this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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I remember my father telling me how he miraculously managed to get permit to leave the country in the 80s to work in capitalist Europe. He returned with insane fortune of like, $500, which he later spent on paying off mortgage when system fell apart in the 90s.
Funny, I grew up by the Mexican border. Want to know how hard it is to get a permit to work in the US?
It's tragic that your family had to spend that money on a mortgage because the state that provided free (or heavily subsidized) housing collapsed. Fucking capitalism, amirite?
You weren't getting any housing in that system. You could enlist in a queue and wait for 20-30 years to get piss poor commie block apartment. My father was one of very few people who were just well enough for building a house. He was struggling with money, rationing of materials, corruption and poor quality of work, while our family of four lived in 20m2 apartment like animals in stables.
Funny enough, I recently bought a house for relatives in Belgrade.
Like East Germany, the most desirable buildings currently are those commie block apartments (known in Yugoslavia as "army buildings"). Because they were built well and to be used, not just as cheaply as possible to make the quick buck.
How many square meters do you think the vast population of working homeless in the US (ostensibly the richest capitalist country) have?
Or do you want to discuss the current homeownership rate in China?
Oh no, the free housing isn't fast enough or big enough, oh no, it looks so drab oh no
What did capitalism do for you? How long do you have to wait now to spend 3% of your income on housing instead of 30%+?
I like how you completely disregarded an account by someone who actually lived under the system you're shlupping and immediatley attacked his character. Kinda like how christians react when you tell them Jesus wasn't real, or Ivermectin won't stop covid.
Just remarkable similarity.
Weird, I actually live in the system I want to change, but I guess my experiences don't mean anything, and I should just listen to some random internet stranger about it.
Some of us base our opinions on facts and reason. Is there any actual source on "having to wait 20-30 years for a house?" Or am I just expected to accept that claim completely uncritically?
I can't help but notice how negative claims about communist societies are placed in this special category where expressing any sort of skepticism about them is seen as somehow morally wrong. It reminds me a lot of how questioning the religion I was raised with was seen as wrong, demonstrating a lack of faith. I'm sorry that I don't have enough blind faith in capitalism for you and keep blaspheming against your dogma.
I'm sure you wouldn't want someone to completely disregard your experiences out of hand, correct? Like how you just did to u/BlackLazor. I would hope you wouldn't want someone to do the same to you.
According to Quora the wait time was around 10 years. This person also says a family of four in a very tiny space (less than 20 sqm) was the norm. That account is pretty extensive, with contemporary illustrations to help you understand.
Russia Beyond says the wait time was 6-7 years. Apparently you couldn't apply for an apartment if your current living situation was any better than a broom closet (must be less than 9 sqm per person.) This source also says that Public sector employees (doctors, teachers, etc) had a wait time of 10 or more years. Apparently one could buy an apartment for 10,000 rubles, while the average salary was 150-200 rubles, so about ten times the monthly salary.
Looking at all this, it seems to me what u/Blacklazor said was not incorrect. It may be exaggerated, but the sources say most people lived in cramped apartments with too many people per sqm, were waiting "More than 10 years" to upgrade, and didnt' get to specify which apartment one was given, or where it was located. So far the account checks out.
You know, there really does seem to be a lot of info out there about housing in the USSR, if you're truly serious about wanting to know and not just virtue signaling I'd reccomend doing some googles and actually reading about it. Not being facetious, it's pretty interesting.
Nobody said you were morally wrong. What I did say is that you had the same kind of reaction against u/Blacklazor that a religious person does when confronted with questions of faith, because you did. You completely disregarded the account and made zero effort to assess or examine your own position.
Just like they did to me, when they said the only thing that drew me to communism was "propaganda" as opposed to my time working under capitalism. The difference is that I discounted their unsubstantiated claims about statistical facts while they discounted my own journey.
According to Quora? Great, so now we have two internet randos saying something.
Which is significantly less than what they claimed. So the two internet randos can't even agree. In that case, which of them should I treat as an absolute authority and which one should I "completely disregard the experiences of out of hand" to use your pretentious language?
Finally. Say what you will about Russian state media, but at least it's more of a source than random people on the internet, which you seem to primarily rely on.
Which completely contradicts the other user.
What on earth?? "The account checks out" when they were exaggerating somewhere between 2-5 times the actual numbers?
The claim was not, "you had to wait 20-30 years for an upgrade" it was specifically "You weren’t getting any housing in that system. You could enlist in a queue and wait for 20-30 years to get piss poor commie block apartment." That's completely unsupported by your sources.
It's also the same reaction a scientist tends to have towards a flat-earther. I don't know why you think a random internet person saying things is something that should be treated as a reliable source. If someone says, "I walked and walked for miles and the earth seemed really flat the whole way," am I allowed to "discount their entire experience" or am I supposed to "put effort into reassessing my position" regarding the shape of the earth?
As it turns out, I was 100% right to be skeptical, because your own sources back me up and show that the other person was completely wrong.
Yeah but you did it first.
I mean you could get up off your butt and look yourself if you have a problem with the source I provided. Like I said there's a wealth of information out there regarding the subject. You could also try to dispute my source instead of just dismissing it out of hand - like you did to u/Blacklazor.
Ahh, so you'll trust media from the oppressors you agree with. So basically you're a tankie equvalent of MAGA.
So you didn't actually read anymore about the subject, right? Why am I not suprised.
Read the rest of that paragraph please. I'll post it here to make it easy for you.
I.e. His family of four lived in a 20 sqm apartment (less than 9sqm per person) and would have to wait 20-30 years to get a "piss poor commie block apartment." I don't think it's unreasonable to characterize "waiting 20-30 years" as "never." Now if you'd read the sources I posted you'd see this aligns very closely with what is described - that being most people who weren't rich or connected to an oligarch had to wait more than 10 years for an apartment. I even found a source that broke it down into a nice and helpful chart - see if you can find that source yourself.
I mean, I know you won't becuase this hands your ass to your arguement on a sliver platter with a side of trimmings, and if there's one thing people like you can't stand it's being proved wrong, bu whatever.
Except in real life it wasn't, what u/blacklazor described aligns pretty well with the accounts on both pages.
Skipping the rest of the bullshit you posted for my own mental health. There is a wealth of information that you can get with a few simple googles, please read up and stop embarassing yourself.
No, literally this was from their very first comment.
Again, random internet users are not a credible source. Pointing that fact out is disputing your source. Don't they teach you this in school?
YOU posted the source! If I had rejected it, you'd be attacking me for blindly dismissing anything that contradicts my worldview! Damned if I do, damned if I don't, there's no winning with you.
I literally called attention to the fact that your source is Russian state media, and that you can "say what you will about it," to indicate that it's not fully trustworthy. Were you even aware it was affiliated with the Russian government?
That's not what he said at all. The 20 sqm apartment was the "piss poor commie block apartment" that one would have to wait 20-30 years for.
I did read your sources, and they in fact said that most people had to wait 6-7 years:
"On average, the waiting time to receive an apartment from the state in the USSR was around six to seven years."
In fact, you got it backwards. The part about "over 10 years" is about public sector employees. Even then, 10 is significantly less that "20-30," but I suppose they didn't teach you that either.
Lmao, your source saying 6-7 years in contrast to the claim of 20-30 "hands my ass to my argument on a silver platter with a side of trimmings?" Is there any number that would lead you to admit you're wrong? What would it have to be, 3 years? 1 year? A week? Apparently it can be off by a factor of 5, and you'll still treat it as some kind of smoking gun that proves I won't accept being proven wrong.
The projection is truly off the scales.
The fact that you posted these right next to each other 😆
Whatever son. It's a free country, so go with whatever bullshit you want. The evidence backs up u/Blacklazor and not you, I love how you just can't handle it.
I would also like to point out the parts of his comments that you didn't dispute or don't have a probem with, such as his father "needed to get a permit to leave the country," or that food was "rationed, not subsidized," or the fact that in order to get housing, one must get on a list and wait multiple years in the first place. I mean, yeah that sure does sound like a great place to live.
But please, go do the work and read up on the subject, because you're wrong on pretty much all of your points above. Like this one:
Nope. If you would've actually done the research, you'd have seen that one is usually given a bed in a dormatory, then must get on a waiting list for a "piss poor commie block apartment." The tiny apartment where a family of four is squeezed into 20sqm is after they waited multiple years. This is if they were lucky enough to get an apartment they didn't have to share with multiple other families.
Now please put in the effort and read up on it, because you're really misinformed.
The evidence you presented points to 6-7, not 20-30. I don't know how else to say it, you're just objectively wrong by a factor of 3-5 by your own source, and no amount of pretending otherwise will change that fact.
See, this is the problem. Nowhere did I actually claim that the USSR was some kind of perfect utopia. You just assigned those positions to me because you decided I'm a "tankie" so I must believe that, instead of listening to what I actually say. Attacking me over claims I didn't make is the definition of a strawman.
This, again, is not how it works. If you "actually did the research" then show me the evidence. You can't just allude vaguely to some claim you found somewhere, especially since the sources you've cited so far, a random Quora user and Russian state media you didn't realize was Russian state media, don't exactly fill me with confidence regarding your investigative standards.
It just blows my mind how hypocritical you can be, you found evidence that clearly proves you wrong and you keep projecting on to me that I won't change my mind in the light of evidence that I'm right.
6-7 is less than 20-30. That's really all that needs to be said. You just can't accept that basic mathematical fact because you're an ideologue.
No, I think you refuse to do the research on this subject because you're the actual ideologue here. You have an emotional stake in somehow proving that the USSR wasn't a totalitarian inept impoverished wasteland, and actually learning what life was like under that system would destroy your worldview.
I'm the only one of us capable of acknowledging that 7 is a smaller number than 20. If understanding elementary school level math makes me an ideologue, a tankie, whatever else, then so be it. Nothing you say changes those numbers.
What's more important, what you want to believe or what really happened?
Read up on the subject please.
Tell me, was "what really happened" 6-7 years or 20-30 years? Can you answer that one question?
You're the one rejecting the evidence in favor of what you want to believe.
It was more than 10 years for most people, and up to 20 years or more.
Which you would've known if you'd bothered to do the reading.
Wrong. Your own source said 6-7 years, which you would know if you did the reading. Even then, and this may surprise you to learn, but 10 is also less than 20.
20-30 years is completely and utterly unsupported. It's a total ass pull. And you're trying to claim I'm an ideologue because I'm sticking to the facts instead of this made up bullshit that's contradicted by your own sources.
You really should go to Cuba and stay there. Why change current system if you can just travel and live in your dream paradise?
The small island country that's being threatened and economically isolated by the most powerful and militaristic country on earth? Not my first choice.
Why do anti-communists always suggest moving directly into the crosshairs of imperialism?
Then go to Noth Korea, I don't care
Interesting thread of comments. I kept upvoting both sides of the comments when good points were made.
I think you lost me with Cuba. Probably would've been better to come back with evidence of the 20-30 years claim, or a cited example of some of the systemic dysfunction of life in the USSR instead of jumping to Cuba, arguably the worst current example to pick.
Edit: my bad, you have more responses to others.
I'm tired with arguing with blind dude about colors. I saw shit and lived there, he didn't.
So, communist countries are affordable and $500 can buy you a lot of things?
No. They're so poor that $500 looks like a fortune
Poor as in "free healthcare, free education to the highest level, guaranteed job, heavily subsidized foodstuffs, cheap subsidized high quality public transit, guaranteed housing at 3-5% of the monthly income, 0% inflation over a span of 40 years, but it's difficult getting ahold of a car"?
Dogshit healthcare being decades behind that in the west/
Education was dogshit lacking the basic necessities, in building falling apart.
Most jobs were completely unnecessary. They provided nothing of value.
Rationed. Not subsidized. You couldn't just go and buy a fucking bread, or a bar of chocolate, or sugar, or flour, or a washing machine, or TV or a car. Your money was almost worthless. Food stamps were worth more than the money you paid for the food. If you manage to be super lucky and get permit to buy a new car, you could resell it immediately for 2x or even 3x of nominal price. and it wasn't a good car, it was this piece of shit.
It's actually funny that this 'wonderful' system couldn't design their own car, and had to resort into buying a design license for utterly outdated modified fiat 500 from filthy capitalist Italy.
FUCKING LIES. Check the black market dollar value to see the actual scale of inflation that was happening.
Cuba, CUBA, has higher life expectancy expectancy than the US. You're literally bullshitting, the USSR at the time had the highest number of doctors per capita on earth.
That's why they went from being starved peasants to putting the first person in space in the span of 20 years? Again making shit up
Funnily enough, most jobs were much more necessary than jobs in capitalism. No financial sector bullshit, instead focus on heavy industry, agriculture, infrastructure and development. You can make criticisms such as some factories being outdated (due to respect for the workers employed in them and not wanting to fire them as in capitalism), but it's laughable to me that you'd believe socialist countries had less valuable jobs than 50% of the population working excel tables as we have nowadays lmfao
Both. You specifically needed to ration because inequality being extremely low and prices being subsidized, it was the mechanism to ensure distribution of goods. Nowadays, the mechanism to distribute goods is actual poverty, as in poor people cannot afford it. On average, people don't have more meat, don't have more bread, it's just that rich people enjoy it and poor people get fucked. Rationing was a fair distribution mechanism that ensured everyone had a portion, and much fairer than the contemporary alternative of "the poorest 50% consistently get fucked". The top 10% richest Americans consume 50% of the goods and services. How's that distribution going for the rest, who can't afford a house, a car, or furniture?
"Gommunism is when cheap car". To further elaborate, yes, technology was less developed in the countries that started industrializing in the 1940s than in those which industrialized since the 1800s using the raw materials and slave labor plundered from the global South. The thing with cars and why you cherry-pick them is that they weren't a priority. Cars are an inefficient mode of transportation and public transit was prioritized. Cars are actually bad and communists have always known this, that polluting and congesting your city with 1-ton murder machines is bad, so they focused on trains, trams and trolleybuses, all much more sustainable, efficient and clean. We could talk about airplanes if you prefer, and how the USSR developed modern aviation competing with that of the US and actually exported it at lower prices than the US could achieve because they were more efficient.
How's that relevant to inflation? People earned Rubles and paid in Rubles. Prices were literally dictated by policy, the exchange value of the dollar is absolutely irrelevant to the inflation inside the Soviet economy, inflation is not defined by exchange value of a currency in the black market, the definition of inflation I'd "general, sustained increase in prices". And, over the 40 years between WW2 and Perestroika, prices literally didn't increase (whereas salaries did increase many times over).
I literally searched and found the data to prove you wrong:
THIS is life expectancy of Poland, since 50s. This is life expectancy in America for the same period.
Throughout almost the entire period America had better life expectancy than Communist Poland. You can even see the upward trend after 1990 in PL once capitalism got introduced and medicine started to catch up with the West.
WTF are you talking about, they're the same, with Cuba being horribly lower in 50s and 60s
No you, are.
But they couldn't build sophisticated medical equipment in sufficient numbers. It's the same story as with cars. The economy was disfunctional as fuck. And poland cooked the books about employment and inflation hard, USSR probably did too.
I'm not going to engage in debate with someone who quotes fake data like "0% inflation" and such. You bought into a cult of lies and deception
The primary reason for the apparent rise of life expectancy in the Eastern Block after the 1990s is the fact that, before, the life expectancy was reduced by the premature deaths of the tens of millions with sequels from WW2. About the 1990s, most people who lived the conflict were dead, and healthier people brought up in non-war conditions were the dying cohorts. If you were educated about the topic you'd know, but you're just looking it up right now to support your confirmation bias. You could read Dr. Paul Cockshott's analysis.
The Cuban Revolution succeeded in 1959 lmfao. Life expectancy rose dramatically afterwards thanks to the arrival of communism. Anyway, thanks for realizing that the richest country on Earth has similar (but lower) life expectancy than a post-colonial island under the most comprehensive embargo on Earth (carried out by the US).
And yet they tripled life expectancy. Yes, again, a country which began industrializing in 1930 and did so with its own resources and labor force, was less technologically developed than the US, which began to industrialize in the early 1800s and did so at the expense of tens of millions of slaves at home, abroad and the natural resources of all of Latin America. That's not surprising to anyone. A better comparison between communism and capitalism would be USSR vs Brazil, or USSR vs Argentina, both of which have more similar starts in 1920 than the US as an already established industrial world power. Now compare life expectancy between 1945 and 1990 for the USSR and Argentina/Brazil.
So he spent all of it on the failings of capitalism in the 90s?
Transformation just uncovered all the lies and sins of previous communist system. Once state run enterprises were allowed to file banktruptcy 30% of them failed immediately. Country was also hit by hyperinflation like a hammer because previous system was printing money like crazy and "fixing" it by price controls and food rationing.