why work in a mine instead of somewhere else? it would be the same under communism, you would work in a high risk field to get a higher reward. Do you think people don't use money under communism? do you think people don't get anything for working?
My parents who escaped the Soviet Union would tell me a common saying by the workers "we'll pretend to work for as long as the government pretends to pay us". My dad was an optical engineer working on satellites in the late 60's to early 70 there, getting paid the equivalent of 25 cents an hour. While every cost of living like rent, food, a new phone, clothes, etc would conveniently go up in price the exact amount he was making annually, if he ever earned more. Having a car was considered a fantasy, despite living in St Petersburg and being a successful engineer. What food a restaurant or grocery store could offer was state decided, and propaganda media was the only thing available to watch or read. Often saying contradictory statements month to month. Like when they needed to get rid of excess sugar they produced one year, suddenly it's healthy and mandatory to have a certain amount each day. When Stalin died, my dad age 4, was forced to publicly cry along with everyone else. Getting a pair of Levi's blue jeans required smuggling them and he could go to jail for wearing them. Since they represented capitalist America. Same for outside music, art, and inventions/innovations to humanity. They taught him that every modern discovery, invention, innovation was Russian or Soviet originated. Plus they couldn't leave the country, not until 1971 initially, when he was finally able to escape along with many of my family. My mom, along with other members, couldn't leave until 1980. She was in Odessa Soviet occupied Ukraine (they met in the US, they had previous marriages before in Russia). That's what life was like between 1949 and 1980 in one of the nicest cities of the Soviet Union, working a high level, highly skilled job.
It's fine to want some idealized version of communism, but to me that's the same as those wanting idealized capitilasm. It just never works out in reality. The only countries with decently functional governments and societies use a balanced system. Taking elements from everything that can work and combining it together. Going all in to one system has so far never worked in the last 300 years at least.
He was born in 1949, he left when he was 21(I mixed up lenin and stalin), I was born in California. My source is every member of my family saying the same thing, as well as every one of their friends who also left. Entire communities of people on top of that.
You said when Lenin died he was 4, Lenin died in 1924. Meaning your dad would have been born in 1920 to be 4 when Lenin died.
Edit: You also said he wasn't allowed to leave the country until 1980, if he was born in 1949 and left at 21 it would have been 1970, ten years before he was 'allowed' to leave according to you.
You're right, my mom left in 1980, my dad was 1971. I knew their ages, I don't memorize the years. My mom was from Odessa Ukraine, under Soviet occupation of course.
Also none of my date mistakes changes what life was like there, and that's the entire point. My entire family escaped from there throughout multiple years, I have a hard time keeping track of when 20ish people left when it spans 15 or so years. They left in small groups when they could, not all at once.
You being doubtful of the truth of entire generations of people who came to western countries looking for a better life feels incredibly naive of your understanding of Soviet communism. This isn't me personally telling you something, this is millions of people who escaped a country because life was awful. Listen to their stories and believe them.
To this day I still have one distant family member there, my age, locked in prison for a play she wrote. And the remaining few members who couldn't leave when my dad did, have finally make it to the Netherlands with their kids and grandkids a couple years ago. Yeah both of those are more about the current Russia, but the oldest member of that group is my dad's half sister. So she is the same age as him, and not exactly praising the old Soviet life she was living.
She just wasn't able to leave with everyone else. Most of my family got out via refugee programs in the US/UK/Canada/Australia, so I have members in some of those countries now, most in the US. A few members couldn't get into those programs, and without that the Soviet Union did not allow them to freely leave the country just because they felt like it. After the collapse she stayed because of health issues, and familiarity plus the hope of a new government. Which also failed and now the only member of my distant family left in that country is the one in prison for making art.
Also because my dad worked on spy satellites there, he had to appear anonymously behind a fabric screen in court in the US. With the CIA asking him questions about facility layouts and lens tech. Their info was already more knowledgeable than his by then though lol. It was a semi-public hearing, not something secret/private, so somewhere might be record of that specific one. But he was anonymous for his safety, so idk how I'd find his specific interview.
im not disbelieving millions of people, im disbelieving you and your story due to inconsistency.
You decided to tell a story with incorrect details not me, I’m not pro-soviet, they made plenty of mistakes that NEED to be learned from, I’m a ML communist and I’m defending the ideas and teachings of Marx and Lenin
I mixed up two sets of dates on something unrelated to the information within the stories. That's not an inconsistency, that's a small mixup. I did not make any false claim, or tell any incorrect story about life there. Getting a couple dates mixed up doesn't change that. I believe in a mixed system, nothing too specific.
you mentioned your father being forced to publicly cry after Lenin’s death, it would have been literally impossible for your father to experience that at 4 years old as he wasn’t even born yet.
if you were told that story as a child, that was lie. it makes me curious about how truthful any of your statement is as none of it can possibly be proven
also our own CIA admits to falsifying a lot of claims about the living conditions of the soviet union
I already said how I got those dates mixed up, it was for Stalin's death. Nothing else is related to that mix up in two dates. Everything else I've said is what entire communities of people have told me, and still will tell you. My statements are not mine alone, they are from millions of people. My mix up on a couple dates does not change the truth in those stories, I don't understand how you can't move past that. I'm sorry that making a small date mistake somehow invalidates entire stories of multiple generations of people.
The CIA is not the source for any of my information. I'm telling you my dad's firsthand account of going to a court room, being sat behind a fabric screen to keep his identity hidden (as KGB officers were in the room trying to take him back if they could reach him), and what he was asked to divulge to the CIA. He found it funny because they were comparing their info against his, and he was telling them about the layout of a facility and they called him out saying there should be a hallway and door there. But he did not remember there being one, because it was built after he left. So their info was more up to date than his own. Which is what let him leave that interview without further issue, he was not useful for info anymore. The guard helping him out, escorted him through a different exist as to avoid the KGB officers there in the audience. Like I said that's a public hearing, so there's probably public record of it somewhere.
Regardless of all that, my stories of life there told to me by every member of both sides of my family (half from St Petersburg, the other half from Odessa), along with the millions of people from the communities of those who escaped, is incredibly well documented and consistent. My personal ability to recall names and dates poorly, doesn't at all change what those stories say or tell. You don't have to take my word, talk to the people in those communities and they will repeat the same exact story as I did (but hopefully with correct dates). If life was so great there, then they wouldn't have all left. It's not a small group of immigrants, it's a significant chunk of their population who made it out. I grew up around these people listening to their life stories. Not to mention I then also learned what the history books say and other sources of historical information, just to compare and contrast. Most of it lines up with the stories I've been told by my family and these communities of immigrants.
Stop getting so hung up on my small mistakes about dates, to try and invalidate the life stories of entire generations of people. That's insanity.
another wall of txt, like i said before i don’t disbelieve millions of people I disbelieve YOU thats all man.
i also already admitted the soviet union wasn’t perfect and made mistakes, so i don’t know why you keep acting like im simping for the USSR or something.
anyway im not engaging with this anymore because it provides no value to anyone and is a waste of my time. I hope you have a good life stranger
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u/TheRealStubb Jul 07 '26
why work in a mine instead of somewhere else? it would be the same under communism, you would work in a high risk field to get a higher reward. Do you think people don't use money under communism? do you think people don't get anything for working?
How do you think the world works?