Under Stalin USSR made a huge journey. Life in 20-s was hard, full of starving, political turmoil. In 30-s political turmoil came to its end and there was a harsh and ruthless wave of oppression. Still that did not touch average folk that much. My grandfather remembers one (!) person being arrested and... let go later, reinstated to his post.

Life under Stalin depended on who you were. Loyal party members had it marginally better than people who hadn’t joined. Russians had it better than Belorussians or Ukranians. But one of the key points of a totalitarian regime is that the rules don’t always applied. Anyone could be arrested, interrogated, jailed, sent to labor camps or killed.

The Stalin era (1928–53) Stalin, a Georgian, surprisingly turned to “Great Russian” nationalism to strengthen the Soviet regime. During the 1930s and ’40s he promoted certain aspects of Russian history, some Russian national and cultural heroes, and the Russian language, and he held the Russians up as the elder brother for the non-Slavs to emulate. Industrialization developed first …

The slogan “Thanks to Comrade Stalin for our happy childhood” rang without irony for children who were cared for, believed in the society that cared for them, and accepted its structures of authority. Even in these grim times children managed to preserve their sense of fun, and to find places to hide from the watchful eye of their elders.

Nov 30, 2017 · Life expectancy actually fell in the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s. The USSR had the highest physician-patient ratio in the world, triple the UK rate, but many medical school graduates could not perform basic tasks like reading an electrocardiogram. 15% of the population lived in areas with pollution 10x normal levels.