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

The USSR in 100 Photographs

trinixy.ru

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 110 posts

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#101

Post by tocs3 »

hagbard_c wrote: post #86
tocs3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have heard a lot about the austerity of life in the USSR growing up in the 1980s. Comparing life in the world of today to what was available , even in the US, is going to look meager. Growing up in a small town in the 1980s in the US our local grocery store could be measured in the 100s sqft (that also sold clothing and was a feed store) . Now in the same area I shop in a store that can be measured in acres wi…

You're comparing a (probably rural?) 'general store' in the 80's with current megastores and for some reason link that to the austerity experienced under communism with centrally planned economies. That's a silly comparison since those small rural general stores still exist - there's one a few km from where I live in Sweden which sells everything from groceries to clothes to tools, doubles as a feed store and also ha…

I am saying that the 100 photos presented did not look especially austere to me. As some one growing up in similar times in a middle class (more rural) area these pictures just looked pretty normal slice of every day life (with a difference in location and culture). Any pictures of then compared to what is available today to many (next day delivery of almost any consumer item, on credit) would likely look austere.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#102

Post by iammjm »

duxup wrote: post #98
iammjm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is this: all these photos show smiling happy people and great historical moments such as the first man in space. But the every day life for the most part was very different. I am not arguing that these scenes never happened, I’m just saying someone selected these from a vast selection of photos to create a certain impression of the USSR, an impression that aims to romanticise, and not to be objective.

I feel like you’re rapidly approaching a situation where if the photo doesn’t show exactly what you want to see that makes it propaganda.

It’s 100 photos though

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#104

Post by spwa4 »

well_ackshually wrote: post #100
victorbjorklund wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And I would take a proper homemade burger over an injection of bleach or a full breath of Zyklon B, but maybe compare what is comparable. Default uneducated behavior to respond to anything USSR related with "BUT STALIN GULAGS" (when gulags are both from the time of Lenin and heavily ran by Trotskyists, who, if you've heard anything about them, weren't exactly Stalin's best friends.). Bringing in nazis is just the che…

Don't you think the real insensitivity shown here is pushing socialism and asking people to be polite and say "it's not so bad", people who have trauma from actually living in a socialist state?

I get that there are problems today too, and in the US too, but honestly they don't compare. If that's a problem for your politics then, frankly, maybe your politics are just wrong.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#105

Post by NoOn3 »

These are not just staged photos for propaganda; they are ordinary, everyday life captured in photographs. Life in the USSR was not that bad as it is written here in the comments. Education was free and quite good. Medicine was free. In good times, workers could even get housing (a house or apartment) for free. There were various free additional classes and clubs for children and youth. There were free exhibitions and museums. People in general were less nervous and more happy, even though they weren't very wealthy. But at least in Moscow, the life of an average city dweller was normal. There were bad aspects too, but overall, they are exaggerated in the West.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#106

Post by spwa4 »

well_ackshually wrote: post #99
hagbard_c wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read The Gulag Archipelago? If not you should, it tells you a lot about Soviet prisons and a lot of other things Soviet you might do well learning about. Read it, it is well-written and - at least in my opinion - quite the page-turner. If you don't think you can manage to make your way through consider listening to an (unabridged) audio book version.

Yes, Soljenitzin is not a revolutionary new thing nobody has heard from. Conditions in gulags were fucking dreadful, the same way conditions post any revolution when it came to repressing those who would put down a revolution would be: american prisons post reovlution weren't better, french prisons post revolution weren't better, etc: every single revolution has pretty much ended with a period of terror, and Lenin's…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_Soviet_Union

"Western observers described Soviet prisons and corrective institutions as involving harsh living conditions, arbitrary treatment, abuse by officials, poor rations and serious human-rights violations"

I'm going to assert that US prisons are far better than these socialist prisons. And that is still the case in contemporary socialist regimes like Cuba (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba where they still purposefully starve prisoners and totally deny medical care)

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#107

Post by NoOn3 »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #21
epolanski wrote: post #14

At 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 s…

Soviet only had elections on paper. You serious think it was possible to vote away Stalin? You must be crazy if you claim there was free elections and anyone could run against Stali.

I seriously belive that it was possible to vote away Stalin. But I'm Russian maybe I'm mistaken, but I think the accusations against Stalin are exaggerated. He was not clearly only terrible. There were definitely difficult times, and some of his decisions were bad. But he also did things for the benefit of the people. He didn't accumulate any wealth for himself.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#108

Post by stasomatic »

olexsmir wrote: post #57
cr1895 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>don’t let them trick you into imagining USSR as some sort of utopia was there some particular risk of this?

I see a lot of westerners praise USSR as some sort of lost paradise. And for me, Eastern European, it's crazy

I lived there (Odessa, mostly), till late teens. The QoL highly depended on who you knew, how to steal and how to bribe and barter, on all levels of society. You could live very well, relative to the gen pop, if you possessed these qualities and your parents were members of the party.

I suppose that can be said about everywhere, but it wasn't a desolate rusty bullet ridden hellscape, the cities were beautiful and so were the beaches, at least as captured in my memory.

My family had friends from Poland and Hungary and we always envied them, the green kind. So, I always assumed at that age things were nicer beyond the borders, but they weren't so bad locally either. Of course, in the end, it was a house of cards, but the life itself wasn't NK level.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#109

Post by f6v »

Eriks wrote: post #13
f6v wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People, on average, were much less unhappy than others believe.

Under occupation people hide their real emotions

I mean, opinions are split. I met some older Estonians who couldn't stop blabbering in broken Russian how they liked it in the USSR (was a freaking awkward bus ride listening about NATO provoking Putin). I'm sure there were political prisoners whose life was absolutely miserable.

But life isn't a Hollywood movie where everyone was in Gulag. I can only speak for Estonia. And people built their lives and careers, went to sport competitions, completed their PhDs, etc.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#110

Post by hagbard_c »

tocs3 wrote: post #101
hagbard_c wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing a (probably rural?) 'general store' in the 80's with current megastores and for some reason link that to the austerity experienced under communism with centrally planned economies. That's a silly comparison since those small rural general stores still exist - there's one a few km from where I live in Sweden which sells everything from groceries to clothes to tools, doubles as a feed store and also ha…

I am saying that the 100 photos presented did not look especially austere to me. As some one growing up in similar times in a middle class (more rural) area these pictures just looked pretty normal slice of every day life (with a difference in location and culture). Any pictures of then compared to what is available today to many (next day delivery of almost any consumer item, on credit) would likely look austere.

Those photo's don't look austere because they were meant to show the great and immortal ideal created in the unbreakable union of Soviet republics:

   Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
   Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
   O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
   To Communism's triumph lead us on!
They do not show life for the average Soviet citizen but the way the Party wanted people to think Soviet life looked like.

   Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
   Дружбы народов надёжный оплот!
   Партия Ленина - сила народная
   Нас к торжеству коммунизма ведёт!
Post reply on HN