# How did the very basics of Soviet Communism work at all? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2015, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978 "2015-03-14T10:39:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978/41 "2015-03-16T21:24:02Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > While that’s certainly true, I think my point (which was not that Soviet inequality didn’t exist, it’s that quantitatively and comparatively it wasn’t that bad) still stands. Quantifying inequality as good or bad basically comes down to ones politics and opinions anyways, so unless you’d rather be assigned to live out the rest of your life in Russia, 1968, than the USA, 1968, I’d say the topic is moot. For quantifying the quality of life in a nation, the Gini Coefficient isn’t all that much better than the Laffer Curve. I would voluntarily live in the US (41.1), Switzerland (33.7), or Sweden (25). I would not voluntarily live in Turkmenistan (40.8), Azerbaijan (33.7), nor Afghanistan (27.8). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978/42 "2015-03-16T21:39:01Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > While that’s certainly true, I think my point (which was not that Soviet inequality didn’t exist, it’s that quantitatively and comparatively it wasn’t that bad) still stands. Let me put it this way: If your definition of equality is “I want my neighbor to be just as poor as me,” the Gini coefficient is a great metric. If it’s “I’m concerned about the distorting effects of concentrated wealth on political power,” then it’s not a very good metric at all. Maybe Soviet Russia was genuinely egalitarian. I really have no idea. But even if it was, the Gini coefficient still doesn’t tell you that. You need a metric that measures the thing that you want. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978/43 "2015-03-17T18:18:36Z")
> [@Cayuga](#): > > Cecil’s column reminded me of something that might be a good source for the OP to check out — _The Russians_ by Hedrick Smith. I read it before going to the Soviet Union and it saved my life. > > I believe he wrote a follow-up as well, either during or just after the fall. He did. Appropriately enough, it’s called _The New Russians._ ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978/44 "2015-03-17T21:33:45Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Let me put it this way: > If your definition of equality is “I want my neighbor to be just as poor as me,” the Gini coefficient is a great metric. If it’s “I’m concerned about the distorting effects of concentrated wealth on political power,” then it’s not a very good metric at all. > > Maybe Soviet Russia was genuinely egalitarian. I really have no idea. But even if it was, the Gini coefficient still doesn’t tell you that. You need a metric that measures the thing that you want. It achieved egalitarianism in terms of making money nearly worthless; but the class system of exploiters and exploited was alive and well, it just was no longer a capitalist system of exploitation. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978/45 "2015-03-18T00:51:17Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > While that’s certainly true, I think my point (which was not that Soviet inequality didn’t exist, it’s that quantitatively and comparatively it wasn’t that bad) still stands. Unless you have statistical evidence that the situation youre describing was in fact the case (and anecdotes about nice Crimean beach hotels and Ural Mountain hunting lodges for Soviet officials aren’t quite the level of evidence I’m looking for). There was plenty of inequality in the Soviet economy. It just manifested itself in a different way. In a Western system, inequality was based on income. Some people have low incomes and some people have high or even ridiculously high incomes. In the Soviet Union, inequality was based around spending. Everyone had pretty similar incomes. But one person was allowed to shop at a store where you could buy a car for $1000 and another person could only shop at a store where the same car cost $10000. This allowed people who wanted to do so to simply look at incomes and marvel at how egalitarian the Soviet economy was while choosing not to look at the unequal aspects of that same system. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978/46 "2015-03-18T01:52:51Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Unless you have statistical evidence that the situation youre describing was in fact the case (and anecdotes about nice Crimean beach hotels and Ural Mountain hunting lodges for Soviet officials aren’t quite the level of evidence I’m looking for). What statistical evidence would you expect to exist for a quasi-official and deeply guarded system of privileges for certain people, often based on a black-market? You seem to be saying that you won’t believe anecdotes about political corruption, you will only believe the tax returns for how much each politician received in bribes. You realise how crazy that standard is? ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978/47 "2015-03-18T07:35:31Z")
In East Germany, the communist party bigwigs lived in a gated community called [Waldsiedlung](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldsiedlung). Among East Germans, it was better known as _Wandlitz_ (the name of the nearest town). > [@](#): > > Within the inner ring, Waldsiedlung consisted of 23 detached family houses with 180m² of land each. The site had a club house with a cinema and a restaurant, a shop where a limited selection of luxury Western goods could be purchased with local currency, a market garden, a health centre, a shooting range, a swimming pool, a sports field and tennis courts. There were also barracks and social building for site employees and guards. > > In the Honecker era the cooks were required to produce gourmet-level meals. In addition to high-quality East German food products luxury western products, such as Beaujolais wines and seltzer water, were imported from West Berlin. If you came from Beverly Hills, you wouldn’t have been impressed at all. But for the average East German, it was a different world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-very-basics-of-soviet-communism-work-at-all/714978.md?page=2)