USSR. Living in the Fifties.
More pictures portraying life in the Soviet era, submitted by our visitor Firsak. We’ve already seen life in the USSR in the seventies and sixties and now come the fifties.
See also:
USSR in the 70-s, part 1
USSR in the 70-s, part 2
USSR in the 70-s, part 3
USSR in the 60-s, part 1
| Tags: 60s, sixties, soviet era, soviet union, soviet-people, ussr |
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5:39 am
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Thanks again to firsak, and englishrussia.
Yes well done, Firsak. A genuinely good post. The nurse with all those babies may have wondered the kind of world they would grow up to. So many changes she could hardly imagine. I love to see pictures like these. More always welcome.
i comment later ,detaild.
after deep analysis.
because of i feel so nostalgic.
What a wonderful window back in time. Even though they are clearly propaganda based, one can learn so much by looking at these pictures. Thanks English Russia!
agreed. clearly propaganda … not a single picture of the destruction from WWII
i love socialist dicipline.every one looking in eyes of camera.every one act like robot .but i still love socialism.
This is not socialism. Socialism is what you have in Sweden i.e. This is communism. Under Stalin, being suspected of ’socialist’ activities was enough to be send to the gulags.
The main difference between USSR (and countries under soviet domination after WWII) and today West European countries which want to make “new and modern” socialism is … capitalism economy.
In USSR not only capitalism was treated as ideological evil but even free market thinking was prohibited.
In West Europe there is still regard for capitalism. Even higher regard there is in Sweden (still one of highest position in the ranking of free market economy).
And the capitalism is the power which makes that Europe don’t collapse as USSR (the warning for new socialists iideologists is: rest of the world don’t stay in one place).
Simply, the idea of the socialists is to tax ordinary people’s incomes at so high level as posible. … and to spent stolen incomes in ‘preffered way’ with ‘aid’ of milions (needless) officials.
In moral valuation, the communist had better motivation cause they introduce the completly stupid communist idea to give richness for everybody. So the communists were morons and criminalists but had better motive than today socialists.
In other aspects the most socialist part of Europe makes similiar stupid politics of ideology as USSR did.
There’s no such primitive brutality against oposition as in USSR was, but even soviet countries have stoped the primitive brutality for 15-30 years before collapsing of communism.
As I know in Sweden was imprisoned a priest who did dare to say that two homosexuals don’t create normal family.
In France, the community power ordered to stop cooking a traditional franch soup with pork for homeless people because it may discriminate Muslims or Jews homless.
In Scotland, public hospitals personnel was forbidden to eat sandwiches in job during Muslim ramadan because it may hurt feelings of Muslim personnel.
In Italy there was forbidden the Christmass tree in many schools because it may hurt feelings of Muslim or Jew (?) children.
There was an EU project to make any autumn day as Day of Opposition against the Death Penalty. Only Polish officials did object the project. For few years there have been some warnings from EU officials after some enunciation of Polish goverment officials about the death penalty for murderers (not even about re-establishing - to make it there must be politician with the balls not such queer as every Europeen politician).
Every clever man would like to make a Day of opossition against murders and murderers but not socialists.
So the European leftist ideological morons still more and more remind me ideological stupitidy of soviet leftists.
And it really doesn’t mean anything since IGOR IS A BALDY FAG.
That is very true and quite sad.
Communism is the most extreme form of Socialism. You were NOT sent to a gulag for being a socialist. You were sent to a gulag for being a socialist and criticizing Stalin’s extremism.
I remember in the middle of 80’s we were promised to reach communism for the year 2000. But in the real end I don’t remember anybody talking about it anymore
What the hell… We never had communism in USSR. It was never built.
You that the truth think, what people in the USSR never smiled? It now, at долбаных capitalists, to people is improbably heavy to live. For the majority of the population times of the USSR were the best in their life. For me too.
Comment by zafarad
2007-08-21 10:38:58
i love socialist dicipline.every one looking in eyes of camera.every one act like robot .but i still love socialism
zafarad is Russian clown-gay-star
Yeah they would have still been rebuilding the entire western front, no to mention the complete devastation of Poland and Ukraine,
Ukraine was the part of CCCP.like other CCPs,ukraine also benefited rebuilding plan.poland was aggressor at near past at tsarist russia.but soviets help Poland with export of `socialism`.
‘Thanks’ for such help. I did grow in times of soviet socialism and remember the fu..ing stupidity of socialist economy. I remember a people’s negligence of ’socialismus’ and nearly everything (funny but realistic opinions: ‘just every products will go to “Ruskies”‘).
I don’t want to say it was only sad time - there was popular expression: Poland is the joyful barrack from the ’socialist camp’.
soviets borrows this propaganda technique from Germany.but what now we say is not worthy .asked some elder of that time,they would say,that at time huge and massive rebuilding projects looking every where.every day new apartment block is finished.Germans totally destroy inch by inch infrastructure of eastern front but due to hard working of soviet people they rebuild everything very soon.other hand western Europe has huge advantage of American `Marshall plan`.but soviets did everything himself.Belaruss destroy 99%but after just few years they were back in business.i love old soviet days.
I must give Soviet Union its dues. It recoverd exceptionally well and much faster then the rest of Europe after the war. Earlly 50’s in Britain were full of poverty and destruction. Wereas poverty was mostly unherd of by the mid 50’s in SU. Communism indeed had very few positive sides, but the willingness of people to work for the common good of the State, is one of them i guess..
willingness of people to work for the common good of the state,was common at all socialist states.today we see the vicious circle of carrot and stick.some time carrot is vanish but stick is deep penetrating in our asses.these fruits are common in free market economy.free from any ethical responsibility.free from any moral duty.they demands what you offer to him,if you are fit to work you ok.but other than you are fired.who knows how long this rat race will continue! ! ! ! !
ECONOMY EXPLAINED
Feudalism
You have two cows.
Your lord takes some of the milk.
Fascism
You have two cows.
The government takes both, hires you to take care of
them and sells you the milk.
Communism
You have two cows.
You must take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
Capitalism
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.
Communism is the carrot-and-stick thing. Nomenklatura living the good live at the expense of the common man. No-one liked not reaping the benefits of hard work. It kills the motivation. People don’t like to work for an abstract idea like ‘the state’ in the end. History has proved this over and over again.
Today in Russia military draft still exists. Most countries nowadays have a professional army. Russian politicians defend their point of view by stating that you can never rely on ‘mercenaries’ or trust them.
No ! One should rely on motivated people who fight because of nationalist pride and are motivated by that ! The grim reality is that in general everybody is doing his best to evade the military draft, resulting in young boys being stopped on the street all the time, their papers are checked and if they cannot prove right there that they are legally exempt from the military draft they will be arrested, taken to the closest drafting station, shaved bald and are put on the train. They’re not allowed to go home and say goodbye to their relatives - they might run away…
“Wereas poverty was mostly unherd of by the mid 50’s in SU”
Boris Abramov, you must be out of your imbecile mind, my crazy friend.
One thing about all socialist country WAS - permanent poverty. And still is. As well as brainlessness of some provincial jewboys.
By the way - Borya - sosi huy s gorya.
zafarad, your socialist propaganda is bullshit.
Compare economy of North communist Korea and South capitalist Korea.
Compare economy of DDR (East socialist Germany which was subsidize by BRD even in soviet times) and BRD (West capitalist Germany). Why East Germans run away to BRD under fire of guns (few thousends were shot) ?
Learn the first lesson and start to aquire the more complicated economy knowledge.
Because they were stupid enough to just wait for a couple of years.
i think we discuss difference between two types of economic systems.but at the end of the day at sleeping,tell from your inside of heart ,instead of relaxed mental state you are thinking about next day`s bills,fees,fares,house rents,about jobs,even your ex girl friend,shortage of power,fuel etc,s thousand things i can remind you.in golden soviet time these mind blowing creatures had no problems.
so many guys mixed up socialism and communism together…SOCIALISM is the way to reach absolute COMMUNISM.CCCP never claimed his communist status.if we go back to 1990-91 era,we don`t found any ideological debate between GORBI and YELTSIN.BUT UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF GORBACHEIVE CCCP FUCKED BY FORMER HEAD OF COMMUNIST PARTY OF RUSSIA.i have many things to say but later.BY THE WAY DAREK,LABOUR UNION OF GIDANSK,SHIPYARD,what are they doing on daily basis?please do comment on this.ha ha ha…..
Your comments are hard to read. Can you use capital letters and spaces ? Capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, that is.
“thinking about next day`s bills,fees,fares,house rents,about jobs,even your ex girl friend,shortage of power,fuel etc,s thousand things i can remind you.in golden soviet time these mind blowing creatures had no problems.”
Exactly. Thinking of this “thousand thing” and solving prolems is a duty for every man. Every grown up and free man.
Only such a childish minded big kids (russians) prefer to be taken care of and herded like animals by some sort of Big Daddy-Tsar or “Dear Comrade Stalin”.
“golden soviet time”, huh? What a stupid state of mind!
“from your inside of heart ,instead of relaxed mental state”
Exactly. Men must use a mind and a brain and dogs prefer feelings “from your inside of heart” for making decisions.
Thats exatly what all of you are - stupid meek cows missing the butcher-sheppard and scared of life.
A couple of corrections are needed.
While it’s true that the old `Communist’ way of doing things was to tax the population as much as possible, the same is also true of so-called democracies. But in a state where the population has the power to elect a different type of government, the government cannot tax the bulk of the population too hard or they’ll be voted out of office.
Also: you say that `In Scotland, public hospitals personnel was forbidden to eat sandwiches in job during Muslim ramadan because it may hurt feelings of Muslim personnel.’
That is not true. They were instructed not to eat in front of the public: eating in staff-only rooms remained permitted. One might argue that this is unnecessary, but it’s not a particularly big problem for the staff.
British troops serving in Muslim countries have similar restrictions placed on them, and they are also instructed not to smoke in public during Ramadan.
And I think it’s worth pointing out that none of the nations claiming to be `Communist’ were anything of the sort, any more than (for example) the GDR/DDR was in any way democratic. A better name for the system might be `bureaucratic state capitalism’ - which hints at just how bad an idea it is.
> While it’s true that the old `Communist’ way of doing
> things was to tax the population as much as possible, the
> same is also true of so-called democracies.
You havn’t understood. I’ve written that the ‘hard taxing’ is done by those ’socialist’ democracies. The level of ordinary people income taxing in Sweden is about 58%. In West Europe about 50%. Even in USA (old but rather not actual symbol of free market) the level is higer than 35%.
‘Taxing’ in stupid communist economies was made in completly different way.
> That is not true. They were instructed not to eat in
> front of the public: eating in staff-only rooms remained
> permitted. One might argue that this is unnecessary, but
> it’s not a particularly big problem for the staff.
> British troops serving in Muslim countries have similar
> restrictions placed on them, and they are also instructed
> not to smoke in public during Ramadan.
Don’t you understand the difference ? If you are in strange country (even as soldier - not primitive but clever) you should respect strange customs.
If Muslims are invited to Europe then European still sould respect their own coustoms and should demand from other culture people to respect European customs (free expressions even about Muslims, eating customs, Christmas tree etc.).
If you were in Muslim country (even imperturbable as Saudi Arabia) you should be killed or imprisoned for wearing a crucifix. It’s Arab customs and you should respect it.
Just the experience of strange culture coexistence was longer in Poland then in any ‘modern’ socialist country.
For 6 centuries Jews run away from West Europe to Poland.
In Lwów city (now in Ukraine) there were celebrating fete and customs of Christians, Jews, Ukrainian, Bielarus, Hungarian even Muslim and there wasn’t any pogroms.
In 1939 there were about 30% of Polish population consisted from Jews, Ukrainian, Bielorusian etc..
It’s ended after agression of III Reich and USSR. On the West Germans started to exterminate mainly Jews. On the East Soviets started to exterminate mainly Poles.
It wasn’t topic about strange cultures coexistence.
I’ve written about ‘modern’ leftist stupidity which relates with communist stupidity and national socialist stupidity, too.
> `bureaucratic state capitalism’
There wasn’t such ‘izm’ in soviet countries. `Bureaucratic state capitalism’ it’s rather good term for EU economy - there is still the base of free market economy but milions restrictions and milions officials disturb the development.
Capitalism is free market economy.
As I’ve written in USSR even free market thinking was forbidden. There were many lagers prisoners for some ‘free market activity’.
How did you get so smart?
I’m IT specialist and like logical thinking.
You have a lot to learn son.
Luckily not from you, sheep.
Why every soviet photo is considered as “evil commie propaganda”? Why propaganda? Just because real life was quite different? Then Playboy is worst propaganda magazine ever.
Relax. These are just nice artistic photos. Of course they are more beautiful than “real life”. Like any other art.
HELLO, MY NAME IS IGOR.
I DO WANT EVERYBODY TO KNOW THAT I ACCEPT THE FACT THAT I AM A BALDY FAG.
And that would be great. But you are not THAT IGOR. Sorry.
Does anyone know the source of the photos?
My grandpa is in one of these photos (the photo with the soldiers getting off the train and waving). Pretty crazy!!!
Cool. Which one is your grandfather?
seriously. any country wanting to look nice would show off for the camera. these are lovely photographs. whatever they are they encapsulate something quite unique.
At least Koba was probably dead by the time these pictures were taken. The people would most probably have been seriously relaxed, after Himself and the war.
Oh yeah. For the record, communism is the projected utopian future that, if you are a Leninist, will of course follow the dictatorship of the proletariat. I was never able to figure out why Lenin, always a minutely practical thinker, an utter GENIUS in his ruthless razor-like logic- was able to make this quantam leap ideologically possible to himself and to his followers. Of course, it never happened. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But ostensibly getting the pre-industrial masses on side certainly helped the revolution to happen. Leninism, the founding principle of the USSR, is Marxist but not Marxism in itself. I think one would have to live through the period to understand what the reigning ideology was all about. Until then… my dears… we shall never quite know.
Marxism is too complicated to understand all in one gobby gullety swallow- one flick through Das Kapital. I never studied political science outside of a library. But I suspect that it might be just as cranky as capitalism/Utilitarianism. Ugh, that dinosaur doctrine!
I’m inclined to be friends with Marx. He’d be horrified if he knew what these people did to his ideals.
Those were some of the best days. Life was as shown in the pictures - happy and exciting. This isn’t propaganda. If you were a law-obiding citizen, you loved everything about the USSR. You didn’t have everything, but you had just enough. You had enough to make a living for yourself and your family. You knew your kids would get higher education. You knew you had job stability.
Wow! How happy can be one under total government control?
As happy as an animal in the stable.
If you don,t need and appreciate the freedom you are definitely an animal. Russians and poles have good term for it “BYDLO” (livestock). Looks like you still have no idea WTF is “freedom” and why other peoples didn,t like Soviet stables. They are not animals like you, thats why.
It’s all true about modern russuans as well and explains everything very well. Poor pigs and cows are missing their stables. Boo-hoo-hoo!
Most of the photographs aren’t of 60-s they are 50-s.
Thanks a lot dear,sevengali.i am “hard line nostalgic” person.i can`t forget my lovely old days.where every one looked same,each one wear same fashion.every one eat same food stuff.what an my old world.please bring my world again,i can pay any cost for that.i miss my toys,sickle hammer,spade,Cheslie,shit picking pan.these “toys” were once the pride of working class people.so don`t disturb me.i am in a day dreaming.i enjoy my past.USSR was the best “social welfare” state in the history of the world.
Dear zafarad, your sentences sound like kinda mockery to me: I frankly believe you are much smarter than some “hard headed” dumb commie you are impersonating. If I am right you’ve got me.
No offense? No hard feelings? If you are not IGOR.
Regarding photo:
http://englishrussia.com/images/ussr_life_in_50/18.jpg
OK, that’s a vertical turret-lathe, with a dial indicator on the table. Is the younger worker operating a control that strikes the locking lever for the turret, or is he working on the locking lever with some sort of hand tool?
That’s quite a versatile machine, but in operation the metal chips land on that round table (at the level of the 2 handwheels) as it turns. I see no shield to keep the oil and metal-chips somewhat contained. Neither of those 2 men in the photo RUNS that machine, or he would be dressed for it, I think.
Does anyone (especially the individual who posted these pictures) know what the copy right on these images might be? I’m trying to put together a poster for a Russian history conference and I would *LOVE* to use the image of the parachuting woman.
Any help at all would be much appreciated.
Thank you,
Rachel
Interesting in one of the first pics you see a brick layer with a workers outfit, but looks brand new. Then you notice he has on a very large wrist watch that would be smashed in seconds of doing that work.
A wrist watch as a pretty big luxury at that time for a brick layer, and he sure as hell would not have worn it at work!
The fully stocked store is another prop.
Pretty interesting, the pictures are more of a message as to how the Soviet Union wanted to portray itself/wanted to be, than what it really was.
The nurse wearing a mask as protection for newborns is amazing to me!
It’s not used even today in Western nurseries, go figure how advanced was that in the 50s!
No propaganda but Kyiv)
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[...] vom prezenta câteva colecţii de fotografii referitoare la ‘vecinul de la Răsărit’: URSS în anii ‘50 - URSS în anii ‘60 - Moscova în 1967 - URSS în anii ‘70, partea I - URSS în anii [...]
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