Soviet economics and quality - why does our market succumb to them?
Among the myths spread by anti-Soviet myths about the horrors and decadence of the Soviet Union, a special place is occupied by the stories that the USSR did not produce quality products. Allegedly, they used Soviet goods and products only because there were no others, and it was enough to appear imported - all the Soviet people stopped buying and producing.
I will not go into the opposite direction and argue that all Soviet products were good, but there were quality goods and products. And they were not so few.
1. Food
Boiled sausage, milk sausages, ice cream, bread, cheese, butter and much more, including candy and chocolate. All this was of high quality, because sausages and sausages were made from meat, cheese and butter from milk, bread from high-quality flour, and chocolate from cocoa.
Today, manufacturers, trying to reduce costs, go to different tricks, as a result of the output are solid surrogates.
Sausage can not only relieve soy, but also made from imported frozen meat, which sailed from some of Argentina.
Palm oil, which began to be used after the introduction of sanctions on European agricultural products - is generally harmful to health. And it is now used everywhere.
Bread in the USSR was of high quality, because the flour was not made up with anything and used the best types of flour. Today, the most qualitative grain of Russia is exported, and bread is baked from low-grade flour, and yes even with improvers.
And Soviet chocolate was of high quality, because cocoa was not saved. The countries of Latin America, to whom the USSR supplied equipment and armaments, were paying off cocoa supplies with the Union.
The mass of products manufactured today is styled as Soviet - precisely because high-quality Soviet products remain in people's memory.
And I gave an example with food, because they occupy a central place in the consumption system. Most people spend half their income on food. And we used to eat every day, three times. Quality food is not only taste and good mood, but also health - the most important component of quality life.
However, not only food products in the USSR were of high quality.
2. Soviet cinema
I have already written about this more than once: Soviet cinema successfully competes with modern, and we continue to watch good old films - comedies, tragedies, films about war. The list of Soviet films that are still shown on television can be compiled into several pages.
And why does TV continue to play Soviet films? Yes, because they are watched - and more willingly than modern film production. This is a quality indicator.
It may be objected that cinema is not exactly a commodity.
Product! A very good product! Even this term is - film production.
If the cinema were not a product, money would not be invested in its production, but they would be invested. And in the US, film production is a very important source of income.
Separate conversation deserve cartoons, which are not just a spectacle for children, but also perform an educational function, which is also very important for improving the quality of life.
If a person is not well educated and educated from early childhood, then he himself will not live a quality life, and will not let others - will turn into a drug addict and an antisocial element, poisoning the lives of others.
But the list of high-quality Soviet products does not end there.
3. Education
Some will say that I cheat and education is definitely not a product.
Product! Very much a product! Do not believe - ask any certified manager or economist. Any trainings, courses, seminars - educational products. Higher education, vocational and secondary education is also a comprehensive educational product.
The quality of life depends on the quality of education, because those who have received a good education have more opportunities to find a good job and receive a higher salary.
And the quality of Soviet education was very high - this was recognized even in the USA. Diplomas of Soviet universities were accepted in the United States and Europe without retake exams. And President Kennedy openly declared that the Soviet Union had won the space race at the school desk.
So: bread, cinema and education went over - is there anything else? There is!
4. Books and magazines
Books and magazines, depending on the subject, perform both educational and entertaining functions. But at the same time they stand somewhat apart.
This class of products includes Soviet textbooks, which are still used in many universities.
Soviet literature has been translated into other languages and is published abroad. Therefore, Soviet books are not just products for internal use, but also export goods, and one of the most successful ones.
If Soviet bread is in the past, and Soviet cinema is watched mainly in the post-Soviet space, books and textbooks of Soviet authors are still published in different countries.
And not only Soviet books and textbooks were of high quality content, but also magazines. Or do you want to say that "Technology - Youth" and "Science and Life" were of poor quality? How many more interesting magazines are published today, even network ones?
However, we proceed to the next product.
5. Football, hockey and other sports
You say that this is not a product?
If football is not a product, then why has PSG paid Barcelona 220 million dollars for the transfer to Nani?
These are products too! And not just products, but superfoods that are sold in several forms at once - in the form of tickets, broadcast rights, advertising in stadiums, T-shirts, scarves and other symbols, as well as in the form of transfers, one of which I mentioned.
True, there was no transfer market in the USSR, but stadium tickets were sold. And on TV, football with hockey was shown - albeit free of charge, but this does not negate the fact that the broadcast was the same product as the movie - a media product.
At the same time, a high level of Soviet sports again influenced the quality of life. First of all, like any high-quality media product, sports broadcasts raised the spirits and promoted rest. Secondly, the sporting success of clubs and teams attracted children and young people to sports, and this is health and a decrease in the level of crime, which again affects the quality of life.
Was the Soviet sport quality? Of course. And not only hockey. Even football in the USSR was much better than today. The highest achievements of the national football team fall on the Soviet time - a victory at the Olympics 1956 of the year and the European Championships of 1960 of the year.
In Soviet times, we have to play our famous goalkeeper Lev Yashin - the only goalkeeper in stories football, received the Golden Ball.
And it turned out so interesting - there was less money in Soviet football and hockey than today, there was no transfer market at all, and the quality of the output product was higher. However, the exact same story with books and cinema - Soviet writers and directors received less than Fyodor Bondarchuk and Daria Dontsova, but they shot and wrote better.
Someone will say that everything is clear about Soviet cinema and education, nobody argues with their quality, as well as the quality of Soviet bread, hockey and chocolate.
But there were no other quality products - televisions, tape recorders, iPhones and iPads, clothes and shoes, cars, decoration materials, etc.
But is it? Maybe it was you who hurried to forget them, yielding to the popular point of view that the Soviet technology was never competitive?
I will give examples.
1. Cars
The Soviet car industry is considered to be almost the most striking example of the lag of Soviet civil engineering from the foreign one. Here Mercedes is yes, and Zhiguli is a bucket with bolts.
However, many people forget that the Soviet auto industry is not only a Lada. There was such a car as Victory, which was not inferior to its foreign contemporaries, and even surpassed them in some characteristics.
The Moskvich car in the 60 and 70 years was also considered very worthy. It even held a rally.
And the Lada themselves at the time of its appearance were quite a modern car. It's no secret that the first-model Zhiguli is the Fiat 124, which the USSR bought from the Italians. But the VAZ was not an exact copy of Fiat, but its modernization, which, according to many experts, was very successful. On road performance, the VAZ 2101 was superior to the Fiat 124, it had a reinforced suspension and increased ground clearance - this was done to improve the permeability that is important for operation in the Russian conditions.
Thus, the owners of the first Zhiguli became the owners of not just a modern European car, but its improved version.
In addition, there was still such a car as the NIWA - also not bad for its time, in fact the Soviet SUV. Some appreciate this car to this day, and at the time of the appearance of the NIWA, the more enjoyed success.
And about the nine, too, do not forget - after the release of this car quickly gained popularity and was in demand even after the collapse of the USSR. In Ukraine, it was assembled from vehicle sets up to the 2011 year. And it is in a market economy!
Kamaz, on which post-Soviet Russia has repeatedly won Dakar (14 times!), Competing with Mercedes (5 wins), Iveco and other Tatras - this is a Soviet development. Of course, modernized KAMAZ vehicles participate in the rally, but the foundation itself and the plant itself were built in the USSR.
However, not a single auto industry ...
2. Cameras, watches, aircraft
The most famous series of Soviet cameras is FED. The fact that these were high-quality devices, will confirm any experienced photographer who shot on film.
Yes, the FED is a copy of the German Leica II apparatus. But the copy was only the first FED, which was produced from 1934 to 1955 year, and after that modifications and completely new models were produced (FED-2 and FED-3).
Today Rolex, Tissot and other Sweats are well known to everyone, but in the Soviet Union they also produced high-quality watches. I will not undertake to compare now the watches of the Soviet factories with the Swiss ones, but the fact that Soviet citizens were provided with watches and these watches showed the correct time is a fact.
The quality of the aircraft is not only the comfort of passengers in the flight, but also safety. And the price of the ticket, which is important.
I can notice that the Tu series aircraft were distinguished by a high accident rate and cannot be counted among the high-quality equipment. However, Tu was not the only ruler, there were two more rulers - Il and An.
IL-86 - one of the highest quality passenger aircraft of its time and in general in history aviation. An series aircraft were also very good.
The myth that the Soviet industry did not produce high-quality technology, based on several factors.
Soviet products are usually compared with the best examples of the entire Western world, which was much larger in terms of economy and population. Western Europe, the United States and Japan in total is almost a billion people. Soviet Union - 250 million. Agree, not quite correct comparison turns out. Why not compare the products of the USSR with France alone. Or with a single UK. The result is a strictly opposite picture - in the USSR more diverse products were produced than in a single European country.
Accents in the Soviet economy were shifted from consumer goods to industrial ones, so most of the quality products accounted for not what could be bought in stores, but what worked at the enterprises - trucks, helicopters, airplanes, industrial equipment. Most of the high-quality Soviet technology ordinary people have not seen, it was not in the shops, because she worked in manufacturing and in the field of transport.
That is why the steady myth arose that the Soviet equipment was of poor quality and could not withstand competition.
Soviet technology ceased to withstand competition when it was no longer developed and produced.
However, something is still being produced. For example, helicopters. And Kamaz. And the president flies the IL-96. All this is Soviet products, which turned out to be not just quality - it remains high quality and competitive after 25 years!
Are there many similar samples in the world?
There are quite a few such examples, but I will not do that, that’s not the goal.
I do not claim that all Soviet-made goods were of higher quality than imported ones. Goods were different - they were good, they were not very.
But the 3 / 4 products that made up a person’s life and determined the quality of life were high-quality in Soviet times. Moreover, in 50-e, 60-e and 70-e years, this figure reached 90%. The fall of the index began in the 80-ies, in a period of intensive destruction of the economy and the growing backlog. But this period is not indicative and typical for the USSR as a whole.
And now, attention is the question. When 75-90% products of the economy are high-quality and competitive - is it necessary to destroy the entire economy completely and transfer it to a different model?
No, there was no such need.
To fill the lack of quality and quantity of 10-25% of the product range - it was necessary to simply develop the economy that already existed, correct the deficiencies, optimize, eliminate the causes of the deficit and low quality in certain positions.
Instead, the Soviet leadership destroyed the entire economy as a whole and transferred it to a market model, in which Russia in general stopped producing most of the product range, and the remaining types of products fell in quality (with the exception of weapons, helicopter and astronautics, preserved in its present form).
Here you have a market economy in action - before the 75% of the total product was distinguished by high quality, today it is hardly 10%.
A question to all supporters of the market economy: if the market is so good and leads to an increase in the quality of products at the expense of producers' competition, why did the quality of foodstuffs fall after the liquidation of the USSR?
Buyers do not want to eat quality bread?
Why practically all the equipment produced by Russia are remnants of Soviet developments? Why did they stop producing IL-86 - one of the best aircraft in the history of aviation?
Why was Soviet education the best in the world if it was free?
And why do the Dakar Rally win Kamaz, and not Mercedes? How is this combined with the thesis that the market economy is better than planned?
If you are a supporter of a market economy, answer at least one of these questions.
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