FOREVER LEFT
3rd March 2007, 17:16
Excerpt from Michael Parenti's book Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism & the Overthrow of Communism pages 116-118
"We Didn't Realize What We Had"
While many Eastern European intellectuals remain fervent champions of the free market paradise, most workers and peasants no longer romanticize capitalism, having felt its unforgiving lash. "We didn't realize what we had" has become a common refrain. "The latest public opinion surveys show that many Russians consider Brehznev's era and even Stalin's era to have been better than the present day period, at least as far as economic conditions and personal safety are concerned" (New York Times, 10/15/95). A joke circulating in Russia in 1992 went like this: Question- What did capitalism accomplish in one year that communism could not do in seventy years? Answer- Make communism look good.
Throughout Eastern Europe and the former USSR, many people grudgingly admitted that conditions were better under communism (New York Times, 3/30/95). Pro-capitalist Angela Stent, of Georgetown University, allows that "most people are worse off than they were under Communism ... The quality of life has deteriorated with the spread of crime and the disappearance of the social safety net" (New York Times, 12/20/93). An East German steelworker is quoted as saying "I do not know if there is a future for me, and I'm not too hopeful. The fact is that I lived better under Communism" (New York times, 3/3/91). An elderly Polish woman, reduced to one Red Cross meal a day: I'm not a Red but I have to say life for poor people was better before ... Now things are good for businessmen but not for us poor" (New York Times, 3/17/91). One East German woman commented that the West German women's movement was only beginning to fight for "what we already had here ... We took it for granted because of the socialist system. Now we realize what we [lost]" (Los Angeles Times, 8/6/91).
Anticommunist dissidents who labored hard to overthrow the GDR were soon voicing their disappointments about German reunification. One noted Lutheran clergyman commented: "We fell into the tyranny of money. The way wealth is distributed in this society [capitalist Germany] is something I find very hard to take." Another Lutheran pastor said: "We East Germans had no real picture of what life was like in the West. We had no idea how competitive it would be ... Unabashed greed and economic power are the levers that move this society. The spiritual values that are essential to human happiness are being lost or made to seem trivial. Everything is buy, earn, sell" (New York Times, 5/26/96).
Maureen Orth asked the first woman she met in a market if her life had changed in the last two years and the woman burst into tears. She was 58 years old, had worked forty years ina potato facory and now could not afford most of the foods in the market: "It's not life, it's just existence," she said (Vanity Fair, 9/94). Orth interviewed the chief of a hospital department in Moscow who said: "Life was different two years ago--- I was a human being." Now he had to chauffeur people around for extra income. What about the new freedoms?
"Freedom for what? he responded. Freedom to buy a pornographic magazine?"
In a similar vein, former GDR defense minister Heinz Kessler commented: "Sure, I hear about the new freedom that people are enjoying in Eastern Europe. But how do you define freedom? Millions of people in Eatern Europe are now free from empolyment, free from safe streets free from health care, free from social security" (New York Times, 7/20/96).
http://www.amazon.com/Blackshirts-Reds-Rat...72941986&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Blackshirts-Reds-Rational-Overthrow-Communism/dp/0872863298/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3029695-9559324?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172941986&sr=1-1)
"We Didn't Realize What We Had"
While many Eastern European intellectuals remain fervent champions of the free market paradise, most workers and peasants no longer romanticize capitalism, having felt its unforgiving lash. "We didn't realize what we had" has become a common refrain. "The latest public opinion surveys show that many Russians consider Brehznev's era and even Stalin's era to have been better than the present day period, at least as far as economic conditions and personal safety are concerned" (New York Times, 10/15/95). A joke circulating in Russia in 1992 went like this: Question- What did capitalism accomplish in one year that communism could not do in seventy years? Answer- Make communism look good.
Throughout Eastern Europe and the former USSR, many people grudgingly admitted that conditions were better under communism (New York Times, 3/30/95). Pro-capitalist Angela Stent, of Georgetown University, allows that "most people are worse off than they were under Communism ... The quality of life has deteriorated with the spread of crime and the disappearance of the social safety net" (New York Times, 12/20/93). An East German steelworker is quoted as saying "I do not know if there is a future for me, and I'm not too hopeful. The fact is that I lived better under Communism" (New York times, 3/3/91). An elderly Polish woman, reduced to one Red Cross meal a day: I'm not a Red but I have to say life for poor people was better before ... Now things are good for businessmen but not for us poor" (New York Times, 3/17/91). One East German woman commented that the West German women's movement was only beginning to fight for "what we already had here ... We took it for granted because of the socialist system. Now we realize what we [lost]" (Los Angeles Times, 8/6/91).
Anticommunist dissidents who labored hard to overthrow the GDR were soon voicing their disappointments about German reunification. One noted Lutheran clergyman commented: "We fell into the tyranny of money. The way wealth is distributed in this society [capitalist Germany] is something I find very hard to take." Another Lutheran pastor said: "We East Germans had no real picture of what life was like in the West. We had no idea how competitive it would be ... Unabashed greed and economic power are the levers that move this society. The spiritual values that are essential to human happiness are being lost or made to seem trivial. Everything is buy, earn, sell" (New York Times, 5/26/96).
Maureen Orth asked the first woman she met in a market if her life had changed in the last two years and the woman burst into tears. She was 58 years old, had worked forty years ina potato facory and now could not afford most of the foods in the market: "It's not life, it's just existence," she said (Vanity Fair, 9/94). Orth interviewed the chief of a hospital department in Moscow who said: "Life was different two years ago--- I was a human being." Now he had to chauffeur people around for extra income. What about the new freedoms?
"Freedom for what? he responded. Freedom to buy a pornographic magazine?"
In a similar vein, former GDR defense minister Heinz Kessler commented: "Sure, I hear about the new freedom that people are enjoying in Eastern Europe. But how do you define freedom? Millions of people in Eatern Europe are now free from empolyment, free from safe streets free from health care, free from social security" (New York Times, 7/20/96).
http://www.amazon.com/Blackshirts-Reds-Rat...72941986&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Blackshirts-Reds-Rational-Overthrow-Communism/dp/0872863298/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3029695-9559324?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172941986&sr=1-1)