Today we are not talking about ice cream, not about classic Soviet cars, not about Soviet fashion, and not even about sausage. In this case, we will talk about things that are still material and much more important from the point of view of public life, as many citizens have been able to see for themselves over the past few decades. After all, everything, as you know, is learned by comparison. Of course, the Soviet Union was not a projection of heaven on earth, but much of the good that was in it is completely absent today.
1. Caring for the environment
Whatever they say, but about nature in the Soviet Union they cared much more than today in the overwhelming majority of the country with all the numerous "green" programs. Suffice it to recall the widespread practice of collecting recyclable materials: scrap metal, glass containers, waste paper. For the latter, one could even borrow books. Money was paid for metal and glass. Moreover, citizens collected all this not from need, but from responsibility. Finally, in the Soviet Union, for a long time, preference was given to paper, easily decomposable packaging, rather than cellophane, which can lie in the ground for centuries.
2. "Cult" of scholarship and erudition
Today, education is increasingly turning into another "service" that you can simply take and buy, get a cherished crust, a ticket to a good life! Comprehensive development fades into the background. Today, more and more often one has to see highly qualified specialists, who at the same time are “professional idiots” - people who are not capable of deep logical analysis outside the competence of their professional activities. This problem is especially acute in the sphere of public and political life. Undoubtedly, this process of decomposition began in the late USSR, but it was in our time that it reached its apotheosis.
3. Real social networks
The process of atomization of society (disunity, disintegration of social ties) also began in the days of the USSR. This phenomenon was objective, since it was partly associated with the process of urbanization and the final decay of the peasant / factory-worker consciousness. However, it was radically accelerated precisely thanks to perestroika and the 1991 counter-revolution. Having started chanting “Do not meddle in my life” to relatives, school, university, party and labor collective, people themselves did not notice how everyone did not care at all. Every year, manifestations of decency, care for others and responsibility to all experience are increasingly perceived by people as something frankly incredible. Today more and more people live according to the principle: man, man - a wolf.
4. The (not) illusion of security
There were no drunken "majors" in cars, there were no abnormal people rushing to school with a gun. Of course, in the Soviet Union there was crime, and maniacs, and catastrophes and accidents. However, until the "fatal eighties" crime was driven under such a carpet, under which the majority of citizens did not see it at all.
A simple example in numbers: in 2021, according to the Federal Penitentiary Service, there are a total of 473,843 people in custody (prisons, isolation wards, colonies) in Russia. In a country that lives in relative tranquility. Throughout the Soviet Union, at the height of political repression in 1937, when the country was in a pre-war situation, when the NKVD organs were literally rotten from corruption, when many really suffered undeservedly, 429,311 people were imprisoned (another 353,074 were sentenced to death). This is not an excuse for political repression, but only a graphic illustration.
Criminals are not just some "bad people". Crime breeds society, and above all the economy.
5. Confidence in the future
Let the modern alpha predators, who “made themselves”, mock the “infantilism” of the Soviet man, for whom everything was decided by the state, from the diapers to the place of work. All this modern propaganda of "success" sounds from the lips of people exactly until they themselves find themselves on the sidelines of life. After graduating, the Soviet person knew that he was guaranteed to get a job in his specialty. Having started working and starting a family, the Soviet man knew that he would receive housing and would not be left without a roof over his head. The Soviet man knew that he would not be thrown out into the street, that there would be a place for his child in kindergarten and that he would be taken to the hospital “without bumps” without any gifts.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should definitely read about 5 life hacks of the USSR timesthat allowed children and adults to remember something important.