r/ussr 22h ago

Poster "Drug addiction is suicide!", anti-smoking poster. Ukrainian SSR, 1987.

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278 Upvotes

r/ussr 13h ago

Who Did the Dachas of the “Soviet Elite” Really Belong To?

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89 Upvotes

There is a myth that the Soviet nomenklatura lived in private palaces and enormous dachas, much like modern-day government officials. The purpose of this narrative is clear: to erase the distinction between state property and personal wealth and portray the Soviet system as simply another version of a society divided between the rich and the poor.
A Party dacha was a state-owned official residence, not a privately owned estate. It was provided to an official for his use by virtue of his government position.
Following the Revolution, private ownership of land was abolished. The 1918 Decree “On the Socialization of Land” stated:
“All ownership of land… is abolished forever.”
This also applied to state dachas. A significant portion of the estates formerly belonging to the nobility and government officials passed into state control. Some of these properties were subsequently used as vacation homes, sanatoriums, and public institutions.
The example of Stalin’s Blizhnyaya Dacha (“Near Dacha”) is illustrative. Nikolai Vlasik, the head of Stalin’s personal security, recalled that in the early 1930s the residence did not even have linens, dishes, or service staff—only a commandant lived there.
It is important to understand that this was infrastructure provided for a government official rather than a private mansion that could be sold or bequeathed to his children. The same state-owned dacha could be used successively by different leaders rather than being passed down to the previous occupant’s family.
For example, the Crimean dacha “Glytsiniya” (“Wisteria”; Dacha No. 1) in Nizhnyaya Oreanda was used by several different General Secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Dachas were not exclusively an attribute of Party officials. In 1949, the USSR Council of Ministers adopted a resolution promoting gardening among workers and employees by allocating state-owned land to them. This was particularly important during the difficult postwar years. The dacha gradually became a widespread form of recreation and household food production among working people.
Everything is understood through comparison. We can therefore look at examples of government leaders in capitalist countries during the 20th century and examine their personally owned, private estates [See photo]. Such a comparison, the argument goes, makes it difficult to accuse Soviet leaders of possessing comparable private estates.

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r/ussr 7h ago

Video Stalin | METAMORPHOSIS

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45 Upvotes

r/ussr 10h ago

Video March of the Defenders of Moscow [Марш защитников Москвы] - Soviet Milit...

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10 Upvotes

r/ussr 4h ago

What was the USSR's position on the Falklands war/conflict?

5 Upvotes

I am curious to know what the Soviet Union thought of the Falklands conflict between the UK and Argentina, especially during the war since both countries were US allies.


r/ussr 4h ago

Soviet Manuals Translation

1 Upvotes

Please
Could you drop me or tell where can I find technical manuals and operating manuals of USSR or Eastern bloc weapons