this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
1057 points (94.4% liked)
Political Memes
5425 readers
2818 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
you might want to speak with someone who lived in the USSR.
Even if you do, the past is a complicated thing. Plenty of people are nostalgic to the USSR, and many of them might very well have been better off under communism.
That said, in terms of standards of living, I think it's fair to say the Nordic countries were comparing themselves to the US way more than the Soviet Union in the postwar era. The Finns would rather be dead than associated with the Soviets, which many of them demonstrated quite forcefully during the war. As for the other Nordic countries, the Marshall Plan certainly didn't weaken the admiration of the US.
If anything, what made the Nordic model such a success was the decision to look away from the Soviets - the influence the Soviet Union had over European socialist parties somehow didn't catch on in the North. Marxist-Leninist parties existed (and still exist), but they were mostly sidelined (to a degree that is, in all fairness, problematic in its own right).
Maybe YOU should speak to someone who lived in the USSR. 75% of people from the former USSR polled want to live in the USSR again.
that poll is only of people currently living in russia.. none of the former soviet states and other parts of the world. and of course we all trust the moscow times. when you do speak with them they mention never having tried fresh fruit until the 1990s, standing in line hours for bread.. not being able to leave their apartments because strung out muggers took over the lobbies and always having to take the stairs, and not being able to control the temperature of their homes because the govt controlled the boilers, and having to use rugs as insulation against concrete, and all the drivers were terrible because the drivers tests were just a vodka buyoff, and the cars were constantly falling apart and the movies and music and artists in general were never allowed to criticize anything there, and the news didnt bother trying to be reality based etc