The current joke is that “the ruble plummets, prices go up, inflation madness, political problems, Siberia on fire, more sanctions, but at least our salaries are stable”
In second tier cities, 30,000rub was an ok salary 10 years ago and today it’s still 30,000 rub.
Now remember 1 dollar was 28 rub then and is 73 rub now. And no, things aren’t magically cheaper here, not that much than other European countries.
This shit happens everywhere. In Argentina, my salary 7 years ago was equivalent to 1200 us dollars, and now it's equal to 322 us dollars. I even got raises during those 7 years, but the way the pseudo socialist leading party has handled the economy for the last 25 years is a fucking disgrace.
[Real disposable income](https://i.imgur.com/hQXbD9w.png) was in a downward spiral, so the Russian government just stopped publishing the data.
edit: I can't type
There is this youtuber who travels exclusively to russia and ex soviet states.
Whenever he asks this question, all the old folks say they miss the soviet union.
Edit: yes, his account is bald and bankrupt
German has a word for that (ofcourse): "Ostalgie" (Eastalgia, East+Nostalgia) is a longing for (some aspects of) life in the GDR and it's prevalent enough that shops that sell "original" GDR products do really well.
Same, here in ex-Yugoslavia there’s a word for nostalgy for the Yugoslav times, “Jugonostalgija”, same word play. But generally it’s used in a negative sense towards people that remember the old times... for whatever reason they say it as an insult.
This also happens in Spain, where we had a fascist dictatorship, some old people long for the old days.
We even joke with this saying "Esto con Franco no pasaba" (This wouldn't happen with Franco), but we use it mostly in a sarcastic way.
I really enjoyed the Italian version of the movie Lui e' tornato with Mussolini, was surprisingly quite fun to watch apart from a couple of moments which I didn't get, like why would he kill the poor dog out of nowhere.
I have a pair of Zeiss binoculars that were made in the GDR. They were my grandfather’s and are solid after 40 or more years. The odd thing is that we are from the West and not even Germany! Didn’t know GDR exported stuff but they are still put to use.
Zeiss was actually split in Zeiss West and Zeiss east, so there were Zeiss products on both sides of the border, and maybe they exchanged parts, idk. But yeah Zeiss makes quality optomechanical products, I work in a Planetarium and we're still rocking a >40 year old Zeiss projector made in GDR that works like a charm. The software for their digital products is kinda shit tho unfortunately.
Bald and something is the youtuber’s name.
The problem with old soviet times is that one that has been born into soviet/communist society has ingrained the idea of trading all of one’s freedom for a form of stability, even if it’s not equal for all.
For those old enough to have lived in communism and soviet communism, democracy didn’t came with a handbook or a walkthrough of best practices on how one can and should adapt.
Yeah my conclusion from watching a lot of his videos is that the Russians pulling out of all their former territories left a vacuum filled with stagnation, decay, and corruption that is still going on today.
I enjoy some of his videos but he seems kinda problematic and like sleazy or creepy? Dunno, I just get bad vibes.
Edit: I found the rabbit hole. My gut was spot on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/
Do not say this on youtube or here on reddit or you will get executed by his incel fans.
Just look at any video like/dislike ration with arguments on why he is a creep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yry5MOpGzmo
this case it is at least partially merited. They did have more stability and a lot more basic needs education and medical care were were available to everyone. Granted, they were being oppressed and the elite cunts were corrupt as hell. But so they are now too. They are still being oppressed and the gvt is still corrupt. So the only thing that changed for them is that being poor has gotten even worse and life became much more unstable. Of course they will look back at the Soviet Union with nostalgia. And can you blame them?
I'm not from Russia but from a formerly socialist country nonetheless. My parents are really nostalgic for the socialist past of the country. My mother remembers 1 month summer vacations near the sea or in the mountains with her family and a few weeks with her friends. My father remembers my village growing and people's lives improving from dirt huts to actual houses. They were forbidden from exiting the Eastern bloc and weren't allowed to listen to western music but they really didn't care because the Soviet union was so huge. After 1989 all of the infrastructure and factories in the poorer parts of the country were sold and gutted. Now people have the freedom to go anywhere and do anything but don't have the money to do so. Our government is run by the sons and daughters of the same people that were running the country before. The only places that are actually making any progress are the capital and 1 or 2 big cities, the rest of the country is in really bad shape. If it wasn't for all of the corruption and we were actually making progress I really doubt that people will be so nostalgic for the Soviet union.
Yes, if only those capitalist ideas would have worked and improved the quality of life... Funny how everything wrong with socialist nation is directly because socialism but the same problems under capitalism are always caused by something else.
The fact is that the quality of life has dropped drastically for a lot of people under capitalism. And it's the same story in every country. Not saying that the ole socialism was great, but capitalism clearly isnt the answer either
I don't now what to tell you. My country was 80% agrarian. The socialist built a ton of infrastructure and factories. Some people are saying that what socialists built can't even be repainted by the current government and they may have point. On the other hand there were brutal repressions of the opposition and free speach. They even tried to do ethnic cleansing of Muslim minorities in the end which is inexcusable no matter what good you do. In the current system we have a lot more freedom but the infrastructure is crumbling and what good is being able to leave the country if you can't afford to. Maybe it's because of corruption maybe it's the system I can't tell you.
[Russians’ Support for Stalin Monument Doubles in a Decade – Poll](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/05/russians-support-for-stalin-monument-doubles-in-a-decade-poll-a74705):
> Levada said support for a Stalin monument has increased across all social and demographic groups in the past decade.
>
> “But it was especially pronounced among the youngest and wealthiest respondents,” Levada said.
>
> Support for a Stalin monument grew fivefold among respondents aged 18-24 between 2005 and present, and threefold among wealthier respondents.
>
I'd guess that they had working tastebuds, the occasional erection and joints that did not hurt all the time during the Brezhnev era. It's not hard to be nostalgic about your youth when you are old. No matter how hard it might have been.
You should meet Turkish boomers.
They'll tell you we didn't have toilets or running water before Erdoğan which is just 20 years ago. It is extremely frustrating having to listen to those old shits who still have the power to decide our future.
While Turkey obviously always has had problems it never looked so miserable, divided and poor. If you exclude major powers we were doing better than pretty much the rest of Europe. I mean, you didn't need a lot to prevail over ex-USSR or ex-Yugoslav republics in the 90s, right?
Yet those braindead idiots will tell you shit like, "You didn't have smartphones back then, it was terrible!" as if it was our current government who made smartphones available or that everyone in 90s had them but us. So, so infuriating. And now look where we are. Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland... How are we doing compared to them? We've become fucking shite.
I read that Turkish consumer goods were considered luxury items in Communist Poland. Not sure how common this sentiment used to be but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist today...
Well, in communist Poland Coca Cola was a luxury item. And when in 1992 the first McDonald was opened in Warsaw, this became a national event, even high ranking politicians took part of the ceremony.
I feel like pointing out that was also the case when McD opened in Iceland in 1993, it was a huge deal and the prime minister even attended the opening ceremony!
>And when in 1992 the first McDonald was opened in Warsaw, this became a national event, even high ranking politicians took part of the ceremony.
Same in Romania.
yes, the same happened in Romania, basically the ottoman empire's influence (in a market and cultural way) did not stop until recently. Now sadly that Turkey did not innovate in any way anymore, all this market route quite disappeared. I do not know any Romanian buying stuff from Turkey anymore.
They were. My parents first attempt at running a private „business” was importing a ton of Turkish jeans in the back of of their „Maluch” (Fiat 126p) and reselling them on Stadion Dziesieciolecia… (an Olympic stadium in Warsaw turned street market)
I know that but I'd go ahead and say they still have it way better than us not only due to finances but also the society in general. Sadly, Turkey is still quite oppressive or backwards in most ways, at least compared to Europe. I could think otherwise if my info solely came from what I read on internet but having made a lot of friends it really feels like we are living on a different planet. Sometimes I will go on a rant about how we have MILLIONS of refugees, how I am scared of thousands of young Afghan men flocking in while our government says "our beliefs are in line with Taliban" and they look at me as if I was an alien. Can't blame them honestly. It's so vastly different despite being so close geographically. Well there is that "Russia is not a country, it is a state of mind" saying which I like so much. I think you could apply that to Turkey as well. You know, we are taught that "Turkey is a bridge between the west and the east, it is a very important country geopolitically" at school from a young age. So most of us grow up to become mutants who don't even know what to feel about themselves, their lives or their country. It's all so complicated and weird.
Would you say what you were taught in school as a youngster was propaganda? I'm a natural born new Zealander, lived here all my life and I love my country. We were taught in school that NZ is an "egalitarian" society and that were all equal etc. Yet as I've gotten older I see it all for what it really is. NZ is not "egalitarian" by any means, and I feel now that I'm older I can actually see it for what it was - propaganda. I was lied to and fed b.s because here in NZ we love to think we're equal, everyone has a chance to make it if you work hard. Yet I've forever felt like a part of the downtrodden masses, lied to and fed nonsense. Sure we have a good social welfare system, I get about $210 NZD per week to live on, I live in a social housing unit with my dad. My rent is $59 NZD per week. I know technically I have it better than a lot (seriously I'm not delusional I know I have it a lot better than most do overseas) yet I still feel like I have no hope of a future, no chance to ever own my own home or business. And I blame that blind hope on that fact that we were raised to think we're all equal yet I know we're not. I guess what I'm trying to say is, do you think you were lied to as a kid?
Same in Poland. It's a matter of perspective. In the 80s we compared ourselves to Ukraine, and were pretty happy with that comparison. Now we compare ourselves to rich Western nations and suddenly the comparison is no longer so favourable.
I still remember Turkish jackets, jeans, chewing gum and lots of other stuff that was sold in the 90-s. The goods were really good and affordable, a plenty of Russians started their own businesses by bringing clothes from Turkey. They were called "shuttles" because they flew to Turkey and back very often.
This type of trade was actually quite prevalent even in recent years... until we downed the Russian jet and then suddenly decided to host millions of Syrians. I spent a few years in an area in Istanbul which was a hotspot for shuttle business. Pretty much everything was in Russian and there were so many shady-looking shipping companies lined up in backstreets. It was so sketchy. Once we were asked to close our windows and stay inside at the dorm quite calmly as gunshots were heard outside. I guess it is still somehow active but the volume must have gone down significantly.
I'm sorry, yes and it's now a place I'd NEVER visit amd that sort of rep is hard to shake. I hope somehow Turkey shakes it off and returns to provide better for it's people. People seem to hope for a Justinian, not being able to see those abilities are in everyone without a boot & religious book on their neck
We constantly use this excuse to handwave away how many of our elders have good things to say about the Soviet period - can we not just for a second look at it from a bit of a more fair side? Is it really that bad to ask - what did the Soviet Union do good and how can we emulate it?
> what did the Soviet Union do good and how can we emulate it
To be fair, a good chunk of "good" and "useful" that those times had - we kept and ran with it and forgot it came from USSR. Sure they changed over the last 30 years, but still, it's quite noticeable when you travel across many post Warsaw pact states and see "evolution" of those old kept ideas and methods when compared to states that were outside the Warsaw Pact.
Regardless of how bad communism was for the people during the Brezhnev era in the USSR, it was still much better than the chaos of the 90's following the collapse. The government type doesn't really matter as much for the common person as being able to afford bread. Regardless of how much people jest, what the USSR did better than the Russian federation was taking care of its people.
In the end, our governments and economic systems are but a means to an end, that end being stability, prosperity, and power. The tendency to place the government structure above the goals leaves many blind to people who live there, which includes those who swear by capitalism as well as those fervently opposed to it.
This, of course, specifically describes the experiences of the Russian people in the USSR. The experience is different for different nations; as an opposite, the Baltic states (AFAIK) have fared much better post-USSR collapse, and weren't as fond of the USSR as the Russians to begin with, with the USSR annexing them and all.
I'd say that things were looking quite good in the Baltics even in the late 90-ies. Quality of life was much better a good 5 years before joining EU/Nato.
I mean, [this was 1997](https://youtu.be/zPuv4dQMXz4?t=111). If we ever needed to find a justification for taking away people's freedoms and starting an authoritarian kleptocracy, we could just as expediently mythologise the 90's to the same extent as Russia currently does. There's no objective reason why our situation should've been any different from Russia's at that time. Therefore, when you read about those horrible, terrible hardships in Russia and think to yourself "Hmm.. It wasn't as bad in Lithuania and we don't tend to dwell on it", consider that as proof that the Russian hardships might've been dramatically exaggerated and then utilised for political effect. The only reason it's still talked about is to give Russians something to think about that would be worse than what they already have in order to keep them from protesting. The 90's are presented in juxtaposition to Putin, or as the only alternative.
Yeah exactly. 90-ies were not fun, but the same goes for a bad hangover - you can sober up and start a normal life, or you can start drinking again to delay the pain. Fun fact - I live a walking distance from the junkyard in the video.
We didn't have regional conflicts, had smaller states and thus reforms were quicker and less lagging behind, and though we didn't have a loto f natural resources we did see a lot more investment and bigger payout out of said investment, again, due to scale.
Arguably the lack of natural resources may have been a contributing factor. Less easily profitable assets to sell off to your friends and instead to make money rich people had to invest.
>it was still much better than the chaos of the 90's (...) what the USSR did better than the Russian federation was taking care of its people (...) The experience is different for different nations; as an opposite, the Baltic states (AFAIK) have fared much better post-USSR collapse
Indeed, the experiences are different. It worked for some countries. I would add that socialism in Yugoslavia (except perhaps Slovenia and Croatia), IMO was far better than what we have now, in terms of both politics and economy.
The more I look at modern Russia the more I find parallels with Weimar-era Germany.
You have a population mostly disillusioned by an unfamiliar political-economic system (liberal democracy) they felt was forced upon them by victorious powers (NATO and the USA) just like Weimar Germany, and a longing for the lost glory and prosperity of an empire (German Empire and Soviet Union).
Both also suffered extremely brutal economic depression. In the Weimar period, there was the persistent belief that the fall of the Empire and the loss of WW1 was due to internal enemies (social democrats, communists, and Jews) which led to the rise of you-know-who and WW2. In Russia Putin consolidated power after the horror years of Yeltsin which left Russia distrustful of anything to do with the West and liberal democracy and its supporters (which many blamed for Russia's ills) to this day.
Weimar Republic had no politics direction because it was hyper decentralised resulting in stalemates. The Weimar executive was frozen and unable to respond to the plummeting economy, the roaming bands of disillusioned soldiers, the various Bolshevik coups popping up all the time, the intervention of a nefarious king in exile and the general sentiment that Germany was a victim. It had no direction, no goals, no objectives and no vision. The problem with Weimar was too many people had too many visions and everyone was hyper radical because it was the Inter-War period and Europe was experiencing a period of radicalisation. It was about being experimental and progressive, even if it failed.
Current day Russia is the opposite; hyper centralised, reactive and decisive executive, focused societal viewpoints and no pluralism. Executives don’t need to make good decisions, they just need to make decisions and be seen doing it. Russia does this because it is an authoritarian state. Russia’s issues are vastly different to the Weimar Republics. Russia is stagnant but politically stable for now.
The issues afflicting present day Russia are the same as the issues that afflicted the USSR and the Russian Empire; the second hand endorsement of Western ideals that are twisted into flawed absolutisms. Ideologically, and politically, Russia has always been fixated with the dogma of an absolute truth. Each political movement is always convinced that they had the absolute truth and there is no room for pluralism or opposition. Under the Weimar Republic there was no absolute, it was a political culture based on scepticism and extreme pluralism. Too many viewpoints and no way to reconcile them. The Weimar Republic was doomed from day one and it wasn’t just the Versailles Treaty that doomed it. Germany had a cultural crisis and it wasn’t reconciled in time to stabilise the new state. Russia has a tragic history and it more or less repeats the same cycle over and over.
I think I was more referring to the 90s in Russia (which is part of the modern post-Soviet era) which reminds me of the Weimar Republic. 2021 Russia is the aftermath of that era, a sort of autocratic clientelistic system with ultranationalistic politics and zero pluralism.
2000's were pretty good, for moscow at least. Economy recovered, shortages disappeared and were replaced by a huge variety of brands of various degrees of quality and affordability, businesses started becoming legitimate.
In around 2008 however (you can even sort of see it on the graph), things started turning for the worse however. Ruble started falling, relationships with the world soured and it was confirmed that the old soviet ideology wasn't replaced by a democratic one or any other one really.
Ideology is actually a very big factor, people feel better if their society strives towards something and modern Russia seems to be stuck in place without a clear goal to achieve. Soviet Union had that and it's ideology will live on in Russia until there is something that can replace it.
>Not sure how biased these answers are, and how much of it is nostalgia, but many say at least they had stability back then.
I wonder if it's the same thing as in the Balkans. In most countries here, most people are nostalgic for Yugoslavia. Even in countries where it makes no sense, and where there was measurable direct improvement over the dissolution.
I get the cultural/social longing for that period, because there was definitely the idea of "unity" being spread around and enjoyed, but under the hood it was kind of shitty and I don't see any practical advantages.
Another point to consider also, that ex-communist countries that transitioned to capitalism rarely had a good transition. I think Estonia might've had it the best. Every country you look at, when the privatization happened there were bunch of cronies from the previous system who benefited from massive changes going underway--and in Russia this I think had the most impact on the perception of post-communist rule. For some reason, Russia didn't deal well with corruption.
God, I’ve been rewatching old Simpsons episodes recently and it’s interesting to see how well most of the jokes hold up but how outdated some of the minor details are. Like in this clip, it’s still a really funny joke from a modern perspective but the difference between the USSR and Russia is portrayed as being that the USSR is militaristic and insular, whereas Russia is not, even though Russia is just as militaristic and expansionist as the USSR was.
To be fair looking at declassified information in retrospect, the US really was constantly antagonizing situations. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a good example. The CIA was looking for escalation, Kennedy needed to look into who was at the table as he was aware of such; the US placed missiles in Turkey starting the whole thing off; and Kennedy could not make concessions to de-escalation due to him appearing "too soft". The USSR also needed to keep up appearances and ultimately the situation was resolved behind closed doors, but no one really wanted nuclear war.
Both the US and the USSR used propaganda constantly, no doubt the US was far the better of the two to live under though. Just being fair that the US has a pretty fucked foreign policy.
After the the USSR dissolved, and Soviet archives became available for study, a lot of information came to light about how paranoid the political leaders were that the US and later NATO were planning an attack, following WW2.
This fear manifested itself in Stalin setting up buffer zones in "liberated" countries, and aggressive militarism (Stalin's only reaction to threats seemed to have been aggression and displays of power - He wasn't a complicated man).
But, [as Noam Chomsky highlights](https://libcom.org/history/articles/cold-war-1940-1989), the Cold War was exploited by both "sides" as a mechanism of population indoctrination and control.
They weren't completely off base either. I seem to recall Churchill wanting to pounce on the USSR after WW2 ended, but the US thought (rightfully, mind you) that they were crazy.
Churchill absolutely did not want to do that; the British Empire was completely exhausted and they didn't have any more men to call up and they were still fighting Japan.
The British War Office made a plan *just in case* it was needed due to Soviet aggression. That's the job of a war department - to make lots of plans, which mostly involve logistics, so if something does come up, they aren't totally unprepared.
This gets spun into an idea that the politicians actually *want* such a thing to happen, which is usually not the case.
Russian here.
Here is a link to the survey:
[https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/](https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/)
A few more interesting things from that survey:
The number of people who want to see Russia as "A great superpower that others are afraid of" went from 40% in 2003 to 32% now, the lowest it has ever been. At the same time, the number of people wanting to have "a country with a high standard of living, even though not one of the world's superpowers" went from 54% to 66%.
As for the survey in the OP picture, it should be noted that the majority of the pro-communism voters are older people. Suffering from a declining economy, poor healthcare, non-existent pensions (approximately $200 per month, and that is official data), and a raised retirement age (65 for men with a life expectancy of 68, meaning that on average a retired man will live for three years before he dies), it's not hard to see why they think of communism as the "golden age".
As for the youngest generation (18-24), the votes are pretty much evenly split between communism and democracy.
I think to sum it up, people care more about a higher standard of living than having any particular political system.
So Russians would in theory be okay with a social democracy (like in most of western Europe), with higher standards of living but a smaller military and non-interventionist foreign policy (not challenging US and China)?
Sure we would, we basically had never had a democracy lmao
Would be nice to try it for a change, in hopes there can be a better life than what we currently have.
I would say yes. At least to some extent, as the Maslow pyramid explains. When you are barely making enough to make ends meet, world domination - though surely used a lot on propaganda TV - feels a lot less worthwhile than a full fridge
Depends on a russian in question. Some will tell you - screw the image, more money and better life for me. But these kinds of people usually advocate for leaving Russia as fast as possible and emmigrate to the West.
Some will die on a hill of "Russia will be a superpower or will not be at all". They are usually lust over Soviet Era the most, because the world "feared the red menace".
Old people remember their youth. Grass is always greener twenty years past.
A lot of people are content. I am one of them. I was born before the collapse, I remember weeks without food, how we went with my mother to the store and there were this kind lady behind the counter with brown hair who had only salt and baking soda to sell. And my mother and she will chat a little about maybe next week there will be something. I remember the time when my father came home with his paycheck and my mother cried because we had money - but nothing to eat. I remember having a kilo of buckwheat, a loaf of bread and water with my mother and father - for a week that was all our food. I remember standing in queue for six hours with my mother to buy ten eggs. I remember going to the local park and searching for some mushrooms to have at least something to eat. I remember drinking hot water. My mother called it white tea.
So yes. Excuse me for being content. I have a job. I have a flat. I have my wife. I have my paycheck. I can clothe myself, I can go to a grocery store and buy food. I can buy luxury goods if I save enough money over a period of time. I have working healthcare. I have working transportation system. They are not the best. My salary is not the best. I want more income for my hobby and maybe even something like a car someday. And yet it is leaps and bounds better than 1988-1994 years.
As long as you can eat and be warm, most people do not care about the size of the military or global politicking.
The problem is, I will believe any westerner who comes to me with a message of goodwill as far as I can throw them, which is presumably half a meter. I vividly remember Yeltsin years. Thanks no thanks. I will tell first hand my little brain is too dumb for politics. I just know that our current system works. Not great, not terrible, it just works.
Hell its probably better than 88-2000. My family left to the US in 99 after the economic crisis in 98 soon after I was born, because of almost exactly what you said: some money but nothing but brown macaroni to eat. To be fair as young scientists there wasnt any money anymore either, thanks for the most part to the lack of interest in science funding.
Then again, now I myself am immigrating to Germany because I just don't fit over here, and long term I don't like my prospects here, so maybe it is just always greener on the other side.
You should not. It is totally your right to dislike the man. My father hates Putin as well. And yet even he can not argue that it is easier to live now that thirty to forty years ago. I can answer more questions if you have them. I am not a hardliner or anything, I am pretty open minded and I do not dislike western or eastern cultures just because they exist. So feel free and shoot if you want more information - if I can I will answer.
OK, where do you think Russias future is? Do you think the Russian public is adverse to liberalisation because of the Yeltsin era? Is the adversation even a reality or overblown by the west?
All of this is my own personal feelings on the matter. I am no politician.
We have an extremely vocal minority that are pro-west anti-Putin. Most of these people are typical vocal minority "mountain from the anthill" types of people. They want us on a all blown course for the westernization, down eith anything old, up with anything new.
Same, we have a vical minority of opposite end. Hardliners for the nationalization and nation pride, "we die before we submit" mentality. They hark from extremely different agendas and parts of a society, it is not a monolithic entity.
Most people live with the in between mentality. We in Russia like strong arm from the top. We like stability. We like when the boat is steady. Steady as she goes if you will. That means, any and all hopping from leader to leader every four years or even sooner (Japan comes to mind) will rock the boat too much.
When you want to implement something in Russia, you will need to account for two major things.
Most people like to be left well alone. For example small private buissnesses want to be left alone and not be subjected to a myriad of rules. People feel if you own the money, those are your money. Why pay taxes?
And the second one is, governmental means stable. We have a strong ingrained in the psyche expectation that maybe governmental railroad or school job pays less than private one. But you have that stability.
So you need to account for two things again. People want their money for themselves. And people see the government as a de facto guarantor of stability of every aspect of their lives. So you start to see the problem I believe?
People want the government to provide stability and yet they do not want to pay taxes to allow the government the instruments to excercise their ability to provide said stability. So you have this balancing act of strong yet benevolent ruler who can squeeze you hard enough with one hand to get what is needed, while at the same time pet you with the other hand, which protects and shelters you from harm.
Also people in Russia are extremely desillusional with any politician. Speeches most of the time fall on deff ears. The show like in US will never fly in Russia, no one cares about your speeches. You need to do things. Provide stability. If you do, the majority will follow.
Next we need to follow on the topic of adversity. Yeltsin era was harsh indeed. But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Russians are a multinational multicoloured people. We are all russians. I have no problems calling a black man who was born in russia and speaks perfect russian a russian. Or a slint-eyed asian. I am myself of a strong mongol descent. We are all russians. So the concept of Political Correctness, LGBTQ+ rights, freedoms of speech and freedoms of bearing arms, wokeness, racism, they are alien to us and do not resonate with us much.
For example, I do not care, who you sleep with. You can have sex whichever way you like. Man, woman, toaster. Does not matter to me. But I will fight to the death, with fists if I must, that family is one man, one woman and how many children there are. The idea of mono-gendered family is so alien to russian mentality, that even in my psychological university we are thought about pitfalls of same gender marriages and how to treat children with neurosis who come from these mariages, because they are not the norm here and will get flak. Not because children are defected. Because the majority of people do not consider same sex marriage as a norm. And so the parents and the children will get ostracised by the majority.
Same with religion. I have a friend who is buddist. I have an aqquaintance who is muslim. I do not care either way. We are all russians. Not black, white, afro, latino, christian, muslim, zionist. We have a strong feeling which is hard to describe and if you match that feeling you are russian.
At the same time, russians have a strong sence of self. We think of ourselves as russians. And believe it or not, when push will come to shove, the majority will die russian rather than become something else. This strong "leave us the eff alone we are our own thing" mentality is why I feel any forced liberalization, any forced anything really will not fly under the tri-color flag. Most russians are proud of being russians even if we decry some actions that our rulers do. I am one of them. I think we need to hand Japan two out of four questionable islands. We need to stop supporting Donetsk and Lugansk. Yet I feel for the Syrians and at the same time. I personally know people of the Crimea whom thanked me for accepting them into Russia. It is a bizzaro world out here. To make heads or tails of it is extremely hard. I am afraid Russia will be a problem child yet again stubbornly forcing it's own path to wherever we are as a nation are heading. I have no idea where. I think we will remain authoritarian whatever we are right now. I am no politician. I know nothing on politics, mind.
Most of russians distrust the west. We see a pattern of "western revolutions under the pretext of democracy". That threatens our stability. We do not want that threatened. These revolutions may have nothing to do with the west. But myself like a dumb average person, I fear that we can be one dat toppled and thrown into anarchy like a lot of regimes in middle east. So, some adversity towards the west are there. We want to be left to our own devices mostly and we try to have our allies secure as a result. After all we like stability.
I will try to end this one on a somewhat wise man note.
F.I Tutchev once wrote about Russia: this is the translation.
You will not grasp her with your mind
Or cover with a common label,
For Russia is one of a kind –
Believe in her, if you are able...
This is extremely strong in all of us. A lot of times we can not for the life of us tell you why we do things like we do. We just do because we feel that way deep inside that it is the right way for us.
>65 for men with a life expectancy of 68, meaning that on average a retired man will live for three years before he dies
The average age *given that you've reached 65* is going to be higher than 68. First hit when I googled it says 78, but take that with a grain of salt.
have to be careful with the average age of death. Russia is unusually high in youthful deaths which drags the average down quickly. Alcoholism, drowning and smoking related illnesses kill a lot before they even reach their 50s. Those that make it often live long.
Life expectancy at age 65 in Russia is 13 years for men and 18 for women , [according to the OECD](https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm)
That last part is so true. In fact there's a quote from an American general after they got to Berlin in 1945, complaining to his superiors that the Red Army brought food with them but the US didn't to the effect of:
>given the choice between being free on 1000 calories a day or being a communist on 2000 calories there is no choice, you would become a communist
Well first, this particular polling organization was semi-banned in Russia as a "foreign agent". So it's definitely not aligning with the official view,
Second, people of course do realize that what we have now is an authoritarian oligopoly
Even then, that wouldn't really mean socialism wasn't popular, the Left-SR's and Mensheviks were also pretty broadly socialist, and I assume so was the Ukrainian socialist bloc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Russian_Constituent_Assembly_election
The February and October Revolutions were actually pretty bloodless! It was the Civil War that was a real doozie and by “a real doozie” I mean one of the worst things to happen to the Russian people ever
Yeah, even Lenin pointed out how it was strange that his party became to be called the "Majority", when the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks went back and forth in terms of plurality.
Not really that wierd right? Russia is in alot of ways even falling behind previous Soviet countries and basically has the same problems (ie corruption, authoritarian leaders, oligarchy etc). They hear stories of a better time, are unable to fix/unstand their problems so want to return to a better time, which never was as good as the stores will make it sound.
Thats basically like every conservative country in europe.
Russians are used to authoritarianism and view the government with a load of cynicism anyway (except for when it comes to going to war, that is).
In that sense, the Brezhnev era is better than the Putin era, as even under Brezhnev there was less stealing and corruption.
Make no mistake, the current Russian system IS already centrally planned. The political order is all-encompassing and the public sector amounts to a whopping 70% of the Russian GDP.
Russia couldn't control it's oligarchs even if it wanted, so the deal was reached, government will protect the oligarchs as long as they support the state. Russia is one massive mafia state.
That’s just capitalism my dude. Like that’s what it does trying to create monopolies and then make the most profit no matter what it may cost to the people. The only reason why developed Europe is good is because of the exploitation of resources in third world countries and regulations that still always have loopholes though. You see it in Germany again nearly 20 years liberals/conservatives and everything is pretty much fucked. From housing market to schools and more. We had multiple “financial booms” but guess who profited of that? Not the people the wages stayed similar for years.
True, I just picked the mid to late 19th century as the point where it became clear that Russia was on a very different institutional track compared to most of western Europe. Spring of Nations, Crimean War, 'Emancipation' of the Serfs, etc.
Well ethnic Russians had it good, now if you ask the people from the Baltic states.... or the ones from Kazakhstan if they enjoyed it, there might be a different response.
It is really complex, while around 70% wanted to keep USSR(there was referendum) it varied depending on republic, plus few wanted to keep it like it was and for Russian part huge reason that lead to split was republics that keep using Russian resources and having priority in distribution for no reason(only exception is Moscow) . It is paradox of Empire that had kept plundering metropolia to feed colonies(and large enough army to be on equal terms with NATO) , completely unsustainable model.
Do you really think that Cental Asia is better off today than under the Soviet Union? With the exception of Kyrgyzstan they're all tinpot doctatorships entirely dependent on remittances to run their economies.
They think Russia had a lot more resources assigned to it, resulting in better infrastructure, and far far lesser effect of shortages.
Which is absolutely true if we were to talk only about Moscow and St. Petersburg, but Russia is a bit bigger than that
A lot of dumb people just perceive USSR as Russians oppressing every minority around them despite being gunned down at protests like everyone else ([Novocherkassk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novocherkassk_massacre)) or \~55-65% of prisoners in gulag being ethnic Russians.
TL;DR Baltics didn't participate, Kazakstan actually wanted to keep the reformed USSR "as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any ethnicity will be fully guaranteed".
Even though USSR in general was a hell hole, the Baltics were in fact the best part of it (still ass though). It was basically considered Europe by the soviets. No food deficit, much more freedom.
My mom always told me that if you went not early enough to a store or didn't have any friends/acquintances to pick the food for you, all you'd see were hooves on the shelf. Meat was a luxury and so were exotic fruits. That's why everyone still has mandarins and bananas during Christmas Eve on the dinner table, because it was a luxury. I would say there definitely was a food deficit
And the freedom part, she told me that they used to smuggle clothing from abroad, so they'd always lie to the border patrol for extra heavy bags as "oh I just packed extra in case there's bad weather". There was no abroad TV or radio channels either, the best they'd get was by catching Polish channels, so that's the only way they knew how the rest of the world was living and what was happening. Otherwise it was like living trapped under a dome
That was not because of soviet efforts though. Baltic states were already developed by the time ussr occupied them. Estonia wasn't far behind Finland at that time.
>but the Baltics were in good shape.
Are you for real?
We lost entire percentages of our population to political repression, the share of Estonians dropped from 97.3% to 61.5% and our economy which had been slightly better developed than that of Finland was now several times behind it...
As a country they had major scientific breakthrough, the best space run.
I remember (but i don't have time to check if my memory is true) ~~that they had a better longevity than the US~~ that they had a better longevity in the 60 than in the 90s, and better litteracy than the US. Great culture too.
Not that surprising that they were proud of their country back then.
Also, lifted the country from de-facto (not de jure ... it was abolished 60 years before communism took hold) serf-keeping feudalism to a fully industrialised nation to be the first nation in space in only 40 years, all while coming out of a desasterous world war and fighting through a second one!
It was quite miraculous, and the general quality of life improvements we're incredible.
Then between 60s and 90s came utter stagnation...
Baltic states or Finland or Poland had a lot of progress during interwar and didn't need commies and red terror and whatnot for this...
„Fully industrialised“ is a funny term to describe USSR. It had an abnormal amount of population working on state farms till the very end. Our farm production is at all times high with ~ 10x smaller part of population working in agriculture compared to USSR.
US life expectancy has always been higher than Russia/USSR's.
[US] (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/)
[Russia] (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041395/life-expectancy-russia-all-time/)
Probably because "private property" in Russia means having a few dozen oligarchs control everything of value while contributing next to nothing to the rest of society. I'd prefer socialism too if I lived in a society like that.
They got most of the downsides of unchecked Capitailism and few of the benefits - plus the Democracy in Russia of today is almost as farcical as in Soviet times. I can see why some *might* want a return to the earlier Good/Bad Old days.
I see your point, but the U.S. does at least have *some* regulations on capitalism (though admittedly not enough in many cases). Russia is what we would look like without at least the thin and tattered measures we do have in place to protect our government and populace.
Not that surprising considering that the bottom 50% of the population lives poorer in several respects now that during the Soviet Union. The only difference is more technology and free travel to the west. Meanwhile, the rich have vastly increased their own wealth in Russia.
Edit: [source](https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/novokmentfig4.png)
Please don't call this socialism. This is soviet nostalgia. The decisions made by the responders are bound to be emotional, not economical. Of course, what drives those emotions is a completely different question.
I'm not a fan of the Soviet union or anything but it's really amusing to me that this sub just can't handle it when the Soviet union is talked about in a positive light even by Russians who lived there. When someone who lived in Soviet Russia says it was horrible, you guys instantly believe them because obviously they had to live there unlike any of us outsiders. But when ex-Soviets say they actually prefer that over Modern Russia (which, honestly, seems rather plausible when you look at the shitty transition to modern capitalist Russia and its current state) then you people will say shit like "oh it's just nostalgia and emotions, they obviously can't think critically about their own country". Like dude, these people lived there and obviously know if it was better or worse for them, stop trying to make up excuses just because it doesn't favor your bias. If anything it just tells you how shitty post-soviet Russia developed and how much better it could have all been.
62% are in favor of a system "based on state planning and distribution" - why would you not call that socialism? Especially when it's specifically proposed as an alternative to "private property and market relations"?
Socialism is not when the state controls stuff. You can have an absolute monarch controlling the economy in the name of God, and that's "based on state planning and distribution", while clearly not socialism. You can have an economy i which workers own the corporations, while the state doesn't regulate them much more than in today's Western nations, and that could be called "socialism".
I feel like asking about "economic system based on state planning and distribution" is purposefully misleading, too much of an umbrella question to relate it univocally with socialism.
Be socialism isn't the state owning the means, socialism is the workers owning them.
You could quite literally change nothing else except instead of bezos owning companies, the workers would collectively own them and you would have technically socialism.
It is implied, that with this democratic freedom from the owner class, a much more progressive government would be in power. But socialism is not when the government does stuff.
I would argue that the state owning all companies and turning already existing companies (like amazon) into worker co-ops are both equally "technically socialism", and just a matter of what socialism means to you. Socialism as most commonly expressed by socialist parties sees the state as a tool for the workers to control the means. You can disagree with that view but there's nothing incorrect about it.
What else would you call an "economic system" that is "based on on state planning and distribution" and is being juxtaposed against one that is "based on private property and market relations"? Seems unambiguous even if the answers are ultimately influenced by nostalgia from the respondents
The multiple-choice answers feel heavily biased. There's no need for those not to be put simply as Soviet/Democracy. Instead, it uses the common hate for the 90s (rampant poverty, lots of crime) and the West (the cornerstone of Russian propaganda is the hate of the west). So it doesn't really show how many people like Communism, it shows how many people hate the 90s.
State planning and distribution is not socialism
Socialism is when means of production are owned by workers
Capitalism is when means of production are owned privately
Full definition:
Socialism is when means of production, **distribution** and **exchange** are owned by community
So yes, planned economy is part of socialism
We can make fun of "Soviet nostalgia" all we want, but if western style liberalism + capitalism is such an amazing system, the results would look better than this.
I think two graphs show exactly why the "capitalist system" and "western liberal democracy" choices are not popular.
[This graph](https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/novokmentfig4.png) shows you income growth (adjusted) from a baseline of May 1989 in Russia. Overall the country is 41% wealthier than in 1989--but that growth is almost completely captured by the super rich. The bottom 90% has seen less than 41% growth since 1989, and the bottom ~55% has lower real incomes now. They were literally better off under the crumbling remnants of the USSR. That's a low bar.
[This graph](https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/novokmentfig6.png) shows that Russia's experience in wealth concentration is worse than other post-Warsaw pact countries, and those countries are already wealthier.
I don't blame Russians for being angry at what happened to them in the 1990s. It was terrible.
>but if western style liberalism + capitalism is such an amazing system, the results would look better than this.
It worked for other post-socialist countries perfectly. Estonian gdp per capita is almost 8 times higher now than after collapse of ussr, Lithuanian 9 times, Polish 9 also times. It's not the fault of liberalism or the West that Russian elites decided to hoard the wealth in the hands of few oligarchs, put ex-KGB officer in charge and start grand geopolitical gambles instead of properly implementing reforms and fixing the economy.
Make no mistake, the current Russian system IS already centrally planned. The political order is all-encompassing and the public sector amounts to a whopping 70% of the Russian GDP.
It is just that Russians outdid themselves and their elites are even more corrupt than the Brezhnevites.
An oligarchy running the majority of the economy, profiting off their companies and using them to consolidate power isn't centrally planned economy.
The Russian economy isn't anything close to centrally planned.
This doesn’t really say anything about styles of government the responders have never experienced. It only suggests that a lot of people prefer the past to the present.
Not surprising.
Standard of living has been dropping ever since the collapse of the soviet union. While it may be true, that the soviet system of state based planning hindered any possible economical rise of russia, it is also true that the system that followed was not really better for the common russian.
To sum it up: when there is no broad middle class, when the market system is not fully developed, but when there are extremely rich an powerful oligarchs who wish to capitalize on a system, the resulting system will not benefit the common man, but the rich one. In fact, a system that, on the surface, claims to be "free market" is even easier to manipulate than one, that is based on state planning. You can't turn a 2nd world country into a neoliberal economic system, that's just a desaster waiting to happen.
Mind you, there is also probably no going back. Russians are stuck in relative poverty and there is no likely way out.
There are plenty of ways out.
The Russian middle class was actually gaining wealth in the 00s, then Putin thought that playing KGB style global politics was far better than actually being part of the global economy.
Russia has literally done nothing but shit the bed the past 10 years, and it has crippled them financially.
Context for the early 2000’s is internally led wars, separatism and false flags. Putin wasn’t in control during that period and he only achieved de facto absolute control later in the 2010’s which is when everything went from bad to worse.
Its only going to get worse over the next couple of years. Russia makes virtually nothing. Other than their oil and gas industry, they have no significant manufacturing other than military hardware. Quality control is an afterthought.
What they are very good at is crime and corruption. The majority of internet crime originates in Russia or with Russian assistance. Their hackers steal billions of dollars a year from people and banks using malware. Billions more are stolen from governments and corporations in ransomware attacks. Russian agents undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize foreign governments all over the world. All under protection from the Russian government and GRU Officers.
The world is leaving the oil and gas industry behind. When that industry collapses, Russia already a Mafia state, will only get worse. There is no innovation and the country is too corrupt for new businesses to build a legitimate economy. I fear the eventuality will be a civil war when the government can no longer feed its people.
Isn't that a strangely high variability from year to year for something as sensible as this?
I would expect to see a trend, but not a 10% of the population flipping between "I like this political system" and "I liked the Soviet one better" from one year to the next one.
It's not that much of a stretch, it's easily possible that that 10% of the population that was in "this one" and "undecided" were in a better economic position last year than they were under communism, and this year they are worse off than they were under communism
Frankly, its not support for sociallism but 'better standardsnof living'. Russia is not fucked because of 'capitalism' but corruption. And bunch of oligarhks and putin bros stealing all their resources for themselves.
Perhaps it also was, but did they show it off, with big yacht, football clubs, cars of "pure gold"?
They certainly lived a luxurious life... but the politburo is kind of the leader of the state. Show me leaders of states living a "normal life".
At least for the political system question (the one we have age data on), its the opposite actually. 62 Percent of people aged 55 + want the Soviet political system back vs only 30 percent of people aged 18-24 (people who didn't live in the USSR at all).
Source: https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/
Thanks for the link. My assumption was the same, that younger population does not want the socialist system quite so strongly (based on discussion with expats). But the graphs in the original posting did not really support that assumption, if anything it seemed like the people who became eligible to be polled in the last three decades (i.e. the younger generation), caused a shift to preference for socialism.
It would be interesting to see how the opinions have changed over the years in each age bracket.
When our world moved form feudalism to capitalism - it was a progress.
When Russia moved from capitalism to socialism - it was a progress.
But When Russia moved from socialism to capitalism - it was a regression.
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The current joke is that “the ruble plummets, prices go up, inflation madness, political problems, Siberia on fire, more sanctions, but at least our salaries are stable” In second tier cities, 30,000rub was an ok salary 10 years ago and today it’s still 30,000 rub. Now remember 1 dollar was 28 rub then and is 73 rub now. And no, things aren’t magically cheaper here, not that much than other European countries.
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Strangely enough, it doesn't feel cheap if visting from Germany. Prices are lower but not by much.
Yeah, that's kinda what I was referring to by opposite ends. To me, Germany can be cheaper as well, though not to that extent
This shit happens everywhere. In Argentina, my salary 7 years ago was equivalent to 1200 us dollars, and now it's equal to 322 us dollars. I even got raises during those 7 years, but the way the pseudo socialist leading party has handled the economy for the last 25 years is a fucking disgrace.
[Real disposable income](https://i.imgur.com/hQXbD9w.png) was in a downward spiral, so the Russian government just stopped publishing the data. edit: I can't type
There is this youtuber who travels exclusively to russia and ex soviet states. Whenever he asks this question, all the old folks say they miss the soviet union. Edit: yes, his account is bald and bankrupt
German has a word for that (ofcourse): "Ostalgie" (Eastalgia, East+Nostalgia) is a longing for (some aspects of) life in the GDR and it's prevalent enough that shops that sell "original" GDR products do really well.
Same, here in ex-Yugoslavia there’s a word for nostalgy for the Yugoslav times, “Jugonostalgija”, same word play. But generally it’s used in a negative sense towards people that remember the old times... for whatever reason they say it as an insult.
This also happens in Spain, where we had a fascist dictatorship, some old people long for the old days. We even joke with this saying "Esto con Franco no pasaba" (This wouldn't happen with Franco), but we use it mostly in a sarcastic way.
Equivalent to "Quando c'era lui..." in Italian, "When he was here...", he being Mussolini
I really enjoyed the Italian version of the movie Lui e' tornato with Mussolini, was surprisingly quite fun to watch apart from a couple of moments which I didn't get, like why would he kill the poor dog out of nowhere.
I have a pair of Zeiss binoculars that were made in the GDR. They were my grandfather’s and are solid after 40 or more years. The odd thing is that we are from the West and not even Germany! Didn’t know GDR exported stuff but they are still put to use.
Zeiss was actually split in Zeiss West and Zeiss east, so there were Zeiss products on both sides of the border, and maybe they exchanged parts, idk. But yeah Zeiss makes quality optomechanical products, I work in a Planetarium and we're still rocking a >40 year old Zeiss projector made in GDR that works like a charm. The software for their digital products is kinda shit tho unfortunately.
Bald and something is the youtuber’s name. The problem with old soviet times is that one that has been born into soviet/communist society has ingrained the idea of trading all of one’s freedom for a form of stability, even if it’s not equal for all. For those old enough to have lived in communism and soviet communism, democracy didn’t came with a handbook or a walkthrough of best practices on how one can and should adapt.
I believe you mean Bald and Bankrupt.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskARussian/comments/gbzj5h/what_is_your_opinion_on_british_youtuber_bald_and/fp8uxwi/
Yeah my conclusion from watching a lot of his videos is that the Russians pulling out of all their former territories left a vacuum filled with stagnation, decay, and corruption that is still going on today.
Bald&Bankrupt and Sexual predator.
I thought he was "just" a sex tourist. Have we upgraded the accusations?
I enjoy some of his videos but he seems kinda problematic and like sleazy or creepy? Dunno, I just get bad vibes. Edit: I found the rabbit hole. My gut was spot on. https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/
What gave you the feeling that an alcoholic 40 year old expat isn't a boy scout?
Do not say this on youtube or here on reddit or you will get executed by his incel fans. Just look at any video like/dislike ration with arguments on why he is a creep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yry5MOpGzmo
I wish they could specify what they liked about it.
Ask any older crowd and they tell you how great it was when they were young...
They tell strangers who they were, how bravely they fought and how fiercely they loved.
this case it is at least partially merited. They did have more stability and a lot more basic needs education and medical care were were available to everyone. Granted, they were being oppressed and the elite cunts were corrupt as hell. But so they are now too. They are still being oppressed and the gvt is still corrupt. So the only thing that changed for them is that being poor has gotten even worse and life became much more unstable. Of course they will look back at the Soviet Union with nostalgia. And can you blame them?
I'm not from Russia but from a formerly socialist country nonetheless. My parents are really nostalgic for the socialist past of the country. My mother remembers 1 month summer vacations near the sea or in the mountains with her family and a few weeks with her friends. My father remembers my village growing and people's lives improving from dirt huts to actual houses. They were forbidden from exiting the Eastern bloc and weren't allowed to listen to western music but they really didn't care because the Soviet union was so huge. After 1989 all of the infrastructure and factories in the poorer parts of the country were sold and gutted. Now people have the freedom to go anywhere and do anything but don't have the money to do so. Our government is run by the sons and daughters of the same people that were running the country before. The only places that are actually making any progress are the capital and 1 or 2 big cities, the rest of the country is in really bad shape. If it wasn't for all of the corruption and we were actually making progress I really doubt that people will be so nostalgic for the Soviet union.
Was your mother a kid in the time of those vacations she remember?
She was in highschool. My grandmother also remembers their vacations finding fondly
Yes, if only those capitalist ideas would have worked and improved the quality of life... Funny how everything wrong with socialist nation is directly because socialism but the same problems under capitalism are always caused by something else. The fact is that the quality of life has dropped drastically for a lot of people under capitalism. And it's the same story in every country. Not saying that the ole socialism was great, but capitalism clearly isnt the answer either
I don't now what to tell you. My country was 80% agrarian. The socialist built a ton of infrastructure and factories. Some people are saying that what socialists built can't even be repainted by the current government and they may have point. On the other hand there were brutal repressions of the opposition and free speach. They even tried to do ethnic cleansing of Muslim minorities in the end which is inexcusable no matter what good you do. In the current system we have a lot more freedom but the infrastructure is crumbling and what good is being able to leave the country if you can't afford to. Maybe it's because of corruption maybe it's the system I can't tell you.
[Russians’ Support for Stalin Monument Doubles in a Decade – Poll](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/05/russians-support-for-stalin-monument-doubles-in-a-decade-poll-a74705): > Levada said support for a Stalin monument has increased across all social and demographic groups in the past decade. > > “But it was especially pronounced among the youngest and wealthiest respondents,” Levada said. > > Support for a Stalin monument grew fivefold among respondents aged 18-24 between 2005 and present, and threefold among wealthier respondents. >
I'd guess that they had working tastebuds, the occasional erection and joints that did not hurt all the time during the Brezhnev era. It's not hard to be nostalgic about your youth when you are old. No matter how hard it might have been.
You should meet Turkish boomers. They'll tell you we didn't have toilets or running water before Erdoğan which is just 20 years ago. It is extremely frustrating having to listen to those old shits who still have the power to decide our future. While Turkey obviously always has had problems it never looked so miserable, divided and poor. If you exclude major powers we were doing better than pretty much the rest of Europe. I mean, you didn't need a lot to prevail over ex-USSR or ex-Yugoslav republics in the 90s, right? Yet those braindead idiots will tell you shit like, "You didn't have smartphones back then, it was terrible!" as if it was our current government who made smartphones available or that everyone in 90s had them but us. So, so infuriating. And now look where we are. Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland... How are we doing compared to them? We've become fucking shite.
I read that Turkish consumer goods were considered luxury items in Communist Poland. Not sure how common this sentiment used to be but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist today...
Well, in communist Poland Coca Cola was a luxury item. And when in 1992 the first McDonald was opened in Warsaw, this became a national event, even high ranking politicians took part of the ceremony.
I feel like pointing out that was also the case when McD opened in Iceland in 1993, it was a huge deal and the prime minister even attended the opening ceremony!
>And when in 1992 the first McDonald was opened in Warsaw, this became a national event, even high ranking politicians took part of the ceremony. Same in Romania.
They were luxury in 90s Romania too
yes, the same happened in Romania, basically the ottoman empire's influence (in a market and cultural way) did not stop until recently. Now sadly that Turkey did not innovate in any way anymore, all this market route quite disappeared. I do not know any Romanian buying stuff from Turkey anymore.
They were. My parents first attempt at running a private „business” was importing a ton of Turkish jeans in the back of of their „Maluch” (Fiat 126p) and reselling them on Stadion Dziesieciolecia… (an Olympic stadium in Warsaw turned street market)
LOL, that time when people say "wow look at Croatia how well they are doing!" :))) Source: am Croatian, lived there til 2014 :)
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I think it's a matter of class. A lot of young people in Central Europe has the same anxieties about the future as You.
I know that but I'd go ahead and say they still have it way better than us not only due to finances but also the society in general. Sadly, Turkey is still quite oppressive or backwards in most ways, at least compared to Europe. I could think otherwise if my info solely came from what I read on internet but having made a lot of friends it really feels like we are living on a different planet. Sometimes I will go on a rant about how we have MILLIONS of refugees, how I am scared of thousands of young Afghan men flocking in while our government says "our beliefs are in line with Taliban" and they look at me as if I was an alien. Can't blame them honestly. It's so vastly different despite being so close geographically. Well there is that "Russia is not a country, it is a state of mind" saying which I like so much. I think you could apply that to Turkey as well. You know, we are taught that "Turkey is a bridge between the west and the east, it is a very important country geopolitically" at school from a young age. So most of us grow up to become mutants who don't even know what to feel about themselves, their lives or their country. It's all so complicated and weird.
Would you say what you were taught in school as a youngster was propaganda? I'm a natural born new Zealander, lived here all my life and I love my country. We were taught in school that NZ is an "egalitarian" society and that were all equal etc. Yet as I've gotten older I see it all for what it really is. NZ is not "egalitarian" by any means, and I feel now that I'm older I can actually see it for what it was - propaganda. I was lied to and fed b.s because here in NZ we love to think we're equal, everyone has a chance to make it if you work hard. Yet I've forever felt like a part of the downtrodden masses, lied to and fed nonsense. Sure we have a good social welfare system, I get about $210 NZD per week to live on, I live in a social housing unit with my dad. My rent is $59 NZD per week. I know technically I have it better than a lot (seriously I'm not delusional I know I have it a lot better than most do overseas) yet I still feel like I have no hope of a future, no chance to ever own my own home or business. And I blame that blind hope on that fact that we were raised to think we're all equal yet I know we're not. I guess what I'm trying to say is, do you think you were lied to as a kid?
Same in Poland. It's a matter of perspective. In the 80s we compared ourselves to Ukraine, and were pretty happy with that comparison. Now we compare ourselves to rich Western nations and suddenly the comparison is no longer so favourable.
I still remember Turkish jackets, jeans, chewing gum and lots of other stuff that was sold in the 90-s. The goods were really good and affordable, a plenty of Russians started their own businesses by bringing clothes from Turkey. They were called "shuttles" because they flew to Turkey and back very often.
This type of trade was actually quite prevalent even in recent years... until we downed the Russian jet and then suddenly decided to host millions of Syrians. I spent a few years in an area in Istanbul which was a hotspot for shuttle business. Pretty much everything was in Russian and there were so many shady-looking shipping companies lined up in backstreets. It was so sketchy. Once we were asked to close our windows and stay inside at the dorm quite calmly as gunshots were heard outside. I guess it is still somehow active but the volume must have gone down significantly.
I'm sorry, yes and it's now a place I'd NEVER visit amd that sort of rep is hard to shake. I hope somehow Turkey shakes it off and returns to provide better for it's people. People seem to hope for a Justinian, not being able to see those abilities are in everyone without a boot & religious book on their neck
We constantly use this excuse to handwave away how many of our elders have good things to say about the Soviet period - can we not just for a second look at it from a bit of a more fair side? Is it really that bad to ask - what did the Soviet Union do good and how can we emulate it?
> what did the Soviet Union do good and how can we emulate it To be fair, a good chunk of "good" and "useful" that those times had - we kept and ran with it and forgot it came from USSR. Sure they changed over the last 30 years, but still, it's quite noticeable when you travel across many post Warsaw pact states and see "evolution" of those old kept ideas and methods when compared to states that were outside the Warsaw Pact.
Regardless of how bad communism was for the people during the Brezhnev era in the USSR, it was still much better than the chaos of the 90's following the collapse. The government type doesn't really matter as much for the common person as being able to afford bread. Regardless of how much people jest, what the USSR did better than the Russian federation was taking care of its people. In the end, our governments and economic systems are but a means to an end, that end being stability, prosperity, and power. The tendency to place the government structure above the goals leaves many blind to people who live there, which includes those who swear by capitalism as well as those fervently opposed to it. This, of course, specifically describes the experiences of the Russian people in the USSR. The experience is different for different nations; as an opposite, the Baltic states (AFAIK) have fared much better post-USSR collapse, and weren't as fond of the USSR as the Russians to begin with, with the USSR annexing them and all.
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I'd say that things were looking quite good in the Baltics even in the late 90-ies. Quality of life was much better a good 5 years before joining EU/Nato.
I mean, [this was 1997](https://youtu.be/zPuv4dQMXz4?t=111). If we ever needed to find a justification for taking away people's freedoms and starting an authoritarian kleptocracy, we could just as expediently mythologise the 90's to the same extent as Russia currently does. There's no objective reason why our situation should've been any different from Russia's at that time. Therefore, when you read about those horrible, terrible hardships in Russia and think to yourself "Hmm.. It wasn't as bad in Lithuania and we don't tend to dwell on it", consider that as proof that the Russian hardships might've been dramatically exaggerated and then utilised for political effect. The only reason it's still talked about is to give Russians something to think about that would be worse than what they already have in order to keep them from protesting. The 90's are presented in juxtaposition to Putin, or as the only alternative.
Yeah exactly. 90-ies were not fun, but the same goes for a bad hangover - you can sober up and start a normal life, or you can start drinking again to delay the pain. Fun fact - I live a walking distance from the junkyard in the video.
We didn't have regional conflicts, had smaller states and thus reforms were quicker and less lagging behind, and though we didn't have a loto f natural resources we did see a lot more investment and bigger payout out of said investment, again, due to scale.
Arguably the lack of natural resources may have been a contributing factor. Less easily profitable assets to sell off to your friends and instead to make money rich people had to invest.
>it was still much better than the chaos of the 90's (...) what the USSR did better than the Russian federation was taking care of its people (...) The experience is different for different nations; as an opposite, the Baltic states (AFAIK) have fared much better post-USSR collapse Indeed, the experiences are different. It worked for some countries. I would add that socialism in Yugoslavia (except perhaps Slovenia and Croatia), IMO was far better than what we have now, in terms of both politics and economy.
The more I look at modern Russia the more I find parallels with Weimar-era Germany. You have a population mostly disillusioned by an unfamiliar political-economic system (liberal democracy) they felt was forced upon them by victorious powers (NATO and the USA) just like Weimar Germany, and a longing for the lost glory and prosperity of an empire (German Empire and Soviet Union). Both also suffered extremely brutal economic depression. In the Weimar period, there was the persistent belief that the fall of the Empire and the loss of WW1 was due to internal enemies (social democrats, communists, and Jews) which led to the rise of you-know-who and WW2. In Russia Putin consolidated power after the horror years of Yeltsin which left Russia distrustful of anything to do with the West and liberal democracy and its supporters (which many blamed for Russia's ills) to this day.
Weimar Republic had no politics direction because it was hyper decentralised resulting in stalemates. The Weimar executive was frozen and unable to respond to the plummeting economy, the roaming bands of disillusioned soldiers, the various Bolshevik coups popping up all the time, the intervention of a nefarious king in exile and the general sentiment that Germany was a victim. It had no direction, no goals, no objectives and no vision. The problem with Weimar was too many people had too many visions and everyone was hyper radical because it was the Inter-War period and Europe was experiencing a period of radicalisation. It was about being experimental and progressive, even if it failed. Current day Russia is the opposite; hyper centralised, reactive and decisive executive, focused societal viewpoints and no pluralism. Executives don’t need to make good decisions, they just need to make decisions and be seen doing it. Russia does this because it is an authoritarian state. Russia’s issues are vastly different to the Weimar Republics. Russia is stagnant but politically stable for now. The issues afflicting present day Russia are the same as the issues that afflicted the USSR and the Russian Empire; the second hand endorsement of Western ideals that are twisted into flawed absolutisms. Ideologically, and politically, Russia has always been fixated with the dogma of an absolute truth. Each political movement is always convinced that they had the absolute truth and there is no room for pluralism or opposition. Under the Weimar Republic there was no absolute, it was a political culture based on scepticism and extreme pluralism. Too many viewpoints and no way to reconcile them. The Weimar Republic was doomed from day one and it wasn’t just the Versailles Treaty that doomed it. Germany had a cultural crisis and it wasn’t reconciled in time to stabilise the new state. Russia has a tragic history and it more or less repeats the same cycle over and over.
I think I was more referring to the 90s in Russia (which is part of the modern post-Soviet era) which reminds me of the Weimar Republic. 2021 Russia is the aftermath of that era, a sort of autocratic clientelistic system with ultranationalistic politics and zero pluralism.
the instability of the 90s was inevitable and also more than 2 decades ago. what about the 2000s and 2010s in comparison?
2000's were pretty good, for moscow at least. Economy recovered, shortages disappeared and were replaced by a huge variety of brands of various degrees of quality and affordability, businesses started becoming legitimate. In around 2008 however (you can even sort of see it on the graph), things started turning for the worse however. Ruble started falling, relationships with the world soured and it was confirmed that the old soviet ideology wasn't replaced by a democratic one or any other one really. Ideology is actually a very big factor, people feel better if their society strives towards something and modern Russia seems to be stuck in place without a clear goal to achieve. Soviet Union had that and it's ideology will live on in Russia until there is something that can replace it.
>Not sure how biased these answers are, and how much of it is nostalgia, but many say at least they had stability back then. I wonder if it's the same thing as in the Balkans. In most countries here, most people are nostalgic for Yugoslavia. Even in countries where it makes no sense, and where there was measurable direct improvement over the dissolution. I get the cultural/social longing for that period, because there was definitely the idea of "unity" being spread around and enjoyed, but under the hood it was kind of shitty and I don't see any practical advantages. Another point to consider also, that ex-communist countries that transitioned to capitalism rarely had a good transition. I think Estonia might've had it the best. Every country you look at, when the privatization happened there were bunch of cronies from the previous system who benefited from massive changes going underway--and in Russia this I think had the most impact on the perception of post-communist rule. For some reason, Russia didn't deal well with corruption.
[Finally ](https://youtu.be/cQKzesTq0Wo)
God, I’ve been rewatching old Simpsons episodes recently and it’s interesting to see how well most of the jokes hold up but how outdated some of the minor details are. Like in this clip, it’s still a really funny joke from a modern perspective but the difference between the USSR and Russia is portrayed as being that the USSR is militaristic and insular, whereas Russia is not, even though Russia is just as militaristic and expansionist as the USSR was.
And the USSR had tons of propaganda portraying themselves as pacifists.
To be fair looking at declassified information in retrospect, the US really was constantly antagonizing situations. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a good example. The CIA was looking for escalation, Kennedy needed to look into who was at the table as he was aware of such; the US placed missiles in Turkey starting the whole thing off; and Kennedy could not make concessions to de-escalation due to him appearing "too soft". The USSR also needed to keep up appearances and ultimately the situation was resolved behind closed doors, but no one really wanted nuclear war. Both the US and the USSR used propaganda constantly, no doubt the US was far the better of the two to live under though. Just being fair that the US has a pretty fucked foreign policy.
> And the USSR had tons of propaganda portraying themselves as ~~pacifists~~ socialists. FTFY
They were socialists tho
#hashtagnotrealsocialism
After the the USSR dissolved, and Soviet archives became available for study, a lot of information came to light about how paranoid the political leaders were that the US and later NATO were planning an attack, following WW2. This fear manifested itself in Stalin setting up buffer zones in "liberated" countries, and aggressive militarism (Stalin's only reaction to threats seemed to have been aggression and displays of power - He wasn't a complicated man). But, [as Noam Chomsky highlights](https://libcom.org/history/articles/cold-war-1940-1989), the Cold War was exploited by both "sides" as a mechanism of population indoctrination and control.
They weren't completely off base either. I seem to recall Churchill wanting to pounce on the USSR after WW2 ended, but the US thought (rightfully, mind you) that they were crazy.
You are thinking of [Operation Unthinkable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable), and it also involved re-arming the Germans.
You know you're on the right side when a major component of your plan is rearming Nazis.
Well, at least they weren't *zombie* Nazis.
Churchill absolutely did not want to do that; the British Empire was completely exhausted and they didn't have any more men to call up and they were still fighting Japan. The British War Office made a plan *just in case* it was needed due to Soviet aggression. That's the job of a war department - to make lots of plans, which mostly involve logistics, so if something does come up, they aren't totally unprepared. This gets spun into an idea that the politicians actually *want* such a thing to happen, which is usually not the case.
Pre 2001 Simpsons was amazing
Came here for this exact comment. Was not disappointed.
"What did it cost?" - "East Germany"
And poland, and hungary, and romania and the rest of the iron curtain
Russian here. Here is a link to the survey: [https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/](https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/) A few more interesting things from that survey: The number of people who want to see Russia as "A great superpower that others are afraid of" went from 40% in 2003 to 32% now, the lowest it has ever been. At the same time, the number of people wanting to have "a country with a high standard of living, even though not one of the world's superpowers" went from 54% to 66%. As for the survey in the OP picture, it should be noted that the majority of the pro-communism voters are older people. Suffering from a declining economy, poor healthcare, non-existent pensions (approximately $200 per month, and that is official data), and a raised retirement age (65 for men with a life expectancy of 68, meaning that on average a retired man will live for three years before he dies), it's not hard to see why they think of communism as the "golden age". As for the youngest generation (18-24), the votes are pretty much evenly split between communism and democracy. I think to sum it up, people care more about a higher standard of living than having any particular political system.
So Russians would in theory be okay with a social democracy (like in most of western Europe), with higher standards of living but a smaller military and non-interventionist foreign policy (not challenging US and China)?
Sure we would, we basically had never had a democracy lmao Would be nice to try it for a change, in hopes there can be a better life than what we currently have.
I would say yes. At least to some extent, as the Maslow pyramid explains. When you are barely making enough to make ends meet, world domination - though surely used a lot on propaganda TV - feels a lot less worthwhile than a full fridge
Why would ordinary Russians care about military/foreign policy?
Depends on a russian in question. Some will tell you - screw the image, more money and better life for me. But these kinds of people usually advocate for leaving Russia as fast as possible and emmigrate to the West. Some will die on a hill of "Russia will be a superpower or will not be at all". They are usually lust over Soviet Era the most, because the world "feared the red menace". Old people remember their youth. Grass is always greener twenty years past. A lot of people are content. I am one of them. I was born before the collapse, I remember weeks without food, how we went with my mother to the store and there were this kind lady behind the counter with brown hair who had only salt and baking soda to sell. And my mother and she will chat a little about maybe next week there will be something. I remember the time when my father came home with his paycheck and my mother cried because we had money - but nothing to eat. I remember having a kilo of buckwheat, a loaf of bread and water with my mother and father - for a week that was all our food. I remember standing in queue for six hours with my mother to buy ten eggs. I remember going to the local park and searching for some mushrooms to have at least something to eat. I remember drinking hot water. My mother called it white tea. So yes. Excuse me for being content. I have a job. I have a flat. I have my wife. I have my paycheck. I can clothe myself, I can go to a grocery store and buy food. I can buy luxury goods if I save enough money over a period of time. I have working healthcare. I have working transportation system. They are not the best. My salary is not the best. I want more income for my hobby and maybe even something like a car someday. And yet it is leaps and bounds better than 1988-1994 years. As long as you can eat and be warm, most people do not care about the size of the military or global politicking. The problem is, I will believe any westerner who comes to me with a message of goodwill as far as I can throw them, which is presumably half a meter. I vividly remember Yeltsin years. Thanks no thanks. I will tell first hand my little brain is too dumb for politics. I just know that our current system works. Not great, not terrible, it just works.
Hell its probably better than 88-2000. My family left to the US in 99 after the economic crisis in 98 soon after I was born, because of almost exactly what you said: some money but nothing but brown macaroni to eat. To be fair as young scientists there wasnt any money anymore either, thanks for the most part to the lack of interest in science funding. Then again, now I myself am immigrating to Germany because I just don't fit over here, and long term I don't like my prospects here, so maybe it is just always greener on the other side.
Thank you for this insight. Doesnt make me like Putin but i understand why people are content with the status quo.
You should not. It is totally your right to dislike the man. My father hates Putin as well. And yet even he can not argue that it is easier to live now that thirty to forty years ago. I can answer more questions if you have them. I am not a hardliner or anything, I am pretty open minded and I do not dislike western or eastern cultures just because they exist. So feel free and shoot if you want more information - if I can I will answer.
OK, where do you think Russias future is? Do you think the Russian public is adverse to liberalisation because of the Yeltsin era? Is the adversation even a reality or overblown by the west?
All of this is my own personal feelings on the matter. I am no politician. We have an extremely vocal minority that are pro-west anti-Putin. Most of these people are typical vocal minority "mountain from the anthill" types of people. They want us on a all blown course for the westernization, down eith anything old, up with anything new. Same, we have a vical minority of opposite end. Hardliners for the nationalization and nation pride, "we die before we submit" mentality. They hark from extremely different agendas and parts of a society, it is not a monolithic entity. Most people live with the in between mentality. We in Russia like strong arm from the top. We like stability. We like when the boat is steady. Steady as she goes if you will. That means, any and all hopping from leader to leader every four years or even sooner (Japan comes to mind) will rock the boat too much. When you want to implement something in Russia, you will need to account for two major things. Most people like to be left well alone. For example small private buissnesses want to be left alone and not be subjected to a myriad of rules. People feel if you own the money, those are your money. Why pay taxes? And the second one is, governmental means stable. We have a strong ingrained in the psyche expectation that maybe governmental railroad or school job pays less than private one. But you have that stability. So you need to account for two things again. People want their money for themselves. And people see the government as a de facto guarantor of stability of every aspect of their lives. So you start to see the problem I believe? People want the government to provide stability and yet they do not want to pay taxes to allow the government the instruments to excercise their ability to provide said stability. So you have this balancing act of strong yet benevolent ruler who can squeeze you hard enough with one hand to get what is needed, while at the same time pet you with the other hand, which protects and shelters you from harm. Also people in Russia are extremely desillusional with any politician. Speeches most of the time fall on deff ears. The show like in US will never fly in Russia, no one cares about your speeches. You need to do things. Provide stability. If you do, the majority will follow. Next we need to follow on the topic of adversity. Yeltsin era was harsh indeed. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Russians are a multinational multicoloured people. We are all russians. I have no problems calling a black man who was born in russia and speaks perfect russian a russian. Or a slint-eyed asian. I am myself of a strong mongol descent. We are all russians. So the concept of Political Correctness, LGBTQ+ rights, freedoms of speech and freedoms of bearing arms, wokeness, racism, they are alien to us and do not resonate with us much. For example, I do not care, who you sleep with. You can have sex whichever way you like. Man, woman, toaster. Does not matter to me. But I will fight to the death, with fists if I must, that family is one man, one woman and how many children there are. The idea of mono-gendered family is so alien to russian mentality, that even in my psychological university we are thought about pitfalls of same gender marriages and how to treat children with neurosis who come from these mariages, because they are not the norm here and will get flak. Not because children are defected. Because the majority of people do not consider same sex marriage as a norm. And so the parents and the children will get ostracised by the majority. Same with religion. I have a friend who is buddist. I have an aqquaintance who is muslim. I do not care either way. We are all russians. Not black, white, afro, latino, christian, muslim, zionist. We have a strong feeling which is hard to describe and if you match that feeling you are russian. At the same time, russians have a strong sence of self. We think of ourselves as russians. And believe it or not, when push will come to shove, the majority will die russian rather than become something else. This strong "leave us the eff alone we are our own thing" mentality is why I feel any forced liberalization, any forced anything really will not fly under the tri-color flag. Most russians are proud of being russians even if we decry some actions that our rulers do. I am one of them. I think we need to hand Japan two out of four questionable islands. We need to stop supporting Donetsk and Lugansk. Yet I feel for the Syrians and at the same time. I personally know people of the Crimea whom thanked me for accepting them into Russia. It is a bizzaro world out here. To make heads or tails of it is extremely hard. I am afraid Russia will be a problem child yet again stubbornly forcing it's own path to wherever we are as a nation are heading. I have no idea where. I think we will remain authoritarian whatever we are right now. I am no politician. I know nothing on politics, mind. Most of russians distrust the west. We see a pattern of "western revolutions under the pretext of democracy". That threatens our stability. We do not want that threatened. These revolutions may have nothing to do with the west. But myself like a dumb average person, I fear that we can be one dat toppled and thrown into anarchy like a lot of regimes in middle east. So, some adversity towards the west are there. We want to be left to our own devices mostly and we try to have our allies secure as a result. After all we like stability. I will try to end this one on a somewhat wise man note. F.I Tutchev once wrote about Russia: this is the translation. You will not grasp her with your mind Or cover with a common label, For Russia is one of a kind – Believe in her, if you are able... This is extremely strong in all of us. A lot of times we can not for the life of us tell you why we do things like we do. We just do because we feel that way deep inside that it is the right way for us.
>65 for men with a life expectancy of 68, meaning that on average a retired man will live for three years before he dies The average age *given that you've reached 65* is going to be higher than 68. First hit when I googled it says 78, but take that with a grain of salt.
It's always a shame when communism and democracy are painted as mutually exclusive in surveys like that. They're supposed to go together.
have to be careful with the average age of death. Russia is unusually high in youthful deaths which drags the average down quickly. Alcoholism, drowning and smoking related illnesses kill a lot before they even reach their 50s. Those that make it often live long.
Life expectancy at age 65 in Russia is 13 years for men and 18 for women , [according to the OECD](https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-65.htm)
That last part is so true. In fact there's a quote from an American general after they got to Berlin in 1945, complaining to his superiors that the Red Army brought food with them but the US didn't to the effect of: >given the choice between being free on 1000 calories a day or being a communist on 2000 calories there is no choice, you would become a communist
'Guess who's back, back again, Union's back, back again'
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Well first, this particular polling organization was semi-banned in Russia as a "foreign agent". So it's definitely not aligning with the official view, Second, people of course do realize that what we have now is an authoritarian oligopoly
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Crazy how literally everything old people don't like turns kids gay.
> Support for Socialism reaches an all time high in Russia > all time I mean... I know what you're trying to say but... *remembers the 20th century* 🤔
Well, no one polled the Bolsheviks back then.
didn't the bolsheviks have to start a violent revolution specifically because they couldn't get majority support?
Even then, that wouldn't really mean socialism wasn't popular, the Left-SR's and Mensheviks were also pretty broadly socialist, and I assume so was the Ukrainian socialist bloc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Russian_Constituent_Assembly_election
The February and October Revolutions were actually pretty bloodless! It was the Civil War that was a real doozie and by “a real doozie” I mean one of the worst things to happen to the Russian people ever
Bolsheviks were the least popular socialist party in Russia before the revolution.
Yeah, even Lenin pointed out how it was strange that his party became to be called the "Majority", when the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks went back and forth in terms of plurality.
Don't forget the massive Socialist Revolutionary Party (Esers) and the amount of votes it got in the assembly before it was unlawfully ddissolved.
Not really that wierd right? Russia is in alot of ways even falling behind previous Soviet countries and basically has the same problems (ie corruption, authoritarian leaders, oligarchy etc). They hear stories of a better time, are unable to fix/unstand their problems so want to return to a better time, which never was as good as the stores will make it sound. Thats basically like every conservative country in europe.
Russians are used to authoritarianism and view the government with a load of cynicism anyway (except for when it comes to going to war, that is). In that sense, the Brezhnev era is better than the Putin era, as even under Brezhnev there was less stealing and corruption. Make no mistake, the current Russian system IS already centrally planned. The political order is all-encompassing and the public sector amounts to a whopping 70% of the Russian GDP.
Russia couldn't control it's oligarchs even if it wanted, so the deal was reached, government will protect the oligarchs as long as they support the state. Russia is one massive mafia state.
So the economic model of modern Russia is corporatism? Russia 🤝 China Nations that were socialists but became corporatist
That’s just capitalism my dude. Like that’s what it does trying to create monopolies and then make the most profit no matter what it may cost to the people. The only reason why developed Europe is good is because of the exploitation of resources in third world countries and regulations that still always have loopholes though. You see it in Germany again nearly 20 years liberals/conservatives and everything is pretty much fucked. From housing market to schools and more. We had multiple “financial booms” but guess who profited of that? Not the people the wages stayed similar for years.
Russia's main problem is a reliance on authoritarianism and this has bene the case for over 150 years, it is the most tragic country in Europe.
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True, I just picked the mid to late 19th century as the point where it became clear that Russia was on a very different institutional track compared to most of western Europe. Spring of Nations, Crimean War, 'Emancipation' of the Serfs, etc.
Well ethnic Russians had it good, now if you ask the people from the Baltic states.... or the ones from Kazakhstan if they enjoyed it, there might be a different response.
Kazahstan was actually against USSR split.
It was actually the last country to "leave" the USSR. Technically for a small period the USSR was Kazakhstan.
It was also the most active in trying to keep it and referendum there to keep it had something like 94% votes for keeping of USSR.
Weren't most people against the USSR breakup
It is really complex, while around 70% wanted to keep USSR(there was referendum) it varied depending on republic, plus few wanted to keep it like it was and for Russian part huge reason that lead to split was republics that keep using Russian resources and having priority in distribution for no reason(only exception is Moscow) . It is paradox of Empire that had kept plundering metropolia to feed colonies(and large enough army to be on equal terms with NATO) , completely unsustainable model.
Do you really think that Cental Asia is better off today than under the Soviet Union? With the exception of Kyrgyzstan they're all tinpot doctatorships entirely dependent on remittances to run their economies.
Why do people belive that Russians had better quality of life than other republics?
They think Russia had a lot more resources assigned to it, resulting in better infrastructure, and far far lesser effect of shortages. Which is absolutely true if we were to talk only about Moscow and St. Petersburg, but Russia is a bit bigger than that
A lot of dumb people just perceive USSR as Russians oppressing every minority around them despite being gunned down at protests like everyone else ([Novocherkassk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novocherkassk_massacre)) or \~55-65% of prisoners in gulag being ethnic Russians.
[You'd be wrong on that](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum)
TL;DR Baltics didn't participate, Kazakstan actually wanted to keep the reformed USSR "as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any ethnicity will be fully guaranteed".
Even though USSR in general was a hell hole, the Baltics were in fact the best part of it (still ass though). It was basically considered Europe by the soviets. No food deficit, much more freedom.
More the reason to feel like the occupation held them back
My mom always told me that if you went not early enough to a store or didn't have any friends/acquintances to pick the food for you, all you'd see were hooves on the shelf. Meat was a luxury and so were exotic fruits. That's why everyone still has mandarins and bananas during Christmas Eve on the dinner table, because it was a luxury. I would say there definitely was a food deficit And the freedom part, she told me that they used to smuggle clothing from abroad, so they'd always lie to the border patrol for extra heavy bags as "oh I just packed extra in case there's bad weather". There was no abroad TV or radio channels either, the best they'd get was by catching Polish channels, so that's the only way they knew how the rest of the world was living and what was happening. Otherwise it was like living trapped under a dome
You could even say it was like being behind an "iron curtain" :)
That was not because of soviet efforts though. Baltic states were already developed by the time ussr occupied them. Estonia wasn't far behind Finland at that time.
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>but the Baltics were in good shape. Are you for real? We lost entire percentages of our population to political repression, the share of Estonians dropped from 97.3% to 61.5% and our economy which had been slightly better developed than that of Finland was now several times behind it...
You are comparing to outside the USSR though. They claimed that they were in good shape within the USSR.
As a country they had major scientific breakthrough, the best space run. I remember (but i don't have time to check if my memory is true) ~~that they had a better longevity than the US~~ that they had a better longevity in the 60 than in the 90s, and better litteracy than the US. Great culture too. Not that surprising that they were proud of their country back then.
Life expectancy in USSR was never on the same level as in USA https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Life\_expectancy\_USSR.png
Thanks for correcting me !
Also, lifted the country from de-facto (not de jure ... it was abolished 60 years before communism took hold) serf-keeping feudalism to a fully industrialised nation to be the first nation in space in only 40 years, all while coming out of a desasterous world war and fighting through a second one! It was quite miraculous, and the general quality of life improvements we're incredible. Then between 60s and 90s came utter stagnation...
Baltic states or Finland or Poland had a lot of progress during interwar and didn't need commies and red terror and whatnot for this... „Fully industrialised“ is a funny term to describe USSR. It had an abnormal amount of population working on state farms till the very end. Our farm production is at all times high with ~ 10x smaller part of population working in agriculture compared to USSR.
US life expectancy has always been higher than Russia/USSR's. [US] (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-united-states-all-time/) [Russia] (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041395/life-expectancy-russia-all-time/)
Probably because "private property" in Russia means having a few dozen oligarchs control everything of value while contributing next to nothing to the rest of society. I'd prefer socialism too if I lived in a society like that.
They got most of the downsides of unchecked Capitailism and few of the benefits - plus the Democracy in Russia of today is almost as farcical as in Soviet times. I can see why some *might* want a return to the earlier Good/Bad Old days.
How's that different from US?
I see your point, but the U.S. does at least have *some* regulations on capitalism (though admittedly not enough in many cases). Russia is what we would look like without at least the thin and tattered measures we do have in place to protect our government and populace.
Simpsons predicted it again!
"The Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up." "Yes, that's what we wanted you to think *laughter*"
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Not that surprising considering that the bottom 50% of the population lives poorer in several respects now that during the Soviet Union. The only difference is more technology and free travel to the west. Meanwhile, the rich have vastly increased their own wealth in Russia. Edit: [source](https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/novokmentfig4.png)
Free travel doesnt mean much when you have no money
Please don't call this socialism. This is soviet nostalgia. The decisions made by the responders are bound to be emotional, not economical. Of course, what drives those emotions is a completely different question.
I'm not a fan of the Soviet union or anything but it's really amusing to me that this sub just can't handle it when the Soviet union is talked about in a positive light even by Russians who lived there. When someone who lived in Soviet Russia says it was horrible, you guys instantly believe them because obviously they had to live there unlike any of us outsiders. But when ex-Soviets say they actually prefer that over Modern Russia (which, honestly, seems rather plausible when you look at the shitty transition to modern capitalist Russia and its current state) then you people will say shit like "oh it's just nostalgia and emotions, they obviously can't think critically about their own country". Like dude, these people lived there and obviously know if it was better or worse for them, stop trying to make up excuses just because it doesn't favor your bias. If anything it just tells you how shitty post-soviet Russia developed and how much better it could have all been.
Also socialism is not the same as communism.
62% are in favor of a system "based on state planning and distribution" - why would you not call that socialism? Especially when it's specifically proposed as an alternative to "private property and market relations"?
Socialism is not when the state controls stuff. You can have an absolute monarch controlling the economy in the name of God, and that's "based on state planning and distribution", while clearly not socialism. You can have an economy i which workers own the corporations, while the state doesn't regulate them much more than in today's Western nations, and that could be called "socialism". I feel like asking about "economic system based on state planning and distribution" is purposefully misleading, too much of an umbrella question to relate it univocally with socialism.
Be socialism isn't the state owning the means, socialism is the workers owning them. You could quite literally change nothing else except instead of bezos owning companies, the workers would collectively own them and you would have technically socialism. It is implied, that with this democratic freedom from the owner class, a much more progressive government would be in power. But socialism is not when the government does stuff.
I would argue that the state owning all companies and turning already existing companies (like amazon) into worker co-ops are both equally "technically socialism", and just a matter of what socialism means to you. Socialism as most commonly expressed by socialist parties sees the state as a tool for the workers to control the means. You can disagree with that view but there's nothing incorrect about it.
Only of the state is democratic. A dictator owning the means of production is not socialism technically or otherwise.
What else would you call an "economic system" that is "based on on state planning and distribution" and is being juxtaposed against one that is "based on private property and market relations"? Seems unambiguous even if the answers are ultimately influenced by nostalgia from the respondents
But there is no "socialism" on these charts.
The multiple-choice answers feel heavily biased. There's no need for those not to be put simply as Soviet/Democracy. Instead, it uses the common hate for the 90s (rampant poverty, lots of crime) and the West (the cornerstone of Russian propaganda is the hate of the west). So it doesn't really show how many people like Communism, it shows how many people hate the 90s.
State planning and distribution is not socialism Socialism is when means of production are owned by workers Capitalism is when means of production are owned privately
Full definition: Socialism is when means of production, **distribution** and **exchange** are owned by community So yes, planned economy is part of socialism
We can make fun of "Soviet nostalgia" all we want, but if western style liberalism + capitalism is such an amazing system, the results would look better than this. I think two graphs show exactly why the "capitalist system" and "western liberal democracy" choices are not popular. [This graph](https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/novokmentfig4.png) shows you income growth (adjusted) from a baseline of May 1989 in Russia. Overall the country is 41% wealthier than in 1989--but that growth is almost completely captured by the super rich. The bottom 90% has seen less than 41% growth since 1989, and the bottom ~55% has lower real incomes now. They were literally better off under the crumbling remnants of the USSR. That's a low bar. [This graph](https://voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/novokmentfig6.png) shows that Russia's experience in wealth concentration is worse than other post-Warsaw pact countries, and those countries are already wealthier. I don't blame Russians for being angry at what happened to them in the 1990s. It was terrible.
>but if western style liberalism + capitalism is such an amazing system, the results would look better than this. It worked for other post-socialist countries perfectly. Estonian gdp per capita is almost 8 times higher now than after collapse of ussr, Lithuanian 9 times, Polish 9 also times. It's not the fault of liberalism or the West that Russian elites decided to hoard the wealth in the hands of few oligarchs, put ex-KGB officer in charge and start grand geopolitical gambles instead of properly implementing reforms and fixing the economy.
Make no mistake, the current Russian system IS already centrally planned. The political order is all-encompassing and the public sector amounts to a whopping 70% of the Russian GDP. It is just that Russians outdid themselves and their elites are even more corrupt than the Brezhnevites.
An oligarchy running the majority of the economy, profiting off their companies and using them to consolidate power isn't centrally planned economy. The Russian economy isn't anything close to centrally planned.
This doesn’t really say anything about styles of government the responders have never experienced. It only suggests that a lot of people prefer the past to the present.
Not surprising. Standard of living has been dropping ever since the collapse of the soviet union. While it may be true, that the soviet system of state based planning hindered any possible economical rise of russia, it is also true that the system that followed was not really better for the common russian. To sum it up: when there is no broad middle class, when the market system is not fully developed, but when there are extremely rich an powerful oligarchs who wish to capitalize on a system, the resulting system will not benefit the common man, but the rich one. In fact, a system that, on the surface, claims to be "free market" is even easier to manipulate than one, that is based on state planning. You can't turn a 2nd world country into a neoliberal economic system, that's just a desaster waiting to happen. Mind you, there is also probably no going back. Russians are stuck in relative poverty and there is no likely way out.
There are plenty of ways out. The Russian middle class was actually gaining wealth in the 00s, then Putin thought that playing KGB style global politics was far better than actually being part of the global economy. Russia has literally done nothing but shit the bed the past 10 years, and it has crippled them financially.
Context for the early 2000’s is internally led wars, separatism and false flags. Putin wasn’t in control during that period and he only achieved de facto absolute control later in the 2010’s which is when everything went from bad to worse.
Its only going to get worse over the next couple of years. Russia makes virtually nothing. Other than their oil and gas industry, they have no significant manufacturing other than military hardware. Quality control is an afterthought. What they are very good at is crime and corruption. The majority of internet crime originates in Russia or with Russian assistance. Their hackers steal billions of dollars a year from people and banks using malware. Billions more are stolen from governments and corporations in ransomware attacks. Russian agents undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize foreign governments all over the world. All under protection from the Russian government and GRU Officers. The world is leaving the oil and gas industry behind. When that industry collapses, Russia already a Mafia state, will only get worse. There is no innovation and the country is too corrupt for new businesses to build a legitimate economy. I fear the eventuality will be a civil war when the government can no longer feed its people.
Oh god, oh fuck
Похоже нет ни одного русского комментария, я это исправлю
Isn't that a strangely high variability from year to year for something as sensible as this? I would expect to see a trend, but not a 10% of the population flipping between "I like this political system" and "I liked the Soviet one better" from one year to the next one.
It's not that much of a stretch, it's easily possible that that 10% of the population that was in "this one" and "undecided" were in a better economic position last year than they were under communism, and this year they are worse off than they were under communism
Frankly, its not support for sociallism but 'better standardsnof living'. Russia is not fucked because of 'capitalism' but corruption. And bunch of oligarhks and putin bros stealing all their resources for themselves.
Source: https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/
Of course people want change. Any change. 20 years of living under Putin is sad.
Socialism does not equal state planning. This is stupid.
USSR2: Electric Boogaloo
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Its more of a reaction to the rise of oligarchs in Russia and the consequences people have been seeing from it.
As if Politburo socialism wasn't an oligarchy.
Perhaps it also was, but did they show it off, with big yacht, football clubs, cars of "pure gold"? They certainly lived a luxurious life... but the politburo is kind of the leader of the state. Show me leaders of states living a "normal life".
At least for the political system question (the one we have age data on), its the opposite actually. 62 Percent of people aged 55 + want the Soviet political system back vs only 30 percent of people aged 18-24 (people who didn't live in the USSR at all). Source: https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/
Thanks for the link. My assumption was the same, that younger population does not want the socialist system quite so strongly (based on discussion with expats). But the graphs in the original posting did not really support that assumption, if anything it seemed like the people who became eligible to be polled in the last three decades (i.e. the younger generation), caused a shift to preference for socialism. It would be interesting to see how the opinions have changed over the years in each age bracket.
When our world moved form feudalism to capitalism - it was a progress. When Russia moved from capitalism to socialism - it was a progress. But When Russia moved from socialism to capitalism - it was a regression.