A few questions about ordinary life in the USSR

I just have a few questions about life in the USSR during the 1940's until the collapse. I know that the literacy rate was really high and the SU was ahead of the U.S. in the space race but what was life actually like?

A few questions that i'd like answered would be:

1.) Breadlines, was this during wartime or during peacetime aswell?

2.) Recreation, Did the average soviet citizen have a radio or television?

3.) What was the crimerate like?

Thanks in advance to whoever can answer these questions.

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Breadlines, was this during wartime or during peacetime aswell?

Depended on the location and period. With the complications of central planning and redistribution of produce over a 300-million populated country, it become more apparent.
During GPW - the card system introduced - not in the USSR only, in all major participants countries I believe. The USSR was the first to rebuke the card system and restore the shops to monetary exchange. From 1957 to early Brezhnewizm there was little shortage of raw wheat and bread. In Brezhnew's and Gorbachev's times, "deficit" become apparent (bread was not being redistributed over the country properly). Siberia and Far East were fairly bad on that account. However, by 1988 it became a little better here. Moscow and central Europe always had enough of everything.

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Recreation, Did the average soviet citizen have a radio or television?

Yes. The average Soviet citizen had a radio and a TV. The consupmtion of TV sets in the USSR was higher than in modern capitalist Russia. Many had heavy bed-sized home radios that could catch a lot of transmissions My grandma had one like that.

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What was the crimerate like?

Pretty low. Statistics for 1989 and 1990 were analyzed, search for them. Some consider it to be the same as of the US. A pretty detailed analysis is here:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... 3847/print

All in all, crimerate in the USSR, especially in the big cities, was many times lower than now. People could move around at night without fear.

So overall when do you think was the best time to live in the Soviet Union?

There where breadlines at the end also shortages of other goods. If there was something for sale then there was a line.

Yes there where TV's and Radio's on a good day I could watch Finnish TV.

In Soviet Union the official line was that crime rate was low however that can be questioned.

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If there was something for sale then there was a line.

There are lines at the cashes in Best Buys stores, same thing at grocery store even outside rush hours...
Does that means that Canada is socialist?

The difference being I only wait in line for 10 minutes max (on a Sunday afternoon) at the grocery store. I also don't have to wait in a queue for a decade to get a piece of shit car.

While in Ukraine all my friends complained about was how much more corrupt the police have become and how the crime has gone through the roof since the fall.

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The difference being I only wait in line for 10 minutes max (on a Sunday afternoon) at the grocery store. I also don't have to wait in a queue for a decade to get a piece of shit car.

Yes, instead here in Great Capitalist America, people like me just don't get cars.

I'd rather wait then not be able to own one period.

Do you live in the city? Owning a car in New York City is ridiculously expensive... to park. Check out some adds in the local craigslist here in Denver.

I'm thinking about picking up that Omni if it's a turbo, hrmm.

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So overall when do you think was the best time to live in the Soviet Union?

That's quite a broad question. Maybe under Lenin? Of course you'd live a backwards and impoverished life because the Soviet Union was newborn and the czarists left the country a agarian based shitterhole. Under Stalin, living standards would improve dramatically after the Five Year Plan and collectivization because production and output soared and the country became industrialized. Stalin was politically repressive of the bourgieousie and the wealthy kulaks who witheld grain from the people because he was trying to push socialism forward in a short period of time. It was basically brutal class civil war. Kruschevite USSR essentially stopped any advancements towards communism and paved the road to capitalism, and also espoused class collaboration with the class war ending.

cmoibenlepro there is a difference between standing in line in rush hours and going to stand in line quite early in the morning to be able to buy milk and bread.

Canada is in no way a capitalist nation. No welfare state is capitalist

DoctorCosmonaut there was a rise in crime after the collapse of Soviet Union. Yet on average now the crime levels are down to what they where or even lower since free trade and free markets has allowed the creation of wealth.

LeftyHenry then how are people able to buy cars? If poor in America can not afford to buy cars then what are the rest of the world suppose to be like? How exactly by the Marxist theory is the working class able to improve their lives in Estonia?

Well thankfully I did not have to live under Stalin. Stalin did not only take away food from the wealthy kulaks but also from the poor peasants and causing for example the Ukraine famine.

Also about production quotas. Output can soar but the question is how can we predict exactly what needs to be produced under communism. Capitalism has a price system that tells the entrepreneur where exactly are surpluses and deficits. This system did not exist in Soviet Union and therefore there was always a shortage of at least some goods.

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Well thankfully I did not have to live under Stalin. Stalin did not only take away food from the wealthy kulaks but also from the poor peasants and causing for example the Ukraine famine.

False.

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Also about production quotas. Output can soar but the question is how can we predict exactly what needs to be produced under communism. Capitalism has a price system that tells the entrepreneur where exactly are surpluses and deficits. This system did not exist in Soviet Union and therefore there was always a shortage of at least some goods.

Computers.

Fitzy state your source. Since I have seen links from wikipedia or references to it I will state wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_ ... d_outcomes

How exactly can you predict or see the need for goods. Please explain the theory to me or at least point me towards an academic study of the subject.

Different goods have different values. Those values are subjective and depend on preferred time on consumption which is again subjective. How exactly is a computer able to calculate those subjective needs of the people?

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Fitzy state your source. Since I have seen links from wikipedia or references to it I will state wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_ ... d_outcomes

Ok Ill edit this post in a second when i find it.

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Different goods have different values. Those values are subjective and depend on preferred time on consumption which is again subjective. How exactly is a computer able to calculate those subjective needs of the people?

Consumer input?

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Fitzy state your source. Since I have seen links from wikipedia or references to it I will state wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_ ... d_outcomes

Ok ill make another post in a second when i find a source.

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Different goods have different values. Those values are subjective and depend on preferred time on consumption which is again subjective. How exactly is a computer able to calculate those subjective needs of the people?

Consumer input?

It in here somewhere: http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

You should read the whole thing.

OK will read that.

But can you please explain the theory that you can plan the economy efficiently.

Also how can you plan new products? How they affect the other goods and preferable spending time. How much to spend on research and development? How do you know the process is efficient?

Urmas1, I also suggest you read "Fraud, Famine, and Fascism". It is a very eye-opening piece depicting how the Ukrainian famine was made to be much bigger than it actually was to suit Nazi, and later, capitalist propaganda.

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there is a difference between standing in line in rush hours and going to stand in line quite early in the morning to be able to buy milk and bread.

As long as socialism was practiced in the USSR, there were no bread lines, except during the war years, for obvious reasons. Bread lines were only a feature of the USSR after the implementation of perestroika, and thus can't be attributed to socialism or the USSR in general.

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If poor in America can not afford to buy cars then what are the rest of the world suppose to be like?

Please clarify.

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Canada is in no way a capitalist nation. No welfare state is capitalist

Canada isn't socialist either.

Okay what was the pay like?

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Canada is in no way a capitalist nation.

I had to go back to this post and make a comment on this, it bugs me. You see, capitalism is not only related to welfare benefits, it has to do with the meens of production. And in Canada, the meens of production are almost entirely in the hands of private individuals. Also, Canada engages in imperialism.

What I want you to understand is that capitalism is never national, its a global system. Who gets the welfare benefits in Canada? The local proletariat, which has been bribed into inactivity. They are now merely worker aristocrats. The Canadians super exploit the third world.

Why is it so important that the bourgeoisie bribes the local proletariat, and not the foreign proletariat? Because the meens of production has largely been concentrated in the first world. The local worker aristocracy is the only "proletariat" which has the meens of production within its reach.