About Leo Expertise I was born in the form. USSR. I`m a native Russian speaker and have a first-hand experience in Russian language, culture, and customs.
I have a few questions to ask about the former USSR, if you don't mind.
1. Under communism, could you pick the job you wanted? Or were you forced into a particular job?
2. Under communism, could artists make a living, and who decided if their work was "good" enough?
3. During the cold war, I've heard that the Soviets didn't portray America as an enemy - unlike the way Americans portrayed the Soviets. Is this true?
Thanks in advance for your answers!
-Chris
Answer Thanks for good question, Chris.
1. First of all, I'd like to make a very important correction/clarification. Communism as it was described by Marx and Engels has never existed anywhere. I think it was a huge mistake to call the former USSR, China, and other former so-called SOCIALIST countries as living under communism. To put it closer to the truth in economical sense the USSR was a country with a state capitalism operated and owned by a omnipotent and pervasive group called themselves "Communist Party", a dictatorship which used communist ideology to gain and to maintain its total control of everything and everybody in that vast land...
Certainly, there were different occupations and fields which required appropriate education. So, by choosing certain education one could choose certain kind of job for many years.
2. During Soviet times existed so-called "Socialist Realism", meaning embellishment of the existed way of living, ideology, etc. It was the only one approach acceptable to the ruling power and it guaranteed a very good living for writers, artists, and performers who worked in the mainstream. Those who were dissidents were murdered, imprisoned, exiled, and starved...
3.Well... During Soviet times ALL the west was presented to Soviet people as a powerful and cunning enemy who tries to defeat and overtake the USSR via ideological attacks(art, music, movies, radio broadcasts, etc), and who is accumulating enormous stockpiles of weapons which eventually will be used ti destroy the "most advanced social system in the world"...
