About the author: Stefanie Scott is a bachelor in English philology and sociology at California University. She is currently working as one of the best writers at the super affiliate program She also studies feminine psychology.
Socialism is a social and economic system, which was proposed by Marx and Engels and adopted by Stalin in the USSR, Mao in China, and other political leaders of communist countries. In general, socialism means a free association of people who work collectively, the social ownership of means of production, and production of goods for human needs and not for profit. The Soviet Union was the brightest example of a socialist society because there was an apparent distinction between the bureaucratic elite and the working class. For that reason, there were severe ecological problems on the territory of the country. The Marxist ideology is fully concentrated on industry and production and has absolutely no concern for the state of the environment. As a huge socialist country, the Soviet Union has left an enormous environmental legacy for its future citizens. Today, after a separation of more than twenty years ago, numerous countries that were formed on its territory have to endure those ecological consequences. How severely the environment was damaged, and whether the existence of such a powerful country was worth the damage is still a question.
At his time, Frederick Engels pointed out a contradiction between the short-term relationship and exploitative attitude of people to nature and the long-term problems that would inevitably occur. He said that no matter how hard people try to conquer nature, it would never abide by their rules. People who destroy forests in order to clean the land for cultivating or building it with many-storied houses do not think about the legacy they leave to future generations.
The main basis for good health is clean air and green nature surrounding people. However, socialist societies, such as the Soviet Union, have destroyed nature around them at a rapid pace. During the reign of Stalin, the country became filled with various plants, factories, and fields for agricultural work, the creation of which had cost the elimination of forests and other natural resources. The government of the USSR failed to provide its future population with a chance to live in a green environment.
One of the main problems of socialism that caused environmental problems is the refusal to buy products abroad. In the Soviet Union, there was an absolutely competition-free market where all production was being carried out within the country. This means that instead of opening the borders and letting export and import prosper, the country decided to produce all the needed goods on its own. That led to building a huge number of industrial plants in order to supply the citizens with all the required production.
To the rest of the world, the Soviet Union was something mysterious, but very powerful. Communism turned this country into the place where no private ownership, no freedom of speech, and no freedom of choice existed. One can see the main problem of such countries is that its citizens simply do not know that life can be different. For those people, having a washing machine in the 1980s considered a luxury, and owning a personal car was possible only for the elite.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels supported the idea that humans were directly connected with nature. People interact with the environment while the environment makes a response to them. The earths ecosystem is very dynamic and complex. Any interfering in natural processes has feedback and an unpredictable influence on people. Some little changes of nature caused by humans lead to a rapid climate change and not very positive consequences for ecology. There will always be a contradiction between humanity and nature, but the degree of it depends on a peoples understanding of the situation.
In the Soviet Union, people knew only those things they were allowed to know. TV showed only news that was considered acceptable. For that reason, socialist society was ignorant of what was going on outside their country and even more ignorant of what was really going on inside it.
At a certain period of time, studies about the Soviet ecology were held, and researchers started to realize the scope of damage to the environment. As soon as Stalin found out that, he started to claim that science for the sake of science was unacceptable, and that the only one and true science was proletarian. Proletarian science was supposed to justify itself in the interests of the economy. That is why only those scientific researches that served the good of industry and the country as a whole were allowed. Stalin did not care about scientific soundness and environmental concerns. Ideological manipulations of socialism touched all spheres of life, and science was not an exception.
During its existence, the Soviet Union reached the point of ecological ignorance. Even those who wanted to support ecological movements were afraid of being convicted by Stalin. Thus, it becomes obvious the main reason why socialist countries did not pay enough attention to ecology is that they were too much biased by socialist ideology.
Despite the government of the Soviet Union had always claimed that the production of goods in the country had been devoted to peoples needs and not to profit, increased damage to the environment tells the contrary. Free enterprises are most likely incapable to work without bringing harm to ecology. Therefore, they need to be regulated by the government. In the Soviet Union, like in communist China, the government controlled all industries. However, it was not profitable for the government to limit the production in plants and factories to preserve the environment. The more goods were being produced, the stronger the countrys economy became.
The economist Marshall Goldman, who regularly travelled to the USSR, said, The attitude that nature is there to be exploited by man is the very essence of the Soviet production ethic. One of the brightest examples of how the Soviet Union exploited nature is damage caused to the Black Sea. As a result of several five-year plans, gravel, sand, and trees around the beaches were used for building. No value was attached to natural resources since there was no private property. In this case, the existence of private ownerships on the territory of the country could have reduced damage caused to the seashores.
Water pollution was also catastrophic in the USSR. Chemical plants discharged effluent into rivers and thereby killed all the fish in the Oka River, Volga, Ural, etc. The majority of factories threw their waste into the water without even thinking to clean it all. The excuse that all the territory is common and belongs to no one in particular let numerous industries pollute any available body of water they found useful. Animal population in rivers, lakes, seas, and forests also became much poorer during the existence of the USSR.
Seas and rivers across the country became smaller in size due to the usage of their water for irrigation. People who lived in the Soviet Union simply used nature the way they did. The most terrible thing is that they never thought about future generations that would have to live under such bad ecological conditions. Moreover, they were passing that pattern of behavior from generation to generation so that, even nowadays, descendants of the former Soviet Union treat the environment the same way. They think it is normal to drop litter in the street, throw waste products in the water, and destroy forests and parks for making the economy stronger. The people of the Soviet Union set a bad example for the next generations.
Only since 1985, the environment has become a matter of concern. That was the year when the General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev came to power. With his leadership, the attitude to the environment significantly changed. However, despite the rise of mass ecological movements, the ecology was already in a bad state. All that Gorbachev could turn into reality was preserving further damage to forests and bodies of water.
Yet, the environmental legacy of the Soviet Union would not have been so terrible if the Chernobyls nuclear plant catastrophe did not happen in 1986. The explosion led to tragic consequences for the citizens of that region and its environment. The effects were so severe that even today few people are brave enough to live on that radioactive territory. Chernobyls accident is now considered the biggest event that contributed to the terrible state of the environment in the USSR.
When the Soviet Union was separated into 15 independent countries in 1991, each country had to deal with the environmental legacy of socialism by itself. It was estimated that, in 1992, 15 percent of Russias territory was in the critical environmental situation. Later, ecologists realized that human health was at serious risk because of the prevailing environmental situation.
Solving the ecological problems caused by the previous generation is still a difficult goal to accomplish. In most cases, reducing damage to the environment requires a lot of capital and labor power, but, most importantly, it needs another attitude of people to the world, in which they live. Air and water pollution as well as soil erosion and animal devastation are the result of a careless attitude of the Soviet citizens and the Soviet government to nature. Somehow, the socialist countries have always been the most ignorant to the state of the environment.
Perhaps, the people of the USSR should not be judged so strictly for their attitude to ecology. The government, in the face of General Secretaries, was persistently dictating the citizens what was right and what was wrong. People were convinced that their government was the most just and fair in the world and were fully satisfied with their lives. Even nowadays, the people of the former Soviet Union think that they lived better then.
However, the main reason why people were sure that their lives were perfect is that they did not have to make decisions. The government decided everything for them so that they did not have to worry about the future. Still, in the middle of the 1950s, the economy of the country started to fall, and people started to strive for capitalism that was prohibited at that time. Only then, people began to see that other Western countries had higher standards of living. That is why the citizens of the Soviet Union were not the ones to blame for the terrible environmental legacy that was left after the collapse of the country.
In 1991, the economic and environmental situation in the Soviet Union was so bad that the collapse of the country was inevitable. Without any doubt, the collapse of socialism and the establishment of new capitalistic ideas on the territory of the former USSR were for the best. With the government having no control over industries, the situation in the formed countries has changed rapidly.
The ecological imprint left by the Soviet Union is still a matter for hot discussions. The industrial development during Stalins reign was so immense that there was hardly a time to care about the environmental situation.
The principle of seeing the goal and not seeing obstacles is obviously wrong. The main goal of Stalin was to establish and maintain the strongest economy. However, while going to that goal, he brought irreparable damage to the environment. Furthermore, the former Soviet Union brought irrevocable consequences not only for its future population but numerous countries on the continent as well. The dangerous ecological situation in the USSR threatened neighboring countries in Europe and Asia. In 1992, right after the break-up of the country, environmentalists from all over the world started to sound an alarm.
Since 1991, many things changed in the countries of the former Soviet Union. After the end of the USSR, Russia, and Moscow in particular, became free from responsibility for the total environmental devastation. The ecological problems were left in other countries. Only in the 1990s, scientists finally found a linkage between poor health of the population and the destruction of ecology in the Russian Federation.
At the time of the Soviet Union, the government supported the idea that natural resources were abundant and could endure any waste, and land was impregnable and capable to absorb any amount of pollution. They thought there was no need to worry about the environment as long as the economy can prosper.
Each of the natural zones of the former Soviet Union suffered from degradation and devastation. For example, in tundra, numerous oil spills, flaring of natural gas, and leaks in natural gas pipelines destroyed marshland ecosystems, which require a long time to be cleaned naturally. In taiga, a large forest zone, the overcutting of trees and uncontrolled mining operations constitute significant sources of damage. Urbanization is also a problem for the environment because it causes an increase in air and water pollution.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, its countries continued to worsen the already poor ecological state. People in Russia continued to burn leaded fuel, which was very harmful to the atmosphere. Throughout the Soviet period, vehicles were the greatest polluters. Therefore, after Russia and other countries adopted private ownerships, the number of vehicles increased along with the amount of emissions.
Socialism meant a lot for the Soviet Union and its neighbors in a way how it changed people and the country. However, the environmental legacy of socialism is not something of what the former Soviet Union should be proud. Huge devastations of bodies of water, air pollution, soil erosion, overcutting of forests, and other not environmentally friendly actions have led to the terrible ecological situation, with which these countries have to deal now. General Secretaries of the USSR were doing everything in their power to make the economy stronger and the country more powerful. They did not think or care about the possible consequences for the environment. The legacy that the Soviet Union left to its people is a tremendous threat to human health and the terrible ecological situation. Nowadays, the countries that once were a part of the USSR are faced with reality - the socialist society people were living in was not as friendly as it seemed. Moreover, it proved to have a negative influence on its citizens as well as the environment. The society of the Soviet Union was concentrated on industrial progress, and that is why people paid no attention to the importance of ecology. Now, when the Soviet Union is long gone, the citizens of its former republics still feel its strong presence in every sphere of life. The environment is now in a bad state, but, at least, people became aware of their influence on the ecological situation.
