Why I almost, kind of, sometimes nearly miss the Soviet Union

Happy May Day! This is not only a day when we celebrate the arrival of spring – it also used to be the day when many countries celebrated workers, labor, and Communism. Not surprisingly, it was an especially big day in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union. Sometimes I almost sort of miss it.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a huge amount of bad stuff about the Soviet Union – the whole threat-of-global-nuclear-destruction thing being a big example. I still get the willies every month when my community tests the warning siren… not the rising-and-falling tone that signals a possible tornado, but the sustained, high-pitched wail that, back in the day, would have told us that the ICBMs were on their way and we had at most 40 minutes or so to say goodbye to our families. Yeah, there was that.

And of course the Soviet Union did terrible things to its own citizens. It operated an oppressive surveillance state that monitored every aspect of their lives. (Oops, we’ve been doing some of that too.) It maintained the “Gulag archipelago,” a network of secret prisons where political undesirables were subjected to brutal interrogations without due process of law. (Oops, we’ve been doing some of that too.) It made war on its neighbors for no better reason than political gain. (Not going there.) Etc.

But strictly from the viewpoint of America and Americans, the Soviet Union did some pretty useful things. For instance:

IT KEPT OUR POLITICAL NUTBALLS IN LINE: No politician would have dared to freeze spending authority or shut down the whole government when the Soviet Union was staring us down across the Iron Curtain. They knew the Big Bear never slept and we couldn’t afford to slip. There was bickering, but in general nobody disputed the idea that the United States needed a strong federal government. If the Army wanted to conduct military exercises in Texas, everyone was glad to see them… heck, Commie Cuba was just off the coast, so we needed to stay sharp!

IT PROVIDED A RALLYING POINT FOR WORLD EXTREMISTS: Today, if you reject the philosophy of global capitalism and want to campaign for something different, you basically sew together a flag, buy a bunch of guns, get a Twitter feed and start going nuts. During the Soviet era, that wasn’t necessary. The Soviet Union, as a credible alternative to the capitalist way of life, provided a big tent under which all kinds of dissidents could meet up and express their disapproval of the American Way. And since the Soviet Union was fundamentally conservative, it pretty much kept its satellites and extremists on a reasonably short leash.

IT RESTRAINED THE GREED OF CAPITALISTS: At the peak of the Soviet era, it looked to a lot of the world as if the Soviet way did at least as good a job of taking care of its citizens as the American way. American capitalists knew it, and they knew they needed to keep our side looking good. They didn’t squeeze unions too hard, they didn’t try to crush the middle class into poverty, and so forth. Dwight Eisenhower slapped top incomes with tax rate of 89 percent and spent the money on research, infrastructure (e.g. The Interstate highway system), education, and technology. The super-rich didn’t especially like the tax tab, but they didn’t complain too loudly, because they knew Ike had to keep us ahead of the Commies.

So, this May Day, I say: Rest in peace, Soviet Union. I sort of, somewhat, appreciate what you did for me. That doesn’t mean I want you back!!! But rest in peace.