Yes! Ukraine was much happier under the Soviet rule.

Here are the reasons why:

Welcome to Soviet Ukraine, one of the founding nations of the USSR!

• In 1991 Ukraine had a population of 51 million under the Soviet rule.
• In 2017 Ukraine had a population of 42 million….A population loss of 9 million people…

In the 1980s Ukrainian women had a higher fertility rate of 2.0 or more, now the fertility rate is 1.3.

From the start of the collapse of the USSR you can see the mortality rate (yellow) exceeding the birth rate (blue) . The Ukrainian Socialist Soviet republic had free healthcare, free education, free housing a large industry, but this all disappeared after the fall of the USSR, resulting in an economic and social depression.

Here you have some pictures out of the daily life from the Ukrainian SSR:

Here’s the totalitarian kindergarten with 5 meals a day, bed time sleep in white sheets:

Education, Education, Education as Mr. Lenin said to all the communist slaves living in the USSR. Education was necessary to be involved in the building of the society and to develop yourself as a person. Reading journals, books on any theme be it politics, science, biology, reading was very popular!

• In 1990 170 million books were published in Ukrainian in the Soviet Union
• In 2016 49 million books were published in Ukrainian

A drop of 121 million books!

Picture of library in USSR:

If you wanted to expand your knowledge you could always join anywhere for free a class of chess, ship building, mathematics, anything for FREE.

Children USSR

Vacation in the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet republic

After the devastating second world war the USSR started to rebuilt its infrastructure, more than 25 million people were without homes, ten thousands of cities were all turned into ashes. The USSR took measures to rebuilt its infrastructure, industry, cities within 5 years. The resources spent were enormous.

Here you have pictures of rebuilt Kiev after WWII:

• In 1991 Ukraine had a GDP of 505 billion dollars
• In 2016 Ukraine had a GDP 353 billion dollars

Ukraine was a highly industrial developed country at the times of the USSR. The government invested a lot in the education and industry. Ukraine produced a lot of consumer products and high technological products with added value such as ships, submarines, turbines, engines, televisions, cars, machinery, etc.

Glushkov institute of cybernetics

Shipyard Odessa, Ukraine

Plane production Ukraine USSR

Production of Turbines:

Production televisions Ukraine SSR:

Ukrainian production USSR:

Here you have a few statistical numbers:

Electriciy production:

• In 1991 Soviet Ukraine produced 279 billion Kwh
• In 2016 164,6 billion Kwh = 170 % less

Refrigerator production:

• In 1991 Soviet Ukraine produced 803 000 pieces
• In 2016 Ukraine produced 103 000 pieces = 800 % drop

Textile production:

• In 1991 Soviet Ukraine produced 1030 million square metres
• In 2016 Ukraine produced 91 million square metres of textile = 1100 % drop

Shoe production:

• In 1991 Soviet Ukraine produced 177 million of pairs of shoes
• In 2016 Ukraine produced 24,1 million of pairs of shoes = 730 % drop

Car production:

• Drop in 2700 %

Tractor production:

• Drop in 6600 %

Hospitals in Ukraine:

• In 1991 3900
• In 2016 1700 - Drop with 230 %

Kindergartens in Ukraine:

• In 1991 24500 kindergartens
• In 2016 14900 kindergartens - drop in 160 %

Schools in Ukraine:

• In 1991 21900 schools
• In 2016 16900 schools - drop in 130 %

Theatres in Ukraine:

• From 125 dropped to 112

Libraries in Ukraine:

• Dropped from 25600 to 17000 libraries

Conclusion:

Was Ukraine way happier, better of during the Soviet Union?

Of course it was, Ukraine did economically, politically, demographically much better than the independent capitalist corrupt country it became afterwards.

The nationalistic corrupt politicians did everything as possible to steal the country’s resources, infrastructure and everything what was built in the USSR.

The corrupt elite has been using nationalism and discrimination against their Russian speaking population which has brought to the ceding of Crimea and the Donbass region. Tuition and discrimination didn’t exist in the USSR, now the country, millions of families are split in two because of political views:

After the political unrest and the introduction of the nationalistic policies you can clearly see a split of the country: This is a map of Pro-Russian unrest which rised during the Ukrainian revolutions in which geopolitical tensions were being risen between the East and West.

Here you see a map of the languages spoken at home: Yellow = Russian, orange = a mix of dialect between Russian and Ukrainian

As you see the unrest among the Russian speaking population came after the introduction of the discriminative policies from the Ukrainian nationalistic government which is mostly based on the ideologies of the Western-Ukrainians.

The Soviet policy was bringing people together in friendship and maintaining good relationships with each other:

Left you see a Soviet poster of a Russian and a Ukrainian soldier with the writing = Forever together!

Right you see a Russian and Ukrainian female worker holding the Soviet emblem of the Russian socialist Soviet republic and the Ukrainian SSR with the writing = Glory to our free fatherland and the friendship of nations is our stronghold.

In 1954 the USSR celebrated the 300 years of unification of Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine has come to this:

War in Eastern-Ukraine

Empty production plants:

Ukrainian nazi’s:

Ukrainian nazi’s killed pro-Russians in Odessa, people were burned alive:

Unfortunately Ukraine, a once triving and flourishing republic has lost its former glory.

The only thing we have left from the past are memories that we can see in this footage from Soviet Ukraine with the beautiful song about Kiev from Soviet Ukrainian poet Dmitry Lucenko and Russian singer Yuriy Gulyaev. A song which became the anthem of Kiev.