Underground Knowledge — A discussion group discussion

I know all the bad stuff with the Soviet Union, but are there any good things from that system that could be implemented within other economic or political systems now?

A few examples I wonder about include:

-The way they educated children to a very high standard, even poor children, and it was all free.

-Citizens were given free vacations every year within the Soviet Union's borders.

-Investment in the arts and culture.

Actually I see a lot of USSR unique practices were adopted in the West and worldwide, according to this article at least (not so sure all of these are awesome like the article states, but some are):

12 Awesome Things Soviet Union Gave to the People Ahead of Every Other Country in the World https://englishrussia.com/2015/10/23/...

1. The Soviet Union was the first to introduce eight-hour work days. The first ever in the modern history of mankind.

2. Another major advancement was the right of every working person to have one month of free leave each year. In fact, in Russia now some categories of people enjoy even longer vacations each year. And yes, they get paid their normal salary for all this time that they spend away from their work.

3. People couldn’t be fired without the consent of the professional unions.

4. A State guarantee to ANY college graduate that they will get a job right after they get their diploma.

5. Also, any person in the USSR (and in modern Russia too, in fact) can go to a college or university of their choice for absolutely free (of course, if they can pass the entry exams or have good grades in their final year at high school). The Soviet country was the first in the world to offer this.

6. The Soviet Union was first to offer absolutely free pre-schools and kindergartens to all who needed them.

7. Soviet citizens were the first in the world to get professional medical help for free. Anytime. Anywhere. Absolutely free. Unlimited. No lines, no long waiting lists. Every city had tens of “poliklinikas” – places that any person can walk in and see a doctor of their choice, be diagnosed, x-ray scanned, get his teeth fixed, etc – all for free. Even now this system continues to work in Russia.

8. Every citizen of the Soviet Union could go to their manager and ask for a trip to a resort of their choice – either to the sea shore or to any other kind of resort, and they had the right to get this trip for free each year.

9. Every citizen of the USSR had a right to get a free apartment. Yes, absolutely free, no need to pay, gets put into your name forever, you own it, give to your kids later, etc. Of course, there were waiting lists, sometimes they were pretty long, but every month tens or even hundreds of thousands of people were receiving free apartments from the Soviet state. Thanks to this even now there are plenty of homeowners in Russia. This was the first ever anywhere in the world.

10. Every Soviet person could get free transportation from the place he lived to the place he worked . He could get bus vouchers, rail road tickets, etc. etc. First in the world.

11. Every new mom had a right to three years of maternity leave. She got paid for the first year in full, then received welfare for the next year, then she still had her job reserved for her to return at any time in the next three years.

12. Also any mother could receive free milk for her baby until he or she reached three years old. A whole network of “milk kitchens” was established where every parent could walk in and grab a bottle of prepared and sterile milk for their newborn. FOR FREE. Anytime.


Many of those benefits were unknown to Western people before WW2. After the war, some started to adopt some similar practices in order to keep protests from the workers movements low.

Much of the USSR was great in theory. The problem was, the men at the top. The tendency to promote people so they won't embarrass the guys above them tended to mean you got layers of relatively inept people in positions that mattered. Then to stay at the top, you had guys like Stalin that killed anyone who looked like they might conceivably, possibly, threaten.

Even when the top became more tolerant (hard not to be more tolerant than Stalin) productivity was too low. The entrenched elite had to protect their positions so they did it with force. Notwithstanding that, the people under Brezhnev seemed reasonably happy, but their consumer wealth was fairly limited. The productivity of the agricultural sector was appalling, simply because the workers, with nothing to spend it on, didn't work. I recall being driven through mile after mile of ploughed paddock that had nothing more done to it. They had to plough to be seen to be doing something, but then it stopped. Then, every now and again you would see little islands of incredible production: the small plots (an acre?) each peasant was allowed for themselves.

There were some other benefits. I recall a party we (a small group of foreigners in Samarkand) threw. We had to convert so much money into food coupons, etc, and we had a surplus, so the party, with Georgian champagne (fairly rough stuff, but cheap). At about 1.30 we thought we should walk the Intourist girls home. "But why?" The idea that someone might mug them was totally alien to them. Of course one of them was almost certainly employed by the committee, and mugging one of them was as good a way of earning a rather unpleasant stay in something like the Lubyanka, and then the dreaded 3 year sentence.

What year were you behind the Iron Curtain, Ian?

I was there twice actually. In the USSR, approximately 1980 - I've forgotten the exact time. I was in Uzbekistan, and then Moscow

Ian wrote: "I was there twice actually. In the USSR, approximately 1980 - I've forgotten the exact time. I was in Uzbekistan, and then Moscow"

You were the spy who came in from the cold, Ian!

Actually, James, it was summer and Uzbekistan at least was rather hot :-)

Ian wrote: "Actually, James, it was summer and Uzbekistan at least was rather hot :-)"

Yes, as I said, Ian, you're the "scientist" (spy!) who came in from the tropical USSR "cold"!

Looks warm, but either profitable or extremely expensive, depending on what side of the table you are on.

When I consider the history of the Soviet state, the one good and useful thing that I think we can take from it is the lesson. From the Bolshoi to the Holodomor; from Sputnik to Kyshtym; and from the Berlin Wall to Gorby we are repeatedly shown the dangers and abuses of a single party state in which the state owns the people instead of the people owning the state. Maybe one day we will learn. Maybe...

J. wrote: "When I consider the history of the Soviet state, the one good and useful thing that I think we can take from it is the lesson. From the Bolshoi to the Holodomor; from Sputnik to Kyshtym; and from t..."

I think the biggest single problem was the way people were put in authority. The West frequently does not get this right either, but at least here if things don't go your way there is choice and you can try something else. In the monolithic state you are stuck, so enterprise simply goes down the drain.

Excellent TV travel series ‘From Russia to Iran’ (with explorer Levison Wood) provides many a flashback to what life in the Soviet block countries would probably have been like as he travels along the tense frontier tween Europe and Asia. It seems little has improved in some of these places. Compelling viewing with beautiful scenery…

Interesting that many of the locals he meets along the way insist they were better off under Soviet rule than under the new Russia.

See quick trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GIWa...

Sometimes not a lot changes quickly, and under Yeltsin an awful lot went wrong with Russia. I don't know much about Georgia. In some of the Stans, the USSR was simply replaced by a dictator, usually a fairly cruel one. They could be rather conservative. When I was in the USSR somewhere around 1980, I went into a cafeteria in a village in Tajikistan, and there up on the wall was a giant photo of a smiling Stalin. People who thought Stalin was a great guy would not be full of freedom, liberty, etc.

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this before but there was no "hardcore" poverty in the USSR. Of course people were "poor" compared to rich Western nations today but there were no homeless people. There was no freedom and no personal choice, which is why we would all prefer to live in a capitalist society, but every citizen had a guaranteed roof over his head, food on the table, clothes, and medical attention. When Russia went from being communist to being capitalist the life expectancy dropped by several years. The people who had guaranteed support stopped having one and many people stopped going to a doctor, etc. I'm not a communist at all (in fact I'm very critical of the left, particularly today's left) but the fact is some communist societies solved some basic problems, such as homelessness, health care, literacy, that most capitalist nations (like the United States) have not been able to thoroughly solve to this day. In a capitalist society you have the freedom to pursue your personal goals and there is the possibility of achieving prosperity but if something goes wrong you're f***ed.

The question then is, what system gets the best of both worlds and the least of the worst? Maybe something always has to be given up, so the question is, what?

Ian, What system then would you suggest would be best for the most number of citizens in a nation?

Barry wrote: "All the bad stuff? That came after 1991. Open markets, capitalism and the attendant wholesale raping of state assets makes Russia now one of the worst places to live unless youre the 1%> The purest..."

Then please explain Stalin, without using a "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

Roberto wrote: "I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this before but there was no "hardcore" poverty in the USSR. Of course people were "poor" compared to rich Western nations today but there were no homeless people. There was no freedom and no personal choice, which is why we would all prefer to live in a capitalist society, but every citizen had a guaranteed roof over his head, food on the table, clothes, and medical attention. When Russia went from being communist to being capitalist the life expectancy dropped by several years. The people who had guaranteed support stopped having one and many people stopped going to a doctor, etc. I'm not a communist at all (in fact I'm very critical of the left, particularly today's left) but the fact is some communist societies solved some basic problems, such as homelessness, health care, literacy, that most capitalist nations (like the United States) have not been able to thoroughly solve to this day. In a capitalist society you have the freedom to pursue your personal goals and there is the possibility of achieving prosperity but if something goes wrong you're f***ed. ..."

I pretty much agree with all that, Roberto.
I'm a capitalist also, but also think there's good and bad in all systems which needs to be acknowledged.
It's that aspect of "if something goes wrong you're f***ed" that our capitalist societies need to somehow solve, I think. Healthcare, homelessness and low-levels of education are becoming a major problem and I'm just wondering what happens when AI and other tech starts replacing human jobs??

James, I once tried to devise such a system, and based my "First Contact" series of novels on it, and then, of course, based the rest of the novels on what ended up going wrong with it. In the end, I have concluded there is no ideal system, and any system will work if those in a position of power want it to work, and any system will fail if those in power can't get past their own ego and the desire to stay in power, or if those who don't have it believe for not good reason other than ego they are better. The Res Publica showed it up only too well: the ideals were shown by Cincinnatus, while what can go wrong was shown by what happened to the Gracchus brothers and why.

J., certainly all the bad stuff did not happen to the USSR/Russia after 1991, but it was also certainly true that during mid Brezhnev things were reasonable for most Russians, but, as the show "Chernobyl" showed, the basic problem was incompetence where it mattered. After 1991, it was sheer greed and criminality there. The capitalist system has greed inbuilt as a given, and while the system might start OK, it has the problem that the bad distribution of wealth grows on itself. Everybody starts from a different position, and the bad end up starting from strength, while some are in a hopeless position from day 1. You can't (as far as I know) choose your parents.

Love those threads capable to lure me out ... -:) I'll try to revisit this one on some occasion to share input for discussion.
Don't know whether it's already discussed in the group elsewhere, but I think the topic should fit 'underground': "whether the Big Bang of the USSR was internal job or externally induced/orchestrated?" and "Will Putin succeed in its reversal?"

My guess is the "Big Bang" was an internal job to start with, but it started with the hard-line Communists fighting against Gorbachev, and in the chaos, they lost. That is the trouble with coups. If you are not efficient, they get out of control, and the big Communists at that stage were nothing if not inefficient.

My vote is that there will be no reversal. Russia won't stay the same, but it won't go back to that.

"Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain." -Vladimir Putin

What If the Soviet Union Reunited Today? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-TFE...

Here's a diehard Soviet patriot! (Notice how he just said "Stalin made mistakes"!)

Why USSR was the best country of all time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxQPY...

James wrote: "Here's a diehard Soviet patriot! (Notice how he just said "Stalin made mistakes"!)

Why USSR was the best country of all time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxQPY..."


"Stalin made mistakes"!)"

Yeah true, he could have handled office employee lay-offs and redundancies better, that and maybe a slightly better consideration and way of dealing with constructive criticism or dissenting voices.

"Was there anything useful in the Soviet Union (USSR) that could be used today?"

The better and stronger vodka.

He actually cites the Volga as a great car. The only time that a Volga was note worthy was when two guys with Tokarevs were puting you in the back of one.

https://youtu.be/Ozzlbrh6Tfc

For comparison, the Citroën DS was available, in the west, at the same time, and at a similar price point, relative to mean earnings. I know which one I would rather have.

https://youtu.be/kzW_ERSgFRY

Producing national anthems. Soviets were really good at that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_5bH...

Boxers.

Soviet amateur system led to Russia producing some great fighters like Dmitri Pirog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_5bH...

Movie Villains

Soviets produced some great ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSRzA...

Top notch winter wear.

No where else in the world can you get a better made Ushanka hat

Defectors.

Soviets produced some great defectors.

Notables like Sean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUvS_...

You could've added the AK 47 to the list, but Poland developed the Rk 62. Then Israel said, "hold my Manischewitz", and developed the Galil.

https://youtu.be/SLDw6i1D52U

So when it comes to the world's most quintessentially Russian gun, Soviet AK is NOT best AK.

Russian Dolls, but there's no money in that

I recall some young women in Uzbekistan stating that what they valued the most was they could walk home at 2 am without fear of being harassed, mugged, robbed, raped, whatever. There was crime, but not so much recidivism. I know we have professional burglars. Not so much there.

Ian wrote: "I recall some young women in Uzbekistan stating that what they valued the most was they could walk home at 2 am without fear of being harassed, mugged, robbed, raped, whatever. There was crime, but..."

Pity it wasn't the same in post WW2 Germany under Lavrentiy Beria . . . .

Ian wrote: "I recall some young women in Uzbekistan stating that what they valued the most was they could walk home at 2 am without fear of being harassed, mugged, robbed, raped, whatever. There was crime, but not so much recidivism. I know we have professional burglars. Not so much there...."

Yeah, I heard the same from others who lives in the USSR

10 Positive Things The Soviet Union Did https://listverse.com/2016/02/18/10-p...


Active Women In Politics

The Soviet Union was ahead of the West in women’s rights. Although many of their rights were given out of necessity, Soviet women had more opportunity in employment and politics than Western women for most of the 20th century


Effective Public Transit

Most people in the Soviet Union did not own cars, which meant that the government had to offer public transit for its citizens out of necessity. Public transit was extremely cheap and even free in some cases. Generally, it got people where they needed to go.


Free Vacations

Shockingly, the Soviet Union encouraged tourism within its borders. By law, workers got two weeks off from work every year and were given vouchers to travel to certain tourist destinations, including Sochi. Vouchers to Sochi were given either in the winter or the summer.


Montage Theory In Film

Soviet films were one of the high points of the regime, but it is impossible to overstate how important those films were to modern filmmaking. One of their biggest impacts was the montage theory of editing, which was propelled by Sergei Eisenstein through his various movies.


First Country In Europe To Support Reproductive Rights

In 1920, the Soviet Union became the first country in Europe to completely legalize abortions for women. It was not until 1936 that another European country caught up to the Soviet Union. That was the year that Iceland legalized abortions.


Effective Recycling Program

For a country that had huge issues with environmental contamination, the Soviet Union and its puppet states had a large-scale recycling program for their citizens. In the 1970s, Soviet leaders began to set up recycling services that were extensive for the time, even if most people took a while to use them.


Ostensible Support For Anticolonialism

Part of the Soviet strategy was a strict rejection of Western colonialism. To this end, they spent money and time aiding third-world countries in their battles for independence against colonial forces.The Soviet Union provided most of this aid to countries in Africa, which worked to gain freedom from colonial forces through most of the Cold War. Aid often took the form of weaponry and technical help for warring nations.One of the most profound examples of help occurred when the Soviets provided support for India’s independence. The two countries forged an alliance that continued throughout the Cold War and allowed India to stay independent.


Effective Industrialization

Before the rise of the Soviet Union, Russia was mostly an agrarian country that did not have an effective industrial economy. In this way, it lagged far behind other countries in Europe. However, one of the most important things that the Soviet regime did for its country was to bring it into the modern world.


Free Education

The Soviet Union emphasized education, especially in science and engineering. Soviet law guaranteed all citizens a free education regardless of their social standing or income.Unlike other countries at the time, this education extended to college and postgraduate work. Some people received their doctorates without paying tuition. The education plan covered all costs of attending school, including textbooks and school supplies.The Soviets also built universities and extended the possibility of education to developing republics in the USSR where education had previously been unavailable. For example, Belarus had no universities before the Soviet Union existed. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Belarus had 22 universities.The effectiveness of the Soviet education system is clear from the number of great scientists and mathematicians that came out of the country.


Drug-Free Neighborhoods

Throughout its history, the Soviet Union had strict drug control, which became more repressive over time. This was the opposite of the trends in the West. Soviet policies focused on criminalization of drug use and did not do much with drug rehabilitation or addiction recovery. But it did result in essentially drug-free neighborhoods.

https://listverse.com/2016/02/18/10-p...

The Soviet Union had very little time for drugs, and they concentrated on supply. I was told by a Thai border agent that someone tried to ship heroin from Thailand to Europe on the flight that landed at Tashkent (a flight I took). The idea was that the Danish authorities would never guess he had drugs coming from the USSR. They never had to decide because the Soviet border people found the drugs, and he got the dreaded three-year sentence. (The three year sentence was their harshest sentence, designed by Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, who was not overflowing with milk and kindness. It may have been made worse because the story is that Stalin had told Beria to make a really harsh punishment, and if it wasn't adequate, Stalin would show Beria personally what was. Apparenly Soso approved. One batch of such prisoners going to Magadan apparently had 30% die in the first month.) Anyway, eventually the Soviets decided to release him after 1 year, and he returned to Thailand a gibbering wreck, barely able to stand. The Thais advertised what he looked like, and nobody tried that again.

Adam Smith knew fine well hat government regulation was required. His system only really works properly if the addition or removal of one player makes no difference to the market, and additionally, a new player can enter free of problems other than price competition. What happens in practice, and it is simple if somewhat tedious mathematics of game theory to show that over time, wealth and power accumulates in very limited hands, which is where we are now. There is no Utopia from the totally free market.

Ian wrote: "Adam Smith knew fine well hat government regulation was required. His system only really works properly if the addition or removal of one player makes no difference to the market, and additionally,..."

Many of these historical economic theories proposed could actually operate at any decent level of efficiency in the current environment of the fiat monetary system we have today?

When you factor in modern money supply it surely changes the dynamic . . . .

I think the fiat money system is a separate problem. Think of the concentration of money and power with John D. Rockefeller and the so-called "robber barons", none of which involved exactly fair and ethical competition. Sure, there was paper money then, and o some extent fiat money, but the notes were allegedly convertible to gold.

However, I think a lot of people are now coming to the opinion that as currently managed, the fiat system is bringing problems, but I must confess I don't know how these will be addressed and I suspect we shall proceed onwards because the great advantage of a fiat system is, when the brown stuff hits the rapidly rotating blades, the government can inflate its way out of trouble, effectively stealing from the great masses, and they have no recourse.

Ian wrote: "I think the fiat money system is a separate problem. Think of the concentration of money and power with John D. Rockefeller and the so-called "robber barons", none of which involved exactly fair an..."

There's an economist out your way called Steve Keen(dunno if you've came by him?) who discredits the teaching of modern economics in the education system as being flawed in regard to the attribution of the role of banks and money creation in the economy, and in his opinion this is leading to wider problems as graduates transfer into public / private sector.

Smart and interesting guy as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VGts...

Ian wrote: "I think the fiat money system is a separate problem. Think of the concentration of money and power with John D. Rockefeller and the so-called "robber barons", none of which involved exactly fair an..."

There has to be a rollback or a major unfurling eventually as a consequence of printing into the stratosphere?

I reckon with every boom and bust cycle the proceeding problem, if survived, isn't necessarily remedied outright and the related symptoms are 'kicked on' toward the next one.

How long can that go on for?

Note how the EU implemented bail-in laws post 2008 crash and where banks where bailed out at the time.

Contigency plans are dwindling.

The other hidden consequence is that with every 'bust' comes a varying potential risk of social and political penalty that might provide a rubicon in other ways.

Hitler should be a reminder of that.

Iain wrote: "Ian wrote: "I think the fiat money system is a separate problem. Think of the concentration of money and power with John D. Rockefeller and the so-called "robber barons", none of which involved exa..."

That guy may well be right. The problem in part is that central bankers are a bit like politicians - they get fixated on the near term and want to look good.

The problem for the next crash is they can't just lower interest rates, because they can't get any lower and be meaningful. In NZ the central bank recently cut by 50 points, but the commercial banks ignored this. As a local economist pointed out, the government has legislated that they have to hold so much reserve ratio to loans, which means they have to attract money and they can't lower deposit rates much further or everyone just cashes out. In this context the interest reward hardly matches the crash risk. But if their money gets more expensive, the loan interest has to be correspondingly higher, which it is, and the banks are making record profits.

My guess is there is no contingency plan.

Soviet Union (aka the USSR)

James wrote: "Soviet Union (aka the USSR)"

Was it all bad?

Or were there some good things that could be used now in the West within our capitalist system?

One interesting point - I recall in the late 1970s picking up a restaurant menu printed in 1957, and the prices stuck. Show me anywhere else where prices remained constant over twenty years.

10 Soviet movies that everyone should watch https://www.rbth.com/arts/331456-best...

More than a third of millennials polled approve of communism

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/for...