What Are The USSR's Greatest Achievements? (thelemmy.club)

submitted 2 days ago by ForNow@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml

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I was wondering why the USSR is universally beloved among Marxist-Leninists but other AES states tend to be more controversial. So I looked into it.

Saved Europe from Fascism Abolished private property Abolished wealth accumulation Centrally Planned Economy, quotas, prices, wages, EVERYTHING State Atheism - BASED Universal Literacy First Man Into Space Public Healthcare Public Housing Public Transportation

Holy sea cow SpongeBob! Any anarchist would fall out of their chair if one of their projects achieved even one of these things.

What in your opinion are the greatest policies and achievements of The USSR?

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[-] muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 day ago

One thing I didn't see yet : GOSPLAN. They put into practice the first planned economy in history, developed the mathematics to support it, had something like 1000 products and intermediary materials in the plan. And they did it all by hand, without the aid of computers and databases.

This was all while western / austrian economists talked about how it was impossible.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 30 points 2 days ago

This was the first successful socialist uprising in the world, which transformed Russia from a poor and backward feudal country into a leading economic, political, military, scientific, technical, cultural and educational power!

Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world:

USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%:

USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960's, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA:

USSR ended famines https://artir.wordpress.com/2017/02/04

Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5

USSR moved from 58.5-hour work weeks to 41.6 hour work weeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960:

USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996:

https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
Had the 2nd fastest growing economy of the 20th century after Japan. The USSR started out at the same level of economic development and population as Brazil in 1920, which makes comparisons to the US, an already industrialized country by the 1920s, even more spectacular.
Free Universal Health care, and most doctors per capita in the world.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/newsholme/1933/red-medicine/index.htm) 42 doctors per 10k population, vs 24 in Denmark and Sweden, 19 in US.
Had near zero unemployment, continuous economic growth for 70 straight years. The "continuous" part should make sense – the USSR was a planned, non-market economy, so market crashes á la capitalism were pretty much impossible.

In 1987, people in the USSR could retire with pension at 55 (female) and 60 (male) while receiving 50% of their wages at a at minimum. Meanwhile, in USA the average retirement age was 62-67 and the average (not median) retiree household in the USA could expect $48k/yr which comes out to 65% of the 74k average (not median) household income in 2016:

https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/could-you-get-by-on-the-average-americans-retirement-income/
All education, including university level, free. 2
99% literacy.
Combatted sex inequality. Equal wages for men and women mandated by law, but sex inequality, although not as pronounced as under capitalism, was perpetuated in social roles.
Combatted Racial inequality.
Soviet power production per capita in 1990 was more than the EU, Great Britain, or China's in 2014. GDP took off after socialism was established and then collapsed with the reintroduction of capitalism:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soviet_Union_GDP_per_capita.gif

The Soviet Union had the highest physician/patient ratio in the world. USSR had 42 doctors per 10,000 population compared to 24 in Denmark and Sweden, and 19 in US:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0735675784900482 (use sci-hub for access)
USSR defeated a smallpox epidemic in a matter of 19 days https://www.rbth.com/history/331857-how-ussr-defeated-black-smallpox
The Social Consequences of Soviet Immunization Policies https://web.archive.org/web/20240218132709/https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1997-812-03g-Hoch.pdf

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 2 days ago

USSR produced many firsts in the realm of science and technology:

1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 Semyorka
1957: First orbiting satellite, Sputnik 1
1957: First living in orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2
1957: First nuclear powered icebreaker "Lenin" weighing in at 19,240 tons of steel
1958: First Tokamak thermonuclear experimental system
1959: First man-made object to leave the Earth's orbit, Luna 1
1959: First communication to and from Luna 1 with Earth
1959: First object to pass near the moon, and the first object in orbit around the Moon, Luna 1
1959: First satellite hit the moon, Luna 2
1959: First images of the dark side of the moon, Luna 3
1960: First satellite to be launched to Mars, the Marsnik 1
1961: First satellite to Venus, Venera 1
1961: First person to enter orbit around the Earth, Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1
1961: First person to spend a day in orbit, Gherman Titov – Vostok 2
1962: First flight of two astronauts, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4
1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6
1964: First flight of several astronauts, Voskhod 1
1965: First spacewalk, Aleksei Leonov, Voskhod 2
1965: First probe to another planet Venus, Venera 3
1966: First probe to descend on the moon and send from there, Luna 9
1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10
1967: First meeting of unmanned Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188, this aws not achieved by US until 2006
1969: First docking and crew exchange in orbit, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5
1970: First signals sent to the moon by Luna 16
1970: First mobile robot, Lunokhod 1
1970: First data sent by a probe from another planet (Venus), Venera 7
1971: First space station, Salyut 1
1971: First satellite in orbit around Mars and landing on Mars 2
1975: First satellite in orbit around Venus and sending data to earth, Venera 9
1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaja on Salyut 7
1986: First team to visit two space stations Salyut and Mir
1986: First permanent space station in Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, MIR
1987: First team to spend more than a year aboard Mir, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov

These are just some of the biggest technological and social achievements of the Soviet Union.

What happens after the USSR collapsed, and what came with capitalist privatization:

Life expectancy decreases by 10 years. 2. 7.7 million excess deaths in the first year. 2
40% of population drops into poverty.
GDP instantly halves.
One in ten children now live on the streets. Infant mortality increases. Was 29.3 in 2003 which is around (current) Syria and Micronesia, 7.9 in 2013. Infant mortality in USSR was 1.92, literally the lowest in the world.
1996 election rigged by the US, Yeltsin sends in tanks to disperse the supreme soviet.

For an overview of the soviet experiment, watch this brilliant talk by Micheal Parenti, or read his article, Left anticommunism, the unkindest cut.

Also read this great article by Stephen Gowans, Do publicly owned, planned economies work?. Audio on youtube

academic studies on USSR

Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth that made the achievements listed above possible:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044114/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=

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[-] MasterBlaster@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Incredibly fun thread. Great thread to save. Thanks comrades

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

IMO their greatest achievement was the revolution itself, it was a very powerful beacon, people all around the world were following with awe the events of the russian revolution and it ended up inspiring many other revolutionaries like Mao and Uncle Ho. Those really were the days that shook the world, hope for the oppressed and tremor for the oppressors.

Later i will look up the writings were Ho talks about how inspiring that event was to him.

[-] Maeve@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 day ago

Later i will look up the writings were Ho talks about how inspiring that event was to him.

I look forward to reading it.

[-] TheRedWedge@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 2 days ago

I wholeheartedly believe that the Soviet space program was the single greatest achievement of human devopment in history. A backwards nation of illiterate peasants, devastated by WW1. Followed by a long and bloody civil war. Followed by bearing the brunt of the most terrible war ever fought, on its own territory, with the express purpose of commiting genocide on its people. And not only did they survive, they conquered space within like two generations from the end of the civil war.

For me this is the living proof that socialism works and a better future for all humanity is possible.

[-] ComradeSasquatch@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 2 days ago

When America was bulldozing the country for cars, the USSR was building trains which could carry more people and cargo per unit of land that automobiles.

They formed a civilian corp to go to where people lived and taught literacy to adults and children alike.

They built enough modern housing to solve homelessness and bring living conditions to 20th century standards (who would have guessed that giving everyone housing would solve homelessness?!).

They rapidly industrialized the USSR so that it was comparable in productivity to the USA.

They produced enough food that the people had access to more calories than Americans had (CIA's own reports admit this fact).

They defeated Hitler.

They made racism a crime (which didn't end well for the pogroms who were harming Jewish people).

They overthrew the Kulaks who were using their status as landlords to exploit the starving tenant farmers and distributed that land so that every household had enough land to feed themselves.

[-] cornishon@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 2 days ago

A complete industrialization of the country within the span of 2 five year plans.

The decision to move the industry (at an enormous cost) behind the Ural mountains may well have been the difference between victory and defeat against the Nazi invasion.

[-] CommieKhinkali@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 2 days ago

saving humanity

[-] muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 day ago

Zhukov - "We've saved Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it"

[-] opiumfree@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

elevated most of eastern europe to sapience. im a minority in eastern europe and if ww2 went differently 1. my family wouldve never been allowed to come here 2. i wouldnt be allowed to exist freely. most of my racist experiences came from ukrainian refugees who think civil rights are bad.

[-] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 27 points 2 days ago

Full employment, detaching financial and real and planning according to real constraints.

[-] MatBC@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 2 days ago

I'd point out the accessibility of food in particular, from under the non constraints, and add from another side, beating the Nazis in the great patriotic war aka WWII

[-] Maeve@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 2 days ago

I have to agree successful social policies are the greatest achievement. Everything else is impressive, but not at the cost of a weak, sick, ignorant masses. Healthy, well educated people strengthen the state and any projects the state chooses to undertake.

[-] stalinmustacheuwu@lemmygrad.ml 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

THEY WON THE SPACE RACE!!!!

Even though the fucking yankes claim otherwise.

They not only put the first man on space, they also put the first woman, the first mammal (a dog named Laika), the first satellite , the first space station, the first lunar probe, and the first Venus probe. The only reason the yankes claim they won is because they took a selfie on the moon.

They also built the first commercial (for lack of a better word) nuclear power plant.

[-] none@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago

I was just going to add a picture of Laika

on the way I stumbled upon Some Unknown Pages of the Living Organisms' First Orbital Flight a short writing presented by D C Malashenkov about his recollections of the Sputnik 2 project at 2002 Second World Space Congress.

1954 during the meeting in the Academy of Sciences of USSR, the basic research problems conducted by means of artificial satellites of the Earth were determined.

...

The successful launch of the Earth's first artificial satellite [Sputnik 1] in October 4, 1957 has made stunning influence on all the world. To continue this success, N. Khrushzev in October 10 1957 stated to launch the second satellite with an animal onboard till November 7 (40 years of October Revolution). The level of complexity of forthcoming tasks was much higher. Tightness of a cabin and the systems of life-support of the satellite should provide considerably large duration of flight under previous dimensions and power consumption. The research equipment should also ensure long uninterrupted registration of the scientific data and their transfer on ground stations. At last, the realization of additional training and special preparation of dogs was required.

In 1954 they make a To Do List. By 1957 it is a Done List. Then it is decided to do Sputnik 2 (with Laika) 1 month later. While they had been doing work to build up to sending animals up, it was not expected so soon. They had to do all the training, testing, and engineering in 1 month!

You can read what they did in the link. Apparently this is considered definitive regarding the manner of her death, as previously there were different accounts.

[-] senseamidmadness@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 2 days ago

The Venera series of space probes, whose achievements have still not been matched today by anything else. The final probe made it to the surface of Venus and transmitted back pictures!