Did 50s/60s Soviet culture have a similar nuclear war fear culture as the US?

[DarthJF]

Symbol for what?

In Nordic countries swastika was used as a symbol of good luck. It was used in Viking runes along with medieval and later art.

Example:

Finnish Air Force started using swastika in 1918 after being donated planes by one Swedish nobleman who used swastika as his personal symbol and had marked the planes with it.

 

[Droom]

Symbol for what?

Good fortune and well being, well at least that's what the various Indian religions thought.

 

[Eusebio]

To be fair, I don't think the US had quite the same "nuclear war fear culture" as Europe did. Threads, the CND, 99 Luftballons etc.. In the event of a hot war Germany e.g. would have been turned into a crater.

 

[wingo]

Well Europe was first on the frontline, but never underestimate the power of american national paranoia

 

[JodelDiplom]

To be fair, I don't think the US had quite the same "nuclear war fear culture" as Europe did. Threads, the CND, 99 Luftballons etc.. In the event of a hot war Germany e.g. would have been turned into a crater.

Yeah it was the big scary thing that we consciously chose not to prepare for and instead did all that was possible to avoid it.

West Germany had a woefully inadequate civil defence system - cities of a million like Hamburg had only shelters for maybe 20,000 people, and there were only laughably small stocks of foodstuffs or materials stored for the event of a nuclear war, when compared to, say, Switzerland or Britain. Or the USA. East Germany was similar, no kind of preparations and no planning for having at least a part of the population survive a nuclear war.

 

[RELee]

Funny. I don't remember growing up in fear of the Soviet Union or SNDS (Sudden Nuclear Death Syndrome). Oh, we had duck and cover exercises and TV commercials and civil defense test alerts and scifi movies showing the horrible consequences of nuclear power/war; but nobody I knew paid any attention.

I think the only difference between the Cold War powers is that one had an over-achieving entertainment system.

 

[DarthJF]

RELee, you look weird!

 

[RELee]

RELee, you look weird!

Been drinking more Vinegar, Joe.

Get it? Huh? Get it?

 

[Droom]

I think the only difference between the Cold War powers is that one had an over-achieving entertainment system.

Bull. Shit.

The Soviets had fantastic films and comedies!
Unless by over-achieving you mean something else?

 

[Ming]

I think the nuclear war fear in the US is more an artifact of the 80s than the early cold war.
The Day After was shocking for its time.

Sure before that we had On The Beach, Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove, and Planet of the Apes but I gather as far as mindshare went it was similar to climate change these days. Some people took it very seriously but a lot of people just yawned.

My mom told me that growing up she used to have horrible nightmares about Soldiers invading her hometown.

Her fears were more of general war paranoia and not nuclear destruction.

 

[RELee]

 

[Droom]

View attachment 182745

No... NO!!! EVERYTHING I HAVE KNOWN IS A LIE!!! A LIE!!!

 

[Konair0s]

Bull. Shit.

The Soviets had fantastic films and comedies!
Unless by over-achieving you mean something else?

There were a lot of good movies, but the Soviet entertainment sector was a dwarf compared to the American one nonetheless.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

I think the nuclear war fear in the US is more an artifact of the 80s than the early cold war.
The Day After was shocking for its time.

Sure before that we had On The Beach, Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove, and Planet of the Apes but I gather as far as mindshare went it was similar to climate change these days. Some people took it very seriously but a lot of people just yawned.

My mom told me that growing up she used to have horrible nightmares about Soldiers invading her hometown.

Her fears were more of general war paranoia and not nuclear destruction.

That's probably fair as far as the US goes. But did the USSR have even that level of cultural awareness? By 1968 you had all the films you mentioned plus the likes of Jefferson Airplane belting out this from a New York roof top:

Everything someday will be gone except silence.
The earth will be quiet again.
Seas from clouds will wash off the ashes of violence
Left as the memory of men.
There will be no survivors, my friend.

Suddenly everyone will look surprised,
Stars spinning wheels in the skies,
Sun is scrambled in their eyes
And circles like a vulture.

It wasn't mainstream culture, but it was still highly visible. I'm not sure how possible that would be in the Soviet Union, unless it was part of the "cultural black market" for lack of better words.

 

[demanvanwezel]

To be fair, I don't think the US had quite the same "nuclear war fear culture" as Europe did. Threads, the CND, 99 Luftballons etc.. In the event of a hot war Germany e.g. would have been turned into a crater.

when I was just born the wall came down (not saying that that had anything to do with it but ...), apparantly everyone including my parents were scrambling to the store to pack up on emergency supplies because everybody thought that a war was comming

 

[DarthJF]

when I was just born the wall came down (not saying that that had anything to do with it but ...), apparantly everyone including my parents were scrambling to the store to pack up on emergency supplies because everybody thought that a war was comming

I remember watching a tv-documentary in the 90s about how Russia could accidentally start nuclear war any moment by mistaking a weather balloon or flock of birds for American nuclear missile heading towards them.

 

[RELee]

No... NO!!! EVERYTHING I HAVE KNOWN IS A LIE!!! A LIE!!!

 

[CruelDwarf]

It wasn't mainstream culture, but it was still highly visible. I'm not sure how possible that would be in the Soviet Union, unless it was part of the "cultural black market" for lack of better words.

Well, of course it wasn't a mainstream culture in USSR as officially endorsed stance was predominantly optimistic but folklore existed anyway. I would try to translate one of the songs on the subject. The text is usually sung on the motive of the song from popular Soviet children cartoon in rather cheerful voice. There are quite a variety of different verses for this song, so I used only some of them:

Missiles fly away slowly
And you will never see them again
Even if we feel sorry for the America
The China would still suffer the same.

Diphosgene covers the ground
Crawling through the airfilters
Everybody believe in the better future
But nuclear charge spins towards the ground.

Maybe we wronged somebody in wain
By dropping a couple of megatons
But look at how cheerfully boiling the earth
In the remains of Washington.

Nuclear charge spins towards the ground
It only few meters away
Don't bother to dig into the ground
You cannot escape the blast wave.

A swift-winged MiG goes east
In Louvre flames are spreading fast
The Eiffel Towers suffers a twist
As it uprooted by nuclear blast

Chlorpicrine covers the ground
Eating away your eyes and ears
Everybody believe in the better future
But some do not have gas masks.

A hydrogen sun burns away the grass
Kangaroos mutate into dogs
Aborigenes now have their rights
With the red banner over Canberra

Dibenzoxsazipine covers the ground
Crawling through the airfilters
Everybody believe in the better future
But nuclear charge spins towards the ground...

 

[JodelDiplom]

Well, of course it wasn't a mainstream culture in USSR as officially endorsed stance was predominantly optimistic but folklore existed anyway. I would try to translate one of the songs on the subject. The text is usually sung on the motive of the song from popular Soviet children cartoon in rather cheerful voice. There are quite a variety of different verses for this song, so I used only some of them:

Geez talk about upbeat music Our own doomsday music isn't nearly as focused on chemical nightmare toxins though.

How do you sing stanzas with words like "Dibenzoxsazipine"?? Is Russian language so lyrical it can turn even the names of toxic gases into verse? (Or is it the other way around, adding the names of toxins into Russian songs makes them more lyrical?? )

 

[CruelDwarf]

How do you sing stanzas with words like "Dibenzoxsazipine"?? Is Russian language so lyrical it can turn even the names of toxic gases into verse? (Or is it the other way around, adding the names of toxins into Russian songs makes them more lyrical?? )

The verse with Dibenzoxszipine is from 2:25 mark. But I think you can make it work in any language as it mostly about arranging rhythm and rhyme inside the verse. It is just my language skills aren't not even close to be passable for adequate rhyming in English.

Geez talk about upbeat music Our own doomsday music isn't nearly as focused on chemical nightmare toxins though.

Well, Soviets schools have Civil defense lessons in which children were able to learn the names for such stuff.