The life of Soviet people in the 30s. Everyday

In the 30s. Soviet Russia entered with an established command-administrative system of leadership and a personality cult of Stalin beginning to strengthen.

The last attempt by the comrades-in-arms to fulfill the leader's will - to remove Stalin from the post of General Secretary of the Party - was made at the 17th Party Congress. The majority of votes were given to S.M. Kirov.

Realizing that the main threat to his power came from the party opposition, Stalin paid great attention to the education of loyal cadres. The creation of the nomenclature began. Skillfully forming the party apparatus, organizing propaganda in the media, Stalin surrounded himself with narrow-minded and devoted allies and became the leader of the totalitarian regime. Over each of his associates constantly hung the threat of accusations of treason and replacement.

The murder of the favorite of the proletariat S.M. Kirov in 1934 was the beginning of mass repressions. All those who remained alive after the "Red Terror" were destroyed, and at the same time a massive purge was carried out in the party. A criminal case was initiated against the "Leningrad center". At the head of the NKVD were Stalin's closest associates - G.G. Yagoda, N.I. Yezhov, . They unquestioningly removed one after another the political opponents of the leader of the peoples.

Stalin's positions were significantly strengthened, he managed to put his supporters in leading positions (Mikoyan and Zhdanov were introduced to the Politburo; he became secretary of the Leningrad party organization). In Moscow, Yezhov was appointed Secretary of the Central Committee, and Vyshinsky was given the position of Prosecutor General.

In 1934, the exchange of party cards began, during which the loyalty of all ordinary members of the party was checked, all unreliable ones were excluded.

The works of Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev were withdrawn from the libraries.

On December 5, 1936, a new Constitution of "victorious socialism" was adopted. Recent deviators took part in its development, in particular N.I. Bukharin.

The constitution declared universal suffrage, freedom of speech, assembly and unions. However, it contained reservations giving the right "in the interests of the working people" to level these declarations.

The adopted Constitution of 1936 legislated the implementation of the "great terror". A series of trials of "leaders", "saboteurs", "traitors" and "spies" began in Moscow. Most of the defendants were party veterans.

In 1936-1938. Kamenev, Zinoviev, Pyatakov, Radek, Serebryakov, Sokolnikov were sentenced to capital punishment, Tomsky and Ordzhonikidze shot themselves. Unable to withstand the sophisticated torture and psychological impact, the defendants in open trials confessed "for the sake of the highest interests of the party" to crimes they had not committed.

At the beginning of 1937, Bukharin and Rykov were arrested. The replacement of old cadres with the nominees of the times of the first five-year plans began, the party staff was updated by 20%.

In 1937, the trial of the "red marshals" M.N. Tukhachevsky and A.I. Egorov began repressions against the officer corps of the army and navy. The "Great Terror" destroyed the command staff down to the battalion level.

In March 1938, the 3rd Moscow Trial took place. A group of 21 people (Bukharin, Rykov, Rakovsky, Yagoda, and others) were charged with the murder of Kirov, Gorky, and Kuibyshev, conspiracy, espionage, sabotage, and so on. There were 18 death sentences. The revolution continued to devour its children.

On May 10, 1939, the 18th Party Congress approved a softer edition of the party's charter, and the purges of the party in 1933-1936 were condemned. Stalin admitted to the facts of excess, but the blame for this was assigned to local party organizations.

There are things that are quite obvious to any person more or less knowledgeable about the subject. Seemingly...
But, at some point, you discover with surprise that there is already a completely established parallel reality that has little in common with true reality.
Recently, I have been spending a lot of time in Internet communities whose subject of interest is history, including the history of the Soviet period, and this is what a curious mythology I noticed - thanks to some not quite literate people who have gained fame on the Internet as if historians, a myth has developed about the alleged abundance of goods in the 30s of the last century, especially the second half of the 30s. Like, there was a shortage, but it all happened already in the 60-80s ... Nonsense, of course. But, after all, the problem is that a whole generation has already grown up who does not read books, does not study documents, but willingly believes in pseudo-prophets who speak of a happy but slandered life in the 30s of the last century. The trouble is that we are talking about young people, and those who lived at that time are already a little left, but not at all on the network.

In order to fill this gap, I bring to your attention the diary entries of the Taganrog historian and teacher Pavel Petrovich Filevsky, dating back to the 30s (and then people kept a live journal in paper form). Once I already published them, but now we will decorate the post with photographs of Taganrog of that very period.

The city has a high death rate, apparently from malnutrition.
In addition, there is absolutely no coal and kerosene. Several ".. schools were closed: The water in the hot water heating was released so that the pipes would not burst. But the schools could be dissolved, which could not be done with hospitals, Some hospitals also had water heating and also had to drain the water, leaving them unheated at 12 degrees. The dead are taken several at a time to the cemetery and buried in a common grave. Coffins are very expensive, for 20 rubles a coffin, knocked together from boards with a thin bottom, from which you see, the dead man will fall. , but boards are worth their weight in gold, you will not find them.On the streets, the decoration of the city is always chopped - trees for firewood.

Today in the bazaar the speculator-workers were selling grain surplus from their ration at 70 kopecks a pound, receiving it themselves for about 5 kopecks. Buy almost exclusively peasants from the villages. That's why the workers are pushing for more rations. This is an income of 1300 percent without any labor costs.

There is a lot of talk about the event In the 3rd school, where children left the school ~ with posters insulting the Soviet authorities, walked through the fish market, shouting indignation at the famine and the privileges of the few. It was impossible to judge everyone, so they singled out a few, and staged a demonstrative and strict trial of the children. The children, when asked what prompted them to make a criminal demonstration, answered that it was hunger. They decided to exclude them.

At the metallurgical plant, the workers beat Caucasians, mainly Ossetians, the quarrel came out because of the girls. The cause was given the character of "great-power chauvinism." Asians are a cunning people and try to put themselves in the position of the Jews, which they succeed with the assistance of the latter. The Russian workers were put on trial and some were sentenced to forced labor for two years. But this is not enough, In defiance of the Russians, it is ordered:
to put Ossetian women in places where skilled workers are needed, even if they do not have the necessary qualifications.

In the state department store they sell sugar for three rubles per kilo, but whoever takes sugar is obliged to take a box of red, completely worthless pepper for 35 kopecks for each kilo. In the Dynamo store, also a state-owned enterprise, sportswomen (chuvyaki) are sold for 6 rubles, also with an obligation to buy for 1-50 dog muzzle. In general, in this way, what is sold is what no one needs.

Now I met a detachment of pioneers walking along Petrovskaya street singing military songs. Boys in panties are acrobat-like shank pads, and girls are a little more covered up.

1933

Terrible things come from the village. Cases of cannibalism in the city are spoken about very often. they say that they brought a half-eaten corpse of a child to the outpatient clinic, and it is as if the parents were arrested. Relatives of Karpenko, who lives on the lower floor of the "Red Partisan", came from under Shcherbakov's farm and say that their relatives ate their children. Relatives from the Kiev province wrote to the policeman Khorunzhy about cannibalism and the flight of the population, and entire villages remain empty, the relatives of the Ostrovskys from the Kiev province also report, the Sidorovs receive terrible descriptions of hunger strikes from the Zinkovsky district. The surrounding villages are deserts. On the outskirts of the city, I myself was struck by the complete absence of dogs. It turns out that the dogs are all dead from the fact that they have nothing to feed.

The original architecture now is chests, not houses, and if they have concrete balconies, then the impression of a chest of drawers with half-drawn drawers and ugly wide and low windows (horizontal, not vertical). This is to make the rooms lower, since low rooms require less fuel for heating.

1935

How lousy the city is! Dirt on the streets, dirt in the yards. There are yards representing a continuous water closet and not somewhere on the outskirts, but in the very center on Petrovsky Street, where a number of institutions and shops, the so-called gum, are located. All the walking public, and sometimes in the evenings there is a whole cloud of them, goes to defecate through the open gate to the huge courtyard, the other part behind the small departure to Italian Lane and the next day in the morning the sidewalk to the Sarmatova Garden is literally flooded and then the gate to Grecheskaya Street and is polluted .
and there are several such places along Petrovskaya Street. yards are watered with excrement.

In the tsarist regime, bureaucracy was mercilessly condemned, but if Famusov got up and looked at the current bureaucracy, he would bow to the ground to the current officials. the world has not yet seen such a paper kingdom as it is now; in this regard, the development of the administrative order - the Soviet state - is a police station. Everything starts in the police (the same as the police, only much worse) and it all ends there, and the passport system has imposed the shackles of the police on all citizens. Without the police, i.e. militia, you won’t retreat a single step, before there was a Pale of Settlement, now it has embraced everything, especially the Russian population. Nationalists are in a better position.

Try to poke your nose in a big city - a ton of obstacles, and deportation is a common occurrence everywhere without trial, without investigation. "But only on the grounds of the police, who will simply refuse to issue you a passport without explaining the reasons. Socialism is more than any movement for equality. Where We have never had such inequality as now. Some enjoy all the benefits, live in state-owned luxurious apartments, eat Lukulov, while others hardly feed themselves on disgusting bread at a very high price of 20 kopecks a kilo, and these are not beggars, but workers, i.e., predominantly Soviet citizens.Some - constant business trips, although they travel for themselves in luxurious and free cars and free of charge, and for others, shabby cars with a fee to Rostov 3 r, 50 kopecks. Some cars, I for example, for 18 years, the Soviet government never drove a car, but others; " having arrived in the city, they do not find any way of transportation, recently they have come from among poor people - entrepreneurs who are carrying luggage to the city in wheelbarrows, and the passenger follows him, asking where to stay, since hotels are only for those who have business trips are real or fictitious. Inequality even in nutrition: meals in canteen organizations on a special menu. What the director of a plant may demand will not be given to an engineer or technician; what an accountant can demand will not be given to an accountant.

And it’s scary to talk about wages, there are such fluctuations, some receive 50 rubles a month, while it is extremely inefficient, others 2,000 rubles and this is socialism. Some pensioners 17 rubles, others 300, I'm not talking about exceptional pensions. Through such inequality, envy and ill will are deliberately created, setting one citizen against another, especially among the workers.

Inequality also affects circulation: all bosses are communists, exceptions are rare, or special specialists or under patronage they say “you” to each other in order to develop a special privileged caste. But by what right do they say "you" to their employees and even to women who do not dare to say "you" to superiors? The same rudeness in schools. Teachers to young people and even girls of 17, 18 years old say “you”. Western Europe has developed one common language in circulation, although at least on the outside to smooth out the insult of inequality, and the communists still emphasize it.

In the old days, dowry played a big role in marriage, now there is no place to take dowry, but there is something else. Any. a woman who has a living space from a trust and a jakta can always count on her husband, and even with a choice. The lack of living space often prevents you from getting service, because until you have an apartment, you will not be registered, and: you will not be given a job. Therefore, men are looking for a woman with a room, and the owner of the apartment is the most interesting bride.

30 September

When you walk down the street, you involuntarily pay attention to the current privileged class. These are all fat people to the extreme. The skin is shiny, and most characteristic of all on the back of the head are thick omentums that hide the neck, and the buttocks.,
as big as women's; Probably in order to show off they wear a shirt in their pants. .

Elections to the Supreme Council are scheduled for December 12. Council of Nationalities. Has parliamentarism taken such an absurd form in Western Europe? I think not: there are still political parties there, each of which nominates its own candidate. And what about us? For example, in Taganrog, the communists, the arbiters of our destinies, put up two - to the Supreme Council of the Jew Pugachevsky and the worker Izotov, both not from Taganrog. You can't write anyone on the ballot, which means they've already been selected. Election meetings are underway. What are they for? I've had two rather impudent Jews come to me twice now and ask why I don't go to meetings. And what do they care? If I didn’t understand something, I wouldn’t go. And I can listen to the praises of Pugachevsky in the local newspaper, where he is praised for putting priests in the GPU and destroying churches. And this is in Russia, where after all there are millions of Believers, such a speech by a Jew, of course, he would pass almost unanimously. Will some daredevils not go to the polls or hide the ballot in their pocket, and the envelope will be served without a ballot. I say "dared men" because no one believes that the vote will be secret. If they want to trace who submitted what, then, of course, they will find out. But suddenly, on November 26, a scandal erupted throughout the city: Pugachevsky was not only removed from the candidacy, but removed from his post and at the same time a new candidate from Rostov was ready, and in the city the praises about this Dalsky were endless. This means that the candidate has been nominated outside of Taganrog, and the newspapers must praise him as ordered. Who is considered a citizen of the so-called USSR? Let's see what happens next.

1938

Terrible Time continues, arrests without end. They take on an episodic character: Germans are arrested, then Poles, one last name is enough. For what reason, nothing is known. We live on a desert island. The panic is terrible, they speak quietly. Correspondence has been so reduced that postmen have no work. Searches can reveal correspondence, even if it is the most innocent, It will still cast a shadow, so letters, both old and new, are destroyed, addresses are not written down and kept in memory, keeping notes and diaries is scary, because you not only risk yourself, but also you endanger others by mentioning their names.
I don’t know what to do, but I would like to leave a true story behind me: I know many have destroyed notes and memories, but the life of the province is no less important than the life of the capital. It is very difficult to hide in the cramped conditions in which everyone lives. There is no person who would sleep peacefully at night, even children are nervous, at every knock, barking, dogs wake up and wake up their parents, they take hundreds of them a night, and if someone is taken, how he sunk into the water, what is his fate, where are they sent to anyone, nothing is known. Often they are sent to one place, and the family is sent to another, and neither family members nor outsiders know. They pick up and send, in what they found, no transfer, no food, no linen, no clothes are supposed to.

Neither the Inquisition, nor the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible. nor the lead prisons of Venice can compare with what is being done.

On the occasion of the high cost, the pension has been increased: I have increased 10 rubles a month, that is, instead of 40 rubles, 50 kopecks, but with an increase in pension, the payment for living space also increases and I will pay 6 rubles more and so the pension is increased by 4 rubles, and the prices of foodstuffs have not only risen, but theirs at all; no. Bread, the so-called white, at 1-50 per kilo, is difficult to grab, gray at 90 is also not always the case. Rye for 75 kopecks is terrible; here in the South they don’t know how to bake it at all, and the bulk factory work is a lump of clay, and sometimes sour! more. for tea, you have to take bagels for 26 kopecks or a francol, which is up to 1 ruble 4 kopecks a piece. Meat 12 rubles a kilo! fish at 3-20 perch per kilo; there is no fish at all, they stopped selling it, and why, no one knows, milk is 2-50 liters, in a word, horror and an increase in pensions of 4 rubles in total.

What a horror this “free treatment” is, doctors are essentially absentee controllers, flew in, asked the ambulances, the patient gives answers such that he will be released from work, tomorrow you have to call the doctor again, otherwise he won’t come, and who will go and call like that as usual in the family everyone works. Further, there are no medicines in pharmacies, and what is fabulously expensive, the pharmacy does not have dishes. The doctor is not interested in the success of the treatment, and conscientious, as everywhere, are rare. Yes, finally, they are overwhelmed with unbearable loads: they are forced to learn the history of the Communist Party, the rules of a gas attack, but no one is required to replenish their knowledge and follow the medical literature. For a sick wife, one has to prescribe medicines from Rostov, and since there is not much there, then from Petersburg, it’s good that this can be done through relatives, we live right in a barbaric country.

May celebrations are over. The usual processions, repeating from year to year, only one thing is not repeated - drunkenness.
Every year it grows: for three days they drink, everyone drinks, they drink grandiosely. Even students get together in groups at one of their comrades, often with girls, of course, senior classes. These days, ambulances are exhausted, because with the coarsening of morals, drunkenness is accompanied by stabbing, drunken husbands cut their wives and mistresses, and now it is almost impossible to establish the difference between a wife and a mistress. The influx into Taganrog of various Caucasians, distinguished by ardor, increases the reprisal with a knife. Vodka was sold freely in Dubki; the militia, exhausted in the fight against thoughtlessness, appealed to the city council to forbid this violation of decorum, but their request was not granted.

Elections Today At 12 o'clock two subjects came to me to take me to the elections, but you can come before 12 o'clock at night. It is impossible not to go to the Elections. The patient will be brought home. The vote, of course, is a foregone conclusion. Earlier though
there was some semblance of a closed ballot. It was possible to take the ticket with the name of the candidate out of the envelope and throw an empty envelope into the ballot box. Obviously, they did this: they could not see off their candidate, but by dropping an empty envelope, they could express a protest; now they give tickets white, blue and red. One for the city council, the other for the regional, the third for the district.
You go through the system of observers and, you can’t hide a single one to the very urn, and lower it. Here is the closed vote.

Tomorrow is the Soviet New Year. The shops are completely empty.
There is not even vodka and cigarettes, but what is most terrible of all, there is no bread, the majority say that there is no bread because we have a planned economy and that Taganrog ate its bread according to the plan, and that from January 1 there will be bread. I absolutely do not allow such stupidity, nor such cruelty. Trees are dragged along the streets. For what and for whom? The Christmas tree has a traditional connection with the Christmas holidays, and without these traditions it is meaningless monkeying, and even now, when tomorrow they sell no more than ten pieces of candy “by the piece” and simple mint gingerbread. Do they really think to please the children when they put glass balls on the Christmas tree and light candles, but there is nothing to treat them even with sweet tea, because sugar is a treasure, and bread is a rarity. Oh, horror, what a rich, plentiful, well-fed, hospitable Russia has been brought to. May the perpetrators of the grief of hungry people and orphaned families left without fathers, who remember their children among the snows and fir trees of the North, be damned!

There was a large, but closed meeting of teachers and the police, isn't it a strange combination, but this is now common, because the police, putting hooligans into a kardegariya to the point of sobering, often find schoolchildren and, oh, horror, schoolgirls in them. The police asked for the assistance of teachers, and these latter from the police, both of them appealed to the family. And who, for twenty years, only thought about how to tear students away from their families, with various entertainments at school, especially on big holidays, from home Christmas trees, as well as arranging performances in schools. Aren't the palaces of the pioneers designed to break with the family, but the camps? The children have never been with their parents. Yes, finally, the created life, when mother and father work, when they see children, they never see each other, they even spend nights away from home - there is no family, marriages rarely last more than a year, and what kind of family is the police appealing to and school?

DneproGES, 1934.

Contrary to the horror stories that are now being written about that time, it was in the pre-war years that there was a symphony of power and people that is not often found in life. The people, inspired by the great idea of ​​building the first just society in the history of mankind without oppressors and the oppressed, showed miracles of heroism and selflessness. And the state in those years, now portrayed by our liberal historians and publicists as a monstrous repressive machine, responded to the people by taking care of them.

Free medicine and education, sanatoriums and rest houses, pioneer camps, kindergartens, libraries, circles became a mass phenomenon and were available to everyone. It is no coincidence that during the war, according to the recollections of eyewitnesses, people dreamed of only one thing: that everything should become as it was before the war.

Here is what, for example, the US Ambassador wrote about that time in 1937-1938. Joseph E. Davis:

“With a group of American journalists, I visited five cities, where I examined the largest enterprises:

a tractor plant (12 thousand workers), - an electric motor plant (38 thousand workers), Dneproges, - an aluminum plant (3 thousand workers), which is considered the largest in the world, Zaporizhstal (35 thousand workers), a hospital (18 doctors and 120 nurses), nurseries and kindergartens, the Rostselmash plant (16 thousand employees), the Palace of Pioneers (a building with 280 rooms for 320 teachers and 27 thousand children).

The last of these institutions is one of the most interesting developments in the Soviet Union. Such palaces are being erected in all major cities and are intended to put into practice the Stalinist slogan about children as the most valuable asset of the country. Here, children reveal and develop their talents ... "

And everyone was sure that his talent would not wither and would not go to waste, that he had every opportunity to fulfill any dream in all spheres of life.

The doors of secondary and higher schools were opened to the children of workers and peasants. Social elevators worked at full capacity, elevating yesterday's workers and peasants to the heights of power, opening before them the horizons of science, the wisdom of technology, the stages of the stage.

"In the everyday life of great construction projects" a new country, unprecedented in the world, was rising - "the country of heroes, the country of dreamers, the country of scientists."

And in order to destroy any possibility of exploiting a person - whether it be a private trader or the state - the first decrees in the USSR introduced an eight-hour working day.

In addition, a six-hour working day was established for adolescents, the work of children under 14 years of age was prohibited, labor protection was established, and production training for young people was introduced at the expense of the state.

While the United States and Western countries were suffocating in the grip of the Great Depression, in the Soviet Union in 1936, 5 million workers had a six-hour or more reduced working day, almost 9% of industrial workers took a day off after four days of work, 10% of workers, employed in continuous production, after three eight-hour working days received two days off.

The wages of workers and employees, as well as the personal incomes of collective farmers, more than doubled. Adults, probably, no longer remember, and young people do not even know that during the Great Patriotic War, some collective farmers gave the front planes and tanks, built on personal savings, which they managed to accumulate in a not so long time that had passed after the "criminal" collectivization. How did they do it?

The fact is that the number of mandatory workdays for "free slaves" in the thirties was 60-100 (depending on the region). After that, the collective farmer could work for himself - on his plot or in a production cooperative, of which there were a huge number throughout the USSR. As the creator of the Russian Project website, publicist Pavel Krasnov, writes, “... In the Stalinist USSR, those who wished to take personal initiative had every opportunity to do so in the cooperative movement. It was impossible only to use hired labor, contractual cooperative - as much as you like.

There was a powerful cooperative movement in the country, almost 2 million people constantly worked in cooperatives, who produced 6% of the gross industrial output of the USSR: 40% of all furniture, 70% of all metal utensils, 35% of knitwear, almost 100% of toys.

In addition, there were 100 cooperative design bureaus, 22 experimental laboratories, and two research institutes in the country. This does not include part-time cooperative rural artels. Up to 30 million people worked in them in the 1930s.

It was possible to engage in individual work - for example, to have your own darkroom, paying taxes on it, doctors could have a private practice, and so on. The cooperatives usually involved high-class professionals in their field, organized in efficient structures, which explains their high contribution to the production of the USSR.

All this was liquidated by Khrushchev at an accelerated pace from the age of 56 - the property of cooperatives and private entrepreneurs was confiscated, even personal subsidiary plots and private livestock.

We add that at the same time, in 1956, the number of mandatory workdays was increased to three hundred. The results were not long in coming - the first problems with the products immediately appeared.

In the thirties, piecework wages were also widely used. Additional bonuses were practiced for the safety of mechanisms, savings in electricity, fuel, raw materials, and materials. Bonuses were introduced for overfulfillment of the plan, cost reduction, and production of higher quality products. A well-thought-out system of training qualified workers in industry and agriculture was carried out. During the years of the second five-year plan alone, about 6 million people were trained instead of the 5 million envisaged by the plan.

Finally, in the USSR, for the first time in the world, unemployment was eliminated - the most difficult and insoluble social problem under the conditions of market capitalism. The right to work enshrined in the Constitution of the USSR has become real for everyone. Already in 1930, during the first five-year plan, labor exchanges ceased to exist.

Along with the industrialization of the country, with the construction of new plants and factories, housing construction was also carried out. State and cooperative enterprises and organizations, collective farms and the population in the second five-year plan put into operation 67.3 million square meters of useful living space. With the help of the state and collective farms, rural workers built 800,000 houses.

Investment investments by state and cooperative organizations in housing construction, together with individual investments, increased by 1.8 times compared with the first five-year plan. Apartments, as we remember, were provided free of charge at the lowest rent in the world. And, probably, few people know that during the second five-year plan, almost as much money was invested in housing, communal and cultural construction, in health care in the rapidly developing Soviet Union as in heavy industry.

In 1935, the best subway in the world in terms of technical equipment and decoration was put into operation. In the summer of 1937, the Moscow-Volga canal was put into operation, which solved the problem of the capital's water supply and improved its transport links.

In the 1930s, not only did dozens of new cities grow in the country, but water supply was built in 42 cities, sewerage was built in 38 cities, a transport network developed, new tram lines were launched, the bus fleet expanded, and a trolleybus began to be introduced.

During the years of the pre-war five-year plans in the country, for the first time in world practice, social forms of popular consumption, which, in addition to wages, each Soviet family used. Funds from them went to the construction and maintenance of housing, cultural and community facilities, free education and medical care, various pensions and benefits. Three times, in comparison with the first five-year plan, spending on social security and social insurance has increased.

The network of sanatoriums and rest houses expanded rapidly, vouchers to which, purchased with social insurance funds, were distributed by trade unions among workers and employees free of charge or on preferential terms. During the second five-year plan alone, 8.4 million people rested and received medical treatment in rest homes and sanatoriums, and the cost of maintaining children in nurseries and kindergartens increased 10.7 times compared to the first five-year plan. The average life expectancy has risen.

Such a state could not but be perceived by the people as their own, national, native, for which it is not a pity to give their lives, for which one wants to perform feats ... As the embodiment of that revolutionary dream of a promised country, where the great idea of ​​​​people's happiness was visibly, before our eyes embodied in life. Stalin’s words “Life has become better, life has become more fun” in perestroika and post-perestroika years, it is customary to scoff, but they reflected real changes in the social and economic life of Soviet society.

These changes could not go unnoticed in the West either. We have already become accustomed to the fact that one cannot trust Soviet propaganda, that the truth about how things are in our country is only spoken in the West. Well, let's see how the capitalists assessed the successes of the Soviet state.

Thus, Gibbson Jarvey, chairman of United Dominion Bank, stated in October 1932:

“I want to make it clear that I am not a communist or a Bolshevik, I am a definite capitalist and individualist… Russia is moving forward while too many of our factories are idle and about 3 million of our people are desperately looking for work. The five-year plan was ridiculed and predicted to fail. But you can take it for granted that, under the terms of the five-year plan, more has been done than planned...

In all the industrial cities I have visited, new districts are springing up, built according to a certain plan, with wide streets, decorated with trees and squares, with houses of the most modern type, schools, hospitals, workers' clubs and the inevitable nurseries and kindergartens where care is taken. children of working mothers...

Don't try to underestimate Russian plans and don't make the mistake of hoping that the Soviet government might fail... Today's Russia is a country with a soul and an ideal. Russia is a country of amazing activity. I believe that Russia's aspirations are healthy...

Perhaps the most important thing is that all the youth and workers in Russia have one thing that, unfortunately, is lacking today in the capitalist countries, namely, hope.».

And here is what the Forward magazine (England) wrote in the same 1932:

“The huge work that is going on in the USSR is striking. New factories, new schools, new cinemas, new clubs, new huge houses - new buildings everywhere. Many of them have already been completed, others are still surrounded by forests. It is difficult to tell the English reader what has been done in the last two years and what is being done next. You have to see it all in order to believe it.

Our own achievements, which we achieved during the war, are nothing compared to what is being done in the USSR. Americans recognize that even during the period of the most rapid creative fever in the Western states, there was nothing like the current feverish creative activity in the USSR. Over the past two years, so many changes have taken place in the USSR that you refuse to even imagine what will happen in this country in another 10 years.

Get out of your head the fantastic horror stories told by the English newspapers, which lie so stubbornly and absurdly about the USSR. Also, throw out of your mind all those half-truths and impressions based on misunderstanding, which are set in motion by amateurish intellectuals who patronizingly look at the USSR through the eyes of the middle class, but who have not the slightest idea of ​​what is happening there: the USSR is building a new society on healthy people. basics.

In order to achieve this goal, one must take risks, one must work with enthusiasm, with such energy as the world has never known before, one must struggle with the enormous difficulties that are inevitable when trying to build socialism in a vast country isolated from the rest of the world. Visiting this country for the second time in two years, I got the impression that it is on the path of lasting progress, plans and builds, and all this on a scale that is a clear challenge to the hostile capitalist world.

The forward was echoed by the American "Nation":

“The four years of the five-year plan have brought with them truly remarkable achievements. The Soviet Union worked with wartime intensity on the creative task of building basic life. The face of the country is literally changing beyond recognition: this is true of Moscow with its hundreds of newly paved streets and squares, new buildings, new suburbs and a cordon of new factories on its outskirts. This is also true of smaller cities.

New cities arose in the steppes and deserts, at least 50 cities with a population of 50 to 250 thousand people. All of them have emerged in the last four years, each of them is the center of a new enterprise or a number of enterprises built to develop domestic resources. Hundreds of new power stations and a number of giants, like Dneprostroy, are constantly implementing Lenin's formula: "Socialism is Soviet power plus electrification."

The Soviet Union organized the mass production of an infinite number of items that Russia had never produced before: tractors, combine harvesters, high-quality steels, synthetic rubber, ball bearings, powerful diesel engines, 50 thousand kilowatt turbines, telephone equipment, electric mining machines, airplanes , cars, bicycles and several hundred new types of machines.

For the first time in history, Russia mines aluminum, magnesite, apatite, iodine, potash and many other valuable products. The guiding points of the Soviet plains are no longer crosses and church domes, but grain elevators and silos. Collective farms are building houses, stables, pigsties. Electricity penetrates the village, radio and newspapers have conquered it. Workers learn to work on the latest machines. The peasant boys build and maintain agricultural machines that are bigger and more complex than anything America has ever seen. Russia begins to "think in machines". Russia is rapidly moving from the age of wood to the age of iron, steel, concrete and motors.”

This is how the proud British and Americans spoke about the USSR in the 30s, envying the Soviet people - our parents.

Life in the 30s in the Union is easy to imagine from films and the memories of relatives. It is clear that in the country then everything was very poor for the most part. But at the same time there was a period of construction, enthusiasm, recovery from the post-revolutionary devastation ....
What was life like in the 1930s in other countries? Was it that much different?

1937, USA. House in the slums. Everything is very poor, but there are newspaper wallpapers on the walls and even a curtain made of figuratively cut newspaper.

1937, Czechoslovakia. If not for the clothes, it would be difficult to name the country in the photo

1937, USA. Woman at home in metropolitan Washington DC

1933, UK. An ordinary, by modern standards, even a large, English family

1936, USA. Mother with children in California

1932, France. A man sorts out garbage in the "capital of the world" Paris

1938, Poland. A hut where a large Polish family lives

Elderly couple in a shack. USA, 1937

1937, USA. And here is another pole, a completely different style, standard of living. This is a family dinner for the Mayor of Muncie and his wife.

REMINDER: The inscriptions may be inaccurate, and sometimes completely slurred. Let's try to bring them into a divine form together. And the author is not responsible for them.
Arrival of the participants of the international congress of soil scientists in Moscow. Russia, 1930

Opening of the international congress of soil scientists. In the background is a portrait of Lenin on the wall. Russia, 1930.

Members of the International Congress of Soil Scientists visiting the Moscow Kremlin. Russia, 1930.

A group of people during the 14th anniversary of the revolution on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1931.

The streets of Moscow are being built at a hasty pace. Moscow, 1931

The Kremlin (with a flag), and in the foreground the Lenin Mausoleum. Moscow, Russia, 1932.

A beggar in rags on a street in Moscow, 1932

Two men on the roof overlooking the center of Moscow and the Kremlin. 1932.

Boarding the tram. 1932

Women with children somewhere in the poor areas of Moscow. 1932

A man with a briefcase sits on a chair against the background of an artificial romantic landscape, waiting for a picture from a street photographer. Moscow, 1932.

Workers visit one of the many museums in Moscow.1932

Bolsheviks and the Church. 1932

View of pedestrians, cars, buses and trams on Sverdlov Square (formerly Teatralnaya Square) in Moscow. Photo taken from the top of the Bolshoi Theater 1932

This photograph was taken during a large parade on Red Square in Moscow, 1932.

Market in Moscow. Russia, 1933.

Top view of the May Day parade on Red Square. Moscow, USSR, 1933

Parts of the Russian army lined up on Red Square during the May Day parade. Moscow, USSR, 1933

Moscow during the celebration of the October Revolution, 1933.

Tanks on Red Square in Moscow during the celebration of the October Revolution of 1917. Russia, 1933.

An impressive parade on Red Square in Moscow in honor of the 17th anniversary of the October Revolution. Russia, 1933.

A large parade on Red Square in Moscow during the celebration of the October Revolution of 1917. Russia, 1933.

The final part of the parade on Red Square in Moscow on the occasion of the 17th anniversary of the October Revolution was a parade of armored vehicles. Russia, 1933.

Hair extensions and wigs for sale. Moscow, 1933.

Professor Schmidt is the leader of the Arctic expedition on the icebreaker "Sibiryakov". At the North Station (?) in Moscow, he gives interviews to journalists. 1933

Red Square with a Soviet policeman, a traffic controller. Moscow, 1935

Metro tunnel in Moscow. 1935.

Panorama of Okhotny Ryad: metro station in the center of Moscow. On the left, a building under construction and a mountain of rubble in the foreground. Moscow, 1935.

Panorama of Okhotny Ryad: metro station in the center of Moscow, the square is filled with horses and carts. Moscow, 1935.

Semicircular subway platform and tunnel. Moscow, Russia 1935

Underground metro stations. Moscow, 1935.

A game of chess between Salomon Flor and Vyacheslav Vasilieviches Rogozhin (right) during a chess tournament in Moscow, 1936

Chess player Jose Raul Capablanca in a match against Ryumin at a chess tournament in Moscow in 1936.

Representatives of various ethnic minorities in the "new" Soviet parliament. Moscow, 1938

View of the Red Square, where the sports parade takes place. Moscow, Russia, 1938