XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.communism XPost: alt.politics.usa

Democratic presidential front-runner Bernie Sanders likes to market
himself as a wise old man who just happens to have clown hair but is
right about everything, such as the War in Iraq. Yet his opposition to
the Iraq War was dictated not by cool-headed geopolitical calculations,
but the lifelong habit of romancing American enemies — as is typical
for communism-lovers.

The recently surfaced press conference Sanders gave following his
return from his honeymoon in Yaroslavl, USSR, is a great example of
leftist naïveté about totalitarian regimes. For Bernie to fawn over
Soviet culture the way he did indicates a staggering degree of
incuriosity. I was only 15 and growing up in Kharkiv, now Ukraine, when
the couple visited the USSR, and I’m not impressed when I watch Sanders
sing Moscow’s praises

Start with the metro. Sanders said at the time, “The stations
themselves were very beautiful, including many works of art,
chandeliers that were beautiful. It was a very, very effective system.”

It’s slightly creepy that Joseph Stalin initiated the tradition of
building chthonian palaces underneath Soviet cities. The stations are beautiful, no doubt, but effectiveness is a whole different matter.
Coverage was so-so, and the rush hour commute was a nightmare, so
Sanders’ classification of the stations as “effective” is puzzling.
People stuffed into trains like sardines.

More importantly, metros were only built in cities with populations
exceeding one million. Investing money into extravagant projects makes
sense if the goal is to dazzle foreigners, but it’s also highly unwise considering that the condition of roads across Russia has always been atrocious. Traveling in the USSR, especially in provincial towns such
as Yaroslavl, Sanders, an American man with a driver license, would
take note of the state of the infrastructure — one would think.

Free Theaters That Nobody Wants to Visit

Bernie continued:

Their palaces of culture for the young people, a whole variety
of programs for the young people, and cultural programs which
go far beyond what we do in this country. We went to a theater
in Yaroslavl which was absolutely beautiful, had three separate
stages. Their cultural programs were put together by
professional actors and actresses, including a puppeteer area.
And the cost, the highest price of the ticket you can get was
equivalent of $1.50.

It’s true that the Soviet Union subsidized all sorts of cultural
programming for children, such as theaters and youth culture palaces
with after-school enrichment programs. Unfortunately, in a socialist
economy, that type of institution existed without any feedback from the markets.

I was part of the generation that took yearly field trips to the
Theater of The Young Viewer. Ticket costs aside, there was just one
such stage in the city, plus the Puppet Theater for the younger kids,
and not a lot of demand for the shows. I don’t think American cultural programming is in any way inferior, albeit the cost to the consumer
might be higher.

When I was 10, I started taking the metro across town to a children’s
palace where the after-school activities were offered. The palace, a
beautiful pre-revolutionary structure, was named after Stalin’s
henchman Pavel Postyshev. Postyshev presided over Red Terror, purges,
and Holodomor, before himself falling victim to Stalinist repressions.

Toward the end of his life, the executioner, by then an alcoholic, was displaying symptoms of paranoia. He once decided that the flame drawn
on the box of matches resembled the profile of Leon Trotsky and that
sausages, when cut, have swirls similar to swastikas. He ordered the confiscation of all matches and a purge of the grocery.

My generation of Soviets came of age knowing that the USSR was built on
tyranny and lies. We are the most cynical generation in Russian
history. Once the country crumbled, our lives spun out of control. As a
result, Russian speakers my age suffered through high rates of
substance abuse, low life expectancies, and through-the-floor birth
rates. On the plus side, we grew up with gaudy chandeliers in public
places.

The Incurious Nature of Bernie and Jane

Bernie’s bride, Jane, picked up where her husband left off:

We were astounded with the openness, the optimism, the
enthusiasm in the nation. … What struck me the most was the
way that they dealt with children, and the cultural life of
their community. As Howard [another man on the trip] mentioned,
they put the money into public facilities, and they have
palaces of culture which are paid for strictly by trade union
dues, and those have movies and dances, and those have a lot
of artistic outlets for people — for instance, they might
become members of an orchestra and study to play an instrument
and perform, and when they go off on performances, it seems
not as — not something as they are doing on their own, and
they need to take vacation time from work, but it’s seen as
providing and contributing to the community life, so it
becomes part of their work instead of compartmentalizing their
life into job and hobbies. It’s all interrelated, and it’s all
under the banner of community involvement.

The First-World problem Jane is trying to solve here is called “the
fractured modern man,” and you wouldn’t know it was a problem until you
took a fair number of college classes. I mean, is it really that bad to
have a job and a hobby?

Her talk of “community involvement” is rather ridiculous, considering
she visited a country with a very low level of trust, no meaningful
civic culture, and lots of alcoholism. When the workday was over, most
Soviet people didn’t go to culture palaces that they viewed as an
extension of their work life. They didn’t practice violin. They went moonlighting, making money on the side, or shopping, a time-consuming
process, or otherwise cared for their families.

Also drinking or maybe watching a foreign movie at the cinema — the
USSR bought a limited number of those, but drinking was a favorite
pastime. Alcohol consumption doubled from 1955 to 1979.

Nobody knows what paid for the construction and maintenance of Soviet
culture palaces. In a planned economy with its web of subsidies and
bribery, such things are not transparent. The trade union fees,
however, were levied on everyone enrolled in a trade union, meaning
every worker, because all those employed by the government were
automatically enrolled in one, and everyone worked for the government —
or at least pretended to. As the Soviet joke went, “We pretend we work,
and they pretend they pay us.”

To be in awe of those palaces of culture performances in the late ’80s,
a visitor would have to be really, really — I mean really — incurious.
I understand the Sanderses went on their honeymoon surrounded by the
KGB minders, but wow! The newlyweds were shown performance venues, but
did they make an effort to meet an artist? Their tour was literally a
Potemkin excursion through the Soviet Union: the best of architecture,
no real people.

The Watchful Eye of the Censor

The late ’80s was a difficult time, when the economy had suffered as
the country struggled to compete with U.S. military spending. But it
was also an incredibly exciting time because Mikhail Gorbachev’s
glasnost provided an opportunity to learn about the country’s past and
discuss a whole universe of new ideas. Jane Sanders is right that there
was much enthusiasm and openness in the country, and ordinary people
were eager to meet Americans. The Sanderses let them down by staying
with their minders.

And the culture palaces? Through most of Soviet history, those were the sanctuaries for second-tier Soviet culture — amateurish and produced
under the watchful eye of the censor. Top-level Soviet performers
didn’t start in provincial adult education classes; they were groomed
in major cities starting in early childhood.

The kind of entertainment Soviet people wanted most wasn’t created by
youth puppeteers, either. A handful of officially produced Russian-
speaking stars remained popular among people of all ages. Many of those
born after World War II developed a preference for Western performers
and homegrown underground acts. Recordings of banned performers were
bootlegged from friend to friend and sometimes pressed on X-ray vinyl
film — “na kostyah” or “on the bones.” A few Western performers, most
notably David Bowie, were allowed to tour the USSR. Soviet bands
usually played concerts in apartments.

After a smuggled recording of Soviet underground rock was released in
the West, Gorbachev reportedly said, “Why can’t we do it here?” Shortly
after, artists featured on the recording got contracts with the sole
Soviet recording company, Melodia. Stadiums and other official
performance venues opened for musicians who had endured years of
prosecution, including being fired from work, expelled from official
youth organizations, and sentenced to prison terms.

Bernie Sanders Is Hopelessly Naive

That was happening when Bernie went to the USSR. Yet with all his
excitement about chandeliers, puppeteers, and the KGB-sanctioned
rehearsal spaces, he completely missed the zeitgeist. The Vermont communism-lover was as close to liberation as he could ever get, but he
chose to bond with his minders. And millennial hipsters think he’s
cool.

He is a special kind of tourist known to Russians. The “tell me
something nice about your country” tourist, the “surely the bad things
I’ve heard are all CIA propaganda” tourist, which is one grade below
the “let’s be nuanced about your situation” tourist.

That said, the attitude toward those types of people was generally
positive. They were still American, still in blue jeans, and they could
tell us a thing or two about the music. We believed them to be
basically well-intentioned but hopelessly naïve.

After moving to the United States, I no longer believe Bernie-types to
be well-intentioned. Regardless, the man who could be led astray that
easily should never be the president of the United States.

: Katya Rapoport Sedgwick is a writer from San Francisco Bay Area.
: She has published at The Daily Caller and Legal Insurrection.


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