Although my family lived fairly lavishly during the Soviet Union, I despise the Soviet Union.
I loathe all that’s Soviet: the “Soviet” way of thinking, the mindset, and many other things…
Doesn’t matter if you were rich or poor—if you have that “Soviet” inside you (except education & intelligence—features one always looks up to), I may find the trait distasteful—being blunt.
Poor
If you were poor, you’d think that you’re just a piece of workforce, you’re not meant for more: you’re supposed to work and help your employer to help your Родина (“Ródina” - ru. motherland); God forbid if you thought you were directly helping it… hahah!
I don’t like that mindset. That’s a “poor man’s mindset”: that you’re only, only, and only supposed to work, that you’re not the ruler of your life, not the paver of your path – this directly makes you someone’s subordinate–always. And that directly goes against my ethics & moral values, since I was always taught to be independent, strong, and sovereign.
I can’t stress it enough: this is such a victim mindset. And it can’t even get more naïve!
Oh, and if you were not naïve, if you knew that you were being exploited by virtually everyone “above” you, then I suppose you’d lived a miserable life!
Rich
This is even worse. This case is way worse.
You know your country was involved in two World Wars and had massive losses (or maybe you don’t, because you don’t care: because you graduated expecting to misuse people), but you still exploit it!
Maybe you’re a corrupt police official who, in cooperating with criminals, confiscates & expropriates people’s possessions!
Maybe you’re a good person, but you lack the morals to stand up against the corruption! (I really don’t blame you here, I can see from your perspective.)
But how do you even live like this? How greedy and wolfish do you have to be? At least give something back to those poor souls… What a thief!..
Drama
Petty drama. Soap opera. Tittle-tattle, gossip, talking behind people’s backs.
Lack of stoicism—therefore, “woe is me”. Too much emotion and too many emotions.
Being poor (not inherently a problem by itself, but…):
- being poor and just wanting things without doing anything to earn them;
- being poor and too dissatisfied, too ungrateful, too stagnant & static…
These people live in “local minimae”–inside their own little bubbles of their relatives & acquaintances. In most cases, they don’t live happy lives–as if they were a dying lion, surrounded by hyenas (the different kinds of distractions, nuisances, and drama).
I would really love to describe them more to the reader of this blog, but I cannot fathom how they exist. I simply do not understand. There’s one last thing about them, though:
Surely enough, they yell and probably even beat their children for not studying enough or getting bad grades; but when the children grow up, they don’t become anything that would justify the amounts of trauma they had to go through.
A lot of people felt/feel (there are still millions of people like this) that they should be following a different path, a more lavish, a more happy, a more ambitious one; they feel that they were destined for other things, but while sensing their helplessness, lack of agency and hope, having no idea how to achieve their goals, they, in their misery, began to hate everything around them, including themselves. (Modified quote from Netochka Nezvanova by Fyodor Dostoevsky.)
And so the never-ending cycle continues.
Intelligence & Education…
…are the only things I admire about the “Soviets”. One thing here troubles me–that’s credentialism; take that away, and it would be a great intellectual space.
The respect shown toward the intellectuals, “movers,” pioneers–all the people who define the direction of technological & scientific innovations–is certainly admirable and the way it should be.
- Nihad Badalov