Ask Lemmygrad

Incredibly fun thread. Great thread to save. Thanks comrades

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.

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.

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:

• https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/
• https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/

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

• http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm
• http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm
• http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez

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:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union
• https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html

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:

• https://books.google.com/books?id=x8JYjwEACAAJ
• https://web.archive.org/web/20210509140019/https://b-ok.cc/book/2669908/77497f

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

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.

saving humanity

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!