The Communist Experiment

In practice, communism has two significant flaws.

The first is what is known as the Tragedy of the Commons. A perfect metaphor for this would be a microwave inside an office space. As people use it, it gradually becomes increasingly dirty; almost no one cleans or maintains it. Because it is not the personal property of any one person. Therefore, an authority needs to be established to assign tasks related to cleaning and maintaining the shared property. This authority also needs to be capable of executing legislation, enforcing rules, and distributing resources equally among citizens. Humans have not successfully achieved full Marxist communism on a large scale because, almost always, the government and those in power take advantage of their power, and the system becomes tyrannical, contradicting the idea of an equal society. The authority figure that is needed to enforce has more power than the basic citizen, which completely goes against the whole idea of an equal Marxist society.

The second is the lack of competition. Similar to greed, humans are motivated by the desire to accumulate wealth. Whether that be capital, other forms of wealth, or property. The success of capitalism hinges on human greed, allowing a market where people compete, whether or not it's fair or just. Capitalism relies on there being a status difference among citizens. The Soviets envisioned a world without social status differences, a so-called unified socialist state.  However, they recognized this and implemented a system of competitions nationally to incentivize workers, known as Socialist Emulation.

Stakhanovite Movement

Alexei Stakhanov, a miner from Soviet Ukraine, became a national hero of the Soviet Union and a physical representation of the ideal worker. “Alexei Stakhanov and three colleagues entered the mine, accompanied by the party boss and a local journalist. Six hours later, they emerged, triumphant, having produced 102 tonnes of coal—more than 14 times the target.” (Newman 2015). His labor and assertiveness set the standard for workers. He was recognized for his achievements and toured the nation. The term Stakhanovite was coined after Alexei's last name and became a term to describe a hard worker. The Stakhanovite Movement, стахановского движения in Russian, was recognized by Joseph Stalin as integral to his propaganda machine. National socialist competitions for the best milkmaid or best worker became common. Later, “In 1957, four years after Stalin's death, the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, saw no need to keep Stakhanov in Moscow and ordered him back to Donbass. Stakhanov felt he was in virtual exile—especially since his family remained in Moscow—and spent the last 20 years of his life drinking heavily” (Newman 2015). The way the government was structured led to a single leader taking power, often with their own ideas for reforms, often ditching the former secretary's laws. Just as Khrushchev ditched the Stakhanov movement. Notable reform policies, such as “Glasnost,” meaning openness, and “Perestroika,” meaning restructuring, are prime examples of reform during a power shift between Gorbachev and Chernenko.

Victory Group of Dairy Farm Workers

Филимонов Всеволод Александрович, or Filimonov Vsevolod Alexandrovich in English, was a Russian painter who lived and worked in Moscow from 1930 to 1980. There is little to no information available about him; however, the content of his paintings speaks volumes. All art was subject to artistic councils, which were responsible for determining whether a work was ideologically harmful. 

As a result, the subjects of works of art were strictly limited to those that served an ideological purpose for the current regime. 

The painting of the victory group depicts three older women sitting for their portraits as a result of a social emulatist competition. One of the women, based on writing on the back of the painting, was a veterinarian, while the other two were milkmaids. There is no clear distinction between the names that correlate to the women. The last names on the back of the painting acknowledge Veterinarian Порихова and milkmaids Фомичева and Войрякова.

Socialist Emulation

Winners of Socialist Emulation competitions were recognized by having their picture taken, either on film or in a painting, then framed, along with their names posted in a public space. Most recognized workers received pins to recognize their hard work, as well as banners known as Вымпел. Often, these were on red fabric with yellow writing, displaying a picture of Lenin and other communist symbolism. Using context clues, this is most likely what is depicted behind the woman on the left-hand side of the painting; however, it remains unclear due to a lack of documentation. This, along with a book that one of the ladies is holding, is a standard reward given to workers. Workers who had been recognized for their exceptional work were often given the opportunity to have a select apartment, the ability to hang and display their Вымпел, as well as other benefits exclusive to winners, such as the possibility of receiving extra food, which goes completely against the communist way of life. 

The Role of Milk in Politics

My coined term “Milk Politics” is not an acronym; it refers directly to the policies, politics, and propaganda associated with cow's milk. This is not exclusive to the Soviet Union. To boost agricultural economies, governments have encouraged people to buy cows' milk. If you grew up in the 1990s, you may be familiar with the "Got Milk?" campaign or have had your parents tell you that milk is good for your bones. Although there are many dairy products, the reality is that most humans are lactose intolerant because it is not in our nature to drink milk from other animals. What I am trying to get at is that markets are created constructs to fuel economies, and milk is just one example of a product that gets woven deeply into politics. You may have heard of government cheese. The government had an excess of milk products, so they were distributing cheese to those in need. How did this happen?  In the 1970s, the price of milk went up by 30%. To combat this, the government bought excess amounts of milk to lower their prices, making it more accessible. “Suddenly, dairy farmers who had been hurting were flush with cash—and producing as much milk as they could in order to take advantage of government support. The government purchased the milk dairy farmers could not sell and began to process it into cheese, butter, and dehydrated milk powder. As dairy farmers produced more and more milk, stockpiles ballooned. As anthropologist Bradley N. Jones notes, eventually the stockpile hit over 500 million pounds, stored in hundreds of warehouses in 35 states.” (Blakemore 2025). In Russia, milk was distributed for free, much like government cheese in the United States.

However, instead of cheese, Russians fermented the milk, making кефир, kefir in English. You may have heard about bread lines where people stood for hours to exchange their tickets, or талон, for bread. There were also lesser-known milk lines where people would wait with their own containers to get milk from a tap. “Milk in metal canisters, бидон or bidony, began to symbolize backwardness, while milk in paper packaging came to embody progressiveness.” (Tarasova 2019). Workers were given талон (talon) in exchange for their labor instead of paychecks. Milk trucks would roll into factories to distribute around half a liter of milk per shift. There are stories of workers in paint factories who, after drinking their milk, would fill the iconic USSR pyramid cartons with paint to sell on the black market.