David, you forgot the one big way of promoting communism AND the ideal Soviet Man/Woman-The Olympics!!! The Olympics of my youth, starting in '64 in earnest and still going on vs Russia. That was a safe space-no nukes at the Olympics where Capitalism and Communism went head to head. It was amazing-people were glued to the daily medal count like to the box scores of baseball playoffs! So many of the games came down to Soviet vs USA. In '84 Winter games, The Miracle on Ice when the US beat Russia in Hockey was just crazy, I mean electrifying and Hockey wasn't even a big sport in the US then. Good episode!
@@greenkoopa Me too!! I do exactly the same thing, only it's usually in the early hours of Sunday morning that they're both up and onto my inbox. Probably because I live in Australia, but that's ok with me, they're both well worth waiting up to watch!!
Soviet Union not bad as you think. Hello from Russia. Мне вас искренне жаль. Надеюсь ваше отношения к нашей нации станет лучше после того, как мы победим в Священной Военной Операции и уничтожим ОДИН из источников Ереси и сатанизма, который осел в Украине.
03:20 Soviet new man 4:40 free of national and religious prejudice willing to sacrifice for society 07:20 tyranny of nature over man! Approach towards environment as something to be mastered and controlled Human built machines ! 1922 quote used . Idea of immortality throughout the scientific and technological progress. 09:30 realise the higher moral person 10:30 idea of Soviet Woman. New and equal member of society but then conservative Stalin wanted to erase radical experiments and replaced with centralised industrial worker. Break records.ti bring prestige and glory. A necessary but replaceable cog in the larger mechanism. It is not emphasising individual. Women encouraged to work but also give birth with abortion illegal around 1936..more.than 10 children Is mother heroine 14:30 break down of soviet commandments Mention man who turned in father And a miner who produced quotas four times over "how the steel was tempered"(?) His belief in communism and faith in the system Many stories were propagandised as ideals to live up to Domestic role models and international heroes like the space race. Armed forces where people had to serve is where they were canonized Alexander Zinoviev Homo Sovieticus 1970s book. 21:00 They recite at will with no thought to meaning. .interesting definition on mass thought yet no ideal new man emerged. No seeing the world into a new life
They've been doing this for years in the Mushroom Kingdom, Cold War help spread the message of Peach's crimes including hiring Italian mercenary forces
3:14 Communist New Man 5:01 physical appearance of a perfect revolutionary 9:41 cell vs organism 10:20 Soviet women 11:58 Stalin 14:33 Khrushchev 15:57 role models 18:58 Homo Sovieticus
I think it became a case where the traditional Russian and war years Soviet distilled the inherent pragmatism that the Russians are famed for and under communism it became a daily gauntlet just to make do and survive when surrounded by enemies at every level including ones own family members. One of my watch contacts is a former manager at one of the watch factories and he described to me the horror of the 5 year plans and how like watching Eurovision, across industry the managers and foremen would be listening to the radio to hopefully hear their chosen trade was blessed in being provisioned for by the 5 year plan and he explained how one particular one, brass production was completely omitted from this particular plan and for the watch industry that was like asking petrol cars to run on fresh air and he had to knock himself out scrounging for alternatives to brass, copper was already scarce and steel was earmarked for the auto and defence industries so he would be begging folk across the CPSU sphere for anything from pig brass to old fire extinguishers and the black market too. It was unthinkable that the factory would not produce anything because the 5 year plan was beyond reproach, if the factory ground to a halt then low brimmed hat wearing chaps in long overcoats would soon be round to visit to find out why and the blame would fall upon the managers shoulders amid fervent clamouring's of sabotage etc etc and off to gulag with family invited to participate because they were all guilty... no trial because the party, the politburo were also beyond reproach.
Complete nonsense. Reasoning at the level of a child of 7 years old. What the hell are the enemies within the family? This is what a resident of a society says to us Russians, where you can be canceled for alternative views on marriage, homosexual relationships and transgenderism? Not to mention the fact that your child can be taken away by Juv. Jus. for flogging and forbidding the child to express his "sexuality" (Together with the ban on drinking hormones for transgender transition) You reviewed the horror stories about the evil "totalitarian" USSR. The lion's share of the current inhabitants of the post-Soviet space will tell you that life in the Union was friendlier and people were kinder/friendlier. Now, most people are fixated on the survival of themselves and their own families - in the USSR all this was *guaranteed* by the state - that is what millions of people fought in the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War for. And they got it - a conditional collective farmer could expect that his child would not only receive a full school education, but, if desired, a higher education. And absolutely free. The same goes for health care, employment, housing and pensions.
What nonsense is this .... "Survive at all levels, even among members of your own family" Jesus ... I am Russian and my parents and my parents' parents lived in the USSR. USSR 1960-1980s was great
@@heyhoe168 They managed to get into space because the Soviet education system and science were the best in the world. There was no bureaucracy in the USSR, everything was simple. Meanwhile, in Germany, to receive unemployment benefits, you need to fill out 10 tons of papers and documents.
in Czechoslovakia , we had this saying : in capitalism , man is exploited by man . While in communism , its exatly other way around . ..... thats what you get with "new soviet man" in my opinion .
Well said. I'd say "In communism, man exploits you and takes everything promising a better future but never delivers. In capitalism, man exploits you but let's you keep a little and it's then on you to make a better future with the little you get to keep." Both suck but one sucks far far less than the other
Can you please do a video about music in the USSR? I have recently discovered Kino and DDT which are both Soviet bands they are really great and there is definitely interesting history around the music industry in the USSR
That guy who snitched on his dad was reminded me of what happened in Death of Stalin where a young man called the KGB to arrest his dad, who fortunately was spares when Stalin died and all political prisoners were pardoned by Beria. I can't imagine the paranoia people living in the Soviet Union must have felt, knowing that they could be turned in my their own children if they're not careful.
We imagine something that happening now? There is news about students writing "donos" on teacher. Kids reporting on parents or parents saying that they don't have children's. Family member forgetting about existing of each and so on. Hell there is allot of records when mothers saying that they don't have sons when son become pow and calling home after 2 months of silence
literally every human being back then was what the people of today would call barbarians lol. they were all gross and barely literate. most of the human species was literal clinical psychopaths back then
In reality, for occupied territories at least, this creation of soviet man was just another name for russification. Just like USSR in its core was not so new a all - just another name for Russian Empire.
There is an interesting longitudinal study which has tracked societal values by Lebedev institute from about 1982 or so. It found that the Conservatism many of the older generation stood in contrast with the radicalism of their youth was a survival mechanism. And, the endemic corruption just is what fueled the cynicism that corroded the public trust.
I think both the Marx quote about work under communism and Trotsky's quote about the "ideal soviet man" were tongue-in-cheek. Marxists tend to eschew too much speculation on the specifics about the future.
Marx didn't like to create blueprints for a future society since he thought that was utopian, but he clearly had some abstract ideas for what a future society without alienation and exploitation would necessarily consist of
"Too much speculation"? The entire human history was nothing but a blind man trying to grab sticks and dirt and build a castle. What the Bolsheviks achieved was nothing short of great work, considering they were the first to do it and inherited such a poor and backward country.
This is the first explanation of the term New Soviet Man that I have watched ever since I read it in a Jack Ryan novel where he joked that airline seats are what is being used to shape the new Soviet Man.
The problem is, in Socialism, with work running from the bottom up, the workers were supposed to determine output goals, how to achieve them etc by collective agreement. The Soviet Union had a few elites in Moscow, telling Vladivostock what worked for them. The problem is they started way to large! Perhaps they should have started small-like St. Petersburg or Moscow just to get the kinks out and reform their ideas as they learned through trial and error. One thing they were ahead of the time with was women as partners and equals!
You narrowed down the problem to one thing? And they weren’t ahead of their time re: women. 20 million men died in wwii. They had to be replaced in the workplace. It was out of necessity. Come and tell my mother who needed two knee replacements at 60 after a lifetime of hard work about how far ahead the soviets were on womens issues and how empowered she should have felt.
@@SKa-tt9nm So sorry for your mom and I hope the knee replacements were successful! I was talking generally in careers that were light years ahead of their time-fighting units in WWII, bombers and fighter, doctors, chemists, politicians that was all going on in the Soviet Union years, decades before the West. I grew up in the '50's and my mother had a Master's degree. As a child, I knew few children whose mother worked let alone any whose mother had a Master's let alone a doctorate and there weren't even that many who had any college. So yes, in many many ways, the Soviet Union was ahead of the West with women. Free child care would have released many Western women who had the inclination to learn but couldn't because they hadn't enough to pay for child care.
What's really ironic is that assessment that the New Soviet Man experiment failed as evidenced by few Soviet citizens attempting to stop the USSR from collapsing. Recently Gorbachev died and it's been highlighted that Russians hate him because they blame him for causing the collapse and the hardships that followed. Modern Russians hate him for supposedly making the Soviet Union fall, yet people back them weren't eager to stop it from happening. That's what nostalgia for supposed "better times" gets you.
1. For 60 years, society removes your agency; you have no choice to do what the higher-ups say, regardless of whether it is possible, on pain of death or GULAG. When you're not busy doing what you're told, you scrounge and play the system to survive. 2) The higher-ups stop telling you what to do. Scrounging and playing the system becomes your whole life. The Soviet Union collapses. 3) Some guy on the internet blames YOU for the collapse of the Soviet Union, rather than the leaders you were waiting to hear from. You find that funny, because for your whole life, you were told the way to help the Soviet Union was by following orders.
@@michigandersea3485 Did you really just say it wasn't the peoples' fault they didn't save the Soviet Union because no one told them to? There was that coup attempt where hardline communists tried to seize control of the government but the people stood against them. They chose not to follow orders then.
We can argue if original story is fiction. But most scary part that he is hero of old ppl and now young generation of russian told in schools/tv/social media that he is hero and he did right thing and they should do same.
@@Denis_Komarrov no, the most scary part is that the US and the EU are happily marching in the same direction. Children can snitch on parents, neighbors on neighbors, etc. I doubt any will be executed, but prison is a very real possibility. (and reasons might be very different- from using the wrong pronouns to listening "Oh say can you see".
Man, the dreams some of these early Communists had were very ambitious. But, I think people need something to believe in beyond themselves, not to mention the humility to realize that we don't know as much as we think we do. Thank you for another video! Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you, friends. ✝️ :)
@N. R. I agree that a lot of the postmodern sorta-nihilist stuff of today in the west is not good. Having said that, what are you referring to as my wish in that original comment?
One bonkers element of Soviet life not covered here is the official support of Lamarckism--or more specifically, the insistence that Darwin's origin of species was WRONG, as was Mendel's research on genetics, and that you could indeed improve a species's offspring by having the parent generation just train really hard and get really talented at something to the point where they can pass those acquired traits along to their children. Thus, you could create the direct inheritance of positive traits to the Soviet people simply by making sure mothers and fathers followed the right regimens. This, of course, didn't work--because it's not how inheritance works. I don't know how prevalent this belief was in the pre-Stalin era, but under Stalin, his Director of the Institute of Genetics, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, promoted the idea so strongly that many historians blame him directly for both crop failures in Russia as well as the Great Chinese Famine of 1959--1962, caused in some large part by adherence to his recommendations about how to plant and nourish crops.
👏 👏👏 best post on here. They were right in one small way - my parents worked really hard at hating communism and I was born hating communism, so there might be something there. 😉
Meanwhile Soviet worker ignores all of the public goods, services, and subsidies he/she benefits from and would not be able to afford if he/she would have to pay for them out of pocket from his "free-market" wages.
@@Pituqat the point of working is to at least build yourself up to a better life. if youre still working, and you cant improve what you have, then theres no point in working. also, this assumes that what they had was even good. especially later on, when the rot began to creep in. the soviet union was never going to work because it assumed that everyone involved is willing to treat each other as equals. Moscovites and Saint Petersbergians are the scourge of russia.
@@Pituqat um… no. The Soviet worker wasn’t in position to ignore anything because they didn’t know the status quo on the other side of the wall. So they couldn’t say “isn’t it great we have a pension instead of having to contribute to a 401k” because nobody in the USSR knew what a 401k was. Or toll roads. Or private schools. In short, no to everything else you were going to say on the subject.
We saw some of this in the US Military in the late 20th century. They kept playing with the physical fitness standards and were trying to breed a master race of bull necked anorexics who could run for miles and work all day while looking like a cartoon character. Literally wanted men with large necks, broad shoulders and tiny waists. Back then I always thought it was the Admiral's that needed piss testing, not us enlisted men. ;-)
All of our machines are meant to replicate some talent we are possessed of. Now we even put on suits with little wings and jump off mountains eventually hitting the ground. It is an insertion or a sport. There is the idea that human beings can evolve in their minds so they think what only gods would bother to think. And we all have souls and destinies. One of those destinies is that of the warrior. There are people born to fight whether it is for the right cause or the worst of causes. For this we really need the leaders whose minds only call for cooperation in achieving the goals that are correct. In this world forever there are the cooperative and the uncooperative. Someone has to get along and someone has to take orders.
Ever read "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli? Stalin personifies the "great leader" ideal the books gushes over. End justifies the means and all that...
And in the English language, they're both the same thing, too. For example, "Man" and "Mankind", would could both be accurately translated into the word, "Man."
@@frenzalrhomb6919 Yep, however I think the definition of man has changed. Back in the early 00’s I remember teachers & English professors stating how “man” can be a stand-in for “humans” or “people”. Nowadays it seems the even slight implication of referring to Males-only has changed this
Honestly, my take on this is that, during the first generations of the hardcore Communists, the dreamers of a new world, some of whom were oppressed in the capitalist system, envisioned a dream-like paradise on Earth, an end goal, built by human hands. Yet, they never really gave clear instructions on how to do so. As we progressed down the line, of Socialist leaders, we see a more, down-to-earth, realistic view on the New Soviet Person.
the further we go from the original concept, the more the idea is diluted and bastardised by less bright minds and people with their own agendas. in the end, the optimism for an ideal human commanding their own destiny became just another eugenics thing, a tool to make people comply and eventually a taboo.
The first generations of communists were almost entirely uneducated brutes who literally couldn’t read or write. Not their fault, but it’s reality. They mostly dreamed of bread and a cot. If you think that most of them thought about utopian societies generations into the future, you are perhaps too naive to have any follow up takes. Enjoy the journey, fellow traveler.
That's the point, make it vague deliberately so you and your Party comrades can interpret as you see fit. "Show me the man, I'll show you the criminal."
Example - people who didn’t want to give up their privately owned farm land to the collective, people who didn’t meet their quota for making widgets at the widget factory, etc.
Before you formulate a political theory, you need a theory of human nature. Human beings are nor hive insects. Human beings have spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual aspirations. Different capacities. Different interests, priorities, values. Forcing collectivism leads to an explosion or slow deadening. Freedom to take risks in a free market and taking individual responsibility for decisions is best.
forcing collectivism is exactly what capitalism is. except its just european oligarchs collecting everything by enslaving the rest of the species. you are born into a 150% interdependent ecosystem. nothing you can possibly do happens without lots of other living things doing a bunch of crap that creates the conditions for it to happen. individualism is a big BIG red flag for clinical psychopathy.
I'm certain there is an obvious answer that I have missed, but if the economic plan called for 1,000,000 pairs of bunny slippers, wouldn't exceeding the quota cause shortages of the raw materials needed for the production of other things? Unless, of course, if the retail clerk exceeds HIS quota of slippers distributed it is expected that everyone upstream of him (transportation, manufacturing and the collection of elementals like oil for the production of polyester fiber) will exceed THEIR quotas in lockstep so as not to commandeer more resources than required to produce the amount of bunny slippers the planners deemed optimal?
Yes it would. But people did their best, to not do their best, as it ment more work for little to no compensation. But over all ya thats why they had their 5 year plan sh1t. To have some sort of control over this.
You’ve just accurately described some of the glaring weaknesses of communism and planned economy. Obvious to a child, but not the communist leadership.
It's ironic when the descriptions of the "Soviet Man" always starts with "free man" while a long list of strict criteria follows... How can a man be "free" when has to align to a long list of ideals... and no one even noticed this.
It amazes me that the ideals espoused by Ayn Rand ran parallel to those of Lenin and Trotsky. The only difference is the system in control (free market vs. the state). Both systems sucked for the average person, ultimately.
Every time I read Marx on the future of mankind or the new Soviet man I cannot but think of the more silly parts of the book of revelation. Or the rantings of Lex Luther from the Superman comics. This is what happens when you take philosophers seriously instead of just entertainment.
“That guy who’s never worked for a living, comes from a country that’s an industrial laggard, has not traveled much to the countries/societies he opines about prior to writing this ridiculous 48 page pamphlet, I bet he can tell us much about not only capitalism today but also about our future” Dorks.
Even if the war in Ukraine didn't happen, due to the Brain drain and demographic collapse, Russia would've died within 20 years. This war sealed their fate.
Most early communists did believe in those things, they saw capitalism as joke where in theory you're allowed freedom of speech and expression, but with being overworked and the huge imbalance between employer and employee, most regular people don't meaningfully have to pursue things outside of work.
@@SKa-tt9nm Do you think the comment you replied to came out of nowhere? I was born in a Marxist-Leninist country, I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the topic.
Communism: lofty goals, horrendous and tyrannical execution Capitalism: yeah life isn't fair but whatever, that's reality. Let's get the money, then we can try fixing stuff
Homo Sovieticus can still be found in Russified Baltic regions, definitely in renegade 'republics' of Luhansk and Donetsk and anyone asking for a bribe.
@@MrAnonymousRandom Corruption does not drops bombs on heads of innocent people in Ukraine, it does russians and there collaborators from Donetsk/Lugansk. And Yes, there is ethnical part of Donbass question, because before and after WWII Ukrainian locals mixed by soviet government with russian working settlers, which resulted in creation of Homo Soveticus or Sovcopitecus, herd of workers divided from there roots, culture, national traditions and without national identity. All national was replaced by Soviet, that mutated in very hard form as we see now. Homo Soveticus - people with infantile, collectivist and powerless mindset who believe that a big state like russian federation guarantees them security and there mothballed soviet reality far away from responsible and individualistic West civilization.
The one big theme I see across what all of the USSR's leaders wanted of the New Soviet Man (and maybe even more so Woman) is obedience and placing their work for the state as the top priority
Hearing all this basically eugenicist nonsense about the "Soviet man" makes me realize just how exclusive, hegemonic, and even fascistic the USSR was from the get go, and it definitely puts the later disasters of the Union into context.
@@MrGksarathy True (though I don't know if they have any specific laws about racism). And? We're talking about the Soviet Union, and they were a hell of a lot more progressive than the US and Europe at the time. They were fighting racism when Europe enslaved half the world, was neck deep into fascism and eugenics, and the US was an apartheid State. Context is always important.
@@matheusvillela9150 Yes, the Soviet Union, which already launched pogroms against the Jews in the 20s and sent gay people to the gulags in the '30s, not to mention Russification of the other Soviet republics, was actually less racist than the US and Europe. Also, the Soviet Union was very willing to ally with fascists for territorial gain, and only declined becoming an axis power due to disagreements over the Balkans. Not to mention, it took Operation Barbarossa for the Soviets to fight the Nazis in earnest, after countless lives had been pointlessly lost from Stalin's fuckups.
@@MrGksarathy Pogroms by bolsheviks? Name one. I You may be mistaking them for the white army and people like Petlyura and Bandera. Homosexuality was a crime in the US, England and most european countries at the time, and very few people were actually prosecuted for it in the Soviet Union -- the law didn't make a clear distinction between pedophoels and homosexuals. Soviets were discussing how they were going to be invaded by Germany by the early 30s, which is why they moved the industries east. If you're talking about Ribbentrop-Molotov, that was a non agression deal made AFTER Stalin had failed to convince any major power to build a coalition against nazi Germany. Many countries did similar pacts with Germany, and in the case of the soviets it was so they could prepare for the invasion.
@@RK-cj4oc not all, but a significant majority in this country is thinking not unlike the homo sovieticus, specifically constantly trying to cheat the system (because the system is broken), being primarily after personal interests, while always claiming to have a moral reason, refusing to commit to an opinion or even voicing strong positions, but privately pursueing personal advancements regardless of social impacts
How can anyone reject those wonderful ideas? All that's required is removal of idiosyncracy of humans. And yes, Stachanov would have labor results of his teammates attributed to him. Morozov didn't rat his father out, he merely confirmed what his mother had told. So many lies in such a short time. Coming to a neighborhood near u if u continue to elect those in power today.
#sponsored Use code POGTCWSEPT16 for 16 FREE MEALS across 7 boxes + 3 surprise gifts at strms.net/TheColdWarHelloFreshSeptember
Love your videos, I always look forward to Saturday for you and for WW2 in Real Time
David, you forgot the one big way of promoting communism AND the ideal Soviet Man/Woman-The Olympics!!! The Olympics of my youth, starting in '64 in earnest and still going on vs Russia. That was a safe space-no nukes at the Olympics where Capitalism and Communism went head to head. It was amazing-people were glued to the daily medal count like to the box scores of baseball playoffs! So many of the games came down to Soviet vs USA. In '84 Winter games, The Miracle on Ice when the US beat Russia in Hockey was just crazy, I mean electrifying and Hockey wasn't even a big sport in the US then. Good episode!
@@greenkoopa Me too!! I do exactly the same thing, only it's usually in the early hours of Sunday morning that they're both up and onto my inbox.
Probably because I live in Australia, but that's ok with me, they're both well worth waiting up to watch!!
Soviet Union not bad as you think. Hello from Russia. Мне вас искренне жаль. Надеюсь ваше отношения к нашей нации станет лучше после того, как мы победим в Священной Военной Операции и уничтожим ОДИН из источников Ереси и сатанизма, который осел в Украине.
@@AshPessimist осел в Украине не ваша проблема. Ваша проблема это осел в Кремле.
People legitimately thought you could Ideology hard enough that you became a Super Saiyan.
they still do
03:20 Soviet new man
4:40 free of national and religious prejudice willing to sacrifice for society
07:20 tyranny of nature over man! Approach towards environment as something to be mastered and controlled
Human built machines !
1922 quote used . Idea of immortality throughout the scientific and technological progress.
09:30 realise the higher moral person
10:30 idea of Soviet Woman. New and equal member of society but then conservative Stalin wanted to erase radical experiments and replaced with centralised industrial worker. Break records.ti bring prestige and glory. A necessary but replaceable cog in the larger mechanism. It is not emphasising individual. Women encouraged to work but also give birth with abortion illegal around 1936..more.than 10 children Is mother heroine
14:30 break down of soviet commandments
Mention man who turned in father
And a miner who produced quotas four times over "how the steel was tempered"(?)
His belief in communism and faith in the system
Many stories were propagandised as ideals to live up to
Domestic role models and international heroes like the space race. Armed forces where people had to serve is where they were canonized
Alexander Zinoviev Homo Sovieticus 1970s book.
21:00 They recite at will with no thought to meaning. .interesting definition on mass thought yet no ideal new man emerged.
No seeing the world into a new life
Still do in 🇰🇵
Try it, you really can. Workers in gulags learned how to control their temperature through never standing still and so became resistant to cold.
@@bodhimarshall8668 yeah, that’s not ideology. That’s just trying to survive.and as far as “try it”, no thanks.
They've been doing this for years in the Mushroom Kingdom, Cold War help spread the message of Peach's crimes including hiring Italian mercenary forces
Lenin is a mushroom
@@Neversa And you are the Turd he grows from ...!!
Funny Green Koopa
Mushroom what?
Lenin is a mushroom
3:14 Communist New Man
5:01 physical appearance of a perfect revolutionary
9:41 cell vs organism
10:20 Soviet women
11:58 Stalin
14:33 Khrushchev
15:57 role models
18:58 Homo Sovieticus
I think it became a case where the traditional Russian and war years Soviet distilled the inherent pragmatism that the Russians are famed for and under communism it became a daily gauntlet just to make do and survive when surrounded by enemies at every level including ones own family members. One of my watch contacts is a former manager at one of the watch factories and he described to me the horror of the 5 year plans and how like watching Eurovision, across industry the managers and foremen would be listening to the radio to hopefully hear their chosen trade was blessed in being provisioned for by the 5 year plan and he explained how one particular one, brass production was completely omitted from this particular plan and for the watch industry that was like asking petrol cars to run on fresh air and he had to knock himself out scrounging for alternatives to brass, copper was already scarce and steel was earmarked for the auto and defence industries so he would be begging folk across the CPSU sphere for anything from pig brass to old fire extinguishers and the black market too. It was unthinkable that the factory would not produce anything because the 5 year plan was beyond reproach, if the factory ground to a halt then low brimmed hat wearing chaps in long overcoats would soon be round to visit to find out why and the blame would fall upon the managers shoulders amid fervent clamouring's of sabotage etc etc and off to gulag with family invited to participate because they were all guilty... no trial because the party, the politburo were also beyond reproach.
Post-Stalin USSR was in a way to the bureaucratic hell. It is miracle they managed to make it into the space.
ua-cam.com/video/G2PByD-TaGo/v-deo.html this a video about planning in the Soviet Union.
Complete nonsense. Reasoning at the level of a child of 7 years old.
What the hell are the enemies within the family? This is what a resident of a society says to us Russians, where you can be canceled for alternative views on marriage, homosexual relationships and transgenderism? Not to mention the fact that your child can be taken away by Juv. Jus. for flogging and forbidding the child to express his "sexuality" (Together with the ban on drinking hormones for transgender transition)
You reviewed the horror stories about the evil "totalitarian" USSR.
The lion's share of the current inhabitants of the post-Soviet space will tell you that life in the Union was friendlier and people were kinder/friendlier.
Now, most people are fixated on the survival of themselves and their own families - in the USSR all this was *guaranteed* by the state - that is what millions of people fought in the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War for. And they got it - a conditional collective farmer could expect that his child would not only receive a full school education, but, if desired, a higher education. And absolutely free. The same goes for health care, employment, housing and pensions.
What nonsense is this .... "Survive at all levels, even among members of your own family" Jesus ... I am Russian and my parents and my parents' parents lived in the USSR. USSR 1960-1980s was great
@@heyhoe168 They managed to get into space because the Soviet education system and science were the best in the world. There was no bureaucracy in the USSR, everything was simple. Meanwhile, in Germany, to receive unemployment benefits, you need to fill out 10 tons of papers and documents.
in Czechoslovakia , we had this saying : in capitalism , man is exploited by man . While in communism , its exatly other way around . ..... thats what you get with "new soviet man" in my opinion .
Well said. I'd say
"In communism, man exploits you and takes everything promising a better future but never delivers. In capitalism, man exploits you but let's you keep a little and it's then on you to make a better future with the little you get to keep."
Both suck but one sucks far far less than the other
I think this might be one of your best videos ever. The points, the pace, the footage, everything was just spot on.
Agree - very lean and poignant illustrations for the narrative.
Plus gets the satire across well.
Your attention to culture and society, in addition to politics and strategics, makes your channel highly commendable. Kudos
Marx and Engels' original Soviet Man sounds like an even more idealized/romanticized Gigachad than... Well, Gigachad.
Can you please do a video about music in the USSR? I have recently discovered Kino and DDT which are both Soviet bands they are really great and there is definitely interesting history around the music industry in the USSR
Go listen "russian doomer" music, there are a lot of soviet songs in there :)
@@deno202 beware of depression though
@@tomaszskowronski1406 For some it might trigger some depression. For less depression, Italian doomer or Mexican doomer works nice :D
You’ll be amazed how many tunes were “borrowed” from the west. Much like the ruskies borrowed Winnie the Pooh, the design of the Volga car, etc.
That was a fantastic episode, in especial with how much it helps understand what happened in Russia after the 1980s.
I would love to see Latin America's role during the Cold War and the proxy wars that were fought in South America
That might make the US look terrible, though, so probably this channel won't get into too much detail
It'll be impossible to demonize the USSR if you're talking about what the US did in just Cold War Central America alone
That guy who snitched on his dad was reminded me of what happened in Death of Stalin where a young man called the KGB to arrest his dad, who fortunately was spares when Stalin died and all political prisoners were pardoned by Beria. I can't imagine the paranoia people living in the Soviet Union must have felt, knowing that they could be turned in my their own children if they're not careful.
Clearly Russian belts weren't strong enough 😏
It's entirely possible that the story was made up.
Welcome to the " West"!
We imagine something that happening now? There is news about students writing "donos" on teacher. Kids reporting on parents or parents saying that they don't have children's. Family member forgetting about existing of each and so on. Hell there is allot of records when mothers saying that they don't have sons when son become pow and calling home after 2 months of silence
literally every human being back then was what the people of today would call barbarians lol. they were all gross and barely literate. most of the human species was literal clinical psychopaths back then
This is a fantastic video; big ups for mentioning "Homo Sovieticus", I wish that it was more well known!
In reality, for occupied territories at least, this creation of soviet man was just another name for russification. Just like USSR in its core was not so new a all - just another name for Russian Empire.
The ending was a sharp turn.
There is an interesting longitudinal study which has tracked societal values by Lebedev institute from about 1982 or so.
It found that the Conservatism many of the older generation stood in contrast with the radicalism of their youth was a survival mechanism. And, the endemic corruption just is what fueled the cynicism that corroded the public trust.
Hell if I didn’t know any better that sounds like what’s gradually happening in the States!
Gorby did it all for the internet and pizza. Thank you comrade.
I think both the Marx quote about work under communism and Trotsky's quote about the "ideal soviet man" were tongue-in-cheek. Marxists tend to eschew too much speculation on the specifics about the future.
Marx didn't like to create blueprints for a future society since he thought that was utopian, but he clearly had some abstract ideas for what a future society without alienation and exploitation would necessarily consist of
"Too much speculation"? The entire human history was nothing but a blind man trying to grab sticks and dirt and build a castle. What the Bolsheviks achieved was nothing short of great work, considering they were the first to do it and inherited such a poor and backward country.
@@sankarchaya he was an inquisitive bonehead.
Great episode! Thank you!
This is the first explanation of the term New Soviet Man that I have watched ever since I read it in a Jack Ryan novel where he joked that airline seats are what is being used to shape the new Soviet Man.
David - At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, you’re the history professor I always wanted, but never had. (Until now.)
I really appreciated this episodes information and examples, thank you.
The problem is, in Socialism, with work running from the bottom up, the workers were supposed to determine output goals, how to achieve them etc by collective agreement. The Soviet Union had a few elites in Moscow, telling Vladivostock what worked for them. The problem is they started way to large! Perhaps they should have started small-like St. Petersburg or Moscow just to get the kinks out and reform their ideas as they learned through trial and error. One thing they were ahead of the time with was women as partners and equals!
the biggest mistake they made was allowing europe to continue to exist when they had the easy opportunity to rid the world of it for good..
You narrowed down the problem to one thing?
And they weren’t ahead of their time re: women. 20 million men died in wwii. They had to be replaced in the workplace. It was out of necessity.
Come and tell my mother who needed two knee replacements at 60 after a lifetime of hard work about how far ahead the soviets were on womens issues and how empowered she should have felt.
@@SKa-tt9nm So sorry for your mom and I hope the knee replacements were successful! I was talking generally in careers that were light years ahead of their time-fighting units in WWII, bombers and fighter, doctors, chemists, politicians that was all going on in the Soviet Union years, decades before the West. I grew up in the '50's and my mother had a Master's degree. As a child, I knew few children whose mother worked let alone any whose mother had a Master's let alone a doctorate and there weren't even that many who had any college. So yes, in many many ways, the Soviet Union was ahead of the West with women. Free child care would have released many Western women who had the inclination to learn but couldn't because they hadn't enough to pay for child care.
What's really ironic is that assessment that the New Soviet Man experiment failed as evidenced by few Soviet citizens attempting to stop the USSR from collapsing. Recently Gorbachev died and it's been highlighted that Russians hate him because they blame him for causing the collapse and the hardships that followed. Modern Russians hate him for supposedly making the Soviet Union fall, yet people back them weren't eager to stop it from happening. That's what nostalgia for supposed "better times" gets you.
1. For 60 years, society removes your agency; you have no choice to do what the higher-ups say, regardless of whether it is possible, on pain of death or GULAG. When you're not busy doing what you're told, you scrounge and play the system to survive.
2) The higher-ups stop telling you what to do. Scrounging and playing the system becomes your whole life. The Soviet Union collapses.
3) Some guy on the internet blames YOU for the collapse of the Soviet Union, rather than the leaders you were waiting to hear from. You find that funny, because for your whole life, you were told the way to help the Soviet Union was by following orders.
@@michigandersea3485 Did you really just say it wasn't the peoples' fault they didn't save the Soviet Union because no one told them to? There was that coup attempt where hardline communists tried to seize control of the government but the people stood against them. They chose not to follow orders then.
@@creatoruser736 no, I am satirizing the view that it was the people’s fault because it’s totally silly
They literally had a giant coup to prevent the fall of the ussr
Gorbachev is hated by all the former republics of the USSR
I heard that the story of Morozov, who presumably turned in his father, may in fact be fictional.
We can argue if original story is fiction. But most scary part that he is hero of old ppl and now young generation of russian told in schools/tv/social media that he is hero and he did right thing and they should do same.
@@Denis_Komarrov for me it always was somewhere in the middle of propaganda white-noise. So it does not matter what was the story.
@@Denis_Komarrov no, the most scary part is that the US and the EU are happily marching in the same direction. Children can snitch on parents, neighbors on neighbors, etc. I doubt any will be executed, but prison is a very real possibility. (and reasons might be very different- from using the wrong pronouns to listening "Oh say can you see".
@@anastasiab9506 really where is this?
the dudes legit wanted to create zombies. Now that is terrifyingly awesome
Trotsky writing fanfict for himself is sending me
I love your work David, but I have to give alot of the credit to the fine writers in this series. They do a great job.
Ideals and reality often clash. It's extremely rare if ever. When they meet. Great video.
Man, the dreams some of these early Communists had were very ambitious. But, I think people need something to believe in beyond themselves, not to mention the humility to realize that we don't know as much as we think we do. Thank you for another video!
Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you, friends. ✝️ :)
@N. R. I agree that a lot of the postmodern sorta-nihilist stuff of today in the west is not good. Having said that, what are you referring to as my wish in that original comment?
One bonkers element of Soviet life not covered here is the official support of Lamarckism--or more specifically, the insistence that Darwin's origin of species was WRONG, as was Mendel's research on genetics, and that you could indeed improve a species's offspring by having the parent generation just train really hard and get really talented at something to the point where they can pass those acquired traits along to their children. Thus, you could create the direct inheritance of positive traits to the Soviet people simply by making sure mothers and fathers followed the right regimens.
This, of course, didn't work--because it's not how inheritance works. I don't know how prevalent this belief was in the pre-Stalin era, but under Stalin, his Director of the Institute of Genetics, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, promoted the idea so strongly that many historians blame him directly for both crop failures in Russia as well as the Great Chinese Famine of 1959--1962, caused in some large part by adherence to his recommendations about how to plant and nourish crops.
👏 👏👏 best post on here.
They were right in one small way - my parents worked really hard at hating communism and I was born hating communism, so there might be something there. 😉
@3:35 are you joking? I think there is a mistake in showing portraits of Pavlik Morosov ( a child) and Stakhanof (an adult).
The Soviet worker: "You pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."
Meanwhile Soviet worker ignores all of the public goods, services, and subsidies he/she benefits from and would not be able to afford if he/she would have to pay for them out of pocket from his "free-market" wages.
@@Pituqat
the point of working is to at least build yourself up to a better life.
if youre still working, and you cant improve what you have, then theres no point in working.
also, this assumes that what they had was even good. especially later on, when the rot began to creep in.
the soviet union was never going to work because it assumed that everyone involved is willing to treat each other as equals.
Moscovites and Saint Petersbergians are the scourge of russia.
@@Pituqat um… no. The Soviet worker wasn’t in position to ignore anything because they didn’t know the status quo on the other side of the wall. So they couldn’t say “isn’t it great we have a pension instead of having to contribute to a 401k” because nobody in the USSR knew what a 401k was. Or toll roads. Or private schools.
In short, no to everything else you were going to say on the subject.
We saw some of this in the US Military in the late 20th century. They kept playing with the physical fitness standards and were trying to breed a master race of bull necked anorexics who could run for miles and work all day while looking like a cartoon character. Literally wanted men with large necks, broad shoulders and tiny waists. Back then I always thought it was the Admiral's that needed piss testing, not us enlisted men. ;-)
pure transcendental institutionalism
well ... thin ... was intermittently achieved
Very interesting, as always :)
The photo captioned "Alexei Stakhanov" is actually that of Pavlik Morozov, and vice versa. Stakganov was a grown man, while Morozov was a boy.
One does wonder what would have happened had the USSR not taken a more culturally conservative turn during the 1930s.
It would have happened later.
It’d still fail.
All of our machines are meant to replicate some talent we are possessed of. Now we even put on suits with little wings and jump off mountains eventually hitting the ground. It is an insertion or a sport. There is the idea that human beings can evolve in their minds so they think what only gods would bother to think. And we all have souls and destinies. One of those destinies is that of the warrior. There are people born to fight whether it is for the right cause or the worst of causes. For this we really need the leaders whose minds only call for cooperation in achieving the goals that are correct. In this world forever there are the cooperative and the uncooperative. Someone has to get along and someone has to take orders.
Everyone: "Do you know what the new Soviet man would be like?"
Trotsky: "Of course I know him. He's me."
20:00 So I've learned today that I am the ideal Soviet man.....
Iván Drago was the perfect Soviet experiment.
Their hubris is baffling.
Stalin was the most honest of them all.
" You're cogs in the machine"
Is that why he still revered?
Ever read "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli? Stalin personifies the "great leader" ideal the books gushes over. End justifies the means and all that...
So Hello Fresh wants to introduce voluntary Soviet style rationing?
Yes
Actually, word "chelovek" is directly translates from russian as "human", not as "man".
And in the English language, they're both the same thing, too.
For example, "Man" and "Mankind", would could both be accurately translated into the word, "Man."
@@frenzalrhomb6919 Yep, however I think the definition of man has changed. Back in the early 00’s I remember teachers & English professors stating how “man” can be a stand-in for “humans” or “people”.
Nowadays it seems the even slight implication of referring to Males-only has changed this
David said exactly that in the video.
Honestly, my take on this is that, during the first generations of the hardcore Communists, the dreamers of a new world, some of whom were oppressed in the capitalist system, envisioned a dream-like paradise on Earth, an end goal, built by human hands. Yet, they never really gave clear instructions on how to do so. As we progressed down the line, of Socialist leaders, we see a more, down-to-earth, realistic view on the New Soviet Person.
the further we go from the original concept, the more the idea is diluted and bastardised by less bright minds and people with their own agendas. in the end, the optimism for an ideal human commanding their own destiny became just another eugenics thing, a tool to make people comply and eventually a taboo.
The first generations of communists were almost entirely uneducated brutes who literally couldn’t read or write. Not their fault, but it’s reality. They mostly dreamed of bread and a cot. If you think that most of them thought about utopian societies generations into the future, you are perhaps too naive to have any follow up takes. Enjoy the journey, fellow traveler.
Final Scores:
- USA 1(Chuck Norris)
- USSR 0
I wonder how the party would have defined "preventing collective work", and how that may have punished some simply not wanting to be involved.
That's the point, make it vague deliberately so you and your Party comrades can interpret as you see fit. "Show me the man, I'll show you the criminal."
Example - people who didn’t want to give up their privately owned farm land to the collective, people who didn’t meet their quota for making widgets at the widget factory, etc.
Thank you for this great Video, i remember my Grandmother became a Medal because she gave birth to more then 10 Children.
Briliant.
The workers called Stakhanov "Stakanov". "Stakan" (стакан) is a glass.
9:08 The Simpsons wound up proving this!
Before you formulate a political theory, you need a theory of human nature. Human beings are nor hive insects. Human beings have spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual aspirations. Different capacities. Different interests, priorities, values. Forcing collectivism leads to an explosion or slow deadening. Freedom to take risks in a free market and taking individual responsibility for decisions is best.
forcing collectivism is exactly what capitalism is. except its just european oligarchs collecting everything by enslaving the rest of the species. you are born into a 150% interdependent ecosystem. nothing you can possibly do happens without lots of other living things doing a bunch of crap that creates the conditions for it to happen. individualism is a big BIG red flag for clinical psychopathy.
I want to know more about Soviet antarctic bases. Can't seem to find anything indepth on UA-cam 🤔
That’s where reading comes in handy, lad.
A.G.I Will be man's last invention
Guys, you accidentally put the thumbnail from the "How the Cold War changed the '50s" also on this one.
Vostok Cosmonauts should be remembered.
Figures the new Soviet man is gay.
based
That lady in the photo at 11:20 looks like she could be Natasha Romanov's grandmother XD
2:12 that's not the Cyrillic :)
Looks like they were deliberately written in Latin characters so that foreigners to know where to go.
I'm certain there is an obvious answer that I have missed, but if the economic plan called for 1,000,000 pairs of bunny slippers, wouldn't exceeding the quota cause shortages of the raw materials needed for the production of other things? Unless, of course, if the retail clerk exceeds HIS quota of slippers distributed it is expected that everyone upstream of him (transportation, manufacturing and the collection of elementals like oil for the production of polyester fiber) will exceed THEIR quotas in lockstep so as not to commandeer more resources than required to produce the amount of bunny slippers the planners deemed optimal?
Yes it would. But people did their best, to not do their best, as it ment more work for little to no compensation. But over all ya thats why they had their 5 year plan sh1t. To have some sort of control over this.
You’ve just accurately described some of the glaring weaknesses of communism and planned economy. Obvious to a child, but not the communist leadership.
New Soviet men: enable kamikaze strike.
a cog breaks and is replaced, a cell needs nutrients and care of the whole organism.
It's ironic when the descriptions of the "Soviet Man" always starts with "free man" while a long list of strict criteria follows... How can a man be "free" when has to align to a long list of ideals... and no one even noticed this.
Chad Soviet man vs Virgin American individualist
...Cringe but I can't help it!
👍
Look at them now. With all their claims of ideals and morals.
My grandfather would say they look the same now as they did when he was 20.
18:45 all male* citizens
I read the first two titles and thought this is what they classified homosexuals in the Soviet Union and the history on it 😂
Love your vidoes. Thanks a lot. One thing: try not to label Stalin a conservative. People will think you mean that he was a Republican.
Stupid people might.
Homo erectum (upright standing human)
The red menace.
👏👍
It amazes me that the ideals espoused by Ayn Rand ran parallel to those of Lenin and Trotsky. The only difference is the system in control (free market vs. the state). Both systems sucked for the average person, ultimately.
Is this just cold war meme review?
Every time I read Marx on the future of mankind or the new Soviet man I cannot but think of the more silly parts of the book of revelation. Or the rantings of Lex Luther from the Superman comics. This is what happens when you take philosophers seriously instead of just entertainment.
“That guy who’s never worked for a living, comes from a country that’s an industrial laggard, has not traveled much to the countries/societies he opines about prior to writing this ridiculous 48 page pamphlet, I bet he can tell us much about not only capitalism today but also about our future”
Dorks.
Shame about the stalin
This is an important video since I would say we're currently in Ukraine experiencing the final death throes of Homo Sovieticus.
Even if the war in Ukraine didn't happen, due to the Brain drain and demographic collapse, Russia would've died within 20 years. This war sealed their fate.
You are experiencing final throes of Ukraine.
"the flourishing of personality" couldn't occur in any ideic system that rejects freedom of thought, freedom of expression and creative freedom.
Most early communists did believe in those things, they saw capitalism as joke where in theory you're allowed freedom of speech and expression, but with being overworked and the huge imbalance between employer and employee, most regular people don't meaningfully have to pursue things outside of work.
You could make a religion out of this.
They did. Have you not seen communist parades, with the icons of Lenin, Stalin, etc front and center? The choreographed genuflecting, etc.
@@SKa-tt9nm Do you think the comment you replied to came out of nowhere? I was born in a Marxist-Leninist country, I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the topic.
Communism: lofty goals, horrendous and tyrannical execution
Capitalism: yeah life isn't fair but whatever, that's reality. Let's get the money, then we can try fixing stuff
Except when you get post-soviet leadership doing "Capitalism" now that turns into worse thing than both of the systems together
We all ought to seek to become New Soviet Men and Women! ❤
How about no....
The gall of claiming we're not a global extinction event borders on delusional. Where are your sturgeon now?
Endangered. Like nearly everything.
Homo soviéticus sounds a lot like of some people from the former DDR.
Communist necromancy via glorious proletarian science.
Homo Sovieticus can still be found in Russified Baltic regions, definitely in renegade 'republics' of Luhansk and Donetsk and anyone asking for a bribe.
It's not an ethnicity specific problem. Corruption is a serious problem in most ex Soviet countries, including Ukraine.
@@MrAnonymousRandom Corruption does not drops bombs on heads of innocent people in Ukraine, it does russians and there collaborators from Donetsk/Lugansk. And Yes, there is ethnical part of Donbass question, because before and after WWII Ukrainian locals mixed by soviet government with russian working settlers, which resulted in creation of Homo Soveticus or Sovcopitecus, herd of workers divided from there roots, culture, national traditions and without national identity. All national was replaced by Soviet, that mutated in very hard form as we see now. Homo Soveticus - people with infantile, collectivist and powerless mindset who believe that a big state like russian federation guarantees them security and there mothballed soviet reality far away from responsible and individualistic West civilization.
An epic fantasy, turned into political theory. What could possibly go wrong?
The one big theme I see across what all of the USSR's leaders wanted of the New Soviet Man (and maybe even more so Woman) is obedience and placing their work for the state as the top priority
Hearing all this basically eugenicist nonsense about the "Soviet man" makes me realize just how exclusive, hegemonic, and even fascistic the USSR was from the get go, and it definitely puts the later disasters of the Union into context.
First nation to criminalize racism in 1936, to grant women voting rights (1917) and to allow black people into university. Yeah pretty fascist
@@matheusvillela9150 Technically, these things are also true in North Korea as much as that means anything.
@@MrGksarathy True (though I don't know if they have any specific laws about racism). And? We're talking about the Soviet Union, and they were a hell of a lot more progressive than the US and Europe at the time. They were fighting racism when Europe enslaved half the world, was neck deep into fascism and eugenics, and the US was an apartheid State. Context is always important.
@@matheusvillela9150 Yes, the Soviet Union, which already launched pogroms against the Jews in the 20s and sent gay people to the gulags in the '30s, not to mention Russification of the other Soviet republics, was actually less racist than the US and Europe.
Also, the Soviet Union was very willing to ally with fascists for territorial gain, and only declined becoming an axis power due to disagreements over the Balkans. Not to mention, it took Operation Barbarossa for the Soviets to fight the Nazis in earnest, after countless lives had been pointlessly lost from Stalin's fuckups.
@@MrGksarathy Pogroms by bolsheviks? Name one. I You may be mistaking them for the white army and people like Petlyura and Bandera. Homosexuality was a crime in the US, England and most european countries at the time, and very few people were actually prosecuted for it in the Soviet Union -- the law didn't make a clear distinction between pedophoels and homosexuals. Soviets were discussing how they were going to be invaded by Germany by the early 30s, which is why they moved the industries east. If you're talking about Ribbentrop-Molotov, that was a non agression deal made AFTER Stalin had failed to convince any major power to build a coalition against nazi Germany. Many countries did similar pacts with Germany, and in the case of the soviets it was so they could prepare for the invasion.
Living in Germany and seeing the rampant cynicism in society, I believe we may have found a new incarnation of the home sovieticus
What do you mean?
@@RK-cj4oc not all, but a significant majority in this country is thinking not unlike the homo sovieticus, specifically constantly trying to cheat the system (because the system is broken), being primarily after personal interests, while always claiming to have a moral reason, refusing to commit to an opinion or even voicing strong positions, but privately pursueing personal advancements regardless of social impacts
GAY SOVIETS
🤣🤣🤣 no homo sovieticus
glory to the revolution
Stalin ruins everything
How can anyone reject those wonderful ideas? All that's required is removal of idiosyncracy of humans.
And yes, Stachanov would have labor results of his teammates attributed to him.
Morozov didn't rat his father out, he merely confirmed what his mother had told.
So many lies in such a short time.
Coming to a neighborhood near u if u continue to elect those in power today.
I know there's contradiction in every government but jesus...the soviet union has the most I've seen by far
Buddhists in Pakistan? What were the Soviet people on? I want it