and interesting life than, for example, a teacher in some provincial town. But, on the other hand, many people lived on the very brink of poverty: they bought rotten food (fruits, vegetables), mended holes in the same wardrobe items for several years (the concept of “growing up” gained popularity precisely in the USSR), saved every penny. In general, no matter what side (banal and ordinary, in our time) you take, we will see everywhere that it was necessary to spend either time or “blat”. For example, books. Some books were available in stores. However, many good books (foreign) had to be either exchanged for waste paper or bought on semi-underground book markets (in which some “Three Musketeers” could easily cost twenty-five rubles - a substantial amount at that time). Or auto parts. No, the car itself was a luxury item in the USSR. Owning a Volga back then was much more prestigious than owning, say, a new Mercedes today. But the car also needs spare parts and gasoline, which had to be obtained either through connections or for a lot of money. The sailors who went abroad were incredibly rich in the USSR. Since they could spend the pennies given to them in foreign currency in normal stores: buying electronic watches, electric kettles, irons and other cheap nonsense, which is now lying around in hypermarkets in baskets with a “sale” sign. In addition to the store’s own lack of goods, there was also a backlog factor. For example, video recorders, which became popular in the West in the seventies, timidly began to appear here only in the late eighties. Diapers, without which young mothers spent a lot of time and effort washing diapers, did not appear in the USSR at all.
The housing issue deserves a separate discussion. In the Soviet Union, he was one of the sickest: then there were 16 square meters per person. Significantly less than now. To get an apartment, you either had to have a very good connection, or stand in line for a long time, for decades (without any guarantee of success). A simple example: “Now we will give you these two rooms in a communal apartment. But you agree, because there are prospects there. An old woman of seventy years old lives there, and when she dies, you can take her room.” They could be removed from the queue, for example, due to the death of a family member. There were ways to get an apartment in just a few years. It was necessary to get some hard work needed by the country. For logging, for example. Or a builder. By the way, about construction. Every filthy board, every bucket of paint, every roll of good wallpaper had to be “taken out”. It took an incredible amount of time and effort. Things were also lousy with work. I usually had to work on outdated equipment. For computers, for example, the lag was often close to twenty years. In addition, the necessary tools were often simply not available, as well as the necessary spare parts. Again, we had to somehow fuss and negotiate. Or even “show socialist entrepreneurship” - steal. Yes, such an interesting nuance. Theft in the USSR was not something shameful. Stealing a wheelbarrow of bricks or a set of wrenches from work was completely normal! It’s funny, of course, but whoever did this was considered not a petty thief, but simply a clever and brave person! And one more thing about work. It was difficult to quit. A person who changed more than three jobs in his life was considered a “flyer.” Running your own business was, of course, prohibited! It was also impossible not to work! There was even a special article “for parasitism” (which, by the way, at the suggestion of senile people, is being reintroduced into modern legislation). Because of this, people with a freedom-loving character and a sense of personal freedom (not weak-willed “slaves”, under the biting sounds of the whip, heading towards a ghostly mirage of well-being) suffered incredibly. They didn’t want to lie down, sorry, like a prostitute, under a party whose ideology they did not share, or under an unloved, corrupt and misguided collective for one and a half hundred Soviet rubles, and the life of a “lone wolf” in the Soviet Union was very difficult.
Special mention should be made of drug addiction of immense proportions, permeating not only bohemian society (artists, singers, etc.), but also “ordinary” citizens (drugs, initially, were freely sold in pharmacies, grown in the outskirts - agriculture was developed !). After the ban on the free sale of narcotic substances in pharmacies, speculation in prescriptions for these drugs began. Of course, during the total control of citizens (with the assistance of the most severe censorship in the press and on television), data on all activities to seize colossal amounts of drugs (mainly heroin, hashish and cannabis), for example, only in the Omsk and Amur regions, are strictly classified. As well as data on pedophilia, prostitution, rape, abortion, lesbianism and other obscenities that discredit the Great Power (now they are already in the public domain - they have been declassified due to the statute of limitations). In addition, in the USSR, ethanol addiction reached simply incredible levels. Everyone drank. People who didn’t drink were looked at with great suspicion (not much has changed in this regard in the country either). Vodka and alcohol were universal currencies. A lot could be traded for them. Many managers were forced to tolerate drunken workers (there were simply no others). Yes, and I wonder why people got the idea that there were neither rich nor poor? This simply doesn't happen. There was already an example about the director of the plant and the teacher. Besides, someone must, for example, sweep the yard, and someone must monitor this and give the janitor a salary, right? This is the most banal example. And, as a rule, the one who pays the janitor’s salary is a priori richer than this janitor. It has ALWAYS been like this! These are simple things to understand! But it amazes me even more when I hear: “All people, under the USSR, lived in abundance!” or “At that time people didn’t need anything!” How wealthy are you? Did everyone have cars, balanced, high-quality food, luxury goods, the opportunity to travel freely (not to Bulgaria or Uzbekistan, but, for example, to the USA, Japan or France)? Did everyone have the opportunity to be treated with high-quality medicines, make good repairs in their apartment, etc.? Of course, if the concept of “wealth” only means calming your stomach with the meager set of products that were in the stores, then everything falls into place. Did people need anything? And even in the banal freedom of choice (choice of products, country, to visit during vacation, choice of job, etc. ), freedom of speech, religion, etc.? People, what are you talking about? Have you forgotten about the notorious 120 rubles? A very large number of Soviet people had such a salary! It was very difficult to live on it and raise children. Moreover, in conditions of total deficit and corruption.
A little about ideology. Soviet people were brainwashed from everywhere (radio, television, cinemas, the press). They talked about the correct policy and about “the decay of the West (although very few people had the opportunity to go there and check).” Now, looking back, you are amazed at what naive fools people can be, what a criminal ideology can do to them! Look at North Korea from the outside. Do they have a good life there, in your opinion? This is exactly how, from the outside, prosperous countries looked at the USSR. The political system of the USSR was deceitful from beginning to end. It spoke about the freedom and happiness of the people, but everything turned out to be quite the opposite. You can talk for a very long time about the insanity of the Soviet period. Just look at the repressive measures under Andropov, when during the day, on the street, people were stopped and asked: “Why aren’t you at work?” There is one common phrase. "The Soviet Union was a great power! Everyone was afraid of it!" How is greatness measured? The presence of warheads? The fear that others experience? The size of the country? The Soviet Union was a great great prison. You can travel within the country, but don’t even think about going on vacation abroad (by and large)! Leaving is a whole problem. Characteristics, recommendations, party committee meeting, exit visa, etc. Prisoners are never proud of what kind of prison they are in, small or large. The notorious stability (in prices for necessary goods or services, in work, in the roof over one’s head), which many are proud of when mentioning the USSR, is also present in many prisons and is strictly observed. And when someone tells me that the USSR was a Great Power, the image of a man sitting in the eagle pose in a village toilet and clutching a world-famous Kalashnikov assault rifle in his hands immediately comes to mind. The walls of this toilet and all its contents are the territory, the country of this person. A person is prohibited from leaving the walls (or boundaries) of this toilet. Condemning and complaining about the living conditions is also prohibited. He is also prohibited from praying and discussing “the authorities.” And when someone “encroaches” on his territory (this toilet), even with good intentions (to get him out of this, sorry, shit), the person clangs the shutter of the machine gun and shouts: “Don’t judge or defame my toilet (my country )! Don't come near my toilet (my Great Country), I have weapons (warheads)! They say to him: “Man, you, being a weak-willed slave, are sitting waist-deep in shit! Get out of this swamp! You are mistaken in considering your toilet a Great Power. You forget that the Greatness of a country is measured not by the size of its territory, not by the number of warheads, but by the well-being and happiness of the people living in it." And the man replies: "You are wrong, I live in prosperity and prosperity, I have everything. Besides, this is my element and I like everything! I'm a patriot and I'm happy. Thanks to our “leader” (who sometimes feeds me) for giving me a roof over my head! Glory to the USSR!" Clang-clang of the shutter...
Vladislav Inozemtsev, Doctor of Economics PhD, Director of the Center for Research on Post-Industrial Society:
— Today you can often come across open praise of the Soviet system, including the economy of that time. What remains in my memory is that in 1985 the RSFSR produced almost 6 times more trucks, 14 times more combines, 34 times more tractors, 91 times more watches and 600 times (!) more cameras than, for example, , in 2010 in Russia. But at the same time, today the country collects 118 million tons of grain against the then 97 million tons, and everyone has a camera, even if only in the form of a smartphone.
Worked for the "shaft"
Could the Soviet economy have been reborn and integrated into the modern global world? Nothing can be ruled out - especially if you look at a progressive China. But for this it was necessary to start perestroika earlier, at least in the late 1960s, until the most serious negative features of the socialist economy were fully manifested in the USSR. What I mean?
First of all, the growing inefficiency that was embodied in production for the sake of production, when the economy grew without visible consequences for the level and quality of life. Let's take the dry statistics of the State Statistics Committee: from 1960 to 1985, cement production increased by 2.89 times, and the commissioning of residential buildings - by 3.4%; tractors were produced 2.46 times more, mineral fertilizers - 10.1 times, while the number of cows increased by 21%, grain harvest - by 7.7%, and potatoes even fell by 13.5%. The list goes on. For the last 20 years, the Soviet economy worked for the notorious “shaft”, and not for the end consumer.
An equally important problem was the quality of the products. In the USSR, they produced 4 pairs of shoes per person per year, almost 50 square meters. m of fabrics. But almost half of the light industrial goods sold were supplied from the countries of the socialist camp - domestic products were simply not in demand. Despite the leadership of the USSR in space exploration and the development of weapons systems, color televisions and video recorders were mastered by Soviet industry 20-25 years later than in Japan or Europe (I’m not talking about computers or copying equipment).
The entire economy of the USSR was focused on the reproduction of deficit - its distribution was one of the forms of building formal and informal verticals of power. Leaders of regional committees and directors of factories in Moscow knocked out the necessary equipment, ordinary citizens made useful contacts (blat) to obtain the necessary goods. The idea of the rarity of any good was almost a “national idea” in the USSR; the entire pyramid of the planned economy was based on it.
No economy, no freedom
A person's free time was valued the least. On average, Soviet people spent up to 2.2 hours a day in queues; up to 1.4 hours - in public transport. The Soviet Union never introduced household appliances that were accessible to any European family in the mid-1980s, such as coffee makers and dishwashers, microwave ovens, and much more. The Soviet man was considered necessary to the authorities only in the workplace; after the end of the working day, he had to fight the system created by his own labor.
People's lives were quite strictly regulated. I’m not talking about traveling abroad (today 53% of our air passengers fly on international flights; in the USSR there were less than 2%); there were no free sources of information, no real freedom of movement within the country. There was no housing market, changing jobs was a big problem; Career growth in most cases was determined by considerations of political maturity and loyalty to superiors. Of course, such an economy could not be flexible.
Until recent years, private enterprise never appeared in the Soviet Union, and when it did, it undoubtedly became associated with nothing other than trading and speculation, since the only thing it was capable of at that time was filling commodity niches through the resale of government resources. However, even minor easing led to the fact that the mighty Soviet economy quickly faced financial problems that accelerated its collapse.
What, to summarize, was the main problem of the Soviet economy? In my opinion, it was not an economy in the proper sense of the word, which involves personal initiative, competition, efficiency and technological progress; private property, taxes and the separation of public and private. All that the USSR was able to create was the notorious national economy, which collapsed as soon as they tried to introduce truly economic elements into it. You can regret it, but it is impossible to return it...
USSR: faith in tomorrow
Nikolay Burlyaev, director, people's artist of the Russian Federation:
— If you look at life philosophically, then the collapse of the USSR can be assessed both as a disaster and as a reason for Russia to make another leap forward.
Was the collapse of the Soviet Union a disaster? Undoubtedly! Because any revolution is the roar of Lucifer. And the collapse of a great power, which our ancestors assembled bit by bit, principality by principality, and which three people allowed themselves to destroy over a bottle of vodka in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, is a crime. And his descendants will still pass their verdict on him.
Knowledge was given to everyone
The further into history the era of the USSR goes, the better we will understand how much good there was in the Soviet Union, which was destroyed by our young reformers and traitors to the Fatherland who sat in the country's leadership. Let's start with education. In those decades it was one of the best in the world, although the West pretended that it was not so. I received two higher educations - the Shchukin School and VGIK. And I know from myself what kind of knowledge base was laid for students in the field of humanities. We knew both the Western school of painting and world literature. Coming to America, we could talk about the subtleties of their poet’s lyrics Whitman so that their mouths opened in surprise. We knew more than the Americans knew about their own literature and culture.
And school education was an order of magnitude better than both the current one and the Western one. It was better, first of all, because it was general, and not sectoral, as they do now, when you study only a few subjects in depth, and you don’t have to study everything else at all. But this principle is wrong! An undoubted advantage of the USSR was the numerous clubs that all children without exception could attend, which were free, that is, accessible to the public. That is why such nuggets as Sergei Bondarchuk,Andrey Tarkovsky,Vasily Shukshin- our Lomonosov from cinema, breaking through from Siberia to the capital. In modern times, the Shukshins will no longer break through - education is now paid. And this is a crime against Russia - paid education.
Next is medicine... Even if the service in Soviet clinics was not as elite as in America or today in expensive medical centers, there was nevertheless a guarantee that you would be seriously treated by professionals. And now the purchase of diplomas is booming, and sometimes the surgeon cannot even cut bread, let alone perform a complex operation.
The principle of dedication
There is such a common phrase: a country is judged by how children and old people live in it. When I retired a few years ago, I came to the social security office to fill out documents. They counted me 7 thousand. I ask: “Is there anything for the title of People’s Artist of Russia?” “Yes,” they say, “another 300 rubles.” And with this money - 7-9 thousand rubles. - Today millions of older people are offered a place to live. We, pensioners, have no tomorrow with such income. But in the USSR there was tomorrow. Everyone has. No one even thought: will there be a tomorrow? Will there be work? Will they be evicted from the apartment? Will there be anything to feed the children? And now this question faces everyone—everyone! - a person.
Confidence in the future is not just a bunch of words, it is the basis of life. And she, confidence, was one hundred percent among the entire population of the country. Students graduating from universities knew that they would definitely get a job. And today I don’t know how my children - and I have five of them - will be able to get settled and feed themselves. What awaits them? And they all have an excellent education, which is not very much in demand now. The old people understood that yes, the pension was small, but they could live on it. And also help children. The young worker knew that the company where he worked would help with an apartment and provide a place for children in kindergarten. Everyone lived then from paycheck to paycheck, not rich. But everyone is on an equal footing. There was no such glaring gap between rich and poor.We were plunged into capitalism without any referendums, without asking the people: do we want this or not? Forgetting that the ruble has never been the main thing for Russia. The mysterious Russian soul, which rows not towards itself, but away from itself, had other fundamental values. In the West, their most important principle is self-affirmation, while our main principle has always been the principle of self-giving. And no matter how they tried to switch us to this principle of egoism, they failed to do so.
The collapse of the USSR was a disaster. But Russia is so powerful that, under the protection of the Mother of God, it was able to overcome all the negative aspects and, during the crisis, under the pressure of Western countries, under sanctions, it again made an incredible leap forward.
Chronicle of decay
06/12/1990. The Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR adopted a declaration of sovereignty, establishing the priority of Russian laws over Soviet ones.
March 1991 In the referendum on preserving the USSR as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, 76% voted in favor (the Baltic republics, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, which had previously declared independence, did not participate). August 18-21, 1991 Power was seized for 3 days by the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP), created by functionaries of the CPSU Central Committee, members of the USSR government, representatives of the army and the KGB in order to stop the collapse of the USSR. The August putsch failed.
12/8/1991. The heads of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine signed an agreement in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
25.12.1991. USSR President M. Gorbachev announced the termination of his activities in this post “for reasons of principle.”
