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The USSR in 100 Photographs

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Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#91

Post by duxup »

iammjm wrote: post #19

More 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 ma…

I don't understand your response. These photos don't strike me as peak propaganda, lots of it is just every day life.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#92

Post by iammjm »

DivingForGold wrote: post #88
iammjm wrote: post #19

More 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 ma…

I suppose you were the one who flagged this. I had a business in the former countries of the USSR, traveled there many times, some of the women were stunningly beautiful, I married one. These photos bring back lots of memories.

I didn’t flag this, I explicitly stated: enjoy, but know this is propaganda.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#93

Post by iammjm »

duxup wrote: post #91
iammjm wrote: post #19

More 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 ma…

I don't understand your response. These photos don't strike me as peak propaganda, lots of it is just every day life.

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.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#94

Post by bloak »

cogman10 wrote: post #38
craftkiller wrote: post #20

What'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?

Likely it was UV exposure to raise the kids vitamin D. I'm guessing this was something for northern parts of russia. (Yes, they were tanning the kids :D) Skin cancer from sun exposure wasn't something I think they'd have considered in the USSR.

I don't know much about the USSR but I'll just put this here:

1. If the children didn't have enough vitamin D, wouldn't a pill be a much cheaper and easier solution?

2. There seem to be other possible reasons for prescribing treatment with ultraviolet light because I seem to recall a case of someone (in England, half a century ago) having that recommended for some kind of skin condition.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#95

Post by nec4b »

epolanski wrote: post #82
nec4b wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience those are the people who miss the "good" old times, when everything had order and hierarchy. Wikipedia says the communist party in Poland had 3 million member which is about 10% of the population at the time. If you add the family members and close relatives, the number of people living a privileged life was quite big. Red nobility is known phenomenon in former communist countries. https://simple.wik…

You can look and Google for many polls conducted on the topic, 2014 was the first year more Poles had a negative than a positive opinion on the PRL (46 vs 44%) and that's because as time progresses average voter age goes down. People that were at least 15 by 1989 (the last year of communism in Poland) had a warm opinion on it. It's really younger generations that did not live in PRL that hold overwhelmingly negative…

People miss their youth. You can do the same poll anywhere and the results will be similar, whether that place was a communist dictatorship or not. And no it's not a simple fact that people enjoyed their lives. Maybe it was for your family who was either close to power or ideologically agreed with the dictatorship. Communism was good to the the people aligned with the regime, but for anyone who had a dissident idea, it was hell on earth. A lot of things were missing and not available to buy. People had to make do with what they had. And reporting did happen as well, even if you try to brush it off. Poland would be a first world country had it not stay behind the iron curtain.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#96

Post by xtiansimon »

Tade0 wrote: post #50
vient wrote: post #7

> 53. МИР И ЧЕЛОВЕК Oh wow, a blast from the past. Remember reading and re-reading it a lot when I was very young. Seems it is still printed and updated! You can see the 1988 edition in full here https://samoe-vazhnoe.blogspot.com/2014/03/mir-i-chelovek.ht...

I had the toy pictured in 59. You could tell that a toy was made in USSR by the fact that it often didn't have any markings indicating the origin.

#58, I had the US version. How funny to see a Russian version.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#97

Post by cogman10 »

bloak wrote: post #94
cogman10 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely it was UV exposure to raise the kids vitamin D. I'm guessing this was something for northern parts of russia. (Yes, they were tanning the kids :D) Skin cancer from sun exposure wasn't something I think they'd have considered in the USSR.

I don't know much about the USSR but I'll just put this here: 1. If the children didn't have enough vitamin D, wouldn't a pill be a much cheaper and easier solution? 2. There seem to be other possible reasons for prescribing treatment with ultraviolet light because I seem to recall a case of someone (in England, half a century ago) having that recommended for some kind of skin condition.

> If the children didn't have enough vitamin D, wouldn't a pill be a much cheaper and easier solution?

Apparently they did that too. [1]

If I were to guess, there was probably a belief that you could be getting some unmeasured health benefits from sunlight that you don't get from a vitamin D supplement.

In the 30s in the US the government mandated that all milk be fortified with vitamin D.

> There seem to be other possible reasons for prescribing treatment with ultraviolet light because I seem to recall a case of someone (in England, half a century ago) having that recommended for some kind of skin condition.

My grandpa was treated with radiation for his eczema as a kid. IIRC, he was blasted with xray radiation. While he lived into his 90s, he had some of the worst skin I've ever seen in my life. That treatment ruined his skin for life. He was actually used in dermatology glossaries for several skin conditions because he basically had them all. I'm sure if you look up various skin conditions you'll probably still see pictures of a patch of my grandpa's skin :).

IDK if the USSR was doing it. Most of the literature I saw was saying it was to combat rickets.

[1] https://doaj.org/article/8ad9233cdeb54973aec8b3b0d84ec88e

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#98

Post by duxup »

iammjm wrote: post #93
duxup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your response. These photos don't strike me as peak propaganda, lots of it is just every day life.

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.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#99

Post by well_ackshually »

hagbard_c wrote: post #84
well_ackshually wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans prisons have been historically so much better than USSR prisons, sure <3

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 wasn't different.

As it remains, the subject isn't gulags (which are, undeniably, work camps, though not death camps), but regular prisons. which existed. Which were the same damn thing as american prisons, except you would come out of it and probably have a house at least.

Re: The USSR in 100 Photographs

#100

Post by well_ackshually »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #15
well_ackshually wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 cherry on top.

Shit knowledge and reading of history doesn't make an argument.

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