Hard Facts about Communism/USSR.

Other Wars Cold War
#121

I can’t answer for Oxford, but being as I went to Cambridge I’ll give it a stab.

Tuition fees when I went were approximately £1,000/year for all subjects, and my living expenses were approximately £3000/year. There are very cheap loans available to all to cover this.
Tuition fees are increasing to up to £3,000/year (see link), but this is not paid for up front but as a low interest loan payable once you start earning above a certain level (IIRC it’s something like 5% of any income above £19,000/year).

I figure that four years at Cambridge cost me something like £18,000. My starting salary was £21,000 which is probably a bit below average (engineers in the UK aren’t very well paid compared to some other professions).
It should also be noted that to date (I left 3 years ago) I’ve only paid back about £3,000 of the cost of university - at the current rate I’ll be nearly 60 by the time I finish paying for it!

#122

Why .
Lets compare the level of average medical service in the western hospitals for poor with the Soviets ones.During for instance 1970-yy

Compare military political commisars in the USSR with those in the West. It can’t be done, because there weren’t any in the West.

Again why.
Do not forget that the SS-officers were widelly used during the WW2 in the Western Europe to “improve” the moral of troops:)
And institute of political comisars were liqudated in the Soviet Army right after the war.

#123

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9406EFD81239F932A25753C1A967948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all

Do not forget that the SS-officers were widelly used during the WW2 in the Western Europe to “improve” the moral of troops:)

And the equivalent in the US and British armies is … ?

And institute of political comisars were liqudated in the Soviet Army right after the war.

It’s that readiness to liquidate people that worries me.

#124

Very well
So you have payed for 3-years studien cost roughtly equal for your year salary, right?
But in the USSR the hight eduction was free.
My school friends brother has finished the Moscow Aviation institute(one of the best in whole USSR) in the 1992 , emigrated in USA and easy was assumed for work in Boing corporation.
Coz his educational level was very high even according the vestern standards.
And i wish to notice that during the entiring studying he got the grant ( about 50 rubles per month) that was enough for good feeding in institutes dining-room.
So in the USSR the condition for eduction was very good.
Well except the philosophy and political education- that was limited by the Comunist ideology:)

#125

one distinguishing feature of an advanced society has traditionally been a high and rising level of public health. By this criterion, the Soviet Union was rapidly progressing for the first 50 years of its existence. However, recent studies by Western scholars indicate that the quality of Soviet health care has deteriorated dramatically in the past 15 years

Not soviet union but the crisis in Russia- this is a great difference from the Soviet Union.

And the equivalent in the US and British armies is … ?

And why was the equvalent need for the british/us army ?
Was the territory britain or USA occuped by the cruel enemy forces?

It’s that readiness to liquidate people that worries me.

Not people but institute:)
And most of political commissars were simply dismiss or assumed again as the Political officers in the Soviet Army;)( the very importain post btw)

#126

Four years education, not three, but otherwise that’s accurate.

No, it wasn’t - it was paid for out of general taxation. Is it fair that everybody should pay for my education when I’m the main one to benefit from it?
I agree that it is imperative that nobody should be prevented from going through university by the cost, but I’m not keen for the population as a whole to pay for something they don’t benefit from.

Yeah, some of the education under the Soviets was very good indeed - particularly in mathematical subjects (which aero engineering definately is - fiercely so). They’ve slipped a bit since the end of Communism though, largely I suspect because they can’t afford to out-bid western universities for the best lecturers.

Yeah, similar things happened in the UK until quite recently - when my dad went through university it was all paid for. Funnily enough, the current crop of politicians who are increasing the cost to students of higher education are the very ones who benefited most from student grants and free education in the 1960s…

Latterly at least - in the 1930s IIRC even plant genetics research was blighted by political interference!

#127

Absolutely. Why, as recently as 1066 Britain was invaded and occupied by the dastardly French!

Seriously, there are plently of examples from modern history where countries fighting back a deeply unpleasant occupying power didn’t feel the need for political officers. Perhaps the most obvious example are France and Belgium during WW2.

Furthermore, the Soviets kept them on even after they were at peace again, indicating that their reason for being was rather more fundamental than simply enemy occupation.

#128

True - if you going to leave your cauntry after the finishing of institute.
Like the some of dastard jews made in USSR when emigrated in Israel:):wink:
Indeed the society at all benefit it.
Coz the quantity of the high-education students are directly influe to the all aspects of economy.
Of course the Reality was not so good. In practice the children of the communists boss have the much more chances to make a quick carier.( as everywhere in the world)
Anyway this was very progressive and good to get free ANY education that you want for a beginning.

Yeah, some of the education under the Soviets was very good indeed - particularly in mathematical subjects (which aero engineering definately is - fiercely so).

Not just mathemaical , but any natural science was developed in the USSR enough good.
The nuclear physysts, military engeeners were highly professional.

Yeah, similar things happened in the UK until quite recently - when my dad went through university it was all paid for. Funnily enough, the current crop of politicians who are increasing the cost to students of higher education are the very ones who benefited most from student grants and free education in the 1960s…

Sure they need to increase the paid.
Today in Russia they also constantly spread the bus…t about that this is nessesary for the rising the educatiuonal level.
But we see that the level continiously decrease.

#129

Sorry, you misunderstand me. All engineering and physics subjects require a lot of maths, so can be described as “mathematical” subjects.

#130

This would never happend if the Edward the Confessor introduce the Istitute of comissars for the Saxon army.:smiley:

Seriously, there are plently of examples from modern history where countries fighting back a deeply unpleasant occupying power didn’t feel the need for political officers. Perhaps the most obvious example are France and Belgium during WW2.

…oh now i do understand why both France and Belgium lost each battle with GErmans :slight_smile:
They had no the political oficers - but GErmans had it;)

Furthermore, the Soviets kept them on even after they were at peace again, indicating that their reason for being was rather more fundamental than simply enemy occupation.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Комиссар_(в_воинском_подразделении)
The Political commisars were abolished finaly in the 19 october 1942 ( i.e. befor the Stalingrad battle). Since it was called as “Zampolit” - political deputy of chief.
BTW the first political comissras were invented in revolutionary France during the beginning of 19 centure. -this were the people in army who controlled the political loyality of the troops.

#131

Well i/m agree but it rather right to call it as Natural subjects, it is not?

#132

almost forget…
In the American army during War for Independence there were a special officers who care about political loyality of american soldiers.

#133

Nice to see you manage to get an anti-Semitic remark in a discussion about university tuition. That must have taken quite some effort…:roll:

Well done.

#134

There is nothing anti-semitic in my post. Just a bit of sarcasm;)
pdf wrote that the state should not pay for YOUR education.This is fully right in the west.
However it was not so in the USSR.
There if you have got the hight education you should work for this state.
Or please return back the money.
This was quite fair- if you get the free education.The State should profit of you education.
But the jews have the exclusive right to emigrate( although very limited) . They getting the good hight education, and them go to abroad.
So from the point of State - this was wrong coz they simply steal the money that were spend for their education.

#135

No. They were nothing like the Soviet political officers. In fact, I’ve never heard anything of the kind. There were certain pamphlet writers like Thomas Paine, but the American officers of the period were just mimicking the British Army system and mostly led an untrained rabble until Von Steuben instilled Prussian ethic of discipline and tactics…In fact, much of the fighting on the American side was done by state militias, which barely had any qualified officer leadership at all. And if they did have political officers, then the practice was wholly ineffective since the Continental (US) Army won only a few major battles and they were mostly concerned with survival. In fact, there was a period of crisis in which most of the Continental Army could have essentially “quit” since most of the enlistments ended at the same exact time, but Gen. Washington is said to have given one of his greatest addresses. Great leadership need not be “political,” and is indeed superior when it in not expressly political in a partisan sense…

After the Revolution, the US Army was nearly abolished until it was decided that somebody needed to garrison small forts, serve as a training cadre for a larger wartime mobilization, and that military officers were needed so that a class of civil engineers could be trained and kept on a steady US gov’t payroll. This was pretty much the US Army’s mission, when not at war, for most of decades until shortly after WWII

#136

Nah, it’s effortless.

Chevan could do it in his sleep. :smiley:

#137

If the workers’ paradise provided free education to all and sundry, why should anyone have to pay for something that was given away for free just because they took it somewhere the state couldn’t use it?

If that principle was to be applied to all Soviet citizens, they’d have to pay for being in gulags where they couldn’t use their education and then go back to gulags because they couldn’t pay their debt to the state and then build up a bigger debt for their free education and go back to the gulag, ad infinitum

In no time, you’d have gulags full of university educated intellectuals who weren’t using their minds the way the state wanted when it educated them.

Ooops. That’s sort of what happened, isn’t it?

#138

it wasn’t “pay for anything”.
The state was aimed to give the FREE hight education to the peoples- nothing more.

If that principle was to be applied to all Soviet citizens, they’d have to pay for being in gulags where they couldn’t use their education and then go back to gulags because they couldn’t pay their debt to the state and then build up a bigger debt for their free education and go back to the gulag, ad infinitum

Again RS Gulag was dismiss by the Khrushev after the 1953:)

In no time, you’d have gulags full of university educated intellectuals who weren’t using their minds the way the state wanted when it educated them.

Oh mate you even do not guess how effective the “educated intellectuals” were working in a special Gulag prisons for the ingeneers ans scientists during the war:)
DO you read the Solgenitsyn " In the first circle"?
He carefully wrote about one of “Sharashka” where the prisoners-ingineers worked for the different defence projects.
Even the father of Soviet Rocketry - Sergey Korolev working in Sharashka.

#139

There was a National Geographic article back in the early 90s which visited some of the last of the Soviet political prisoners just before the end of communism, and it was alive and well. Okay, so it wasn’t the mammoth slave labour organisation it had been under Stalin, but it was still there.

#140

No, but I read Cancer Ward, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and The Gulag Archipelago a long time ago.

They didn’t give the impression that gulags were engaged primarily in rocket science, voluntary or involuntary.