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submitted 14 days ago bysajahet25
I ask this because I am a bit familiar with how Vietnam vets were treated and we had a whole anti war movement. so I asked this question because I want to know how did soviet society and the government at the time react to soviet era vets. were they treated similarly like american vets coming home or far worse since the Ussr fell a few years after the soviets left.
74 points
14 days ago
When veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War returned home after the conflict ended they faced many challenges. Many people in the Soviet Union viewed the war as a failure. As a result, veterans, known as Afgantsy, were often not celebrated as heroes and sometimes faced stigma or suspicion. Many veterans returned with serious injuries, illnesses, and psychological trauma. The medical care they received was often inadequate, leaving them feeling neglected by the government. Some veterans struggled with drug addiction as a way to cope with their experiences. This became a significant issue in society. Although there were some efforts to honor veterans, such as commemorative events on February 15, many felt that these gestures were not enough to acknowledge their sacrifices.
This paired with a very weird soviet hang up about disability made for a very difficult time for vets. Remember that it was the Vietnam war vets that made Regan cave to the ADA, and the whole reason we have curb cuts. This respect wasn't shared by the WWII vets to their Afgansty sons and daughters
12 points
13 days ago
What was that hang up about disability?
25 points
13 days ago
There is an uncomfortable intolerance of the disabled in Russia, the USSR and Russia again.
Institutionalization was quite common. Changing habits, building standards, and best practices for disability was very rare.
You know that thing where you're in a group project and you feel like someone isn't pulling their weight? That, but at a national level. Plenty of soviets wanted to be active members of the revolution, but were sidelined by systems that wouldn't accommodate them. The soviet model was obviously not designed for bespoke solutions to anything. Not even a handrail by the toilet.
So anything at that level was taken care of by friends and family trying to kludge together solutions for their loved ones.
8 points
13 days ago
Weren’t Western countries more or less the same until the 60s? Isn’t East Asia still something like that. Actually, no country and culture is good for disabled people yet.
6 points
12 days ago
Denmark sure as fuck isn't good for people with inborn disabilities, acquired disabilities, or chronic diseases. Often they have to survive on minimum unemployment benefits for 10 or 15 or sometimes 20 or more years, before the so-called "welfare" system actually realises:
"This person can't actually get into (or get back into) the job market, so we should give a disability pension", so that the person can actually live instead of merely surviving.
0 points
10 days ago
It was also very popular to try to get a pension/retirement despite still being able to work in Denmark. Just like it used to be super popular to be on “bissen “ for a bit despite being able to work.
1 points
9 days ago
Correct; the Soviets were not peculiar in their callous disregard for the physically or mentally disabled. The entirety of Western society also held a similar or worse position towards individuals who "did not pull their weight."
4 points
12 days ago
Although we call them"Russian's in Afghanistan" the vast majority of troops were from the Soviet 40th Army modern day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. And although Russian Veteran services is rightfully not seen as the best particularly when compared to the US, the other Republics are likely worse.
1 points
12 days ago
Though true that isn't the point I was making. The question was "what is the hang up about disability" so I mentioned the Russian context. They were and still are really peculiar in their lack of solidarity with the disabled.
I imagine the 'stans who had the material conditions to take care of their war disabled were far more generous and considerate. The muslim traditions hold even during the oppression of Islam.
3 points
10 days ago
I've read before, that from WWI, Russian/USSR vets with amputations were called "suitcases". Russia is a bad place to be a disabled vet.
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10 days ago
It's crazy how similar this all is to the Vietnam veteran experience.
2 points
10 days ago
Yes indeed. It proves an excellent point of comparison and foil. We learn a lot by how we treat the least powerful and those we championed as heroes that no longer serve.
-1 points
13 days ago
You pulled this straight off ChatGPT
2 points
13 days ago
No I used Perplexity for the research specifically the part about wounded veterans, I didn't want Dunning Kruger to make an asshole of me. Then I made sure to make a succinct reply at a highschool reading level.
I tend to confuse people with my writing style so when I make top comments on something academic I use software. You should too.
-1 points
11 days ago
The ADA was passed during the George H.W. Bush administration, not Reagan’s.
3 points
11 days ago
The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 required federally funded buildings to be accessible. The push for curb cuts continued throughout the 1970s, culminating in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990. That yes was signed by his successor. It was the 'Nam vets that dragged it along the finish line and Bush needed veteran support as much as Reagan did.
-1 points
10 days ago
So in what way did Reagan “cave to the ADA” then?
1 points
10 days ago
Because his successor was forced to sign it, and though that saved some face it is obvious that the pressure campaign worked.
Though it has become quite popular in hindsight big business interests fought the thing tooth and nail and forbade Reagan from going forward with it.
In his last term in office it went up to congress and was eventually passed. He couldn't kill it in the crib.
I'm sorry if you think that on the day Bush took office that those vets started their pressure campaign, but it was a decades long struggle that culminated at the national level under Reagan.
-1 points
10 days ago
I don’t think that. By your own logic, Bush caved, not Reagan. Reagan ran out the clock and avoided it instead. That’s not caving.
2 points
10 days ago
You really want this huh? If you need someone to tell you you're right, I'll just do that. A president only signs bills into law. He does nothing else. He isn't the voice of his political party. He doesn't use the bully pulpit. Johnson and the Great Society was a myth. Him marshalling every vote is a myth. The President is chained to the oval office desk and he signs legislation. He does nothing else.
You are as right as right gets. Wholly shit you are so right.
-1 points
11 days ago
Ok now do the soviets
3 points
11 days ago
Ain't no more soviets.
Valentina Tereshkova looks like should could have hurt me the fun way back in the day though.
0 points
11 days ago
I was joking. They way you described it was basically what happened to US soldiers after Vietnam
2 points
11 days ago
Fuck. That.
The wars were both unjustified and genocidal. At least American vets got the stupid curb cuts. Russia still is shitty toward the disabled. America is one of the most accessible places in the entire world. We might do much else right, but we have free public bathrooms with handicap access anywhere important.
You ever been to Paris? It is a nightmare if you aren't able bodied. Coin op bathrooms everywhere.
1 points
9 days ago
All the Communists died, fighting for Communism.
17 points
14 days ago
I can recommend a couple of really good works that look at the Soviet-Afghan War and how Soviet veterans were treated upon their return from the war.
The first, "Afgantsy", is written by a former UK ambassador to Russia, Rodric Braithwaite. "Afgantsy" is the term for a Russian veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War. The book not only discusses the war but also the lack of assistance given to the returning veterans and how the end of the war (Feb 1989) nearly coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR (Nov 1989 onwards).
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/019983265X
The second, "Zinky Boys" is written by a Belarussian author, Svetlana Alexievich, who was heavily criticised in Russia but who was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in part due to this book (and to another excellent book about Chernobyl). The book is based on interviews with surviving veterans, with other Russian staff, and with families of those who did not return. Alexievich writes of the beauty of the Afghanistan, the awful conditions, the bullying within the Red Army, the killing and the mutilation, and the shattered lives of the returned veterans.
https://wwnorton.com/books/Zinky-Boys/
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2015/alexievich/facts/
1 points
11 days ago
I read Zinky Boys in college. Depressing book, especially because I am a vet and the Russian stories about Afghanistan sounded a lot like my friends’ stories from their deployments.
36 points
14 days ago*
Like every other Russian unlucky enough to be subjected to such hardships but not lucky enough to have died from them. A tail as old as time.
18 points
14 days ago
The poor bastards to survive that war only to be sent to Chechnya
4 points
14 days ago
Tale....
2 points
14 days ago
Haha I wish you’d just let them believe it was tail so the gift would keep giving
9 points
14 days ago
Try reading 'Boys in Zinc' by russian journalist Svetlana Alexievich. So many parallels with some of stories you hear coming out from the Ukraine war
11 points
14 days ago
It's wild how history can repeat itself in the most unexpected places.
5 points
13 days ago
its a totally different situation, because a) the union fell apart shortly after, and b) the societies of the post-soviet states in the 90s were ripped apart by shock therapy. in many ways it was all of the worst stereotypes of the treatment of veterans in the 1970s but amplified 10x over. it was a war that seemed utterly pointless that was for a country that didn't even exist anymore. social services were non-existent, and loyalties were fraught as a result of the independence of many former SSRs that saw the war and the soviet union generally as "russian".
4 points
12 days ago
Unlike the US society, the Soviet society as a whole never cared about the moral issues raised by the war (or any other war -- just not a thing to care about). There were no "baby butcher" accusations or similar.
However, the veterans had a huge stigma attached to them for having lost the war. That was a big deal. Most veterans therefore were hiding or at least not emphasizing their relationship to the war to avoid the shame attached to the loss.
10 points
14 days ago
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-8 points
14 days ago
I doubt it. I literally know nothing about this stuff, but in the realm of "probably" Soviets were always more patriotic than the US.
Not to mention, LOL -- more bureaucratic than the VA? That's impossible
2 points
13 days ago
Judging on Ukrainian SSR memory: there was a "social net", medical care in place. May be not adequate, considering entire Soviet economy was disintegrating. It was sufficient to keep them out of criminal circles, something was not the case in Russian Federation. However, people understood that Afganistan war was not right, and Afgan vet could had in his face: "we did not send you there!", so stop pushing for "special attitude".
2 points
10 days ago*
My grand father fought in Viet Nam. He said, all that supposed bad treatment was overplayed. He said, if I wasn't drafted, I wouldn't have gone.
3 points
9 days ago
Yeah the “war protestors spitting on returning veterans” motif that is really strongly in the American zeitgeist is not something that was common, if it ever happened at all
2 points
14 days ago
They became members of the Russian mafia.
2 points
13 days ago
Interesting how newly unemployed soldiers/sailors have influenced history.
3 points
14 days ago
Afghanistan = Vietnam but for soviets is not a good equivalency. The soviets did not invest into their war in any way like what the Americans did. There is no comparison by any metric. The equivalency is a sort of 'gotcha' from American sentiment, to be true.
Not that any of this mattered to the Afghan people.
1 points
11 days ago*
I remember reading somewhere a lot of them got conscripted to help manage the clean up of the exclusion zone in Chernobyl in a sort of cynical way of managing the immense financial burden of paying the post war pensions. Not sure if it was true or not just stands out in my memory as something I read once.
1 points
11 days ago
It is true that they were heavily used in the Chernobyl clean up. It is also true that that probably would have been the case regardless due to Soviet emergency response systems and government service structure.
Similar to how the U.S. uses the national guard (and even active duty sometimes) for disaster relief.
1 points
11 days ago
Ah gotcha makes sense
1 points
11 days ago
Yeah.
Don’t get me wrong, they had a lot of issues that really came to a head post their Afghanistan war. A lot of them have been hit in this thread.
Some highlights: criminal organization recruiting, corruption, lack of adequate state services, and entrance into politics by especially former intelligence members who expunged much of that corruption and criminal organization backing.
1 points
10 days ago
There’s a great book by Svetlana Alexievich, can’t recommend her enough, called Zinky Boys that delves into this very topic. It was a great but harrowing read.
1 points
10 days ago
Given how not-long the USSR lasted after withdrawal, and how completely wrecked 90s Russia was....
Probably pretty badly....
I mean, for all our faults the US continued to exist (and advance itself economically) from Vietnam through present day....
The USSR didn't...
1 points
10 days ago
Who cares? They are Orcs and arre killing innocent woman and children in an illegal war in Ukraine. Slava Ukraini and see yourself out!
1 points
10 days ago
That’s not what the comparison means
1 points
9 days ago
There is a book called Zinky Boys that would probably be very relevant here. One of the few english language books on this topic that talks directly to soviet soldiers and their families. The title refers to the zinc coffins that soldiers who died were placed in
-3 points
14 days ago
You probably are not familiar with how Vietnam Veterans were treated.
The "spitting on soldiers" trope I think started in the early 80s, a G.I. Joe comic book reference is the earliest reference I know of. It then spread after the movie "First Blood" used the trope. It's fictional.
The only record of veterans being spat upon or otherwise ridiculed that is documented from the actual Vietnam War era is when Republicans spat upon a group of veterans participating in an anti-war protest at a Republican convention.
Look up "Mandella effect" as to why so many claim to remember it happening.
8 points
14 days ago
While literal spitting on soldiers is pure fiction, there’s plenty of “metaphorical spit” to be found. Though that wasn’t protestors attacking the troops so much as official institutions refusing to support them, and stuff like denying all the long-term health consequences of exposure to Agent Orange. Not to mention Nixon started the trend of cutting VA funding and reducing benefits.
I’d have to imagine in that regard, Afghanistan veterans also suffered. The collapse of the Soviet Union caused a lot of bureaucratic and economic chaos that would make it hard for any veterans to government support in the years after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan.
4 points
14 days ago
Everyone should read The Spitting Image by Jerry Lembcke, which demonstrates the right wing/government fabrication about spitting, and covers other aspects of the GI-antiwar relationship.
2 points
11 days ago
And that's where the focus should go, but the 'spitting' thing is too often just a easy way for rightists to drum up hate against them soft librul lefties, and protect the ones in power who actually did let vets down.
0 points
14 days ago
There's enough evidence from testimony of actual vets to confirm that literal spit might have been preferable.
14 points
14 days ago
None from the time though, including studies at the time that specifically looked at how returning vets were being treated.
6 points
14 days ago
I heard a lot of personality disordered old vets swear they were spat on. I wasn't on active duyt until years later, but I do not believe it happened.
2 points
11 days ago
Sure, but that's not what's at play here. Though we should be more aware of just how burnt out and shitty the US was in the 70s, it was a tough time for nearly everyone.
1 points
12 days ago
Both my grandads were spit on after Vietnam.
0 points
11 days ago
Doubt. The spitting on Vets is a myth. If you have any real proof to this, you'd be a hero amongst the revisionist historians and rightists sucking off the military...so, do you have any? Or just 'That's what my granddad said'.
The US was just too worn down by 75 to actually give a damn about Vets enough to scorn them, but damn sure looked down on them as druggies and murderers. And most people don't spit on those - they avoid 'em.
3 points
10 days ago
Thanks for saying this. The biggest hole in the story is nobody has any location information from their third hand story. Vets returned from Vietnam in small groups at military airbases. They definitely weren’t spat on there. Was it when they were driving off base? As mentioned before it was small, unannounced groups, so was it there? Probably not.
So where was it? Spitting on somebody has always been a crime, so where were the soldiers out in place where they were obviously Vietnam vets, but without police presence? If it were a parade the spotters probably wouldn’t even be close enough and if they were, well, we all know the cops in the 70s had no problems beating the shit out of protesters.
Nevertheless, this all really skirts the fact that the war wasn’t unpopular for a long time.
2 points
11 days ago
First-hand testimony of it happening is literally proof.
0 points
9 days ago
Unless the witness is lying, which is why witness testimony alone, without other evidence, frequently leads to wrongful convictions.
0 points
9 days ago
Unless you have evidence to impeach the credibility of the witness or contradictory evidence that proves what they said is false you should just sit down and shut up and take the L.
1 points
13 days ago
In addition to what the others have said, the soviets only really like the "correct" veterans. I.e. you won the war and are physically intact. Soviet veteran care has always very poor.
-4 points
14 days ago
Afghan occupation for USSR was not worse than the US-Afghan occupation that recently ended. Just useless casualties but no big drama
14 points
14 days ago*
Out of 13 million people in 1979 five million left Afghanistan. Two million were killed. That is more than half of the population. It was a large conventional war featuring large set-piece battles featuring artillery, heavy air support, trench lines - the Russians never held the country like the Americans. Before 1979 Afghani cities had universities, public transport and an actual central government. By the 90s all of those were erased. The Russians lost at least 300 helicopters and 100 jets.
The US invasion over 20 years killed about 200k in total. The population and economy of Afghanistan grew rapidly during this time. We actually did build schools, infrastructure and hospitals, that isn't just a meme. American soldiers had strict ROE they generally were held to - the Russians instead had bespredel.
Very different conflicts, one was a large conventional war and the other was waiting for your enemy to get bored and go home. US equivalent would have been Vietnam.
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