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Video games made in the USSR (2020)

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Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#81

Post by Waterluvian »

chokolad wrote: post #72
Waterluvian wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole Russian Carrier today was built and docked in Ukraine. When the USSR collapsed Russia stole and basically destroyed it out of sheer incompetence.

> The sole Russian Carrier today was built and docked in Ukraine. When the USSR collapsed Russia stole and basically destroyed it out of sheer incompetence. That's strictly due to geography. There are not too many places in USSR where one can build decently sized wharfs.

Indeed geography has a well-recorded way of shaping civilizations, cultures, and their competencies.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#82

Post by jojobas »

jltsiren wrote: post #63
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Because of the war against Ukraine, I’ve become more aware of Ukraine’s role in the USSR when reading up on history. One thing I’ve noticed is just how much of the most impressive technological feats came from Ukraine.

For me, the surprising part was learning how many Russian people I know have parents or grandparents who were born in Ukraine. I knew that Soviet Ukraine had ~50 million people. Almost 20% of the USSR, and a bit less than France, Italy, or the UK at the time. I knew that Ukraine was one of the most developed and densely populated parts of the USSR, and of the Russian Empire before that. I had some idea how the border…

It's not just about borders. Ukraine has some Russian Empire's/USSR's most fertile land. It was facing serious overpopulation (i.e. peasants with no land to work on) in the end of the 19th century, while Russia had a lot of unpopulated land in Siberia and the Far East, facing imperial Japan and potentially China.

Ukrainian peasants were offered free land and transport if they moved east in an attempt to solve these two problems, and many used the opportunity.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#83

Post by grishka »

jltsiren wrote: post #63
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Because of the war against Ukraine, I’ve become more aware of Ukraine’s role in the USSR when reading up on history. One thing I’ve noticed is just how much of the most impressive technological feats came from Ukraine.

For me, the surprising part was learning how many Russian people I know have parents or grandparents who were born in Ukraine. I knew that Soviet Ukraine had ~50 million people. Almost 20% of the USSR, and a bit less than France, Italy, or the UK at the time. I knew that Ukraine was one of the most developed and densely populated parts of the USSR, and of the Russian Empire before that. I had some idea how the border…

At the individual level, the boundaries are really blurry. I'm a Russian. I know many Ukrainians. Often, when you meet a Ukrainian, you'll never know that they are, in fact, from Ukraine, unless you ask. Sometimes their pronunciation ("г" as "h" instead of "g") would give them away, but other than that, there are practically zero differences — especially cultural ones.

We really are mostly the same people and we should really be friends. Everyone would benefit from that. It's a shame that the ambitions of one person are splitting us apart like that.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#85

Post by augustuspolius »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #73
augustuspolius wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories.

I don't think "genocide" is the right term here. It is part of a wider man-made famine, which is an act of great evil perpetrated by the communist regime, but it affected all parts of the southern USSR, including areas with mainly ethnic Russian populations. For more information, you may want to read more about the policies that led to this event, such as "dekulakization"

I am aware that genocide is a disputed term in this context. I lean towards it because the famine disproportionately affected Ukrainians (and Kazakhs) and was at least in part not mitigated intentionally to punish minorities with a stronger anti-Soviet sentiment.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#86

Post by maydup-nem »

batter wrote: post #36
RugnirViking wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The soviets made a pretty good go of turning a theistic feudal monarchy largely with an economy focused on agriculture into the second biggest industrial power in the world for almost a hundred years. Certainly not perfect, and horrible to live in in many ways, but better at building an economy than a lot of other similarly sized places.

'second biggest industrial power' assume this is a joke. Poor quality: anything that was made was so bad, this habit is still alive and even russians hate their own products. Stealing: ancient car designs and engineering is good example. And as you know it never improved. Millions of lives were taken to achieve nonsense goals, people were starved, frozen, deprevated from food. What kind of human you have to be justif…

Soviet products might not have been very pretty, but they were made with durability and, indeed, quality in mind. The electrical components from the Soviet era are still working. Any mechanical/metallic stuff is very solid.

Yeah, designs were utilitarian. And they had to make a million of everything. But there was no good reason to aim for low quality.

Counter that with any product of capitalism, huh: buy a shiny thing and wait for it to break in 2 years.

Not trying to glorify communism, but what you said in your comment is complete bullshit mixed with questionable sentiment.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#87

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

qsort wrote: post #39
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Because of the war against Ukraine, I’ve become more aware of Ukraine’s role in the USSR when reading up on history. One thing I’ve noticed is just how much of the most impressive technological feats came from Ukraine.

The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. The 90th anniversary of the Holodomor was just two weeks ago.

Holodomor was not genocide.

Communists were internationalists and judged people based on their social class, not nationality. Many areas of the USSR, including in Russia proper, did experience precisely the same level of suffering and death from hunger.

Also, food requisitions in Ukraine which led to Holodomor were organised and conducted by native Ukrainians. It is easy to look up that most senior party and NKVD posts in 1932-33 in Ukrainian SSR were held by Ukrainians - how many posts in Gestapo were held by Jews? For some reason Hitler didn't put Jews in charge of the Holocaust.

It was not a systemic attempt also: if the USSR leaders wanted to kill of all Ukrainians, for some reason they didn't do it systematically at all, year after year. Maybe they didn't want to kill all Ukrainians, after all?

Holodomor, hunger in all other parts of the USSR, Stalin's terror were all the result of the Soviet rule, deeply rooted in class struggle ideology and complete disregard for human life. A lot of people died of hunger simply because Stalin needed to export food taken from them to pay for his Industrialization. No, nationality did not play a role in choosing whom to plunder. Food requisitioners took food from whoever they could find.

If you want a real genocide example perpetrated by the USSR, it is the Chechen expulsion. Systematic, not led by Chechens, ban on settlement remained for many decades. Holodomor was neither targeted only at Ukrainians, was led in Ukraine by Ukrainians, was not systemic, was never a policy of any kind.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#88

Post by pandaman »

qsort wrote: post #39
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Because of the war against Ukraine, I’ve become more aware of Ukraine’s role in the USSR when reading up on history. One thing I’ve noticed is just how much of the most impressive technological feats came from Ukraine.

The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. The 90th anniversary of the Holodomor was just two weeks ago.

But, through amazing coincidence, all the bad things the Russian Empire/USSR did were done by Russians while everything good by Ukrainians. It was some kind of magic. E.g. invasions in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Afghanistan - 100% Russians, not a single Ukrainian, even Brezhnev was Russian. Russian mathematicians? 100% Ukrainians, even Euler. Pushkin? He is the grand-grand-father of Bendera himself. Chikatilo? He is actually a cousin of Putin.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#89

Post by actionfromafar »

RugnirViking wrote: post #47
qaq wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more you have to realise that the way things were structured there was never an honest count. As an anecdotal example my father in-law was chief eng. at Kharkov factory that was producing Nuclear Missile guidance systems and other high end mil. parts. Factory had 10,000 employees yet officially it was producing electric razors and things like this were the norm.

I can believe that. They certainly had a lot of corruption and behind-the-scenes lying to make things fit, especially towards the end. However it seems to me that there must have been at least some growth there underpinning things for some time, else they would have collapsed much easiler, right? They also seemed to have an outsized economic impact abroad compared to other places with similar population that started…

Soviet imported a lot - both food and technology. They bought IBM computers through Europe etc. Oil paid for a lot of that.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#90

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

augustuspolius wrote: post #79
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case 'Russia' was harrassing itself: the regime first established in Kiev in late X century has conquered the northern territories and spread its rule there, then lost core southern territory in the aftermath of the mongol invasions, and eventually came back, also spreading as far as to Alaska in the east.

We have to agree that either “modern Ukraine” was created in 1920s from Russians and Russian territories or there were different people on that land long before that. If you are leaning towards the former then this could be extended even further: Soviet Union only ever harassed itself. There were no occupied Baltic states, there was no Ukraine, etc etc - just one big happy family called USSR.

> We have to agree...

No, you just constructed a false dichotomy.

Russian Empire and its successor states USSR and Russia is a product of imperialism that was born in Kiev when Grand Prince Vladimir has brought Orthodox Christianity to those lands. This imperialism conquered some territories, lost some territories (Kiev proper), then regained them back and conquered a lot more, then splintered. The current war is the result of the imperialist successor of the original Kiev regime to gain Kiev back.

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