Living standard in the USSR

[enigma2517]

I was having a debate with my father the other day about life back in the good 'ol Soviet Union. He said that consumer commodities were practically unavailable...the cost of them was relatively little but you had to stand in line at a store for hours to get something. You had to bribe workers that provided a service (mechanics, etc.) to actually get anything done. Stuff like that

I tried to tell him that it was really just horrible state capitalism, that the workers and citizens had no actual say in the economy, and if they were they could have easily changed things around. Instead stuff like the Cold War took up 50% of the budget...I saw this on a pie graph. Education, healthcare, etc. only took up 6%. Wacky.

My overall point remained that socialism/planned economy without democracy=worthless. He kinda waved me off on that one. :(

Anyway, do you guys have anything to add...or offer some counterpoints on consumer commodities now vs. then?

[Vinny Rafarino]

Anyway, do you guys have anything to add

Only that you are for the most part right; the USSR after 1953 did not even resemble anything even remotely what we could call socialism.

[Subversive Pessimist]

Here is something that you could show to your dad. This will mostly apply for the 50's, 60's and I guess the beginning of the 70's.

Here's how daily, monthly and annual budget of average Soviet citizen looked like.


Rouble was primary Soviet currency. 1 rouble = 100 copecks.



Comparision table: prices in USA and USSR.

Note: since USA didn't have fixed prices, I give approximization.



Rent - 1000-2000 dollars (5 roubles in USSR).

Lessons of music - 30 dollars per hour (free in USSR).

Ticket to opera - 100 dollars (1 rouble 50 copecks).

Ticket to cinema - 10 dollars (50 copecks).

Highway transit - 10 dollars (free).

Bus ticket - 3 dollars (5 copecks).

Loaf of bread - around 1 dollar (14 copecks).

Liter of milk - around 1 dollar (22 copecks).

Kilogram of potato - around 1 dollar (6 copecks).

Glasses (spectacles) - at least 200 dollars (5 roubles).

Family medical insurance - up to 850 dollars per month (healthcare is free).

Visit to dentist - 100 dollars (free).

Dental implant - 5oo dollars (?) (free).

Antibiotic drug - 40 dollars (40 copecks).

Education - at least 40,000 dollars (free, plus scholarship equal of 3,000 roubles for everybody).




Now, the monthly wages. Structure changed from time to time, but we are not interested in Gorby's kapitalist Perestroika era (205 roubles), of course.

Low-qualified industrial worker - 324 roubles.

Serviceman or goverment official - 360 roubles.

Scientist, engineer or high-qualified worker - 626 roubles.


Plus so-called "13th wage" - traditional annual payment, usually equal of monthly wage.

Plus various gifts to shock workers, and stuff like that.

So, annual income of Soviet engineer is 8,138 roubles.

Such stuff like education, sports, music lessons and stuff like that was free, while food, rent and medicals were extra-cheap.


You can open savings account in bank. It has 2% of interest.

That means that Soviet engineer's monthly wage, 626 roubles, put on this account, will give monthly profit of 12 roubles and 52 copecks, which is enough to visit cinema 25 times per month - almost daily.

Soviet engineer's annual wage, put on savings account, will produce monthly profit of 162 roubles and 76 copecks.

That covers annual recreation tourist trip (minus 90 roubles), and everything else Soviet citizen might need.


Anyway, make your own calculations, play with it.

Let's try to measure wealth of average American and Soviet workers in objective, natural terms.

----------------------------------------------------

Ask him if he have heard of Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space).

Ask him if he know how the Czar treated the Russian people.

The Soviet Union was far from perfect, but it proved that socialism works.

[CubanFox]

Sadly, the healthcare was horrific outside of Moscow and Leningrad. Half the time the "medicines" in the country were actually distilled water.

And often there weren't any potatoes, nor loaves of bread.

[Salvador Allende]

After the era under Koba things went to hell, especially under Brezhnev.

[CubanFox]

Though the USSR was lacking in many areas, tell your father that the USSR was a complete heaven compared to the days of the tsar. The ethos of pre-1917 Russia was "unless you're an aristocrat, you're fucked".

Healthcare and education were non existant! If it wasn't for comrade Lenin and company, Russia would still be like Bhutan. A country of illiterate peasants. Same with China.

[enigma2517]

Wonderful thanks guys.

Some points:

True, healthcare was very horrible...although you did get alright basic care nobody wanted to do complex procedures like braces or heart bypass surgery. Think I mentioned something like this in an earlier post.

As for the prices...yeah I guess if you look at it that way it seems fine but once again the question was of availiability. Fancy standing in line for 3 hours?

Good points about the previous Tzar and whatnot. As Redstar2000 once mentioned...places like China and the USSR made modern economies out of nothing.

America competing with USSR proves absolutely nothing. America=Isolated region allowed to develop freely for 300 years, building a strong and stable state (minus a civil war or two ;) ). USSR=Post feudal-age rural wasteland with zero industry and a peasant population of which 4/5ths couldn't even read. As for the wars...well I lost 28 million of my people in WWII alone.

All of that an in forty some years we still managed to win (the first part) of the space race :D . That and the whole being one of the two world superpowers.

[LuZhiming]

Originally posted by Salvador [email protected] 1 2004, 04:41 AM
After the era under Koba things went to hell, especially under Brezhnev.
That isn't the fault of Brezhnev, one of the biggest problems Brezhnev had was low agricultural productivity, and that was a result of Stalin's forciful collective farms programs to industrialize the Soviet Union, programs which wiped out the independent peasentry of the country. It's unfair to blame Brezhnev for the Soviet Union's problems, Stalin and Khrushchev were much more responsible.

[Saint-Just]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2004, 05:06 AM
I tried to tell him that it was really just horrible state capitalism, that the workers and citizens had no actual say in the economy, and if they were they could have easily changed things around. Instead stuff like the Cold War took up 50% of the budget...I saw this on a pie graph. Education, healthcare, etc. only took up 6%. Wacky.
Before 1953, Workers and citisens has a lot of say in the economy. On a local level workers controlled all city of village issues through democratically elected councils. And, where national decisions were made these councils would discuss the issues and make recommendations that their representative took the the next level of the government which they formed themselves.

Concerning the budget, although much of the cold war was post-1953..... Russia would need very high military expenditure to keep up with a richer country such as the USA. And, the budget in Russia would likely be a higher percentage of overall GDP since Russia had a more socialist orientated economy. Although after 1953 private ownership increased dramatically. So, 6% of the Russian budget would be a higher percentage of GDP than it would in America. Yet, they may still need 50% spent on the military since America is a wealthier nation. In addition, the U.S. spent almost nothing on healthcare and education. In the 50s and 60s countries all over the world spent little on public services, it is only now that we see a big proportion of our GDP used in government expenditure. Certainly in America at that time public expenditure would be extremely limited.

In addition, in the 50s for example many goods were unavailable to Americans too, there were very poor areas of America in that period and people could not hope to get various basic commodities.

[Lietuva]

The USSR resembled little the ideas of true communism.

Life in the satellite states was far worse than that in Russia. Using Lithuania as an example, the country, granted its freedom of tsarist Russia in 1918 was annexed by Stalin in 1941 and remained part of the Union until 91. The USSR made many attempts to incorporate the country, but virtually all Lithuanians desired to have a free country. The USSR frequently tried to repress Lithuanian culture and even the language. There are many occurences of dead partisans killed by Soviet troops layed out on the roads to be used as examples. Most of Lithuania's key intellectuals and members of high society (not that I like aristocrats but nevertheless this was wrong) were deported to Siberia by Stalin and never to be heard from again. Most citizens in key professions, scientists, doctors, etc. were taken from the country to work in Russia. Finally, Lithuania was granted its independence in 91 through much peaceful demonstration, in which 3 citizens were killed by Soviet tanks.

However blame can not be placed on the Russian people or even completely that of the Soviet Union. The Russians did not view those who lived in the Republics any less that other Russian citizens. It was simply a case of two opposing views.

[Daymare17]

It was a contradictory society: The planned economy made possible gigantic advances but the Stalinist bureaucratic despotism, which arose because of the backwardness of the country, was a fetter and in the end destroyed the October revolution. Socialism needs democracy as the human body needs oxygen. Most importantly it can't be built in a single peasant country but needs the efforts of several advanced countries.