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The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

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Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#41

Post by adolph »

zerobees wrote: post #20
adolph wrote: post #14

It unveils the stark contrast between the carefully constructed façade presented by the Soviet authorities and the harsh realities experienced by ordinary citizens. I guess without examples of the "carefully constructed façade" its difficult to understand if there is a contrast. To me, the photos just look like ordinary 1950s street scenes. Waiting at Walgreens the other day I spent the time examining the store's dec…

You're arguing with LLM-generated text and yes, I don't think the photos actually show that. They don't seem to be making any political point at all. The thing to understand about the USSR is that Moscow was a flagship city of a continental-scale empire obsessed with projecting an image of power and technological progress. It had grand construction projects, cultural events, subway, good schools, paved streets. Sort…

Yes, there is something about the photos totally reminds me of recent photos from Pyongyang. True atrocities like the Holodomor aside, I'm sympathetic to the idea that the bright capital sucking rural resources and capricious political crime enforcement isn't much different from the previous czarist regime. The way the political messaging is so much louder than any private activity (like advertising) says a lot about how weak and insecure the government thought itself.

While the article focuses on Moscow, the online collection is worth checking out. I'm especially interested in the "ancient burial markers near the village of Ust-byur" which seems to be Khakassia in plains that resemble West Texas.

https://manhoffarchive.org/on-the-road

Edit: Ust-byur is within 300mi of Denisova Cave!

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#42

Post by AnimalMuppet »

usrnm wrote: post #18

Interesting and sad to see the ratio of women to men doing hard manual work in these photos, even road repairs are done by women. It's mind boggling how devastating the war was for the country.

It wasn't just hard manual work. IIRC, for decades the majority of doctors were women.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#43

Post by AnimalMuppet »

infecto wrote: post #40
MisterTea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link did not trouble me, your language did. At the time reading, most of the comments here were nuked and grey so I went strait to the pictures and ignored the article text.

[flagged]

"You are a miserable human" is a personal attack, and is against the site guidelines. You've been here long enough that you ought to know that.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#44

Post by wat10000 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #27
Jgoauh wrote: post #12

"It becomes evident that the parade was a carefully choreographed spectacle, designed to showcase the Soviet Union’s ideology and power to the world." Ah yes, everyone known that in a TRUE democracy parades are spontaneously occurring events, self organizing to show the country's weaknesses and the population's biases. Seriously tho, what does this mean, has anyone ever been to a parade and concluded it was neither c…

Ugh, how I hate this sort of relativization coming from people who never experienced an actual authoritarian system. By the age of 6, I was required to carry a standard paper lantern on the November 7th celebration of the Great October* Socialist Revolution, with my parents fully aware that presence and absence lists were maintained by the teachers, who would forward them to the school cadre bureaucrats keeping dossi…

I think pretty much everyone here knows about the October/November thing if only because of The Hunt for Red October.

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#45

Post by infecto »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #43
infecto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"You are a miserable human" is a personal attack, and is against the site guidelines. You've been here long enough that you ought to know that.

[flagged]

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#46

Post by djmips »

infecto wrote: post #23

Lots of contention here around the narrative. The original link should be removed and replaced with the original source that has what’s seems to be accurate and different narratives for the pictures. The linked site seems to simply steal what is a pretty nice coverage of the archive. https://www.rferl.org/a/the-manhoff-archive/28359558.html

And the ads on the link posted to HN - very inappropriate subjects and pop up video ads. Grrr

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#47

Post by altairprime »

infecto wrote: post #23

Lots of contention here around the narrative. The original link should be removed and replaced with the original source that has what’s seems to be accurate and different narratives for the pictures. The linked site seems to simply steal what is a pretty nice coverage of the archive. https://www.rferl.org/a/the-manhoff-archive/28359558.html

Please email the mods! They can change the link :)

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#48

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

"According to Smith, after Manhoff’s wife died he was asked to check the home of a former official for valuable memorabilia."

I wonder how much valuable memorabilia is just getting thrown away because no one thought to check for it.

Here's your nudge to ask your older relatives about their memorabilia, and record conversations with them while they are still alive.

If you want to put the info online somewhere to increase the chance that it's useful to someone someday, you could try a free genealogy website like familysearch.org or wikitree.com

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#49

Post by Alive-in-2025 »

konart wrote: post #28
branon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, is that why... I noticed this too but assumed it was due to some communist ideal of gender equality leading to more women tradespeople, wishful thinking I guess

Both. But mostly the war.

I was expecting to find out that lots of men killed in the war led to many more women working after the war, and that's what could be interpreted/guessed from these pictures.

But looking at wikipedia, it's complicated. A lot of different estimates of deaths. I think a lot more men died in ww2 in the Soviet military, from Wikipedia, about 20 million men (see total war deaths by age group table) and 6 million women. The official counts of the dead were supposed to have underreported deaths by a lot.

Looking at different estimates in wiki, about 10 million military dead and almost 20 million civilian dead.

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

Re: The Manhoff Archives: Color photos of Stalin-era USSR taken by a US diplomat

#50

Post by rjsw »

Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #49
konart wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. But mostly the war.

I was expecting to find out that lots of men killed in the war led to many more women working after the war, and that's what could be interpreted/guessed from these pictures. But looking at wikipedia, it's complicated. A lot of different estimates of deaths. I think a lot more men died in ww2 in the Soviet military, from Wikipedia, about 20 million men (see total war deaths by age group table) and 6 million women. Th…

I would suggest that the male deaths will have been concentrated in a smaller age range than the female ones.
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