The impact of the Cold War on the social and economic conditions of inhabitants in the USSR and the USA has been a hot topic of debate among critics. It is often argued that, because the Cold War referred more to political tensions between these two entities as opposed to a hot war, it had a minor impact on the livelihood of people in both countries. However, I disagree. In this essay, I will argue that social discord and fear projected through propaganda, draconian laws imposed by Stalin, as well as the economic sanctions on businesses in the USSR at the height of the Cold War, all contributed to making a severe impact on the lives of those caught up in the conflict.
One of the consequences of the Cold War for the lives of USSR civilians was the discord in the Soviet society. It resulted from the Soviet propaganda, according to which, the West was a concentration of reactionary bourgeois forces; the U.S. was stated to aim for world domination, and the Great Britain was stated to be the junior partner of America. On the other hand, the USSR was supposedly the bastion of progress. Interestingly, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was pictured as the center of both patriotism and internationalism, and these two traits were widely propagated simultaneously; furthermore, the cosmopolitism, the ideology of world citizenship, was branded as a “bourgeois” phenomenon and battled. It was proclaimed that the patriots of the Soviet Union should watch out for “retarded elements,” individuals who favored the other political camp and were supposedly the remnants of the pre-Soviet Tsarist autocracy. In particular, the members of the intelligentsia were proclaimed as especially susceptible to the Western propaganda, and simple Soviet citizens were supposed to watch out for any signs of corruption. Thus, on the one hand, people were taught to blindly obey the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and to practically worship its leaders (Joseph Stalin, then, after his death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev). On the other hand, intimidated by the “image of the enemy,” people were supposed to battle “anti-Soviet elements” among their own, and especially among the more educated members of the population. Therefore, considerable social discord was sown by this propaganda.
Another problem was related to the strict legal policies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; many of the oppressive legal acts which emerged during that period were imposed by J. Stalin. It should be noted, however, that some of the repressions that were carried out were not publically announced; there were numerous decrees of Stalin, but the repressions might not always have been done strictly according to particular laws. In particular, Stalin carried out significant repressions against the representatives of science and art; such representatives of the Soviet culture as Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova were repressed due to their activity as writers. The science also was purged: for instance, the Soviet genetics was proclaimed to be the result of the Western propaganda and destroyed. There were considerable legal limitations pertaining to individual freedoms and liberties of the Soviet citizens; for instance, the dwellers of villages were not permitted to leave the village on their own; one of the very few ways to do so legally was to enlist for one of the numerous construction sites. Another problem was related to people who achieved disabilities during the Second World War. These people often criticized the circumstances that existed in the country. They were considered a threat to the official Soviet propaganda. As a result of repressions, many of them quickly disappeared from the streets of the Soviet Union. Therefore, both the laws of the USSR and numerous decrees of Stalin were aimed at repressing the population of the country.
Finally, the economic sanctions on both individuals and organizations in the USSR were also significant, and led to the further impoverishment of the population. In particular, due to the Cold War, the country engaged in the arms race; for this purpose, it was necessary to rapidly develop the heavy industry and the weapon industry of the Soviet Union. As a result, organizations related to the light industry, in particular, those engaged in food production, were deemed secondary and suffered from severe economic sanctions and disadvantages. It should be noted that there were no private businesses in the USSR; all the organizations either belonged to the state, or were collectively owned. People were forced to work in kolkhozes (collective farms); they were not paid for this work, and all the harvests were, in fact, given to the state. The workers of kolkhozes were practically slaves, for they did not receive their passports, and, consequently, could not leave the place they lived in, as was mentioned earlier. These workers only tried to complete the minimum numbers of workdays in kolkhozes, for if they did not that, they would be deprived of their own land, which, in fact, allowed them to exist. However, they also had to pay considerable taxes in kind for their own land and cattle; in fact, sometimes they were forced to destroy their gardens and kill their animals because the amount of products received from these were lower than what was demanded to be paid as taxes. Under Khrushchev, many kolkhozes were forced to grow corn (maize); his reforms also had a negative impact on the farms. For instance, Khrushchev intended to abolish machine-tractor stations (MTS), which served both kolkhozes and sovkhozes (state farms) by supplying them with large machines; he significantly reduced their number, and, consequently, the farms were forced to purchase their own machinery at high prices.
Therefore, in spite of what is often claimed by critics, the Cold War did have an effect on the people of the Soviet Union. In the social sphere, it resulted in considerable social discords among the people of the USSR; they were taught to blindly obey the Communist party of the Soviet Union and seek out its enemies. In the legal sphere, many laws and decrees of the party’s leaders were repressive; the representatives of science and culture were purged, and simple citizens also suffered, which was done to prevent the expansion of the Western culture. In the industry, members of organizations such as kolkhozes were forced to work and did not receive any wages. The policy of the party, in part, resulted from the considerations dictated by the Cold War.