[unity1001]

The USSR's advantage was that everyone's life was guaranteed all the way from the start and without overwork. You went to your job at 15 min. walking distance (entire cities were planned that way) in the morning, worked from 9 to 5 without having to overwork, got back home in 15 min, at the same time your children came back home from state-funded schools as your wife got grocieries for the dinner at lowest cost. (until the economic war started by the US and its Gulf Allies in the 80s). You had paid vacations, paid maternity/paternity leave, reasonable working hours, reasonable retirement age, free social clubs, hobby clubs, everything.

And the most critical point: Your children were also entitled to ALL of that from birth. They were going to study in state schools, they would get a job somewhere, they would work under the same conditions, they would acquire their first car and their first flat around the same age, and if they married, not only the state would help them marry but also provide more incentives.

So there was absolutely no reason to hesitate from having children - you had the money, energy, resources, and on top of that the state guaranteed that your children would be well set from the moment they born.

Hence, population boomed.

The USSR is not unique in that aspect. In every period of society, when people's and their childrens' lives are guaranteed, population boomed. The sociopathic profiteering in capitalist societies crippling everything including birth rates seems more like a case of natural selection when seen in that light - these countries have all the money and power in the world to stop the population decline and reverse it, but they just dont want to do it for the sake of profit...

[jojobas]

You could try peddling that to those who never lived in the USSR.

Nothing was guaranteed, everything had to be fought for, even food. You were at the mercy of the local party boss, one careless word could cost you your career, not just in one company but in the whole country (goes without saying that you couldn't move to another).

Paternity leave is something new, never have heard a lie that blatant.

Also anything "free" of course wasn't, The Soviet government was the ultimate capitalist, appropriating all fruits of all labour and keeping people at "just above rioting" living standard by design, and sometimes failing even at that.

[unity1001]

> You could try peddling that to those who never lived in the USSR.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-politics-sovietuni...

Those who lived there want it back.

I grew up in a country that imitated the Yugoslavian system, mixing Soviet system with social democracy. Until the country turned capitalist, directly declaring that 'free market was the best' and the objective was to become 'little America', everybody was happy. From food to education to housing, everything just worked out thanks to the state providing most of them. Including marrying and raising children. Then the 'free market' came and everything went down the same hellhole that Japan and other countries are going down into right now.

> You were at the mercy of the local party boss, one careless word could cost you your career

Wow that's so bad and its so more different than being at the mercy of your capitalist boss.

The discussion is at a 'people dont have food to eat next month and can go homeless at any time' level. Not 'my career' level. Yeah, you could lose you career and maybe get sent to somewhere in the middle of central Asia. And yet you would still have a job, house, your children would still go to school. Beats entire family working and not being able to feed their children like its in the US or outright going homeless.

> Paternity leave is something new, never have a lie that blatant.

It says 'maternity/paternity' leave in my comment. USSR had maternity leave.

...

> "Peddle"

How about you don't peddle the cold war propaganda that's 60 years old now? I grew up in a Soviet-like system, and despite I am doing FAR better at the top percentiles of my society, I would go back to that Soviet-like system in a blink so that millions would not have to suffer and go hungry and the society would not devolve into a hellhole.

Heres a frame of reference for you: Nobody is conducting economic war against the US. The US is not in an existential war. There is not global catastrophe that has been affecting the US. There is no alien invasion. No apocalypse. And yet this is the reality there:

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret...

I'd much rather 'peddle' what i 'peddled' than smear what was better.

[jojobas]

Mate I lived there (towards the end) and heard first-hand accounts about the glorious past, from my grandfather's as privileged as a school principal for example. For the great many it literally was about constantly worrying about putting the food in the table.

People who want USSR back actually want their youth back, youth, not the time when their extended family of five lived in a one bedroom flat.

[unity1001]

> For the great many it literally was about constantly worrying about putting the food in the table.

It was at the end. After the US got its Gulf Allies to start waging economic war against the USSR in 1980s by playing with the price of oil, while blockading it from every other angle to prevent the USSR from trading with anyone outside.

If any other country did half of that to the US, it would end up in nuclear war. The fault of the USSR was allowing its hostile enemy to strangle it step by step by avoiding confrontation.

Otherwise during 1960s Kennedy administration thought that the USSR was developing too rapidly and others would start taking it as an example, causing a 'domino effect'. Which is the basis of the 'domino theory' and the Vietnam war was its resolution - 'making example of countries who attempt to follow that model'.

Even my country in the sidelines got an economic crisis and scarcity EVERY single time it went against a US foreign policy project or US-pushed 'economic reform'. From local wars to privatizations. When those were not enough to 'persuade' the governments to do what they were told, coups did the work. The last one hanged 10,000 and the government that it put into power started privatizing the living daylights of the country. The stock market started breaking records. Whereas a lot of people started eating less, some having to eat from garbage. Therefore:

> People who want USSR back actually want their youth back, youth, not the time when their extended family of five lived in a one bedroom flat.

No people just want their better, worry-free, non-overworked lives back. In the former USSR, in East Germany, and in every other country that got US backed 'free market'. If you aren't able to get into the top 10% in such a system, you are literally hosed. Those who made it into that segment think that 'everything is better' because now they are shielded from the poverty that plagues the rest of their society. Whereas for the troubled majority, there is no comparing guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing, healthcare, childcare, education, retirement and all that to any 'freedom' that comes with the new system.

As I said, Im doing quite comfortably in this system. But, for the sake of the majority, I would happily go back to that system so that people wouldnt have to overwork and still not be able to feed their children without anyone waging an economic war or even an actual war against the country.

[jojobas]

This is bullshit, plain and simple.

[unity1001]

Calling the reality 'bullshit' does not make the reality go away. Here's some of that reality.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/07/americans-he....