Posted on 11/15/2017 10:25:45 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A recent poll found that fifty percent of millennials say they would rather live in a communist or socialist country than in a capitalist democracy. These numbers can’t be laughed off -- they should frighten you. Maybe they don’t know what communism means.
I do. I lived in Communist Poland.
Perhaps those fifty percent of millennials were not properly taught about communism in school. That’s too bad, and dangerous. So here are some examples for those misguided millennials to ponder, all of which I experienced in communist Poland.
Unreliable electricity
Do you millennials enjoy having electricity on demand to charge your devices? Then you would hate Action “O.” Action “O” stood for “Oszczednosc,” which translates to “Savings.” Poland’s communist government would notoriously turn off electricity to various areas of the city to “save” energy.
They had an interesting system which they described as “customer oriented”: they would turn the electricity off for one minute and turn it back on for five minutes as a warning that a shutoff was coming. You had exactly five minutes to find your matches and candles, because after that electricity would shut off for several hours.
If that wasn’t bad enough, we suffered under a shortage of matches.
Fake equality
The most demoralizing part of the communist system was that “all were considered equal.” This was a big lie.
It didn’t matter if you worked hard -- your pay was equal to the guy who barely showed up for work, or came to work drunk. The only way to advance was to join the political elite: the Communist party.
Imagine a system where the key to success wasn’t hard work or merit, but conniving and politics. If you sold your soul to the devil, you were rewarded.
My father worked at a water company in one of the major cities in Silesia Region. He was approached several times by the “party” PZPR with an offer of a promotion to a director’s position. But there was one small requirement.
He would need to first denounce his religion.
Yes, they asked him to become an atheist devoted solely to the communist ideology if he wanted to get a raise or promotion. Neither him nor our family would be able to attend mass or practice our religion in any manner.
Imagine a system where job success comes not from your productivity or character, but from the degree to which you adhere to party orthodoxy.
My dad is a religious and honorable man. He declined the offer and therefore never got promoted, and our lives never got better -- and I am so proud of him for his strong beliefs and integrity.
But the idea of “equality” under communism was a lie.
Needing “connections” to buy simple goods
Imagine a life where you couldn’t buy anything without first getting the approval of the political elite.
Those who joined the party had many, many privileges that an average person never had. To the most reliable zealots, the communist party distributed special “talony” stamps to purchase cars. If you didn’t have the stamps, you could wait years “in line” before becoming “eligible” for a car.
The party members even had special stores to purchase food -- and this higher quality food was often imported from the West. Instead of a Costco card, you needed a communist party card to shop there.
Needing “connections” to find a place to live
Connections were needed when applying for housing. For example, my family eventually received permission from the government to move to a larger three-room apartment. Yet the four of us had lived in a tiny two-room apartment because we didn’t have the party’s approval to find a bigger one for seven years.
How many millennials would accept needing to seek the approval of a political party or government before they could move anywhere?
Decades-long waits for apartments
If millennials want to live under communism, they need to accept being stuck living with their parents. Rentals are simply not available.
When I turned eighteen, I went to the government-run housing association with a full down payment deposit for a new apartment. The association explained the process: they would take my deposit now and add my name to the list. Once an apartment became available they would let me know, but until then I had to live with my parents. I asked: “How long will this take?” The answer: between 10 to 15 years!
This was the last straw. I took back my money and decided I would leave Poland in search of freedom from communist or socialist ideology.
Rationing
Millennials are used to buying whatever they want. That doesn’t happen in communism. All the goods that make up daily life were rationed, if they could be had at all. Everything was rationed: sugar, soap, flour, detergent, beer, butter, and most of all, meat. You couldn’t buy the basics without the talony stamps.
We were limited to only 100 grams of chocolate per month! The average American trick or treat bag has about eight years of the communist’s chocolate allowance.
Empty grocery stores, corruption, and black markets
Communist rationing created a culture of black markets and a nation comfortable with lawbreaking. This fostered countrywide corruption. There was a famous saying about purchasing food “spod lady,” meaning “from under the counter.” Most of the time, grocery stores were completely empty. But if you paid extra, you could probably get something that the lady from behind the counter “stashed” away and sold for a profit.
Lines, lines everywhere
Communism means waiting in line.
We would wait for hours, and sometimes days, for the simplest things: food, detergent, toilet paper, matches, stockings or socks. Meat was always in great shortage, and the lines the longest. Since both of my parents worked, my grandmother would get in line at 3:00 a.m. to buy a single pound of meat for the family. I remember waiting hours to buy toilet paper or matches.
Violence -- and murder -- for expressing different ideas
Millennials need to understand that communism is a culture of repression and violence. All around us was oppression, even in the education system. Brilliant teachers or priests who didn’t conform to communist ideology or spoke against it were imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Our history books were rewritten, and we were taught lies about our own history.
I recall my 8th grade friend being severely punished because in his essay he disclosed that there was a pact between Hitler and Stalin against Poland before World War II began. Of course, this was the truth -- but in communism truth doesn’t matter. Only the revolutionary party dogma matters. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was never to be mentioned.
Musical and cultural totalitarianism
Think millennials want government officials controlling the music they listen to or the programs they watch?
Under communism, there was absolutely NO freedom of speech. The authorities made it easy to brainwash the public. Drinking was heavily promoted and there was no access to the external world. No direct news from the West was allowed. We only had access to two TV channels (TVP1, TVP2), and one was solely devoted to communist propaganda news.
When Elton John’s song Nikita came out, it was blacklisted by the authorities. You could be imprisoned for simply listening to the song or having a bootlegged record. Yet we still did. I remember going to my friend’s apartment who had an illegal copy of Nikita and clinging to every word of freedom portrayed in the song:
And if there comes a time
Guns and gates no longer hold you in
And if you're free to make a choice
Just look towards the West and find a friend
-------------------
You, the free West, gave us a glimpse of hope. I believed that things could get better.
I pray that the millennial generation doesn’t blow it, and enable a return to the mad, dehumanizing world that I lived in under communism.
Thanks for posting the entire article.
We need to thank the Good Lord above at least daily, if not more often, for the privilege of living in the USA.
I have two kids in college right now and much of what you saw is pretty accurate.
I did go out of my way to specify “the ignorant ones” because I know not all “millennials” are basement dwelling ignorant clods.
Hahahaha...what is it with a five year interval? All communist entities seem to buy into that...
In 1989 Boris Yeltsin visited the US and Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX. He went into Houston and visited a super market and was floored at the quality, quantity and low prices of everything in that store.
His one comment that places Communism/Socialism into perspective is that if the Soviet people saw that store and the others like it they would completely revolt. He also said that the entire Party elite did not have access to anything near as good or in such quantities.
Here is a quote from his autobiography:
“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”
The fundamental flaw in Communist/Socialist/Fascist ideology concerns ACTUAL human tendency and behavior.
Humans naturally work hard to two things. And one of those things makes us different from animals. 1) We will work hard for survival 2) We will work hard for wealth (by whatever definition you attribute to wealth).
If you remove the potential for wealth, human behavior resorts to only survival. Behavior will adapt to whatever it takes. Then, the state must motivate productivity on behalf of the wealth of the state. This is most efficiently achieved by threatening survival. If survival is the lone motivator for humans, than survival can be used to also motivate production in a workforce, but only to a certain point.
Millennials do not believe in “live to work”. They think that they should “work to live”. It would take on a whole new meaning if they got what they think they want.
The idea of Socialism/Communism is driven and perpetuated by a utopian falacy and is desired by lazy people.
“I won’t have to work hard and nobody will have it better than me because the government will take care of everybody the same.”
>>All around us was oppression, even in the education system. Brilliant teachers or priests who didn’t conform to communist ideology or spoke against it were imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Our history books were rewritten, and we were taught lies about our own history.<<
That this is happening here, right now, isn’t just deja vu. It may be happening under the labels of liberal, progressive, social justice warriors, but at it’s core it is communism.
Which Book? Apparently Yeltsin wrote at least a few.
It comes from the universities, since Socialism is the only system under which the pseudo-intellectual frauds that hold court there can obtain the most money and power in society - a position they think their educations entitle them to.
And if the consequences of their folly fell only upon their own tender and precious shoulders, I'd be willing to "live and let live." By all means, let 'em have collectivism. Entire boatloads of it. Let them enjoy experience collectivism to its fullest and foulest extent.
But the sad and terrible truth is that the disastrous consequences of their feckless folly falls upon us all. You rightly cite Venezuela. One look at what has happened on the South American continent is all it should take to wake these snowflakes up.
Tragically, so many Millennials remain enamored by the siren song of socialism in spite of this. They are deliberately blind. I dare say that you know this already.
"Against the Grain: An Autobiography"
I read something similar to what Boris Yeltsin was quoted about. It was the reaction of a pilot who had flown a MIG into an airbase in the West. When taken to the US, he was shown a super market. He told his escort “I believe that this store was stocked and prepared just for me to see.”
He was told, “no, there are many stores like this in every American town. They compete to sell their goods so they are fresh and priced right. If not, the customer goes to another store.”
It is amazing to hear how the commies kept their subjects in the dark, unaware of the “Western Way.”
My Polish neighbors also grew up in Communism there. They mentioned how there was only one radio station.
Which is part of the brilliance of the founders of the American Constitution...they went out of their way to take the negative aspects of human nature into account.
Of course, it doesn't mean anything if nobody actually follows the Constitution, but hey, they tried.
The snowflakes dumber than dont see what’s happening in Venezuela?
Bizarro it all is.
The book was: Mig Pilot, by Viktor Belenko.
I bought that book when it first came out and the last chapter was the best. After his debrief someone gave him the keys to a Cessna and a credit card and told him to fly wherever he wanted. His one big statement was our poor people were overweight and had big bellies due to too much food whereas the real starving people he saw were to due the bloat caused by actual starvation.
He went on to say that with the style of government we had at that time we had actually created a Socialist country that worked.
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