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Kind of reminds me of ‘The Road to Serfdom’ In Comics.
I’ve just finished Anne Applebaum’s ‘Gulag’, a comprehensive history of the soviet labour camp system. The sad thing is that the comic is pretty correct about how life was like under Stalin. The other sad thing is the 'OMGLOL they was stupid in the ‘50’s!!!’ responses from the SA burger-flippers. Someone tell them that they would be in the second wave of deportations if the (okay, really fucking unlikely) scenario occurred.
Given the evidence coming out of Russia, the hate for commies has been proven well and truly justified.
Did they really separate regular families like that in the USSR? I mean, I know it happened when you were sent away to the camps, but I don’t recall ever hearing anything about it being part of everyday life outside of gulag.
One of my favourite things about that time period is that EVERYBODY was in the wrong. After Nazi Germany fell, pretty much all the major powers were shit-holes.
From the book, not really. What did happen was that if a new series of Gulag mines were opened and there weren’t enough technicians to develop them, there would be a dramatic increase in the number of engineers charged with crimes against the state. There were quotas which were achieved by whatever means necessary.
Nevermind that the punishment for some crimes was incredibly draconian. Steal a pen from work so your child can do their homework? 10 years.
Arrive 10 minutes late to work two times? 10 years. Also the ability to denounce people pretty well made everyone a target.
If you really want to read distressing stuff, read about the fate of children born to female prisoners in the Gulag.
Soviet Communism deserves all the enmity and outrage that is dished upon it.
I think it is important to draw a line between Stalinist USSR and the comparatively liberal post-Stalinist USSR. By the time these comics came out most of what you describe had ended, and been replaced by the unremarkable, but grim face of modern Communism. The truly laughable aspects of these comics, though, are not the descriptions of Communism, which are fairly accurate depictions of the worst of Stalinims, but the way it promotes paranoia in the American population with tales of brainwashed citizens doing the bidding of the evil Communist overlords in mother Russia.
“I have received orders that you must leave your wife and family to work in California.”
“If the party wishes it, I will obey.”
And if Communism in the USSR was so bad, why do over a quarter of Russians want to return? Sure I wouldn’t want to live under that system, but I wouldn’t want to live in modern Russia either.
Something tells me praying wasn’t really J. Edgar Hoover’s preferred method of fighting back.
And a librarian, university teacher and labour union officer? All walks of life INDEED.
Kruschev was a reformist but he was quickly replaced by Brehznev who was a Chekist and scaled back any reform. The Stalin Years were certainly the most awful but even the sixties and seventies weren’t much fun. Andropov was a Stalinist who ramped up the oppression as head of the KGB and later as Chairman. It was only his death that allowed Gorbachev (who was the son of a prisoner) to introduce any sort of reform. Are you quite forgetting the mental hospitals that dissidents were interned in during those ‘liberal’ years? It wasn’t quite basket weaving and finger painting.
It was only because the Gulag system was a failure economically that it was scaled back.
And if Communism in the USSR was so bad, why do over a quarter of Russians want to return? Sure I wouldn’t want to live under that system, but I wouldn’t want to live in modern Russia either.
Communism was a shitty deal for the Russian people, but at least they felt they were part of a powerful and respected nation. Also, people who collaborated with the regime did get some perks. Nowadays, Russia looks like it’s run by a consortium of KGB and gangsters.
Please, Peter, I said comparatively liberal years, as in compared to Stalin. Khomeini’s Iran could probably be described as comparatively liberal compared to that, so please don’t rewrite what I said. The point was that by the time this comic was written, the acts it is depicting were of a different era. Life in post-Stalinist Soviet Union was grim and oppressive, but it wasn’t the kind of insanity that Stalin imposed.
Communism was a shitty deal for the Russian people, but at least they felt they were part of a powerful and respected nation. Also, people who collaborated with the regime did get some perks. Nowadays, Russia looks like it’s run by a consortium of KGB and gangsters.
It wasn’t just that they felt part of a powerful and respected nation that makes people in Russia pine for the “good old days”. There is similar sentiment here in the eastern German states, and the people of East Germany never considered themselves part of a powerful and respected nation. The kind of people who are nostalgic for the days of Communism are mostly poor. They see that now they have the freedom to be poor, whereas before they had no choice, however at least when they had no choice they had a guaranteed house, job, food and heating, whereas now they could face life on the streets.
I know it is baffling for a lot of people who love liberty, but some people really would prefer a safe and predictable life to a free and uncertain one.
I don’t know why that would be baffling. One only has to look at some of the political trends here in America post-9/11 to see that.
Well, you try explaining to pro-war people that the Iraqis may not be grateful that their lives have been changed from a predictably oppressive Saddam nightmare with little crime or freedom, to an unpredictable nightmare with plenty of freedom, crime and terrorism.
Taken from POE news- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041120.wxcentre20/BNStory/International/
Pretty well what we’re talking about in Putin’s Russia.
I like the analogy to Latin America- you have the freedom to pursue personal interests as long as they don’t involve big business or politics.
Are we thinking about the same Soviet Socialism?
In response to Mr Frazier’s posted article (just the parts that really bothered me, though I found the entire article irksome):
Yuri Levada, the country’s most respected pollster, says the “disappointing” data he has collected show that 13 years after the Soviet Union fell apart, the mindset of ordinary Russians has become more, not less, Soviet. About 65 per cent look fondly on the Soviet system that existed before Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika – a 15-per-cent rise over a decade ago.
This statistic doesn’t tell you much. In the last decade, those that, in the previous several decades, were afraid for their lives (viz. would-be political refugees) had all emigrated or taken an extended vacation in a less hostile environment. Those that remained and contribute to this survey most likely had little to lose to begin with.
Asked to rank what is important to them, social guarantees that the Soviet state once provided, free education, medical help and old-age insurance, are valued by 74 per cent of Russians. That’s three times the number who named freedom of speech and more than five times the number who want to see their right to freely travel abroad protected.
When you’re starving, have huge medical problems, and hardly a salary to speak of, and to top it off, your personal support network has recently taken refuge abroad, then yes, I’d think you would value free education and medical help over freedom of speech. It’s not a fair comparison: freedom of speech, though necessary, is a luxury compared to survival.
I can reference several personal anecdotes about people left in the wake of the Socialist regime, about how forty dollars will buy them two weeks’ vacation or a new set of dentures, about how less than a decade ago, rows of elderly, toothless women, concealing their faces, would sit along the pavement in St Petersburg selling their shoes and begging for money, but really, those are just stories, not hard facts.
I am mortified that the younger generation approves of the older government (Soviet Socialism and whatnot) but to quote public-school-taught fifteen-year-olds on their positive views of murderous political figures is in bad taste.
Another anecdote — or maybe just observation — is the reason many are returning: the high-tech economy is flourishing. Lots of crooked investors are looking for start-ups. Who could pass up such an opportunity? Note also: those that are returning are also those with money. Nobody returns to Russia to be poor.
Maybe someone would like to look for statistics on wealth distribution among age groups, and between those who left for {n} years and those who stayed.
“It’s still authoritarianism, but it’s much more stable than the Soviet model. It can last even longer.”
Oh, good god. Get out while you still can.