...and by the same token, it's very easy to speak of the needs for sacrifice in a revolution until you come face to face with living memory of it. It all sounds very reasonable as statistics, but the human problems of it are quite different. And that is the problem with such fixed, dogmatic positions - once they run into reality, they either get confused and collapse, or they lash out at everything that's different. Or both, and not necessarily in that order. And what you end up with is a mess for generations and generations to deal with, a historical trauma that leaves scars on millions of people for centuries to come. That is exactly, to a T, the story of the Soviet experiment - and no cold statistics will ever capture the real impact of it. No slogan and theory will ever justify it. The living memory of the real messy truth of Soviet times isn't going to go away very soon. Even when the people who carry it go, the damage done will stay. And for what?
The KPRF have cleaned up... a little. But their image problem isn't going to go away. Because it's not just an image, it is, in the end, what they stood for and what they can never take back. Similarly, the words "democracy" and "liberalism" are forever tarnished in Russia now, thanks to the 1990s. It will take a long time before anyone will take those seriously.
Otherwise, noone's going to solve anything with banner-waving and selective memory. And in fact, they're very likely to make things worse.
...man, I feel more DDT songs coming on
I know it's probably bad taste to spam songs in response to everything, but when the shoe fits...
Here's one for you:
It's a bitingly honest description of the stark reality of "nostalgic communism" in Russia today. Funny - but also scary if you think about it.
Quote:
"Song of the Disaffected Person" (translation)
Oligarchs in Courchevel demean Komsomol songs
Pro-Kremlin sluts [censored] over capital
Liberal opposition is [censored] - at last everyone's together
Here's a chance them all into free astral space
Rather than burning in this fire for a perverse democracy
It's easier to remember how it was, raising the old furious banner
I'm rooting for our Motherland, for Stalin strictly
And don't sing me no songs that there was some kind of Gulag
Communism is good
Communism is good
Stalinism is good
Totalitarianism is good
You told me "Goodbye!", you laugh at my salary
You're turned on by the neighbour, a deputy, deadbeat and thief
That's alright, I'll put Lenin's tome beside me in bed
I'll kiss my own AKM and cherish the breech
Soon, soon I will end her and that businessman of a neighbour
They'll have a serving of my tears, we'll have some real fun
Communism is great if it's something like dinner
We will feed a proud sacrifice to the Soviet regime
A gloomy fraternity is better than bitter intercourse
Let the West fear us - those vomit-worthy bourgeois pedos
We'll unite with our master in a single movement
And our upon the skins of nations, we will leave our footprints
COMMUNISM IS GOOD
COMMUNISM IS GOOD
DARWINISM IS GOOD
IMPERIALISM IS GOOD
TOTALITARIANISM IS GOOD
CAPITALISM IS GOOD
COLLECTIVISM IS GOOD
GLOBALISM IS GOOD
RHEUMATISM IS GOOD
COMMUNISM IS GOOD
IDIOTISM IS GOOD
PLURALISM IS GOOD
ANACHRONISM IS GOOD
COMMUNISM IS GOOD
MILITARISM IS GOOD
SOCIALISM IS GOOD
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