September 23, 2025
The topic of today’s class is “Real Socialism: Society, Economy and Culture.” We begin with Prague Spring in 1968 and the Soviet Invasion.
August 20th saw the invasion of more than 500,000 Warsaw troops; leaders of Czechoslovakia are brought into Moscow. There was more freedom in Czechoslovakia than in other socialist states. Western artists visited a lot, it was Socialism with a human face: economic and cultural freedoms, with less travel restrictions. People were excited for reforming the Socialist state in Czechoslovakia. It was unique in that it was betrayed by the west in WWII, so the communists were quite popular.
The Soviets are suspicious, because do they not have a human face? Leaders discuss the situation as it was dangerous, this was when Czechoslovakia leaders were taken to Moscow. After some soul searching, the Soviets made the decision to invade during a celebration of Socialism. People there tried to explain to the tanks that they were not enemies. Polish students that were demonstrating did not help maters as they were chanting about the leader of Czechoslovakia. Then the Brezhnev Doctrine comes out: it states that each communist party is responsible to the entire socialist world.
Now we move on to Romania in 1968 and the 70s. Ceausescu’s speech on the 21st of August, 1968, condemned the Soviet invasion. This made him incredibly popular. Western leaders thought he was a liberal. After his speech he sends a letter to the Soviets stating that nothing could hinder the friendship between the USSR and Romania. He was invited to the DPRK and China in 1971. China was not a fan of the post-Stalin USSR, as they preferred totalitarianism. They did think that Ceausescu was admirable in his critiques. Ceausescu was impressed with Mao and published his own words denouncing liberalism, he wanted Romanian nationalism. Stalin was a modest man but Ceausescu encouraged his own cult of personality.
Romania was the poorest socialist state. It was illegal to own a typewriter; abortions were outlawed in the 80s as it was a problem for all developing nations when women joined the work force. Apparently women were examined every month by doctors to determine why they had not had children yet.
Okay, now we can move on to Hungary. It had its own revolution back in 1956 but it was put down by the Soviets. In 1966, Hungary got rid of central planning, thus it became the richest Socialist country, but nothing compared to the west. Besides decentralization Hungary introduced market mechanisms and free prices. She been tells us a joke that I believe came from the GDR: A girl has to answer a question for school “Why do you love the USSR?” She ass her dad and he says he hates the USSR, she asks her mother and gets the same answer. Everyone she asks says they hate the USSR, so when she goes to answer the question she says “I love the USSR because no one else does.” Finished its the joke, she pivots to China in that it was deemed a threat to the USSR due to both countries having disagreements, so China pivots towards the USA. This is also when the USSR gets involved in global conflicts like Somalia.
Next we went into the Brezhnev years, which was characterized by “senile leadership.” Brezhnev himself had impressive political skills, but he suffered from health issues after taking too many sleeping pills back in the 60s. In 1974 he had a major stroke, he had another in 1976 but was kept on because the party leadership thought they’d have more control with a barely functioning leader. The politburo was created, and all the members were old. Brezhnev confided in his assistants that the politburo needed to be better. He simplified a lot, he even told his speech writers to not add any Marxism into his speeches ass nobody would believe he has read Marx. Brezhnev could not work longer than 2 hours, Politburo meetings lasted around 30 minutes to an hour which meant that he was spent most of the time. A lot of jokes emerged during this era, most of which were about Brezhnev himself, many students chuckled at this.
Economic challenges was covered next. The problem was that the USSR wanted to compete with the west, and they managed to do this! Because of the USSR’s existence the west was pressured to reduced work day hours since the Soviets were doing that. Regarding the space race, the Soviets were the first to send women to space, the US did so after but said women weren’t even astronauts, they were secretaries while the Soviet women were pilots. These successes were due to central planning and stealing US secrets. People were frustrated with the planned economy as most of the money was being directed to the heavy industry and military. It was impossible to buy things, and when items were available they were of bad quality.
There was not enough books, clothes, or food. Scholars talked about reforms, a guy who would work for Gorbachev was one of them (I could not make out his name). Standard of living was also too low while the military got too much money. No one listened to the scholars. Citizens of the USSR acquired stuff via “Blat” and the black market. Blat means to get something from acquaintances, how it was explained was you could get hard to find items by knowing a guy who knows a guy, so a friend or family member or friend of a friend could get something for you. You basically had to know someone to get stuff. It wasn’t very sustainable.
Everyone knew a change had to happen. Cybernetics was considered bourgeoisie and the party prevented the developing of computers. They were only really needed for space research, post-space race saw the destruction of all those computers. This was, in part, to prevent any research from being stolen I guess. The senile government was dealing with complex structural problems. This government started the war in Afghanistan as they thought it was justified as the Socialist Afghan government asked for support while the US was giving its support to the mujahideen.
Women and families were the next topic of today’s lecture. All women were expected to work, which also meant they had a double burden, working at home and at their place of employment. The Soviets were still patriarchal. Birthrates were declining because it was hard to do both, on average people were having only 2 children. Childcare was inexpensive and there was paid maternity leave. It was the only country to do so at the time. The average salary was 100 rubles, and daycare only costed around 10. Maternity leave was one year paid, while the workplace would apparently save your wages for three years. Free after-school activities were provided. Talented kids would join teams with free lunch and uniforms. There were special music schools as well. The government gave lots of help but it was not enough as women had to stand in queues for hours just to get food.
Society and culture-wise, the USSR provided free university education (wish I had that), free medical care, cheap medical care, cheap (inadequate) housing and retirement benefits. Urban society reined supreme as only 30% of the population lived in the countryside. It was quite depressing, young people wanted to leave the countryside and the old were heavy drinkers. There was struggle to provide food. The USSR sold its weed and the west complained, opting to instead purchase Canadian cannabis. My professor said that collective farms did not make enough, Socialism in this regard is not great. It was normal for a family of 5 to live in a one room apartment. There was no unemployment, once you finished university the government would send you to go where they wanted you to work for three years. Once the 3 years was up you could go and do whatever you wanted. People were happy with socialism despite the difficulties. Soviet people read the most and had the best movies.
We were then shown a picture of Gorbachev with Margaret Thatcher. Gorbachev and his wife were the poster children of the successes of the USSR according to my professor. They were initially liked in the Union but people became critical, especially over perestroika not delivering what it promised. Gorbachev’s wife was criticized for being too proud and too fancy. She then told us about how a foreign correspondent asked Gorbachev what he tells his wife and he said “everything.” My professor said that his wife was the intellectual, she was always sought out by her husband. Which is sweet, I guess, who knew Gorbachev was a wife guy? When she got cancer suddenly everyone started to love her. She said that she had to die for people to truly understand her. She was always the spokes person as Gorbachev did not know English.
That is where the lecture ended and we were given the map quiz. We had to study all fifteen republics of the USSR plus those associated like Czechia, Slovakia, and the Balkans. We were given a list of ten random countries from the full list we had to study. Let’s just say I was so confident that I labeled every single country regardless of whether she asked for it on the quiz.
(Again, I am sorry I am so behind on these posts. This course has actually been more depressing than I thought it’d be. My fellow students make me sad.)
We begin with Prague Spring in 1968 and the Soviet Invasion. August 20th saw the invasion of more than 500,000 Warsaw troops
This is nonsense. Czechoslovakia was part of the Warsaw pact. It was not an invasion, it was an intervention to stop a CIA backed color revolution-type overthrow of the socialist system: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
People were excited for reforming the Socialist state in Czechoslovakia.
Liberals were excited about destroying socialism. Whenever this talking point gets brought up about how “people wanted reforms” you should ask yourself “which people are we talking about?” (because to generalize as if the entire population wanted the same thing is nonsense) and “what kind of reforms?”.
We now have the benefit of hindsight and can see what liberalizing reforms such as those of Gorbachev actually brought: they destroyed the socialist economies, plunged them into crisis, undermined the rule of the working class and eventually led to the destruction of socialism for the benefit of bourgeois parasites, imperialists and foreign capitalists.
China was not a fan of the post-Stalin USSR, as they preferred totalitarianism.
This is 100% an ideological statement and has nothing to do with real history. A person who talks this way is not a historian, they are a propagandist. They are attempting to poison the well from the start by using emotionally charged negative terms like “totalitarianism”. They make no attempt to understand what was actually happening and what the real conflicts were.
China did not dislike the post-Stalin USSR because they “preferred totalitarianism”, this is equivalent to saying “because they liked evil”. It’s orientalist bullshit. The geopolitical dynamics between China and the USSR during the Sino-Soviet split were complex and cannot be reduced to such infantile clichés. China opposed the lies and slander that the USSR was peddling under Khrushchev’s “destalinization”, but this was only one of many geopolitical issues underlying the split.
Apparently women were examined every month by doctors to determine why they had not had children yet.
I hope i don’t need to tell you that this is absurd. This is the kind of allegation that you would read in tabloids about the DPRK today, like how they supposedly force people to have just one haircut or push trains. It is comically stupid to even believe something like this. I literally have family members who lived in socialist Romania and they would laugh in your face if you said this.
It had its own revolution back in 1956 but it was put down by the Soviets.
Again, just a total erasure of real history in favor of a childishly simplistic propaganda narrative. What actually happened was a fascist coup attempt with Western backing (MI6 and CIA outlet RFE were deeply involved) that was stopped by Soviet intervention at the request of Hungarian communists. There is plenty of info on this topic. Start by reading this:
The Fascist Hungarian Counterrevolution of 1956
The Hungarian “Revolt” of 1956 – a detailed historical look at the events
Everyone she asks says they hate the USSR
Again, absolute revisionist history told from the perspective of committed anti-communists. There were plenty of people living in the DDR who liked the Soviet Union and considered it a fraternal socialist state. The Soviet Union literally liberated East Germany from Nazism. You know who didn’t like that? Nazis.
post-space race saw the destruction of all those computers
Citation needed. The Soviets lagged behind in computing not because of ideological reasons but because of practical economic reasons. They were isolated from the global market by sanctions and embargos, they had much less resources at their disposal to invest in this field than the West, and there was much less incentive for widespread adoption of the personal computer. Despite this Soviet scientists still made notable advances in computer science.
Birthrates were declining because it was hard to do both, on average people were having only 2 children.
Birthrates declined across the entire developed world, not just in the Soviet Union. You always see birthrates decline when education increases and poverty decreases. Also, the population of the Soviet Union continued to grow after WW2 all the way up until its dissolution. If people were only having 2 children this could not have been the case.
On the contrary, we only saw a rapid decline in population begin after the destruction of socialism during the disastrous decade of the 1990s, and that was not because women were working too much. Unemployment skyrocketed during that time and when that happens women have historically always been the first and hardest hit.
cheap (inadequate) housing
Better “inadequate” than no housing, which is what the alternative was. The Soviet Union had to house a large and growing population and had no choice after the immense destruction caused by WWII but to rapidly build housing.
People may not have had the kind of suburban single-family homes that Americans are obsessed with, but they had apartments with everything they needed for living: electricity, water, heating, gas for cooking, a roof over their heads. It was either this or continue to have people living in run-down hovels or on the streets.
And also the climate is much harsher in most of Russia than it is in other countries. Building housing compactly rather than spread out helps with insulation and energy costs.
young people wanted to leave the countryside
Is this any different in any developing country? When a country develops and industrializes you always see a population shift to the cities. The West experienced this as well.
There was struggle to provide food.
CIA reports from the 1950s and 60s actually showed that the average Soviet citizen had a higher daily calorie intake than the average American. There was no struggle to provide food until Gorbachev came around with his horrible liberal economic reforms and literally crashed the economy.
Your professor clearly has an axe to grind against the socialist system and is choosing to twist facts, present them in a biased way with biased language, and mixing in half-truths or even lies.
Let’s just say I was so confident that I labeled every single country regardless of whether she asked for it on the quiz.
This is great to hear! Knowledge of geography is essential to properly understanding history.
I agree with cfg that there seem to be a lot of either simplification and/or purposeful distortions in the lecture. Like the fact that most economic / food issues only appeared during gorbachevs liberalisation period.
I hope OP continues posting and rebuttal/correction made in comment. It kind of feels like I’m vicariously auditing the class, and I’m learning.
I hope OP doesn’t let classmates discourage. Good luck, we support you!
This is why I make these posts, so people can understand what it is like being in a Canadian university and what I have to go through regarding professors, class content, other students, and the university itself.
I am trying to tune out and be unbothered about what the other students say but it is tough. I will get through it, just with a lot of frustration and exhaustion. Thank you for the support!
Thank you, and you are welcome! 🫡
Might I suggest a heavy dose of humor? The jokes almost write themselves!
China was not a fan of the post-Stalin USSR, as they preferred totalitarianism.
wait what. this is the first time i a bit confused on where this statement comes from. with the rest of the lecture i broadly agree with.
This course has actually been more depressing than I thought it’d be. My fellow students make me sad
I hope its not too depressing! From your posts it actually sounds like a good way to learn about the basics of the soviet union.
From your posts it actually sounds like a good way to learn about the basics of the soviet union.
Unfortunately it also seems to be full of anti-communist ideological messaging and bourgeois propaganda about the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc. In this post alone i could point out over a dozen lies and biased distortions.
I should have added *good for a western academia. From my experience the conversation usually ends with “it was totalitarian”
