On Aug 17, 4:07=A0am, David Friedman <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> In article
> <holman-1708080321480...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> =A0hol...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
> > In article <ddfr-C073AE.11414916082...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, David
Friedm=
an
> > <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > > In article
> > > <holman-1608082127450...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> > <deletions>
>
> > > I read the book _The Russians_, written, if I remember correctly, by
=
a
> > > U.S. re****ter (or two re****ters?) who had been Moscow correspondent
f=
or
> > > the New York Times.
>
> > The author was Hedrick Smith. I've had a few beers with him when he
was
> > visiting Helsinki.
>
> ...
>
> > As a re****ter who tried to understand the USSR by going native to the
> > extent that was possible, he learned how the USSR worked at the
grassro=
ots
> > level. Quite differently than a western country, but efficiently
enough=
to
> > provide most of its citizenry with a guaranteed lower middle-class
> > standard of living if they played along and did not rock the boat.
>
> I don't think that fits the book's description as I remember it. It
> sounded as though most of the USSR, outside of Moscow, was closer to
> India than to the U.S. in terms of standard of living--for instance,
> dentistry without anaesthetics, very limited range of foodstuffs
> available. It was a picture of a first world elite--poorer than the
> average American, but not radically poorer--in a third world country.
>
> ...
>
> > The
> > experience demonstrated to me that even people living in a
"dictator****=
p"
> > =AD if the USR was that any more in 1989 =AD are people, with the same
> > everyday concerns and problems that people have everywhere else.
>
> Not surprising.
>
> Thanks for the stories.
>
> I have one, although it's second hand, from my parents' visit to the
> USSR a fair while back. At one point they had a taxi driver who spoke
> English. He told them that he was a student, studying English at school.
> They asked him what he planned to do after he graduated.
>
> His answer: "They haven't decided yet."
>
> --
> =A0http://www.daviddfriedman.com/http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
> =A0Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
> =A0Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now
As a person spending first half of my life in Soviet Union, I follow
this thread with big interest. And if your remark about "They
haven't..." may be a bit darker then reality was (at last in Estonia),
in basis you are by me very close to the point between two societies.
Was life in Soviet Estonia poor? Yes, if we count a line of consumer
goods what people on the free side had and we had'nt. But that was not
the very serious problem for people coz it's was the same for
everything and no one was hungry at least in Estonia. Basic problem
was limited possibility to make something out from himself. It was not
lack of consumer goods or food, but lack of colours of life, lack of
op****tunities, lack of challenges.
Some good side?
No fear about job, healthcare, minimal fear about apartment - all this
was of low quality but the same for everyone and if you have no idea
what some thing may give to you, you hardly miss it (hardly lack of
iPod makes king Kroisos to feel himself poor :-)) If some of you have
been in compulsory Army service (minus free weekends), you have some
basic imagination about Soviet society - granted basics but very
limited possibilities to be your own boss. And a jail is, of course,
is useable parallel if only to imagine that ordinary people, not
criminals are with you in a camp behind barbed wire.
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