After USSR collapsed life got very hard, and my family ended up moving around a lot to make ends meet. I don’t think people in the west understand the kinds of horrors we had to live through after the collapse. I can tell you a personal anecdote where we started to have food shortages, and people would line up in front of a grocery store early in the morning like a black friday sale. Then people working at the store would just wheel out a cart with whatever they had and people would rush to grab what they could. Since I was a small kid at a time, I could weave between people easier to get to the food. I was literally risking my life getting trampled just so I wouldn’t starve for the day.
Anybody who cheers the collapse of USSR and claims it was a good thing is a piece of human garbage.
I was pretty happy with my life in USSR, so I definitely would move back if that was to happen. However, I don’t really see a path towards that in the foreseeable future. Russia is very much capitalist nowadays, and I don’t think there’s any real political will to go back to a communist system at the moment. That said, there is no stigma against communism within Russian public. Lots of people who grew up in USSR are still alive today, and they overwhelmingly prefer the old system. They obviously have influence on the younger generation as well, so communism is generally seen in a positive light in Russia. Perhaps now that Russia is falling into Chinese sphere of influence that may result in a similar model at some point.
I think it’s also worth acknowledging that USSR did collapse, so clearly it wouldn’t make sense to try and recreate the same system. What needs to happen is that people need to look critically at what USSR did well, and what the problems were to build a better system informed by that experience. I hope that happens within my lifetime, but you can never know what the future will hold.
Why did you leave?
After USSR collapsed life got very hard, and my family ended up moving around a lot to make ends meet. I don’t think people in the west understand the kinds of horrors we had to live through after the collapse. I can tell you a personal anecdote where we started to have food shortages, and people would line up in front of a grocery store early in the morning like a black friday sale. Then people working at the store would just wheel out a cart with whatever they had and people would rush to grab what they could. Since I was a small kid at a time, I could weave between people easier to get to the food. I was literally risking my life getting trampled just so I wouldn’t starve for the day.
Anybody who cheers the collapse of USSR and claims it was a good thing is a piece of human garbage.
I see, that’s pretty traumatic. It explains your hatred of the post-USSR regime.
Would you move back if a post Putin leader would revert back to the USSR ways?
I was pretty happy with my life in USSR, so I definitely would move back if that was to happen. However, I don’t really see a path towards that in the foreseeable future. Russia is very much capitalist nowadays, and I don’t think there’s any real political will to go back to a communist system at the moment. That said, there is no stigma against communism within Russian public. Lots of people who grew up in USSR are still alive today, and they overwhelmingly prefer the old system. They obviously have influence on the younger generation as well, so communism is generally seen in a positive light in Russia. Perhaps now that Russia is falling into Chinese sphere of influence that may result in a similar model at some point.
I think it’s also worth acknowledging that USSR did collapse, so clearly it wouldn’t make sense to try and recreate the same system. What needs to happen is that people need to look critically at what USSR did well, and what the problems were to build a better system informed by that experience. I hope that happens within my lifetime, but you can never know what the future will hold.
OK thanks for your personal insights.