no photos of KGB prisons or gulags? Not surprising..
People, on average, were much less unhappy than others believe.
survivorship bias
The USSR in 100 Photographs
11–20 of 82 posts
Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#12Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#13Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#14At times I think about how democracies, especially those plagued by winner-takes-all mechanics like presidential and semi-presidential republics, can pretend to be democratic while de facto being very authoritarian.
In the USSR, workers (in Soviets) voted their delegates and the delegates in turn elected the top hierarchy of the communist party.
So yes, the USSR was obviously an authoritarian regime controlled by a single party, but you still had to lobby and depend on getting elected by your party, whose delegates had to be first elected by the workers.
In modern Russia, Belarus, etc?
It's arguably even worse, the elected presidents and prime ministers de facto control the opposition which pretends to be an opposition, and real opposition faces either legal issues or direct threats.
And yet, you can pretend to be a democracy and tell your people its better than it was once, but is it really?
It's been 60 years now till the last parliamentary republic turned authoritarian, Sri Lanka. Every single other country to do so has always been a presidential or semi presidential republic. From the former Eastern Europe, to Asia, to Africa to South America.
We should now know that electing a single person to hold executive power is just non democratic and concentrates too much power in a single individual, but we keep falling in love with winner-takes-all elections and loving the idea of a single individual that doesn't need to win his own parties or PMs support every day can fix things quickly.
Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#15no photos of KGB prisons or gulags? Not surprising..
Americans prisons have been historically so much better than USSR prisons, sure <3
I would take an American prison over a slave Labour camp in Stalins Soviet camp with massive death rates. Few American prisoners freeze to death, starve to death or are beaten to death by the guards. Stop comparing American prisions to Stalin gulags or Hitlers concentration camps. They are not the same.
Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#16Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#17Picture 9 with 12 string electric guitar. Extremely rare instrument. Normal 6 string electric guitars were very average quality. Rock music was anyway not desired. Coming from the wrong place. Every piece of popular musicians was reviewed by state organs. Endless censorship everywhere.
Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#18no photos of KGB prisons or gulags? Not surprising..
These kinds of articles are only popular in places that had no direct experience of life in the USSR. No one in Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, etc. looks back on the time with fondness.
Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#19More like: USSR propaganda in 100 photographs. One “man in space” vs millions of people devoid of plumbing and basic products, all living in a repressive orwellian society. The aftermath is still tangible: former satellite states are even after 30 years behind Western Europe economically, the former USSR republics are either marginalised, autocratic or in active war for their survival against their former colonial masters, and of course there’s Russia itself with its utmost lack of respect for its own citizens’ well being. So sure feel free to enjoy these photographs but don’t let them trick you into imagining USSR as some sort of utopia, because it was definitely way closer to an actual dystopia, and the world is now an actually better place because USSR is no more
Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs
#20What's going on with the photo of the children standing around a light wearing sunglasses? My first thought was tanning booth but surely they weren't tanning children?