Does Socialism Work? Soviet Citizens Speak About Their Lives in the USSR (Moscow)

Has a boomer ever told you that everyone who ever lived under socialism hated it and was trying to escape? Have you ever met a defector who has nothing but terrible things to say about the land they traded for a life in the West? Well, it's time to meet the silent majority of those who stuck around under socialism!

The Revolution Report presents Donald Courter:

Donald is an American journalist, political analyst, & historian living and working in Moscow. He is an avid anti-imperialist, internationalist, an advocate for friendship between peoples, and a supporter of socialism in the 21st Century.

Check out Donald's political analyses:

Follow him on Twitter:
@DonaldCourter

[szyszka]

Me as a Pole, I can say honestly, my grandfather loved USSR with whole his heart. I once asked him why. He said: I was orphan when they came and they gave me everything I got(he was a soldier, tank driver in PRL) .

[hoodvaavdooh]

i was born in socialist Czechoslovakia, I was 11 when it fell. Life was good, simpler and a bit spartan, but we had everything most people need - family, friends, jobs for everyone, good cheap flats. Now, everyone is in debt, worried all the time about work, housing, health care. People have to leave family and friends to find jobs hundreds of kilometers away from home. Socialism worked well, this regime doesnt.

[r.w.emersonii]

I lived in the Soviet Union for two weeks in the summer of 1982. At the end of the two weeks, I tried to get lost in the Leningrad airport so that I wouldn't have to return to the U.S.. I did finally get on the plane, but I left my heart behind. What a cosmic irony. Here in the AZWO -- the so-called "West" -- the Soviet Union was depicted as "hell on earth". But when I actually got there, I found "heaven on earth"!

I was on my own private "peace mission": I wanted to prove to my friends and colleagues that one could go to the Soviet Union and come back alive. And prove it, I did: I was not physically restrained or sent to the GULAG! But I was captured in an altogether different way! And it only took two weeks! -- the best two weeks of my life.

What was so great? -- the country had a purpose, a humanitarian vision, and, of course, a love for beauty and culture. Moscow, especially, had a quiet dignity -- the wide prospects, the absence of advertising, the parks, the squares, the pavilions, the vast still war memorials, the futuristic attitude.

In the AZWO, we are constantly being told that we are "Free". And many of us believe it -- but only because we self-censor our humanity and everything else that matters. Were we free to talk about the world? free to care about humanity's future? Free to discuss history and economics and alternatives to capitalism? No, no one wanted to ponder such things in the 1980s in the U.S.. At the cafeteria where I worked, I was free to talk about TV shows, which I didn't watch, and football, which somehow failed to inspire me. Talking about something meaningful, like the suicidal Euromissile deployment, was unthinkable. So life in the U.S. was life without humanity. For me, the visit to the Soviet Union was a two-week respite from solitary confinement.

[lorismartinoperfetto]

"How could we have lost a nation...our motherland " man that was touching

[Journeyman]

The way my polish relatives phrased it: "It wasn't good but at least there weren't as many homeless people"

[Comradeface]

the 90s were hard for us Yugoslavs too, War, Hyperinflation, Shortages,
thats why alot of people remember Socialist Pre War Yugoslavia as a paradise

[dendroaspispolylepis]

I was born in Yugoslavia and I lived in socialism. I remeber good, stabile times. We all had the same amount of everything, if you understand me. Everything was...safer, brighter, more friendly. Lot of things where free. Medical, dentist, university, vacation in summer. I remeber it was good and trust me all the people from former Yugoslavia remeber that time as time of stability.

[nuvcrossbackit]

Im a half russian from R.Moldova. My grandparents are still alive.I will tell you what they say to me when I ask them how was the life in the CCCP. At the 18 my grand father go army, come back at 20 (1956). When he come back he married my grand ma the same year. The government give them FREE land to build a house and free materials .Lived in a small village, but with the soviets all villages have workplaces.They have 4 childrens and a lot of food on the table. I dont know why people say that it was low in food, because I never heard that someone died from hunger in the soviet period. They was simple workers with good house, food on the table, 4 childrens, a motorcycle MT. Never heard them talking bad of Russians or soviet union. Moldova were one of the most growing economies in the soviet. And now? What do we have? After the 1991 the people lose their jobs and constraint to emigrate to western Europe to clean their shit and to be economic slaves for some euro . Is this Freedom? The youngest is the person, than the more oppressed by Soviets he was lol. Just think about it

[alexandrecharbonneau]

To be fair human relations have also degraded in the western world in the past 40 years...

[leirbagsuehttam]

People at that time seemed to be more intelligent. Look how well they express themselves.

[supertrinigamer]

See?

Next time someone says the USSR failed, I'm sending them this.
Whenever they say about food shortages, they're talking about the 90s, which was the capitalist reform, so in reality, they're blaming the ideology they're trying to defend, without realising it!!

[xlfwxxr]

As a young Chinese, we all know that: Once we were young, we have a big brother, he taught us a lot, he gave us the essential industry that we can survive and not bullied by others in the world. And he lead us to a path, a red path, he told us, at the end of the path, there will be the most beautiful things in the human world--Equal. Although we have fight each other when we were drunk, but we know he is my big brother forever! One day, he died, with his flag in his hand, his head towards the end of the path. Now, i am taking the red flag and walking on the path, although all the enemies laugh at us and slander us, but we will keep walking, walking towards the end of the path, not just for me, but for my big brother! For the most great country in human history!

[sohaibshehzad]

The Soviet Union in all fairness was an entity that phenomenally tried to balance various factors of social life i.e. Economics, national identity, mutual co-existence, sharing of resources, empowerment of the citizenry, welfare, equality, global interaction & unleashing the human potential through science & human productivity. While it achieved a marked improvement in the lives of its people in less 3 decades, it leadership didn't change its thinking on certain aspects which became the reason of its downfall and consignment to the history books. Was the idea behind the USSR evil ? No. Were the Soviet people evil ? Definitely not. If it weren't for socialism and the examples set by the soviet way of life, we'd still have a 6 day working week, 8 hour working day, employees wouldn't be paid on time & business owners would ignore whatever obligations they have towards their work force. For us far away, once the USSR balancing effect on the world stage was gone the global order was shattered & 1 super power started taking our one country after an other (often allies & clients of the Soviet Union). The conflicts, sanctions & the chaos that followed 1991 ruined the lives of TENS OF MILLIONS of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Former Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Latin America. If only the USSR had more capable leaders and the system had gradually reformed since the 50s, i have little doubts in my mind that the country would still exist.

[mikebond]

My grand father visited the Soviet Union around 1965 and he said he really liked it, in debate he always defended the Soviet Union against people who said bullshit about it

[ale_s]

Was the USSR heaven? No, was it hell? Of course not. It was a country with its problems like every country. It's up to us communists of the future to take the good and don't repeat the mistakes

[harryb]

The man at the end made me emotional " the country we lost"..their country, sold. I pry we know the beautiful sense of community these people were graced with.

[bloggerbb]

"Even the songs are more real." Oof. That got me.

[DiscipleOfHeavyMeta]

she protecc

she attacc

but most importantly

we want the union bacc

[mrwashe]

Reporting from Russia. It's 2020, I'm 32 years old, I'm looking at how capitalist government of Putin handles coronacrisis, how the world's economy goes to shitter, and for me the question is not "does socialism work", but "how much longer will capitalism last and if there will be a world war in the nearest 5 years, and what alternatives do we have".
To me there is no alternative other than communism, as a more progressive economic system. And it doesn't really matter much if USSR failed or not -- USSR showed to the world how a country can go from an agrarian one to a high-tech with atomic bombs and a man in space in roughly 40 years. It's a great proof of communism's effectiveness. Remember that Commune de Paris only lasted 70 days, USSR -- 70 years, and China now holds on to the left way.

[a.b.__iii]

As an Indian I want to see USSR make a comeback. And quick !