Friday, September 6, 2013

A prominent Soviet physicist, Lev Landau, defined the USSR's system as "a dictatorship of bureaucrats." Now playing in America


A Russian Immigrant Sees U.S. Making Same Mistakes As USSR


Commenting on my column last month ("Today's 'Useful Idiots' Are Just Like Those In USSR" — Aug. 6), a reader lamented:
"Authors writing about socialism need to know what socialism is. The author of this article would rather just go into a tirade about the problems in our country ... and automatically jump to the conclusion the problem is socialism. Huh? What? Where is the socialism you're talking about?"
An old Soviet joke goes as follows: "A Soviet and an America journalist argued about whose society is freer. The American declared, 'I can stand in front of the White House and yell that our president is a fool!' 'Big deal,' responded the Russian, 'I can stand in front of Kremlin in Moscow and yell that your president is a fool too!'"
This joke is at least 40 years old. But today in the U.S., very much as it was in the USSR, a rodeo clown's livelihood is in peril because he dared to make a joke about the president. One can measure level of socialism by the number of lives wasted, humiliated or destroyed by a centralized government that is pursuing its agenda and control.
Some people don't need to hit the wall to understand reality. Being brainwashed from childhood, I had to personally experience real life as an adult in the Soviet Union to have my illusions and naiveté about fairness shattered.
Living in a socialist country for 30 years of my life, and required to study the theory of Marxism/Leninism from elementary school through college, I am familiar with some distinct characteristics of socialism. They include:
• Controlling people by making them dependent on government for basics such as medical care, property rights and income.
• Applying separate standards in medical and other services for government employees and acolytes vs. the rest of society.
• Brainwashing the population starting as early as possible with propaganda that is pro-central government and anti-free market capitalism.
• Polarizing society by dividing people into groups by ethnicity.
• Controlling speech, enforcing political correctness and attempting to suppress opposition media.
• Collecting citizens' personal information using all resources available, including NSA programs.
• Intimidating opposition through Justice Department investigations of journalists, IRS intimidation of groups and individuals who oppose government policies, and information collected on citizens that becomes quite handy.
• Demonizing and destroying the livelihood of anyone — from members of the Tea Party to rodeo clowns — who dares to criticize the president.
• Controlling economic resources via EPA and other regulations despite negative economic consequences.
• Conducting show trials of freethinkers, such as the 13 felony counts brought against Internet prodigy Aaron Swartz, potentially leading to 30 years imprisonment.
• Calling for sacrifices in the name of the collective good, promises of a bright future and endless lies about disastrous government failures here and now.
A prominent Soviet physicist, Lev Landau, defined the USSR's system as "a dictatorship of bureaucrats." It amounted to socialism, he said, "because the means of production do not belong to the people, but to bureaucrats."
Landau was arrested in USSR in April 1938 for criticizing the government. He was released a year later because Stalin needed his genius to work on Soviet atomic and hydrogen bombs. He couldn't accept the 1962 Nobel Prize for physics in person after the car he was driving that January was hit by an oncoming truck.
When our family emigrated from the USSR to America, leaving our relatives and friends behind, a house and car weren't part of our American Dream. I don't think people risking their lives today, floating in small boats from Cuba to America, for instance, have houses and cars in mind.
We wanted to be free from the permission needed from government bureaucrats at every step of our lives, from government instigation of religious intolerance and from ethnic quotas at places of learning and work.
My American dream was realized on the first day we stepped onto the American soil, with two suitcases and $300. What's the dream of those who vote for the party of centralized government, government bureaucracies and idolized leaders?
• Kunin lived in the Soviet Union until 1980. This is the 31st column in her "Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant" series, all of which can be found at ibdeditorials.com.

No comments: