Full Version: Do you think life is better now in USSR?
Something Izdarri said in casual conversation piqued my interest
"The best thing was when the Soviet Union fell and the Berlin Wall came down It shook my world in a good way, made me confident of being on the right side of history for the first time."
I have no doubt that East Germany is better off, but the soviet union? Puhleaze!
After marrying a Russian, going to Russia, talking with folks that lived from Stalin to present, I realized how misinformed Americans tend to be on both the cold war, our role in it, and the effect, positive or negative, on our so called "enemies".
After Stalin died, who was a monster by today's standards, but not by Russian Czarist standards, the standard of living for most Russians, especially during Breshnevs time, was quite high. Perhaps not quite as high as your average middle classed americans, but they also had less starvation and poverty among the less fortunate at the time.
Most Russians consider Gorbachev a traitor, and blame him for thier countries downward spiral into near anarchy. The standard of living for 80% of Russians has decreased dramatically.
Here is the most dangerous for the US part though- Putin is now as personally powerful now as during Stalin's time- holding more personal power and being less accountable for his actions than any officeholder prior to him with the exception of Stalin. If his successor turns aggressive, it could mean a very real dangerous world problem, very quickly.
In pretty much every nation we have stepped in, from Vietnam to Guatamala, we have been the "bad guys" (all post Korean conflicts IMO)- we supported the bad guys in Iraq (Saddam), Iran (Shah) , the assasination of Allende', on and on and on, all to stop "Communism"- when, had those countries been left to thier own devices, allowed thier economies to fail under ideolistic economic policies, the whole world would have probably been a better place!
My question is this:
Do you really believe Russians are better off now then under, say, Breshnev?
If yes, then why? Do you have some fact to back this up?
Where we really on the "right side of history" or was this just another enemy for us to cook up to keep Americans afraid?
"The best thing was when the Soviet Union fell and the Berlin Wall came down It shook my world in a good way, made me confident of being on the right side of history for the first time."
I have no doubt that East Germany is better off, but the soviet union? Puhleaze!
After marrying a Russian, going to Russia, talking with folks that lived from Stalin to present, I realized how misinformed Americans tend to be on both the cold war, our role in it, and the effect, positive or negative, on our so called "enemies".
After Stalin died, who was a monster by today's standards, but not by Russian Czarist standards, the standard of living for most Russians, especially during Breshnevs time, was quite high. Perhaps not quite as high as your average middle classed americans, but they also had less starvation and poverty among the less fortunate at the time.
Most Russians consider Gorbachev a traitor, and blame him for thier countries downward spiral into near anarchy. The standard of living for 80% of Russians has decreased dramatically.
Here is the most dangerous for the US part though- Putin is now as personally powerful now as during Stalin's time- holding more personal power and being less accountable for his actions than any officeholder prior to him with the exception of Stalin. If his successor turns aggressive, it could mean a very real dangerous world problem, very quickly.
In pretty much every nation we have stepped in, from Vietnam to Guatamala, we have been the "bad guys" (all post Korean conflicts IMO)- we supported the bad guys in Iraq (Saddam), Iran (Shah) , the assasination of Allende', on and on and on, all to stop "Communism"- when, had those countries been left to thier own devices, allowed thier economies to fail under ideolistic economic policies, the whole world would have probably been a better place!
My question is this:
Do you really believe Russians are better off now then under, say, Breshnev?
If yes, then why? Do you have some fact to back this up?
Where we really on the "right side of history" or was this just another enemy for us to cook up to keep Americans afraid?
From www.transitionhealth.org/framework.htm
Russia is worse off than in 1991. Of course they were worse off in '91 than they were in '70. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are better off. It's not good to eliminate an economic system overnight. I think Gorby was on the right path except he could not control forces he unleashed,
QUOTE
For the former USSR countries the economic transition from a planned to a market economy was made very rapidly, but the outcome for the economy was a radical downtrend of real per capita GDP which was endured by the population until virtually 2000. In the Russian Federation, for example, GDP was 57.7 percent lower than in 1990, and fixed investments in 1998 was 17.5 percent of its values in 1990.
The transition to a market economy included major changes in income distribution. In the former planned economy, the government subsidised bread, housing, health services, education and social security. Under the market economy, many of these began to become expensive, a radical hyperinflation substantially reduced the value of wages, pensions and savings. It is true that the quality and variety of consumer goods and services significantly improved, but the principal beneficiaries were younger and highly skilled workers and professionals who could command competitive wages in the new economy.
In terms of data availability for real GDP per capita, fig. 15 shows the inflation-adjusted GDP trends and fluctuations since 1989 in Russia and the Ukraine in comparison to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It is clear that the GDP per capita trends in the three Eastern European countries show strong annual gains since 1990, while the Russian Federation and the Ukraine have a generally negative trend with tremendous disturbances and a radical downtrend at least until the mid 1990s.
The transition to a market economy included major changes in income distribution. In the former planned economy, the government subsidised bread, housing, health services, education and social security. Under the market economy, many of these began to become expensive, a radical hyperinflation substantially reduced the value of wages, pensions and savings. It is true that the quality and variety of consumer goods and services significantly improved, but the principal beneficiaries were younger and highly skilled workers and professionals who could command competitive wages in the new economy.
In terms of data availability for real GDP per capita, fig. 15 shows the inflation-adjusted GDP trends and fluctuations since 1989 in Russia and the Ukraine in comparison to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It is clear that the GDP per capita trends in the three Eastern European countries show strong annual gains since 1990, while the Russian Federation and the Ukraine have a generally negative trend with tremendous disturbances and a radical downtrend at least until the mid 1990s.
Russia is worse off than in 1991. Of course they were worse off in '91 than they were in '70. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are better off. It's not good to eliminate an economic system overnight. I think Gorby was on the right path except he could not control forces he unleashed,
QUOTE(CruisingRam @ Nov 22 2004, 03:49 AM)
My question is this:
Do you really believe Russians are better off now then under, say, Breshnev?
If yes, then why? Do you have some fact to back this up?
Where we really on the "right side of history" or was this just another enemy for us to cook up to keep Americans afraid?
Do you really believe Russians are better off now then under, say, Breshnev?
If yes, then why? Do you have some fact to back this up?
Where we really on the "right side of history" or was this just another enemy for us to cook up to keep Americans afraid?
In July I went back to Russia for a few weeks - I haven't been there for 10 years, since I left in 1994. I was in my hometown St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Petrozavodsk, a small town a few hundred miles north of St. Petersburg not far from a finnish border.
My impressions in short: from a material standpoint, life, especially in big cities, is significantly better. Moscow especially struck me as a city flush with money; it cleaned up so nicely that it's on par with cities like Paris and London. St. Pete still has some ways to improve, but it has come a long, long way from where it's been in 1994.
Since I lived at my friend's place instead of a hotel I had an opportunity to observe a life of "average Russian family" in mid-30s and compare it to the life of my parents back in 1980s. Again: big material improvements. Unlike in 1980s, about 70-80 percent of families in St. Petersburg own a car (well, often it's a used beat-up car imported from Germany, but still...); while visiting american-style supermarkets I noticed that they're full with shoppers and there're lines to cash registers; in 1994, when I left, a few supermarkets has been open already but they were totally empty since noone could afford to buy anything in there. But what especially made my day is when I noticed that most of dairy, produce, cold cuts, cheese, etc. sold in those supermarkets was made in Russia - unlike in 1994, when most of quality foods had to be imported from Finland, Germany, and the rest of Western Europe. That indicates that the manufacturing has picked up.
I was there during soccer EuroCup; it wasn't always easy for me to reserve a table at the bar or restaurant for a evening, even though the prices there are not that cheap.
Real estate prices in St. Petersburg skyrocketed; the "communal apartments" are a thing of the past and hundreds and hundreds of new apartments are being built.
Overall, the gloom of 1990s is gone, the people have at least a bit of money to spend on things other than food and they (the people) seem to be able to look to the future with more hope than before.
Now, all of the above applies to fairly young people, who managed to adjust their lives and get jobs in paying fields, get a second education, etc. Life is not that kind to the elderly who don't have kids to take care of them. Although Russian families are usually fairly tight and elderly are taken care of, there're always exceptions; those are the people who are most vulnerable since all the safety nets of socialism are gone and they have noone to take care of them. Their pensions are ridiculously small and they're the ones whose life are significantly worse off compared to 1980s. Also, the changes in small towns are much less noticeable than in big cities; the disparity between St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk is quite noticeable.
On the flip side, my friends lamented that the school education has gotten significatly worse compared to when we went to school, so not everything has improved, obviously...
You can see the pictures from my trip here.
Funny EH- my family has told me to outright stay out of Moscow due to the crime problem- and in fact, a friend of ours got robbed big time attempting to travel with his wife from Moscow to Kazan.
I actually fly direct to Kazan via Sammara for this reason
It seems to me that the rural areas are much harder hit than some of the Urban areas- Moscow and St Petersburg are basically the LA and New York of Russia (to use as a comparison) - most Americans can't even name another city in Russia- most have not even heard of Kazan LOL
Foriegn investment has been very good to those two cities, and the oil towns as well. Worldwide oil prices has GOT to be helping the economy as well, since, really, this was the main reason for the upheaval in the 80s during Gorby's time anyway!
Transneft has been building big buildings everywhere in Kazan!
Kazan has always been the ecnomic powerhouse of Russia, even during the worst of times it was better off than most of the country, has been this way, apparently, for about 2000 years LOL (As you know, the defeat of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible was the turning point in the modern Russian empire) .
As far as money goes though, and young poeple, I wonder about them. We have this friend in Kazan that has a cell phone- and she only makes 50 bucks a month!
I have never seen so many prostitutes anywhere however, as in Russia- literally thousands in the city at night- this has got to be pretty painful for most Russians to see!
My mother-in-law JUST returned (she is a consultant for BP and an American citizen now- making HUGE money because of her education as a Russian lawyer and living here in Alaska) - and she says it is still far worse than when she was a young woman in the 70s.
I actually fly direct to Kazan via Sammara for this reason
It seems to me that the rural areas are much harder hit than some of the Urban areas- Moscow and St Petersburg are basically the LA and New York of Russia (to use as a comparison) - most Americans can't even name another city in Russia- most have not even heard of Kazan LOL
Foriegn investment has been very good to those two cities, and the oil towns as well. Worldwide oil prices has GOT to be helping the economy as well, since, really, this was the main reason for the upheaval in the 80s during Gorby's time anyway!
Transneft has been building big buildings everywhere in Kazan!
Kazan has always been the ecnomic powerhouse of Russia, even during the worst of times it was better off than most of the country, has been this way, apparently, for about 2000 years LOL (As you know, the defeat of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible was the turning point in the modern Russian empire) .
As far as money goes though, and young poeple, I wonder about them. We have this friend in Kazan that has a cell phone- and she only makes 50 bucks a month!
I have never seen so many prostitutes anywhere however, as in Russia- literally thousands in the city at night- this has got to be pretty painful for most Russians to see!
My mother-in-law JUST returned (she is a consultant for BP and an American citizen now- making HUGE money because of her education as a Russian lawyer and living here in Alaska) - and she says it is still far worse than when she was a young woman in the 70s.
Just for some background, my father is ethnically Russian but was born in Baku and came here in 1979.
During the USSR, every citizen had education and healthcare and better worker benefits, as well as high employment. Obviously the same can not be said today - the miserable conditions of schools and hospitals, oligarchs running the country. As mentioned, crime is a huge problem.
It is true that Moscow is rich and pretty, but how many common people are able to afford the luxuries provided there? The economy is not necessarily in shambles but pay is quite low.
We get the Russian cable news channel and my father is shocked by hospitals with no heat where people have to bring their own blankets, etc...
During the USSR, every citizen had education and healthcare and better worker benefits, as well as high employment. Obviously the same can not be said today - the miserable conditions of schools and hospitals, oligarchs running the country. As mentioned, crime is a huge problem.
It is true that Moscow is rich and pretty, but how many common people are able to afford the luxuries provided there? The economy is not necessarily in shambles but pay is quite low.
We get the Russian cable news channel and my father is shocked by hospitals with no heat where people have to bring their own blankets, etc...
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