New Tet
26th October 2009, 23:42
Here's a book that might help many socialists understand some aspects of Stalin and his cult:
In his novel, Aitmatov turns to the ancient Turkic legend of the mankurt. The head of a man taken prisoner is shaved and the moistened skin of a camel is applied to it. He is then sent into the desert, where the drying of the skin produces horrible torture. If the prisoner survives, his personality is destroyed by the process, and with it any recollection of the past. He is reduced to subservience to his master. The mankurt may look outwardly like a human being, but he is not. Aitmatov’s message, which struggled to escape censorship, was plain: this was what Stalin had done to Central Asia. And for Aitmatov, the lost memory was never more poignantly presented than in the fate of his father, a fate he learned only after the Soviet Union fell and the truth could be told.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90005978
In his novel, Aitmatov turns to the ancient Turkic legend of the mankurt. The head of a man taken prisoner is shaved and the moistened skin of a camel is applied to it. He is then sent into the desert, where the drying of the skin produces horrible torture. If the prisoner survives, his personality is destroyed by the process, and with it any recollection of the past. He is reduced to subservience to his master. The mankurt may look outwardly like a human being, but he is not. Aitmatov’s message, which struggled to escape censorship, was plain: this was what Stalin had done to Central Asia. And for Aitmatov, the lost memory was never more poignantly presented than in the fate of his father, a fate he learned only after the Soviet Union fell and the truth could be told.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90005978