People often ask me why my vision of life in the USSR is so uniformly negative. “Is it possible that there was nothing whatsoever good about that country?” they ask me.
If you consider the way I am as a person, you will see why I can’t find anything redeeming about life in the USSR. I’m an intensely private and unsociable person, so the constant forced socialization in the Soviet Union made me profoundly miserable. The idea that “the collective” had the right to intrude upon your personal life and berate you for your sexual choices during public meetings disturbed me. The forced medical procedures that invaded my body against my will and for no reason other than humiliating me traumatized me.
I’m also very independent. I need to be able to make my own choices and I’m more than prepared to bear responsibility for them. I don’t want a guaranteed job on graduating from college if that job is assigned to me by somebody else and takes me to a city, region and company of somebody else’s choosing. Being forced to leave my students and my office several times a year to go and sort rotting cabbage or gather cucumbers in the field because somebody has decided that this is a better use of a professor’s time than teaching and research makes me angry. I want choices. I love choices. And I can’t feel anything but hatred for anybody who tries to “improve” my life by removing my right to choose whatever I want.
I like consumer goods and I’m not ashamed of admitting that. The system where I work, make money, go out and buy whatever the hell strikes my fancy is far more comprehensible to me than the system where you get a guaranteed pittance in exchange for not working and then spend your free time hunting for the most basic consumer goods on the black market.
I’m a reader. Without constant intellectual nourishment, I wilt and die. Living in a place where good books are impossible to find, learning foreign languages is suspect, and expressing your thoughts freely is dangerous is torture to me.
Even small things made me suffer. I’m very sensitive to sounds, especially the ones I haven’t chosen to have around. So the constant drone of the radio that could never be turned off and kept communicating the amazing socialist achievements in the fields and factories at all times of day and night drove me to distraction.
The lack of bright colors, the constant aggression of everybody against everybody else, and people, people, people everywhere, invading your life all day and every day – and what would I get in return for all this in the USSR? The security of being guaranteed a miserable handout in lieu of a salary, an access to a doctor who would humiliate me and treat me like crap (possibly even beat me), an access to the sad, pathetic joke of a Soviet education, the knowledge that I could always blame the mess of my life on the government?
No, that’s not for me. But I know quite a few people who look back at their infantilized Soviet existence with nostalgia.
Clarissa's Blog 
I just love your posts talking about life in the USSR!
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Thank you, dear Liz! 🙂
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May be, something good in a country despite the regine, then & now?
Surely, Russia has great history, literature, nature, 1st sent a man into space.
What have you liked the most in your life there, if there was such a thing? 😉
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“May be, something good in a country despite the regine, then & now”
– The USSR doesn’t exist any longer. 🙂
“Surely, Russia has great history, literature, nature, 1st sent a man into space.”
– I’ve never lived in Russia, so what do I care about their space exploits and their nature? Their literature is pathetic compared to other countries (not a single female writer of note until well into the XXth century!), their history is that of endless unmitigated horror inflicted on themselves and others. I watched their television while on vacation and lost most of the hopes I had for the country. They are a country of talented people, that’s what’s good about it. But those talented people somehow never manage to turn their talents to their own benefit.
“What have you liked the most in your life there, if there was such a thing?”
– My sister was pretty amazing. But she is that way wherever we move. 🙂
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It does sound terrible. The part about professors having to sort rotting cabbages is painful to read. What a humiliation! There are some very important basics in my field that were developed in the USSR and I now have even more admiration for the professors who did such great work under such terrible conditions.
I would like to add that I also really appreciate your posts about the USSR as well. They show an insight into a very different world that I know far too little about.
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“The part about professors having to sort rotting cabbages is painful to read. What a humiliation! ”
– Especially taking into account that some professors are not very young and not extremely healthy. Obviously, nobody made any allowances for things like that. 😦
“I would like to add that I also really appreciate your posts about the USSR as well. ”
– Thank you! You are unleashing a beast here. 🙂
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“I would like to add that I also really appreciate your posts about the USSR as well. They show an insight into a very different world that I know far too little about.”
^^^^^ Same here.
As a side question, I am curious, but what did people in the USSR do for clothing? Was it supplied by the State? Did people make their own? Also, what did people eat there for the most part?
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This sounds like a topic for a new post. 🙂
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Their tanks were pretty good. Just ask the Germans.
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That is definitely true. 🙂
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No matter how bad a regime, there is always going to be a percentage of people that it works for.
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One good thing… they were willing to fold when their luck ran out rather than destroy the human race. Unlike, say, Hitler who gave orders (which were thankfully ignored) to destroy what was left of Germany near the end and would certainly have brought the whole world down with him if he could.
Have you ever read Robert A. Heinlein’s “Expanded Universe”? Turns out he visited the Soviet Union as a tourist back in the Sixties, then when he got home he wrote a couple of articles about it. Those articles were definitely… compelling.
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The Soviet Union sounds oppressive to one of your particular needs and aspirations. I’m not sure what I would have made of it. As you noted before, we are opposites in some ways. I’d define myself as left libertarian, although this is more of a philosophical stance than a political one. (I’m not sure, for instance, what a “left libertarian” society would look like, if indeed one were possible.)
I do think our early cultural experiences count for something right until we die. Sometimes we get our sense of normality from them and sometimes we rebel. I think I’m very different from my sister, who tends to lean toward community and feel defined by it much more than I. My character has always been structured in an asocial way — and not so much in your “unsociable” sense that links to reading and literature, but in a sense of wanting to sniff the air and catch its vibe, like a dog with its head out the window of a car going as fast as possible.
My migratory shift from an exciting situation of war and freedom to one where citizens were genuinely law abiding was the worst experience of my life. To me, the move from Zimbabwe to Australia was from an adult state to an infantilized one, where nobody actually trusted themselves to make their own decisions, but instead looked to the law to tell them what to do. I’m sure much of the problem was private property. You couldn’t camp just anywhere you wanted to. You couldn’t build a fire and be trusted to put it out again afterwards. You weren’t allowed to do a great deal. Also, the TV news was extremely dumbed-down compared to the very serious news we had been used to experiencing, which concerned war and death and stoicism in the face of enemy hostility. Instead, we learned that somebody’s dog had gone missing, but had been returned.
The spirit of (relative) lawlessness still prevails in Zimbabwe, thankfully. One takes the responsibility for dealing with one’s own safety and is entirely responsible if the outcome isn’t what you’d hoped for. One would never blame others if a project one had set out to complete hadn’t worked out. In Australia, they do, though. It’s second nature. “If I obey the laws that are in place to protect me, society has to make sure everything goes according to my plans, otherwise heads will roll! (I will find someone to blame).
I find this more civilized Australian attitude to be incomprehensible. It seems to imply the desire for a social contract based on blind trust.
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Reblogged this on OyiaBrown.
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I find US cuture to be infantilizing/infantilized as well. One is not taken care of as in USSR (or Scandinavia, for that matter) and can die on the street, of course, and it isn’t as homogeneously obedient as Australia apparently is. But between the theme parks and Dr. Phil, and all other similar manifestations, and waterparks and church of course, it seems that there is more or less an elementary school mentality which is encouraged and which many have … obey your doctor and pastor, etc., be a “good person,” support the troops, salute the nice policeman.
I’d like Clarissa to go on a field trip to Cuba and comment on the Soviet reflections there, it would be very interesting. (It’s the only Communist country I have ever actually visited and it was after the breakup of the USSR, but one could still notice the Things and apparently this is still true … but all in a tropical setting and major Spanish speaking country with strong personality, the combination is interestingly incongruous.)
Was Russia any fun before it was USSR? It sounds awful in 19th century novels, and as USSR, and my relatives had same crappy Siberian exile experiences and so on under czars as under USSR. ? I have never been in Russia / Eastern Europe but everyone I know from there either (a) emigrated because they did not like it or (b) is one of the terribly authoritarian people group (a) emigrated to get away from. ?
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” But between the theme parks and Dr. Phil, and all other similar manifestations, and waterparks and church of course, it seems that there is more or less an elementary school mentality which is encouraged and which many have ”
– Psychologists believe that the median psychological age of a human being (irrespective of their culture) is 12. People simply refuse to grow older than that psychologically.
“I’d like Clarissa to go on a field trip to Cuba and comment on the Soviet reflections there”
– Done! 🙂 I’ve been to Cuba and don’t mind blogging about that.
“Was Russia any fun before it was USSR? It sounds awful in 19th century novels, and as USSR, and my relatives had same crappy Siberian exile experiences and so on under czars as under USSR”
– Oh, it was absolutely horrible. The thing is that, no matter how you look at it, the October Revolution was a positive event that absolutely had to happen. Russia had to make two huge modernizing leaps (under Peter the Great and under Stalin) to catch up at least somewhat with the rest of Western countries. Both leaps were unavoidable and both had to be paid for by genocide.
What we need to remember, however, is that even during the harshest years of Stalin’s regime, most people were happy. Their lives had definitely improved because of the revolution. Then, the Soviet 50s and 60 were quite hopeful. I would have hated them, too, because of my unsociability but people had a great time, in general. The eighties – which is the time I managed to witness – were quite hopeless because it was obvious that the system was doomed and couldn’t be taken any further.
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Age 12?! That is frightening, but explains a lot. I am sure I am over 12, and perhaps that is why I am incomprehensible to many.
USSR, hopeful, oh yes. But do you really think genocide is necessary for modernization? A colleague of mine justifies Franco that way.
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“But do you really think genocide is necessary for modernization”
– I don’t justify genocide, God forbid. I’m just saying that Russia took this road twice in its history. Today, they are trying to take a genocide-free road towards modernization and I really, really hope it works for them.
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But do you really think genocide is necessary for modernization? A colleague of mine justifies Franco that way.
Spain modernized under Franco? Only in spite of him. He implemented a set of disastrous economic policies from 1939 to 1959, when the IMF forced to reform the country.
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Nobody is supporting Franco on this blog, believe me. 🙂
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…well that is one point in the current Russia’s favor, it is true! 🙂
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yes lord you have give as a new mornday blessing ,,,Dot,,,,,,”””“Still, if you set your heart on God and reach out to him, If you scrub your hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in your home, You’ll be able to face the world unashamed and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless. You’ll forget your troubles; they’ll be like old, faded photographs.” (Job 11:13-16 MSG)
As long as you focus on someone you resent, that person controls you. You’re worrying about something he or she has already forgotten about.
Long before psychology came along, Job said there are three steps for inner healing:
1. Put your heart right. If you want to be emotionally healed from a hurt, you have to release the offender — whether you feel like it or not. Don’t try to get even. Forgive that person, then release him or her.
2. Reach out to God. You need to invite Christ to come into your life and fill you with his forgiveness. Why? I don’t think you can manufacture enough forgiveness in your life to handle all the hurts you’re going to face, not only those of the past but those you’ll have between now and when you die.
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Aren’t you in part a product of the Soviet system? 🙂
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Good point!!! As I always say, there are few things better than being a Soviet woman. 🙂
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@CC yes, although as I remember it was the remittances, the tourism and the US investment that did it, so the whole boom was still sort of 3d world-y.
But, indeed: Franquismo was anti-modern to the core, and the Republic was hardly, and where this idea came from that Fascism (and sacrifice of lives) was “necessary to modernize,” I really do not know.
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In the early 1990’s I met a Soviet emigree from Lyeningrad (the way she pronounced it the L was almost silent) while attending a local kommunity kollege. I saw her in the computer lab reading a Russian-English-Russian dictionary of Soviet publication and asked “vee iiz essessess air?” She said my Russian is better than her English. Russian sense of humor for you, right? I quickly defaulted to my emergency phrase “ya izuchala roosky yazik vsevo tol’ko pol’tora goda. izvinitye meenya za plakhooyoo grammatikoo i tak dalyeye” that is the one piece of useful Russian verbiage in Lipson’s text “A Russian Course.” In a subsequent term we and two Suburban Yuppie types (this is metro Detroit so one is Fnord and the other is G.M., how quaint) were in a four student group doing a computer science class project, so I learned a little Russian beyond that offered by the mediocre program offered (as of mid 1980’s anyway) at the Yooniversity of Meshuganeh. I also learned that the Soviet Union was, as Clarissa would say, horrible, with three exceptions. This student’s husband is what is called an A&P mechanic, which is a heavy truck mechanic. She told me that her husband’s job was more straightforward, logical umg Back In The USSR as there was more standardization of parts and less planned obsolescence. She also said Americans are very ignorant of do-it-yourself medicine compared to Russians. She mentioned some recipe that calls for one drop of tincture of iodine (the old fashion stuff you put a a wound to make it sting like crazy) added to about a tablespoon of (cow’s) milk. I don’t remember what it’s for, I seem to remember common cold or something. Oh, taken internally. She was concerned that her son, then 15 (this was 1990 or 1991, sounds about Clarissa’s age?) was under-challenged in school (here in America). She told me she was trained as a physicist, but that nothing was expected of her at work, and that she usually spent the days doing knitting. She told me of a Russian computer called “Iskra.” She also told me that the “x” and “y” symbols for variables in mathematics are called in Russian “ix” and “e-greek”. She said she thought the best thing about America was the Second Amendment (I’m not making this up, but maybe this was tongue in cheek, that woman has a wicked sense of humor).
Some years later I took a trade skool course to get my electrology license and one of the students there was a Soviet emigree, this time from Ukraine. She said she was trained in metrology, which basically means the part of industrial quality control concerned with making sure part geometry is within tolerances, etc., but was assigned to a ship sailing the Caspian Sea as a meteorologist (weatherperson).
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“I quickly defaulted to my emergency phrase “ya izuchala roosky yazik vsevo tol’ko pol’tora goda. izvinitye meenya za plakhooyoo grammatikoo i tak dalyeye””
– All that in just 1,5 years? Impressive! It’s a bitch of a language, Russian is.
“She also said Americans are very ignorant of do-it-yourself medicine compared to Russians.”
– Very true. My grandfather was a famous doctor in my city. He always said that medication was the very last resort for him.
“She also told me that the “x” and “y” symbols for variables in mathematics are called in Russian “ix” and “e-greek””
– So they are. 🙂
“She said she was trained in metrology, which basically means the part of industrial quality control concerned with making sure part geometry is within tolerances, etc., but was assigned to a ship sailing the Caspian Sea as a meteorologist ”
– This is the best. 🙂 🙂
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