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I was born in USSR and Mongolians were our Asian brothers, together with Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Tadjiks and all the other tribes in the 'stans. I remember perusing Uzbekistan main daily in Tashkent as a young child, seeing gobbledygook in Cyrillic and thinking that it was really funny. My mother was had some really wealthy Mongolian clients who were parking money in USA real estate post 2009 meltdown and for a while they were visiting a lot. We had them over at my place and their Russian was remarkable. Basically everyone in the ruling classes was educated in USSR and spoke perfect Russian not only conversationally, but down to the cursing and jokes. My uncle went out with these guys to fish for flounder in Puget Sound and confirms pretty good command of those last two. They brought me a bottle of Chengiz Khan vodka with Cyrillic label and poitless flakes of gold in it that just sat there for a few years until I re-gifted it. Fun times. Say what you will about USSR, they brought out a lot of people from nomad lifestyles to the modern life with widespread education, without barriers to entry that we have here in USA. Ken Alibek (https://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chilling-Largest-Biological...) was one of the examples of going from village to bacteriological weapon design and on the strength of being smart.

⬐ hutzlibu

"was one of the examples of going from village to bacteriological weapon design "

And this is a good thing?

⬐ gumby

Well, yes, from the point the poster was making. This person found something he liked to do and had the opportunity to do it.

I am sorry for his choice, and your note gives the impression you are too, but I think it’s a perfectly decent example.

⬐ hutzlibu

I don't think it is a good example when we are talking abouz adcancement of civilisation and how the USSR helped with it. Because bio weapon research is not helpful with that I think.

⬐ ajuc

"Maybe USSR killed millions of people but at least it let ethnic minorities to invent weapons to kill billions"

⬐ BuyMyBitcoins

The USSR was vast, which part of it were you born and raised in?

⬐ danielodievich

Burbs of Moscow. But my family traveled extensively, more than usual for average soviet person, so I've been to every republic but Tadjikistan (all of course now countries) before the age of 14. It sounds like a lot, but it was just a spot here and there, that empire is a vast and incredibly varied land full of so many different people and even more full of nothing human related, it is difficult to comprehend unless you experience it.

⬐ ajuc

Basically you were the ruling class and think that's how USSR was for average person :)

⬐ skrebbel

You can't possibly know that.

⬐ ajuc

> Burbs of Moscow. But my family traveled extensively, more than usual for average soviet person, so I've been to every republic but Tadjikistan (all of course now countries) before the age of 14

Here.

⬐ skrebbel

You're making the assumption that "travel a lot" implies "ruling class". Like I said, you can't possibly know that. You don't know anything about them, other than that they traveled a lot.

FWIW I have a friend from Azerbaijan who saw a lot of the USSR as well. I don't know the details, and there will likely be people here on HN with first-hand USSR experience who can tell me why my memory makes no sense. But his story was that there was money but you couldn't use it for much, except train tickets. They saved it up and then took epic train trips through the USSR, once up to Estonia and once east towards Kyrgyzstan (not sure they got that far though), stopping in every republic along the way.

His parents were a craftsperson and a high school teacher. Don't make assumptions about strangers on the internet.

⬐ Strom

> You're making the assumption that "travel a lot" implies "ruling class".

Not necessarily ruling but definitely highly privileged. You definitely could not just travel on a whim inside the USSR. You needed special permission from the government, which was most commonly (but not exclusively) given to people whose job depended on travel.

The restrctions might have been somewhat more relaxed in the middle of nowhere in Asia, but they were extremely strict for example in occupied Estonia where I'm from. You couldn't even travel inside the whole capital city of Tallinn, even if you yourself lived there. The city was divided into zones and there were border guards protecting these zones. You can only go to a zone that has a shoreline when you directly reside there. Otherwise you might try to escape the utopia. -- The restrictions of course go way beyond just Tallinn. Want to visit one of the 1500 islands of Estonia? Too bad, not allowed unless you live on the specific island. Want to just explore the countryside? Might be somewhat possible, but better be careful not to get close to any of the secret closed cities or any of the numerous missile silos, unless you want to be labled as a threat to the USSR.

⬐ chokolad

> Not necessarily ruling but definitely highly privileged. You definitely could not just travel on a whim inside the USSR. You needed special permission from the government, which was most commonly (but not exclusively) given to people whose job depended on travel.

No, you did not need permission to travel inside the USSR. I don't know about Estonia, but we were living in Tashkent and before I was 13 I have visited Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Alma-Ata, Vilnyus, and several other places. All that travel was pretty much leisure. My parents were engineers - very not elite. On business my mom traveled to Tbilisi, Talinn, Baku and god knows where else. And yes, we lived in "the middle of nowhere in Asia" (aka Tashkent) and had been in pretty much every corner of a huge country.

⬐ havetocharge

I saw a lot of USSR as well. We lived in a 200 sqft apartment with no plumbing.

⬐ baybal2

There been a huge wave of post-Soviet immigration to New York in early nineties.

A certain amount of people still presume that people in that wave were all Soviet dissidents, intelligentsia, and repressed jews, and etc.

It only came to New Yorkers years later that whom they let in were faaaar from being some poor average Soviet citizens. CPSU members themselves, mafia, ex-spooks.

Back in nineties, an average Russian citizens would need to save for years just to buy a one way ticket to US, and legal paperwork.

Nobody, no regular person in early nineties Russia had money to just to fly to US, and buy a NYC apartment for cash.

A price of a NYC apartment was a few lifetimes worth of savings for even best paid people in union's government.

⬐ havetocharge

As a poor person who emigrated from USSR, this is borderline offensive.

⬐ nickik

> Say what you will about USSR, they brought out a lot of people from nomad lifestyles to the modern life

MMhh OK, lets not ignore the fordable settlement that literally wiped out the majority of the wealth of the steppe and and killed or starved to death up to 50% of people while inducing severe starvation and malnutrition on the rest of them.

It basically was basically genocide that attempted to destroy a whole culture.

And then forced to do basically forced labor on state farms for the next couple of decades on low efficiency state farms.

The elites of those groups were moved to the gulags in large numbers as well.

I understand that your experience are from a decades after that and a lot had changed.

But while the mass death of Ukrainians is in the news often because of Crimea, the much higher % of death Kazakhs is basically ignored.

⬐ samatman

Not sure which barriers to entry you're thinking of, but Asian Americans, as a whole, are wealthier than White Americans, better educated, stay married more, commit much less crime, and live longer.

Your comment would have been much better without the unnecessary dig, which was also wrong.

⬐ havetocharge

I'm struggling here. Are you saying that there aren't any barriers for entry in the US? For everyone, or for Asians specifically?

⬐ pjc50

Ironically some Asian Americans were interned in concentration camps in living memory. George Takei, for example.

⬐ Talanes

Their comment was on people moving from traditional nomadic life to modern education within a lifetime. How are Asian Americans relevant to that situation in the slightest? Because both groups of people happen to be Asian?

⬐ nzmsv

You just witnessed modern US propaganda in action. We are all constantly barraged by messages about "if you look non-white you must be oppressed, poor thing". And because it is constant it is making people perform snap judgements rather than actually think.

Of course someone from Uzbekistan is quite different from an an American with a vaguely Asian looking face, both culturally and economically. Any yet the parent comment author's brain automatically filed them in the same bucket. This kind of automatic thinking is exactly how propaganda works.

⬐ cxfame

Speaking to Mongolian clients who likely belonged to the oligarchy before and after the fall of the USSR does not provide an accurate picture of the situation at large.

⬐ janeroe

My favorite part of Mongolian history is when their head refused to mass kill monks... I mean fight with the enemies of the people, so he was invited to Yalta (or some other resort?) and killed. And a new head was appointed instead.

Say what you want, there are countries that achieved way more than USSR, not to mention Mongolia, without mass killings, man made famines, slavery camps, serfs (1960s was the year when Soviet "collective farmers" were salaried for the first time and got a right to get a passport and leave their "farms").

⬐ nosianu

I grew up in East Germany. I was part of the mass events leading to the wall coming down, so you can tell what side I'm on.

Still, I hate it with a passion that anytime someone dares to mention some good points of what happened in the "socialist" Eastern countries, and on a purely human level there is plenty even on the system level, comes up with this whataboutism normally thrown at others.

Yes those systems had to go. But there was plenty of good stuff there, and rebuking anyone who dares mention some is unhelpful. It's such a random uncontrolled reflex.

⬐ nickpp

Now imagine someone saying what you are saying, but about the nazi death camps: that there was plenty of good stuff there!!!

Do you even realise that you are talking about an inhuman sistem that killed millions and shaped the lives on countless others in horrific ways? Please have a little respect for the victims.

And it's not a reflex to remind the world how communism really was: it's a duty. Because every time we see a soviet apologist we can see his agenda, his hidden motives and perverted thinking. The propaganda machine did not die with the soviet empire, it is alive and well serving the new master in the East. And the "useful idiots" are all busy digging in the turd of the past to uncover the rare jewels with which they are hoping to blind the world to the horrific truth of what really happened.

⬐ dmitriid

> Now imagine someone saying what you are saying, but about the nazi death camps: that there was plenty of good stuff there!!!

Nope. The original comment wasn't about death camps. It was about the whole of the country.

> Do you even realise that you are talking about an inhuman sistem that killed millions and shaped the lives on countless others in horrific ways?

Yes. We do realise that. Probably significantly more than you can imagine.

> Please have a little respect for the victims.

Ah yeah. A little respect for the victims by... ignoring and disrespecting literally everything else.

> Because every time we see a soviet apologist we can see his agenda, his hidden motives and perverted thinking.

Every time I see a comment like this, I realise I'm talking to a person completely ignorant of history.

Also, history is hard. You can't say "this was all bad, bad, bad, millions dead, nothing good can be said about it". Just as you can't say "this was all good, good, good, nothing bad can be said about it". You insist only on the former. The original comment didn't even begin to approach the latter.

⬐ simonh

Praise be to Godwin. There's always one, and often several.

⬐ cxfame

Godwin's law does not apply to the situation when Stalin is mentioned and someone introduces a Hitler comparison. They were both evil but Stalin had the ideological framework that presented him as good.

⬐ f6v

There’s always this guy on the internet that thinks in absolutes. The world is black and white for him, without any historical context. It’s all about strong words like “man-made famine”, “slavery camps” etc., all feelings and no thinking.

⬐ qlzand

Yes, let's adopt a more flexible stance and call it "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs". /s

⬐ geraneum

> Say what you want, there are countries that achieved way more than USSR, without mass killings, man made famines, ...

Slavery, colonialism, war mongering, etc. not exclusive to USSR. Well they lost the competition and the winning side likes to warp the reality.

I don’t want to take any side. It’s just that I really don’t believe in absolutes.

⬐ bobthechef

> I don’t want to take any side. It’s just that I really don’t believe in absolutes.

Do you believe that absolutely?

On a more serious note, how can you lump the Soviets (and socialist regimes like the CCP) with everything else? It's like conversing with someone who, having been told that Bob murdered Alice, responds by saying that everyone makes mistakes and that, on a good day, Bob could be a nice guy. Communist regimes were at a whole different level of evil. The sheer number of people murdered, the social and cultural destruction and dysfunction it wrought, the deeply warped wordlview it imposed through the tyrannical apparatus of the almighty and pervasive state. The list goes on. I guess dissidents were just being ungrateful, eh? They didn't appreciate the good parts!

I will agree that Americans and others should engage in more self-criticism because American culture and its establishment are degenerate and share some eerie similarities with their Soviet counterparts. But this sort of whataboutism doesn't dismiss the glaring truth about the Soviet regime. For someone who says he doesn't believe in "absolutes", you basically demonstrated that you actually do. We're talking about different magnitudes and variety of evil here. People made lasting friendships in concentration camps and gulags, they even found their calling in those awful places[0] in a kind of metaphor for life in general, but no one would say "Eh, you know, it wasn't so bad. There were some good things in those gulags. And after all, American public schools are traumatic and soul-destroying, so..."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ciszek

⬐ ta_ca

> Well they lost the competition and the winning side likes to warp the reality

someone posted this[0] a few days ago.

[0]https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

⬐ geraneum

That's an interesting read.

⬐ nickserv

The communist countries typically enslave parts of their own population, the capitalist countries typically enslave other populations. So obviously it's nicer to live in a capitalist country.

"Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, communism is the inverse."

⬐ anovikov

Lies. They got passports in 1974 only. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1147485 (that pertains only to Kolkhoz workers. Sovkhoz workers were free and had passports from the very beginning, but there were many times fewer of them).

⬐ simonh

A statement can be inaccurate or incomplete without being a lie.

⬐ anovikov

lol it was a joke!

I mean, "good old" Soviet Union was a prison for all of it's population throughout it's existence, but it was also a prison within a prison for 37% of it's population till as late as 1974. Human existence there could hardly be called a modern life at any point of it.

⬐ simonh

My apologies then, of course. I have seen bald accusations much like that here that were clearly serious so I'm somewhat sensitive to it.

⬐ dang

Please don't take HN threads into total flamewar hell. I realize that the USSR remains a difficult and polarizing topic in a lot of ways, but the GP commenter was posting in a human way and you responded with the internet equivalent of guns blazing. That's not cool. We're trying to have curious conversation here, not smite enemies.

I'm sure that you have excellent reasons for feeling the way that you do on this topic. Nevertheless it's not cool, on this site, to rush into ideological or political battle when strong feelings are activated. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

If you or anyone want more explanation, this set of past comments might be helpful for understanding what we're looking for: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

⬐ Strom

> Say what you will about USSR, they brought out a lot of people from nomad lifestyles to the modern life with widespread education

The USSR also took a lot of educated modern lifestyle people and sent them to Siberian forced labor camps. The whole thing was very much a calculated plan to replace the educated upper and middle class with new people that would be more loyal to Stalin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Sov...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_settlements_in_the_Sovi...

⬐ ajuc

> from village to bacteriological weapon design

Right, more bacteriological weapons is what the world needs.

⬐ neither_color

One of my good friends growing up was Kazakh(which is quite rare here in the US) and I met her mother who spoke fondly of the USSR; she spoke fondly of Russians(the people) but not of the government. Meeting them taught me a lot about the difference between people and their government.

I think bringing up Biohazard[0], a book about soviet bio warfare experiments and the culture they were conducted in seems pertinent. In particular it is illuminating, if not factually accurate, how Soviets covered up accidents at their bio weapon research facilities. Book paints a grim picture of how this could have been handled, in light of that I applaud actions taken by NIH and CDC.

http://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chilling-Largest-Biological-...

⬐ Wingman4l7

I was initially keen to read this, as it appears to be one of the only works on the topic of the Soviet bio-warfare program. However, the author's scientific credibility and "authenticity" (for lack of a better term) has been called into question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Alibek#Criticism

However, there are some Soviet bio-weapon incidents I've read about which were verified (by people other than Ken Alibek) as having genuinely occurred.