Another one from that era was something like: "how to destroy the Earth". There were several methods proposed, one of which was to use a black hole: "step1: take a reasonably sized black hole, step2..." etc.
633 karma · joined March 5, 2019
My point is that USSR was providing bare basics for some and not for all. If you were member of CPSU or an informer, or of privileged nationality then your chances were much higher.
What it does not say though, is that housing supply was extremely poor. There was extreme lack of decent housing, and people could be easily on a 10+ year wait list (as my parents were). There was practically only government provided houses (e.g. apartments), you could not buy land to build your house yourself (all land was nationalized and belonged to "people", i.e. government). So your option was to wait until you were given one. There was also virtually no secondary housing market, you could not buy an apartment since the supply was so low. So while you waited for the gift from government, you either lived with your parents (if they had place), lived in "kommunalka" (shared apartment where each family got one room but shared kitchen, bathroom etc with other families), or rented a room from whomever you could find (which was not legal actually because it was deemed private entrepreneurship which was not allowed). Was not fun, believe me.
Reading the article I think the author tries to figure why this requirement cannot be dropped and gets no rational answer.