There was a drastic drop in life expectancy, housing rates, lots of starvation and excess deaths, and drops in literacy rates and so forth following the collapse of the USSR. The rise of the USSR was a drastic improvement upon Tsarism, and the fall of the USSR was a drastic decrease.

The USSR absolutely had its own set of issues, but the collapse of the USSR in the early 90s represented a massive setback that only recently the Russian Federation has begun to overtake, metric-wise.

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

1924 is when Stalin took power, not when the USSR was founded. Put I guess it's true that he improved the situation in Russia with imperialism to it's neighbors so technically for Russia itself it was a pretty good ride still.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm aware, I'm familiar with the history of the USSR. Life expectancy rose gradually throughout the history of the USSR as it industrialized, it didn't just happen under Lenin and plummet under Stalin. Secondly, the USSR was not Imperialist in the sense of extraction, Russia didn't have higher quality of life on the backs of other Soviet States, but was industrialized first and was a leading indicator overall.

That's not to say Stalin was some hero or something, or that there weren't issues, but this gradual improvement was due to industrialization above all else.

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee -3 points 4 months ago

Yea, industrialization improved things in like every country that did it but saying the USSR was not imperialist is wild to me. Resources from the annexed territories were being shipped to Russia on a regular basis, literally one of the reasons that made the Holodomor so deadly in Ukraine while Russia itself was mostly spared. Smuggling was insanely common here in the Baltics to ensure the locals could keep what they make and not suffer from famines as well.