Memories vs statistical compilations
The past is gone. People grow old and their homes grow old. I thought for a long time about what photographs to illustrate this material. And I decided that it was necessary to show the ruins of that era. That is, in Soviet times these houses looked much better. But time has passed, and today they look like this, and it is no longer possible to save them... It’s easier to demolish them... For example, a “green house”. Tell me, who is living in it? And, probably, he is also listed according to some statistics. They live in it.
Leftists still cling
for numbers and sayings,
like a crab, without understanding,
that they lost
on an image-sensitive field.
Knell wardenheart
for numbers and sayings,
like a crab, without understanding,
that they lost
on an image-sensitive field.
Knell wardenheart
People and story. Not long ago, an article by a novice author appeared on VO in defense of... the achievements of socialism in our country. And I didn’t even say anything bad about her at first, because every person has the right to their opinion. The only surprise was that it uses a large amount of statistical literature as sources, but there are no references to either archival materials or dissertations.
This is a very serious question, you can’t just throw yourself at it like that.
And then I talked with the author and found out that, having defended his PhD thesis in a field far from historical science, he decided... to make his contribution to... “defense.” And, again, I didn’t see anything wrong with this either. Well, you can’t prohibit a biologist from being interested in philosophy, or a programmer from being interested in history.
There are successful examples of a “fresh look”. But then it turned out that, having taken on such, I would say, an important topic, the man did not bother visiting the party archives, and did not even read a single dissertation on scientific communism.
How so? After all, statistics are... “statistics”, but there are also lies – big and small.
It is possible to check how it really was only on the basis of documents stored in the party archives. Moreover, today any person from the street, even if you are a technician twice, can come to the regional archive, explain to the director that he wants to write an article for VO on a historical and party topic and get permission to work in the local archive of the OK CPSU. Any, I emphasize.
And dissertations on historical and party topics are good because if you throw away the praises in honor of the next leader, you can find a lot of valuable information in them with links to the relevant archives, and then specifically order these materials by e-mail.
That is, by limiting himself to sources of information, the author does a disservice to the USSR. Because any weakness on our part gives the enemy weapon against us, any understatement is harmful, as it opens up scope for speculation and insinuation.
In addition, any author writing on such complex topics must definitely look at what has already been written on the same topic in VO, so as not to make completely ridiculous mistakes.
"House of the Red Cat"
All this came to my mind, and then I thought that it would be interesting to take individual author’s “maxims” and look at them from the other side, and, so to speak, show how all this really happened. Moreover, I will not turn to statistical collections or even dissertations. Only my personal memories based on facts.
So, let's read excerpts from the article. They are small and won't take up much space.
“The USSR’s share in world industrial production in 1986 was 20% or more than 80% of the USA. In terms of agricultural production (except for grain 66% and meat 64% of the USA), the USSR was several times ahead of the USA.”
Impressive numbers, right? But where did “sausage trains” and cards appear in the USSR just then?
From 1985 to 1988, I had to study at graduate school in the city of Kuibyshev (today Samara), and there were regional cards for sausage. I wrote about this in an article about my graduate student youth. And needless to say, this is how it happened; the Kuibyshevites won’t let you lie.
And now the question arises, what kind of agricultural products were they (except for grain and meat) in which we were ahead of the United States, but life did not get better from this? Maybe for crab fishing? During the three years that I spent in Kuibyshev, they brought crabs to us there two or three times.
The house is completely falling apart. But people still live in it...
It’s just that I couldn’t get enough of these “times.”
I’m not against being “ahead” of the United States by some indicators, but then I wanted milk, not water diluted with milk, sausage, which could be bought freely, and not only in my area and during rush hours, and so that later, within a day, it doesn’t turn green!
“In terms of the number of doctors and hospital beds, the USSR was several times ahead of the United States, not to mention the availability of medical care.”
I’m proud of our beds and the sheets washed on them (I was lying there, I remember), but I wouldn’t say anything about the availability of medical care. I will not repeat the story about drilling pulpy teeth without anesthesia - I have already written about this more than once. But here’s “availability” for you...
The house is crooked, but how to straighten it?
It so happened that in 1976, while still studying at a pedagogical university, I had to undergo surgery to remove a tumor on my chest suspected of oncology. They cut out a spare piece of meat for me, gave me four stitches and discharged me. And the next day the temperature was 38,9. At the district clinic they removed the stitches and said: “They got an infection!” And they began to cauterize this wound with silver nitrate (I’m not 100% sure, I heard it out of the corner of my ear). It was... quite unpleasant. And most importantly, the wound did not heal!
And then the doctor tells me that there is this Hungarian medicine that, if you get it, will help you! And so, fortunately for me, it turned out that my friend from college had a mother who was the head of one of the main city pharmacies. And it’s clear that they got me this medicine, and it helped me a lot.
But not all the citizens of Penza, with whom such... incidents happened then, had the sons of pharmacy managers as friends, and this is how they got along?
They will tell me that even now it happens that rare medicines have to be obtained. Yes, it happens, but much less often, and most importantly, no one now writes on fences: “The people and the party are united!” and “The good of the people is the main law of the USSR.”
“The railway transport system of the USSR transported 2–3 times more cargo than in the USA, and passenger turnover was tens of times higher.”
A wonderful statement, isn't it?! Moreover, it is so remarkable that I promise to devote a separate article to it and tell an extremely interesting story from my own life about it. It simply won’t fit here anymore...
The house may be crooked, but the steps are straight!
The USSR housed a quarter of all scientists in the whole world. According to WIPO data, the USSR had more than twice the number of inventions of the USA and almost twice the number of inventions of Japan.
Well, how our inventions were implemented has also been written at VO more than once. And what was the point of creating inventions if they were not implemented? That's what's important! He wrote about his industrial designs and about participation in the All-Union competitions of toys for industrial production. There were also articles in the magazine “Innovator-Inventor”.
So I know what we're talking about. And in my dissertation on the party leadership of the university research work, this topic was touched upon. And it smoothly migrated to our time, although with its implementation it became a little easier...
“...there were practically no protests against the current government.”
Against this statement one can only say - ha ha ha, and refer to material on VO “Popular unrest in the USSR. 1953–1985”, published back in 2010, where this is described in great detail. By the way, the comments there are very informative. And a link to a very detailed study on this topic.
“...the salary of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee was about 1 rubles.”
This is also funny. And that's why.
The fact is that when I worked in the archives of the OK CPSU of the Penza region, I came across a top secret document about the salary of the first secretary of the Regional Committee, and the amount was even less than the amount named by the author - 500 rubles! Well, it’s clear - the Central Committee and OK! But in the same document it was written that when the secretary goes on vacation, he also receives a bonus in the amount of his salary as an incentive! And also... a free trip to the sanatorium!
Even the OK cleaning lady was rewarded with double salary because she was going on vacation, apparently so that she could take better care of the carpets in the corridors of the regional committee. But the fact is that in addition to the basic salary, senior officials of the party apparatus also received money in... envelopes.
No matter how much I tried to find out the amount of “handouts”, I couldn’t find out. I discovered that these payments were made through the financial bodies of the CPSU Central Committee, and in this archive to me in 1985–1988. there was no more progress. Perhaps even today this information continues to remain a secret behind seven seals, but there is no doubt that the amount of 1 rubles is an obvious lie. The matter was not limited to this salary alone.
The walls are new, but the windows are old...
And this is not counting what was in the use of all these secretaries, and they had everything in their use - the Kremlin, the Hermitage and much more. And our “defender” should have known that prices in the regional committee canteens were frozen at the 1928 level, which also made it possible to save considerable sums with very high-quality food.
The same Stalin had 15 dachas at his service, where they awaited his arrival every day and prepared... his favorite dishes. I also wrote about this, by the way, here on VO, when I talked about the state of one of Stalin’s former dachas in the Caucasus today.
So 1 rubles is absolutely not very much when you have your own planes, armored trains, and 100 limousines, like Brezhnev. Do you think he also bought them with a salary of 90 rubles? Or has he already been promoted?
By the way, twice in my life I was lucky to find myself in the place of one of these “high functionaries.” It was something. Someday I’ll write about this too. I remember everything as if it were yesterday.
There are no windows, but the fence is completely new... The wind of change!
Well, as a conclusion. “You can become a communist only when you enrich your memory with the knowledge of all the riches that humanity has produced,” Lenin asserted. And it’s very bad that his own defenders ignore this covenant. It is clear that it is impossible to find out everything in the world; you cannot sit in all the archives and re-read all the monographs. But we must strive for this...
PS
The article is illustrated with photographs of the author.
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