Contradiction

[NZman]

This is only an impression I has picked up. So there'll be no need for a shed load of abuse

Russians (new) is keen to make the difference between them and the Soviet period of history, but why is they still falling in to the Soviet way of think that everything and everyone that is doing anything in Russian is Russian. Is this a legacy of a MOCKBA centred Soviet state If it is the case can Russian not get away from their historical legacy

Discuss if you can

Love the NZman

[glock_girl]

Hi NZMan!

Good topic. I've always wondered about this one myself.
I am not so sure, but I think when a country tries to go from years and years of communism to democracy practically overnight, it's too fast.

If I DID learn my history correctly, Communism was promoted in such a big way to the people of Russia that they ate, slept, and breathed Communism. If you develop that kind of mentality (especially if you had been one of the ones who were living under the communist rule for the past 40 years or so) it's hard to just change your thought pattern.
And in one day all the rules, thoughts, ideas, etc. just change.

Maybe gradual would have been the key here?? I don't know, it's just a personal thought.

[CKA3KA]

hehe glock_girl, about eating, sleeping, and breathing communism--i think that america magnified what was really going on---people just lived their lives, and the country was already communist--so there wasn't much need for propaganda---infact, i don't recall having to get up in school every morning to pledge my allegiance to the flag of the ussr...
the anti-communist propaganda in america during the "red scare" was actually MUCH MUCH MUCH (stress the "much") worse than anything fairly modern in Soviet history.

[Pysnik]

Apparently you don't remeber Stalin starving the Ukraine. My wife had a friend who remebered all too well. She lived through the Bolshevik period.

I went to school with people whose grandparents and parents left because of the conditions there.

[mastodon]

american propaganda about the "reds" was incredible. when books like, "communist mutants from outer space" were published, words like 'excessive' become a bit inadequate. thought the book was not typical of american literature of the time, the fact that it existed is astonishing. propaganda existed on both sides of the 'fence.' but i think america was a bit more excessive than the soviet union. imho, the reason for this is the unquestioned adoption of paranoia by the american populous. americans loved having a bad guy, an equal but opposite force to their own. god forbid the world be peaceful.

[glock_girl]

To all:

Funny thing you mention blowing the propaganda out of proportion CKA3KA! When I told my mother about going to Russia she almost died. Thoughts of terrorism, guns, killing, etc. filled her head. But smartly, she admitted to me that that was how she was raised throughout her childhood to believe about the cold war...and this is in Canada. So we got it just as bad as the US did.

Ha ha I remember before we moved some years ago I was cleaning out a drawer my mother had kept pamphlets and towels in since before I was born...
Way in the back was a booklet published by our Canadian Government "What to do in Case of a Nuclear Explosion - 1972" Ha ha ha! And somewhere in the book (probably at the intro) it described the USSR as an "awesome, evil, destructive force...bla bla" ha ha ha...can you believe it?

Well, that's where my misunderstanding came from, and no one here has told me otherwise. Thanks for clearing things up!

[Mariboulg]

Look, it is almos psychological to why it is so difficult for Russians to get use to the Russia.

If almost all your life you have heard and belived something, it is in you for ever. And, it is up to the new generations to change that mentality and not to ones who feel in love, got married, lived their lives under a certain mentality.

It is difficult to get up one day and say I am changing. That is way most people don't get much further in their lives. BECAUSE CHANGE IS DIFFICULT. It takes much determination to CHANGE.

And about the Communist regime, most people did not have choice but to be communists. It was even an absolut obligation to become a PONIERE, a member of the partie.

Children had to memorise poems about Lenine and Staline, there was not any other choice !