this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
182 points (97.9% liked)
Asklemmy
42521 readers
1335 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
1923?
Lenin's body lays in the mausoleum on the Red Square for the last 99 years. Impersonators of him and Stalin walk around in their daily routine, asking money for photoes with them. In a shop not far from them, you can purchaze chinese merchandize with a soviet, russian flags, as well as with a monarchist-sympatising one, even though Romanovs are as dead as they were back then. Some items cost over a thousand of rubles, a sum that was enough to buy a factory - and that's after two recent denomonations. Pretty good that these crowds of international tourists don't count their money being there, these prices can easily drive someone insane.
See, in 1923 "the USSR fails" wouldn't surprise people, but "the USSR is a great power and also fails and also is still locally popular" would be hella disorienting.
Why do I picture confused Trotsky, going WTF in his glasses? Yes, it's going to last 70-so years in spite of your pessimism, no, you aren't a part of it and assasinated in Mexico, yes, this georgian chud is as power-hungry as he looks, no, unions won't become the waifu of proletariat, but yes, after the fall of Stalin you'd be pretty much reabilitated and some canadians would even direct a movie about rebelious youngsters named after you.
You couldn't buy a factory for rubles in 1923...
NEP was a thing though. Very limited and tightly controlled, but possible. Both NEPmen and foreign capitalists had a brief window while economy was healing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEPman
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_concessions_in_the_USSR
I don't think one could be safe throwing them around like that though. Being big probably meant you have a particular relationship with local administration who don't find you too capitalistic.