On a different note, there's a mansion around here that used to have tunnels like the ones described in "Dune" to cool and dehumidify the air blown inside (pre-AC). Immediately looked for some spice on the tour, found none! 😑
Hahaha, everyone knew Yeltzin was a drunk and a puppet...
Besides, the top tier of party bosses routinely sent their kids (and grandkids) to study abroad (some didn't return, choosing to abscond to the great chagrin of their elders). They all knew what America looks like, so did we, the plebes, albeit second hand through movies and stories of people being there.
And now we've turned around and are choosing to build the same monster that was slayed 30 years ago - the overbearing mother-state that knows best what the rubes need.
You have firsthand experience and know better than me, but wasn't there more than just "chagrin" involved? If someone defected, couldn't their family that stayed behind in the USSR be punished, to a greater or lesser degree?
As to your final point, it all kind of makes bollocks of the whole notion of "learn history so we don't repeat it." Repeating the past seems to what we're best at. It strikes me that most people either can't, or choose not to, read history and extrapolate previous events to the current moment. This is deeply frustrating, as you well know.
Late 70s and especially early 80s and beyond the top tier apparatchiks already knew the ship is sinking. And those were not regular Joes who stayed in the west, a lot of them were send to fill cushy embasy or trade liason jobs.
But you're correct about the brutal terror of the previous decades that kept everyone from even attempting to run away. I remember when the first passport applications were even available in 1986, you couldn't even get a passport to leave legally before, most of the people either ran through the border or during organized group trips while the party handler wasn't looking 😉
Like kids escaping from their teacher on a field trip, only with a lot more on the line... That's kind of insane they didn't even open up passport applications till 1986, just a few years before the ship sank. For being a worker's paradise and communist utopia, they sure knew where people would live given the choice.
On a different note, there's a mansion around here that used to have tunnels like the ones described in "Dune" to cool and dehumidify the air blown inside (pre-AC). Immediately looked for some spice on the tour, found none! 😑
Well shoot, you didn't think the spice would be that easy to find did you! I'm sure they kept it tucked away somewhere safe...
Hahaha, everyone knew Yeltzin was a drunk and a puppet...
Besides, the top tier of party bosses routinely sent their kids (and grandkids) to study abroad (some didn't return, choosing to abscond to the great chagrin of their elders). They all knew what America looks like, so did we, the plebes, albeit second hand through movies and stories of people being there.
And now we've turned around and are choosing to build the same monster that was slayed 30 years ago - the overbearing mother-state that knows best what the rubes need.
You have firsthand experience and know better than me, but wasn't there more than just "chagrin" involved? If someone defected, couldn't their family that stayed behind in the USSR be punished, to a greater or lesser degree?
As to your final point, it all kind of makes bollocks of the whole notion of "learn history so we don't repeat it." Repeating the past seems to what we're best at. It strikes me that most people either can't, or choose not to, read history and extrapolate previous events to the current moment. This is deeply frustrating, as you well know.
Late 70s and especially early 80s and beyond the top tier apparatchiks already knew the ship is sinking. And those were not regular Joes who stayed in the west, a lot of them were send to fill cushy embasy or trade liason jobs.
But you're correct about the brutal terror of the previous decades that kept everyone from even attempting to run away. I remember when the first passport applications were even available in 1986, you couldn't even get a passport to leave legally before, most of the people either ran through the border or during organized group trips while the party handler wasn't looking 😉
Like kids escaping from their teacher on a field trip, only with a lot more on the line... That's kind of insane they didn't even open up passport applications till 1986, just a few years before the ship sank. For being a worker's paradise and communist utopia, they sure knew where people would live given the choice.
You don't appreciate your health until you get sick and your freedom until you lose it.
I wish every American would spend a week in a communist country so they can experience all the glory of the communist utopia🤮