By Earl 'Red' Hutchins, Senior Correspondent, Actual Life Under Communism
Every week, I receive messages from enthusiastic young people who have recently discovered that capitalism is bad, actually, and have therefore concluded that the alternative — glorious, liberating communism — would be very good for them, specifically. They share their visions. A ceramics cooperative in Vermont. A community storytelling circle. A worker-owned aromatherapy collective.
I read these messages carefully. I take notes. Then I weep softly into my historically accurate Soviet-era cabbage soup.
Because here is the thing that nobody on your favorite political podcast has had the basic human decency to tell you: planned economies do not plan around you. They plan around what the state needs. And what every communist state in recorded history has needed, with a consistency that borders on the obsessive, is engineers, miners, agricultural laborers, machinists, and construction workers. Not, to be absolutely clear, 'grief-informed narrative coaches.'
In the spirit of genuine public service, I have conducted what I am calling a Serious Investigation. I submitted several real (anonymized) resumes from real millennials and Gen-Z individuals to a mock Soviet-style labor allocation committee — staffed, for authenticity, by myself and my considerable knowledge of how central planning actually functioned. The findings have been compiled below. A disclaimer: no feelings were intentionally hurt in this process. They were, however, inevitably hurt.
What The Five-Year Plan Actually Needed (Spoiler: Not You)
Let us begin with historical context, because history is the cold shower that ideology refuses to take.
The Soviet Union, across its various Five-Year Plans beginning in 1928, maintained chronic, agonizing shortages in a remarkably consistent set of fields. Steel production workers. Coal miners. Agricultural collective laborers. Electrical engineers. Heavy machinery operators. The state poured enormous resources into recruiting, training, and — when necessary — conscripting workers into these sectors because the gap between supply and demand was genuinely staggering.
Cuba's central planning apparatus told a nearly identical story. The revolution needed doctors, yes — famously — but also cane cutters, construction brigades, and technical workers. Che Guevara, when he briefly ran the National Bank, was enthusiastic about voluntary labor mobilizations, which meant that people with opinions about macroeconomics were sometimes redirected to spend weekends harvesting sugarcane. This was considered inspirational.
Photo: Che Guevara, via c8.alamy.com
Now. Let us look at what the resumes I received described as professional competencies.
Resume One: 'Certified Emotional Wellness Facilitator And Somatic Breathwork Guide'
This individual — let's call her Brynn, because statistically that is probably her name — has accumulated an impressive portfolio of certifications across several wellness modalities. She facilitates group sessions focused on 'embodied trauma release' and consults for tech companies on 'nervous system regulation in high-performance environments.'
The Soviet labor committee's assessment: No analogue exists. Refer to agricultural division. Beet harvest commences April.
To Brynn's credit, breathwork does involve breathing, which is also something you do in a mine. The committee noted this as a transferable skill and has rated her application 'cautiously optimistic.'
Resume Two: 'Brand Storyteller And Authentic Narrative Architect'
This gentleman — let us call him Zander — has spent seven years helping corporations 'discover and amplify their origin stories across omnichannel platforms.' He is very good at this. His portfolio includes a campaign that made people feel emotionally connected to a mattress company.
The Soviet labor committee's assessment: The state does not require its mattresses to have origin stories. The mattresses exist or they do not exist. This is determined by quota, not narrative. Applicant reassigned to the Magnitogorsk Steel Complex. Please advise him to bring warm clothing. All the clothing.
I will note, for what it's worth, that propaganda was absolutely a function of Soviet society — but those positions were filled by ideologically vetted party members who had spent years proving their commitment through actual political work, not by people who 'pivoted to content' after a layoff from a fintech startup.
Resume Three: 'Freelance Ceramicist And Community-Centered Art Educator'
Now we arrive at the most heartbreaking case. This applicant — Maya — is genuinely talented. Her work is beautiful. She teaches pottery classes to underserved youth, which is a real and good thing to do in the world.
The Soviet labor committee's assessment: Ceramics production is a state industrial function. Applicant may be eligible for placement at the Dulevo Porcelain Factory, Likino-Dulevo, Moscow Oblast. Output quota: 847 identical commemorative Lenin mugs per shift. Artistic expression: not applicable to quota fulfillment.
Photo: Dulevo Porcelain Factory, via i.etsystatic.com
Maya wanted to know if she could still teach children. The committee confirmed that education is indeed a state function — specifically mathematics, sciences, and technical vocational training. The pottery curriculum has been under review since 1961 and the review is ongoing.
The Skills That Would Have Actually Saved You
In the interest of balance, let me tell you what would have made you genuinely valuable to a planned economy, so you can sit with that information.
Electrical engineering. Mining and extraction knowledge. Agricultural mechanics — specifically, the ability to fix the machinery that is always, always breaking on collective farms. Construction. Medicine, particularly in rural and underserved postings that nobody wanted. Teaching, specifically STEM subjects to children in regions where the alternative was no teacher at all.
These were the skills that commanded respect, resources, and occasionally — in the Soviet system — access to better housing, priority grocery access, and the kinds of material privileges that the system officially claimed did not exist.
Your ability to 'hold space' would have commanded a train ticket to somewhere cold.
A Compassionate Conclusion
I want to be clear that I am not arguing capitalism is wonderful. Capitalism has its own spectacular catalog of horrors, and I am not here to defend it.
What I am arguing is something simpler and more uncomfortable: the version of communism that appeals to you is not the version of communism that has ever actually existed. The real thing was a vast, grinding machine that needed bodies for specific, unglamorous purposes, and it found those bodies by whatever means were available to it.
The revolution, historically speaking, did not care about your personal brand. It cared about coal output. It cared about whether the wheat got harvested before the frost came. It cared about steel tonnage with an intensity that would make your most demanding corporate manager look like a gentle life coach.
Which, ironically, is a profession the revolution also would not have needed.
The beets, comrades, will not harvest themselves.
Earl 'Red' Hutchins has been studying planned economies for longer than most of his readers have been alive. He accepts no consulting fees, because consulting is a bourgeois concept, and also because nobody has offered.