Soviet history, explained through Tetris

[Nocta-Aeterna]

As far as I know, the most well known things of Russian origin amongst the general people are Communism and Tetris (apart from their old fairytales, ballets, music, arts, the Czar etc.), so obviously they should be mashed together, right?

Yesterday, a friend of mine pointed me to the film at the bottom, which features a song, summarising the history of the USSR, set to the melody of the Russian folk song Korobeiniki and using the Tetris game as a metaphore for...well, pretty much anything I guess.

I'm no historian, and it's been years since my last history class on the Soviet Union, though my arm still hurts, thinking back to all those notes we had to take during class. Through my layman's eyes I'd say it's pretty much accurate. I'm actually impressed that they, for instance, reference the crippling effect of the Five-Year Plans, rather than show a uniformly well-oiled machine. Any history majors who can add something/correct me on the subject?

Spoiler: Soviet history through Tetris

 

[ChieftainStag]

the history was pretty scary ecpecially when the singer looked insane. however it was pretty cool how they made it a song and it was well based around tetris.

 

[Nickolai77]

I've seen this video several times and love it, it's a brilliant (and pretty accurate) video.

 

[redisforever]

Saw this before, but I love it so very, very much. Amazingly funny. My dad, who grew up in the USSR, found it funny.

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

...My dad, who grew up in the USSR,...

Oh, wow. That's pretty interesting. He must have some interesting stories to tell.

 

[Death_Korps_Kommissar]

Saw this before, but I love it so very, very much. Amazingly funny. My dad, who grew up in the USSR, found it funny.

Wow really?
How did he find it?
As my dad, who is a staunch communist, claims that every bad thing about the USSR and is lies and over-exagerations and that it was a lovely place to live.

 

[Head Chef Dom]

thats simply brilliant. I always found history interesting anyway, now combining it with glorious tetris and that sounds like a winning combination to me

 

[Vhite]

Old video but nice to see again.

 

[Shadowphrin]

It's accurate enough - as a timeline, yes, but things like the success of the FYPs are always open to interpretation (this is the trouble with documents that come from dictatorial states). It's pretty impressive they managed to fit such a tight overview of modern Russian history to the Tetris music, and keep it amusing, so bonus points for that.

I will call you up on the fact that Marx and Engels were German, so Communism is not really of Russian origin.

 

[leedwashere]

That video gave me shivers. I've always been interested and horrified by the history of the Soviets, and that was a pretty good (if brief and wide-angled) history. It hit home a bit more for me after having read We The Living recently.

::shudders::

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

my entire family were communists, and most of them liked the video. they say the same, too many over- exaggerations, it was an OK place to live. and prefer it to nowadays style of life. then again, my family did live in farms isolated from towns, and rarely saw large city life.

 

[redisforever]

...My dad, who grew up in the USSR,...

Oh, wow. That's pretty interesting. He must have some interesting stories to tell.

He has many stories. I love listening to them.

Saw this before, but I love it so very, very much. Amazingly funny. My dad, who grew up in the USSR, found it funny.

Wow really?
How did he find it?
As my dad, who is a staunch communist, claims that every bad thing about the USSR and is lies and over-exagerations and that it was a lovely place to live.

I have to say, as a communist, it wasn't really communist. It was more of a socialist dictatorship. But it was better than some places are now.

 

[thylasos]

Communism didn't originate in Russia.

Also, I much prefer this:

 

[thylasos]

I have to say, as a communist, it wasn't really communist. It was more of a socialist dictatorship. But it was better than some places are now.

It depends on what period of the history of the USSR we're talking about, but it was largely a degenerated workers' state.

Never mind the total disregarding of the Internationalist element of Communism in the mid-1920s, and the earlier disregarding by Lenin of the need for a highly developed bourgeois phase in Russian history. Then the racist and imperialist policies towards the supposedly autonomous SSRs...

 

[redisforever]

I have to say, as a communist, it wasn't really communist. It was more of a socialist dictatorship. But it was better than some places are now.

It depends on what period of the history of the USSR we're talking about, but it was largely a degenerated workers' state.

Never mind the total disregarding of the Internationalist element of Communism in the mid-1920s, and the earlier disregarding by Lenin of the need for a highly developed bourgeois phase in Russian history. Then the racist and imperialist policies towards the supposedly autonomous SSRs...

Yeah, after the first 10-20 years, it all started to become a hellhole. Still, worse places exist.

 

[ScoopMeister]

Communism didn't originate in Russia.

Also, I much prefer this:

Why did Gorbachev have Harry Potter's face?

 

[thylasos]

Communism didn't originate in Russia.

Also, I much prefer this:

Why did Gorbachev have Harry Potter's face?

Presumably to infer his trademark Naevus Flammaeus... it'd be tough to find a lego model with the exact birthmark. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naevus_flammeus )

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

Communism didn't originate in Russia.

Allow me to correct myself: "A regime stuck half-way through Karl Marx's ideas of the development of a Socialist state, due to various reasons I do not have the knowledge to talk properly about".

 

[thylasos]

Communism didn't originate in Russia.

Allow me to correct myself: "A regime stuck half-way through Karl Marx's ideas of the development of a Socialist state, due to various reasons I do not have the knowledge to talk properly about".

Quite so. Sorry to take on the role of Buzz Killington, there.