[boveus]

>It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families.

This can actually work out well. I experienced something similar in the US while on vacation. I was traveling with someone from Glenwood Springs, CO to Denver, CO via Amtrak. We went to the dining car for lunch an since there were two of us and space is at a premium, the Amtrak policy was to seat us with one or two random strangers. We sat and had lunch with an oil executive and someone's grandmother and it was quite an interesting experience and we got to meet two strangers. It was actually a highlight of that train trip.

I feel like the experience of having unplanned social interactions with strangers is often missing in modern American life. I don't know if the Soviet style of assigning vacation groups via a worker's committee would be pleasant, but I can't help but think things would be better if we had more situations where we are "forced" to engage with strangers.

[ActorNightly]

This is a very good idea for teenagers and younger adults to break them out of the online world.

For working class though, its probably best not to force people to socialize. The thing that doesn't get talked enough about in socialization is that its not all positive, and people have different tolerance to each others bullshit.

[Arrath]

My dad had a, to teenage me, embarrassing habit of asking less-than-full tables at busy restaurants (mostly tables that looked like they'd just been seated, only drinks or maybe appetizers) if they would like some company and conversation.

It got us an invitation surprisingly often, skipping a long wait or a walk to another restaurant, and made for some interesting table talk at the same time.

[cameldrv]

This is something that is somewhat common in Frankfurt, Germany. I got to meet some interesting people this way when I visited a couple of times.

[byw]

Happened to us in Berlin on my visit. We were seated with two elderly ladies. Their English wasn't great but they were very friendly.

[2-718-281-828]

funny that you say that. i just noticed that twice today in a cafe. why frankfurt of all towns? munich makes sense for this to develop because of their biergarten culture with long benches and long tables

[cameldrv]

I used to live in Berlin and in my experience it wasn't really a thing there. For some reason it's just part of the restaurant culture in Frankfurt.

[wink]

Not too uncommon in Bavaria and Austria, if the restaurant (or especially beergarden) is quite full - the waiters will even sometimes just place you there or give you the option to leave, or wait. I wouldn't say I've seen it if there are free tables though - but I've also been to regions where this would never ever happen, where your table is yours and yours alone.

I'd say talking to the people at your table is purely optional, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[waboremo]

On the contrary, it might be crucial for the working class that is growing more isolated by the day and prevent a lot of the negative socialization you're referencing. Which imo stems from a lack of experience of handling conversations (we really do not get enough practice outside of people we already have lots of common ground with, ie our friends), and also an increased sensitivity from this isolation "choice".

[gjulianm]

I don't think that people are "inexperienced" in conversations nor that the negative socialization comes that much from not sharing a common ground. A lot of negative socialization can come from people not having an interesting conversation, or being too self-centered, or repetitive, or convoluted, or not knowing when to just leave the other person alone.

I am also skeptical of the fact that "the working class is growing more isolated by the day". Looking around my environment, it seems that the advent of social networks (FB, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc) has made it far easier to keep in contact and to organize meetings with people. I know that I would be socializing far less if the only means of communication we had were the phone and letters.

[jedberg]

As long as it's a situation where you can opt out of further interactions, it's no so bad. You meet, you decide if you want to keep talking, and then move on.

[bobthepanda]

in ye olden days you used to solve that with an understood social standard of 'polite' topics.

i would like to say, that this is at least somewhat observable today at places like work; but also, society has changed a lot.

[khazhoux]

Still common in many countries (where you never discuss religion or politics unless it’s after 2am and you’re all drunk).

Personally, I dislike the “bring your whole self to work” thing that companies like google encourage (used to?), where people talk about extremely polarizing topics on the company chat groups.

[int_19h]

It can go either way in practice. If you force someone to socialize with people they don't really like, you risk conditioning them to hate socialization in general.

[jedberg]

I really like it too. It happens more often than you think.

My wife and I went on a cruise once when we were still dating, and it was one of the ones where they assign you a table to eat. Since we were a young couple, they assumed we were newlyweds and seated us with a bunch of other newlyweds. It was fun to hear all their stories (one was a Mormon couple who had just had a very traditional Mormon wedding for example). Then 1/2 way through the cruise they switched it up and we ended up at a table with a large family from rural Oregon, who were sad at the lack of meat on the menu. Normally at home they would sit on the back porch with rifles and shoot animals that would walk by and then eat them. Which was just a really interesting thing to learn about, given that we had always been city folk.

And on another trip we stayed at a small place in Costa Rica that offered local tours each day as a planned activity. We ended up touring with a bunch of other Americans that were staying at the same place. Connected with them on Facebook and we're all still connected to this day, occasionally commenting on each other's posts.

In fact two of them were a young couple like us who were just dating and also traveling with their parents. We both ended up having kids around the same time and have even met up with them when we were in their home town.

[jtbayly]

Haga has a flagged comment pointing out the purpose of this policy, and I can't figure out why it is flagged, so I'll just quote what the article says:

"It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. They were all part of a collective and that umbrella united them. In the Soviet Union, after all, the collective—not the family—was the most important social unit."

Yes, the purpose of the policy was to dismantle the commitment to the family and establish commitment to "the collective." This is also why the children were sent elsewhere.

[lnsru]

Sure. And couple unknowns were KGB agents. So people learned very early what to say to strangers and what to keep for themselves.

[gdy]

That's just sovietophobic fiction.

I remember the slogan "Family is the unit of society" and childless people had to pay a special tax. Also infidelity in marriage was frowned upon and could negatively affect the career.

[aslfjiasf]

This has changed from early Soviet Union to late Soviet Union.

Early Soviet Union was much more radical and utopian, with ideas almost like in Plato's republic with the goal to getting to the point where the state rather than the parents would be raising children.

This was later abolished in the 30's and 40's and more traditional family values were encouraged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_in_the_Soviet_Union

https://www.jstor.org/stable/351982

[silversmith]

From the "I remember" I assume you lived through it. Were you per chance from "proper" soviet union, aka Moscow / Petrograd area? Because allegiance to the state and nothing else was the ideal in the "less correct" regions such as Baltics. It "got better" as time wore on, but especially after the occupation, every attempt was made to erode anything and everything else people might gather around. Forced ethnic mixing with deportations to faraway regions to dillute national identity. Pioneer movement and schoolwork that taught you to think of the union first, family second. Heck, even open encouragement to rat out your parents for "un-soviet" behavior.

It might be sovietophobic in the sense we would rather not have it repeat, to put mildly. But for the occupied regions, it was far from fiction.

[sangnoir]

> Forced ethnic mixing with deportations to faraway regions to dillute national identity.

Did you mean "to dilute regional/ethnic identity"? National identity cuts across regions and ethnicities.

[ido]

I guess they meant the national identities like Ukranian, Georgian, Uzbek, etc.

[thriftwy]

This is what gets peddled across the world, but for the most part, Soviet Union eas busy creating those national identities. Sometimes it took a break when it became too inconvenient, only to resume it later. Soviet Union is who created these national states in the first place. There were no Georgia and no Uzbekistan before the USSR. In both cases there were a bunch of unaligned tribes or much smaller principalities with no real national identity.

[gdy]

"Forced ethnic mixing"

Yeah, I've heard you prefer not to mix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Estonia#Eston...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Latvia#Arajs_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Lithuania#Par...

[badpun]

> That's just sovietophobic fiction.

From what I've read, the dismantling of families was really implemented in the 1920s and perhaps 1930s. That's when a kid [1] who ratted on his own father (likely sent him to Gulags) was glorified as a huge Hero of Socialism. After that period though, Communism was gradually less about implementing its distopian ideology and more about naked power of people on top, so the destruction of families was abandoned.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov

[gdy]

Civil wars split families, yes.

[HideousKojima]

>That's just sovietophobic fiction.

Or it's just believing Marx when he wrote this in the Communist Manifesto:

Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.

The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.

Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.

[dfxm12]

It's more common even in the west than it seems like people realize. I've been on a bunch of vacations with strangers. From companies who offer tours of Italy, etc., bus day/overnight trips to somewhere sorta locally, cruises, etc.

[radicaldreamer]

This happens all the time when traveling, on cruise ships, at national parks etc.

[davidw]

I served on a jury last year and that was one of many interesting aspects of it: dealing with people from all walks of life who I ordinarily would not interact with.

[waboremo]

That's fascinating, it's both unplanned and also non-transactional. I don't think many environments like that exist past school years.

[WeylandYutani]

I was taking my mother to hospital today. While waiting I spent my time people watching.

It's the last place in the Netherlands where your social and financial status has no value and everyone is truly equal. You see all walks of life and everyone is in it together at the mercy of science they don't understand.

[catiopatio]

Folks are welcome to opt-in to those sorts of experiences, but as an absolute introvert, I can’t imagine a less pleasant vacation.

This would be the antithesis of a vacation.

[gjulianm]

Agreed. For some people, conversation takes energy. Being in a group takes energy. A vacation where you're out with complete strangers, in a group where you can't really do whatever you like and have to follow and compromise and discuss things, sounds like hell. I'd have to take a vacation from that.

[dionidium]

Lots of things that are fine rapidly become not-fine when mandated by the state.

[MSFT_Edging]

I recently experienced this in a bachelor party where I only knew one person well. Great time.

Same deal for work-conference trips where I met coworkers for the first time then proceeded to get irresponsibly drunk with them.

[Waterluvian]

I’m reminded of the last story in Buster Scruggs. The conversation had by a group of such different people. …so long as the train isn’t going to the same destination.

[jollyllama]

The point of this is to encourage atomization and discourage the formation of long term friendships, which could form a substrate for dissident networks.

[myth_drannon]

It also caused marital infedelity since commonly only one person would get it.

[Haga]

It was mostly to destroy the family as counter revolutionary unit.