Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
I think most of the USSR environmental destruction was caused by military activities and trying to meet industrial "plans". Not from private consumption.
Ok, so do you agree the mental link I mentioned is artificial or you do not agree?

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
You are forgetting one thing that held the USSR people back from being as consumerist as some others; There were no ads, so manipulation to constantly spur people into wanting things that they absolute didn't need.
Ok, you're right, I forgot that thing. Thanks for reminding me. There were other minor issues as well like famine sometimes, very bad quality of anything but weapons and some other insignificant stuff, but you're absolutely right. The ads were very limited. Off the top of my head I could probably remember one or two like: "Fly only with Aeroflot." So, the content of the media was free of ads. That's true there were huge placards on the buildings like: "The Communism is the Soviet Power plus the electrification of the entire country" or "The Glory to the Communist Party!" or alike and the media was full of the phrases lacking any meaning, but the commercials weren't there. You could enjoy the entire one-hour talk on either of the three available TV channels about how great it is to live in the Soviet Union without any interruptions to the commercials. And the issue of the consumerism wasn't there as the distribution was planned: if you belong to the power class (the party, the unions, etc) you'd get a sausage every day, if you're an engineer, you'll get it once a quarter. You couldn't just walk into a store and buy a sausage. So, what would be a point of the commercials? Buy more sausage which isn't there? So, the bottom line there was no Western-style consumerism. But the ecological disasters did happen on a scheduled basis. Period.