this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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[–] duderium@hexbear.net 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why is it that people living in former Soviet states overwhelmingly wish that the USSR was still around?

[–] Zastyion345@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I live in former ussr state, 90% of those people are very old, and as to why ? Nostalgia. They always overlook the bad and only bring up the good.

[–] ThereRisesARedStar@hexbear.net 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Have you considered there are other reasons besides nostalgia? Like the massive life expectancy and qol collapse under capitalism?

https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/32fb41e8-a5d4-41c0-9001-b3103bb43898.png

I wonder why they might be nostalgic

[–] Zastyion345@lemmy.ml -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

reasons besides nostalgia

Oh yea, like if you are religious you are a threat to the state and therefore you are unfit for basically any leading role, or your property might be confiscated and you might be sent of to Siberia ?

Lines for food namely bread and if the stars aligned meat.

Big amount of corruption ?

Mandatory conscription to the military (and the corruption there too) ?

Iron curtain ?

Free speech and freedom of expression ?

And much more. That my parents had to live trough/knew that happened to others, information on a graph can only tell you so much. I am my self Atheist, although I do believe there might be higher being, so I do not blame others for believing in them, but as a normal human being I hate when religion is pushed to my face. I also believe there needs to be government regulation to big businesses and love some of the things that are in socialism.

massive life expectancy

I don't know much about life expectancy in the USSR, can you maybe link some sources, articles I would love to read up on it.

qol collapse under capitalism

Not familiar with "qol" can you explain a bit further ? If you mean quality of life, then I feel, at least for my parents it has improved massively.

Edit: Formatting errors.

[–] ThereRisesARedStar@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Life expectancy https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41294-021-00169-w

Oh yea, like if you are religious you are a threat to the state and therefore you are unfit for basically any leading role, or your property might be confiscated and you might be sent of to Siberia ?

Anti religion is needlessly antagonistic but also wasn't enforced like you are suggesting: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1920/11/13.htm

Lines for food namely bread and if the stars aligned meat.

According to the anti-communist cia their nutrition was in many ways better

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85M00363R000601440024-5.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwijl7ChsciBAxXug4kEHS2ZCCAQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw06QRMVGCOurHDUtg96SRq0

Also breadlines are common under capitalism.

Big amount of corruption ?

Yes, theft from the public has definitely decreased since the the collapse. /s

Mandatory conscription to the military (and the corruption there too) ?

There are plenty of countries that do that after they lose around 20 percent of their population in a brutal war. Like Vietnam, for example.

Iron curtain ?

You mean the one the west put up? https://news.stanford.edu/2019/12/26/stalin-not-want-iron-curtain-descend/

Free speech and freedom of expression ?

Western countries have more sophisticated censorship and media apparatuses I give you that. Speak out in a real way though and look what happens to people like Fred Hampton.

[–] Zastyion345@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I looked at some of the figures in the article most of them see slight improvement and the conclusion pretty much backs up my point of it not being worse but slightly better.

Life expectancy gains have been large and rapid, and life expectancy for both men and women reached its highest level in Russia’s history in 2019.

To the rest of your responses/points, it is somewhat tiering to respond to all of them with a formulated response, so I will ask do you know someone that lived in a former USSR state ? If your answer is no then as I said, statistics and Graphs can get you only so far, what my parents know and my grandparents know but won't admit out of pride is that USSR sucked, our current system sucks somewhat too but at least I'm not forced to worship the state, can speak freely like you are doing right now, attend a pride parade or KSČM (Communist party in Czechia) parade, and cast my vote in an election.

And so you know, who is voting for politicians that steal from the people ? The same old people who wish USSR was back, my grandparents vote for a party that promises Socialist democracy (SMER-SD) and only thing they have done is steal from the people. Like with the faults of communism/socialism/USSR they ignore scandals and the stealing from SMER.

[–] GenderIsOpSec@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

Lines for food

yeah i stood in one of these a few days ago, the fucky thing is that i had to pay for the food after i reached the end of the line kitty-cri-screm

concerning life expectancy and quality of life and corruption, funnily enough

But behind the self destructive behaviour, the authors say, are economic factors, including rising poverty rates, unemployment, financial insecurity, and corruption. Whereas only 4%of the population of the region had incomes equivalent to $4 (£2.50) a day or less in 1988, that figure had climbed to 32%by 1994. In addition, the transition to a market economy has been accompanied by lower living standards (including poorer diets), a deterioration in social services, and major cutbacks in health spending.

“What we are arguing,” said Omar Noman, an economist for the development fund and one of the report’s contributors, “is that the transition to market economies [in the region] is the biggest … killer we have seen in the 20th century, if you take out famines and wars. The sudden shock and what it did to the system … has effectively meant that five million [Russian men’s] lives have been lost in the 1990s.” Using Britain and Japan with their ratio of 96 men to every 100 women as the base population, the report’s authors have calculated that there are now some 9.6 million “missing men” in the former communist bloc. “The typical patterns are that a man loses his job and develops a drinking problem,” said Mr Noman. “The women then leave and the men die, first emotionally and then physically.”

Overall, the Russian death rate from accidents most of them involving alcohol has risen 83% since 1991. source

[–] MF_COOM@hexbear.net 24 points 1 year ago

In order to have been a worker for at least 5 years in both systems and therefore have an informed opinion of the difference, you'd need to have been at least 25 by the collapse.

Tack 30 years into that and yeah, at youngest the people with the most informed opinion on which system they preferred are going to be old.

And if you think you had a better system that in the past and it got destroyed, feeling nostalgic isn't weird it's the most normal emotion possible.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Well there aren't any young people from the USSR around today now are there?