To go along with the "crimes of Communism" theme today - here is an excerpt from a book I really dig: Michael Dobbs' Down With Big Brothjer: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. It's my favorite excerpt.
Despite a willingness to redefine the word "socialism", so that it lost much of its meaning, Gorbachev was unwilling to abandon Communist ideology altogether. He prattled on about the irrevocable "socialist choice" that Russia had allegedly made in November 1917. Lenin remained an unassailable authority for him. Yeltsin, on the other hand, was undergoing an ideological conversation that was both painful and public. Spurred on by his conflict with the Communist Party establishment, he had reexamined his most basic political beliefs, and he had come to the conclusion that he was no longer a Communist.A turning point in Yeltsin's intellectual development occurred during his first visit to the United States in September 1989, more specifically his first visit to an American supermarket, in Houston, Texas. The sight of aisle after aisle of shelves neatly stacked with every conceivable type of foodstuff and household item, each in a dozen varieties, both amazed and depressed him. For Yeltsin, like many other first-time Russian visitors to America, this was infinitely more impressive than tourist attractions like the Statue of Liberty and the Lincoln Memorial. It was impressive precisely because of its ordinariness. A cornucopia of consumer goods beyond the imagination of most Soviets was within the reach of ordinary citizens without standing in line for hours. And it was all so attractively displayed. For someone brought up in the drab conditions of communism, even a member of the relatively privileged elite, a visit to a Western supermarket involved a full-scale assault on the senses.
"What we saw in that supermarket was no less amazing than America itself," recalled Lev Sukhanov, who accompanied Yeltsin on his trip to the United States and shared his sense of shock and dismay at the gap in living standards between the two superpowers. "I think it is quite likely that the last prop of Yeltsin's Bolshevik consciousness finally collapsed after Houston. His decision to leave theparty and join the struggle for supreme power in Russia may have ripened irrevocably at that moment of mental confusion."
On the plane, traveling from Houston to Miami, Yeltsin seemed lost in his thoughts for a long time. He clutched his head in his hands. Eventually he broke his silence. "They had to fool the people," he told Sukhanov. "It is now clear why they made it so difficult for the average Soviet citizen to go abroad. They were afraid that people's eyes would open."
The former party apparatchik understood the yearning of the narod -- the long-suffering Russian people -- for a normal life, its anger at being deceived and humiliated. He, too, had been humiliated. He, too, had been deceived. He would help the narod secure its revenge against the party establishment. The narod's revenge would also be his.
Orwell's genius was recognizing the trick, recognizing how "they" had to fool "the people" - recognizing the utter lie of Communism or Socialism - decades before anyone else did. I'm gonna go home and pull out that excerpt from 1984 where Winston reads the forbidden book which outlines the tenets of Newspeak and totalitarianism - and Orwell (duh) finds a much deeper level to all of it than I could see originally.
"They had to fool the people". People are still being fooled.
The reference to Yeltsin's supermarket epiphany is interesting. When Nikita Kruschev first visited the United States, he was taken to a normal supermarket. What he saw appeared so beyond belief to him that he could only rationalize that it was set up to deceive him. He could not accept that this country had that rich a variety of food and household goods readily available for all.
Posted by: David at January 6, 2004 5:10 PMFascinating, David.
The ability of a country to feed its people, to give its people choices...
I still wonder though:
Didn't the Communists think that THEIR way was going to be the right way? Didn't they truly believe that putting socialism into place would be the best way? So - wasn't the leadership, in essence, "fooled" too?
Or - is it as Orwell said, in 1984? That the entire thing was an edifice, created by power-hungry intellectuals - who knew that this would be the only way that power could be in the hands of the FEW.
I lean more towards Orwell's way of thinking.
I'm being completely unclear. Forgive me. I need Orwell's excerpt in front of me.
But that's my question, and if it's naive, please don't yell at me. Did Communists really believe that what they were doing was going to be GOOD for people? Or was it just a power-grab dressed up in an elaborate intellectual lie?
Posted by: red at January 6, 2004 5:16 PMWell, even in this capitalist democracy, with abundant food for all, power still does lie with only a few. It's just that the bar of daily living for the average person is higher. Enough so that we would never revolt.
And isn't it ironic that in this land of plenty, so many people are living in poverty, with little to eat - the amount of food wasted is just tremendous. The united States produces enough food to feed every one doubled (if not more).
I came from a small south east asian nation, a democracy as well, with plenty of "stuff" and plenty of food. Yet the overabundance of the United States and almost overwhelming push to be a mass consumer can feel oppressive at times.
somewhat off topic, but just some random semi related thoughts
melis
Posted by: melis at January 6, 2004 5:32 PMNot to be all wishy-washy, but I think it's a combination of both factors. I don't doubt that Lenin sincerely believed that Communism would be an improvement over the existing system, but he also believed that he needed to be in charge to make it happen.
The local party organization leadership were probably filled with a mix of true believers and opportunists.
The rank and file membership they depended on to make their will law were probably filled with two types, the true believers.
There's also another group that helped the Communists come to power, the embittered looking for a chance to take the elite down a notch or get revenge for the innumerable ways in which they had been slighted by the Czarists.
Posted by: Bill McCabe at January 6, 2004 5:34 PMMelis -
I think it's a good thing that the bar of daily living is higher here.
Poor people in this country are more likely to be obese than underweight.
And power in the hands of the few? We vote them in, we vote them out. No term longer than 4 years. Tyranny is checked. The Founding Fathers understood that. You hate the "regime" in power? You only have 4 years to suffer. Or, at worst, 8.
I vote every election. I feel very powerful in that respect.
We are not technically a democracy, anyway. Our tradition is democratic, but technically we're a federal republic. The Founding Fathers feared true democracy, feared the possibility of mob rule. We elect people to do the job for us. If they do a bad job, we vote them out.
Posted by: red at January 6, 2004 5:40 PM"Did Communists really believe that what they were doing was going to be GOOD for people? Or was it just a power-grab dressed up in an elaborate intellectual lie?"
For many people, it's very, very tempting to believe that the things that are good for *you* are the same things that are *good*. It avoids the necessity of making difficult moral choices--as in the case of a plantation owner in the Old South confronted with the issue of slavery. I suspect the same was true of many Communist leaders, especially in the later stages--there were undoubtedly some true idealists in the earlier stages.
And Melis...you say "..the overabundance of the United States and almost overwhelming push to be a mass consumer can feel oppressive at times.."
I personally have never felt any such push: I really don't feel obligated to want something just because the ads or the celebraties tell me to. I do, however, get a feeling of "oppression" similar to the one you mention in one circumstance: when flipping through the ad pages of the NY Times Magazine. It's not the "stuff" that I find so oppressive, but the fact that it is nearly all marketed on snob appeal...ie, not an open mass market at all, but a self-conscious "class" market.
Posted by: David Foster at January 6, 2004 5:54 PMHey Sheila -- have you ever read Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon? If not, I'll bet you'd LOVE it.
Posted by: Emily at January 6, 2004 6:40 PMEmily - I have not. I will go out and buy it tomorrow.
Once I finish every word Tolkien ever wrote, which should be deep into my menopausal years, maybe I'll take a look at it.
Posted by: red at January 6, 2004 8:57 PMI second Emily's recommendation for Darkness at Noon. When it was first published, the author (himself an ex-communist) was virulently denounced by the European and American left.
Posted by: David Foster at January 6, 2004 9:11 PMIt's kind of odd that anti-socialists idolize George Orwell...the man NEVER relinquished socialism himself (unless you discount the British Labour Party as being socialist, but I've never met a "conservative" who thought so)! His book "Animal Farm" made the point that the Soviet leadership was sliding back towards capitalist ways, hence, the ending, when the pigs (Communist apparatchiki) and the men (capitalists) look more and more alike. I also found it prophetic when the pig/men discussed changing the name of "Animal Farm" back to "Manor Farm". If people are going to accuse Gorbachev of being unwilling to relinquish the socialist dream, don't forget to ridicule Orwell as well!