HOW THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR FELT FROM THE INSIDE

Frontpage Mag ^ | December 30, 2016 | Oleg Atbashian

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

25 years ago George Bush Sr. was still in office, and so was Saddam Hussein. The European Union didn't exist and neither did China's economic powerhouse. The Berlin wall had just come down and Germany had finally reunited. Hillary Clinton was a little-known mouthy First Lady of Arkansas and the media gleefully predicted that Donald Trump would never climb back to the top after his Atlantic City fiasco.

On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Eastern bloc was in shambles, but the USSR was still standing with Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm. Vladimir Putin dabbled in minor corruption working for the Mayor of Saint Petersburg, which had just been renamed from Leningrad. The KGB meddled in other countries' affairs as usual, spreading "fake news" and helping leftist politicians to win elections with no objections from the Western mainstream media.

Then, all of a sudden, the USSR disappeared from the map. How did that happen? Political scientists have and will continue to write, with varying degree of accuracy, about the details of it. What I'm attempting to do here is describe how it looked and felt from the inside - as seen by me, who at the time happened to be a voiceless, powerless Soviet citizen trying to make sense of the universe.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Indoctrination in American schools and colleges is worse than what I've seen in the Soviet Union, where getting a real education was actually important. And finally, just as it was in the USSR, more and more people begin to resent the "progressive" establishment and mock the lying media.

The way I see it, the proliferation of socialist ideas is largely a consequence of the decades-long Soviet meddling in American affairs, aimed at demoralizing the public and promoting the "correct" people and opinions in places where it mattered most. According to KGB defectors, only about 15% of Soviet intelligence activities here focused on actual espionage; the rest were influence operations. Their seeds have now blossomed, long after the "gardeners" have left this earth. Today's left-wing radicals in the Democratic Party owe Russia a large debt of gratitude for their unearned power. Seeing Russia turn against them in the last election must have felt excruciatingly scary and painful; they still seem to be in shock.

[Darteaus94025]

Yuri lays it all out in this short version:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IHgYPDvQFU8

Complete version:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnpCqsXE8g

[RedWulf]

Socialism is as American as Apple pie. The pilgrims tried it for years and they ended up starving. Socialism has always been with the left in this country but it’s a different strain than the one that infected and murdered so many in Russia and China. The origin of America Socialism goes back to the Anglo/Puritans and protestant Christianity and eastern Socialism is from Marx and Judaism. Both strains will destroy a nation but the Anglo/Puritan version is much slower moving or incremental in nature.

When we finally consigned Marx to the ash heap of history we stopped fighting our own home grown version of it. Big mistake. Anglo/Purtin Socialism has mutated into a system that seeks the genocide and replacement of the people who practice it, sort of a modern day shakers movement on a huge scale.

[Louis Foxwell]

A little off the subject, but Bourdain does not get it by half. The rebellion, nay, revolution, against leftists and progressivism with the election of Trump is not simply resentment against elitism, it is a proclamation that atheism is no way to run this country.
We are founded under the authority of the God of the Bible who is the Creator of the Universe. Our authority and rights ensue from Him, not from a corruptible government.

[x1stcav]

>Very few people feared or believed the Communists any longer, ridiculing their institutions and their lying media.<

Looks like the USA in 2016.

Substitute Democrat or Federal Government and the same sentence applies here.

[yldstrk]

Fascinating article

[gattaca]

bmp

[xp38]

Agree worth the read.

[achilles2000]

Socialism was imposed on the Pilgrims by their investors. Socialism was never doctrinally part of mainstream Puritanism or Protestantism.

[Old_Grouch]

Very good article. Thank you for posting!

[Robert DeLong]

Extremely good read, and highly recommended for all Freepers to read this and share with your liberal friends. While they will absolutely reject it, it may just plant a seed.

The last 2 paragraphs:

The way I see it, the proliferation of socialist ideas is largely a consequence of the decades-long Soviet meddling in American affairs, aimed at demoralizing the public and promoting the "correct" people and opinions in places where it mattered most. According to KGB defectors, only about 15% of Soviet intelligence activities here focused on actual espionage; the rest were influence operations. Their seeds have now blossomed, long after the "gardeners" have left this earth. Today's left-wing radicals in the Democratic Party owe Russia a large debt of gratitude for their unearned power. Seeing Russia turn against them in the last election must have felt excruciatingly scary and painful; they still seem to be in shock.

History is still being written. In this country, where a citizen's voice still means something, we are a part of this writing process. Trump's victory and the movement it started makes me feel "historically optimistic" again. This winter it is America's turn to be a blank page. It is up to us what will be written on it.

[Don Corleone]

25 years ago I was a single digit handicapper too. Everything changes!

[VRW Conspirator]

This should be required reading.

[RinaseaofDs]

Bookmarked

[super7man]

Wow. Great video. Explains so much. Thanks.

[bigbob]

Good analogy, the USSR failed because central planning failed, not because everyone suddenly woke up one day and decided they didn’t like Marxism. The philosophy was hidden by the the overlay of the bureaucracy that people had to put up with on a daily basis, and they finally couldn’t take any more. Same thing in China, where the experiments in capitalism (e.g. Hong Kong and later, Shenzen, et al) provided the means to make productive use of millions of rural Chinese that communism never could. Of course the more centralized and socialistic a government is, the easier it is corrupted.

The American form of Socialism was amplified by Progressivism and the notion that government was the solution to all problems, which put us on the slippery slope that we now must try to climb back up. Had we turned instead to the American values and free market capitalims we would never have ended up where we’re at today.

[elcid1970]

Now Hillary is just a mouthy washed-up PIAPS.

[smartymarty]

ping

[silverleaf]

Bookmark

[VanDeKoik]

Communism in a nutshell:

The promise of free stuff is what got people on-board.

The threat of losing that free stuff is what got people to stay in-line.

The poor quality of that free stuff is what got people disillusioned.

The knowledge of better stuff that you only have to work for is what got people to cast Communism off.