Mid 1980s. Image courtesy of Life magazine.

Whenever there is a heated argument whether things were better during the USSR times, this statement invariably pops up as a mighty ace: At least they had free medical care in the Soviet Union! This is supposed to bring the opponent to the knees and make them beg mercy and forgiveness for betraying the Great October achievements.

Well well well. Let’s have a close look at what really was free then.

After the events of October 1917, the Bolsheviks chose to nationalise all hospitals and medical practices previously founded by various state and charitable organisations. This would have been a feasible plan, had they not chosen to class all doctors as “rotten bourgeois” which meant that they had to emigrate from the “Red Terror” or face death.

Even Vladimir Lenin in a letter dated of Nov 1918 wrote to an acquaintance: Please go abroad to see a doctor – they have wonderful specialists in Switzerland and Vienna… Our so-called doctors are fools.

In early 1920s various medical experiments became popular and acquired great support of the state: without much of a theoretical base or substantial research, a lot of time and money was poured into genetical experiments to breed a new type of person – of a Socialist kind.

Al in all, the years in which the Bolsheviks were starting off were very tough: the country was in a run-down state after the WWI; there was a severe famine; pandemics of cholera, typhoid, malaria; as well rising numbers of people dying of various infections and malnutrition. From a health perspective, the state of many medical practices and hospitals was borderline catastrophic. The buildings were getting old without any hopes for repair; central heating often failed; medical supplies were insufficient and irregular. The food supplies were often short, and the burial of the dead was an issue as well.

The state spending on medicine was low to start with, and it was gradually declining: it was 3.9% of the total budget in 1927; 3.6% in 1928; 3.5% in 1929 and 3% only in 1930. The severe skill shortages in the health industry were imminent, and there was a strong urban focus in health providers’ locations – given that the supply was already short, the villages were even worse off.

In the late 1920s industrialisation, as per Stalin’s orders, aimed at developing the heavier industrial machinery production – so the times which what was already bad was turning even more foul. Bureaucracy was starting to settle in, while the budget cuts continued (2.5% of the total budget in 1932, 2.7% in 1933). On paper, as often in the USSR, things looked if not rosy but at least decent: the attention was drawn to preventative measures and the importance of the population’s health; whereas in reality it was very ugly.In our old post about the life in the 1920s, the images of those time were indeed scary, if you remember.

During the Second World War, the main beneficiary of medical help was, understandably, the army – the rest of the population, fair to say, was abandoned. Various types of typhoid, TB, dysentery, malaria, cholera and even plague were not uncommon– the diseases were spreading very rapidly due to the poor supply of drugs and increasing numbers of migrants.

When the war was over, the main efforts (as well as financial means) were generated towards rebuilding the towns and getting the economy back up – and as always, there was no room for medicine research and development. The health industry salary bands were among the lowest in the country. In 1940 the doctors were earning 255 roubles per month, as compared with 399 roubles average. In 1955 it was 521 roubles against 711 average. In August 1945 a group of doctors sent an open letter to Stalin describing the abhorrent situation in the health industry. It mentioned the factory workers with high-school qualifications were earning 1300–1400 roubles per month, whereas the hospital manager, a doctor with 8 years of education and years of experience would be fortunate enough to earn 800 roubles.

A paramedic on call.

The change was brought upon by Nikita Khrushchev, who was slowly setting new goals and getting his government to redevelop many facets of Soviet life. But the late fifties were also the times when the famous free Soviet medical care system stopped being free. The doctors became less covert in taking cash from patients in exchange for medical services, for medical supplies, for drugs. The less-qualified medical staff (nurses and caregivers) were making some extra cash by providing extra-nice services to patients – for 10 roubles per night you could have a nurse by your bed taking care of you – obviously, all other patients would have been neglected. Midwives in birthcare institutions were bribing the fathers – one would pay a one off 25 roubles for the girl and twice as much for the boy as to “take them home”.

Among the key problems were:

• Alcoholism and drug use – extremely widespread.
• Bad ecology – due to heavily exploited plants and factories, many towns were below par – the Southern republics, Moldavia, some parts of Ukraine, industrial central Russia and Siberia.
• Food shortages – especially in the rural areas and small towns with the population of less than 100,000 people; as well as the appalling quality of food.
• Extremely high rates of abortions (100 for every 1000 women in the age of 15–49; or 200 abortions for every 100 of births). Also, the actual procedure was a very primitive one which lead to the death of a woman in almost 25–30% of cases.
• Health and Safety in employment – extremely high industrial accident rates
• Road death tolls

Also, in early 1980s the widespread of sexually transmitted diseases started to take its toll. In 1970 more than 12% of women of reproductive age were diagnosed and treated from STD, many of whom suffered from syphilis. In 1987 the first case of HIV was registered, after which the disease had escalated to the point of people panicking.

The Soviet doctors had all the pressure to catch up with their Western counterparts, and they did their best, given the circumstances. The first successful heart transplant attempt did not happen until March 1987, which was almost 20 years after the American debut. Such a significant delay was not just due to the budget cuts and low financing – the appropriate legislative framework was missing, and so was the concept of organ donors.

This is how the free Soviet medicine had met the death of the Soviet state. It almost seems like the 70 years of the 20^th century did not provide any move forward – despite the antibiotics, vaccination and hundreds of thousands of graduate doctors, the overall state of the health industry was just ever so slightly better than at the end of the Tsar times. And then, of course, the typically Soviet traits of doing things: bureaucracy, corruption, the notoriously abhorrent levels of customer service and the low priority that the state would give the health industry.

This does not deny the Soviet doctors their achievements – over the course of 70 years, there would have been plenty – but nothing was easy and nothing was certainly free.

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As previously stated by George Orwell, war is peace. So when Walter Ulbricht, the Leader of the German Socialist Unity Party, on June 15, 1961 said: “No one has the intention of building the wall!”, it took only about two months for the construction to begin. The rundown state of the Eastern part was forcing people to flee in the search of better lives in the West of Germany: in the first six months of the year 1961, about 150 000 people left their houses. However, more stayed — and so the Wall did not only separate the city — it cut families in halves.

On the morning of August 13, 1961 the Berlinians woke up to the first layer of bricks being erected.

Prior to the construction of the Wall, posters fake promises were all over the city

During the first months, this way grandparents got to see their grandkids.

One had to use props to wave to friends on the other side.

The first anniversary of the Wall, 1962: the woman on the roof waving to her mother.

The use of binoculars was helpful during the first few months after the erection.

The other side was watching, as well.

As the time went, the barb wire and bricks were introduced to keep people away. The bride under the windows of her grandparents. The bouquet was lowered on a string.

This bride only got to see her relatives via binoculars.

Many were prepared to leave their lives behind and just flee for the better.

The Eastern authorities trying to stop the Western photographers by sending light into the cameras by mirrors.

Those who got caught fleeing were shot on the spot.

Gunter Liftin was shot on August 24, 1961 — before the construction was even complete.

In February 1975 this brave fellow was caught by the patrol guards, trying to cross the mined field.

Another unsuccessful attempt: wounded in the field.

In 1975 John Runnings from Canada tried to destroy the Wall with a hammer but was severely wounded by the machine-gunned guards.

Within hours after the fall. The happiest of faces.

Images are courtesy livejournal user drugoi.

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The V-Day. Copyright unknown

On May, 25th 1945 Joseph Stalin made a celebratory speech devoted to the end of the Russian Great Patriotic War. The Second World War was coming to an end, but the Soviet Union was done fighting. The Russian troops had exited Germany and ahead lied a long road of rebuilding and rehabilitation. So in Kremlin, at the V-day Meeting, Stalin had said the following:

Do not expect me to say anything extraordinary today. I have a very simple, very ordinary toast to make. I would like to raise a glass to health of those people who are low in rank and invisible in the hierarchy. Of those who we consider to be the “small screws” of our huge state mechanism — they might be small but without them us generals, marshals and other top army leaders wouldn’t have made it. They are plentiful, they are a legion, it is tens of millions of people who have not been heard of — yet they hold us together, as the base holds the top. To their health!

Today we have brought to your attention a fragment of the interview with Yelena Bonner, a human rights activist, a dissident, a writer, and a widow of the late Andrei Sakharov — during the war she was a teen and now, courtesy to the Internet-magazine Snob.ru, she tells us about her experience during the war.

So — We did not fight for Stalin or the Soviet Union. We fought because we had no other choice.

Elena Bonner, b.1923. Image couretsy of snob.ru

Do you remember the war motto: “To Stalin! To Soviet Union!”

I was 18 when I was summoned  — at the beginning of war, and till very late 1945 I spent with the troops — yet I never heard that motto. Every time there was a fire on the frontline we never shouted “To Stalin””, it was more like “You sons of fucking bitches!”.

So at the beginning of the war we have been told that many — lots! — of young people volunteered to be sent to the front line..

That was another huge lie about that war. Only a tiny percent of people who ended up in the front line volunteered to be there. The rest were mobilised, hands down. Every single man of the appropriate age, be him a farmer or a factory worker — all of them were summoned and sent to the war.

I was also mobilised, as thousands of other girls. I was a student at Hertsen Institute, and they had a huge banner on the wall: “Girls of our country, get your second, military profession now”. So we had to take a compulsory course in military education. The choices we had were about becoming a nurse, a communications technician or a sniper.  I chose to be a nurse, and by the end of it I was listed as “suitable for summon”.

So on June 22nd, 1941 you heard about the German invasion –you know you are listed as “suitable”, so did you know you’d be part of the war very shortly? Did you have a feeling of upcoming radical change?

You know, it was a very odd feeling. I am eighty seven years old now, and now I am trying to comprehend what was happening and I am failing at it, how my generation lived anticipating the war. Not just the people of Leningrad — at least we experienced the war with Finland of 1939 — 1940 (the so-called Winter War), and it was a real war, with food shortages and no heating. So starting from 1937 I just couldn’t help but anticipate a war coming — and it was a solid, gut feeling. My Moscow friends felt the same.

So in 1942 you were summoned as a nurse — what did it feel like?

I was a nurse on the train, which was travelling in the Leningrad district, picking up the wounded and delivering them to Vologda or other safe destinations. There they were dropped off, cared for, nurtured a bit and then either returned back to the front line, or sent somewhere else, I am unsure… The train was constantly bombed, or derailed, or lost in the snow. And then I was wounded myself — I had a broken clavicle, a damaged left shoulder, injured nerve and a blood eye — I was bad and I was sent by the same train to Vologda and later to the Urals.

I guess I was very lucky throughout the war. There was no reason for me to be on the train — I could have been right on the front line. It was 1942, the toughest year by some account  — nobody summoned during that year came back.

Yelena Bonner in her Moscow apartment. Image courtesy of Snob magazine.

How long did you spend on that train?

Till 1945 — till the very end. We were sent to Germany to evacuate the wounded from their territories in 1945. So on May 8, the VE Day, we were somewhere around Innsbruck, Austria, and this was our last journey bound for Leningrad. We arrived home, the train crew was restructured, I was made the Head of some medical department to care for the wounded bomb disposal soldiers. The war was technically over, yet these guys — working with the explosives — kept coming our way.I was one of the last ones to be demobilised, too — in August 1945.

Can you tell us some more myths about the war?

As I have said, nobody volunteered. Another one was that the Jewish did not fight — it is not true, they did. And probably the biggest one is post war — the exploitation of that war. And all these military parades show offs — they are no longer carried out to remember those who did not come back — now they have a mission of public relations, and TV ratings, and flexing the military muscle — both on the domestic and international levels.

Did you feel that right after the war things would change to the better?

We did — we felt that our country had just survived the incredible! We felt powerful, we felt like we were able to change things around, we hoped for the better.

So why do these war veterans who came back from the war never argue these myths about the war?

Why do you think when we came back and thought ah, we are so powerful — why do you think we all shut up?

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Please welcome our new author Vadim Costyrin with his first but serious post on the present days of those born in the USSR, brought up by the Yeltsin’s coup and now left to seek their national and cultural identity all by themselves.

A performance at a kindergarten.

Once the USSR inspired us with fear, now this country does not exist. We have the big Russia and a lot of small and not so small, whimsical republics, for the right to include which in the sphere of their influence there fight politicians of the superpowers. Together with the Soviet Union we have lost Russians — our antipodes — against whom we willy-nilly matched. It may seem that it is a victory — but Russians want the USSR back, and after only two decades there are much more fears and threats.

We have been fearing the Soviets sincerely and for a long time. But they have split.

We have lost our enemy — communists with their “Satan” and “Kuzkina mat”, and at once have found a new enemy that is even more global — terrorists. As a first approximation a terrorist is the same as a communist — since in our world view all Russians were communists and professed a wrong ideology. And now all Muslims are certainly terrorists, and we must struggle with their ideas. I only have a natural question: “Who are these “we”? It seems to me there are simply no “us”, and in order to unite me and you in something which would look like “us”, it is necessary to frighten “us” properly. Russians have a saying: “Devil is not so black as he is painted” — and indeed, inside the country looks differently, and its dwellers, too, are not absolutely similar to the comical images imposed on us by our “independent” press.

So why invent external enemies for us? The answer seems to be on the surface — I experienced it myself: when you have a headache and put a lemon peel on your temple the pain recedes — balsamic oils irritate the skin, and it switches your nervous system over to other irritant. Sometimes it seems to me that we are distracted by chattering about international problems from the problems which are inside our head.

Why don’t we want to notice behind the first persons of the states, their inhabitants? Did it ever occur to you that everything is not so simple with Russia? The USSR, for example, is considered by its inhabitants to be a huge strong country which they really love.

And if we dare look more attentively at this strange phenomenon of a mysterious — “Russian soul” we might see in a different light not only Russians, but our own selves as well.

On the go

Talking figures

Running the risk of seeming boring, I will nevertheless begin with the statistics — it is one of those cases when figures are more eloquent than words. According to the poll published by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Studying in the authoritative Russian newspaper “Kommersant”, in the rating of the most outstanding events of the XX century after the Great Patriotic War (16 %) there is Yuri Gagarin’s space flight (13 %). During ten years the share of those who considers this event to be especially significant, has reduced almost twofold. It is followed by the Moon landing (5 %). 4 % believe that the most outstanding event of the twentieth century is the Great October Revolution. Putin’s coming into power and computer invention got 2 % of votes each. The invention of a nuclear bomb, cellular connection, TV, as well as sport achievements of our country and the Moscow Olympic Games of 1980 received 1 % of Russians’ votes each.

Ten years ago in the rating of the most tragic events of the last century the First and Second world wars (43 %) were in the lead. Today on the first place there is the Great Patriotic War (36 %). The second place is occupied by the Chernobyl disaster (9 %). The wars in the Chechen Republic and Afghanistan are considered the most tragic events by 8 % of respondents. The October Revolution of 1917 and natural cataclysms received 4 % each. Then there is the tragedy in Beslan and capture of the Nord Ost musical (3 % each), putsch of 1991 and explosion of the twin towers on September 11 (2 % each), destruction of Kursk submarine, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Yeltsin’s rule, Stalin’s rule, execution of the imperial family and invention of nuclear weapon (1 % each). The least tragic event in this rating is the story of Titanic. However, both ten years ago and now the greatest disappointment of the last century, according to Russians, is disintegration of the USSR (17 %).

Our compatriots put this event on the fourth place in the rating of the most tragic events. Perestroika, poverty and illnesses disappointed Russians less than disintegration of the USSR. It is followed by the crash of the communism ideas. “In the list of the greatest disappointments of the last century this time Russians did not name unemployment and social and economic reforms, spirituality decline, problems with drug addicts and ecology” — “Kommersant” writes.

It seems that the Soviet Union which was called “The Empire of Evil”, can be missed only by the older generation, however from the moment of the USSR disintegration there has been formed a new generation who never lived in the USSR. So why the statistics keeps saying what the inhabitants of the former USSR still feel nostalgic about the former times? The phrase “What a country is destroyed!” was heard by me repeatedly, even from people who simply can not remember the USSR. Why even among youth that can hardly be accused of feeling liking towards totalitarianism, “the Soviet childhood” is now fashionable? “I want back to the USSR. Ah, those good old times — probably, it was the best time in my life”— this phrase can be heard more and more often, and not only from veterans who lived in the Soviet times, but also from those who are in their early thirties. These are people who in 1991 were in high school, and even in kindergarten, who lovingly collect and quote the Soviet films and proudly show old radio-gramophones and vinyl records.

In the Russian-speaking Internet the USSR topic is one of the most popular, and it is popular among its most active users — young people. You don’t need to be a sociologist or “an expert on Russia” to see that the attitude to life in the USSR even among youth changed from very negative to very positive. For the last couple of years in the Internet there have appeared a lot of resources devoted to everyday life in the Soviet Union. “76 — 82. The Encyclopedia of our childhood“ is one of the most popular ones. Its name tells about its audience — it consists of those who was born in 76 — 82.

The community with the same name in LiveJournal belongs to the thirty of the most popular ones. “We are lucky that our childhood and youth ended before the government had bought freedom from young people in exchange for rollerblades, mobile phones, “star factories” and rusks (by the way, soft for some reason) … With their own consent … For their own (seemingly) good …” — it is a fragment from the text with the name “Generation 76 — 82”. Many Russians and the inhabitants of the former USSR republics eagerly place it in their blogs. It has become a kind of the generation’s manifesto.

However, only two decades ago the same people who now with tenderness recollect the symbols of that epoch, rejected all connected with the Soviets and tried hard not to resemble their “ancestors”. ”The local amnesia“ extends to the recent past. During the perestroika times — at the turn of the 90ies — a considerable part of young men dreamt to leave — somewhere where there was an elementary stability and the absence of financial shocks.

Economic instability has turned the generation of the end of the 70ies into the people not needed by the state. And those who were brought up on socialist ideals (which, by the way, if cleared of the ideological tinsel, are not that bad), have appeared in the position of fishes thrown out to shoal. Commercial relations were hard for them and were — and often still are — disgusting for many. Here under no circumstances it is a habit to accept money even from acquaintances. Instead they use specific small gifts as payment for service, for example, sweets or alcohol. Probably, a wide “Slavic soul “does not accept meanness peculiar to many aspects of business relations. It does not mean that Slavs do not have commercial abilities, they just have an essentially different system of values, but it is a topic for a separate article.

Out and about

A new cult of the old

Today the Soviet past in many countries of the former USSR has become a myth. It has acquired touching legends and has turned into a fine fairy tale about the Golden Age of the mankind. The generation of the end of the 70ies wants to believe in it so much that it is ready to amputate its own memory and to ignore the history. I will try to explain why — we often condemn Russia, forgetting to put ourselves on the place of Russians. Personally I would not like to live in a country captured by chaos, to be deprived of a possibility under any circumstances to take credit, to receive qualified medical aid (because expensive medications are necessary, and medical insurance simply does not exist), to live “from the salary to the salary” the largest part of which is eaten up by inflation. These are only some delights of life in the new countries which have arisen on the immense open space of the former Soviet Union; only during the last years the situation has begun to stabilize. It is possible to say that Russians have already endured several economic crises, and now they are fully armed — because they have developed certain schemes of behaviour in such situations and have simply got used to living under the conditions of instability.

If we think of instability we will understand, why so many people warmly recollect the USSR. In this country people lived not just behind the Iron Curtain but behind the stone wall — they knew precisely how much everything cost: prices did not change for years; everyone was confident that they would receive their wages or salary in time, and so on. Now inhabitants of the former USSR countries try to find out beforehand if the firm for which they intend to work will pay the salary — because, as they say, they may be done out of their money — that is not receive the pay for their work. It is a widespread practice — since contracts are not habitual there, and the employer can simply forge your signature on documents, and it will be hard for you to prove anything in court. Although in Moscow this practice is not so popular, in the suburbs there is a huge corruption of the authorities and impunity of businessmen who bribe the officials. Explaining this phenomenon, one my colleagues from Ukraine said: “You have a lawyer, and here everyone has a public prosecutor or a judge”.

However, it is impossible to explain by instability so many warm memoirs of so many young men of the country which they have hardly seen. Sociologists assert that one of the reasons is banal: nostalgia about the Soviet Union is in many respects explained by nostalgia about childhood. Idealizing of the childhood years is peculiar to all. Bad things are forgotten, good things remain. However the reasons for such a “not childish” nostalgia are deeper than just melancholy for the lost youth. By idealizing the Soviet past, the thirty-somethings unwittingly show what they dislike about the present.

The thirty something ones

What “freedom” is

I will probably disappoint you but there is no univocal understanding of the word “freedom”. We think that we live in the free country, but we are not free inside: we just do not know that it can be different. One needs to be an odd fellow, like Jeremy Oliver, crazy about what he does, to make us, die-hard conservatives, notice that, for example, we eat unhealthy food. But if we look at the countries of the former USSR, we will see the generation of people who can compare, who have no “consumer blinds”. We got used to pounds, while they during two decades had the names, the design and the purchasing capacity of money changed several times. “In the childhood we drove cars without belts and safety pillows.… Our beds were painted with bright paints with high content of lead. There were no secret covers on bottles with medicine, doors and wardrobes often remained unlocked. We drank water from the column located around the corner, not from plastic bottles. And nobody could think of driving bike in a helmet!” — this is an excerpt from the same “manifesto”. “We became less free!” — this shout of despair can be heard from many blogs. Here is one more citation: ”I recall that time, and the main sensation is the feeling of uttermost freedom. Life was not subordinated to such tight schedule as it is now, and there was plenty of free time.

Our parents’ vacations lasted for month and if someone was ill he could easily be on a sick leave, instead of continuing working being half-alive. You could go anywhere you wanted, and nobody would ever stop you. There were no coded locks and on-door speakerphones, there were no security guards at each entrance, in each shop. The airport was an extremely interesting place from where travel began, instead of being a part of the high security zone. In general, there were very few tablets with inscriptions like “No trespassing!”, “For personnel only”, “Stay away” etc.

There is a strange metamorphosis of memoirs. In the Soviet Union there were much more frightening inscriptions like “No trespassing!” — but childhood memories erase them, and memory about what was seen a couple of days ago completes these notorious tablets.

Objectively the Soviet society was less free than the present one or than our, Western, society, and not only in terms of politics. Human life moved along the strictly planned route: local kindergarten — high school — institute/army — prescribed work, with minimal variations. The same thing was in everyday life. Everybody ate identical dishes, rode identical bicycles and spent holidays in the same pioneer camps. Young man’s long hair a couple hugging in the street could draw attention of militia or people’s guards. Now Russians live in one of the freest societies in all the history of mankind.

And it is not about politics but rather about culture and the way of life. The state minimally interferes with these people’s private lives. Notorious “power vertical”, which in Russia penetrates the political process, never crosses a house threshold. And the society has not yet developed strict norms and cannot tell the citizens what to do and what not to do.

So where does this sensation of non-freedom come from? Most likely, it starts from within. Russian thirty-somethings put their own selves in very tight frameworks. They are obliged to work and earn, to look decently, to behave seriously, to have the most expensive mobile, to eat only healthy food, to drive a German car and to read books by Paolo Coelho. Obliged, obliged, obliged! Only to whom? Everybody damned the Soviet Union all which tried to equal people in their rights and duties — while we, as well as Post-Soviet Russians, equalize ourselves even in our interests.

A real freedom for Russians is not a freedom of speech or meetings — first of all it is a possibility to live securely and stably, having a lot of free time. And it was expected from them that they would become the first generation, free from “Sovok”, a generation of vigorous capitalism builders. In the beginning of the 90ies it looked like this indeed. Young men were enthusiastic about doing business, career, they ecstatically plunged into the world of consumer pleasures. But gradually the enthusiasm started to decline, and finally they just “burnt out”.

Fine relations in the past

Today for the majority of them work and career remain the main reference points in life. However there is already no eagerness which used to be an integral part of their life in the 90ies. The majority still estimates success in life as a possibility to consume as much as possible: “The better “apartment, car, clothes” are — the more successful the person is”. But many things are already bought, impressions are received, ambitions are satisfied. As to relations, to build them, according to many inhabitants of the Post-Soviet countries, is much more difficult. In the Soviet period nobody could even think of “marrying” a capital or real estate. True, some people lived a bit better, others — a bit worse, but overall there was an analogue of our middle class. Communicating with modern young men and women from the already independent states which used to be the USSR parts, you get a sensation that they are going to sell themselves for a good price, initially not believing that there can be “some love”. Everything is about money and sex with which by mass-media are filled. In the Soviet Union, nevertheless, they managed to shoot films about fine relations which played heartstrings and caused emotions, instead of giving life to animal instincts. You don’t need to be a film critic to understand, after watching a couple of Soviet films, what kind of relations were considered real by Russians. Maybe that is why “in the USSR there was no sex” — because everyone made love?

Probably it is for this reason that Russian young people so willingly watch old Soviet films, just rather as a fantasy — because they will seemingly soon forget what is to trust and feel. The majority of young people are dissatisfied with their private life, often substitute it for work, but do not see any real possibilities to change anything. To change something time is necessary, and there is an eternal lack of it. If your fast running stops you will be thrown to the roadside in a minute — and nobody can afford it. Aren’t these all sufficient reasons for nostalgia?

Nostalgia about own childhood at times smoothly turns into nostalgia about political system. The Soviet Union began to be associated with the state development, scope, imperial power, as well as with a quiet, stable and happy life: it was the time when there was no unemployment, terrorism or national conflicts, when human relations were simple and clear, feelings were sincere, and desires were simple.

On the bus

Back to the past?

History knows a lot of examples when nostalgia about the past was quite a powerful motive power of political development. For example, returning of socialist parties into power in some East European states during the Post-Soviet period also was in many respects caused by nostalgia about the Soviet period. It seems that in modern Russia nothing like this can happen. “The generation 76 — 82” is too apolitical, too immersed in their non-existing private life to provide serious support to any political force. That is why strong power is OK for them. It is really their choice. They want order which we ourselves create but which in Russia so far needs to be created declaratively — probably because, having lose the support of the USSR, people also lost their reference points, including the moral ones.

Instead of active actions the generation of the 70ies chooses gentle melancholy about the time of their childhood — a wish to connect the irrevocably perished past with the ruthless present not always can be interpreted in the tideway of political actions. After all in the childhood we do not know what kind of political system we have and how many parties there are, nostalgia about childhood is not interested in politics —teddy bears and first kisses seem much more exciting. It is difficult to imagine a revolution under the slogan “Return to me the right to drive a bicycle and be happy!” (Although in 1968 the French students built barricades under the slogans like “Under the roadway — a beach!” And “It is forbidden to forbid!”)

The matter is that the Soviet world allowed people to be human, unlike the present times. After all social disasters of the XX century for the first time it becomes clear that in any political system the main and the only important figure is a human. And violence of consumer instincts is a fake, just like communism promised by the year 1980. Russians do not have any illusions that the state will help in a difficult moment — it is really ridiculous and naive.

It seems to be the first generation of Russians who remained face to face with their own selves. Without ideology crutches, without a magic lifesaver — the West. And that is when memoirs of the Soviet past really start to burn souls down with ruthless fire of envy.

Possibilities to feel personal value of a person in those days were scarce, but they all were perfectly known to everyone. Everyone knew, what books should be read, what films should be watched and what should be discussed in the evening in kitchen. It also was a personal gesture giving satisfaction and installing pride. Today’s times with their infinity of possibilities make such a gesture almost impossible or marginal by definition.

The generation of thirty-somethings in the former Soviet Union, as well as our society, has now lost the right to the habitual pronoun “we”. This confusion is dictated not by time with its economic strictness, but rather by the look at the reflection in mirror. Who am I? What do I want? It is the start of prostration and “eternal memory” of yesterday, the search for answers to painful questions where the person began as a personality. But it is not a travel to the Soviet past. It is a travel to depth of one’s own soul and consciousness.

Do you still remember the beginning of the article and the sociological poll? What do you think, will anybody in our country name among the most important problems spirituality decline, like Russians did? Do we have a right to impose on them our way, and does it exist at all, the only true way for each of those “us” who do not exist?

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Image courtesy of Léonard Gianadda, a Swiss photograher who visited Moscow in 1957.

In 1991, when Boris Yeltsin seized the power and the Belavezha Accords were signed, the decision to disband the Soviet Union had been made and supported by the governments of Ukraine and Belarus. On December 12, 1991Russia’s secession from the Union was sealed, the Belavezha Accords were ratified and the 1922 treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union was denounced. It had been a long road, and arguably it was predictable, but the question – why then, of all times? — remains.

Guns or butter?

I would like to start this analysis by going back to the years of WWII, when the Soviet Union had one-third of the combined industrial potential of Nazi Germany, its allies and the Nazi-occupied countries, and, moreover, lost half its industry in the early months of the war. Nevertheless, in sum it produced more weapons of a better quality than Germany did, and won the great Victory. This, however unbelievably it may sound, could have been the prime reason for the decline of the USSR. They say the Soviet leaders were blinded by the miracle success – and had lost the sense of direction by entering the arms race.

Theoretically speaking, Karl Marx was the best to put it simply: in Capital, he labells war as the ultimate example of unproductive economic activity and called it “the direct equivalent of a nation throwing a part of its capital into the water”.

He also separates the productive labor of agricultural, textile, mining, industrial, and household workers from the unproductive labor of the ideological classes, such as government officials, priests, lawyers, soldiers, etc — all who have no occupation but to consume the labor of others in the form of rent, interests, etc. Thus the arms race – the country’s spendings on the military advancement and developments – has a counter productive nature and causes economic stagnation.

This in turn affected the scientific distribution: as all the best scientists, engineers, materials and machinery were, by strict orders from the highest command, delegated to the military sector.

No wonder it caused the technological lag behind the rest of the world. Ccomputers, hand calculators, audio and TV recorders, and machine tools made in the USSR could never compete with what was designed in the West. Despite the fact that every Soviet would rather own something overseas-made, the deficit of such prime goods was enormous. It also affected the services, like even though the health care was free and universal, often it struggled to deliver services due to deficits in medicine supplies.

Lloyd Dumas in his 1986 book, The Overburdened Economy, makes a convincing case hat the U.S. as well as the USSR has been economically devastated by the counter-productive effects of military spending. However, it wasn’t American economy which failed after the Cold War – it was the Russian one which fell first. Partly it was because the U.S. was integrated with the global capitalist market and flooded with imported goods, so their devastation did not show up directly in shortage of consumer and producer goods.

Dumas also notes that despite the fact that the US spent almost 7% of their GDP on the arms race, they did not come out as financially exhausted as the USSR:

The Soviet Union, in contrast, never received imperialist profits to offset the counter-productive cost of military production. Throughout the post-war period, Soviet trade with socialist partners has been structured to benefit the other socialist countries. Their purpose was reasonable: to build up the economies of the other socialist countries and create a thriving world socialist economic system as an alternative to that of the capitalists. This was most marked in Soviet trade with Cuba and Vietnam, but it could be seen as well in trade with Eastern Europe which received Soviet oil at below-market prices. The CIA was well aware of this drain on the Soviet economy, and argued that it would eventually drive them bankrupt.

And so it did

On top of that was corruption, bad policies and poor planning, the rigid, isolated system of Soviet power with restricted movement and incredible levels of bureaucracy, as well as widespread resentment towards such a state — a side effect of Gorbachev’s glasnost.

But maybe the Soviet Union had no choice but to engage into the arms race — right up to their eyeballs. Then the massive commitment of Soviet technology, production capital, and administrative-command methods were unavoidable in order to confront the invasions  — after the Revolution, the invasion by Hitler’s armies, and the Cold War threats of the U.S. and its allies. In other words, it is said that war communism was forced upon them.

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Military Parade in Moscow

In accordance with the official history the Second World War  (in Russia called ‘the Great Patriotic War’) was commenced on the Soviet territory by Germany: the treacherous attack on 22 June, 1941when they invaded into the USSR.  This official version of the Soviet Government is written in every history book.  At the same time there is numerous evidence of Stalin’s desire to start the war first with the intention similar to Hitler’s . And that is why there is the theory that Stalin provoked German aggression against the USSR.

In 1939 the USSR government signed a historical agreement with Germany (‘the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact”). This non-aggression pact guaranteed that both parties never make war with each other. Signing this document, the USSR implicitly permitted Germany to commence the war against the West.  This would have allowed Stalin to start the emancipation movement of the countries which would have been invaded by Hitler. It was the right moment – Germany, exhausted with its Western campaign, would not have been able to fight in the East (East being the West of the USSR), should the USSR invade the German borders later. By winning the war with Hitler, the USSR would become the main World Saviour and, as per the Lenin’s precept, it may be the start of World Communism Revolution.

What would have happened if the USSR began that war?  The war – is the Mother of revolution, and the world war – the mother of World revolution.  According to the main revolution philosopher Friedrich Engels, the World War with the victory of Communists would result in the ‘total exhaustion and creation of conditions for the ultimate victory of the labour force’. Fortunately, this guy died before the Second World War and, unfortunately, Lenin — the follower of the idea of World Revolution gained an access to power in Russia and created the monster Stalin.

Joachim von Ribbentrop third from right watches his Soviet counterpart Vyacheslav Molotov seated sign the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression on Aug. 23 1939. Josef Stalin (AP Photo/File)

In 1939 a  German colonel Heinz Guderian paid a visit to the Soviet Locomotive Factory which also produced tanks. The number of tanks produced daily was 22(!). That was a time when Soviets were not participated in any war. Just six years prior to that, Germany which was not at war, did not have any tanks at all.  Also when Germany commenced the war they had only 3200 tanks – the same amount which could have been produced by the Soviet locomotive factory for less than half a year! And now a little bit about those tanks. Similar to the Soviet cars, copied from the American templates, that tank’s prototype was first created in the USA (where it was never put into mass production) and transferred to the USSR with the utterance of forged documents where it was listed as the agricultural tractor.

Later, this ‘tractor’ was copied and then assembled in tremendous numbers  under the brand HST – High-Speed Tank. First HST could gather speed of 100 km/h. Even at present this speed for the tank is considered to be enormous. The shape of the tank’s body was simple and rational. None of the tanks in the World had such an armour shape. The best tank of the Second World War, T34, was the direct descendant of the HST. The principles used in this tank was later copied by the German ‘Panther’ and then spread in the world. In 1936 these tanks could move on the bottom of the deep creek — almost underwater. In 1938 these tanks were assembled with the diesel engines – unprecedented feature for that time. Finally, these tanks were equipped with the very powerful weapon. Those tanks had only one disadvantage – they were useless on the territory of the Soviet Union as they were not adapted for the impassability of roads rather than to good roads of  Europe…

BT-7 — High Speed Tank

Another instance of Soviet pre-war weapon was the Soviet pursuit plane which was the first one in the world equipped with rockets. By that time the Soviet engineers already created the unique plane IL-2 with the armour body – the real “tank” able to fly, with the super power equipment including 8 rocket missiles. Did the Soviet aviation have the supremacy in the air then? No.

Mostly Russian pilots including the pilots of pursuit planes were not trained to conduct the fight in the air, rather they could strike the targets on the ground. According to the code of the military aviation they were directed to conduct one superior offensive war destroying the enemy planes on the airfields and then holding the supremacy in the air. In 1929 the magazine ‘War and Revolution’ in the article ‘The beginning of the War’ concluded: ‘It is very advantageous to seize the initiative and start the war first, making a surprise attack’. Later, this conclusion was cited in all the Soviet aviation codes.

IL-2 — Flying Tank

One more proof to the alternative version of the offensive war intentions were the howitzer artillery groups created in the USSR as a part of the Red Army military force. If the Sovet government prepared to the defensive actions then they would have produced cannons as they are initially designed for defence – as grazing fire forces the enemy to stop. In an opposite case, however, howitzer is better as it has a high-angle fire trajectory and proved to be the best to smoke out the defender from the trench. Should the Soviets predict  the defensive actions they would definitely have built cannons rather than howitzers.

The debates over the different versions of  the reasons of Germany attacking the USSR have started in early 90s. These debates are concentrated on Stalin’s obscure intentions when he maimed the entire country while creating the unique system of governance. What was his ultimate purpose?

There are only two possible outcomes – the first one is complimentary for the USSR while the second one is deteriorative. Unfortunately for the Soviet adherents there is no proof that Stalin prepared for the defensive war and this fact puts the Stalin’s regime on the same line with the Hitler Nazi one.  Sometimes it seems to be better not to look back in history where the old myths let the Stalin’s supporters live in a fool’s paradise.

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