Most propaganda I believe is targeted to their own population.
I think it's more likely they were produced for the residents of those places, to send to friends and relatives. "Look how nice our new home is!" — and it was nice, in 1980, compared to what it replaced.
Reminds me very much of what I saw in Brno, in what is now the Czech Republic. Also, modern-day Seoul, and many other large Asian cities.
I think it's just a different mindset. Where the West puts a high value on uniqueness, conformity is prized in other cultures.
See also: Vancouver's skyscrapers, and suburban tract housing, both of which are ridiculed for their sameness.
The khruschyovkas and neobrutalist apartment blocks, for all their faults, lifted tens of millions of people out of medieval living conditions. They made extensive use of mass production and prefab.
So their primary target before that was not to take millions out of mediocre living conditions, but world revolutions and such.
Here's a postcard from the 60's for instance: https://i.redd.it/3ofea4jd6k2z.jpg
http://www.rentcompass.com/Rentals/Guelph/1407/2-Quebec-Stre...
The cubic shape has the best utilisation of materials per unit of usable space. Houses must be cubical.
> The cubic shape has the best utilisation of materials per unit of usable space. Houses must be cubical.
I think parent was describing combination of box-like aesthetics with the unpleasantness that is concrete.
I think you may be mistaken - domes are perhaps a better utilisation per unit of usable space.
Also, it's definitely not the case that houses must be cubical, for any reason(s), let alone just to attempt to maximise the ratio of materials per unit of area / volume.