tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6464976344391318522024-03-08T14:44:10.665-08:00OCTYABRONOKRandom blurbs from an ex-Soviet living in America.Alekseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641759154869198174noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-646497634439131852.post-12181430604188888252014-01-21T21:24:00.000-08:002014-01-21T21:24:35.410-08:00Forward<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Note: I wrote this article and it was originally <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/forward.html">published on American Thinker</a> on 01/19/2014<b>.</b></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Socialism is a philosophy of
failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is
the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill</span></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Forward</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Upon
migrating to the United States many years ago, I embraced my new home and left
the past behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never could I imagine
that, at some point, it would become relevant.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But
now, I am compelled to talk about it again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
the USSR,
we had State-controlled media which shaped the narrative entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our
founder, Vladimir Lenin, was portrayed as a noble, charismatic, and smart man
-- the champion of the underdog (the working class), the seeker of equality,
defeater of the rich. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The humble man
with common ideas who was destined for greatness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lenin
peered at us intently from textbooks and walls. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His was the face behind the good intentions
that shaped our everyday life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As
a kid, I was largely shielded by my family -- they took the brunt of “adult
tasks” in everyday life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They bribed
officials to accomplish the most basic of things, they conserved every kopek
and piece of bread, they got me the rare medicines I needed, all through means I
didn’t dare fathom.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of
course, there was nothing special about those medicines, those favors, or
anything else that took such effort to obtain -- in America, you can just go out and
get it in a corner store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Soviet Union, the word “deficit” was commonly used in
everyday language.<br />
<br />
“This and this product are in deficit.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This meant that you couldn’t buy them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe for the next three months or maybe
forever, unless someone was bribed or the product was obtained via the black
market, friends, or contraband. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fruits
and vegetables had their “seasons” when they made an appearance in local stores
-- we didn’t have advanced technology like hydroponic farms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Instead, adults were herded into collective farms, which were the Soviet
antithesis of family- or individual-owned farms. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under cheerful banners of “accomplishing a five-year
plan in four,” they usually underperformed and the bureaucrats responsible
faked the numbers, which moved up the chain of command.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
“Deficit.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I heard this term a lot, as I
stood in long lines for bread and milk in stores with cheerfully generic names
like “Progress” or “Sunrise.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The lines resembled those formed by hipsters in America lining up for the sale of
the next iPhone model -- except we stood in them every day.<br />
<br />
As much as my family shielded me from their troubles, they couldn’t protect me
from factors beyond their control. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
couldn’t raise my level of living above theirs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they certainly couldn’t get me anesthetics
for dental visits. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting in the gray,
sterile corridor for two hours, hearing the sobbing of the kids already in the
dental chair as their teeth were drilled without anesthetics, water, or
suction, and knowing that your turn was coming -- some handled it better than
others.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the local clinic, needles were re-sterilized and re-used. Ambulances took three
hours to arrive, if they came at all.<br />
<br />
That was our “free” healthcare.<br />
<br />
We also lived in a “free” apartment, which was suffocatingly small by American
standards, and it took years, if not decades, for an average couple to obtain
such a place. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually, several generations
of a family lived under one roof until the government bestowed upon its
citizens another gray five- to sixteen-story building that looked just like its
gray neighbor and had the same exact green-painted swings in the yard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Since almost nobody had cars, people could rarely afford to move to another
city or republic.<br />
<br />
Public transportation, which we all had to use, consisted of cranky people
squeezed tightly like sardines inside a rusty box on wheels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite that, when I was eight, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to be a trolley bus driver. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Partially because of all the buttons he
flipped to open and close doors, but mostly because there was a wall between
him and the sardine can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The walls in Soviet apartments were poorly insulated from noise and cold. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, wall carpets were dominant in
Soviet culture. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all looked similar,
usually colored red with abstract, curving patterns. <br />
<br />
Soviet factories were State-controlled. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Variety
was not a concept. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The color red was all
over the place -- it garnished the banners hanging off the sides of gray five-story
buildings, with profiles of Lenin, Marx, and Engels fluttering lightly in the
wind, proclaiming that “Marxism-Leninism is the symbol of our times.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others stated, “Forward toward Communism!” <br />
<br />
Red was splattered on our classroom walls and our school uniforms. <br />
<br />
In grade school, you became an “Octyabronok” (named after the October 1917
revolution) and wore a Lenin-faced star on your lapel. You got a free newspaper,
the “Young Leninist.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, you became
a “Pioneer” and swapped the star for a red tie. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that, you moved on to “Komsomol”
(All-Union Leninist Young Communist League). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who did not follow the groupthink enough
to make it to “Komsomol” lost access to crucial resources and careers later in
life.<br />
<br />
I grew up with no concept of “brands.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
I wanted to get that shoddy water pistol that suddenly appeared in a store, and
my parents let me, then that was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i>
water pistol. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It broke in two weeks, of
course.<br />
<br />
Bread in the stores was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> bread. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Milk was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the
</i>milk. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kolbasa was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> kolbasa. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything was manufactured by the State to
provide the minimum required survivability, and minimum expected functionality.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Improvements in design and the manufacturing
process did not exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
When I came to America
and laid down on an American bed, it struck me that it was more comfortable
than any bed I’d ever experienced. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
the result of evolving design oriented toward customer satisfaction -- a
concept alien to my former homeland.<br />
<br />
The two famous brands of Soviet cars, Zaporozhets and Moskvich (both named
after their places of origin), just… existed. We didn’t really have Zaporozhets
1980 followed by a new and improved Zaporozhets 1981 -- now with power
steering! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No such thing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a car, and it required no further
improvement. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no customer
demand, because people were poor, the State-controlled prices were very high,
and product evolution crawled at snail’s pace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><br />
<br />
The very concept of “customer convenience” did not exist. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t have bottles sculpted to fit the
shape of your hand, nor did we have polite cashiers, for they were under no
obligation to please anyone -- they worked for the State. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The abacus was still in common use in our
stores while American stores had electric change machines, credit card readers,
and sliding doors.<br />
<br />
Like most things, clothes were in “deficit” and thus traveled from older to
younger siblings in every family over time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Broken things weren’t thrown away but
repaired. <br />
<br />
Our giant lamp television was carried in the family since about the time I was
born. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It received three channels -- all State-controlled.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On our evening news program, the Chernobyl disaster
announcement was calm and lasted fifteen seconds. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our State papers, such as Pravda and Izvestia,
were not read but used as invaluable sources of free toilet paper. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a joke.<br />
<br />
Our propaganda put the big focus on the noble working class and how there was
no such thing as a “lower” profession. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much
emphasis was made on the nobility of simple working man, and certainly there is
something to that. <br />
<br />
But when the janitor receives roughly the same salary as a teacher who is paid roughly
the same as a surgeon who is paid roughly the same as a programmer, all of them
surrounded by peers who get paid the same no matter how well or poorly they
perform, some people start carrying the team, and then they just give up. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone performs poorly in the end.<br />
<br />
It was painfully obvious to everyone just how low the desire of the average
person is to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">produce goods for other
people</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without competition or
opportunity to get ahead, with the State controlling production and paying
equal salaries to workers regardless of their contributions, we had no concept
of abundance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
With our “free” services, we regularly experienced water and electrical outages
and sometimes went to a nearby forest to get water. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once you fill that bathtub with water, you
can’t use it for anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
The first time I entered an American food market at the age of seventeen, I froze.<br />
<br />
Older Soviets who visited American stores for the first time, got hit harder --
all the lies they were taught from childhood through the decades of their lives
-- until that last moment, they expected them to be at least partially true.<br />
<br />
Sure, they heard stories from overseas, but come on, those were just the
Potemkin villages, mirages created to make the Soviets jealous. How can one
imagine the unimaginable?<br />
<br />
“They told us in Odessa, that in San Francisco it’s hard
to find milk.” <br />
<br />
This is the typical Soviet mentality, and they were used to it, and they bought
into it, and then they entered that American supermarket and saw the rows upon
rows of milk of different brands and kinds and fat percentages.<br />
<br />
This is where some have been known to cry. It is the realization that their
lives were stolen from them by the regime. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A realization of what could’ve been, if they had
been lucky enough to be born in this place which, from everything they knew,
could not possibly exist.<br />
<br />
I now live in Northern California, in the heart
of the Bay Area, thousands of miles away from my homeland.<br />
<br />
And yet the poison of Soviet propaganda seeps through college dorms just as it
did in Soviet classrooms.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Stop
a random youth on the street and you’ll find out what he thinks about
capitalism (bad!) and communism/socialism (good!). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their favorite news programs are the Daily
Show and the Colbert Report, where comedians reinforce their brainwashing via
short, catchy clips.<br />
<br />
Walk through Berkeley
and you will see wall graffiti of the same hammer and sickle that adorned the big
red flags of the Soviet era. <br />
<br />
This doesn’t extend to just youths. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People of all ages, even acquaintances that I
otherwise respect and admire, are like this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They support the “progressive” leader Barack Obama, worship the nanny
State, and believe in equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity.<br />
<br />
They badmouth capitalism and complain that only one percent of the American
population has the “American dream.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
buy into the class warfare rhetoric hook, line, and sinker. They want
artificially raised minimum wage, government handouts, and believe that Obamacare
is the greatest thing since the invention of pockets. <br />
<br />
I look at them and the red ties materialize, familiarly, around their necks.<br />
<br />
There are “academic” speakers now who advocate that having too many choices is
“bad for you.” Too stressful to choose, you see.<br />
<br />
Living in the Soviet Union, being bombarded
with similar nonsense, we had nothing to contradict it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we walked outside the school, the everyday
reality had no traces of the wealth afforded by capitalism. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We lived in the grayness and that grayness was
all there was.<br />
<br />
Americans leave school to go home and they drop by a mall to buy something from
an incredible selection of wealth and choice afforded by capitalism. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They drop by a small corner store, which could
probably feed a savvy Soviet village for a month (dog food is food, too, you
know), and they pick up some “entertainment food” that did not exist in the USSR, in
quantities that weren’t affordable for an average Soviet family.<br />
<br />
Then they go home and write essays on their expensive iPads about how they
don’t have the American Dream.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Now, most American news sources are no different than Pravda and Izvestia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, the government used the IRS to stifle political
opposition. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, Obamacare is a wealth
redistribution platform disguised <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as a
common good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, Obama is being
portrayed in academia and the media alike as a charismatic, messianic,
“progressive” figure, fighting for the “underdog.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would feel right at home as the General
Secretary of the Communist Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, Obama
Youths are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">me</i>, from decades ago. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leninist academia has had its way with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, just like Soviet leaders, American
leaders give lip-service to “social justice” while stocking up on personal wealth
for their families.<br />
<br />
There’s nothing new under the sun. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
hardly the only ex-Soviet to point out the parallels. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But some things matter enough to bear
repeating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
Dear beautiful America, please, stop moving Forward.</span></div>
Alekseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12641759154869198174noreply@blogger.com0