Some professions take more labor and are harder, or require more talent, than others. Does this mean doctors were actually paid the same as bakers in Communist Russia?
For that matter, how did money work? Assuming you were a valued citizen in good standing, were you paid a monthly amount for your labors, or were you given a set of ration cards to obtain what you needed, or what?
Old photographs of the Soviet era showed that they did have tv sets, small homes or apartments, etc. How did all that actually work? What if your tv broke? Could you get it repaired? (aka did the State give you a ration card good for “1 working tv”, or did they give you a certain amount of rubles every month)
How did the Soviets treat petty disobedience? So, ok, you wouldn’t want to speak out against the State. But what about underage drinking, smoking behind the high school, graffiti, sneaking in somewhere, and other petty crimes? Were they treated seriously or was it a “comrades be comrades” kind of thing?
Was any kind of small scale entrepreneurial activity allowed? Could you fix your neighbor’s stuff or sell a few apples picked from the woods or otherwise do something to supplement your state income?
All the books I’ve ever read on it as a Westerner are an unceasing series of accounts of how bad it was. However, objectively speaking, Soviet era Russia had superior technology, military, and various bits of civilization to all of South America, all of Africa, Mexico, everywhere in mainland asia, about half of even Western Europe.
If Communism didn’t work at all, they would not have been in the top 10-20% or so of nations.
So I wonder how it worked at all. If you believe books like “A day in the life of ivan denisovich”, the Soviets couldn’t even build a brick wall without 3 layers of bureaucracy. So why did they have more brick walls, so to speak, than, say, any nation in Africa or South America? The system must have worked somehow.