That is what the Soviet Commissars used to preach to the proletariat abut how everything in the Soviet Union was the very best, better than the West in all ways. Of course when any member of the proletariat actually encountered things from the West, it destroyed the illusion spread by the Commissars, often leading to emotional breakdowns upon realizing that they had been deceived by their Communist Government for their entire lives.
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I’ve always imagined being indoctrinated with that mindset and then buying your first Lada with ten years worth of earnings at your wonderful job at the T-72 tank factory. And then when the Union collapses you get a chance to move to Germany for work and drive your first BMW. That must have blown people’s minds.
And I actually have an appreciation for old communist cars. But boy were those things the definition of ■■■■ boxes.
All of the native Russian linguist instructors at DLI were defectors. They came from all over the old Soviet Union. Over a 47 week course I had a lot of time to interact with them. Even more so because I was the Senior Student in a class of 200+, mostly new recruits fresh from basic training. I was an SFC with 12 years in service, and a very experienced CI agent. They didn’t know my MOS for the first 6 months of the course. Everyone of them told of how difficult it was to adapt to the sheer amount of individual personal decisions they were faced with in the United States. Where will I live, what type of residence, what car do I want to drive, what can I afford, what clothing do I want to buy, How much food should I buy, what grocer will I use? Every simple decision that we take for granted as part of life was a new challenge, with more options than they could even imagine. Where a 7Eleven had more food, of more types, on the shelves than the local shop they were assigned to shop in all of their lives in the Soviet Union. And no limit, other than what they could afford, on how much food they could buy.
The other reality was that when they found out my MOS ( they all thought I was a Signals Intelligence Analyst) it scared the daylights out of them.
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was Bill in your class?
Oh wait, no way he’d defect.
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Just reading about Trump’s phone call. I didn’t think it was possible, but when it comes to Putin, he’s gotten even stupider. He’s just got a mental block on this one. The guy cannot see that Zelenskyy ain’t never done nothing to him, and Putin ain’t never done nothing for him.
When asked if he trusts Putin he says yes, when asked if he trusts Zelenskyy he says he’s hard to deal with. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy is pretty much doing everything he demands, while Putin ignores every request he makes. Trump, on this one, you’re a ■■■■■■■ moron.
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I think he was one of the Soviet Television announcers, who would speed read the news to the masses, on the replays of Soviet TV News we listened to for practice and familiarization with state media practices.
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I am not sure what you are describing and while most certainly this happened on very very rare occasion by the early 70s most of the population knew just fine that the west isn’t degrading but is prospering.
The commissars were thing. They were scary. People were brainwashed but it wasn’t that common. People knew. They always know.
Most important question. Did you guys have a Lada? I feel like that was very important for the ultimate Soviet family experience.
Like 6 percent of the country if not less could afford a car. So no. But they surly hold a special place in my heart as does the Volga
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It’s like being from here in the south and not having a soft spot for old Chevrolet trucks. I’ve never really owned one myself but I’ve still got a soft spot for them and I grew up in one.
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It was there before the war and at one time part of soviet union.
Depends on the point of the historial timeline reference.
It is not aways the most advanced technology of weaponry.
Theres the battle plan and strategies as well as logistics capabilities and combat discipline.
Japan in WW2 had the most advanced and largest battleship but it still got sunk.
America had the advanced and unlimited fire power but did not persevere against a primitative rag tag pajama wearing opposition that improvised their weaponry in Vietnam
The CSA had a right to exist.
But is it right for them to exist.
America had Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner spreading soviet propaganda on talk shows, radio and tv network news such as Nightline, Larry King and Donahue.
Then he flip and switch side at end of cold war.
Today MSM is equivalent to Iraq’s Baghdad Bob.
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An unprovoked personal attack? Tsk, tsk.
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US shipbuilding massively outproduced Japan during WW2. Whether American ships were any better is not really relevant.
The same thing was true in Europe. Germany may have had better weapons, but the US and the Soviet Union production was vastly higher.
Quantity usually beats quality in war time.
Our ships were better. Early in WWII the IJN was better trained but their equipment worse. As the war drug on their excellent pre-war trained navy was decimated and had to be replaced with hastily trained conscripts. Our guys just got better as time went on.
Japanese ships had great guns almost as a rule. But they always struggled with what I like to call the soft elements of good ship design. Our ships were far more livable, better refrigeration so food would stay good longer, much better radar and sonar systems. And our fire control systems were basically a generation ahead of what Japanese ships had. Basically our sailors didn’t totally hate their own existence like Japanese sailors did. The Mogomi, introduced in 1935, was the first Japanese capital ship with fully working air conditioning.
Japanese ships were certainly good combat ships. Great guns, powerful engine designs, and surprisingly had very good armor. Japanese ships were hard as hell to kill. Some of that just came down to their training standards pre-war. Basically if I could pick and choose a Navy by 1939 standards, I would take American and British ships crewed by Japanese sailors.
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Japan was unable to build many new ships after Pearl Harbor, while the US built many more-modern ships. Quantity and quality were both factors.
The Soviet Union produced five times as many tanks as the Germans in 1942 during the critical year of 1942. The US roughly matched the Soviet production. That explains a lot about why tide of war in Europe shifted that year.
If you have ever seen a Soviet era news presentation, you would have laughed until your sides hurt. I am not talking about what was reported, but how their announcers delivered it. Talking as fast as possible, as long as possible between breaths, with huge, loud gasps to take a breath then continue the rapid fire delivery. It was great listening practice because of their comical delivery style.
Which decade are you referencing? Radio yes. It was like that. Tv def not
