#ussr

[sovietpostcards]

Cover of Rabotnitsa [Worker Woman], October 1990. Photo by Nikolai Matorin.

[picsfromsiberiangirl]

There Was A Smell Of Freshly Baked Bread.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

1984: Saint Andrew's Church in Kyiv, Soviet Ukraine.

During communist times the church was used as a museum rather than for religious services.

[justacynicalromantic]

On this day, June 1, 1962, Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant (USSR, Russia) decided to go on a strike, because the previous day, the prices for meat and meat products were increased by 30% and for butter by 25% "at the request of all workers" (🤭)

The next day, the strikers were executed, officially 26 dead.

😁 What a splendid experience it was living in communism, right?

[anyabraginskaya]

Ivan and Anya in Soviet school uniforms

(Art not mine!)

[pwlanier]

Children's jumper. 1970s.

Atomic age, space race themes.

Peterburg Auctions

[zvyozdochka]

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

[antiwaradvocates]

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

[vintagegeekculture]

"Viy" (1967), the only horror movie ever made in the Soviet Union.

[jedivoodoochile]

TES-3 Soviet transportable nuclear power plant mounted on self-propelled tracked vehicle. It was designed for use in hard-to-reach areas of the Far North and Siberia, 1950s.

[hummingbird-hunter]

The thing is, I have nothing against socialism or communism as a political ideology; trust me, I'm as anti-capitalist as they come. The leftism is really not the problem here.

The problem is when in their leftism, people – Americans, really, and western Europeans – use the ussr as this sort of goal, this complete antithesis to the modern capitalist society, this almost-utopian place to live. They use hammer and sickle symbol, the ussr anthem; sometimes, as a joke, sometimes, not so much.

Not only that clearly shows that they know absolutely nothing about the ussr – it's also spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not, which is especially insidious now, when russia is literally committing a genocide.

The ussr wasn't a socialist utopia where everyone is equal. It was a totalitarian dictatorship, responsible for colonisation and genocide of multiple people and cultures. Just like the russian Empire before it. Just like modern russia continues to do now.

For many Eastern European and Central Asian people, hammer and sickle is not just a symbol of a political ideology. It's the symbol, under which people were starved to death, imprisoned or executed for daring to write in their own language; in which cultures were erased, people – forcefully assimilated, stripped of their own national identity.

It's the propaganda of being "the same people, the same nation" that russians love to use; that westerners love to believe, for the sole reason of the oppressed daring to look similar to the oppressor; for the sole reason of Americans being unable to look past their own history and realize oppression comes in many shapes and forms.

By using the ussr symbols in your political movement, you're denying the atrocities commited under that symbol and spreading russian propaganda, whether it's on purpose or not.

It's not "progressive" to wave around a hate symbol.

Do your research.

[sovietpostcards]

Summer fashions from Rabotnitsa [Worker Woman] magazine, June 1973

[nemfrog]

As the great armies of the US and the USSR converge on Germanay, page 1 of a pamphlet educating American soldiers about their new comrades, soldiers of the Red Army.

Our Red Army Ally. April 23, 1945.

Internet Archive

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

Construction of house No. 12 on Demyan Biedny Street (now Olzhicha) in Kyiv, Ukraine. 1958.

[opendirectories]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

After Germany banned the Soviet flag on Victory Day, the red flag with a hammer and sickle was projected onto the east side of the Berlin Gate by unknown people.

Via kakasloi

Video: https://twitter.com/kakasloi/status/1788234835963568181