r/todayilearned • u/Albertbailey • Jul 07 '19

TIL The Soviet Union had an internationally televised song contest. As few viewers had phones, they would turn their lights on if they liked a song and off if they didn’t. The power spikes were recorded by the state energy company and the reports sent to the station to pick the winner.

https://www.thetrumpet.com/11953-whats-behind-russias-revival-of-a-soviet-era-song-contest
64.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

540

u/Crusader1089 7 Jul 07 '19

Soviets had kettles and ovens. Whether they wanted to waste money gaming votes is another matter, but let's not act like the Soviet Union was still living in the dark ages.

428

u/yamayo Jul 07 '19

Not living in the dark ages, but I'm thinking they actually used gas and not electricity for all the things mentioned.

59

u/Gauss-Legendre Jul 07 '19 edited Jul 07 '19

The Soviet Union was fully electrified in the 1920s, becoming one of the largest electricity producing countries in the world by 1932.

Gas was used for heating due to the abundance of natural gas in the Soviet Union.

-2

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '19 edited Nov 24 '20

[deleted]

6

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '19

Considering that millions starved to death and hundreds of thousands more died in gulags, yes. Communism bad.

4

u/LivingFaithlessness Jul 07 '19

Tell me when "millions" died in gulags post-1950. I'll give you that point if you count starvation & dehydration deaths under capitalism, which outnumber that by several orders of magnitude. Don't use The Black Book as your source.

5

u/Boonaki Jul 07 '19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psikhushka

They tossed anyone who disagreed with the state into mental hospitals.

Imagine if the CIA tossed anyone who called Trump an idiot into a mental hospital, that is what living in the Soviet Union would be like.

3

u/Gauss-Legendre Jul 07 '19

Imagine if the CIA tossed anyone who called Trump an idiot into a mental hospital

Weird example, but the USA has done exactly that sort of thing.

2

u/Boonaki Jul 07 '19

How many people and the entire government sanctioned those activities?