Sunday, August 28, 2005
In The Wake Of The Soviet State
I don't quite know what to make of these stories.
This first examines the decline of employment and economic opportunity in the shipyards of Gdansk where Soviet communism first began to fall.
Then there is this story that looks at the rise of neo-Nazism in St. Petersburg.
The first story I find troubling in that it essentially says, "socialism is good," it decries the fall of socialism by pointing out that in capitalism there are economic winners and losers, which is, of course, what socialism attempts to avoid. Such examinations are always anecdotal, and fail to see the good on the larger scale.
Truly there are economic problems in the former eastern bloc, but they are not a result of the fall of communism, they are a result of the immense hold that the bureacracy, no longer communist in theory but still dictatorial in effect, still has over things. There are actually two great evils in communism, the first is the ideology itself, the second is the tyranny that the ideology enables. The ideology is dead, but the tyranny, though less violent, remains.
Two things must happen in the eastern bloc -- firstly the great apparatus of state must be disassembled. No leader can do this, the bureacracies have too much power. It must happen because of the second thing that has to happen -- the poeple themselves have to decide to make it work. Too many people are left in those countries that are used to having things handed to them for the necessary energy to arise in the populace.
What is really sad is that those with the energy, rather than stay and fight the good fight are just leaving. Perhaps their children will return to reclaim their homeland.
The second story is just taking a potshot. Neo-Nazism is a natural place for the disaffected to reside. It's rise in St. Petersburg is simply a result of the poor economic conditions and the now-existing politcal freedom to actually become neo-Nazis. They have always been there, but under the Soviets they were quickly placed in the gulag or worse.
I love Russia and it's former satellite states, I especially love the poeple I have met there. I am tired of hearing what is wrong there, particularly with a voice nostalgic for the Soviet era. I want to concentrate on how to make it better.
This first examines the decline of employment and economic opportunity in the shipyards of Gdansk where Soviet communism first began to fall.
Then there is this story that looks at the rise of neo-Nazism in St. Petersburg.
The first story I find troubling in that it essentially says, "socialism is good," it decries the fall of socialism by pointing out that in capitalism there are economic winners and losers, which is, of course, what socialism attempts to avoid. Such examinations are always anecdotal, and fail to see the good on the larger scale.
Truly there are economic problems in the former eastern bloc, but they are not a result of the fall of communism, they are a result of the immense hold that the bureacracy, no longer communist in theory but still dictatorial in effect, still has over things. There are actually two great evils in communism, the first is the ideology itself, the second is the tyranny that the ideology enables. The ideology is dead, but the tyranny, though less violent, remains.
Two things must happen in the eastern bloc -- firstly the great apparatus of state must be disassembled. No leader can do this, the bureacracies have too much power. It must happen because of the second thing that has to happen -- the poeple themselves have to decide to make it work. Too many people are left in those countries that are used to having things handed to them for the necessary energy to arise in the populace.
What is really sad is that those with the energy, rather than stay and fight the good fight are just leaving. Perhaps their children will return to reclaim their homeland.
The second story is just taking a potshot. Neo-Nazism is a natural place for the disaffected to reside. It's rise in St. Petersburg is simply a result of the poor economic conditions and the now-existing politcal freedom to actually become neo-Nazis. They have always been there, but under the Soviets they were quickly placed in the gulag or worse.
I love Russia and it's former satellite states, I especially love the poeple I have met there. I am tired of hearing what is wrong there, particularly with a voice nostalgic for the Soviet era. I want to concentrate on how to make it better.
