Today on bluesky I learn that it was "propaganda" that the Soviet Union had trouble delivering consumer goods to its citzens and that store shelves there were sometimes empty. My "gas leaks everywhere" theory of politics is looking more and more unstoppable. - ThreadSky

blank.org • 45 days ago

Today on bluesky I learn that it was "propaganda" that the Soviet Union had trouble delivering consumer goods to its citzens and that store shelves there were sometimes empty.

My "gas leaks everywhere" theory of politics is looking more and more unstoppable.

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blank.org•44 days ago

Huh this post is doing smallish numbers now; sorry for making replies followers-only but I did a gut-check on “do I want to fight every tankie on bsky?” and came up “I’d rather cut my own fingers off with a Swiss Army knife” so yeah there you go. Love you all. ❤️

blank.org•45 days ago

I've already been of the opinion that it's a serious problem that the generation that encountered Nazism in person has mostly died off, and now I'm starting to think that you should have your kids talk to someone who grew up in the USSR while that's still an easy thing to do.

blank.org•45 days ago

And to be clear: I know people who largely enjoyed their childhood in the Soviet Union for the most part! The things you grow up with are normal, people find joy even in absurdity, and from Khrushchev onwards things more or less "worked" without, you know, major famines.

blank.org•45 days ago

But that comes along with stories like "yeah, you could only get new shoes once a year and you'd just grab the first pair you could find when some were available no matter what size they were, and then for the next few weeks everyone traded shoes until you had something close to your size."

blank.org•45 days ago

Strikingly, that story was a fond memory for the friend who told it to me, and I can kinda see that: suddenly it's shoe week! You've got a reason to talk to your neighbors! You all share a rueful chuckle about the absurdity of being caught in shoe week!

But it's a terrible way to distribute shoes.

blank.org•45 days ago

Anyway read "Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford and then read "In Soviet Union, Optimization Problem Solves You!" by @cshalizi.bsky.social

https://www.powells.com/book/red-plenty-9780571225231

https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-problem-solves-you/

ellenteapot.ca•44 days ago

[chanting] shoe week, shoe week, shoe week

flere-imsaho.circumstances.run•45 days ago

i really need the people who treat their love of ussr as the proxy of their hate for united states to learn a bit more about the propiska system.

momijizukamori.bsky.social•44 days ago

But sometimes there are shortages under capitalism too, and therefore life in the USSR was fine, actually! <- an argument a tankie-leaning friend tried on me once

knilb.bsky.social•45 days ago

This sounds like white nationalist revisionist history to keep Russia, that beacon of whiteness, on a pedestal

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