- Dec 18, 2011
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No matter how many times we watch countries destroy themselves and see the people suffering a great deal, the left still won't let go of the notion that socialism is good for everyone.
"Some ten years later, an American college professor of mine recalled his own visit to the USSR. In 1970, he and his wife spent two weeks in Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev. During their stay in the communist country, he was shocked by the poverty and inefficiency he saw. (From Kiev, he wrote a letter to his parents in New York, which I have transcribed, with his permission, below.) All the other tourists that he met expressed similar sentiments.
When he returned to the United States, however, he kept on reading reports in mainstream publications, including Time magazine and The New York Times, which maintained that the Soviet economy was working. These reports were written by people who lived in the USSR, spoke Russian and had Soviet friends. As such, he concluded that the impressions he had made during his stay in the USSR were not valid."
And what were those observations that the guy saw first hand?
"Here is the letter from my former professor to his parents:
Hotel Dnipro, Kiev
Dear Parents,
We are on the train leaving the USSR. It’s a funny thing. In the last few years I’ve been becoming more liberal [Editorial note: i.e. left-wing]. I’d come to accept communism as just another system. But my stay in Russia has put me back in the ultra-conservative camp. Not the most raving right winger has ever adequately described how horrible this country is.
Where can I begin? Maybe the food. $1.80 for a mooshy orange. $1 for 3 tomatoes with fungi growing on them. Walnuts the likes of which you never saw (I still don’t understand how you can ruin a nut) – and don’t forget when you look at these prices that a medical doctor earns $1,200 a year. The meat and fish are utterly uneatable.
After a little while we got used to eating what the Russians subsist on – bread. This is the only food which is eatable and cheap. The effect of this diet is very obvious. The Russians are all fat and bloated. Even little children have fat bellies and double chins (this in a country where 40% of the population is farmers). Incidentally the wheat for the bread is imported from Canada.
When you walk the streets and they see you’re a tourist (this they can tell immediately by the cut of your clothes, shoes or the possession of one of the innumerable luxuries which distinguish the tourist –a watch, camera, etc.) they besiege you clamoring for chewing-gum, ball point pens, etc.
The new houses that they are putting up are already cracking and splitting before they are finished. We met a British ships engineer who is married to a Russian girl who is a doctor (she’s moving to London in a few months). In the apartment in which she lives, 9 families share 1 toilet with no facilities for bathing or showering. We asked him how they washed and said they didn’t – they smell.
Not only are refrigerators unknown but also ice-boxes are unknown. They have no means of food storage at all and drink their milk sour. Huge lines are everywhere and everyone one encounters is unbelievably lackadaisical and inefficient.
But the most horrible thing is the people’s faces – 13 days without seeing a smile, only hard, bitter, scowling faces with eyes that peer out suspiciously. Couples walking arm and arm down the street scowling. People playing checkers in the park scowling, little children scowling.
And don’t forget what we saw were only the biggest cities. The communists showcase – they themselves admit that they have "starved the country for the city". We met tourists who went through the countryside and what they saw was fantastic – cities without electricity or plumbing. Farmers using wooden plows and horses. Families living in hovels or, if they’re lucky, deserted railway cars
As far as class-consciousness and rigid class lines the likes of which I didn’t think existed anywhere any more, will not attempt to describe in a letter.
What kept occurring to me was that this is it. The communists have been in control of Russia for over half a century. The people have gone through immeasurable blood, sweat and tears – for this. One of the communists favorite slogans is "the ends justify the means". The means were mass murders, huge forced labor camps and constant terror. The ends are what we saw."
https://fee.org/articles/socialist-self-deception-einstein-and-the-ussr-to-bernie-sanders-and-venezuela/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mattkibbe
"Some ten years later, an American college professor of mine recalled his own visit to the USSR. In 1970, he and his wife spent two weeks in Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev. During their stay in the communist country, he was shocked by the poverty and inefficiency he saw. (From Kiev, he wrote a letter to his parents in New York, which I have transcribed, with his permission, below.) All the other tourists that he met expressed similar sentiments.
When he returned to the United States, however, he kept on reading reports in mainstream publications, including Time magazine and The New York Times, which maintained that the Soviet economy was working. These reports were written by people who lived in the USSR, spoke Russian and had Soviet friends. As such, he concluded that the impressions he had made during his stay in the USSR were not valid."
And what were those observations that the guy saw first hand?
"Here is the letter from my former professor to his parents:
Hotel Dnipro, Kiev
Dear Parents,
We are on the train leaving the USSR. It’s a funny thing. In the last few years I’ve been becoming more liberal [Editorial note: i.e. left-wing]. I’d come to accept communism as just another system. But my stay in Russia has put me back in the ultra-conservative camp. Not the most raving right winger has ever adequately described how horrible this country is.
Where can I begin? Maybe the food. $1.80 for a mooshy orange. $1 for 3 tomatoes with fungi growing on them. Walnuts the likes of which you never saw (I still don’t understand how you can ruin a nut) – and don’t forget when you look at these prices that a medical doctor earns $1,200 a year. The meat and fish are utterly uneatable.
After a little while we got used to eating what the Russians subsist on – bread. This is the only food which is eatable and cheap. The effect of this diet is very obvious. The Russians are all fat and bloated. Even little children have fat bellies and double chins (this in a country where 40% of the population is farmers). Incidentally the wheat for the bread is imported from Canada.
When you walk the streets and they see you’re a tourist (this they can tell immediately by the cut of your clothes, shoes or the possession of one of the innumerable luxuries which distinguish the tourist –a watch, camera, etc.) they besiege you clamoring for chewing-gum, ball point pens, etc.
The new houses that they are putting up are already cracking and splitting before they are finished. We met a British ships engineer who is married to a Russian girl who is a doctor (she’s moving to London in a few months). In the apartment in which she lives, 9 families share 1 toilet with no facilities for bathing or showering. We asked him how they washed and said they didn’t – they smell.
Not only are refrigerators unknown but also ice-boxes are unknown. They have no means of food storage at all and drink their milk sour. Huge lines are everywhere and everyone one encounters is unbelievably lackadaisical and inefficient.
But the most horrible thing is the people’s faces – 13 days without seeing a smile, only hard, bitter, scowling faces with eyes that peer out suspiciously. Couples walking arm and arm down the street scowling. People playing checkers in the park scowling, little children scowling.
And don’t forget what we saw were only the biggest cities. The communists showcase – they themselves admit that they have "starved the country for the city". We met tourists who went through the countryside and what they saw was fantastic – cities without electricity or plumbing. Farmers using wooden plows and horses. Families living in hovels or, if they’re lucky, deserted railway cars
As far as class-consciousness and rigid class lines the likes of which I didn’t think existed anywhere any more, will not attempt to describe in a letter.
What kept occurring to me was that this is it. The communists have been in control of Russia for over half a century. The people have gone through immeasurable blood, sweat and tears – for this. One of the communists favorite slogans is "the ends justify the means". The means were mass murders, huge forced labor camps and constant terror. The ends are what we saw."
https://fee.org/articles/socialist-self-deception-einstein-and-the-ussr-to-bernie-sanders-and-venezuela/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mattkibbe
