People in a prison rarely smile. Communist states are basically vast open air prisons.
Figures
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
The prevailing narrative that my sons learned in both school and college, as well as the general pop culture, is that the USSR was bad because of Stalin. After Stalin, it began getting better until about the 1980s when, but for a few deficiencies, it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, they’re taught it was better than the US in many ways by then.
Dave, how do the schools explain the collapse of the Soviet Union and the regimes they imposed in Eastern Europe?
American military aggression; the American Military Industrial Complex pushing hostile economic conditions meant to stuff money in our pockets at the expense of the world – including the Soviets. Remember, by the time of the 80s, they’re told the USSR was just another country trying to get by. The main aggressors of the Cold War, at least by the end, are the powers in the USA (Reagan getting special marks in that category). And I don’t think it started being taught when my boys were in school. I worked with a young grad student who had graduated from Boston College, probably around early 00s/late 90s, and that was her take: the Cold War was all about American Capitalist aggression and imperialism. The Soviets just wanting to give peace a chance, So long before my sons came along, apparently this was being taught as the real history.
Sometimes I think we miss just how long the things we consider lies and evil have, in fact, been officially taught in our nation’s various institutions. Consider that my son took a class on Classical Mythology in college this semester. Right between the Iliad and the Aeneid was the Bible – all fiction, all myth, all dispensable: the official teaching of the university, It was not taught that way in the same class when I went to college in the 1980s – but it was starting to get close.
“American military aggression; the American Military Industrial Complex pushing hostile economic conditions meant to stuff money in our pockets at the expense of the world – including the Soviets.”
So, not only brainwashed, but bone ignorant and deeply stupid?
Even Howard Zinn had a more realistic view of the Soviet Union:
Yes, I was “very glad” the Soviet government was overthrown, and at the point where Gorbachev was in power, and “glasnost” and “perestroika” appeared to have a certain future, I saw the possibility of a socialist but democratic Soviet Union that would retain the social programs without the cruelties of the police state. Exactly why that possibility was crushed I confess I don’t know. Did the Soviet Union as you say contribute something “progressive to the march of humanity?” I’m not sure. You attribute to the existence of the Soviet Union “the progress of unionization and social reform all over the world” and “the liberation struggles of oppressed peoples” who took “courage and inspiration and critical material support from the Soviet Union.” I don’t credit the Soviet Union with that. Before the Soviet Union existed we had in the United States a powerful Socialist movement, militant labor struggles, the I.W.W., the Populist Movement. Colonial peoples did not need the Soviet Union to inspire them to try to throw off the rule of imperialist powers. As for material support—the record is mixed. The Soviet Union seems to have given material support when it was in its national interest and other times withheld it (the aid to Spain, for instance, is not clear-cut; the aid to the Greece rebels after World War II was not there—it seems Yugoslavia gave them real aid). Yes, whatever the motives, material aid helped the Vietnamese, and helped the Cubans. But that still does not exonerate the Soviet Union for its crimes against its own people, or its own military assaults on Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Afghanistan.
https://www.howardzinn.org/beyond-the-soviet-union/
It’s what they’re taught. And as I said, I don’t think it’s new. My wife and I have been watching old movies from our youth, the kind you don’t waste time with when you’re a teen or younger. I’m shocked about how many of the movies have that theme: USA as bad as the USSR, or the USA the reason the USSR was bad, or at best, the USSR is really bad, but look at the USA’s evils. That was late 70s, early 80s. By college we weren’t to that level, but we were already being shown religion from a purely secular lens, and while Socialism may have it’s rocky spots, it can also be good for a nation, and let’s not forget how bad Capitalism is. Thirty years ago, and I don’t think the trends have slowed any.
In “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism,” Paul Kengor traces the influence of communism in our education system. He gives names, Party card numbers, and their influential positions at teachers’ colleges. I found it eye opening and further motivation to homeschool.
“It’s what they’re taught.”
Kids are taught a lot of things they forget as soon as the classroom door hits them in the butt on their last day. I think social media and a herd like instinct is more to blame. Oh, and too many of the young read on less than a comic book level.
A lot of us know better.
We’re also not stupid enough to make ourselves a target, since that just means you’ll get mobbed from the left, and blamed for their own failures from the right. (You want an extreme example? Look at how many folks on the right are declaring Kyle to be stupid, for not standing aside to let imported rioters burn down his co-worker’s family business, in his dad’s home town. He must be blamed. He actually did something.)
Yeah, SOME folks don’t do that, but it is what we were taught to expect for speaking up. The very folks who make outraged demands for why “nobody” does a thing will punish those who do what is asked, and there is no stupid accusation that will not have water carried for it. The most unusual thing about the Covington Kids is that some of those who instantly went on the attack later apologized.
Social Media is big. Drive by media promotes falsehoods. In the Covington boys cases their own school administration plus the bishops attacked them right off the bat. Bet some of the parents leaned on their kids to apologize. They didn’t want the stigma or the threats.
A member of the mission was born in Hungary. She is very vocal about the Communist regime. On the second try the family escaped into Austria. She loathes the Democrats.
I visited Russia in 1993, just a scant 4 years after the Wall fell.
Still seeing the scars and remnants of Communism’s toll on the land, it was clear the people had very little to smile about.
Nate, when I went back to grad school in the 90s, there were a slew of students from the former USSR, because they could. We lived in family housing that we lovingly called The Gospel Ghetto. Low income, low cost, mostly for the local seminary students with kids. We became close friends with one family, the mom from Ukraine (and don’t ever call someone from Ukraine Russian), and one from St. Petersburg, Russia. One thing they went on and on about was how great they were living. They had never seen anyone live like we did there in the old ghetto. What for us was a step away from embarrassing was, to them – former citizens of the nation so many Americans are being taught to covet – living like kings. Oh, and contrary to the lessons my kids learned in school, they informed us that the USSR was still the USSR up until it ended.
Exactly, Dave.
I don’t even want to ship all our communists away. I’d settle for them just having to go and live in one of their commie countries for a fortnight – maybe a whole month – so they could at least have some perspective on just how bad things can get.