Today is very serious material.
To begin with, I swear to you that in the next serious article I will definitely scold the current government :) There is something to strongly criticize it for, provided that before that all the pro-Western grant eaters, for whose ears such truth is not intended, are removed from the audience.
But today about something else, no less important - an attempt to understand what exactly those who remember their Soviet youth with tears lost.
Hang in there. It will be tough.
I once noticed that the majority of those who today demand to return to the USSR are approximately the same age as the last generation of Soviet Komsomol members. Those very “guardians of the values of the revolution” who were supposed to be the first to bring to life the ideals of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. This is a generation of people who began their careers in times of stagnation and perestroika.
For some reason, many have forgotten that it was this generation that reached the peak of its business activity at the time that we call the “dashing 90s.” This generation, the masters of the 90s, had some kind of general management problem - small planning horizon in the absence of established processes and methodology. They lived one day at a time - from payday to payday, from delivery to delivery, from one currency tranche to another. " A bag of smuggled Levi's jeans will arrive today, we'll drive it in, and tomorrow we'll see what happens". And somehow it’s like that in everything.
Of course, I understand that flexibility and the ability to adapt to the environment is sometimes cool. But these same people managed to abandon consistency and planning completely, as if it were some kind of terrible sin. They even have a very characteristic word - " agreement". This is when all your confidence in the future is based on is a verbal agreement with the same goofball as you, which will last until" life won't change"(and she will change suddenly and right this evening).
Here, as luck would have it, portraits of Stalin and Beria flash somewhere in the background and the contrast of these late Komsomol managerial antics with the Stalin-Beria large-scale master plans. This contrast was painful to look at. It also hurts yesterday’s Komsomol members themselves, who diligently erased and covered with mud these two names from everywhere they could remember them.
The first thing that disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet system was planning and methodology. Everything else lived a little longer or much longer, but it was the systematicity that disappeared from the first minutes of the “reformers” ascending the throne on an armored car in front of the White House.
It’s starting to seem to me that these eternal Komsomol members are demanding the return of the USSR, because there was the State Planning Committee and the State Standard as a carrot (and the State Control with the OBKhSS as a stick).
These structures together allowed the cosmomol slackers not to have their own planning horizon, and therefore not to bear responsibility for the final result. Don’t formulate meanings, don’t set goals for yourself, work as best you can.
Moreover, if you ask them why they lived this way, it turns out that they are children, they are not to blame, it’s life that has suddenly become so unpredictable. But who else makes it predictable if not those who live in it?
The current political system, what it WILL BE(Hope) in the next xx years, very heavily involved in methodologies and standards(most often of Western origin due to the lack of their own) and demands that every poor, poor manager have a master development plan of what was subordinate to him, and for this plan he bore personal responsibility to the state or leadership.
That is, he himself struggled both to formulate the meaning of his activities and to then comply with this plan. We are seeing a renaissance in the idea of long-term planning and systematization.
Not yet on Stalinist scale, but - God willing - we will get to that level.
This movement towards planning and standards came to us today from the West, but the West itself did not invent it - they comprehended part of the experience of the USSR and recognized it as useful. This is Stalin’s manual, the undeniable benefits of which were reminded to us by our own rivals. With their mercantile-bourgeois minds, they once took it and calculated that this, it turns out, is also profitable!
Only with a planning horizon of a decade (no less) is it possible to build Crimean bridges, organize the Olympics and win in Syria. Today state corporations and state projects are designed for such horizons, and the entire system is slowly but surely moving in the same direction. Those who cannot today carry the burden of long-term planning and mobilize to play for the long haul, today simply will not be trusted with these government orders, which means that they will sit in the kitchen without money and work.
And then former Komsomol members come onto the stage with their horizon of several days, agreements and connections. Where will they go under such a system? Into the Martian cavity, where Gagarin did not fly. Their current ceiling is a non-strategic business for several dozen souls... Moreover, even for these souls one must bear responsibility with a plan horizon of at least a year, reserve money for vacations, ensure fault tolerance of services, avoid a cash gap, etc. And even this alone causes the “commercialists” to groan and cry like Egyptians.
You can’t steal the composition of oil in Bashkiria and sell it to Poland through an offshore scheme, calling it all a cool commercial deal.
Even in the ordinary life of a simple working person, this happens to us - in order to live more or less well, today we need to learn to plan a budget for a long time and force ourselves to follow the plan. Control risks, take into account possible force majeure and postpone it.
If a person starts living from paycheck to paycheck (like a typical late Soviet worker and engineer), then this is a direct road to microcredit eateries and bankruptcy of individuals. And remember how the state FORCED drivers by law to have a civil liability insurance policy under the threat of a ban on using the car, because otherwise it was impossible to guarantee that citizens would have money for emergency compensation for damage. Citizens planned three days in advance and in these plans there was never any possibility of damaging someone else's car...
And then it begins: give us back the USSR urgently!
For everyone who was raised by “Gosplan”, personal responsibility for the plan and the result is very high - they demand the return of “stability and social justice”, which in practice means the requirement for the state to centrally plan (and do) for everyone and give to “ordinary workers” the ability to think only three days ahead.
How would they sing today if a certain “Stalin” demanded from them personal responsibility for fulfilling a long plan of several years under the threat of exile to the camps? But the first version of the Soviet Union rose to its feet precisely on such methods...
No, comrades. There will be a second version of the Soviet Union, but it will not be a paradise for the bourgeois bourgeoisie, hiding behind their Komsomol membership card, dreaming of a new car and imported jeans, but unable to buy them because of their own slackness.
It will take place when both the minister and the ordinary worker on the assembly line reach that “zen” that they will not be able to disrupt the master plan for any personal reasons, because This will personally make them feel pain in the area of their soul.
You asked what country I want for my children. Like this one.
Now, to everyone’s joy, I’ll go think about how I’ll scold the current government next time.
Nostalgia post: many of us often remember Soviet times. And, despite the fact that times were not always simple, we remember them, as a rule, with warm feelings and nostalgia for a bygone Soviet childhood. For things that are loved and familiar to everyone and everyone, which can no longer be returned. Or... is it still possible?
5. Perfume “Red Moscow” By today's standards, this is not a pleasure for the faint of heart. But once upon a time these were the most desirable perfumes of all women of the USSR! A tip for men: older ladies can be pleased with the scent of their youth, and modern girls with humor can be struck to the heart with their originality.
7. The same tea. Indian. With an elephant. Try to please your grandparents, dads and moms. Or try it yourself.
8. The first Soviet electronic game “Well, wait a minute!” Everyone had it. Remember how you dreamed of scoring 999 points and hoped to see a cartoon about a wolf and a hare? You can check and see if they show the truth...
10. For those who remember exactly that they were pioneers, but no longer really remember how it was, “Products from the Past” has a whole special section. Here you will find ties, caps, badges, and even complete pioneer set- by the way, a good idea for a retro costume for the upcoming Halloween. Be ready!
11. In our country dentifrice lasted probably the longest in the world, until it was finally supplanted by paste. However, for old-school lovers, they still produce it now, claiming that it is “an effective remedy for removing plaque, cleanses and refreshes the oral cavity well, and has an anti-inflammatory effect.”
They say that it is no longer possible to return the USSR to its previous form.
On the one hand, this is true - a lot of water has passed under the bridge, the situation has changed, Soviet industry has been destroyed, and it is no longer relevant in its former form - technology has gone far ahead, the very principles of work in many industries have become different.
The former proletariat, which was considered the system-forming class in the Soviet system, no longer exists. Who will bring the USSR back to life? The so-called office plankton? Managers? Trade workers? Or maybe officials? None of them really need the USSR.
Over the past 26 years, an entire generation has grown up that does not know what the USSR is, and if it does, it is only from movies and stories from its parents.
There is already a growing generation of those whose parents themselves were born after the collapse of the USSR or shortly before, in the late 80s, as a result of which they practically do not remember the Soviet Union.
All this is true.
However, let's look at the question from the other side:
Were there many witnesses to pre-revolutionary Russia in 1991?
How many people were there whose parents even remembered pre-revolutionary Russia?
In 1991, only a few old women who were nearly 90 years old remembered something about pre-revolutionary Russia, if they were of sound mind and good memory at all, at their age. However, they did not take any part in political processes due to their advanced age and poor health.
Neither Yeltsin, nor Gaidar, nor Chubais, nor the other Sobchaks and Sobchachkis, Novodvoryanskys and Novokrestyanskys remembered pre-revolutionary Russia and could not remember, because they were born much later than 1917. Most even had parents born after the 17th.
However, the lack of personal memories of pre-revolutionary Russia did not stop either Yeltsin, Gaidar, or the other Sobchaks and Novodvorskys from picking up the tricolor with a double-headed eagle and waving it over their heads, confidently talking about the Russia they lost, which turned away from its historical path, I made a mistake, I followed the wrong people and went to the wrong place.
And it would be okay if they simply said that Russia had gone somewhere wrong, based on the current state of politics and economics, but they started talking specifically about pre-revolutionary Russia, about which they had no knowledge or ideas of their own. They began to wave not some new flag, but the tricolor, which they had never seen on any administrative building in their lifetime. And they couldn’t see it. As well as the double-headed eagle - they had never seen it on any administrative building either. However, they firmly decided to use it as a coat of arms in a new way.
And those who went to a rally in support of Yeltsin in August 1991, who later voted for him in the ’96 elections, also could not remember pre-revolutionary Russia. Many even had parents born after the 17th, so they knew about pre-revolutionary Russia only from the fragmentary stories of their grandmothers, and even then not all of them.
But this did not stop them from waving tricolors and rejoicing at the double-headed eagle as a new-old symbol, talking about Russia “which they lost” and confidently declaring that in 1917 the country turned away from the right path.
How could they know which path Russia had turned from?
Which of them was present at that historical choice and saw with their own eyes what was happening in order to speak confidently about what Russia was choosing between and what?
All the surviving witnesses to the events of 17 in 1991 sat at home and did not go out anywhere, and if they did go out, it was no further than the bench at the entrance. Many could no longer even go down the stairs to go anywhere.
Among the participants in the events of 1991, supporters of Yeltsin and other “returners of lost Russia” witnesses of this very “lost Russia” there were zero point one horseradish.
After 17, more than one or even two generations changed - three generations changed and the fourth was already in progress.
And the pre-revolutionary peasantry did not exist for a long time so that it was possible to return to the pre-revolutionary agricultural economy with the help of those who once cultivated it.
There were no longer those who were dispossessed during the period of collectivization.
There were no owners of private shops of the pre-revolutionary period, there were no owners of pre-revolutionary factories, newspapers and ships. And the newspapers and steamships themselves that were in service before 1917 are practically gone, only in the form of museum exhibits. There were only a few factories founded in pre-revolutionary Russia, because many were destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, or were evacuated and essentially received a completely new life.
In 1991 there was neither a pre-revolutionary peasantry nor a pre-revolutionary nobility. Neither the former aristocracy, nor the former bourgeoisie, even in the form of residual phenomena.
There was no pre-revolutionary society left as something integral, preserving the way of life and culture of former Russia, no pre-revolutionary economy, no pre-revolutionary life.
However, gentlemen like Yeltsin and Sobchak who came to power, together with hundreds of associates and millions of supporters, began to quickly remember “how it was” and engage in restoration and reconstruction of pre-revolutionary Russia.
They didn’t just liquidate the USSR in order to build a completely new state, with new symbols, a new economy and a new society, but they began to restore what they did not remember and could not remember.
They restored symbols, began to restore palaces, rename cities and streets, the heads of regions were called governors (which in itself is quite comical, because regions are still called regions, not provinces), and so on.
They remembered Stolypin, recreated the Russian Geographical Society and much more.
They began to canonize Nicholas II, whom they had never seen alive and did not feel the results of his reign, but were firmly convinced that he was a saint. Saint because they shot you? Well, he wasn’t the only one shot. What now, should all those executed be considered saints?
They began to increase the role of the church in the state, publicly baptize themselves, light candles, transfer state property to the church - these are also elements of restoration.
The post-Soviet government and its numerous supporters began to actively restore what none of them remembered and which none of them witnessed.
From 17th to 91st, even more has changed, even more water has flown under the bridge, three times as many generations have changed, the old economy has even more so lost its relevance, almost all technologies have changed, practically no old industry has survived, nothing remains of the old society.
But they still set out to restore the Russia of February 1917, which no one living today saw, remembered, or even heard anything about from their parents.
They undertook to restore it literally from pictures from museums, from literary works, from historical documents, as well as from their own fantasies about how it was and how it could have been if not for the Soviet regime.
In fact, we engaged in alternative history - the restoration of what could have been, if only.
So is it possible to say in the light of the above that the restoration of the USSR is such an impossible task?
If after 74 years it was possible to restore and reconstruct something, then why not after 26 or even 36 years?
If after the change of three or four generations it was possible to embark on memories of the state lost by our ancestors, then why is it not possible to embark on similar memories after a change of two generations?
If in 1991, when none of the characters and their supporters witnessed pre-revolutionary Russia, it was possible to “return something back,” then why can’t we do the same thing in our time, when half the country still remembers how it was the structure of the USSR and what it was like, and many of those who remember this are of mature age, have a solid memory and can still hold in their hands not only flags with posters, but also military weapons, and some can hold these weapons no worse young.
If in the 90s, when none of the pre-revolutionary nobles, bourgeois or aristocrats remained, it was possible to start forming a new nobility and a new bourgeoisie, then why won’t it be possible to start forming a new proletariat, especially since tens of millions of those who will be alive will still be alive for many years? who were the very Soviet proletariat, Soviet engineers, labor intelligentsia.
If it is possible to return to an agricultural economy a good hundred years after all developed countries have switched to a post-industrial economy, then why will it not be possible to engage in reindustrialization after some half a century?
If you look closely at what the current restorers of “lost Russia” are doing or trying to do, then the restoration of the USSR does not seem at all utopian; on the contrary, it seems completely real and even natural.
If we have already gone back 100 years into the past and started to restore and reconstruct Russia in the style of February 1917, then the next step logically should be the restoration and reconstruction of October 1917, then the era of the NEP, collectivization, industrialization and developed socialism.
The truth here is to ask the question: is this necessary?
If you do nothing but remember the lost states and try to restore them, you can become fixated and fall into the historical-reconstructionist trap. So we will restore one thing or another. Some came to power and began to restore the “lost Russia”; others came to power and began to restore the “lost Union”.
But the main thing is to look at what current leaders get out of their attempts to return “lost Russia” - laughter and sin.
Governors without provinces. City governors are called mayors. The administrative center of the Leningrad region is St. Petersburg. The tricolor with a double-headed eagle rises to the sounds of the Soviet anthem, in the text of which several lines have been changed. The May 9 parade is held at the closed mausoleum. The Soviet government is criticized - the Soviet victory is celebrated. And this list of strange inconsistencies goes on and on.
Therefore, we need to think three times: is it necessary to engage in the reconstruction of the Soviet Union?
Wouldn't it turn out to be the same funny parody that the reenactors of pre-revolutionary Russia created?
It is possible to return the flag and coat of arms of the USSR - this is beyond any doubt, proven by those who, 74 years later, returned the double-headed eagle and raised the tricolor.
It is also possible to return the position of general secretary instead of the president - this has been proven by those who returned the titles of governors to the heads of regions.
It's easy to return symbols and names.
But will this return the essence?
Attempts to recreate Russia “as it would have been if not for Soviet power” showed that you cannot step into the same river twice - the water has flowed under the bridge, society has changed, the way of life has changed, the way of life has changed, the situation has changed - everything has changed. And modern Russia is in no way similar to pre-revolutionary Russia, except for the coat of arms and some historical names.
It will be approximately the same when trying to recreate the Soviet Union - it will resemble the previous one only in names and symbols, and the people inhabiting it will be different. Even despite the fact that many of those living today were born in the USSR and remember what it was like.
For example, I am no longer the same person I was at the time of the liquidation of the Union. And I will never be like that again. I remember the USSR in the smallest detail, I still have a lot of Soviet things, books and magazines, I even managed to get a job for the first time under the Soviet regime and I remember the situation of the Soviet period very well. But I still won’t be the same as I was before - too many events happened after the liquidation of the USSR, I had to go through too much - I can’t get it out of my memory and thoughts, I’ll never get it out.
And those who were older, who were 30 or 40 years old in 1991, will also not become the former Soviet citizens, even if the USSR with all its attributes and names is returned right now. They will not go to the plant the same way they did in 1991. And the plant most likely does not exist, but until it is restored (if it makes economic sense at all), those who were 30 years old in 1991 will have time to retire.
And it’s not just about the destroyed factories, although it’s about them too.
Over the past 26 years, we have experienced so much that we have become very different. There are no more those naive Soviet citizens who lived in the USSR. There are Russians beaten by the market, angry and deceived, distrustful, largely disappointed, sometimes confused - different, but completely different from what they were in 91 - even those who remember that year well.
We have become different and will never be the same again.
Therefore, it is possible to return Soviet symbols, paraphernalia, names of institutions and departments, but it will only be a wrapper, and the content will be completely different. Because we have become completely different.
Even those who remember the USSR have become different, and those who do not remember it - even more so.
So is it necessary to return the old wrapper to wrap completely new contents in it?
Will the result be yet another deception, when the external is completely inconsistent with the internal and conflicts with it? Will the old exterior and the new interior destroy each other?
Will we, just like 26 years ago, believe in Lenin’s party, knowing that once it had already led the country to decline and 20 million of its members did nothing to preserve the Union, and the party elite, on the contrary, contributed in every possible way to the liquidation of the USSR?
Is it necessary to stage another experiment to reconstruct a state that collapsed for internal reasons?
Maybe we shouldn’t go back after all, maybe we should build something new?
Of course, the new may turn out to be a well-forgotten old, but at the time of its construction it will be perceived as new and will be built as new, and not as a reconstruction of the past.
In fact, the new may turn out to be similar to the well-forgotten old, but in fact, and not in approach.
Probably not everyone liked what I wrote, but you still think about it.
Because it is possible to return the USSR in the form of paraphernalia.
But it is no longer possible to make it the same.
For the simple reason that we have become different, very different.
Many of us often remember Soviet times. And, despite the fact that times were not always simple, we remember them, as a rule, with warm feelings and nostalgia for a bygone Soviet childhood. For things that are loved and familiar to everyone and everyone, which can no longer be returned.
1. Faceted glass. Now, of course, they sell quite similar ones, but they are not “the same ones.” 
2. Such a long-forgotten attribute of every Soviet housewife as a string bag now fits perfectly into the increasingly popular movement against plastic bags from supermarkets, which are rapidly and mercilessly littering the environment. A great opportunity to become a trendsetter of a new fashion! In addition, the string bag takes up minimal space and will fit even in the smallest handbag. 
3. “Goodbye, our affectionate Misha, return to your fairytale forest.” There is immediately double nostalgia here - for real Soviet lollipops and, of course, for the 1980 Olympics. For which no one was painfully ashamed. Well, if for some reason you still don’t want to remember the Olympics, for you the classic of the genre is the cockerel! 
4. Do you remember how during labor class they burned a board for mom as a gift for March 8th? Using the burning device Uzor-1. 
5. Perfume “Red Moscow” by today's standards is not a pleasure for the faint of heart. But once upon a time these were the most desirable perfumes of all women of the USSR! 
6. The ladies have been dealt with, now it’s the gentlemen’s turn. For them - triple cologne! We kindly ask you not to drink. 
7. The same tea. Indian. With an elephant. 
8. The first Soviet electronic game “Well, wait a minute!” Everyone had it. Remember how you dreamed of scoring 999 points and hoped to see a cartoon about a wolf and a hare? 
9. A wolf from a cartoon, which is now generally forbidden to be shown to children. 
10. For those who clearly remember being a pioneer... 
11. In our country, tooth powder lasted probably the longest in the world, until it was finally replaced by toothpaste. However, for old-school lovers, they still produce it now, claiming that it is “an effective remedy for removing plaque, cleanses and refreshes the oral cavity well, and has an anti-inflammatory effect.” 
12. Rubik's Cube - a timeless classic. Relevant at all times. “The fact that each face of the cube is made up of three layers of three blocks makes a big difference. The number three has a huge meaning, expressed in many strange connections between man and nature,” - this is how Rubik himself speaks intricately about his ingenious invention. 
13. The most chocolate cocoa “Golden Label” is still produced and is still natural. And how delicious it makes the “Potato” cake... 
14. Such a kind and colorful atlas “World and Man” is familiar to almost every Soviet child. Buy it for a change for modern children who are used to learning everything from Wikipedia. 
15. Those whose mother washed their hair with the legendary “Quack-Quack” baby shampoo as a child simply cannot help but remember it! Oh, how delicious it smelled... I just wanted to eat it. You won't believe it, but it is still being produced. 
16. And, of course, what a return to the USSR would be without Soviet posters - masterpieces of graphic design and propaganda. Some of them are more relevant today than ever. 
17. Soviet money is unlikely to help you buy all of the above in our time. But, what a great souvenir from the past! Methods of use are limited only by your imagination.
Sociological research shows: Soviet childhood is now in fashion. “I want to go back to the USSR. How good it was then - probably the best time in my life” - more and more often this phrase can be heard not only from veterans whose biography is firmly connected with Soviet times, but also from those who have barely turned 30.
People who were 13–15 years old in 1991 lovingly collect Soviet films and exchange memories of their childhood as pioneers. Nostalgia for the Soviet past is becoming common among thirty-year-olds.
“We were lucky that our childhood and youth ended before the government bought FREEDOM from the youth in exchange for roller skates, mobile phones, star factories and cool crackers (by the way, for some reason soft)... With her own general consent... For her own (seemingly) good..." - this is a fragment from the text entitled "Generation 76–82". Those who are now somewhere around thirty are eagerly reprinting it on the pages of their online diaries. It became a kind of manifesto for a generation.
An analysis of youth resources on the Internet and other text sources shows: the attitude towards life in the USSR has changed from sharply negative to sharply positive. Over the past couple of years, a ton of resources have appeared on the Internet dedicated to everyday life in the Soviet Union. “76–82. Encyclopedia of our childhood,” perhaps the most popular of them. The name itself indicates who the audience of this resource is - everyone who was born between 1976 and 1982.
The LiveJournal community of the same name is among the thirty most popular. Its regulars discuss with sincere love films about Electronics, GDR “Westerns”, “Neva” blades for safety razors and the drink “Pinocchio”.
From the “dumb scoop” to the “golden age”
It's funny that just a decade and a half ago, the same people who today fondly remember the symbols of a bygone era themselves rejected everything Soviet and sought to resemble their more conservative parents as little as possible.
The strange unconsciousness of youth extends to the more immediate past. At the turn of the 80s and 90s, a significant part of young people dreamed of leaving altogether - emigration even to a third world country was considered more attractive than life in a collapsing Soviet state:
“Be it a carcass or a stuffed animal, just get out of this mess faster.”
“Soviet clothes are a nightmare, squalor, impossible to wear, the “farewell to youth” galoshes alone are worth it. Soviet equipment was clearly not made by hand, but by something else: it doesn’t work, it can’t be repaired. Soviet products are sausage consisting of 90% toilet paper, butter from margarine and beer with water”...
Who would have dared to deny these axioms fifteen years ago?!
But, as you know, time is the best cure for the childhood disease of leftism. Having matured, young people stopped being so categorical. Now the memories of Rubin TVs, Vega tape recorders, Red Moscow perfume, checkered shirts, red coats, ice cream for 15 kopecks and soda in vending machines cause slight sadness and regret that they will never exist again.
The Soviet past is rapidly becoming overgrown with touching legends and before our eyes is turning into a beautiful myth about the golden age of mankind. Modern thirty-year-olds are so hungry for a fairy tale that they are ready to amputate their own memory.
At the end of the 80s, few of them would have thought to admire Soviet pop songs or Soviet films - it was too primitive. It was more important to understand how to get rich quickly, get maximum variety in sex, achieve success and recognition in the big city. Instead of VIA "Gems" and films about village life, the last Soviet teenagers wanted to watch Hollywood thrillers and listen to Scorpions and Queen.
But time played its usual trick with them: having received in full what they dreamed of at the dawn of their foggy youth, modern thirty-year-olds began to dream of what they once despised so mercilessly. And old Soviet films about the war and the development of virgin lands suddenly acquired in their eyes a meaning that they had once categorically refused to see.
Why did people who rejected everything Soviet suddenly begin to feel nostalgic for a time they barely lived through? According to sociological research, there are two reasons. One of them lies on the surface: nostalgia for the Soviet Union is in many ways simply nostalgia for childhood. It is common for everyone to idealize their childhood years. The bad is forgotten, only bright memories remain of how wonderful the ice cream tasted and how joyful the people looked at the demonstration.
However, it seems that for the current generation of thirty-year-olds, nostalgia has become a kind of religion, largely determining their attitude to life in general. They are proud that they had the opportunity to live in the Soviet Union, and believe that it is the Soviet experience that makes them incomparably better than modern youth who grew up after 1991:
“Still, if I had to choose, I would choose the end of the 80s. I didn’t understand anything then. I was 17–19 years old. I didn’t know how to communicate, I didn’t know how to fall in love, I didn’t want anything from life and generally didn’t understand how and why people live... I didn’t take anything away from these years, but I could have (I just now understood this). This is probably why they are my most favorite times now, chaotic, unclear,” writes roman_shebalin.
He is echoed by another author of the online diary tim_timych:
“How I want to go back to childhood! In our childhood. When there were no game consoles, roller skates and Coca-Cola stands on every corner. When there were no nightclubs and everyone gathered for a rehearsal of a local rock band that played DDT and Chizh. When words were worth more than money. When we were."
The reason for such “unchildish” nostalgia, apparently, is deeper than just longing for a past youth. By idealizing the Soviet past, modern thirty-year-olds unconsciously talk about what they don’t like about the present.
From an unfree state to unfree people
“As children, we drove cars without seat belts or airbags. Riding a horse-drawn cart on a warm summer day was an unspeakable pleasure. Our cribs were painted with bright, high-lead paints. There were no secret lids on the medicine bottles, the doors were often not locked, and the cabinets were never locked. We drank water from the water pump on the corner, not from plastic bottles. No one could think of riding a bike wearing a helmet. Horror!" - this is all from the same “manifesto”.
“We have become less free!” - this cry of despair sounds in many recordings. Here's another quote:
“I remember that time, and the main feeling is a feeling of complete freedom. Life was not subject to such a strict schedule as it is now, and there was much more free time. My parents had a month off, and if someone was sick, they calmly took sick leave rather than going to work, barely alive. You could go wherever you wanted and no one would stop you. There were no combination locks or intercoms, there were no security guards at every entrance or in every store. The airport was an interesting place from which a journey began, and not part of a high-security zone, as it is now. In general, there were almost no signs like “No entry”, “For staff only”, “Forbidden”.
A strange metamorphosis of memories occurs. In the Soviet Union, menacing signs “Passage prohibited!” there was much more than now. But our memory of childhood carefully erases them, and the memory of what we saw a couple of days ago completes these notorious signs.
Objectively, Soviet society was much less free than the current one. And not only in political terms. A person’s life moved along a strictly scheduled route: district kindergarten - district school - college/army - distribution work. Variations were minimal.
It's the same with everyday life. Everyone ate the same meatballs, rode the same bicycles and went to the same Zarnitsa. Long hair, a leather jacket with studs, even basic jeans - all this could attract the attention of the police or at least the disapproving glances of old women at the entrance. Now - wear whatever you want, and if you don’t look like an illegal Uzbek immigrant, the police don’t give a damn about you, and neither do the grandmothers, especially since you almost never see them together with the benches at the entrances.
Anyone could become a revolutionary by being rude to the foreman over little things or coming to school without a pioneer tie. We now live in one of the freest societies in human history. Again, this is not about politics, but rather about culture and lifestyle. The state interferes as little as possible in a person's private life. The notorious “vertical of power,” which permeates the political process, never crosses the threshold of an apartment. But society itself has not yet developed sufficiently firm norms and cannot tell citizens what is possible and what is not.
Where does this feeling of unfreedom come from? Most likely it comes from within. Today's thirty-year-olds drive themselves into very strict limits. You need to work and earn money, you need to look decent, you need to behave seriously, you need to have a mobile phone with Bluetooth, you need to eat food without GM additives, you need to read Minaev and Coelho. Needed, needed, needed!
For thirty-year-olds, real freedom is not freedom of speech or assembly, but, above all, the opportunity to live calmly, without stress and have a lot of free time. But they were expected to become the first generation free from the “scoop”, a generation of energetic builders of capitalism. In the early 90s it looked something like this. Young people enthusiastically took up business, careers, and enthusiastically plunged into the world of consumer joys. But gradually the enthusiasm began to wane. At some stage they simply “burned out”.
Today, for most of them, work and career remain the main guidelines in life. However, the drive that was an integral part of their lives in the 90s is no longer there. The majority still assess success in life as the ability to consume as much as possible: “The larger the apartment, the more expensive the car, the more successful the person.” But many things have already been purchased, impressions have been received, ambitions have been satisfied. Life is boring!
KGB in my head
If you conduct a content analysis, you will most likely find that the frequency of use of the word “security” has increased hundreds of times over the past twenty years. In the USSR there was an all-powerful organization - the State Security Committee. They were afraid of her, jokes were told about her. But the idea of security itself was not so intrusive.
But now this word is key at all levels - from high politics to your own apartment. Secret passwords are all around us. Enter the entrance - a code, open an apartment - several locks, turn on the computer - a password, load your own email - again a password...
But no one imposes these rules, people choose them themselves. And they remember their childhood with sadness: “We left home in the morning and played all day, returning when the street lights came on - where they were. For the whole day no one could find out where we were. There were no mobile phones! It is hard to imagine. We cut arms and legs, broke bones and knocked out teeth, and no one sued anyone. Anything could happen. We were the only ones to blame, and no one else. Remember? We fought until we bled and walked around with bruises, getting used to not paying attention to it.”
Toys from the trash heap against Chinese sabers
Children's toys and games are a whole world. For many, it leaves a much more vivid imprint in the memory than adult fun such as a Toyota car or the position of head of a department.
Millions of Soviet children had a favorite bear - chunky, faded, unconvincing. But it was he who was trusted with the most important secrets, it was he who played the role of a home psychoanalyst when we were feeling bad. And with what ecstasy we played “red” and “white”, armed with rifles cut from sticks!
Let's quote the diary of user tim_timych again: “What it was like to climb through garages, collecting junk that no one needed, among which sometimes you came across such pearls as gas masks, from which you could cut rubber bands for slingshots. And the found bottle of acetone was enthusiastically burned on a fire, where lead was melted from discarded car batteries for buckshot, lyanga, and just like that, out of nothing to do, just for the sake of gawking at the molten metal.”
The market economy has given rise to a simple principle: everything that is in demand must be commercialized. Do you remember how they played knights in courtyard groups? How were shields and swords made from trash found in a landfill? Now plastic armor and weapons are sold at any kiosk: if you want a pirate saber, if you want a Scythian akinak. It's worth every penny: to buy a legionnaire or cowboy set, you just need to save a few times on Coca-Cola.
Fireworks and firecrackers are sold ready-made, and there is no need to conduct chemical experiments behind garages. And you can buy bags of teddy bears made in China. Only less and less often among them is that same cross-eared freak found - beloved and only...
Looking at their children, today's young people experience ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, it’s enviable: to go to a kiosk and for a few pennies buy an exact copy of a Scorpion submachine gun with a magazine and ammunition capacity of a thousand bullets - and for this, a boy of the 80s, without hesitation, would agree to sell his soul or carry out every trash day! It just doesn’t have the scent of uniqueness. No one’s own labor was put into it (when a pale analogue of such a thing was made with one’s own hands), and the exclusivity of the occasion is not associated with it (if it was a gift, say, brought from abroad).
And in the end, this weapon collects dust somewhere under the bed: no problem - dad will buy a new one tomorrow. Dad will not become poor, he makes good money.
But I feel sorry for the child.
Friends remained in the USSR
Another reason for nostalgia is the legend of pure and open relationships between people. Here alta_luna recalls:
“The kind of friendship that my young parents had with other young couples never happened to them again in their lives. I remember something interesting - men are on business trips, women are waiting.”
In another diary we read: “We had friends. We left the house and found them. We rode bikes, blew matches along spring streams, sat on a bench, on a fence or in the school yard and talked about whatever we wanted. When we needed someone, we would knock on the door, ring the bell, or just go in and see them. Remember? Without asking! Sami!
Thirty-year-olds suffer because they have fewer and fewer friends. There is simply not enough time for them. To see an old friend, you have to make an appointment almost a month in advance.
And the meetings themselves are becoming shorter and more formal: everyone is busy, everyone has things to do. The ability to contact a person at any time and cancel or change previous agreements provokes optionality:
“Sorry, plans have changed, let’s go not at 5 today, but at 8, or better tomorrow at 5. Or better yet, let’s call tomorrow as we go along and come to an agreement.”
No time
Most thirty-year-olds are dissatisfied with their lives, but do not see any real opportunities to change it. To change something, you need time, but that’s just not there. You only have to stop your rapid running for a minute and you are immediately thrown to the side of the road. And thirty-year-olds cannot afford this.
“Soon 30. No time. Tachycardia, pulse 90 beats/min instead of the prescribed 70. I take the medicine without reading the instructions, I trust the doctor. There is no time to read the operating instructions for the purchased machine, only individual points. I signed the loan agreement at the bank after skimming through it. I just made sure that my last name and code were there, the employees also had no time. When was the last time I drank beer with friends? I don't remember, more than a year ago. Friends are a luxury. For teenagers only. I talk to my mom when she calls. This is not good, you should do it yourself more often. I come home, my wife and children are sleeping. I will kiss my daughter, stand over my son, hug my wife. On weekends I turn on the TV, meditate on the screen, simultaneously flipping through all the channels, I don’t have time to watch one, and it’s no longer interesting. What book did I want to finish reading? It seems like Anna Karenina, half of it remains. I can't finish reading it, it's too big. Does not work. No time, I'm running. I'm running. I’m running,” contas complains about life.
A revolution in the name of the bicycle?
“Lately I’ve been thinking very often about what a great country we’ve screwed up. This country was called the USSR. It was a great and free country. Which could send everyone and dictate its unyielding will to everyone on our planet Earth,” writes user fallenleafs in his diary.
Nostalgia for one’s own childhood sometimes smoothly turns into nostalgia for the political regime. The Soviet Union became associated with state development, scope, imperial power, as well as with a calm, stable and happy life:
“It was a time when there was no unemployment, terrorism and national conflicts, people’s relationships were simple and understandable, feelings were sincere, and desires were uncomplicated.”
Nostalgia for the past in various eras turned out to be a very powerful driving force of socio-political development. For example, the return of socialist parties to power in some Eastern European states already in the post-Soviet period was also largely caused by nostalgia for Soviet times.
It seems to us that nothing like this can happen in modern Russia. The generation of thirty-year-olds is too apolitical, too immersed in personal life, to provide serious support to any political force. And if dissatisfaction with their own lives grows, this will only further fuel their political absenteeism. Instead of active action, today's thirty-year-olds choose quiet sadness about the bright time of their childhood, which is gone forever.
The last generation of Soviet youth as a whole was marked by the blissful stamp of deep indifference to politics. While adults were breaking down the Soviet system and then trying to build something new on its ruins, young people were dealing with personal problems. The only area of public life in which this generation has succeeded is business. That is why among them there are so many businessmen or managers and so few politicians or public figures.
But the desire to connect the irretrievably gone past with the ruthless present cannot always be interpreted in line with political actions. After all, they yearn not so much for the social system as for teddy bears, Cossack robbers and the first kiss at the entrance. It’s hard to imagine a revolution under the slogan “Give me back the right to ride a bike and be happy!” However, in May 1968, French students built barricades under slogans like “Under the pavement - the beach!” and “It is forbidden to prohibit!”.
It seems that today's thirty-year-olds, devoid of political ambitions, see the problem of historical change in a completely different way. The Soviet world allowed them to be humane, but modernity did not. After all the social catastrophes of the twentieth century, it becomes clear for the first time that in any political system the main and only important figure remains the person. And the riot of consumer instincts is the same deception as communism, promised by 1980. We no longer have any illusions, we no longer have a single hope that human salvation will come from somewhere else - from politics or economics, it’s not that important.
Today's thirty-year-olds seem to be the first generation of Russian people left alone with themselves. Without the crutches of ideology, without a magic wand in the face of the West. And here the memories of the Soviet past really begin to burn the soul with a merciless fire of envy.
In order to feel one's own human value, there were few opportunities, but they were all well known to everyone. Everyone knew what books to read, what films to watch and what to talk about in the kitchen at night. This was a personal gesture that gave satisfaction and instilled pride. Today's time, with endless possibilities, makes such a gesture almost impossible or, by definition, marginal. Man found himself faced with a monstrous abyss of himself, his own human “I,” which until now had always been successfully camouflaged by the problem of social demand.
The generation of thirty-year-olds lost the right to the usual pronoun “we”. This is confusion not in front of time with its economic rigidity, but in front of one’s own reflection in the mirror. Who am I? What do I want? Hence the meditations on the theme of youth. A person tries to find the answer to painful questions where he began as a person. But this is not a journey into the Soviet past. This is a journey into the depths of your own soul and your own consciousness.
