Chapter 142 - All Out of Love - Life in the Soviet Union Circa 1980
Above: Mikhail Suslov, First Secretary of the Soviet Union after Yuri Andropov (left); a mural in Moscow, erected in 1970 to celebrate what would have been Lenin’s 100th birthday (center); Dmitry Ustinov, Defense Minister, who wielded tremendous influence over Soviet policy during the Andropov and “New Troika” eras (right).
“I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I'm all out of love, what am I without you?
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong” - “All Out of Love” by Air Supply
“The world may end up under a Sword of Damocles… on a tightrope over the abyss.” - Andrei Gromyko, on worsening Cold War tensions in the early 1980s
“Regarding the dreams of reaching military superiority over the USSR, one would do better to drop them. If it has to be, the Soviet people would find the possibility to undertake any additional efforts and to do everything that is necessary to guarantee a reliable defense of their country.” - Dmitry Ustinov
The pronounced increase in Cold War tensions which came about in the early 1980s did not spring up from out of nowhere.
The Soviet Union launched a large military build-up all the way back in 1965 by expanding both its nuclear and conventional arsenals. The Soviet leadership believed a strong military would be useful leverage in negotiating with foreign powers, and increase the Eastern Bloc's security from attacks. In the 1970s, the Soviet leadership concluded that a war with the capitalist countries might not necessarily become nuclear, and therefore they initiated a rapid expansion of the Soviet conventional forces. Due to the Soviet Union's relatively weaker infrastructure compared to the United States, the Soviet leadership believed that the only way to surpass the First World was by a rapid military conquest of Western Europe, relying on sheer numbers alone. The Soviet Union neared nuclear parity with the United States by the early 1970s, after which the country consolidated itself a superpower in fact, rather than in name only. The apparent success of the military build-up led the Soviet leadership to believe that the military, and the military alone, according to Willard Frank, "bought the Soviet Union security and influence".
Chief among the voices preaching such a doctrine was defense minister Dmitry Ustinov, Marshal of the Soviet Union, and Hero of Socialist Labour for his actions during the Great Patriotic War with Nazi Germany. Bellicose in rhetoric and possessing an iron will, Ustinov pressed then First Secretary Yuri Andropov to adopt the militaristic mindset as his own, and to put pressing economic reforms on the backburner. Andropov, then still early in his tenure following the ouster of his predecessor, Alexei Kosygin, reluctantly agreed.
Indeed, despite Andropov’s mounting fears regarding the long-term costs of increased military expenditure, Ustinov and the armed forces continued to have their way. As Andropov got older and his perspective shifted ever toward the future and his succession, he found that he lacked the will and political capital to counter the growing influence of the hardliners. The KGB, backed by the military-industrial complex, had brought Andropov to power in ‘68. By the mid 70s, he realized that it was they who controlled him, not the other way around.
Although the Andropov era appeared, to the outside world, to be a period of stabilization and peace for the Soviet Union, tensions mounted just beneath the surface. Chief among Andropov’s concerns was the Soviet economy.
Later dubbed the “Era of Stagnation” by Mikhail Gorbachev, the Andropov and later New Troika eras were a period of sluggish growth and rampant corruption. Initially triggered by the Romney oil shock, the economic downturn was then worsened by over-centralization and a conservative state bureaucracy. In attempting to distance themselves from Comrade Kosygin in the aftermath of his removal, ministers rejected numerous attempts at reform. This created an avalanche effect in Moscow. As the economy grew, the volume of decisions facing planners in the capital became overwhelming. Subsequently, labor productivity nationwide plummeted. The cumbersome procedures of bureaucratic administration did not allow for the free communication and flexible response required at the enterprise level to deal with worker alienation, innovation, customers and suppliers.
The aforementioned corruption took many forms. Data falsification became common practice among bureaucrats to report satisfied targets and quotas to the government, and this further aggravated the crisis in planning.
With all these mounting economic problems, skilled workers were usually paid more than had been intended in the first place, while unskilled laborers tended to turn up late, and were neither conscientious nor, in a number of cases, entirely sober. The state usually moved workers from one job to another which ultimately became a feature of Soviet industry. The Government had no effective countermeasure because of the country's lack of unemployment. Government industries such as factories, mines and offices were staffed by undisciplined personnel who put a great effort into not doing their jobs. This ultimately led to, according to Robert Service, a "work-shy workforce" among Soviet workers and administrators.
Andropov attempted to implement some small-scale reforms in 1973, then again shortly before his removal in 1979. In both cases, the programs were designed to enhance the powers and functions of the regional planners, and delegate some authority away from Moscow. In the regions that acted as test cases for the new programs (most notably Andropov protege Mikhail Gorbachev’s native Stavropol), productivity increased and quotas were met. Unfortunately, the reforms were never fully implemented. When Suslov succeeded Andropov as First Secretary, he appointed Nikolai Tikhonov, a like-minded conservative, to the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The Politburo became a place where sound economic decision-making went to die.
Above: Nikolai Tikhonov, conservative appointee of the New Troika (left); a scene of “mundane misery” in a Soviet factory, circa 1979 (right).
Under Andropov’s and later, the New Troika’s rule, Soviet society is generally believed to have reached maturity in the sociological sense. From 1968 through 1980, the increasingly modernized country became more urban; its people became better educated and more professionalized. Despite the stagnation, unlike earlier periods under Stalin or even Khrushchev, the 1970s represented a period of continuous development “without significant interruption”. There was a fourfold growth in higher education between the 1950s and 1980s; official discourse referred to this development as the “scientific-technological revolution”.
Perhaps nothing better symbolized this push toward the future than the Soviet computing industry.
Following the completion of the first Soviet integrated circuit in 1962, Moscow realized the potential strategic implications of semiconductors. Plans were swiftly made and facilities to manufacture them were constructed in Leningrad and Riga. Soviet scientists took advantage of student exchange agreements with the US to study the technology, attending lectures by pioneers of the field such as William Shockley. Joel Barr, an American-born Soviet spy who had previously infiltrated US-based technology companies, successfully lobbied Khrushchev to build a new city devoted to the production of semiconductors. The new city was given the name of Zelenograd.
As a local semiconductor industry began to develop in the 1960s, Soviet engineers and technicians faced heavy pressure from politicians and bureaucrats to simply copy western designs without any significant changes. Computer scientists, however, such as Andrey Yershov (among others) argued that such a move would be poorly suited to the fast-evolving world of chip manufacturing. Though it would require enormous investment in the early research and development stages, pursuing a truly independent electronics industry would make the USSR more competitive in the field, and, with enough capital and effort, self-sufficient. The first secretary at the time, Nikita Khrushchev was convinced by Yershov and his fellows. He approved the investments. Though the Soviets would remain several years behind the Americans in terms of technological development, by 1980, the gap had closed from approximately a decade to only about 5-6 years.
During the Andropov era, pressure from below forced the Soviet leadership to alter some cultural policies, though the fundamental characteristics of the Communist system remained. Rock music and denim jeans, formerly criticized as hallmarks of "decadent" Western culture, became tolerated. The Soviet Union even started to manufacture its own jeans in the 1970s. As time progressed, however, Soviet youth became more eager to buy Western products. The Soviet black market flourished during this period, and "fake Western jeans" became very popular. Western rock-groups such as The Beatles and the Rolling Stones remained very popular throughout the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, even if Soviet official policy remained wary of them. Within the USSR, Soviet rock music evolved, becoming a form of rebellion and dissidence against the stagnation and status quo. Vladimir Vysotsky, Alexander Galich and Bulat Okudzhava became the most renowned rock-musicians, and their lyrics, and music in general, were critical of the country's Stalinist past, as well as of its undemocratic system.
In a 1981 editorial published in
Pravda, Viktor Chebrikov, then a deputy KGB head, commented on the apathy of Soviet youth towards the system and accused the West of using concepts such as consumerism, religion, and nationalism to encourage “pessimism, nihilism, and the pervasive view that life is better in the West.” He also argued that foreign groups of Estonians, Latvians, and other ethnicities living outside the USSR held a “considerable” influence on Soviet society.
Above: Soviet teenagers expressing their individuality and rejection of the “mainstream” Soviet culture throughout the 1970s and early 80s.
Despite the overall trend of stagnation gripping the Soviet economy at this time, from 1968 - 1973, the Soviet GDP per capita did increase. Indeed, over the eleven years of Yuri Andropov’s rule, average income per head in the USSR (as expressed in equivalent US dollars) increased by 50%. In general, Soviet citizens’ standard of living rose. Consumption rose 70%. Most of this improvement has been credited to the brief spurts of reform that Andropov pursued early in his tenure. By the late 70s, the “lived economy” of the USSR seemed to hit another plateau. Because the stalling economy itself required significant changes to kick-start it, the central government spent the latter half of the decade working more on housing, social assistance, and other quality of life improvements for the Soviet people. This led to an increase (albeit a small one) in public support for the regime.
One ray of hope for the future of the Soviet economy lay in its technological development. At the start of Andropov’s rule, most factories were still using machine tools developed in the 1930s. Vacuum tube electronics were the order of the day for most Soviets (even in high government offices) until the mid 1970s, when they could finally be replaced by more advanced models, using transistors. Soviet manufacturing was still incredibly inefficient, often requiring two to three times the number of workers to complete the same work as a Western European, Japanese, or American factory. But this issue too could be alleviated, if not solved, by beginning to slowly automate menial tasks and utilize computers to assist in logistical and strategic planning. Though it would be many years yet before this could take place, or for “advanced” personal computers to be widely available to the Soviet masses, the very first harbingers of the Information Age in the USSR were visible as early as 1979.
The Andropov era saw material improvements for the Soviet citizen, but the Politburo received little to no credit for this; the average Soviet citizen took for granted the material improvements of the 1970s, including the cheap provision of consumer goods, food, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health care, and transport. The average citizen associated Andropov's rule more with its limitations than with its actual progress: as a result, Andropov earned neither affection nor respect. Most Soviet citizens had no power to change the existing system, so most of them tried to make the best of a bad situation.
Rates of alcoholism, mental illness, divorce, and suicide rose inexorably during the Andropov era. These trends only worsened under the subsequent rule of the hardliners. Among ethnic Russians, the divorce rate by the late 1970s was alarmingly high, and 1 in 4 adults lived alone. Women experienced particular challenges as they performed the majority of the shopping, which could involve arduous waiting in line for hours, only to finally be turned away or given some of what they wanted when their turn arrived. By 1982, birth rates had nearly flatlined; Muslims in the Central Asian republics were the only group in the USSR with above-replacement fertility during this era.
Above: A female construction worker in the Soviet Union, circa 1975 (left); A May Day parade held in Moscow in 1980, note the portrait of First Secretary Mikhail Suslov being hoisted by the marchers (right).
While investments in consumer goods remained below projections, expansion in output helped contribute to improvements in standard of living. Whereas only about 1 in 3 Russians owned a refrigerator at the start of Andropov’s rule, by the mid 1980s, that figure would rise to more than 85%. Likewise, ownership of color television sets rose from 51% in 1970 to 75% by 1982.
On the other hand, despite these improvements, the Andropov and subsequent New Troika eras also saw deterioration in civil services. Infrastructure crumbled. Disease spread like wildfire due to a public healthcare system that was rapidly decaying. By First World standards, living space for the average Soviet citizen remained quite small. 144 square feet was said to be the average in 1980. Simultaneously, thousands upon thousands of Moscow inhabitants were homeless, most of them living in shacks, doorways, and parked trams. The authorities often conducted sweeps of cinemas, restaurants, and saunas to locate people slacking off from work, particularly during major events like the 1980 Summer Olympics that attracted large numbers of foreign visitors.
Nutrition ceased to improve in the late 1970s, with rationing of staple food-products returning to locales across the country. Environmental damage and pollution also became a growing problem due to the Soviet government's policy of “development at all costs”. Some parts of the country, such as the Kazakh SSR, suffered particularly badly with their use as testing grounds for nuclear weapons. While Soviet citizens in 1962 had enjoyed higher average life-expectancy than people in the United States, by 1982 it had fallen by nearly five years. Just as many in America on the eve of the 1980 election felt that their country was in decline, so too was that sentiment held about the USSR on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain.
All of these effects were not felt uniformly across the board, however.
By the time Suslov, Ustinov, and Gromyko came to power in 1979, blue-collar workers, on average, earned higher wages than professional workers in the USSR. For instance, the average salary of a bus driver in Moscow was higher than that of a secondary school teacher. In general, real wages increased across the board from 1968 to 1979.
For hard-working citizens, the state did provide an “incentives system” of daily recreation and annual holidays, often to beach resorts in Crimea and Georgia. Workers who fulfilled their monthly production quota set by the Soviet government were honored by placing their respective names on the factory's “Roll of Honor”. The state awarded badges for all manner of public services, and war veterans were allowed to go to the head of shop queues. All members of the USSR Academy of Sciences were given a special badge and their own chauffeur-driven car. These awards, perks and privileges made it easier for some to find decent job placements, and to feel a sense of pride in their accomplishments.
In spite of these incentives, the agricultural sector continued to perform poorly. By Andropov's final year food shortages were reaching disturbing levels of frequency. Some of this was due to chronic unemployment in the sector, which was fueled by urbanization. Particularly embarrassing to the regime was the fact that even bread had become rationed, one commodity that they always prided themselves on being widely available. One reason for this was excessive consumer demand as food prices remained artificially low (due to price controls) while incomes had trebled over the preceding twenty years. Despite the miserable failure of collective farming, the Soviet government remained committed to reducing imports of foodstuffs from the West, even though they cost less than domestic production – not only for reasons of national pride, but out of fear of becoming dependent on capitalist countries for basic necessities. Thus, the American grain embargo placed on the Soviets in 1980 by the Udall administration was actually welcomed by the hardliners. It seemed to confirm their worst suspicions about commodity trading with the West.
Above: A Stalin-era propaganda poster, hyping up the then-novel idea of the “Kolkhoz”, a collective farm (left); Lunch in “Kommunar” collective farm (kolkhoz), Ussuriysky region, 1970s (right).
Overall, one could say that women had made marked social progress since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. By the Andropov era, they comprised a considerable number of sole breadwinners in the USSR. Some professions (such as those in the medical field) had a considerable female workforce, although most of the best jobs (including academics, the state bureaucracy, and the military) remained almost exclusively the domain of men. Though the state was quick to point out and highlight the achievements of women like Minister of Space Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space and first to walk on the Moon, this was largely a propaganda ploy. Tereshkova was the exception that proved the rule.
Finally, the social ladder in the Soviet Union became quite rigid by 1980. During the Stalin era of the 30s and 40s, common people could expect promotion to a professional or white-collar job if they studied and obeyed the state authorities. By 1980, this was largely no longer the case. Those who managed to find themselves in attractive positions clung on to them for as long as humanly possible. Incompetence was not seen as a valid reason to dismiss someone. Thus, hard workers from below often had little hope of advancement, unless their superior was transferred or dropped dead. This too contributed to the feeling of malaise and fatalism often expressed by the average Soviet citizen.
Yuri Andropov’s tenure did see rapid development in some areas of Soviet life, and restored the USSR’s status as a military juggernaut on the world stage. But if the nation was to maintain its superpower status, then it was clear that major, systemic reforms were not only necessary, but urgently so. The New Troika of Suslov, Ustinov, and Gromyko were never going to authorize such changes.
But there was hope for the Union yet.
Andropov’s young protege, 49-year old Mikhail Gorbachev, continued to bide his time, forging alliances on the Politburo, and quietly building consensus on the need for reform. His time would come, though not for a few more years, and not before the New Troika and their initial successor nearly brought the world once more to the absolute brink of nuclear Armageddon.
Above: Mikhail Gorbachev (left) and Grigory Romanov (right); the two great rivals of their generation in Soviet politics. Each sought to succeed the New Troika and lead the Soviet Union into a more prosperous future.
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: A Trip to (Some) of Africa
