Alexander Deineka, 1961.

Waiting for spring. Photo by Igor Gnevashev, USSR, 1980s.

New Year's Eve in the dormitory, Leningrad, 1983 (photo by Yuri Belinsky)

Happy Lunar New Year!

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"Cellar with supplies" Soviet Union c. 1970s

Dusk, Mikhail Guzhavin, 1927

Photographer Frederic Chaubin

Stained glass windows in the administrative building of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was one of the largest in the Soviet Union and the poster child of the Soviet nuclear power industry. As such, little expense was spared on details like these windows.

The Soviet Union often used motifs in abstract art to promote Communism and laude their successes.

For more info, check out my reblog of this post.

We think that it’s worth noting that the Soviet Union actually preserved the Yiddish language.

Whilst it’s true that Jewish life under the Soviet Union was far from perfect, and thus eligible to be critiqued — the diasporic Yiddish language would NOT have survived the Holocaust if it weren’t for the USSR’s support. There was a Yiddish language magazine called “Sovietish Haimland”, from 1961, which published Jewish art, which was particularly encircling Jewish culture. It also carried Yiddish lessons in a serialized textbook. 100s of Yiddish established writers contributed to this magazine. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this magazine no longer recieved that same state support and came to an end.

Again, we cannot act like the Soviet Union were perfect. The USSR was far from it. it is there that we can see where to learn from, where to do better. Communists look at history to learn from it; we see where mistakes were made even by our forefathers that tried to implement revolutionary reforms.

But the USSR actively combatted the Nazi’s attempts to systemically destroy the Yiddish language— and that is noteworthy.

This is from “Soviet but Not Russian: The ‘Other Peoples of the Soviet Union” by William Mandel. We are working on getting this PDF resource in our Drive, along with a Soviet Union section, if people would like to read it themselves.

We must look at our history, especially at our Communist forefathers, and assess what we need to work on as a society to truly liberate everyone from the tyranny of Capitalism. Looking to the Soviet Union, we can see many examples of great progress made as much as we can see great losses.

I found this meme, and now this one pops up in my head every time I see a russian or a tankie claim that the USSR "saved the world from nazism" and ignore this "minor" detail.

Soviet New Year tree lights, 1960s.

Since people wanna celebrate the moon landing so bad, lemme remind you which country actually hit most milestones in the space race first (image source in alt)

reassurance but the opposite actually

If the United States broke apart like the Soviet Union...

When the USSR fell, Moscow's empire instantly lost -48.6% of its population -38.8% of GDP. For comparison, this is how it would look if the U.S. broke apart with the same ratios today.

by mmjukic