Still Pining for the Good Old Soviet Days?
March 2, 2006, 6:28 pm |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
Pope John Paul II did much help bring down the Evil Empire, er, ah, Soviet Union, and not just because he was Polish, but because he believed in free expression. We knew that he pissed off the Soviet leadership, but now:
An Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that the former Soviet Union was behind the 1981 assassination attempt on the late Pope John Paul II.
The head of the commission, Paolo Guzzanti, said it was sure beyond “reasonable doubt” that Soviet leaders ordered the shooting.
Turkish national Mehmet Ali Agca, now 48, shot the Pope in St Peter’s Square on 13 May 1981, hitting him four times.
Agca never gave a motive, and mystery has continued to surround the shooting.
A link between Agca and Bulgarian agents, and through them to the Soviet Union’s KGB, has been the subject of speculation over the years.
It galls me to hear from old, washed-up, die-hard leftists that things were “better” under the Soviets than they are now in Eastern Europe. Better then? People in the old satellites can now vote, start businesses, publish and/or read independent newspapers, surf the web, and practice their faiths openly. Countries are no longer surrounded by mine fields and barbed wire; people can travel as they will. People can make a phone call without fearing that some apparatchik is listening. Citizens can speak freely in restaurants without worrying that someone is listening, and will denounce them to the KGB/NKVD. Parliaments now ring with open discourse. People can now expect open trials in independent judiciaries. Children can grow up learning about their own cultures, and are not subject to Russification and communist indoctrination. There are a few exceptions, like Belarus, but things were “better” under the Soviets?
This pining for the good ol’ days is a leftover from the worn-out, grass-is-greener socialist dogma which still disdains “establishment” religions like Judaism and Christianity. I doubt we will hear much from the Left on the attempted assassination of the Pope, as the pseudo-commies are still trying to sweep the crimes of Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho-Chi Min, Brezhnev, Andropov, and Castro et al under the historical carpet.
Related: Dictator Watch, Political Correctness
March 3rd, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Drew,
I seem to recall several years ago, I saw a documentary and read about how many average Russians pined away for the way things used to be.
The reason had to do with their stress in adjusting to changes and that with change came uncertainties. Uncertainty is one of the prime stressors in anyone’s life.
Russians no longer were guaranteed their next meal and it was uncertain as to who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
At least before the change they could stand in bread, clothing lines and vodka lines and be assured of ultimately getting, bread clothing and vodka.
Now they have to work for it and jobs are uncertain, unstable and do not pay well.
Since the new Russian democratizing free market society revolution, the people are stressed from being ruled by a Russian government that no longer provides certainty but can still make people fearful and a Russian Mafia they feel powerless against and which inculcates fear in any of those who are in any way touched by that organization.
Anti-Semitism remains as deeply rooted in Russia and the former slavic Soviet states as ever.
Democracy, freedoms, rights and quality of life as we know it in the West, is but a glimmer in Russia.
March 3rd, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Gee… And all those trips I made to the Soviet Union, and to the liberated republics after the collapse…