I will say they look awful and certainly should’ve been better kept, but they served their purposes well for getting as many people under a roof as possible
The 70 year old buildings are in rough shape! Wonder how the average american luxury condo built from drywall on 36" inch studs will look in the same time frame?
It’s almost like it benefits capitalists to keep them in a state of disrepair to be viewed as the standard under “communism”. No, that’s silly. They wouldn’t do that.
Meanwhile the new apartment blocks (let’s call them cappieblocks?) are mostly built by underpaid migrants of dubious legality from cheap materials because fuck anything that eats into the profit margin.
Because im russian, i disagree with you, we're constantly doing small repairs from time to time, and they are still not that bad. I think its still better than a wooden barrack
The cheapest cement mortar for menial work you can buy in a DIY shop is much better than the manually blended plaster they used to finish walls. I used to try plastering walls with it, when I was a kid, and it was hell. However, my older comrades managed it with ease. However it required really good skills. Now with all that new finegrained plasters even a kid can plastering with ease.
With all that, people of the USSR used to make cheap and practical bloks which still went well engineered and constructed. And their infrastructure was well planned.
There are several types of them. The usual ones that get the most negativity are the 5 story "Khrushevkas", which were built as a temporary housing for about 20 years. The worst ones people see on the internet are often the most badly maintained ones, many photos are from Romania.
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Also comparing it to the USA is unfair. The Soviet Union was way behind before socialism it’s better to compare the houses to places such as India at the time. We all know which ones are much superior.
Speaking about aesthetic. Blocks used to be well depend. Monumental artists were very respected and well played. There are many beautiful mosaics lasted until today, even though they weren't property maintained.
We didn't have a fear of apartments like this but they got called oppressive because it put limitations on a person's mobility to seek higher paying jobs and higher education, and the standard of living in these had issues (similar to the USSR)
Now the only people who want commie block apartments are larping tankies with mommy and daddy money to spend $2k a month for a shared room in NYC
Most of the time, people who hate cities do it because minorities live in them, because they are "too progressive" and go on a rant about how cities are actually bad for while living in car dependent subs. They quite literally live in a place that in order to be built needs long roads leading to it and as roads are expensive the syphon off money from the city budget to maintain them that could be used for public transport or more high density housings, schools etc.
Commie blocks are no different than the many social buildings a lot of European countries built during the 60's. It was not that bad looking back then but obviously they don't fit modern standards.
Hate that it's being used to show that the USSR was a poor/bad country not caring for its citizen. It housed millions of people and same in western Europe which is better than having thousands of homeless and having lots of very good looking (not even good looking sometimes) pricey apartments complex
The Western side had money thrown at it by the richest country in the world that didn't feel the WW2, the Eastern one was rebuilt by the country they invaded and attempted to genocide. Which also had to rebuild itself at the same time.
Also, one of the main architectors behind the "commie blocks" was a German. See "Ernst May".
Wherever my family is. If I get to choose it's the DDR, easily. If you're a pedophilic rentier that loves being served by a migrant underclass you might fit in the BRD.
I'm not talking about life in the soviet union, just saying that it's stupid to hate the commie block when everyone in Europe had similar buildings back then. Especially when it's cost efficient. It's better to have that than being homeless
Soviet Union: rent was around 35 kopeks per sq. meter. No water meter, no natural gas meter, just a flat fee based on amount of people assigned to an apartment. electricity - 4 kopeks per kWh. Average salary in early 1980s - around 150-170 rubles per month.
It was not rent but utilities. 8-15 rubles so about 6-10% of monthly salary. You could rent one unofficialy, in Moscow it was 80-100 rubles for a studio apartment + utilities.
Nope. It was KVARTPLATA - Apartment rent. Based on an apartment size. Plus utilities. You can find a Soviet-era brochure where people are called as "renters" - Квартиросъемщики
Or hot water once a week, when my family lived in family doorms built by German POWs. Rooms shared by two families, and a common kitchen was located on the entire floor. Showers with hot water were located in the basement and were unlocked only on Sundays.
When we finally moved to a "normal" apartment, it was on the second floor, so hot water pressure was good day and night. Upper floors (8 & 9) apparently had that problem. But most summers, we had no hot water for 2-3 months due to pipe replacements in the area
People nowadays think commie blocks are bad just because they are old in 2025, they were very good when new, also they age not too badly. Also many "commie blocks" were build in post soviet era, its common building type in eastern europe
It is not just a Russian thing this is a European 50s/60s/70s thing, and not only a matter of "rebuilding" ... we seem to forget (for some they have never known) that migration to cities and population growth were big back then and loads of people were living in vary basic rural accommodations (think outhouses) and in some cases living in shanties (particularly when newly arrived to a city). Buildings with 50 or 60 square meters apartments and a modern toilet to be shared be 6 or 7 people were a big step forward.
That being said, the USSR population would have needed even more of these, in the 80s is was still a compensation, for families of soldiers dead in Afghanistan, to get a bump in the wait list to get an apartment.
I grew up among these so called "commie blocks" in eastern Estonia. When I was younger they were all ugly, cold and hella depressing. But now they are being renovated thanks to EU funding and what not.
Buildings are now full of people, lot of them renovated or being renovated.
Even I bought my very own apartment in a 1960s khrushchevka building complex.
Edit: Actually these apartments would still be very cold but now with technology we can always install heat pumps, some apartments setup their own independent heating etc.
Id say arent those just like tenement buildings? Every country has had them the only thing that should really be like debateable is quality of them. Me being a tropico player its like semi depressive to have too many of them but 12 house for the space of two is no brainer. And after a shelled out west end cause of a world war its like "yeah, youre getting nothing but tenements. Dont like it? Go build a shack in a shelled out forest"
Not saying it was exactly the same in other countries, but my wife got on a waitlist for an apartment in Czechoslovakia in 1980. She left for the west in 1981. In 1995 her parents received a letter saying that her apartment was now available in Slovakia.
Depending how we look at it the housing was either very cheap and the government simply didn't pay you anywhere near enough for your labor (not in rubel terms and certainly not in real terms) or it was taking outrageously exorbitant rent out of your salary without spelling it out.
Either way, the consistent absence of komunalkas and other diversity makes me think y'all may be doing propaganda rather than trying to accurately represent life in the USSR.
I'm civil engineer in eastern europe, i myself live in a commie block building, but the company i work for is building buildings out of prefabricated blocks. The main difference between how we build it now and how it was built in soviet union is the control and requirements. There is no problem with the technology of commie blocks, it's cheap, its efficient, the bad part is execution. The house i live in now is croocked, no walls are straight, floor is uneven, foundation settlments created cracks in the blocks. There were rulers and spirit levels and all the other technology that could have helped to build it properly. (It would have added 10% at most to the cost, and probably saved some) and then the buildings would have been way nicer. Also because my parents are from the soviet union I know that these houses were promised as "temporary" buildings until they build proper ones. That ofcourse was a lie.
I know that alot if you think that comunism ia a good thing, but the biggest problem for the comunism that occured (knowledge from my parents) is that it didnt matter if you are the best worker that does 80% of the job or you are a lazy drunk, you get payed the same. So what the good working people would do is they would get some kind of another "payment" which ussually was just stealing from the place you work at. It could have been box of nails, pallet of brick or other struff. So even tho on paper everyone is equal and earn the same and it looks that the country is in working perfectly, the reality was everyone were earning their part in grey economy.
The problem is pretty similar as to what happens in big companies when you are a good worker that doesnt speak about all the good things you do. You earn the same as a person that does bare minimum. So today you would have to speak up for yourself and show the things you do, but back in soviet union you would have to take(steal) the things you "earned" yourself. And from that comes heaps of other problems like blackmailing and other stuff.
Thanks for reading. If it changes at least one persons mind ill be happy.
You mean...paying 20k in average to buy a house 8 times bigger than this shithole and have a mortgage? Or you mean the situation, when only 22% of USSR citizens had apartments, while 48% were living in barracks/commmunal apartments, dorms etc? You can't compare rich times in US with that shithole that is called USSR. Would be better if compared nowadays, coz teens are easier to manipulate and they are not into fact-checking
What a nonsense. In Soviet Union not everyone got apartments to live in for beginning, also people living in it did not own it and had to pay rent to the government (even if it was low/symbolic). Problem was it was crappy quality and also 0 guarantees that you will not have to move out. Government could order you out at any time and give your apartment to someone else who is more in favor.
So there was no “government provided housing for all” thing in there in reality
I am not part of the elite, i own a nice house with a gym and heated pool, I have a new car and I am capable of ordering any food I want to be delivered at my door, no socialist country in history could have offered me and my family my current standard of living, maybe if I was part of The politburo but that’s the elite of society and as I stated I am not part of the elite and own all those nice things
You can. Cuba has the lowest pricing of houses worldwide, and 85% of them owns homes. A new car? Thats also available albeit somethimes, but its mainly due to the embargo.
Hold on … you are telling me that without being part of the elite I can own a home with a heated pool and gym in Cuba ? You sure about that man, I agree that you can buy those things in Vietnam or China, both have adopted market mechanisms but I seriously doubt you can access this things in Cuba
Ok fair enough, I thought houses in Cuba were state owned, I won’t talk about how difficult it is to get such a house in Cuba because most people in capitalist countries also don’t have something like that but fair enough, you legit made me curious to research a little bit more about Cuba, I believed they still followed a Soviet like command economy instead of following the Chinese model
No way. For example, compare the size of an apartment in the USSR to one in the US. My (not too expensive, one person) apartment in the US, built in around 1920, is 70 square meters. A Soviet apartment built during the 50s or 60s might not have that much space for an entire family.
No that is a complete lie. Nothing was available in free market there + if you lived lavishly and was not part of ruling class - you soon be prosecuted for “speculation” and serve jail time
Oh the audacity to think anything in the USSR was actually made for the people. Clearly radical leftist from the non-post-communist countries romanticising a impressive regime
Housing provided by state is not sign of success. Everytime there is someone who must pay for it because buildings demand ordering and maintanace. Either the one who lives there or the state. One is capitalist mindset and it works, the other leads to inflation.
Lol not just New York. I can say the same for the rest of the major cities. Not just housing too, but living in general has higher cost and the minimum wage hasnt moved. Lol
Provided by the government? So the elected representatives actually put on hats and boots and physically built those buildings? Pretty cool.
I was under the impression they just took money and resources using threats of force from the population and then used those to hire other people to build them.
So much different when estate firms make money and housing the real way by waiting for it to become expensive doing nothing while people voluntarily live paycheck to paycheck and choose to have their wages stagnate
Not to mention: "they just took money and resources using threats of force from the population". That's literally every government ever if you want to frame it like that, pay taxes or jail.
"and then used those to hire other people to build them."; again, every government ever except socialists use the tax money to build houses, schools, for healthcare and education while in America they just take your money and if you get sick you can sell your house and die.
As long as you’re capable of admitting the government members neither created the wealth that financed the houses nor did they do the physical work to build them I have no issues with saying the government “provided” the housing
Halfly yes. Some elected representatives are actually grassroots from where they came from. So yes, they may have been involved on physically building it.
Your second paragraph is every state in existence. State owns the monopoly of violence afterall. So its true as well.
Elections of delegates were made by a show of hands in open factory and village meetings, or in meetings of the rank and file of the army. Any candidate was personally known to the electors, and his qualifications could be argued about immediately in front of his face. Delegates once elected were liable to 'recall' should they cease to represent the views of their electorate. Since this electorate was a real entity, always in existence and discussing politics from day to day, it had a live and changing public opinion. Thus the will of his 'constituency' could easily, unmistakably and effectively be brought home to the delegate; and it was equally easy for him to report back to his electors.
— Holme, "The Soviets and Ourselves: Two Commonwealths"
I don’t understand your point. The moment someone becomes a politician, elected via democratic means, and compensated for their role as a politician, they are no longer engaging in the actual work of doing the business of construction, or whatever it is. As I said before, politicians do not do the work. Insofar as they are politicians, they are not doing the work. It is the nature of politics to acquire wealth through forceful appropriation and distribute it. It is fundamentally different, and actually directly opposed, to the free individual’s modus operandi of living.
Yes, that is (mostly) correct. All governments in existence, assuming they have a democratic element, function in a similar way related or otherwise similar to this. Again, I don’t understand what your point is supposed to be.
I think what it is you - and all the others who have a problem with my comment - are not grasping or grappling with is that this is not an issue intrinsic to socialism per se but rather to any government. Politicians are intrinsically incentivized to pursue political ends. Everybody else in society has to either work - actually produce something - or be lucky or persuasive enough to get people to freely give them wealth so they can survive. The difference in capitalism and socialism in this regard is that socialists say “make more and more, make everything, democratic,” whereas a capitalist might only cede their individual rights of autonomous function to democracy out of (1) begrudging necessity, (2) under the threat of violence, (3) some kind of altruistic impulse.
This is an important distinction because the whole point of capitalism is that groups do not have moral authority over other people as individuals. Your individual rights come first, and that is a matter of logical priority, because if humans have no individual rights, there can BE no group rights, since groups are simply made of a bunch of individuals. That’s why it’s important, and only slightly pedantic, to point out that “the government” doesn’t ACTUALLY “provide” things, any more than a mafia don who appropriates wealth and redistributes it “provides” things. It is useful to use the phrase “government provided” but strictly speaking - or not even strictly speaking but simply speaking - it is also inaccurate and obscures the underlying reality. Which is not a trivial point, because rhetoric is a powerful tool that can be used for good and bad. If people are gonna crap their pants when I point out a simple fact about the nature of politics and government it doesn’t reflect poorly on ME - it reflects nothing more than an insecurity. They are THREATENED by someone pointing out that, if you think about it objectively, it’s silly to say the government “provides” it. It shouldn’t be a controversial point to make, but it is, because a socialist doesn’t like to hear that kind of thing, any more than a capitalist doesn’t like to be accused of “exploitation” of workers. The difference between those two is that while it is a simple and undeniable fact that this (what I described) is the way democratic elements and most government in general actually works, the term “exploitation” is inherently subjective, and that goes doubly so when you mean to use the word “exploit” not in a merely technical or descriptive sense, but rather in a moral sense. There’s a burden of proof to meet when you make a moral judgment on someone else, and because the term “exploitation” is subjective, it is difficult to show with any kind of moral clarity that capitalist modes of interaction - free economic agents not relying on violence for exchange - are “immoral exploitation.”
Corporate boards are allegedly reforming away from shareholder profit maximization to more egalitarian stakeholder considerations that factor in consumers, supplier and other factions of society besides a bank account. The pursuit of pure profit led to many short sighted decisions that eroded the entity value.
USA: you get 100% of your salary and use it to pay your necesseries.
USSR: you get 10% of your salary and wait 30 years in queue eating the best ice cream
Youre acting like every American CAN do that and just change their job to a better one. The education system is fucked in America, especially considering you have to pay to access it. If your parents are poor, you cant go to school and then you become poor and cant afford school for your child
Some jobs don’t need huge education costs for big ROI but yes US college is expensive by policy. Top schools want foreign students for prestige and the higher tuition they often pay compared to local “in-state” tuition fees. Rather than considering education as in investment in the future of the populace it’s a speculative investment vehicle and huge financial industry. You can get a loan but by the time you pay that off, and buy a house you’ll probably hit retirement and be back to greeting people outside Walmart to survive.
You will never be successful if you don't educate yourself. Do you think in USSR you automatically had the very best education and easy access to higher education? Absolutely not. The people who were "more equal" than others had better education: a lot of current Russian so-called elites are sons and daughters of Soviet elites; there are whole dynasties of scientists, actors, singers, politicians and army oficers.
Well the education was like the biggest thing that increased after the revolution, hence birth rates going down since education generally means less people giving birth
They forgot the means of distribution is over half the retail value, seized the means of production and wonder why they’re still broke and have nothing.
You receive 100% of salary you earned (let's pretend that what your labor worth) and pay taxes/healthcare/social etc.
In planned economy you receive 10% of salary and still pay taxes. Regular taxes were quite low (around 10%), but if you dare to work not in a state owned company it could be up to 90%. Moreover you pay for membership in the party and voluntary had to buy bonds
I see the concept of taxes is foreign to you xD It's not 100%. To be fair you never receives 100% of a value ypu produce. It is much much better than whatever ussr had
Generally people who hate “commie blocks” fundamentally misunderstand their purpose and set-up, so to some degree stupidity, to some degree ignorance
somehow aesthetics is more important than having a place to actually live, the absolute brainrot of liberals.
I will say they look awful and certainly should’ve been better kept, but they served their purposes well for getting as many people under a roof as possible
They are for the most part well beyond their intended lifespan so of course they look shitty now.
The 70 year old buildings are in rough shape! Wonder how the average american luxury condo built from drywall on 36" inch studs will look in the same time frame?
Without upkeep
WELL past the intended lifespan, and largely neglected since the USSR dissolved.
It’s almost like it benefits capitalists to keep them in a state of disrepair to be viewed as the standard under “communism”. No, that’s silly. They wouldn’t do that.
Nah. Buildings just age like people. If they're not kept up or maintained, they break down. Much like people.
Meanwhile the new apartment blocks (let’s call them cappieblocks?) are mostly built by underpaid migrants of dubious legality from cheap materials because fuck anything that eats into the profit margin.
Because im russian, i disagree with you, we're constantly doing small repairs from time to time, and they are still not that bad. I think its still better than a wooden barrack
Also neglected during the existence of the USSR
you think they looked good when they were new?
Infinitely better than a homeless encampment.
https://preview.redd.it/t022q4gatd9g1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85fb1a6ace4a2f430b2a87924687fba75792cc5d
They surely did. You need to understand that now we have a lot of cheap and practical materials they hadn't had.
The cheapest cement mortar for menial work you can buy in a DIY shop is much better than the manually blended plaster they used to finish walls. I used to try plastering walls with it, when I was a kid, and it was hell. However, my older comrades managed it with ease. However it required really good skills. Now with all that new finegrained plasters even a kid can plastering with ease. With all that, people of the USSR used to make cheap and practical bloks which still went well engineered and constructed. And their infrastructure was well planned.
No that's not what's being discussed, they didn't look good inicialy and look worse now
There are several types of them. The usual ones that get the most negativity are the 5 story "Khrushevkas", which were built as a temporary housing for about 20 years. The worst ones people see on the internet are often the most badly maintained ones, many photos are from Romania.
Also keeps them close together for easier supervision.
It's called urbanization dumbass. You know, the first step towards mass industrialization, modern sanitation and providing prosperity
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Bro gets his politics from “Beholder”
Yeah me and Peter Thiel 🤣
Who cares
You just enough to make a minimalist comment.
Also comparing it to the USA is unfair. The Soviet Union was way behind before socialism it’s better to compare the houses to places such as India at the time. We all know which ones are much superior.
https://preview.redd.it/wo6et4t2od9g1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=11e20709e395fcb8638dddea0272e2ec75bd5911
Speaking about aesthetic. Blocks used to be well depend. Monumental artists were very respected and well played. There are many beautiful mosaics lasted until today, even though they weren't property maintained.
https://preview.redd.it/6duot3d5od9g1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e547f3cfd2d2c4f931f7acca1595bda33e75c096
https://preview.redd.it/e5v3br89od9g1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=870b1cc141658c2f8f9e7d8d399f87f9dc59d7d1
https://preview.redd.it/mj0lkormqd9g1.jpeg?width=714&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72a2b9ba3c76cca4f7bb3d80e21c258979d27c01
Not to mention some fancy architectural designs made with minimal funds from standard materials.
Liberals? You mean capitalists
I genuinely don't get americans phobia of apartments like its a freaking apartment people my god
We didn't have a fear of apartments like this but they got called oppressive because it put limitations on a person's mobility to seek higher paying jobs and higher education, and the standard of living in these had issues (similar to the USSR)
Now the only people who want commie block apartments are larping tankies with mommy and daddy money to spend $2k a month for a shared room in NYC
Most of the time, people who hate cities do it because minorities live in them, because they are "too progressive" and go on a rant about how cities are actually bad for while living in car dependent subs. They quite literally live in a place that in order to be built needs long roads leading to it and as roads are expensive the syphon off money from the city budget to maintain them that could be used for public transport or more high density housings, schools etc.
Or they used to live there ))
Really ? I’m stupid and ignorant because I had very bad experience living there ? Hahah lol
“Capitalism is voluntary”
You don’t have to live in Nashville. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
Commie blocks are no different than the many social buildings a lot of European countries built during the 60's. It was not that bad looking back then but obviously they don't fit modern standards.
Hate that it's being used to show that the USSR was a poor/bad country not caring for its citizen. It housed millions of people and same in western Europe which is better than having thousands of homeless and having lots of very good looking (not even good looking sometimes) pricey apartments complex
It most certainly was. In the USSR they were the very best that non-elites were allowed and highly desirable deficit.
What side of Germany would you have liked to live on in 1963?
The Western side had money thrown at it by the richest country in the world that didn't feel the WW2, the Eastern one was rebuilt by the country they invaded and attempted to genocide. Which also had to rebuild itself at the same time.
Also, one of the main architectors behind the "commie blocks" was a German. See "Ernst May".
I don’t give a fuck
Then you probably shouldn't speak up about things you don't know about.
Nice way to out yourself, kiddo.
East Germany was shitty!
I don't care about the reasons why East Germany struggled!
Just a big open chamber where the brain should be, huh?
It's his heart that is empty
then stop polluting the discussion with your bullshit
lol rekt
East.
Wherever my family is. If I get to choose it's the DDR, easily. If you're a pedophilic rentier that loves being served by a migrant underclass you might fit in the BRD.
West side.
I'm not talking about life in the soviet union, just saying that it's stupid to hate the commie block when everyone in Europe had similar buildings back then. Especially when it's cost efficient. It's better to have that than being homeless
I’m surprised you aren’t being downvoted lol
Soviet Union: rent was around 35 kopeks per sq. meter. No water meter, no natural gas meter, just a flat fee based on amount of people assigned to an apartment. electricity - 4 kopeks per kWh. Average salary in early 1980s - around 150-170 rubles per month.
It was not rent but utilities. 8-15 rubles so about 6-10% of monthly salary. You could rent one unofficialy, in Moscow it was 80-100 rubles for a studio apartment + utilities.
Nope. It was KVARTPLATA - Apartment rent. Based on an apartment size. Plus utilities. You can find a Soviet-era brochure where people are called as "renters" - Квартиросъемщики
And hot water only at night
LOL, yes!
Or hot water once a week, when my family lived in family doorms built by German POWs. Rooms shared by two families, and a common kitchen was located on the entire floor. Showers with hot water were located in the basement and were unlocked only on Sundays.
When we finally moved to a "normal" apartment, it was on the second floor, so hot water pressure was good day and night. Upper floors (8 & 9) apparently had that problem. But most summers, we had no hot water for 2-3 months due to pipe replacements in the area
Of course both the the prices and salaries were made up, so it would be misleading to directly compare them with less controlled economies.
https://preview.redd.it/gdgibb0hc59g1.png?width=756&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8de2c245316963406904cd7aadd948409058da0
Liberals do be like this
People nowadays think commie blocks are bad just because they are old in 2025, they were very good when new, also they age not too badly. Also many "commie blocks" were build in post soviet era, its common building type in eastern europe
Yes they are
Those buildings were designed to rebuild an entire half of a continent…
They existed to serve the purpose of relatively low-cost and quick to build housing.
I would 100% still choose my current apartment over one of these any day of the week.
It is not just a Russian thing this is a European 50s/60s/70s thing, and not only a matter of "rebuilding" ... we seem to forget (for some they have never known) that migration to cities and population growth were big back then and loads of people were living in vary basic rural accommodations (think outhouses) and in some cases living in shanties (particularly when newly arrived to a city). Buildings with 50 or 60 square meters apartments and a modern toilet to be shared be 6 or 7 people were a big step forward.
That being said, the USSR population would have needed even more of these, in the 80s is was still a compensation, for families of soldiers dead in Afghanistan, to get a bump in the wait list to get an apartment.
I grew up among these so called "commie blocks" in eastern Estonia. When I was younger they were all ugly, cold and hella depressing. But now they are being renovated thanks to EU funding and what not.
Buildings are now full of people, lot of them renovated or being renovated.
Even I bought my very own apartment in a 1960s khrushchevka building complex.
Edit: Actually these apartments would still be very cold but now with technology we can always install heat pumps, some apartments setup their own independent heating etc.
Id say arent those just like tenement buildings? Every country has had them the only thing that should really be like debateable is quality of them. Me being a tropico player its like semi depressive to have too many of them but 12 house for the space of two is no brainer. And after a shelled out west end cause of a world war its like "yeah, youre getting nothing but tenements. Dont like it? Go build a shack in a shelled out forest"
Honestly shack in the forest with Zarathustra sounding better and better.
Provided by the government? Soviets worked hard for their homes. They provided it for themselves.
Yes. A more accurate description would be "housing provided by the society".
Not saying it was exactly the same in other countries, but my wife got on a waitlist for an apartment in Czechoslovakia in 1980. She left for the west in 1981. In 1995 her parents received a letter saying that her apartment was now available in Slovakia.
Nashville mentioned
Yes.
Yes
Shoud also note that a lot of this blocks that was build in 1970 are right now better in quality then blocks that was build last month just near them
Depending how we look at it the housing was either very cheap and the government simply didn't pay you anywhere near enough for your labor (not in rubel terms and certainly not in real terms) or it was taking outrageously exorbitant rent out of your salary without spelling it out.
Either way, the consistent absence of komunalkas and other diversity makes me think y'all may be doing propaganda rather than trying to accurately represent life in the USSR.
I'm civil engineer in eastern europe, i myself live in a commie block building, but the company i work for is building buildings out of prefabricated blocks. The main difference between how we build it now and how it was built in soviet union is the control and requirements. There is no problem with the technology of commie blocks, it's cheap, its efficient, the bad part is execution. The house i live in now is croocked, no walls are straight, floor is uneven, foundation settlments created cracks in the blocks. There were rulers and spirit levels and all the other technology that could have helped to build it properly. (It would have added 10% at most to the cost, and probably saved some) and then the buildings would have been way nicer. Also because my parents are from the soviet union I know that these houses were promised as "temporary" buildings until they build proper ones. That ofcourse was a lie.
I know that alot if you think that comunism ia a good thing, but the biggest problem for the comunism that occured (knowledge from my parents) is that it didnt matter if you are the best worker that does 80% of the job or you are a lazy drunk, you get payed the same. So what the good working people would do is they would get some kind of another "payment" which ussually was just stealing from the place you work at. It could have been box of nails, pallet of brick or other struff. So even tho on paper everyone is equal and earn the same and it looks that the country is in working perfectly, the reality was everyone were earning their part in grey economy.
The problem is pretty similar as to what happens in big companies when you are a good worker that doesnt speak about all the good things you do. You earn the same as a person that does bare minimum. So today you would have to speak up for yourself and show the things you do, but back in soviet union you would have to take(steal) the things you "earned" yourself. And from that comes heaps of other problems like blackmailing and other stuff.
Thanks for reading. If it changes at least one persons mind ill be happy.
You mean...paying 20k in average to buy a house 8 times bigger than this shithole and have a mortgage? Or you mean the situation, when only 22% of USSR citizens had apartments, while 48% were living in barracks/commmunal apartments, dorms etc? You can't compare rich times in US with that shithole that is called USSR. Would be better if compared nowadays, coz teens are easier to manipulate and they are not into fact-checking
im gonna have to go with a yes here, boss 🤔
What a nonsense. In Soviet Union not everyone got apartments to live in for beginning, also people living in it did not own it and had to pay rent to the government (even if it was low/symbolic). Problem was it was crappy quality and also 0 guarantees that you will not have to move out. Government could order you out at any time and give your apartment to someone else who is more in favor.
So there was no “government provided housing for all” thing in there in reality
I am not part of the elite, i own a nice house with a gym and heated pool, I have a new car and I am capable of ordering any food I want to be delivered at my door, no socialist country in history could have offered me and my family my current standard of living, maybe if I was part of The politburo but that’s the elite of society and as I stated I am not part of the elite and own all those nice things
Those things also exists in the USSR lol. Except food delivery since that wasnt a thing there.
But if we want to compare socialist states now, pretty sure you can do all those you've said in China, Vietnam, or Cuba
China and Vietnam? Sure but there’s no way in hell o can get a house with the amenities I have or new car in Cuba without being in the politburo
You can. Cuba has the lowest pricing of houses worldwide, and 85% of them owns homes. A new car? Thats also available albeit somethimes, but its mainly due to the embargo.
Hold on … you are telling me that without being part of the elite I can own a home with a heated pool and gym in Cuba ? You sure about that man, I agree that you can buy those things in Vietnam or China, both have adopted market mechanisms but I seriously doubt you can access this things in Cuba
Again it depends. You still have an embargo to worry about when sourcing materials
Ok fair enough, I thought houses in Cuba were state owned, I won’t talk about how difficult it is to get such a house in Cuba because most people in capitalist countries also don’t have something like that but fair enough, you legit made me curious to research a little bit more about Cuba, I believed they still followed a Soviet like command economy instead of following the Chinese model
No way. For example, compare the size of an apartment in the USSR to one in the US. My (not too expensive, one person) apartment in the US, built in around 1920, is 70 square meters. A Soviet apartment built during the 50s or 60s might not have that much space for an entire family.
No that is a complete lie. Nothing was available in free market there + if you lived lavishly and was not part of ruling class - you soon be prosecuted for “speculation” and serve jail time
The Brits invented commie blocks and ran the program better (Until Thatcher)
Only if this was not a lie.
Short answer - they were not provided for everyone.
Short answer - in capitalism absolutely nobody have such flats for free.
In my capitalistic city social housing exists. Only utilities are charged.
Not free
The problem is in the US there was other affordable hosuing other than this one. In the USSR oretty much not
Oh the audacity to think anything in the USSR was actually made for the people. Clearly radical leftist from the non-post-communist countries romanticising a impressive regime
Wtf is this wave of commie spam. Did the bot farm open up again?
This the sub for the USSR what did you expect???
Now let’s live in the real world.
https://preview.redd.it/8xgaxztntb9g1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35e1a733c50192aaedcd2a85c322c817568ed5aa
And this is during one of the greatest rent hikes in history.
Yes
Housing provided by state is not sign of success. Everytime there is someone who must pay for it because buildings demand ordering and maintanace. Either the one who lives there or the state. One is capitalist mindset and it works, the other leads to inflation.
One leads to inflation? Cool. So hows the house prices in New York these days?
New York is total extreme but the solution is not socialistic donation of housing for people...
Lol not just New York. I can say the same for the rest of the major cities. Not just housing too, but living in general has higher cost and the minimum wage hasnt moved. Lol
Provided by the government? So the elected representatives actually put on hats and boots and physically built those buildings? Pretty cool.
I was under the impression they just took money and resources using threats of force from the population and then used those to hire other people to build them.
So much different when estate firms make money and housing the real way by waiting for it to become expensive doing nothing while people voluntarily live paycheck to paycheck and choose to have their wages stagnate
Well, wages aren’t stagnant
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
Honestly it’s the speculation and non-residential ownership that inflates western home prices the most.
This is an incredibly dumb comment.
Not to mention: "they just took money and resources using threats of force from the population". That's literally every government ever if you want to frame it like that, pay taxes or jail.
"and then used those to hire other people to build them."; again, every government ever except socialists use the tax money to build houses, schools, for healthcare and education while in America they just take your money and if you get sick you can sell your house and die.
Hey whenever i use medicare my state rep physically comes in and does the health care themselves. Weirdly it's mostly rectal exams and nitrous.
As long as you’re capable of admitting the government members neither created the wealth that financed the houses nor did they do the physical work to build them I have no issues with saying the government “provided” the housing
Dude what?? I’m impressed by how dumb this comment is.
I agree. The comment you wrote is dumb.
Halfly yes. Some elected representatives are actually grassroots from where they came from. So yes, they may have been involved on physically building it.
Your second paragraph is every state in existence. State owns the monopoly of violence afterall. So its true as well.
No, the politicians are not out there building homes
Elections of delegates were made by a show of hands in open factory and village meetings, or in meetings of the rank and file of the army. Any candidate was personally known to the electors, and his qualifications could be argued about immediately in front of his face. Delegates once elected were liable to 'recall' should they cease to represent the views of their electorate. Since this electorate was a real entity, always in existence and discussing politics from day to day, it had a live and changing public opinion. Thus the will of his 'constituency' could easily, unmistakably and effectively be brought home to the delegate; and it was equally easy for him to report back to his electors.
— Holme, "The Soviets and Ourselves: Two Commonwealths"
Have him too. Albeit he's short lived https://revolutionsnewsstand.com/2024/01/28/the-first-president-of-the-republic-of-labour-a-short-biographical-sketch-of-the-life-and-work-of-yakov-m-sverdlov-by-cecilia-bobrovskaya-workers-library-publishers-new-york-193/
I don’t understand your point. The moment someone becomes a politician, elected via democratic means, and compensated for their role as a politician, they are no longer engaging in the actual work of doing the business of construction, or whatever it is. As I said before, politicians do not do the work. Insofar as they are politicians, they are not doing the work. It is the nature of politics to acquire wealth through forceful appropriation and distribute it. It is fundamentally different, and actually directly opposed, to the free individual’s modus operandi of living.
Yes, that is (mostly) correct. All governments in existence, assuming they have a democratic element, function in a similar way related or otherwise similar to this. Again, I don’t understand what your point is supposed to be.
I think what it is you - and all the others who have a problem with my comment - are not grasping or grappling with is that this is not an issue intrinsic to socialism per se but rather to any government. Politicians are intrinsically incentivized to pursue political ends. Everybody else in society has to either work - actually produce something - or be lucky or persuasive enough to get people to freely give them wealth so they can survive. The difference in capitalism and socialism in this regard is that socialists say “make more and more, make everything, democratic,” whereas a capitalist might only cede their individual rights of autonomous function to democracy out of (1) begrudging necessity, (2) under the threat of violence, (3) some kind of altruistic impulse.
This is an important distinction because the whole point of capitalism is that groups do not have moral authority over other people as individuals. Your individual rights come first, and that is a matter of logical priority, because if humans have no individual rights, there can BE no group rights, since groups are simply made of a bunch of individuals. That’s why it’s important, and only slightly pedantic, to point out that “the government” doesn’t ACTUALLY “provide” things, any more than a mafia don who appropriates wealth and redistributes it “provides” things. It is useful to use the phrase “government provided” but strictly speaking - or not even strictly speaking but simply speaking - it is also inaccurate and obscures the underlying reality. Which is not a trivial point, because rhetoric is a powerful tool that can be used for good and bad. If people are gonna crap their pants when I point out a simple fact about the nature of politics and government it doesn’t reflect poorly on ME - it reflects nothing more than an insecurity. They are THREATENED by someone pointing out that, if you think about it objectively, it’s silly to say the government “provides” it. It shouldn’t be a controversial point to make, but it is, because a socialist doesn’t like to hear that kind of thing, any more than a capitalist doesn’t like to be accused of “exploitation” of workers. The difference between those two is that while it is a simple and undeniable fact that this (what I described) is the way democratic elements and most government in general actually works, the term “exploitation” is inherently subjective, and that goes doubly so when you mean to use the word “exploit” not in a merely technical or descriptive sense, but rather in a moral sense. There’s a burden of proof to meet when you make a moral judgment on someone else, and because the term “exploitation” is subjective, it is difficult to show with any kind of moral clarity that capitalist modes of interaction - free economic agents not relying on violence for exchange - are “immoral exploitation.”
Okay now show me North and South Korea. Tell me where would you rather live ? :)
DPRK
One has higher suicide cases, other has less. Based on a some Chinese studying there.
What do the grocery stores look like?
https://preview.redd.it/eml9jaqd459g1.png?width=320&format=png&auto=webp&s=293b4ec1d8981e5050e9f7f897cd60ec7d4976d9
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There wasn't a famine in the 80s
Why does the year make a difference? And I never said the 80’s
In the USSR? Providing the nutritional needs as well as regional tastes and consumer qualities associated with exceptional economies.
In the USA? Providing mountains of waste at an unprecedented scale with the goal to drive profits 0.1 percent higher.
The profit incentive as the sole force of interest is the killer of organized economy.
Corporate boards are allegedly reforming away from shareholder profit maximization to more egalitarian stakeholder considerations that factor in consumers, supplier and other factions of society besides a bank account. The pursuit of pure profit led to many short sighted decisions that eroded the entity value.
Where is ussr now? Can you point on the map please
Average red scare user lol
USSR seems to be a great place, I’d like to move there
It was killed because of capitalists. If you want an alternate, there's DPRK, China, and Vietnam : )
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I didn’t realize they spelled coupon in English in Russia
Oh yes. English is stores started to become popularized in Russia during Perestroika.
It's Cyrillic, Socroi5.
Pretty sure they’re riffing on his trip to a Texas grocery store.
oh so they were only pretending to be an idiot.
got it.
https://preview.redd.it/lx4cr6ky769g1.jpeg?width=424&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3977908ae32ce3207e98922dcc9876c451cb3234
That’s Houston, Siberia!
Your post has been removed due to being deemed as misinformation or disingenuous in it's nature.
Provided by government after 20 years of toiling
5 years : )
Its in the name of every economic plan
in practice, usually queue was longer.
People admiring USSR the most didn't live there
USA: you get 100% of your salary and use it to pay your necesseries.
USSR: you get 10% of your salary and wait 30 years in queue eating the best ice cream
You get 100% of your salary and can ONLY use it on necessaries BARELY while the guy next door has enough food to live 500 years without starving
You should consider changing your work if you don't have enough money for food and rent.
Youre acting like every American CAN do that and just change their job to a better one. The education system is fucked in America, especially considering you have to pay to access it. If your parents are poor, you cant go to school and then you become poor and cant afford school for your child
Some jobs don’t need huge education costs for big ROI but yes US college is expensive by policy. Top schools want foreign students for prestige and the higher tuition they often pay compared to local “in-state” tuition fees. Rather than considering education as in investment in the future of the populace it’s a speculative investment vehicle and huge financial industry. You can get a loan but by the time you pay that off, and buy a house you’ll probably hit retirement and be back to greeting people outside Walmart to survive.
You will never be successful if you don't educate yourself. Do you think in USSR you automatically had the very best education and easy access to higher education? Absolutely not. The people who were "more equal" than others had better education: a lot of current Russian so-called elites are sons and daughters of Soviet elites; there are whole dynasties of scientists, actors, singers, politicians and army oficers.
Well the education was like the biggest thing that increased after the revolution, hence birth rates going down since education generally means less people giving birth
You get a fraction of the surplus value you produce.
It's distributed unevenly and may not fulfill your necessities.
They forgot the means of distribution is over half the retail value, seized the means of production and wonder why they’re still broke and have nothing.
Yeah and your boss has a salary of 2 billions per year because he works 10 thousands times more than you right
Be your own boss and earn 2 billions per year.
Give me the 10 billion dollar father who lets me invest and ok
You have to give half to Israel though.
I doubt something changed since 2022. I believe you may fund the same chart for USSR and see that Soviet money didn't make peoples live easier.
https://preview.redd.it/his64al3c69g1.png?width=1459&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f778de112bc234feba21653fe2860fa1f49e2c4
Did you heard about taxes?
There were taxes in USSR as well. But the key difference is that government decides for you how to spend most of your earnings.
So you don't get 100% of salary. I'm, f.e. receiving around 65%
You receive 100% of salary you earned (let's pretend that what your labor worth) and pay taxes/healthcare/social etc.
In planned economy you receive 10% of salary and still pay taxes. Regular taxes were quite low (around 10%), but if you dare to work not in a state owned company it could be up to 90%. Moreover you pay for membership in the party and voluntary had to buy bonds
I see the concept of taxes is foreign to you xD It's not 100%. To be fair you never receives 100% of a value ypu produce. It is much much better than whatever ussr had
This mf doesnt know a thing or two about surplus value. Hence you lack understanding of capitalism
In postindustrial world surplus value make no sense.