Socialism and the Stockholm Syndrome. An Eyewitness Account.
By: Bodybuilding To Mindbuilding
Tags: Socialism, Liberalism, Soviet Union, History, Russia

As millions of Americans seem more than ever in tune with socialism (whatever name they use to cover it up) and want to bring it about, I find myself walking down memory lane. I lived it (in the USSR). I loved it. But I wouldn’t recommend it to a friend. Please read to the end to find out why.

I had nothing but happy memories of growing up in the Soviet Union, but luckily I didn’t know any better.

What Did I Love about Socialism?

What’s not to love about my country that took care of me from cradle to grave? Well, I caught only the cradle part followed by daycare, elementary school, and parts of my middle school experience. However, my parents and grandparents lived through much more of socialism than I did. So, I got a pretty good idea of what socialism felt like beyond my early teenage years.

Free housing. The local government provided my parents, still in their mid-twenties, with a small room in a communal apartment where I made some of the happiest memories. Mom and Dad just had to pay for utilities, but the cost was almost nominal. One kitchen, one bathtub, and one toilette to share with four-five other families for several years would shock many Americans, but if this were your first time to enjoy any privacy as a young married couple, you’d appreciate the gift of free and guaranteed housing. No one knew what eviction meant back then.

Our room was on the second floor (second window from the right). Here in 1986, my dad introduced me to the joy of the World Cup, which took place in Mexico that year. Photo by author in 2005.

Free housing upgrade. Life got only better for my parents who worked as young professionals, my dad as an engineer and my mom as a teacher. In their early thirties, they received a three-bedroom apartment with a separate kitchen and a separate bathroom. Of course, it was free of charge again. The square footage was much smaller compared to a three-bedroom apartment in the States, but it was our own apartment! I still remember the scent of fresh paint, tiles, wood, and cement as we renovated our home in a typical five-story house everyone called khrushchevka (хрущёвка). Finally, my parents exchanged it for another apartment next to a pine forest.

Summer 2005. Our new home in the nine-story building (to the left). The pine forest is farther to the left.

Free education. All this time, my parents never worried about sending me to daycare and school. Both were literally a stone’s throw away from us. The daycare was just across the playground in front of our house (with our communal apartment), and the school was just across the street on the other side of our house. As you can already guess, school was completely free too, including all my textbooks.

Free healthcare. I regularly visited my doctor and got all my shots taken. When I was too sick to go to the doctor’s office, we could have called an emergency doctor, if anyone around had had a phone to call, to see me at our home. By the way, my grandparents used to go to various convalescence homes in order to prevent health problems from arising. You know, prevention was better than therapy when capitalism was not in the equation. Just like housing and school, healthcare was absolutely free for all as well.

Summer 2005. My school. Photo by author.

Guaranteed employment. No one could fully understand the meaning of unemployment. Shortage of hands — yes, but hordes of depressed people looking for work — never. Pay didn’t vary much from profession to profession, but even if it did, there wasn’t much variety to choose from in stores, unless you knew someone on the black market. My mom did and always dressed well and fashionably.

Early retirement. I still remember my grandma’s retirement party. She was only fifty-five. Having worked at a sawmill for decades, she looked forward to a decent pension, lots of free time, and an option to work to supplement her income. She chose not to supplement her income though and spent most of her time gardening in the country.

Free time. My dad took me to all kinds of clubs (drawing, painting, aeronautics, chess, music, engineering) and sports (track and field, hockey, soccer) to see which ones I’d like to join. When American parents wonder whether they can pay a piano teacher or a math tutor $20 an hour (not to mention $50 or $100), I joined any of the activities for free. My mom had enough free time to spend with me. All my grandparents had obviously free time too.

My dad’s class around the time Gagarin became the first man to fly in space in 1961. At the bottom of the calligraphy poster (right), you can read the words “Glory to our free fatherland!”

Why Wouldn’t I Recommend Socialism to a Friend?

We had a great life. We really did, but we didn’t know any better. Getting on a plane to fly to another country happened only to highest-ranking party bosses. Mass media (TV and print) were heavily censored. Whatever we heard on the news was official. Whatever Voice of America illegally broadcast into the USSR was the enemy’s disinformation (kind of like today’s American mainstream media, Facebook, YouTube against Breitbart and Newsmax.)

We had almost no clue about the outside world and kept living our happy and minimalist lives carefully guarded (or controlled) by our government. Looking back, we might have been hostages and ended up loving our masters who provided us with stability, safety, and all the perks mentioned above — obviously in exchange for freedom. We had no freedom to choose between organic and inorganic food. It was all organic. No freedom to choose between good education and bad. It was all high quality. In short, no freedom to try bad things or to taste freedom in the first place to make up our own minds.

As my former Soviet compatriots and I continue feeling nostalgic for the good old days of the Soviet Union, I wonder if we still suffer from the Stockholm syndrome, without knowing it. Our Soviet nanny state took very good care of us but left us no choice to refuse its care or try something else — living in another country, for example. Good parents do that for (or to) their children, and, like children who have grown up, we miss our smothering parents and remember only the best parts.

My grandparents with medals for their dedicated work in the name of socialism in the 1970's

By the way, it was a similar Stockholm syndrome that made Moses wander in the desert with his fellow-Hebrews for forty years until the last person with the slave mentality died and made the rest of the now-free Hebrews ready to enter the Promised Land. Many old Hebrews wanted to abort their journey to liberty and return to Egypt, the land of safety. Of course, without liberty, the end of safety was only a matter of time.

As many states in America continue to lay waste to their small businesses, poverty will force once-free people to apply for handouts from the government. The government will happily oblige — in exchange for people’s guaranteed dependence on it.

It may feel like benevolent socialism when everyone seems equal, but in reality the elite (whoever has forced Americans into equal poverty) will stay in charge. The Animal Farm has captured it pretty well. Going a little deeper, such socialism resembles feudalism when they ‘protect’ us and we feed them. Trading liberty for the illusion of safety is tantalizing but not worth it.

Summer 2006. A rainbow over my hometown as a bullet-proof reminder of who actually guarantees our safety. Photo by author.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article and choosing liberty.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention that it had cost my country tens of millions of lives to build the socialist state we had, but that’s another story.

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