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Only The Guardian could print this

The Soviet period was a time of prosperity in villages. Agricultural companies offered many jobs, and the authorities paid attention to the culture of the countryside and offered entertainment for youth.

Sigh.

40 thoughts on “Only The Guardian could print this”

  1. So Much for Subtlety

    I look forward to their massive three-page revisionist expose of British slavery in the Caribbean. Which, I note, offered many jobs and certainly owners paid attention to Da Yoof and their culture.

  2. When I’m lord high protector of England I’m rounding these bastards up and putting them on a specially prepared “Peoples’ Collective Farm” to grub turnips in the cold and wet with their bare hands. They will, of course, be free to collectivize the consumption of the turnip soup ration they earn by so doing.

    I’m televising the whole thing and am looking forward enormously to the one where Harperson explains why she still gets a share of the soup after having taken to her bed feigning illness.

  3. No, don’t make them grow their own food – that would at least give them a sense of purpose.

    Instead make them queue, pointlessly, for hours in the hope of buying food. The important bits are the long wait, the needlessness of the queueing and the uncertainty that you’ll even get what you want. These were the essences of Communism; the need to humiliate and break down people in this way.

  4. So Much for Subtlety

    Rob – “Instead make them queue, pointlessly, for hours in the hope of buying food. The important bits are the long wait, the needlessness of the queueing and the uncertainty that you’ll even get what you want. These were the essences of Communism; the need to humiliate and break down people in this way”

    And make sure they have to say, frequently and in public, that this is the best of all worlds and they are the luckiest people on the planet.

  5. @Ian B

    Stating the obvious rather, but at the time the USSR was in existence you could here, too. Just a matter of timing.

  6. ‘The Soviet period was a time of prosperity in villages. ”

    Well, it surely could have been if heavily subsidised, couldn’t it?

    I like this one: “The absence of entertainment is a problem in the countryside. Bars are practically the only place where young people spend their evenings.”

    Grew up in rural UK and exactly the same – though being Brits we always assumed that the bars were the entertainment. Didn’t read the Guardian to learn otherwise.

    Mind you, the local small farmers were more prosperous then with the subsidy system.

    Oh, hang on…

  7. Ian B,

    But only if you’d been lucky in the fag queue.

    Rob,

    The soup is made from last years turnips, so there isn’t enough to go round even during bumper harvests. That should suppress any sense of purpose. But yes, I was wondering what they should do when the turnips didn’t didn’t require attention. Queue for life’s little necessities, that’s the ticket.

  8. bloke (not) in spain

    “The Soviet period was a time of prosperity in villages.”

    From what I’ve been told by Russians, it was.
    They were all coining it, busily feeding the black market in the cities.

  9. I get the impression the Transnistrians are nostalgic for the good old days.

    The bus – Number 19 – is named after 19 June, the day the conflict began between Moldova and Transnistria.

    That is one of the most Communist things I’ve ever heard.

    In London, the number 19 bus is named after being the next route they thought up after the 18. Decadant Capitalist bastards.

  10. F*cking meta-context again. I don’t understand at all why totalitarian collectivism that’s perceived as coming from the right is so obviously evil, and how dare anybody try to make excuses for it. But totalitarian collectivism perceived as leftist is something you’re expected to make excuses for, and how dare you suggest it was evil.

  11. Oh to have been young and wild and free in the Soviet Union.

    To be fair, the Soviet Union was quite good fun if you were a kid and your parents hadn’t been shot or imprisoned. It was the adults that bore the worst of it, the kids didn’t really know any better.

  12. There is a fragment of truth – in the Soviet era Moldova (including “Transnistria”) was a, probably the, leading producer of “Soviet Champagne” . Since Russia banned imports of Moldovan wine in 2006 because Moldova wanted links with the EU the industry has not quite collapsed but acreage of vines have shrunk by one-third and, since western markets are more discriminating, income by more than one-third.
    The Grauniad has selected a statement that is not wholly wrong to give an impression that is wholly wrong.

  13. @Dr Cromarty
    “…all the cornfields and ballet in the evening..”

    Ah, Fred Kite. What a champion of the proletariat.

  14. Bloke in Costa Rica

    It was quite nice in Germany in 1938 if you weren’t a Yid and didn’t mind building large concrete things. It was still a fucking evil system though.

  15. “Back in the USSR
    Dont know how lucky you are boys
    Back in the USSR”

    Sang Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Star, who never had to live there…

  16. And yet grauniadistas still get their hemp undies twisted over the Daily Mail having supposedly supported Hitler 80 years ago…

  17. “I don’t understand at all why totalitarian collectivism that’s perceived as coming from the right is so obviously evil, and how dare anybody try to make excuses for it. But totalitarian collectivism perceived as leftist is something you’re expected to make excuses for, and how dare you suggest it was evil.”

    Because that is all the left has. The right correctly shuns nationalist collectivism.

  18. Wait a minute. I enjoy taking the piss out of the guardian as much as the next man, but if you read the captions for all of the photos you’d see how you’ve missed the word ‘comparatively’ from your quote . The captions saying things were better in Soviet times is to highlight just how crap things are in Transnistria now.

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