“Everyone should do as they please” is such entitled bullshit.
People were provided homes, jobs, education, healthcare, maternal leave, holidays for children in pioneer camps, and so on and forth, in a poor country that didn’t benefit from imperialism and didn’t exploit other nations.
To achieve that, able-bodied people were expected to contribute and parasitism was not tolerated.
(Edit) You probably grew up in a capitalist society so maybe you just have trouble imagining a different one.
Under capitalism, the most vulnerable people end up homeless and unemployed, but in the USSR nobody was left behind, vulnerable people were provided homes and given jobs they were able to perform. People with mental health issues were treated, as a matter of fact Western propaganda painted the high number of hospitalised people as an example of how repressive USSR is, instead of recognising that in the West many of those people would be homeless, freezing to death in winter and suffering all kinds of abuse.
Hospitalisation was not the first thing to do either - USSR had a huge “sanatorium” industry, with entire towns built in beautiful locations like seaside, mountain ranges, etc. Workers who were suffering from stress, anxiety etc would be sent there by their doctors to rest and rehabilitate from entire USSR in hundreds of thousands - someting only the rich could afford in the West at the time. Of course now those huge sanatorium complexes are mostly empty ruins, one of the most striking examples is Tskhaltubo in Georgia (https://wander-lush.org/visit-tskaltubo-travel-guide-tips/)
If people were unhappy with their housing situation they could apply to change it and enter a queue for a new accomodation, similarly those unhappy with their jobs had all kinds of free evening education courses available, re-training schemes, and so forth.
Laws against vagrancy and parasitism didn’t victimise the vulnerable, rather they existed to control the criminality. If you didn’t work legally, where were you getting money from? If you didn’t live under your registered address, how did you get an unregistered accomodation?
First off. Thanks for the detailed answer. You really care about topic.
Second. I might be entitled, as I’m a capitalist that greatly profits from this sick system. That said, not all capitalist countries treat their vulnerable in bad condition. I don’t need to work so I do work voluntarily with people who are either mentally or physically handicapped. And we (no, I’m surely no murican) actually do a lot for those. Could always be way more, but…
So to your point: I didn’t really wanted to paint the USSR badly. I’m sure they had it great. Kinda like our GDR (east germany) before we assimilated them, I assume. I would actually prefer such a system again, even though it totally would not be to my benefit.
I have ex-ussr and ex-gdr friends and they unisono miss the old times. It wasn’t perfect, but better than today’s shitholes.
Long story short. You’re right, I stand corrected and educated.
“Everyone should do as they please” is such entitled bullshit.
People were provided homes, jobs, education, healthcare, maternal leave, holidays for children in pioneer camps, and so on and forth, in a poor country that didn’t benefit from imperialism and didn’t exploit other nations.
To achieve that, able-bodied people were expected to contribute and parasitism was not tolerated.
(Edit) You probably grew up in a capitalist society so maybe you just have trouble imagining a different one.
Under capitalism, the most vulnerable people end up homeless and unemployed, but in the USSR nobody was left behind, vulnerable people were provided homes and given jobs they were able to perform. People with mental health issues were treated, as a matter of fact Western propaganda painted the high number of hospitalised people as an example of how repressive USSR is, instead of recognising that in the West many of those people would be homeless, freezing to death in winter and suffering all kinds of abuse.
Hospitalisation was not the first thing to do either - USSR had a huge “sanatorium” industry, with entire towns built in beautiful locations like seaside, mountain ranges, etc. Workers who were suffering from stress, anxiety etc would be sent there by their doctors to rest and rehabilitate from entire USSR in hundreds of thousands - someting only the rich could afford in the West at the time. Of course now those huge sanatorium complexes are mostly empty ruins, one of the most striking examples is Tskhaltubo in Georgia (https://wander-lush.org/visit-tskaltubo-travel-guide-tips/)
If people were unhappy with their housing situation they could apply to change it and enter a queue for a new accomodation, similarly those unhappy with their jobs had all kinds of free evening education courses available, re-training schemes, and so forth.
Laws against vagrancy and parasitism didn’t victimise the vulnerable, rather they existed to control the criminality. If you didn’t work legally, where were you getting money from? If you didn’t live under your registered address, how did you get an unregistered accomodation?
First off. Thanks for the detailed answer. You really care about topic.
Second. I might be entitled, as I’m a capitalist that greatly profits from this sick system. That said, not all capitalist countries treat their vulnerable in bad condition. I don’t need to work so I do work voluntarily with people who are either mentally or physically handicapped. And we (no, I’m surely no murican) actually do a lot for those. Could always be way more, but…
So to your point: I didn’t really wanted to paint the USSR badly. I’m sure they had it great. Kinda like our GDR (east germany) before we assimilated them, I assume. I would actually prefer such a system again, even though it totally would not be to my benefit. I have ex-ussr and ex-gdr friends and they unisono miss the old times. It wasn’t perfect, but better than today’s shitholes.
Long story short. You’re right, I stand corrected and educated.