Russians harness for a long time, but they go fast

Winston Churchill

The USSR (the union of Soviet socialist republics) this form of statehood replaced the Russian Empire. The country began to be ruled by the proletariat, which achieved this right by carrying out the October Revolution, which was nothing more than an armed coup within the country, bogged down in its internal and external problems. Not the last role in this state of affairs was played by Nicholas 2, who actually drove the country into a state of collapse.

Country Education

The formation of the USSR took place on November 7, 1917 in a new style. It was on this day that the October Revolution took place, which overthrew the Provisional Government and the fruits of the February Revolution, proclaiming the slogan that power should belong to the workers. This is how the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was formed. It is extremely difficult to unambiguously assess the Soviet period in the history of Russia, since it was very controversial. Without a doubt, we can say that at this time there were both positive and negative moments.

Capital Cities

Initially, the capital of the USSR was Petrograd, in which the revolution actually took place, which brought the Bolsheviks to power. At first, there was no question of moving the capital, since the new government was too weak, but later this decision was made. As a result, the capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was moved to Moscow. This is quite symbolic, since the creation of the Empire was due to the transfer of the capital to Petrograd from Moscow.

The fact of the transfer of the capital to Moscow today is associated with the economy, politics, symbolism and much more. In fact, everything is much simpler. By moving the capital, the Bolsheviks saved themselves from other contenders for power in a civil war.

Country leaders

The foundations of the power and prosperity of the USSR are connected with the fact that there was relative stability in the leadership in the country. There was a clear single line of the party, and leaders who had been at the head of the state for a long time. It is interesting that the closer the country came to collapse, the more often the General Secretaries changed. In the early 1980s, leapfrog began: Andropov, Ustinov, Chernenko, Gorbachev - the country did not have time to get used to one leader, when another appeared in his place.

The general list of leaders is as follows:

• Lenin. Leader of the world proletariat. One of the ideological inspirers and implementers of the October Revolution. Laid the foundations of the state.
• Stalin. One of the most controversial historical figures. With all the negativity that the liberal press pours on this person, the fact is that Stalin raised industry from its knees, Stalin prepared the USSR for war, Stalin began to actively develop a socialist state.
• Khrushchev. Gained power after the assassination of Stalin, developed the country and managed to adequately resist the United States in the Cold War.
• Brezhnev. The era of his reign is called the era of stagnation. Many mistakenly associate this with the economy, but there was no stagnation there - all indicators were growing. There was stagnation in the party, which was decaying.
• Andropov, Chernenko. They didn't really do anything, they pushed the country to collapse.
• Gorbachev. The first and last president of the USSR. Today they hang all the dogs on him, accusing him of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but his main fault was that he was afraid to take active steps against Yeltsin and his supporters, who actually staged a conspiracy and a coup d'état.

Another fact is also interesting - the best rulers were those who found the time of revolution and war. The same applies to party leaders. These people understood the value of the socialist state, the significance and complexity of its existence. As soon as people came to power who had not seen a war, much less a revolution, everything went to pieces.

Formation and achievements

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began its formation with the Red Terror. This is a sad page in the history of Russia, a huge number of people were killed by the Bolsheviks, who sought to strengthen their power. The leaders of the Bolshevik Party, realizing that they could only retain power by force, killed everyone who could somehow interfere with the formation of the new regime. It is outrageous that the Bolsheviks, as the first people's commissars and people's police, i.e. those people who were supposed to keep order were recruited by thieves, murderers, homeless people, etc. In a word, all those who were objectionable in the Russian Empire and tried in every possible way to take revenge on everyone who was somehow connected with it. The apogee of these atrocities was the murder of the royal family.

After the formation of the new system, the USSR, headed until 1924 Lenin V.I. got a new leader. They became Joseph Stalin. His control became possible after he won the power struggle with Trotsky. During the reign of Stalin, industry and agriculture began to develop at a tremendous pace. Knowing about the growing power of Nazi Germany, Stalin pays great attention to the development of the country's defense complex. In the period from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was involved in a bloody war with Germany, from which it emerged victorious. The Great Patriotic War cost the Soviet state millions of lives, but this was the only way to preserve the freedom and independence of the country. The post-war years were difficult for the country: hunger, poverty and rampant banditry. Stalin brought order to the country with a hard hand.

International position

After the death of Stalin and until the collapse of the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics developed dynamically, overcoming a huge number of difficulties and obstacles. The USSR was involved in the US arms race, which continues to this day. It was this race that could become fatal for all mankind, since both countries were in constant confrontation as a result. This period of history is known as the Cold War. Only the prudence of the leadership of both countries managed to keep the planet from a new war. And this war, taking into account the fact that both nations were already nuclear at that time, could become fatal for the whole world.

The space program of the country stands apart from the entire development of the USSR. It was the Soviet citizen who first flew into space. It was Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin. The United States responded to this manned space flight with its first manned flight to the moon. But the Soviet flight into space, unlike the American flight to the moon, does not raise so many questions, and experts have not a shadow of a doubt that this flight really took place.

Population of the country

Every decade the Soviet country showed population growth. And this despite the multimillion-dollar victims of the Second World War. The key to increasing the birth rate was the social guarantees of the state. The diagram below shows data on the population of the USSR as a whole and the RSFSR in particular.

You should also pay attention to the dynamics of urban development. The Soviet Union was becoming an industrial, industrial country, the population of which gradually moved from the countryside to the cities.

By the time the USSR was formed, there were 2 million-plus cities in Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg). By the time the country collapsed, there were already 12 such cities: Moscow, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Omsk, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Ufa and Perm. The union republics also had cities with a million inhabitants: Kyiv, Tashkent, Baku, Kharkov, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Donetsk.

USSR map

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed in 1991, when the leaders of the Soviet republics announced their secession from the USSR in the white forest. Thus, all the Republics gained independence and self-sufficiency. The opinion of the Soviet people was not taken into account. The referendum, held just before the collapse of the USSR, showed that the vast majority of people declared that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics should be preserved. A handful of people, headed by the chairman of the Central Committee of the CPSU, MS Gorbachev, decided the fate of the country and the people. It was this decision that plunged Russia into the harsh reality of the "nineties". This is how the Russian Federation was born. Below is a map of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Economy

The economy of the USSR was unique. For the first time, a system was demonstrated to the world in which the focus was not on profit, but on public goods and employee incentives. In general, the economy of the Soviet Union can be divided into 3 stages:

1. Before Stalin. We are not talking about any economy here - the revolution has just died down in the country, there is a war going on. No one seriously thought about economic development, the Bolsheviks held power.
2. Stalinist model of the economy. Stalin implemented a unique idea of ​​the economy, which made it possible to raise the USSR to the level of the leading countries of the world. The essence of his approach is total labor and the correct “pyramid of distribution of funds”. Proper distribution of funds - when workers receive no less than managers. Moreover, the basis of the salary was bonuses for achieving results and bonuses for innovation. The essence of such bonuses is as follows - 90% was received by the employee himself, and 10% was divided between the team, shop, and bosses. But the worker himself received the main money. Therefore, there was a desire to work.
3. After Stalin. After Stalin's death, Khrushchev reversed the pyramid of the economy, after which a recession began and a gradual drop in growth rates. Under Khrushchev and after him, an almost capitalist model was formed, when managers received much more workers, especially in the form of bonuses. Bonuses were now divided differently: 90% for the boss and 10% for everyone else.

The Soviet economy is unique because before the war it actually managed to rise from the ashes after the civil war and revolution, and this happened in just 10-12 years. Therefore, when today economists from different countries and journalists say that it is impossible to change the economy in 1 election term (5 years), they simply do not know history. Two Stalinist five-year plans turned the USSR into a modern power, which had a foundation for development. Moreover, the basis for all this was laid in 2-3 years of the first five-year plan.

I also suggest looking at the chart below, which presents data on the average annual growth of the economy as a percentage. Everything we talked about above is reflected in this diagram.

Union republics

The new period of the country's development was due to the fact that several republics existed within the framework of a single state of the USSR. Thus, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had the following composition: Russian SSR, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, Moldavian SSR, Uzbek SSR, Kazakh SSR, Georgian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Latvian SSR, Kirghiz SSR, Tajik SSR, Armenian SSR, Turkmen SSR, Estonian SSR.

Over the seven decades of its existence, the USSR drank a lot of hardship, but there were times in the history of the Soviet Union that the citizens of the USSR remembered as happy.

Brezhnev stagnation

Despite the negative name of the era, people remember this time with good nostalgia. The dawn of stagnation came in the 1970s. It was a time of stability - there were no major upheavals. The stagnation coincided with an improvement in relations between the US and the USSR - the threat of nuclear war faded into the background. This period is also associated with the establishment of relative economic prosperity, which affected the well-being of Soviet citizens as well. In 1980, the USSR took first place in Europe and second in the world in terms of industrial and agricultural production. In addition, the Soviet Union became the only self-sufficient country in the world that could develop solely thanks to its own natural resources.

It was at the end of the 1960s - the beginning of the 1980s that the peak of the achievements of the Soviet Union in science, space, education, culture and sports fell. But the main thing was that for the first time in the history of the USSR people felt that the state was taking care of them.
The apogee of the era was the Moscow Olympic Games, which took place in 1980, and its symbol (and a bad omen) is the Olympic Bear flying away in balloons at the closing ceremony of the Olympics.

Thaw

The forerunner of this era was the death of Stalin in March 1953. The government of the USSR closed several fabricated cases and thus stopped a new wave of repressions. However, the speech of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, in which he debunked the cult of Stalin, can be considered the real beginning of the “thaw”. After that, the country breathed more freely, a period of relative democracy began, in which citizens were not afraid to go to jail for telling a political anecdote. During this period, there was an upsurge in Soviet culture, from which the ideological shackles were removed. It was during the “Khrushchev thaw” that the talents of poets Robert Rozhdestvensky, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina, writers Viktor Astafiev and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, theater directors Oleg Efremov and Galina Volchek, film directors Eldar Ryazanov, Marlen Khutsiev, Leonid Gaidai were revealed.

Publicity

Now it is customary to scold Mikhail Gorbachev, but the period 1989 to 1991 can be called a standard in terms of democracy. Probably not a single, even the most liberal country, had such a level of freedom of speech as the Soviet Union in its last years of existence - the leaders of the USSR were criticized both from high tribunes and at millions of rallies. In the era of glasnost, a Soviet person was literally bombarded with such a volume of revelations about the history of the country in which he lives, which in a matter of months devalued the cult of the October Revolution, Lenin, the Communist Party, Brezhnev and other leaders of the USSR. People sensed that turning times were coming and looked to the future with enthusiasm. Alas, times have come even more difficult.

On the eve of the Stalinist terror

“Life has become better, comrades. Life has become more fun. And when life is fun, the work is argued ... ". These words were uttered by Joseph Stalin in 1935 at the First All-Union Conference of Workers and Workers - Stakhanovites. Later, Stalin was accused of cynicism, but there was some truth in the statement of the leader, whose cult was just beginning to take shape. After the industrialization carried out in the USSR, by the mid-1930s, the standard of living of citizens improved markedly: wages increased, the rationing system for food was canceled, and the assortment of goods in stores increased markedly. Cheerful mood was supported by the Soviet cinema: for example, the comedy "Jolly Fellows" with Leonid Utyosov was filmed in the best traditions of Hollywood. However, the "fun life" ended in 1937, with the onset of mass repressions.

Wave of enthusiasm after the Civil War

After the end of the Civil War and the restoration of the country, Soviet Russia was swept by a wave of enthusiasm. The Bolsheviks announced that they were open to all advanced ideas, from psychoanalysis to industrial design. It was during this period that the dawn of the Soviet avant-garde in art, architecture and theater falls. Rumors flew to Europe and America that the Bolsheviks were not so bloodthirsty, and most importantly very advanced. Emigrants began to return to the country, as well as creative people and scientists from all over the world to come to realize their ideas. For them, the USSR became a real creative incubator, an experimental laboratory.
True, not all ideas were supported by the Bolsheviks: for example, representatives of the most radical areas of psychoanalysis found support in Soviet Russia, and at the same time the whole world of Russian philosophy was forcibly expelled from the country. Most of all at this time, the Orthodox Church was unlucky, on which cruel persecution and repression were unleashed. True, the bulk of the citizens of the USSR supported this campaign against religion. "Everything old had to die in order to reveal the dear new."

"Internal emigration" in the late 1960s

In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU thanks to an organized conspiracy of his "party comrades." With his displacement, the "thaw" also ended. Many were waiting for the restoration of Stalinism, but it never happened. Although it was now impossible to talk about mass Stalinist repressions in public. During this period, when all social informal life froze, a new trend arose, which eventually embraced millions of people - the “movement of hikers”. Instead of relaxing in the Black Sea resorts, Soviet intellectuals packed their backpacks and went on long hikes - conquer mountain peaks, descend into caves, explore unknown places in the taiga. It was probably the most romantic time in the history of the USSR. The geologist has become a "cult" profession, and mountaineering has become a "cult" sport. In just a few years, the USSR has become the largest number of people with a category in sports tourism. In large cities, there was practically no family in which there was no tent, kayak and camping kettle. So, the Soviet intelligentsia found, in “singing to the guitar by the fire in the wilderness” its ecological niche, where there was no pressure from countless communist slogans that had long lost their meaning, hung on almost all the buildings of the Soviet Union.

The deeper into the past they go from us Soviet times, the more they are covered with a thick layer of oblivion, and therefore no one tells today's children about the happy and prosperous time in which their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers grew up.

Meanwhile, exactly Soviet times and were for us a time of equal opportunity. AT Soviet times the son of a milkmaid and a tractor driver or the daughter of a steelworker and a cook could enter Moscow State University. Education was free, and students received a scholarship. At the same time, there were no current pseudo-universities, which now serve only as an excuse from the army.

In Soviet times, the son of a milkmaid and a tractor driver or the daughter of a steelworker and a cook could enter a prestigious university.

And the children dreamed of becoming not bankers, but astronauts.

Yes, and in the army itself inSoviet timesit was prestigious to serve, and not to serve shamefully, and not a single decent girl would “walk” with a young man who had dropped out of the army.

The girls are in Soviet times in their absolute majority were decent. Until the very wedding with the suitors, they did not sleep, but “walked”. Smoking girls were a rarity and were severely condemned by public opinion.

Soviet schoolchildren had access not only to school, but also to extracurricular education. Both of these were free. Schoolchildren attended circles, sports sections, studied at the stations of young technicians and young naturalists. Much attention was paid to the patriotic education of the younger generation. The word "patriot" was not abusive - every Soviet person had to be a patriot.
But, most importantly, our man did not have his main current shortcoming - lack of money. On the contrary, there was so much money that there were not enough goods - industry and transport did not have time to satisfy effective demand. Unlike their Western contemporaries, the Soviet people did not pay the mortgage and did not spend on rent - housing was free. The Soviet people paid purely symbolic taxes, including, however, a tax on childlessness, which stimulated the birth rate, and utility bills for a two-room apartment amounted to 9 rubles 61 kopecks - 1816 rubles in 2013 money.
A ride in the metro or bus cost 5 kopecks (9 rubles 50 kopecks at today's exchange rate), and in a tram or trolleybus - 3 kopecks (57 kopecks in today's money). Lunch in the student canteen fit into one ruble (189 rubles today). An American gave 56 cents (39.5 kopecks) for a loaf of bread, and a Russian paid 13 kopecks, that is, three times more. On the phone, a Russian called for two kopecks, and an American for 25 cents (17.67 kopecks), that is, he paid 8.837 times more for a phone call.

AT Soviet times there was no unemployment. Moreover, those who were unemployed were imprisoned for parasitism.

AT Soviet times huge amounts of money were invested in agriculture.

Most of the products on the shelves were of domestic production. Some were tasty and safe for health.

In each provincial village there were feldsher-obstetric stations.

And to take a difficult birth, the doctor could fly even by helicopter.

Soviet pediatrics vigilantly followed children's health.

All children received the necessary vaccinations on time, and preventive medical examinations were carried out in schools and kindergartens.

Any work in Soviet times was held in high esteem, and a working person enjoyed no less respect than a mental worker.

In Soviet times, the birth rate was encouraged in every possible way, and families with many children enjoyed state support. They were allocated houses and multi-room apartments, and the head of the family received RAFIK from the state for free.

Settlements remote from communications were served by small aircraft.

Soviet time chronologically covers the period from the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in 1917 and until the collapse in 1991. During these decades, a socialist system was established in the state and at the same time an attempt was made to establish communism. In the international arena, the USSR led the socialist camp of countries that also took a course towards building communism.

And the subsequent radical breakdown of the social, economic, political and cultural spheres of society completely changed the face of the former Russian Empire. The so-called dictatorship of the proletariat led to the total domination of one party, whose decisions were not contested.

The nationalization of production was carried out in the country and large private property was prohibited. At the same time, in the Soviet era in the 1920s, the New Economic Policy (NEP) was carried out, which contributed to some revival of trade and production. Photos from the Soviet era in the 1920s are an excellent source for the history of the period under review, as they demonstrate the profound changes that took place in society after the demise of the Russian Empire. However, this period did not last long: already at the end of the decade, the party headed for the centralization of the economic sphere.

At the beginning of its existence, the state paid great attention to ideology. Party educational programs were aimed at the formation of a new person in the Soviet era. The period before the 1930s, however, can be considered a transitional one, since at that time some freedom was still preserved in society: for example, discussions on issues of science, art, and literature were allowed.

The era of Stalinism

Since the 1930s, a totalitarian system has finally established itself in the country. absolute domination of the Communist Party, collectivization and industrialization, socialist ideology - these are the main phenomena of the era. In the political sphere, the sole rule of Stalin was established, whose authority was indisputable, and decisions were not subject to discussion, let alone doubt.

The economy also underwent fundamental changes that became significant in the Soviet era. The years of industrialization and collectivization led to the creation of large-scale industrial production in the USSR, the rapid development of which largely led to victory in the Great Patriotic War and brought the country to the rank of leading world powers. Photos from the Soviet era in the 1930s demonstrate the success in creating heavy industry in the country. But at the same time, agriculture, the countryside, the countryside were weakened and needed serious reform.

in 1950-1960

After Stalin's death in 1953, the need for change in all spheres of society became obvious. Soviet time in the specified decade entered the historical science under the name "thaw". In February 1956, he was debunked and this was a signal for serious reforms.

A wide rehabilitation of those who suffered during the difficult years of repression was carried out. Power went to the weakening in the management of the economy. So, in 1957, the industrial ministries were liquidated and instead of them, territorial departments were created to control production. State committees for industrial management also began to work actively. However, the reforms had a short-term effect and subsequently only increased the administrative confusion.

In agriculture, the government took a number of measures to increase its productivity (writing off debts from collective farms, financing them, developing virgin lands). At the same time, the liquidation of the MTS and the unjustified enlargement of collective farms had a negative impact on the development of the countryside. The Soviet era of 1950 - the first half of the 1960s was a period of improvement in the life of Soviet society, but at the same time revealed a number of new problems.

USSR in 1970-1980

Board L.I. Brezhnev was marked by new reforms in the agricultural and industrial sectors of the economy. The authorities again returned to the sectoral principle of enterprise management, however, they made some changes to the production process. Enterprises were transferred to self-financing, the assessment of their economic activity was now carried out not by gross, but by sold products. This measure was supposed to increase the interest of direct producers in increasing and improving production.

Also, funds from private profits created economic incentive funds. In addition, elements of wholesale trade were introduced. However, this reform did not affect the foundations of the USSR economy and therefore gave only a temporary effect. The country still existed due to the extensive development path and lagged behind in scientific and technical terms from the developed countries of Western Europe and the USA.

State in 1980-1990

During the years of perestroika, a serious attempt was made to reform the economy of the Soviet Union. In 1985, the government took a course to accelerate economic development. The main emphasis was not on the scientific and technical improvement of production. The goal of the reform was to achieve a world-class economy. The priority is the development of domestic engineering, where the main investments were poured. However, the attempt to reform the economy through command-and-control measures failed.

A number of political reforms were carried out, in particular, the government eliminated the dictates of the party, introduced a two-tier system of legislative power in the country. The Supreme Soviet became a permanently functioning parliament, the post of President of the USSR was approved, and democratic freedoms were proclaimed. At the same time, the government introduced the principle of publicity, i.e. openness and accessibility of information. However, the attempt to reform the established administrative-command system ended in failure and led to a comprehensive crisis in society, which caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The period from 1917-1991 is a whole era not only for Russia, but for the whole world. Our country has undergone deep internal and external upheavals, and despite this has become one of the leading powers in the Soviet era. The history of these decades influenced the political structure not only in Europe, where a socialist camp was formed under the leadership of the USSR, but also on events in the world as a whole. Therefore, it is not surprising that the phenomenon of the Soviet era is of such interest to both domestic and foreign researchers.

The patient's face becomes peaceful if he has successfully given an enema.
(author's observation in a medical institution)

Today, the faces of people in our cities and villages most often bear the stamp of concern, anxiety, mixed with a grimace of anger and aggression. Take a closer look, there are practically no good-natured faces, as before, say, in the eighties of the last century. Those people, as far as I can remember, were happy with their albeit dim, but simple happiness. Even if one can say so: “stagnant” happiness (from the name of that era). I remember those faces of ordinary people, even though I staggered around like a disheveled boy.

And now - in our days. Here is a fat man stomping, “two inches from the pot”, a real “bun”. He breathes heavily, rushing after him a four-legged friend - a dog. Puffs and the peasant, and the animal. In Soviet times, such fat men were distinguished by their natural kindness. And now the paunch with hatred "yapps" at his little dog: "Where are you going under my feet, bitch!" A snarl of anger was imprinted on his face. The doggie, because of the owner’s scolding, carries the same evil expression of the muzzle to those around him. The faces of people and even animals, it seems to me, have changed radically these days. What generates the aforementioned hatred and such a cruel expression of faces right now? Why didn't this happen before? Here are some postulates, seemingly unshakable, and other points that partly explain the reason for the change in the expression of people's faces.

1. My home is my castle

Previously, every Soviet person knew that, no matter how “shitty” he was, he would always have a roof over his head. Now people see that the postulate “my house is my fortress” no longer works. Any cunning combination of "black" realtors, sometimes behind your back, and you are already deprived of housing! Not without the help of interested officials. This is followed by a kick, I'm sorry, "under the ass", and you are a bum. In Soviet times, there were no homeless people. Everyone relied, albeit sometimes tiny, but a corner. And when a person has an awareness that the state takes care of him, then his face is straightened. I think the feeling of fear of losing HOME, cozy, dear, is one of the reasons for the anxious, aggressive faces of the beginning of the 21st century.

2. Be healthy, Soviet citizen!

In Soviet times, the state inspired a person with the postulate: take care of your health! Don't you want to? Then, get an order for the entire enterprise and go to the doctors forcibly. Mass, total medical examinations were carried out among all segments of the population. The level of knowledge of medicine of ordinary doctors from the clinic sometimes amazed even foreign colleagues. You could come with a complaint about your throat, but thanks to the attentive eye of the doctor, the medical examination data, some other ailments were found in you and they immediately began to treat them. Before entering kindergarten - go to the medical examination! Before school - again for medical examination.

Before the army, entering a job - if you please, be sure to go through all the doctors on a long list, and pass a bunch of tests. If you don't want it, we'll make it! The postulate that the builder of a communist society must be healthy was propagated everywhere. Indeed, to implement the ideas of Marx, healthy individuals are needed, and not rotten drug addicts. Now - everything is different. Why does the builder of a capitalist society have to be a goner? Why does he have to sip beer in buckets and always have a smoke and a joint on hand? I don't understand this policy. Where did the mass medical examinations at enterprises go?

3. Food. Water

The quality of drinking water and food products of those years was incomparable with what is on our shelves and splashing in bottles now. Yes, products then, in the eighties, were almost all in short supply, but what people ate and drank was subject to strict control for compliance with GOSTs. The assortment was limited, but if you bought sausage, then it was SAUSAGE, and not a stick of incomprehensible ingredients. High-quality, albeit simple food is gratefully accepted by the body and adequately processed.

Therefore, the slagging of human organisms in those years was much lower. Cleaner metabolism - a happier face, easier gait. Remember the most popular song of Soviet times by Yuri Antonov with the words:
"Flying gait you came out of May
And disappeared from the eyes in the veil of January.
This is how Soviet girls moved. And now, with a hamburger in one hand, a can of beer in the other, a cigarette between her teeth, the girl rolls out into the street in a panty miniskirt, where she is overcome by shortness of breath. And her face is thirsty for oxygen, it frowns, but does not correspond to the flying gait.

4. A person's feeling of himself as part of a huge powerful whole. Community way of life.

The Soviet system, the state, as a method of organizing space and human resources at that time was approaching a high level of compliance with the spirit of the people. Community, family, if you like, the feeling of belonging to the largest and most powerful (albeit only in some areas) country in the world - all this resonated with peace and contentment in the attitude of the Soviet person. The socialism of the 1970s and 1980s, oddly enough, for all the atheism of Marx's teachings, came closest to the Christian worldview. Collective farms, state farms, cooperatives, design bureaus, research institutes, factories - all these were essentially communal organizations that are close to the way of life of our ancestors.

5. Financial stability of the family.

Every inhabitant of the Soviet country in "stagnant" times knew that he would have an advance and a salary. He will give so much for utility bills, so much for a cooperative contribution, so much for a garage, etc. But this amount will remain for food, clothing, entertainment, a summer residence, and so on. They lived then, for the most part, not richly, but that was a very decent, worthy socialist poverty. Now we see either flashy, flashy wealth, with yachts and Bentleys, or miserable, true poverty.

6. Labor.

In Soviet times, if you look at things sensibly, everyone found a use for themselves, at least some kind of work. Sometimes the most simple, even seemingly meaningless, at first glance. Another thing is more important: the postulate was unshakable that every inhabitant should be provided with work. Moreover, the state insisted on your work: if you live in the USSR, then if you please, benefit the country! Do you prefer to be idle? Then you will be attracted for such a Trutnev existence. "Work - ennobles a person!". Now, many are hanging around idle and anger, including on their faces, is seen more and more clearly.

7. Fear of being unemployed

We are talking about ordinary people. The nouveau riche worry less about being unemployed. Our real middle class is now already tiny, but it is the representative of this conscious and creative stratum of the population that is most vulnerable in terms of job stability. He can, in principle, be dismissed politely / rudely, at any time. Let's climb a little higher: it is quite easy for an entrepreneur to lose a business built with such difficulty today. It is enough for a more aggressive and powerful competitor, who has enlisted the support of the bureaucracy, to "keep an eye" on your business, and - write - it's gone! Almost the entire country is at risk of being left with nothing, and even worse - hanging out at the dumpster along with other similar poor fellows. Does it add a taste to the joy of life? By no means! From this sensation, people's faces become sour.

8. Literacy

Now a generation has grown up, many of whose representatives do not really know how to read and write. Especially if the guys come from the outback. And this illiterate army also rushed to the cities in search of a better life. What's going on with education? You can be a “dunduk - dunduk”, but if you regularly pay for tuition at a university, no one will expel you! "Triplets" are still provided to you.

For if you are driven out of the "building of science", then by inertia, the money of your parents for study will also disappear from the cash desk of the institute. The building of science and knowledge will have nothing to exist on! But if you are “seven spans in the forehead”, smart guy / smart girl, but you didn’t find the “dough” for training - if you please, get a pendal, and roll head over heels from the selection committee. Preferably to the West. For your smart brain convolutions do not pay salaries to teachers.

Price list: want to become a bachelor? Please! Thirty thousand USD Let the knowledge you have with the "gulkin's beak", it does not matter. Bachelor - not glamorous? But for sure, it looks like a sale of groceries in a general store. Doesn't sound. And here's the MASTER... After all, it resonates: MASTER! MASTER of white and black magic, for example. Or - MASTER in Economics. Excuse me, but the masters are now for fifty thousand USD.

The school is not respected at all. She is being walked around in droves. And what a huge number of children do not know, and do not want to know, what kind of thing such a school is! If you go there now, then just hang out. Smoke a joint. With the TV series "School" to compare and once again decide that the school - "sucks" and only cripples the child's psyche.

Or crawl into the classroom to beat up an elderly teacher, as was the case near Irkutsk. Or film the bullying of weaker students, and upload the video to the Internet. Who needs knowledge for such things? Here you should be able to press the "record" button, and put out the "bulls" of thin cigarettes on the weak. Accordingly, we also have faces in the style of “Tear-u-u!”

Libraries are a special item. In the distant Soviet times, almost every secluded corner, almost in tiny villages, had its own, albeit miniature, library. The library is the starting point of culture in the countryside and in small towns! Whole villages are disappearing now (there are no people), let alone libraries. Hence the cultural face of an ordinary village dweller disappears.

9. Creativity

When a person creates, his face changes. If many people create in a territorial and ethnic community, the face of the nation is transformed. In Soviet times, scientists, doctors, historians and other creative people made such discoveries that they amazed the whole world. A phenomenal number of ordinary Soviet citizens were engaged in creative search. Even the joke was this: “There is no one to work in the country!” Everyone comes up with something. They invent, compose, rhyme, dance, embroider, act, weave beads. So good! Because of that, there were incomparably more joyful, creative, bright faces on the streets in those years than now.

Look: earlier such a super-popular magazine was printed - "Technology of Youth", where our Soviet "Kulibins" shared their ideas, experience, drawings. Showed how things could be improved. How to solder a domestic receiver so that it catches frequencies no worse, or even better, than the Japanese one. How to assemble one or another useful, and sometimes not very, but wonderful mechanism or unit in terms of its set of functions. How to create an outlandish sculpture from a broken stool and much, much more. I repeat, an incredible number of people in the USSR came up with something.

And the cunning and far-sighted Japanese were already buying up copies of the Techniques of Youth magazine and similar publications in the USSR with might and main. After that, our own inventions, published for all-Union familiarization, surfaced in the form of mechanisms, units, devices, etc., embodied in reality. in the Land of the Rising Sun. That's how appreciated and still appreciate our inventors!

So, people in the Soviet era gravitated toward being creative. Now creativity has changed: everyone wants to make money. What is better? It's not the same for everybody. And yet, a thought from the cycle “How to make money?” leaves its heavy imprint on the faces of our contemporaries among ordinary passers-by. But not only them. Businessmen. Bankers. politicians. Almost everyone.

10. Entertainment

When someone entertains you, and if you are not an insensitive "doldon", then your face sparkles with smiles. Leisure, rest, really affect facial expressions. It's only at first glance, it seems that there was less entertainment in the Soviet Union than it is now. Remember the honorary title of the most reading nation. For a ticket to the theater, to the exhibition, to the stadium, people stood in queues for hours. The number of museums has skyrocketed.

But the most basic feature - all cultural events were available and the audience was pleased with real artists, and not plywood performers or unfortunate comedians. Now the faces of today's young people are often not at all clouded by the seal of intellect because they do not go to cultural institutions. But in a nightclub - please! And there, after all, not dietary meals and drinks are served, and not aspirin for the sick. Recently they showed how the service for combating drug trafficking conducted a raid at night in one of the clubs in Moscow. Syringes on the floor, torn wrappers from "wheels" (pills used in psychiatry), ecstasy and so on.

A THIRD of young people were found to be drug intoxicated. The expression on their faces is blank. Running pupils. Both boys and girls have difficulty understanding what they are being asked. And so - every third! This is not dancing in a village club under the Soviet regime. Then try, appear in this form. Instantly sent to the police station. Then - for treatment. What kind of soulful faces are there if every third person in a particular club is inadequate!

In conclusion, I will suggest that people in recent years have thrown off the mask of hypocrisy of the Soviet era and have shown their true colors. That is, freedom not only untied the hands and tongues (perestroika, glasnost), but also revealed to the world the true face of the layman. Is it so? Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer here. But the fact that there were hundreds, thousands of times more happy faces in the early eighties of the last century is a fact. Moreover, many of today's embittered faces sparkled with joy and quiet happiness three decades ago. Yes, times were different. Yes, those people were young then. But why now the young and young have a completely different expression on their faces? The above ten points, I hope, shed some light on this mystery.