Do FSUW Harbor a Soviet Mentality?

[Gator]

If you have not been reading the Presidential election threads, you would have missed some learned comments about the mentality of RW who are old enough to have been possibly inculcated by Soviet culture.   

This would apply to any RW (or UW) over 40-yo.  It may apply to a less extent to younger RW -  daughters raised by parents who lived and toiled in Soviet days.   

What are your experiences?

My own view is that none of those former commies can be trusted as far as you can throw them, and that goes for the wives of some [ed. RWD] members here, who were very much a part of that system.

I find it rather amusing when all these patriotic Americans marry former commies who would have informed on them in times past. 

You know virtually nothing of what the USSR was like, or how complicit its population was in the system.  Of course, now, they all reinvent themselves.  I bear no grudge against them, but I am not going to lie or pretend they were good, decent people when I know they were not.

I am referring to the core essence of who a person is.  Unless there has been a religious epiphany, which is rare, and exceedingly rare, in my experience, among Soviets, then no, I do not believe the core essence of these individuals has changed.  The funniest thing is that the first rats to leave the ship were the nomenklatura, who married their daughters off to foreigners, or, if they had the means, sent them West for education (which they still do). 

I will give you an example.  In the years when my husband was not allowed to leave the USSR, at his workplace was a woman (in the office) who spit venom at him each chance she could.  She told him her husband was an officer, my husband was a traitor for marrying a foreigner, and if it were up to her, he would be hanging from a pole.  Each and every time their paths crossed.

There was another woman in the office who was very nice, a peasant woman, who would try to intercede by changing the subject.

After failure of the coup, my husband's paperwork was finally processed.  When he came back to the office a final time, to turn in equipment, get his final paycheque, etc., this same woman, who, for seven years, had called for my husband's death, smiled at him and said "Oh, you're leaving.  Good luck.  I hope my daughter can find a foreigner to marry."  The peasant woman rolled her eyes behind this woman.

That woman exemplifies the typical attitude of those raised as Soviets.  It is very pervasive.  It spans to the new generation, which I did not think would occur.  It does not mean those wives will not be good wives, or even that they won't love their husbands, provided their husbands are useful to them.  It is also subtle, and I think you would have had to have lived among them, and more importantly, been victimized by them, in my case, with sweet smiles and superficial kindness, rather than what my husband endured, to understand what I am saying.  I submit you will never understand it.  Many FSU individuals don't recognize it, because it is just second nature to them.  It isn't even abnormal.

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Even after almost 15 years I can detect some of that CCCP 'thinking' with my wife.  Our daughter who spent most of her life here considers herself more Italian than Russian, but still recognizes her heritage proudly.  It would likely be a bit different if she grew up in RU.  I may be wrong and correct me if I am but one of the more present 'symptoms' is a much more powerful role of women in general, maybe due to more gender equality back then in CCCP times?  I also sense remaining nostalgia from those times along with consideration of how it 'was' back then as superior to today.. maybe in general terms of being proud of accomplishments during those times.  Also in terms of medicine RU remains still important and considered 'better'.  I think in general it may be more of a desire to 'belong' to a common system of values and culture, comparable with Americans considering themselves 'American', thus a bit different than others.  Much of RU today is only recently influenced by the west, ie. consumerism, western style economics so maybe that old style Soviet thinking provides that 'what makes me different' factor, much like US kids playing Cowboys and Indians when we were children?  -do they even do that anymore or am I really getting that old? 

[BC]

I don't think such has to be classified as a 'dark' mentality.. but yeah a bit different.

[jone]

I tend to agree with BC.  I have met multitudes of men and women who were of age during the waning days of the Soviet Union.  I sense a different mentality - a guarded mentality in these people.  But there does not appear to be deceit.  There does not appear to be the mentality that these are the same type of people who collaborated with KGB.  As a matter of interest, the family that sponsored my son in Russia, the husband was a retired General in the KGB/FSB.  After the fall of the CCCP, the wife reinvented herself as a tourism specialist while the husband, after leaving the new FSB, went into banking where I came across him.  I remember one day that Putin and Medvedev were coming to Ivanovo to talk with the farmers about milk production.  We were going to Vladimir that day.  The retired general laughed and said, "See, the leaders of Russia come to Ivanovo, and we all leave."  He was implying that he wanted nothing to do with the Russian government.

I think that the Soviet mentality left scars on many people.  But the number of 'informers' I would think would be rather small.  To attribute those characteristics to wives of forum members is a stretch.  And I think it opens up scars that are best left alone.  The number of wives who were actually of age during the waning days of the CCCP could probably be counted on one hand.  And to throw dispersions on those people with such posts creates ill will.

Throwing out a generalization like that is counterproductive to what we are here for on this forum.

[jone]

Oh, Gator,

I had to look up the word "Inculcate".  Thanks for teaching me a new one today.

[BC]

Oh, Gator,

I had to look up the word "Inculcate".  Thanks for teaching me a new one today.

Yeah, thanks.. new word for me too.. I was skimming and almost mistook it for the Italian word - inculato   

Guess that Italian word might fit after all? 

[Gator]

I don't think such has to be classified as a 'dark' mentality.. but yeah a bit different.

Thanks.  I deleted "dark."   A poster can refer to the mentality they observe in FSUW however they wish. 

The source suggested they are not "good, decent people."  The antonym would be bad, indecent people.  So I used "dark mentality" instead.     

[ML]

My spouse had just turned 20 when the SU started breaking up in early 1990s.

She and her family had never supported the communist system, even as her mother had been invited several times to join the party.

So I haven't noticed anything from her that would suggest she pines for the soviet system.

She and her parents suffered through the bleak periods in 1990s and later when no paychecks were received for several months or even more than a year.  They survived fairly well though because of her parent's extensive fruit trees, garden, pigs, chickens, rabbits, turkeys, etc.  The father stopped going to his job because of lack of pay and expanded the smaller farming into this more extensive system.  They still continue it today.

However, I am increasingly irritated at several of our fairly new 'friends' who came here from FSU, Czech, Romania, Poland, etc.

They came here because of much greater opportunities and pay in their professional careers than they could have dreamed about in their home country.  Beginning assistant professors in demand areas start out now at $150,000 + for 9 months.  This compares to less than $20,000 in FSU.

Now get this . . . they want all they have here . . . but want to change our system to get what they 'thought' they had back home also.  These are the infamous 'free' things, which were an illusion because they were only 'free' due to being effectively deducted from paychecks resulting in the lower pay.

Most all of these people will vote socialist as soon as they become citizens and get the chance.

They, and many here, do not understand that our country became as great as it once was because we were not a socialist system.

Luckily my spouse does not hold these same ideas, or at least she has never voiced them to me.  To do so would mean the end of our happy marriage.

[Gator]

ML,

Did these professors support Bernie Sanders?

[Gator]

I tend to agree with BC.  I have met multitudes of men and women who were of age during the waning days of the Soviet Union.  I sense a different mentality - a guarded mentality in these people.  But there does not appear to be deceit.  There does not appear to be the mentality that these are the same type of people who collaborated with KGB.

"Guarded" - definition:  cautious and having possible reservations

Good choice.   

One needs to exercise caution just walking around the FSU.  You can fall into a construction hole lacking barricades.  Or be hit by a speeding motorist, as no one stops for pedestrians.  It is remotely possible in the winter for a sheet of ice to fall from a roof 50 feet up and damage your head.   

Several women grabbed my hand when we crossed a street.   It was not me protecting them as in "me man, you woman."  They were protecting me -  they thought I was too relaxed by not hustling. 

Social Interactions

FSU people are guarded in social interactions with strangers.  Many make fun of silly Americans.  I saw a video of one Russian who visited America for business.   He walked in with his host to a large meeting expecting his arrival.  He said everyone looked at him and had big smiles.  His initial thoughts, "Everyone is laughing at me.  What did I do?  Did I leave my trousers unzipped?" 

Maybe some of this guarded interaction with strangers derives from old Soviet days when people were indeed fearful of being reported mistakenly to the police or KGB.  Due process was probably not the same as we have in America.


Skepticism  

Related to this,  every RW I met exhibited a high degree of skepticism at some time if not often.  Maybe Western men before me had deceived them.  My opinion is this skepticism derives from much instability in those early days of New Russia.   A Russian could put his money in a bank and the next week it is not available or has been devalued significantly.


Pessimism   

Another trait, not universal but frequent enough to be noticeable is a high level of pessimism.  Russians have a saying about it is bad luck to celebrate something before it happens.  Many of their superstitions involve losing one's money (unless it is bird kaka on a car which guarantees you will get some big money).


Government Service

The service Russians receive from their government is frequently rude.  I recall standing in line to purchase a train ticket.  The line was long, and just as it was my turn and I leaned into the window to voice my need in rehearsed, simple Russian.........BAM!..........the agent slammed  the window closed.  No warning.  No "sorry, excuse me."   One woman told me,  "The new government gives the same rude service as in Soviet days, except I must now bribe pay a bribe."


Egypt Example 

13 years ago  we were in an Egyptian airport at the ticket counter preparing to return to Russia on a fully booked charter.   The airline was Egyptian and the agents were Egyptian.  Everyone in the queue was Russian.  There two long lines with luggage.  The computer crashed at one counter so the Egyptians turned off the light above it and moved their operation on the far side of the other line.  Chaos erupted.  The fastest from both lines crashed the newly open counter.  Lines disappeared in five seconds.   Their Travel mates were passing luggage from the back to their speedy mates in front. 

Lines never formed again, only sardines being pushed tighter and tighter.  We were near the front when chaos erupted so I heard the complaints in English.  The travelers blamed the airline.  An agent responded, "No, it is Russian mentality.  You can not tolerate some getting ahead of you."   IMO it was both.  The agents should have stopped everything momentarily and explained about changing the lines.

[ML]

ML,

Did these professors support Bernie Sanders?

Yes, of course.
And now Hillary as the next best thing to a pure socialist.

[Gator]

Don't they realize that with free college education, the number of students will double, and professors must do twice the lectures for the same pay.   

[Gator]

Soviet Space Agency Woman

Being an old guy I dated what I considered were young FSUW relative to me, yet all were old enough to know the Soviet system.  One such woman was extremely bright in mathematics, and she had worked for the Soviet Space Center in the unit calculating trajectories and targets of ICBMs directed at America!!!

Her work obviously was "hush hush" with layers of security, Soviet style of security.  She is surely a prime example of a Soviet imprinted FSUW.  So how was she? 

She was cautious to some extent, and reluctant to talk about herself.  Other than that, she did not seem different from AW other than her choice of words at certain moments.

She spoke impeccable English, had traveled abroad,  and was knowledgeable about more subjects than I could touch.   So maybe high intelligence, excellent social skills, and travel abroad outweigh any carry over from Soviet days.   

[jone]

Gator,

You know we have those folks here in the US too.  My neighborhood has a quickly retiring generation that was instrumental in creating the SOSUS network, the ablative shields for the Apollo program (we should get CalMissile to elaborate on some of his experiences some time - his is also an interesting story).  Most of the folks at TRW lived around us.  I bought my house from a guy who recently retired from there.

These guys/gals cannot leave the country without express permission.  And, to top it off, one of the top Soviet spy rings was based in my little community. 

Talk about guarded, getting the time of day from these folks is all but impossible.

[ML]

Don't they realize that with free college education, the number of students will double, and professors must do twice the lectures for the same pay.

No, they have no conception of this, and would poo poo the idea if put to them.

It is almost the same thing as what people don't understand about letting in people from other countries who have completely different ideas about many things compared to 'us.'

So, to be racist or zenophobic, I would state that many in USA do not realize that when the 'south countries' take over the USA (as they will based on illegal immigration and birth rates), that the USA will become almost a mirror of the conditions that were existing in the countries that they left.

Yes, I know we are a nation of immigrants, but our country was founded on and became great with immigrants of a different mentality than that held by most who are coming now.

Yes, there are still 'some' immigrants coming who bring a lot of talent . . . but they are a very small minority of those coming in now.

[Gator]

You know we have those folks here in the US too.  ....Talk about guarded, getting the time of day from these folks is all but impossible.

I met my ICBM woman about 10-12 years after she left the center when it was winding down.  As did many bright scientists and educated professionals, she struggled in those transition years and I guess she felt she owed little.  Maybe she was "bleach bit."  She was smart enough to realize the Soviet days were over so she moved on. 

Some Soviet era women still long for the Soviet days.  I met a couple of doctors feeling such. 

[Gator]

Yes, I know we are a nation of immigrants, but our country was founded on and became great with immigrants of a different mentality than that held by most who are coming now.

The children of immigrants quickly assimilated in part because English was the only language for school, business, government...

Yes, there are still 'some' immigrants coming who bring a lot of talent . . . but they are a very small minority of those coming in now.

I heard all of the Nobel Prize recipients this year are immigrants.  If true, that speaks volumes.  And it is a really good story, and important to keeping America ahead of the curve. 

[ML]

I heard all of the Nobel Prize recipients this year are immigrants.  If true, that speaks volumes.  And it is a really good story, and important to keeping America ahead of the curve.

Yes, I know.
As I said, some coming in are great, but they are a small minority.
If we were really smart we would adopt a system similar to Canada only more specific and rigorous.
We would award points for education achievement, professional achievement (publications, patents, etc.), and other positive factors.
Then each year we would establish minimum scores that are required to apply for immigration to USA.

We would get even more top notch people and keep out others.

And just to rile up some . . . points could be awarded for blonde blue eyed.

[Boethius]

I think that the Soviet mentality left scars on many people.  But the number of 'informers' I would think would be rather small.  To attribute those characteristics to wives of forum members is a stretch.  And I think it opens up scars that are best left alone.  The number of wives who were actually of age during the waning days of the CCCP could probably be counted on one hand.  And to throw dispersions on those people with such posts creates ill will.

This tells me you do not understand what the Soviet system was.  Nothing wrong with that, you could not, as a Westerner who didn't live in a dictatorship.

There was no such thing as a percentage of informants.  To inform on others was something viewed as honourable and normal. 

In each district, the party official leading that district had a list of "undesirables" - the descendants of nobility or wealthy capitalists (a very small number, as most had been executed, but some did manage to escape, and, by the time they were discovered, in Khrushchev's time or later, they were no longer executed on the spot), the families of dissidents (dissidents more often than not were communists who believed the USSR fell short in Marxist-Leninist ideals), or religious believers.  The targets were placed, in essence, in a "net".  Party officials, the police, the KGB were all aware of who they were, and watched them.  Their homes were often bugged.  Anyone who came in contact with the targets was expected to report anything "untoward".  Usually, those targets were also targeted with specific questions or placed in situations to compromise them by informants.  The informant could be a neighbour trying to get his child into a particular kindergarten, or a co-worker on a list for an apartment, or a schoolmate trying to up his chances in getting into certain universities/faculties/professions.  Informing was viewed as perfectly normal.  Pavlik Morozov is a name every Soviet school child knew.

My husband, being a target, tried to escape.  He lived for several years illegally in Leningrad, but there, he knew authorities knew who he was.  He returned to Kyiv and, finding no peace, left for Central Asia, but it was clear to him within a month they "knew" who his family was, so he returned.  Informants kept telling him he "had" to visit Siberia.  This is because of a familial connection of a long ago ancestor, a scholar who studied the region.  He had no particular desire to go, but his father told him he had to, he would have no peace if he did not.  He lived there for several months, just to escape the informants.  He had a friend who was also on the authority's radar, my husband did not know why.  The friend was Kyiv born, but to stop having to deal with constant informants and the authorities, he moved to a half deserted village in Belarus.  He married a girl from the village, and lived his life there, digging potatoes.

There is a reason the Soviet archives on informants were sealed.

Even in my own extended family (not my husband's family, my blood relatives), I could count on one hand those I trusted - one had been in a gulag, she was old, religious, grew up before the Soviets invaded.  Her son I also trusted.  Another had been to jail.  A fourth that I trusted was the husband of my mother's cousin, though the cousin, I did not trust completely.  It is not a bad thing, it is the way they were raised and the society they grew up in.  She needed to do certain things to ensure her children, who were whip smart, were not relegated to lives on the village kolhosp. 

What is bad, I believe is, as I posted, that most of these people now deny who they were.  They wish to reinvent themselves and forget who they were, and what they did. 

I can tell by some of the most mundane things posted here, who some of the wives are.  In times past, a FSUW would comment on it, that comment usually going "whoosh" over the heads of the WM.  You can never truly understand it, because you didn't live it.   As for people now being raised in a different environment, I believed this as well.  But I still see those attitudes in FSU twenty somethings.  I now think it will take at least another generation to change the attitudes, but I could be wrong again.

[Boethius]

I also don't view it as a "dark" mentality.  It just is what it is.

[ML]

  Informants kept telling him he "had" to visit Siberia.  This is because of a familial connection of a long ago ancestor, a scholar who studied the region.  He had no particular desire to go, but his father told him he had to, he would have no peace if he did not.  He lived there for several months, just to escape the informants. 

Why did the informants want him to go to Siberia.
If he were there, they could not inform on him.
So why ?

[Boethius]

The informants were just following orders.  They didn't know what was behind anything they were asked to do.

It would take me two pages to explain it all, however, my husband did not know his family's origins on either side (both undesirable to the Soviets, and famous historical figures on both sides of the family - now, they are naming streets and institutes after them).  Authorities wanted to prove the family knew their non proletarian origins, and assumed that in that environment, he could be tripped up.  They did this to him a lot.   I could recount at least a dozen situations.  But, my husband did not know those origins, so nothing ever clicked with him in any of the situations he was placed in.  It took him years to research it when genealogical records went online, and even then, he was able to do what no one else in the family could have, because of his unique position in both families and his photographic memory.  He would tell you now, he lead an extremely interesting, but difficult life, though he wouldn't trade it.

[LiveFromUkraine]

Bo, you have to write a book with your husband.  This is fantastic stuff.

[Boethius]

He would never write anything while his relatives, particularly his mother and sister, are alive.

Most Soviets would have had nothing like the experiences he did, and he says the lives of his parents and grandparents were far worse.

[Chicagoguy]

The first time I went to Russia I was in a Siberian city with some younger new friends. One of them could speak passable English and we all went to his humble dacha for the day. Another brought a friend of his mother to do most of the translating. Shortly after we arrived I could hear airplanes from a nearby airport. Since I was not in familiar territory I asked this woman what airport it was. Just a casual inquiry I thought. She looked at me and started crying. She saw the look on my face and began to speak. As it turned out she had learned English so she could read American technical documents. Russia had just changed and she could not so easily break her old habits. She had not yet adapted to the new world but was working on it.


When I first met my wife she told me that two years earlier she could not even have spoken to an American because of her secret clearance at her old job. She was not working when we met so she was now allowed.She also still says life was easier for her in the old days. Medical care was free [which she still goes home for] and at least for her family life was good and relatively carefree. BUT she still has some of this old style left in her. She likes Putin and says she will vote for Trump.

[Slumba]

The children of immigrants quickly assimilated in part because English was the only language for school, business, government...


I heard all of the Nobel Prize recipients this year are immigrants.  If true, that speaks volumes.  And it is a really good story, and important to keeping America ahead of the curve.

My understanding, the immigrants are from UK and Finland.