I think some Americans are anti-socialists simply because they've been anti-USSR for so long. I'm serious. Europe doesn't have a problem with socialism because Russia never became their greatest enemy. For the last half-century USA and the USSR have been neck-to-neck as the rulers of the world, and we've heard so many insults about Communism it seems like the utmost evil. Who didn't grow up make-believing about Russian spies and "the communists are coming!"
I'm not saying communism is right—far from it. I'm just wondering if our prejudice against socialism has little to do with the actual issue.
And me? I really like Russians, personally. Can't wait till I can afford to visit their country.
And speaking of Communism I did some research on USSR injustices. We read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for school and we found out what Soviets did to citizens, but we really didn’t find out why. This is what I found:
- - Baptists were put in the camps not because they were Baptists, but because they refused to register themselves. A registered citizen cannot share religious content with children under 18 and cannot proselytize, and the government also spies on them. Baptists tried to avoid these things and got put in the camps for 25 years because of it.
- - If you were late for work three times, you were put in jail for three years.
- - If you stole food—any food, period, even potatoes left in the field during a famine, you got a nice fat 25 years. Try to feed your family on that.
- - If you made a joke about an official, you could get 25 years in the gulag.
- - Relatives of people who were imprisoned often got imprisoned themselves. ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ so they say.
Europe doesn't have a problem with socialism because they are socialists....have been for a long time... hence their economic issues now..
ReplyDeleteYou need to read Ann Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" ( she was Russian by the way) and the "Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx. I read Karl Marx book when I was a Sophomore in College. Even then, I could see tendencies of possibilities of us humans in the US using other people for power. Scary..
Hey nanna! Exactly, but why are they socialists when we are not? That is the question.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they're alone on economic issues.
That is interesting, I will look that up...funny title...We read the Communist Manifesto I think two years ago? three? one? idk. Rather fascinating, and sad, almost as bad and Mein Kamf...I just read "My name is Asher Lev" about Jews trying to gt their people out of Russia (Well, that's the sub-plot) and two months ago we read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, about a Russian man in the Gulag. That is a GREAT book, favorite one from this year, and I'm taking it back with us, you MUST read it.