Topic: Former USSR

[patentlymn]

They must have been high up in the party ranks to not be hungry...or peasant farmers stashing aside some state-owned produce...

 

The people questioned were pensioners on the street. They mentioned the good and the bad. Some things were better now, some worse. Such questions were on maybe 3 different videos from different people. Food wasn't an issue. Not as much variety as now.

I watched one on religion. Lots of ups and downs. Khrushchev was very anti religious.  Commies mostly left Muslims alone because too much relied on it. One doc was on commie youth groups.

[Libertas]

They must have been high up in the party ranks to not be hungry...or peasant farmers stashing aside some state-owned produce...

 

The people questioned were pensioners on the street. They mentioned the good and the bad. Some things were better now, some worse. Such questions were on maybe 3 different videos from different people. Food wasn't an issue. Not as much variety as now.

I watched one on religion. Lots of ups and downs. Khrushchev was very anti religious.  Commies mostly left Muslims alone because too much relied on it. One doc was on commie youth groups.

Being a skeptic I have to believe these are rural folks closer to the source than urban serfs...

[patentlymn]

They must have been high up in the party ranks to not be hungry...or peasant farmers stashing aside some state-owned produce...

 

The people questioned were pensioners on the street. They mentioned the good and the bad. Some things were better now, some worse. Such questions were on maybe 3 different videos from different people. Food wasn't an issue. Not as much variety as now.

I watched one on religion. Lots of ups and downs. Khrushchev was very anti religious.  Commies mostly left Muslims alone because too much relied on it. One doc was on commie youth groups.

Being a skeptic I have to believe these are rural folks closer to the source than urban serfs...

One video was from Moscow. Maybe we were fed a lot of crap in our news. All said they had a happy childhood in USSR. Many mentioned summer vacations mostly paid for by workplaces or youth organizations. I saw a BBC special on life in the USSR. Not a lot of material wealth. Lots of videos.

Of course these people were not alive in 1920s or 1930s. The 1940s were very hard even if not in the military. A recall a million died/starved in the siege of Leningrad. The Finns helped with that. Some Russians wanted payback. USSR settled on a treaty "in perpetuity" to not join any military block.

I saw one video with now abandoned small spartan cottages on the black sea. Basically free for people from various organizations in USSR. Things were very structured, whether you liked it or not. Not all bad. I recall jobs were picked for you.  Khrushchev built the commie block apts starting in 1950s. Ugly but functional and put up quick. Prefab slabs.

After the revolution lots of big buildings were divided up into communal apts with shared bathrooms and  kitchens. I recall We the Living by Ayn Rand in mansions where commies allowed the owners to have one room with the rest given out. They still exist in St. Petersburg for people who want to live  like that for cheap. The rooms now have deeds and are sold to people. Fascinating.

I recall the USSR kept lots of German POWs a long time for construction work.

Amateur video blogs are fascinating. I believe them now more than any news. Some NZ guy hitch hiked through Iran. Nice people.  People asked about the old USSR give varied answers partly depending on location. In some the new govts realized there were no limits on what they could loot.  In the USSR there were limits and structure. Oppression and protection.

https://youtu.be/OGyUuSZGKPI

94,144 views  Sep 22, 2016
16 families sharing one apartment - the days of the Kommunalkas seem to be back in St. Petersburg. Communal apartments in older buildings are a relic of the Soviet era and starkly out of step with the grandeur of the world-famous Venice of the North.

[patentlymn]

Short history of Russian housing after revolution.
https://youtu.be/lazVrmC7IVQ
 How Khrushchev Housed Everyone - Cold War Soviet History DOCUMENTARY
The Cold War

[Libertas]

What about the 18 million housed in gulags and the 1.7 million who perished as a result?  Political dissidents and non-conformists of the communist utopia should have more weight given to their voices...

[patentlymn]

What about the 18 million housed in gulags and the 1.7 million who perished as a result?  Political dissidents and non-conformists of the communist utopia should have more weight given to their voices...

That is well known and well covered in many docs I have watched. I am well aware of the horrors of communism. Mao was even worse and more recently and just evil and crazy. I like history.

Bald and Bankrupt started me down this path. He interviewed some older people. Then others did more interviews. I only knew of the bad aspects of USSR. I guess that is all I ever heard was bad stuff. I like learning things that modify my views.  Maybe all I was fed was an anti communist narrative?

Khrushchev closed the Gulags in maybe late 1950s. That also freed lots of Ukr NAZIs who returned to Kiev to enter politics. Also they fled to US and Canada.  There is a museum Gulag in Perm. The last one remaining. Eli from Russia and Mr Bald went there on video blogs.

This channel is good. It is very balanced. Not USSR fan boy. I just saw one where Khrushchev came to US. The US has declined since then. I saw one on anti western propaganda. Much about US was not true then but it true now. E.g. A small number of financial interests on Wall St and banks control the economy and shaft US workers.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheColdWarTV

This channel is more humorous. A dry sardonic wit.
https://www.youtube.com/@Setarko

https://youtu.be/NC8mME1-GR4
You always liked gray colors? You love panels? Khrushchyovka is your favourite building of all time? Fear not, I present to you the ADVANCED version of Khrushchyovka,  still gray and ugly, but now it can be up to 25 stories and up to a kilometer long. When Leonid Brezhnev came to power, he decided to build on the work of his predecessor and continue to erect identical panel houses on the whole territory of the Soviet Union. Nowadays a panel Brezhnevka is the most common type of building you can find in Russia. Let's talk about them and about how they were about to build a whole culture of doomers around themselves.

[patentlymn]

He is not a gulag fanboy. Devils advocate. Compares to tsarist labor camps. Title is a little clickbaity.
https://youtu.be/-eWeAleoXWY
 Why GULAG Camps Were ESSENTIAL For the Soviet Union
Setarko

https://youtu.be/i8uw04k_qqw
GULAG 2.0? | Russia Wants To Resurrect Forced Labor Camps?
You probably heard about GULAG camps in Soviet Union. Those absolutely horrible places that the evil old man Stalin had invented. It's a good thing they're a thing of the distant past, huh? Well, apparently some Russian government official think that it would be a good idea to revive good old forced labour camps. Let's talk about this and discuss if the idea of forced labour of prisoners will work in the 21st century.

[Libertas]

Not surprised...

I reckon undesirables are still tortured and shot in the Lubyanka and bodies incinerated...

Out of sight out of mind...

[patentlymn]

His sarcasm is priceless.
SPOILER ALERT FOR AMERICANS TV SERIES.
 
Lubyanka?
I remember the TV series The Americans. Poor Nina.
Martha got off a little better. She had wanted to adopt a kid but her fake husband, already married commie spy, wanted none of that. At the end it showed her alone in Moscow looking at some orphan playing. They just planted that thought and took it no further.

[patentlymn]

I watched this while half asleep. From memory.
USSR wiped out religion? NO but they tried. Khrushchev tried more than Stalin.

There was no corruption in USSR? There was plenty and he gave examples.

Workers paradise? No. Industrialization phase was brutal. Workers had little say. Things did improve in 60s?

There were no elections? There were but not voting for approved candidate was very visible..

People hated the USSR and only brute force stopped rebellions? Lack of data. Later polling says most did not hate the govt. Ambivalent. They went along.

He always asks you to hit like and subscribe using methods relevant to the video. I linked to that part. Humorous.

https://youtu.be/eMBh5zbN3K4?t=952

update
The comments are good.

[patentlymn]

What about the 18 million housed in gulags and the 1.7 million who perished as a result?  Political dissidents and non-conformists of the communist utopia should have more weight given to their voices...

He has other docs on those. He couldn't mention gulags in docs about various housing models. He has a separate doc on each of 4 different mass housing models.

[patentlymn]

Interesting history of USSR housing without a focus on each type. More history.
A rocky start. I forgot about the start, before WWII. Based on  Utopia by Thomas Moore???

At first everyone was to do everything together. Families were obsolete? I recall there free love?

Later factories were built first and workers moved near them. In tents, maybe barracks. Then mass built housing after WWII.  Designed with people in mind. Amenities were mostly the same all over. Shops. schools. Medical. Movie theaters.

https://youtu.be/X1vKKnd3vr8
 Living in an Ideal Soviet City
Setarko
59.9K subscribers
57,532 views  Feb 23, 2023
The Soviet Union was the first state in the world in which power belonged to the workers. At least formally. And it is logical that the Soviet Union cared more than anyone else in the world about the comfort of its ordinary citizens. That included building the most comfortable cities for them to live in. Back in the 1930s, the Soviet government decided it wanted to build perfect modern industrial city. Magnitogorsk was supposed to be a first socialist utopia that could revolutionize the approach to urban planning. Sadly, it didn't turn out that well. But after the 1950s, the Soviet Union has realized all its mistakes and actually proceeded to build the most livable cities possible. In 70 years, over 170 cities and towns were built from scratch in the USSR. And today I will tell you why they really were almost perfect.

[Libertas]

Aesthetics never really occurred in most all of Russia...   

The Euro-influenced Imperial decadence of St. Petersburg being a notable exception...though the Bolsheviks did try to blunt it as best they could and rename it during their reign of terror...

[patentlymn]

When I watch docs on the bad things in USSR I already knew them. It is the good parts that are new to me. Building that amount of housing in a short time was an accomplishment.

There was an element of utopianism in USSR.  They were screwed up but not in every way. It was good to be a kid in the USSR.    I watched a doc on Tajikistan. The Russians came in and the standard of living got better pretty quick. I mean if you value electricity, indoor plumbing, and literacy. Kinda like the Romans in Britain. Russians left when USSR fell and all hell broke lose.

I watched a doc on 3 revolts in 3 gulags around 1953. Stalin died, giving hope that things would improve in the Gulags. No change., Then Beria was arrested. No change for political prisoners.  Hope was gone so protest etc. Did not end well. A few years later Gulags were all closed.

Political prisoners released. That is where the NAZIs in Ukr came from, released from Gulags. Many returned to Ukr and entered politics. Or moved to Canada and entered politics. Remember that Canadian covid lockdown NAZI woman politician? Blame the Russians for not shooting her NAZI  grandfather.  Not sure of her lineage exactly. He wrote anti Jewish pieces for the newspaper.

I saw one about pioneer summer camps. The best was camp Arktek in Crimea. You had to be a superstar student or a have a plugged in parent in the party to be sent there.

Where had I heard of camp Arktek? Oh yeah. Kiev was claiming that Ukr kids were being kidnapped and sent to concentration camps. That was one of them.

[patentlymn]

I can't sleep.

from reddit.

Question for tankies: are you open with people around you about being a tankie and how do you respond to the usual arguments

It means someone that sympathises with past communist regimes that are often heavily criticised

The term originated in Britain as an insult for communist who defended the sovjet union sending tanks against the revolt in Hungry. But by now it's been basically used for every communist who doesn't wholeheartedly denounce actually existing socialist states.

 ...
I had heard the term but never heard a definition or history. I thought I would share.
I heard Max Blumenthal joke that he was called a tankie.

I recently heard some older people from USSR describe their lives under USSR. It seems some things were better. I thought everything  was worse.

[Libertas]

Is there a term for Nazi sympathizers too or will tankies suffice for these socialists as well?

[patentlymn]

I think tankie just refers to people who defend former USSR. When Max joked about it I looked it up but the definition confused me. It may have given a different meaning.  Now it makes sense.

Also, Judge Nap has Alastair Crooke on, former UK ambassador I think. He noted some strange morphing of history. E.g. see Blinken recently. WWII was really Europeans vs Russia. It is very subtle. "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

[Libertas]

Some people miss the benefits of Nazism too    so to me tankies/nazis...same diff...

"We" meaning US or "we" meaning Euro's? 

[patentlymn]

Some people miss the benefits of Nazism too    so to me tankies/nazis...same diff...

"We" meaning US or "we" meaning Euro's?

I read an interesting book about the 1930-1940s Germany and Hitler. Hitlerland.  Western diplomats and journalists wrote their impressions of Germany and Hitler at the time. They were impressed but a little creeped out. Very efficient and clean but ....

The women thought Hitler was effeminate and a "neuter."
US military attache wanted to get a look at modern German war planes but no way. Until Lindberg visited and the Germans fell all over themselves showing him around. The attache tagged along.

[patentlymn]

...

"We" meaning US or "we" meaning Euro's?

I was just pulling 1984. As WWII history is being morphed. I recall Blinken recently kinda blamed the NAZI/Banderite Kiev massacres on the Russians.  BTW I am aware of the Katyn(?) Poland massacre by the USSR blamed on the Germans.