The Press is falling over themselves to talk about what a guy he was, and how the Soviet system was (in the WaPo's term) "a seven-decade experiment born of Utopian idealism". Well OK then. Remember, I did not read Pasternak but I condemn him ...
Oh, and the cartoon at that last link? The one with two Gulag prisoners working in the snow and with the caption that said I won the Nobel Prize in Literature. What was your crime? You know, the cartoon that won a Pulitzer Prize?
Yeah, the WaPo would never publish it today. Scratch a journalist, find a commie.
And so, here's a (err) toast to Mikhail Gorbachev, from back in the day when truth could still be spoken.
A seven decade experiment borne of utopian idealism...
ReplyDelete...that devolved within the first 3 months into a totalitarian, murderous, monstrous dystopia that incinerated millions of lives.
Gorbachev was right to end it. It's just too bad that the wrong folks somehow grabbed the levers. Again. Like always seems to happen in Russia.
Russia's worst problem has always been that there are Russians in Russia.
ReplyDeleteParanoia is a genetic trait of people who live there.
I was still wearing the uniform then, and Gorby was just another Commie leader. Russia is a criminal enterprise, has always been a criminal enterprise, whether Czar, Commissar or Prime Minister.
ReplyDeleteA small Military Veteran's museum near here (in Oshkosh, fairly heavy emphasis on vehicles) has a T-34 tank that was donated by Russia with Gorbachev's approval. The Russians even overhauled it before it was shipped to the museum.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize he was still alive; I thought he had died years ago...
ReplyDelete