good things about soviet union

1928 a Five year plan was instigated to build a socialist economy. Visitors from Finland to St Petersburg used to cover the cost of a weekend-long drinking binge by selling a pair of jeans. Between 1945 and 1948 the Soviets set up Communist governments in these countries. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Why Learn About the Soviet Union? A photo posted by alina_mcd (@mcd604) on Jul 27, 2016 at 3:41am PDT. However, he battled against this hollow factor and rose to become one of the greatest communist revolutionaries and powerful ruler of the former Soviet Union. Although many of their rights were given out of necessity, Soviet women had more opportunity in employment and politics than Western women for most of the 20th century. The Bolsheviks, organized in 1903, were led by Vladimir I. Lenin, and they argued for a tightly disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries who were governed by democratic centralism and were dedicated to achieving the dictatorship of the proletariat. As far as America was concerned, the whole "threatening the United States with total annihilation" was like the worst thing that the USSR ever did. The Soviet Union was one of the most repressive and deadly regimes in history, and many outright atrocities were committed against the Soviet people through the years. What was good and what was bad about the Soviet Union? For example, Belarus had no universities before the Soviet Union existed. The Soviet Union's great respect for writers was expressed paradoxically in the efforts it took to crush them. Of course, there were still drug users in the Soviet Union. The montage theory simply states that movies are actually made in the editing process. Shockingly, the Soviet Union encouraged tourism within its borders. Major cities such as Moscow also had easy-to-use metro systems, which had some of the most beautiful stops in the world. The only good thing is that the people who lived in the Soviet Union were the Russians. But overall, the Soviet Union emphasized vacations as a part of communist life. They often treated countries in their Central European zones of control as Soviet colonies. Positive feelings for the USSR generally are greater among older people in Russia and the other former Soviet republics surveyed. It’s debatable how much of a right this actually was, but Soviet suffrage was attractive to some Western feminists. "Ne nado," would be the first thing a taxi driver said to you when you took your seat and reached for the seat belt. The Soviet Union was officially established in December 1922 with the union of the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics. In 1945 Estonians formed 97% of the population, but by 1989 their share of the population had fallen to 62%. was his memorable opening salutation. Plastic bags did not appear until the 1980s. Unfortunately, corruption crept into the system, with high-ranking officials consistently getting prime vacation times during the summer. Yes, incredibly, the USSR had its own video games: clunky, largely war or ice-hockey themed, they did not do much to rival Atari, but they had their own charm. I think one of the bad things is precisely that there existed this privileged sector, a caste. The reforms implemented by President Mikhail Gorbachev and the backlash against them hastened the demise of the Soviet state. With your icon, I doubt that we will agree on much, but I will try to accept this challenge. 13 Answers. The fear of having women become Soviet sympathizers was one of the many reasons that women were granted the right to vote in the US and other Western countries. First, it was an attempt to ensure loyalty by giving people some positive impressions about the government. August 2008. This was the opposite of the trends in the West. Rulers died and were replaced by upper members of the communist party who may have had different ideas of the future but still kept the union shrouded in secrecy. For the Soviet Union, most of these things were a huge contradiction to other Soviet policies. During the Soviet regime, plastic was rarely used in consumer goods. Soviet citizens also had access to glass recycling centers that sometimes paid them to return glass bottles. Peter Kenez's A History of the Soviet Union: From the Beginning to the End may be just what you're looking for. Unemployment, racism, apartheid, the plight of the coal miners were all used to predict the imminent collapse of capitalism and triumph of Marxism. "L L Bean!" Some people received their doctorates without paying tuition. Whatever you gave someone — a Ramones badge or a Scottish flag or something you picked up from the Happy Eater — in return, you would almost certainly get Lenin. The Soviets also built universities and extended the possibility of education to developing republics in the USSR where education had previously been unavailable. Despite all the damage it had suffered, the Soviet Union was still the greatest power in Europe after World War II. There was a certain predictability about it. Part of the Soviet strategy was a strict rejection of Western colonialism. I don't feel the same way; but here, in no particular order, are 25 things that in some way capture the strangeness of that vanished place and time. In the Soviet Union, there were no piles of corpses or dismembered bodies on television. Vouchers to Sochi were given either in the winter or the summer. Now and again you might encounter a party member (see above) who felt the need to press upon you the superiority of the Soviet way of life. Part of the compelling aesthetic of the USSR was the absence of consumer advertising. Soviet law guaranteed all citizens a free education regardless of their social standing or income. Young people of the Soviet Union had been swept by a wave of morality, they noted. Montage theory also influenced Soviet filmmakers to try other experiments with film. Overall, the Soviet Union industrialized at a faster rate than any other country previously had, which improved the lifestyles of its citizens. The supernatural elements you've come to expect are still present — there are superpowers and monsters from beyond the edge of the world — but the line between friend and foe, between human and monster, is blurred. Soviet films were one of the high points of the regime, but it is impossible to overstate how important those films were to modern filmmaking. Most of these new users were young people who saw drugs as a way to imitate Western culture. With the eyes of the world on Russia, Marcel Theroux recalls 25 bittersweet memories of the old Red Empire. Steam from the world's largest open-air swimming pool rising into a chilly sky is an enduring memory of the USSR. However, that was a double-edged sword because Soviet culture also demanded that women take care of housekeeping after their day jobs. Right up to the very collapse of the USSR, you would still encounter monocular foreign defenders of the Soviet system, making their way around what they still believed, against all the evidence of their senses, to be a worker's paradise. His songs, on pirated cassettes, were the ubiquitous musicial accompaniment to life in the the old USSR. In 1917, the Soviet Union granted women the right to vote. Soviet women were also better represented in politics than Western women, especially in the early 20th century. Increased drug use also came from Soviet soldiers returning from Afghanistan, where they first took illegal narcotics. The minor economy of the tsarist era was transformed into an industrial powerhouse that rivaled other first-world countries. In 1964, Alfred Hitchcock praised this technique, calling it the essence of filmmaking. One of their biggest impacts was the montage theory of editing, which was propelled by Sergei Eisenstein through his various movies. All of this happened in the 10-year period from 1928 to 1938. Full disclosure: I haven't read it. Some politicians and historians disagree on whether Soviet anticolonial aid was a good thing or a bad thing. To this end, they spent money and time aiding third-world countries in their battles for independence against colonial forces. This theory spawned the film art of editing, which is still influential today. Collapse of the Soviet Union, sequence of events that led to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. on December 31, 1991. Check out his personal blog at zacherybrasier.com. But even the worst governments may do something right. It was partly because Marcuse believed that the Soviet Union still contained some good (or true) Marxism that he believed it was still capable of reforming itself. But one bright spot in the old days were the Georgian restaurants where wine, aubergine, fried chicken and cheese pasties were like a dream of plenty. The field of Sovietology, once highl In the Soviet Union, a loaf of bread cost 24 kopecks always. But Eisenstein’s films used different shot lengths and the juxtaposition of different images to drive the narrative in his movies, making them interesting and exciting for audiences. The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. I miss the empty spaces they now occupy. The year 1937 was fatal for “illegal” tourists. But that was nothing compared to some of the sick things the Soviet Union got up to. As a result, women spent more time working than men. Both countries built up their military forces. By law, women in the Soviet Union had the same employment opportunities as men and tended to work in jobs that Western women couldn’t. The Soviet Union was one of the most repressive and deadly regimes in history, and many outright atrocities were committed against the Soviet people through the years. Almost every film today owes something to Eisenstein’s montage theories. In the United States, people have heard of the bad things about the Soviet Union. Later, universal reproductive rights were reestablished. Good Question. But even the worst governments may do something right. A photo posted by alina_mcd (@mcd604) on Jul 27, 2016 at 3:41am PDT 19. Soviet politicians and writers considered drug use to be a decadence caused by capitalism. The lengths the Central Committee went to keep secrets was insane, even trying to cover up the world’s worst nuclear disaster from western powers and thos… Still, the Soviet Union was at the forefront of reproductive rights legislation in Europe. Russians ar great people, they cannot be measured at this scum of a political system. 10 Active Women In Politics The education plan covered all costs of attending school, including textbooks and school supplies. Matthew. by Bruce A. Clark. In 1955, Soviet women were permitted to have abortions again. The state assumed control over all industry and collective farms were established throughout the USSR. Most people in the Soviet Union did not own cars, which meant that the government had to offer public transit for its citizens out of necessity. These clunky machines were hard to buy and inefficient, but their boxy shapes evoke the Soviet Union and still inspire vintage car enthusiasts in Russia. By law, workers got two weeks off from work every year and were given vouchers to travel to certain tourist destinations, including Sochi. Twenty Soviet cities had major recycling plants for paper, with almost 30 percent of all paper recycled in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. The rivalry between them came to be known as the Cold War. They also, you know, allied with Nazi Germany and provided all the materials to run the Nazi war machine until Hitler broke that off. However, (1) it came out through Cambridge UP and (2) one of the Amazon reviewers called it a rotten piece of Stalinist propaganda. Stationed at a desk on each floor of a hotel, the dezhurnaya, who was always female, kept an eye on guests, maintained order and was the person you had to speak to get soap, toilet paper, a bath plug, or book an international call. After the USSR broke up, it was filled in and became the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, where the infamous Pussy Riot protest took place. 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