--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote: Already in the middle of WW2, thinking Soviet soldiers were capable of unbiased judgments about Soviet socialism under Stalin -- its great achievements at great costs -- or so suggests Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale.*
Most Russians of the WWII generation admire Stalin, in my experience.
My impression (and it's only an impression) is that their belief in "socialism" didn't have much to do with quality of life (which was not high), but rather its rather impressive ability to build metros and skyscrapers, which were pretty impressive to a peasant or simple worker in the 1930s, and a quasi-religious belief that the Great Vozhd' would lead them to utopia some day.
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