Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Soviet-Era Industrial Design

atlasobscura.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 134 posts

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#71

Post by mantas »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #68
mantas wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if Soviets hadn't occupied a bunch of countries and oppressed their citizens. If there was no fear internally and massive surveillance. I'm super happy USSR went down and we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want.

> we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want Agreed, surveillance, oppression are all terrible, but I highly doubt you can really choose any system you may want now, (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).

There's always play under the table.

But democratic election where I can oversee voting, join one of many (or start a new one) political party or even go for office myself is infinitely more free than in Soviet system.

Completely overhaul is probably not possible, because there would be a lot of people opposing it and simple majority is not enough to implement it. But significant adjustments are happening all the time. Point in case - France and Macron's reforms.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#72

Post by jammi »

flohofwoe wrote: post #66
markvdb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing always strikes me in terms of design when I'm in Latvia (USSR republic in 1940 and 1945-1990). It is how modular, repairable, and in that way "simple" things that have survived from the Soviet era look. Ingeniously built wooden ironing boards for example, the older generations of trams of Riga, the "Minsk" folding bicycles that you still see around very often, the trains (no new ones since 1991!), even many…

Good example of this are the Simson bikes from Eastern Germany, small 50cc motor cycles going up to 70 km/h. Their technical design is extremely simple, and they are being repaired and are in normal daily use all over the country (not just by nostalgia nerds or hipster city dwellers). Many owners are most likely younger than the bike they're riding.

Basically all of the 50cc mopeds had to be artificially crippled to keep them under legal speed limits for them (typically 40-50km/h depending on country). Remove the cripple and they'll all go 70-80km/h or more. This isn't even with upgraded parts, which makes them go 100km/h-ish and more, although the suspension, frame and brakes on them will definitely not be up to the job safely without upgrading those too.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#73

Post by hnarn »

rdtsc wrote: post #37

Moscow Design Museum has some more examples too http://moscowdesignmuseum.ru/en/exhibitions/1/ . Those that grew up in Soviet Union will recognize familiar objects. I recognized the phones, the "basketball" game, and the portable checkers game. Well and of course the Moskvitch 408 car. I don't remember really thinking about design back then. Maybe because we didn't have many choices. You wanted a tape player you pick…

>Electronic equipment came with nice diagrams of how everything worked, but it wasn't from the goodness of their hearts, environmental concerns, or trying to foster a "maker" culture, it was because it would actually be unreliable and break down quite often.

I'm not trying to be a political apologist here, but it doesn't have to be just one of them, right? I mean, the products could be inferior because of some factors, and there could be attempts to foster a "maker" culture because of other factors.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#74

Post by mantas »

realusername wrote: post #64
mantas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy. USSR failed badly once it was time to go forward. Especially on electronics and computers. We shouldn't underestimate what focused dictatorships are capable of. They're bloody effective.

> Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy That's easy to say now but no other country achieved that at that time. Especially not in a such a short time, it was an impressive feat.

Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK.

And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based. But they had quite a few smart people. The only lacking thing was push from the government to industrialize.

Let alone they were far from catching up with the West by the time WW2 started or at any other point in their history.

It’s impressive in the same way that holocaust is impressive.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#75

Post by caf »

rdtsc wrote: post #37

Moscow Design Museum has some more examples too http://moscowdesignmuseum.ru/en/exhibitions/1/ . Those that grew up in Soviet Union will recognize familiar objects. I recognized the phones, the "basketball" game, and the portable checkers game. Well and of course the Moskvitch 408 car. I don't remember really thinking about design back then. Maybe because we didn't have many choices. You wanted a tape player you pick…

I think in that era electronic equipment often came with schematics in the West, too. I'm pretty sure our TRS-80 manuals had a schematic, and I remember opening up a few transistor radios to find the schematic screen-printed on the inside of the case.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#76

Post by realusername »

mantas wrote: post #74
realusername wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy That's easy to say now but no other country achieved that at that time. Especially not in a such a short time, it was an impressive feat.

Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based. But they had quite a few smart people. The only lacking thing was push from the government to industrialize. Let alone they were far from catching up with the West by the time WW2 started or at any other point in their history. It’s impressive in the same way that holocaust is impressi…

> And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based

That's quite an understatement, the Russian empire did not do any industrial revolution at all, it was a mostly undeveloped agricultural wasteland.

> Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK.

But none of them succeeded to the extent of the Soviet Union at that time. One of the main argument of the communists at that time was actually to point out the failures of capitalism in Asia as why capitalism would never work. At that time the industrialisation receipe did not work for a lot of countries and plenty of people believed the industrialisation of the West could not be reproduced, and especially not with capitalism.

Everything is obvious in hindsight, it's how history work, you would create your own country now, it would not take that much time to industrialise it with modern techniques. The Soviets managed to take one of the least developed agricultural country of Europe (comparatively worse that current African countries) and transform it into a global superpower while other countries failed to even industrialise, this isn't a small feat at all.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#77

Post by v_lisivka »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #58
euos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution. It primary goal was to serve as a resource base for spreading the fire all over the world. I just checked and it looks like English version of “the Internationale” is mild, the Russian lyrics explicitly state “this world of oppression we’ll reduce to rubble and will use that rubble to build our new world” - and I can guarantee you, USSR wa…

When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think…

All countries in the world was pre-industrial monarchies just 150 years ago. Please point to your point.

Moreover, in WWW2, USSR lost about 1/6 of population. It's hard to name such losses as "win". Western Allies, which is also at war with Germany, provided continuous aid to that "superpower" in addition to their own soldiers at war.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#78

Post by v_lisivka »

_nalply wrote: post #50
euos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution. It primary goal was to serve as a resource base for spreading the fire all over the world. I just checked and it looks like English version of “the Internationale” is mild, the Russian lyrics explicitly state “this world of oppression we’ll reduce to rubble and will use that rubble to build our new world” - and I can guarantee you, USSR wa…

Who knows perhaps they will succeed after all? But not a tiniest bit in the way the communists envisioned! Inequality will be stopped from growing indefinitively because somewhere must be a limit. What if the one percent owning ninety nine percent of global wealth is not enough for them? When will the rest of the world stop being sheeple and how will they change this? I hope in a peaceful way. Communism is dead. It's…

Yeah, today it's hard to kill every person with signs of intellect as in Cambodia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_hum...

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#79

Post by kwhitefoot »

v_lisivka wrote: post #77
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think…

All countries in the world was pre-industrial monarchies just 150 years ago. Please point to your point. Moreover, in WWW2, USSR lost about 1/6 of population. It's hard to name such losses as "win". Western Allies, which is also at war with Germany, provided continuous aid to that "superpower" in addition to their own soldiers at war.

> All countries in the world was pre-industrial monarchies just 150 years ago.

Hardly.

I can't speak for your country as you haven't mentioned it but mine was certainly not pre-industrial in 1868.

Brunel was already dead by then (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel) and Boulton and Watt were but a distant memory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt).

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#80

Post by TheForumTroll »

v_lisivka wrote: post #77
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think…

All countries in the world was pre-industrial monarchies just 150 years ago. Please point to your point. Moreover, in WWW2, USSR lost about 1/6 of population. It's hard to name such losses as "win". Western Allies, which is also at war with Germany, provided continuous aid to that "superpower" in addition to their own soldiers at war.

>Western Allies, which is also at war with Germany, provided continuous aid to that "superpower" in addition to their own soldiers at war.

On D-day the nazis were on the run, pushed back to Poland. The USSR did more than 90% of the winning and much of it before anyone else invaded. This thinking that the UK, US, etc. did anything near the winning that the USSR did is getting old. Of course we helped but it was a tiny drop in a big sea. The biggest help was by far the supplies to USSR, not the soldiers.

Look at how people saw things back before the US spread its culture everywhere:

https://www.les-crises.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/poll-fr...

It says a lot.

Post reply on HN