Nostalgia for the Soviet Union

32 years ago, on December 8, 1991, in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha forest near the Polish border, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus signed the agreement that went down in history as the "Belovezh Accords." In a sense, this agreement was considered the death certificate for the USSR. The USSR ceased to exist as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality. A union that was massive in both geography and population was splitting into 15 independent states. The Soviet Union was considered a brutal regime by critics, viewed as a "prison of nations" and a "utopian project." Years later, Russian President Putin (in 2005) described the collapse of the USSR as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."

For many Russians and other former Soviet citizens, the collapse of the USSR left a great void in their hearts and, at the same time, a strong feeling that life was better back then. Although this mega-project disappeared 32 years ago, those who still feel nostalgia for those times say that life was easier, calmer, and happier. It is possible to encounter such discussions, especially in social media groups. These polemics also exist among citizens of former Soviet countries who have been living in Turkey for many years. Even though Turkey did not experience communism and the Soviet regime, it is a country where fans of the old Soviet regime can be found. In one of these groups, I asked the following question: Why was life good during the USSR era and bad now? Or conversely, why is life good now and why was it bad during the time of the USSR? The answers varied depending on the individual. Some of the opinions are as follows:

• “Even though we are scattered all over the world, we live better now. In the past, most of us didn't know what the sea and the mountains looked like. The salaries we earned were not enough. There were two cars in the village, there was a bus twice a day, and it was as crowded as India is now. We all wore the same clothes. It didn't matter if you were hardworking or lazy, we received the same salary. But the education and healthcare system were free, we didn't fear the future, there were dormitories at school, and when you graduated from university, you had a job and a secure life; if a child was born into a family, you were given an apartment or a plot of land. We lived carefree because we had no idea how the world outside the borders of the USSR lived. We only knew the world from a map...”

• "When we remember something from the past, our feelings of nostalgia swell and you want to return to the past. If the situation were that bad, I don't think anyone would want to return to the past. It's not because we were young, but because we had good times and we were more humane. A person never wants to return to a place where they felt bad."

• "Personally, it was good for me because I was young. Youth under any regime is a beautiful period. Otherwise, the system was a real disaster. There were idioms that everyone knew and that described this system very well: "He who steals has money," "Work is not a wolf, it won't run into the forest" (meaning work can wait, there is no need to rush, one can be lazy), "If you want to live well, you will learn how to manage." People were working, but the salary would run out within two weeks. There were problems in every sector, in education and healthcare. The level of corruption was very high. The only thing that was admirable was the state-organized sports departments. They were free both in schools and outside of school. For the rest, there was a monthly fee, for example in music and art schools."

People approach the Soviet system with nostalgia because this system primarily offered stability and hope for the future. Now, in most of the former Soviet states (except for the 3 Baltic states), both economic and political instability are rampant, so the future is also uncertain. Although it is said that all people were equal during the USSR era and that life was the same everywhere, in reality, things were not like that. There was a big difference between life in big cities and life in small towns or villages. But the houses were all the same; you could find the same model of furniture, books, or carpets. Every Soviet youth's dream was a pair of jeans.

Soviet Union society was a closed society. It did not know that there were people in the world living better than them. State propaganda showed its effect in this sense. People could hardly buy imported goods such as foreign books and music; these were usually brought in illegally. Today, some people miss those times. Because there was no such thing as unemployment. There was order in the country. However, although some long for the times in the USSR, they cannot forget the atrocities committed by the communist regime: the destruction of the peasantry, deportations, the Holodomor (the great famine in Ukraine, death by starvation), and wars of occupation. More than 25% of the Soviet Union's budget went to armament rather than economic development, and this lowered the living standard of the people and impoverished them.

In addition to the precarious economic situation, the "Gorbachev factor," and the policies of perestroika and glasnost led to the acceleration of the USSR's dissolution process. However, the Russian propaganda that people were accustomed to made them believe in the eternal greatness of the USSR and left its place to today's Russia. For thirty-two years, people could not develop a critical perspective. They were satisfied with the very little that the state offered. Later, under the conditions of a free market economy, because it was necessary to work very hard, many people openly remembered the period when the Soviet state guaranteed the minimum level that all the people were accustomed to. People who feel great nostalgia for the Soviet era are the citizens who were young then and are old now.

I would like to end this article with a sentence that my mother, who was born, raised, and educated in the times of the USSR and misses those times a little bit, often repeats: "When we were Pioneers, we were consoled by being told that we would live very well 40 years later. Yet now 40 years have passed, and this time we are being consoled by being told how well we lived when we were Pioneers."

* The Young Pioneer organization was a mass youth organization in the USSR.