Anyone from the Eastern bloc? (moving, move, time, interesting)

[erasure]

Originally Posted by musiqum

You sure?

Yes, because I personally had to deal with this particular situation.

P.S. Stick with me, you'll know much more about the life in the Soviet Union)))))

[musiqum]

Originally Posted by erasure

Sorry I had to look it all up, because we are already talking about post-Soviet period; in Soviet period, there was no such thing as people "owning houses" in big cities.

With all my respect to your life experience, erudition, education etc., I must say that you know this subject not good. I repeat, there was alot of private houses across the Soviet Union. Have you ever been to any of the caucasian or central asian republics? Many families resided in their own houses there. And some of them even had a plot of land attached to their house. And I am speaking about big cities like Baku, Tbilisi, Tashkent, Alma-ata etc.
By the way, one of my relative (uncle of my mother) owned a house with some ground area in Odessa, Ukraine. After his death the house was inherited by his daughter. It was in 1986, i.e. in the Soviet era.

Originally Posted by erasure

P.S. Stick with me, you'll know much more about the life in the Soviet Union)))))

Oh, that's very nice of you. Thank you for you offer that I can't refuse.
But, may I ask you something if it allowed? How old are you? I am asking this question because I think I'm almost of the same age as your parents and you were not lived there more than me.

[Lady's Man]

Wow thanks for the responses guys! I have follow-up questions, but I must get some sleep now as it's almost 3 AM. I am very fascinated by communism and how it was implemented. Surprisingly, there is not much literature out there that focuses on the daily lives of ordinary soviet citizens. Most of the literature focuses on the soviet leaders and later on perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[Wadym]

Above answered many questions, but nevertheless I shall add.

Originally Posted by Lady's Man

1) How did you get your job?

Good work required good acquaintances, and since then nothing has changed.

Originally Posted by Lady's Man

a. Were you paid the same amount as everyone else at your job?

Special distinctions was not, as work was carried on uniform norms and tariffs.

Originally Posted by Lady's Man

b. How were you paid? Would the government send you a check?

Funny, cause Soviet bank system was too weak. Workers received the salary cash in cash department of the enterprises in strictly certain days of month

Originally Posted by Lady's Man

c. Did you lack motivation to work hard? Did people generally lack motivation?

Yes, the motivation was insufficient as formally it was impossible to earn more than the certain sum of month, for example 300 roubles. If the worker worked at two works and its monthly income exceeded the certain sum - to it reduced tariff factors and an operating time, was considered that the person cannot is adequate to work at two works so and to receive double payment.

Originally Posted by Lady's Man

2) How did you obtain your residence?

The apartment has been received free-of-charge from the state, but it was not usual. Widely widespread way of reception of own habitation was long time of experience at the certain enterprise, it usually approximately 10 years. The industrial enterprises have received the ground areas on which had the right to build apartment houses for their workers (often hand of these workers).

Originally Posted by Lady's Man

a. Did you have to pay utilities (electric, gas,water, etc.) every month?
b. Did citizens have to pay property taxes for their residence?

a. Yes, every month
b. Yes, there was a tax to the ground, but it was very small, practically insignificant, it is more for the control and the account.

Originally Posted by Lady's Man

3) How difficult was it obtaining luxuries, such as a TV? Did it require you to save moneyover an extending period of time?

Luxury goods in the USSR it is separate greater subject matter Such goods as the refrigerator, TV and a washing machine were practically at everything, but there were interesting features. It was impossible to buy that you want, and took that is in near shop. For example in Kharkov made good TVs and in here not was lack, but of other cities it was possible to buy TVs of other manufacturers, worse. And so with the majority of the goods, i.e. they like as well as are on sale but not that it is necessary. With cars in a similar way - to buy "Lada" was the big problem, but "Moskvich" or "Zaporozhets" it was possible to buy much easier, but them did not favorite.

[elnina]

Originally Posted by musiqum

With all my respect to your life experience, erudition, education etc., I must say that you know this subject not good. I repeat, there was alot of private houses across the Soviet Union. Have you ever been to any of the caucasian or central asian republics? Many families resided in their own houses there. And some of them even had a plot of land attached to their house. And I am speaking about big cities like Baku, Tbilisi, Tashkent, Alma-ata etc.
By the way, one of my relative (uncle of my mother) owned a house with some ground area in Odessa, Ukraine. After his death the house was inherited by his daughter. It was in 1986, i.e. in the Soviet era.

I have to add that in a communist Poland many people owned houses. In 1952 my parents purchased a house build in 1893 (I was born and raised in that house - my mother sold it in 2001), and they were NO communists, nor didn't belong to the Communist Party.
My parents purchased land near Warsaw in 1944 and it was never taken away from them, in fact we still own it.
There were many privately owned homes, or even multifamily homes in my hometown, and throughout the country.

The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Slovenia did not expropriate all agricultural land during the communist era. Poland, like Yugoslavia, never collectivized the great bulk of its land during the Communist era, so it has had majority private ownership of agricultural land throughout the period since World War II - 75% percent of farmland remained in family farms during the Communist era.
Also both, physical persons and legal entities in Poland had full rights to own both agricultural and non-agricultural land.
The private sector included private farmers and gardeners; independent craftsmen, wholesalers, and retailers; and individuals employed in so-called free-lance activities (artist, writers, and others).

[erasure]

Originally Posted by musiqum

With all my respect to your life experience, erudition, education etc., I must say that you know this subject not good. I repeat, there was alot of private houses across the Soviet Union.

I don't deny it. I'm only saying that there was none in big Russian cities- Moscow, St. Petersburg and I didn't see any in Novosibirsk. That's why I was surprised to discover them in other places.

Have you ever been to any of the caucasian or central asian republics?

Yes, but don't forget that I grew up in Moscow, and as I've found out later, there was the whole different world out there, once you'd leave Moscow's borders)))

By the way, one of my relative (uncle of my mother) owned a house with some ground area in Odessa, Ukraine. After his death the house was inherited by his daughter. It was in 1986, i.e. in the Soviet era.

As I've said, I saw for the first time that people were living in houses within city limits when I came to Ukraine.

Oh, that's very nice of you. Thank you for you offer that I can't refuse.
But, may I ask you something if it allowed? How old are you? I am asking this question because I think I'm almost of the same age as your parents and you were not lived there more than me.

Uh I'm sorry - I didn't mean to sound so deceptively young)))))
But if you claim to be my parent's age, then you should be well in your seventies, because I've already turned fifty))))

[erasure]

Originally Posted by elnina

I have to add that in a communist Poland many people owned houses. In 1952 my parents purchased a house build in 1893 (I was born and raised in that house - my mother sold it in 2001), and they were NO communists, nor didn't belong to the Communist Party.
My parents purchased land near Warsaw in 1944 and it was never taken away from them, in fact we still own it.
There were many privately owned homes, or even multifamily homes in my hometown, and throughout the country.

The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Slovenia did not expropriate all agricultural land during the communist era. Poland, like Yugoslavia, never collectivized the great bulk of its land during the Communist era, so it has had majority private ownership of agricultural land throughout the period since World War II - 75% percent of farmland remained in family farms during the Communist era.
Also both, physical persons and legal entities in Poland had full rights to own both agricultural and non-agricultural land.
The private sector included private farmers and gardeners; independent craftsmen, wholesalers, and retailers; and individuals employed in so-called free-lance activities (artist, writers, and others).

Elninaaaaa)))))
We always knew that economy in Poland ( Hungary, Yugoslavia) was different from Russia, because of the presence of the private sector.
But in Russia the private sector has been practically completely shut down after Stalin's death. Both Khrushev and Brezhnev wouldn't have any of it.
So when Yavlinsky was working on his economic program for post-Soviet transition, that's where he went - to Poland, to observe everything that was taking place, and he pointed out right there that what has been done in Poland, ( this particular version of economic transition) couldn't have been done in Russia, precisely because of the ( previous) absence of the private sector.

Grigory Yavlinsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Lady's Man]

[quote=erasure;33465453]

Let me think here... no, there was no checks at that point in time. We all had to show up in certain office on certain day and get our money in cash.

How would the government ensure that they had collected all the money earned by various businesses? I am assuming that party people operated each business, but what would prevent those party people from pocketing cash?

It depends. As in the US, jobs in Russia were very different; some were meant for people to excel, to apply their talents, and some were meant to grind you till you drop and to spit you out. So in my case ( since I had both kinds) sometimes I was motivated and worked hard, and sometimes I was trying to do as less as possible. Money in this case were not a motivating factor for me. For people with families money were more motivating factor I suppose, but in this case those who craved them most (meaning that's what was the major motivator in their lives) - they were probably the most unhappy people, since they felt they could never had enough of material things in their lives, while living in the S.U. So to answer your question - each situation for different person was different; some people lacked the motivation, some didn't. One of the most motivated people I ever knew, were the guys in science sector. They often loved so much what they were doing, that they were willing to spend extra-time at their work place for free. They were motivated by the process itself and they were joking sometimes that "we are satisfying our curiosity in science at government's expense."

Makes sense.

I didn't.
I kept on living with my parents, since I didn't move to a different city ( because of job or study,) so my assigned residence was precisely that - in my parents' apartment in Moscow.

( You can probably read more about the "assigned residence" in the Soviet Union here;

Propiska in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

Thanks for the link! What was the situation like before the revolution? Were commoners allowed to own real estate? And what about after the Soviet Union collapsed.. did the government give the real estate back to the families? I believe in East Germany, families had go through the courts to put a claim on the real estate / business. Was it a similar process in Russia? Or did the government simply sell the real estate to the highest bidder?

No. Because the residence, technically speaking belonged to the government, not to the residents.
Here ( again - technically speaking ) we are entering a grey area, when it comes to such thing as "private property" in the Soviet Union.
It's not like people didn't have it - they owned summer houses ( dachas,) they owned houses in small towns and villages where they lived, but since the rule of a thumb was that they couldn't use it as a source of profit, they were not paying any taxes on it. ( Interestingly enough - it's not like no one was ever using their property for extra income; renting private rooms in resort areas was a common practice for example; I just don't know how well it was sitting with a law or whether it was something that the authorities didn't care about, yet there were no taxes even in this case. Overall, when we are talking about "taxes" in the Soviet Union - officially there was no such thing, because the gov. was figuring out on its own how much it wanted to spend here and there, so basically everything was taken care of for Soviet citizens - meaning free medicine, free education and what's not, and salaries were given as is - with no "taxes" involved.)

makes perfect sense. thank for your input

[erasure]

[quote=Lady's Man;33499820]

Originally Posted by erasure

How would the government ensure that they had collected all the money earned by various businesses? I am assuming that party people operated each business, but what would prevent those party people from pocketing cash?

Because salaries were given in cash only, didn't mean that the rest of the transactions throughout the whole chain of production-distribution-retail was not based on cashless system. Basically, when the planning was decided by the government, every factory/organization had its own budget and whatever they needed, was mostly put on the "government's tab" - meaning they didn't have to pay anyone to receive the needed material for production, they didn't have to pay cash for needed cars/equipment - it all has been supplied for them through internal government's transactions, which were counted in rubles on paper only. Different plants/factories were dealing with each other in the same cashless way for the most part; cash was reserved mostly for salaries and retail, where the end product was arriving for sale. At that point the number of supplied goods for set price was promptly recorded and the cash that was expected to be received from sales was accounted for ( there were financial authorities who were constantly making audits.) ( That's as far as I remember. )
So as you can see there was not too many possibilities to steal cash per se, however there were other ways for stealing, and mostly it was happening during the stage of distribution. The prime goods that were in high demand, have been often distributed by those in charge of storages/warehouses through their own channels, for surcharge or returned favors, before reaching the store shelves.
Another way of stealing was stealing of the products/spare parts directly from the plants/factories, and both workers and superiors were involved in such practice.
So as you can see, it was not that theft was perpetrated by exclusively "party people," however people in charge ( and for the most case they were party members) were getting their "cut" through the "underground" distribution channel.

Thanks for the link! What was the situation like before the revolution? Were commoners allowed to own real estate?

Not really, unless we are talking about the upper class/merchants. Not only Russia had serfdom until 1861, but even when peasants were liberated, they've received not much land from the landlords, who obviously retained the best and biggest part of it. On top of that, the traditional Russian peasant commune ( or "mir") was in charge of whatever land the peasant had, so property rights for land were not established for Russian peasants in the same manner as for their counterparts in Western Europe.
(You can read more about it here if you wish, on the third page, starting from

"The peasant commune dominated the institutional landscape of the Russian village after the
abolishment of serfdom in 1861..."

http://www.ggdc.nl/projects/conferenceqeh/markevich.pdf )

Since in pre-revolutionary times Russia was 80% agrarian country, you can see why many peasants supported the revolution, hoping to finally receive the land that's been promised to them by Lenin.

And what about after the Soviet Union collapsed.. did the government give the real estate back to the families? I believe in East Germany, families had go through the courts to put a claim on the real estate / business. Was it a similar process in Russia? Or did the government simply sell the real estate to the highest bidder?

"Real estate" as in what?
Don't forget that other Eastern European countries ( Eastern Germany including) were subjected under socialist system only starting from around the WWII period and till the end of the 80ies?) meaning it was a matter of 40 years, when same generation was still around, while in Russia revolution took place back already in 1917, with upper class being exiled/executed. I mean about 2 million Russians left the country at that time and whatever "real estate" has been left behind, became the Soviet government's property and has been used by the "commoners" - the forests, the rivers, the fields - you name it.

[Marmel]

Originally Posted by erasure

I don't deny it. I'm only saying that there was none in big Russian cities- Moscow, St. Petersburg and I didn't see any in Novosibirsk. That's why I was surprised to discover them in other places.

Yes, but don't forget that I grew up in Moscow, and as I've found out later, there was the whole different world out there, once you'd leave Moscow's borders)))

Didn't you have so-called "private sector" in Moscow and St Petersburg? I mean, private houses, many of them looking almost like houses in villages.
Here in Minsk, we had plenty of them -- and still have, even though some are torn down and replaced by boxy apartment blocks, and some are just replaced by modern cottages.
Areas like that were very large in Minsk during the Soviet time -- especially in the territory between city center and "commieblock" outskirts, and they were colloquially called "private sector". However, I'm not sure if they were really private in the legal sense, as I was still a kid in the 80s and didn't care about such things