[ivan_gammel]

TBH that’s not exactly true. For entrepreneurs possibilities were indeed limited (it was not impossible, but very hard to enrich yourself), for everyone else the career ladder did exist and you could make considerable impact by your work. SU was running a space program, there was a lot of scientific research and engineering. It raised several generations of dreamers, who now miss that time dearly, when they could just work on what they liked, whether it’s science or city planning, get a free apartment from state, go to parental leave without worries for the future etc. It was empire of evil for sure, but it does not mean people could not use their education for something meaningful.

[lr1970]

> for everyone else the career ladder did exist and you could make considerable impact by your work.

This is simply not true and is main reason that superior education in USSR did not materialize in economical and technological prosperity.

Your career advancement in USSR was affected by many factors with your actual performance being near the bottom. Being Jewish was a huge handicap, not being member of the party was another one. Coming from peasants/laborers family was a plus, for there were quotas for advancement of the "hegemony" classes. Bribes as well as your network (or your relatives') could land you better job much easier than hard productive work that nobody values.

Existence in USSR was dull, many talented people drunk themselves to death (drugs were hard to get by). These distinct bright spots like superior education did not change the overall picture.

[ChuckNorris89]

>now miss that time dearly, when they could just work on what they liked, whether it’s science or city planning, get a free apartment from state, go to parental leave without worries for the future etc.

The problem is, such an utopic system where everyone works on whatever they want and gets free housing from the state was economically unsustainable long term. Which is why it collapsed and most of those people working in science immediately packed their bags and move to the US when it happened because talented people working on interesting things don't like living with shortages in a strict oppressive environment where you had to constantly watch your mouth or risk having your career or life ended swiftly.

It was only sustainable back then due to the massive natural resources the SU had, while enduring shortages and exploiting the forced/slave labor the SU had access to. Not something replicatable or desired in free societies today, though plenty of modern slave labor practices exists in rich western nations today where some industries only survive due to access to cheap labour willing to work below market rate and live in worse conditions than the locals.

[ivan_gammel]

Yes and no, it’s more complicated than that. SU style welfare state wasn’t really unsustainable economically — in fact it was rather cheap, it collapsed from different reasons (too much spending on military industrial complex and heavy industry at cost of everything else, no market feedback loop despite having quasi-market relationships between consumers and producers). Basically their economic models at strategic level had wrong KPIs, but incentive system for middle management and workers was ok. In late USSR it wasn’t really a slave labor.

[Muromec]

There isn't anything unsustainable in free housing. If everyone is working for the state and state is also everybody's landlord, it's not free, it's just part of compensation. And the housing was really basic anyway, as you can't choose.

Unsustainable part of USSR was military spending, not free housing.

[ChuckNorris89]

>There isn't anything unsustainable in free housing.

I meant it's unsustainable in capitalistic "free" market economy where it's an appreciating asset. But yes, the free housing in the communist times was actually one of the best things.

[mantas]

Looking what housing it was... I wouldn't be so sure. Today's cashier on a minimum wage lives in a much nicer apartment than average soviet citizen. Who was likely to spend his 20s and 30s in housing with shared amenities. With many people living their whole lives without ever getting a proper apartment.

[ivan_gammel]

That also depends. Capitalistic free market always has some welfare baseline, below which state intervenes and may use money collected via taxes to level the playing field. Free housing can be part of that baseline. It distorts the property market, but like with the opioids market we have to ask if it should be completely free or regulated to death. It’s not like economy will suffer, there will still be construction industry etc, but the incentives will shift and the money buried in property bubbles will go elsewhere.

[realusername]

> It raised several generations of dreamers, who now miss that time dearly, when they could just work on what they liked, whether it’s science or city planning, get a free apartment from state, go to parental leave without worries for the future etc.

In reality that was more a queue for basically anything including apartments, all the high position jobs were taken by party members where you had no chances hence why nobody misses that.

[ivan_gammel]

I will not dispute that there was scarcity of basic things, but within that system things were perceived very differently by people and what I said remains true. Nostalgia about those times does exist, so “nobody” is a strong and incorrect word here.

[realusername]

On the nostalgia subject, the main country where people are having nostalgia is Russia and it's not exactly because of the opportunities but because the soviet union was basically also the last colonial empire in anything but by name and some people still haven't moved past the power that goes with it.

[vintermann]

No, that's not true. There s word for it in German, "Ostalgia", so it's safe to say that some former East Germans feel it, too.

It was also the wealthiest eastern bloc country, and the one with most "economic freedom" relatively speaking. And despite the infamous totalitarian surveillance system, there was a lot more open, civic defiance like conscientious objection to military service, than there was in Russia.

I do think there's a lot more longing for the empire than for the planned economy in Russia today - but that's not so different from the nationalist movements in Hungary, Poland and Ukraine. They just have other ideas of past greatness.

[ivan_gammel]

This is another baseless conspiracy theory, sorry.

[realusername]

Which part exactly? You can verify the nostalgia per countries affected on surveys.

[ivan_gammel]

The reasoning, of course.

It is normal to feel nostalgia about good old times when we were younger, yet you assume the motivation is a “colonial empire” (SU was very different from British or Spanish empire in that sense, I’m not sure “colonial” even applies to it economically — this is a political narrative of former republics, which were colonies of Russian empire).

[jltsiren]

Given that party membership was ~10% of the adult population, restricting the best jobs to party members didn't mean much. Ambitious people usually became party members, unless something in their background prevented that. Many people were discriminated against for various reasons, but otherwise the lack of party membership signaled lack of ambition.

[estaset]

Lmao, belonging to the party is not the same as working for the party. Would you say third of americans belong to the democratic __establishment__ and another third - to the republican? So, two thirds of americans are the establishment.

[mantas]

And belonging to the party in soviet era didn't mean working in party structure.

You want to raise beyond certain level in engineering or management? You gotta sign up to the party. But signing the paper may be your only activity in the party.

[jltsiren]

Party membership means different things in different systems.

Soviet/Chinese style communist parties were vanguard parties. Party membership was a privilege you had to earn, and it generally meant that you were a reputable person and potentially a member of the elite. In some sense, it had the same kind of signaling function as having a college degree or passing a leetcode interview.

American Democratic/Republican parties are kind of like semiofficial branches of the government. They have little control over their membership (or their candidates), and membership in itself means very little.

European political parties (at least in the countries I'm familiar with) are private organizations. Party membership tends to be lower than in the Soviet/American systems and signals some nontrivial commitment to the party.

[realusername]

By party members, I obviously meant the nomenklatura and their family.

[nickpp]

> lack of party membership signaled lack of ambition

Or, you know, having a conscience? Values? Ideas? Wanting freedom? Daring to think differently?!

[vintermann]

Yes. To this day Cuba is famous for having much better doctors, and even a pharmaceutical industry, than their poverty would suggest. I think it's fairly obvious that when the avenues for social status through entrepreneurship and initiative are limited, the avenues that remain do well - and medicine has been a high-status profession for a long time now. Likewise, the fields people don't go into for money, like scientific research or performing arts, seem to have been fiercely competitive and high quality in the planned economy countries.