this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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Yeah things were "better" under the Soviet Union.
Not the biggest fan of the USSR - but compared to the capitalism that followed, yeah, they were
Compared to other capitalist countries it was worse during Soviet times too. Average US life expectancy at the USSRs peak in 1986 was approx. 75 years old, whereas in the USSR the average is 5 years less... Quite substantial.
"A previously feudal society didn't fully catch up to the biggest capitalist superpower! That means communism doesn't work!"
Not what I said.
Also, where the Soviet Union fairly quickly seemed to plateau off with their life expectancy, the PRC managed to much more continuously trend upwards. Not necessarily faster than the SU at first (which makes sense), but they did manage to keep the momentum whereas the SU did not.
I mean, you did compare the US with the USSR, which is misguided because of what I highlighted. I agree the USSR made many mistakes we must learn from.
Your daily reminder that western liberals don't think non western countries are real.
Japan's life expectancy was even higher than most of those in the west.
Sure, plenty of developing capitalist nations had barely caught up at that point (e.g. South Korea). But they did manage to keep a positive trend going, whereas the SU had levelled off and wasn't improving anymore.
That the only developing countries you can think of are Japan and SK very much demonstrates my point.
You said "non-western". I named two. If you want to shift goalposts further that's fine but don't act like you're being all smart or anything.
Even for other developing countries the overall trend is clear: continuous rise in life expectancy, leveling off as it gets closer to 80. The SU plateaud just below 70 and remained there until its fall (after which it rose again). The vast majority of developing nations do not show this pattern of levelling off early.
Take Iran, or the Philippines, or even Vietnam (bar the civil war). All of them didn't level off like the Soviets did. Same thing in other socialist countries like Cuba and the PRC.
It indicates a fairly severe mismanagement that the Soviet Union is one of the very, very few countries that managed to keep their life expectancy at 67-68 for over 20 years, when other countries kept rising and a good number had already surpassed them. Only after the year 2000 did they manage a sustained growth in life expectancy, rising to 73 after dropping to 64 (likely levelling off a little now due to the war in Ukraine).
The argument was that under the Soviet Union life was better. That may have been true when compared directly to the very tumultuous fall that directly followed. But the reality is that growth of life expectancy had completely stagnated in Soviet Union (it was even declining very slightly). It only started rising again after Russia had mostly stabilised post-fall, and is now higher than it's ever been.
Imagine trying to paint "correctly pointing out that Japan and SK are not remotely representative of the developing world in general" as "moving the goal post". My god, it is so obvious you people just parrot these phrases after seeing them on Reddit and thinking that they're magic incantations that make you "win" an argument.
That's not how you phrased your comment. Try being clearer in your phrasing.
Also try responding to the rest of the contents of my reply instead of deflecting by saying "reddit dumb" and thinking that's winning an argument. I very clearly demonstrated that a wide variety of developing nations did not show the same stagnation in life expectancy that the SU did.
Why would I bother with the rest of the comment when you're already descending into bad faith reddit debatelord bullshit in the first paragraph?
No, you didn't. You cherry picked a single digit number of outliers.
Feel free to name some counterexamples then. Otherwise, don't bother commenting if you have nothing of substance to contribute.
Feel free to look at the vast majority of African countries for a start
Very specific.
I've looked at some examples for you. Countries like Chad, Mali, Gambia and Gabon show a continuous rise in life expectancy, just like other developing countries do.
Then there's countries hit by the fall of the Soviets, likely due to a dependence on Soviet trade or support, like Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Lesotho, though these nations do not show the same stagnation that the Soviets showed before 1980.
The only example I could find of a stagnated life expectancy in the same period as the Soviets pre-fall (so 1960-1980) was Rwanda. But that's likely due to the Hutu revolution in 1959 and the years of Tutsi repression that followed.
I'm sure there may be a handful of other African nations with a similar pattern, but it's certainly not true that the vast majority of them showed this pattern of stagnation that the Soviets had. Africa taken as a whole also doesn't show it, it is however dented after 1980 due to the fall of the Soviets. In fact, Rwanda being the counterexample here is kinda a bad look for the Soviets, given the internal conflict that caused the stagnation.
Imagine listing a bunch of countries with much lower life expectancies than the USSR and thinking that's a point against it
I've been talking about the stagnation in the rise of life expectancy between 1960 and 1980. It only started rising again around 2000, after the fall of the Union. Try to keep up.
Developing countries obviously had a lower life expectancy, but one that was still on the rise, indicating improving living conditions. Same goes capitalist nations and many of the more developed nations had passed the SU by a fairly wide margin.
The SU, as one of the very few nations in the world, managed to completely stagnate, which indicates that living conditions weren't improving, and likely worsening somewhat (as advancements in medicine normally leads to a longer average lifespan).
By the way, you yourself steered towards comparing the Soviet Union with developing nations in Africa, as any other comparison was somehow unfair to you. I compared them with western nations, nations in Asia and now random countries in Africa to play along with your demands. And now that you can't shift further, you throw in a "Imagine thinking" reddit-like response.
How about you either address the flatlined life expectancy during these 20 years directly then, skip the comparisons. Why didn't it improve? Or just come up with a country that is a fair comparison to you. Because if you're not going to seriously engage and just throw out silly soundbites then there's no point to this.
So, in short, you were using an irrelevant metric to try and force conclusion.
Funny because you were the one who tried to sneakily switch the metric away from live expectancy when you realized that USSRs was much higher than most developing countries
No, life expectancy was used to show that life was better in Russia under the Soviet Union. Which is only true if you look at the direct chaos after the fall, but the comparison is much, much less rosy when you zoom out a little and realise that under modern Russia living standards actually increased, whereas they stagnated under the Soviet Union.
I argued that the Soviets were already behind most of the world, and that their stagnation was indicative of worsening living standards. Developing countries did not show such stagnation unless there was either severe civil strife or external factors (like the fall of the Soviets) impacting them.
And sorry for saying this, but I think it's kind of a given that as the world's number two superpower, it's kinda expected that their life expectancy is higher than developing countries in Africa. I don't see how that's this supposed slam dunk you're pretending it is. "Yeah life in the Soviet Union was better than in Chad", no shit Sherlock. But life in Chad is actively improving, which the Soviets failed to do. It's an enormous nation filled with natural resources, the Soviets not improving living standards in such conditions is almost an achievement.