• Українська
  • Русский
  • English
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

PARADISE LOST

30 March, 1999 - 00:00

By Klara GUDZYK, The Day
At the beginning of this month a part of our citizens marked a mournful
(only for them) date, the 46th anniversary of Stalin's death. Those who
shared memories of him are mostly people whose youth fell in the terrors
of war. Paradoxical as it may seem, the lives of these people were as poor
and hungry as in an enormous concentration camp. There were many reasons
for it, and they are known. But it is important to remember that the main
reason was not the postwar disruption but stubborn laying the foundations
of world Communist empire, the piles for wich were sunk in practically
all continents. And for the sake of world domination, as it is known, anything
and anyone can be sacrificed.

It may be different for someone else, but I was impressed with one feature
of that epoch, now retrospectively: the all-embracing ideological and informational
environment that surrounded us like the air we breath, and only few clear
heads (I was not one of them) had the strength to overcome its influence.
It is hard to imagine a better conceived, stronger, and more perfect system
that would not only shut millions of people off from the world but also
convince them of their absolute superiority. Now much is heard about various
psychotropic tools of "destructive sects" and the "seal" of identification
numbers can be heard. But they are toys compared to how we were made zombies
behind the Iron Curtain. Every slightest detail of our lives was traced,
and everyone was a little cog in the great machine. There were no small
things. The whole System was the creation of a collective Communist genius
that is worth mentioning in Guinness' Book of Records. To illustrate
the thickness of the sieve through which everything that happened at any
level was screened, I want to give two absolutely non-dramatic examples
from my own life.

The research institute where I worked was visited by American scientists
(such things happened, albeit quite seldom). The institute had been preparing
for such an event for a long time - repairs, cleaning, new lab coats; even
some of our ancient equipment was replaced. Our director, a full member
of the academy, himself guided the guests through the institute, and the
crowd of experts did their best to deceive the Americans. The latter were
attentive, interested, smiling. Later I read something in an American magazine
that by some miracle found its way into our institute. It was the article
written by one of our guests about their visit. As it turned out, the guests
noticed everything - our ancient equipment for experiments, the disparity
between the number of employees and the results they produced, the low
level of results - and our lies were described by the author in a very
ironic way. I showed the magazine to my chief - as a good joke. But he
did not see it as a joke. He suddenly reddened, grabbed the magazine and
rushed to the director's office. I do not know what happened there; the
magazine was promptly withdrawn from the library and put into the safes
of the First Department. I, too, was summoned to that very same department
and had to give written undertaking "not to spread information discrediting
Soviet science." Of course, the System did its best to reduce any opportunity
for its people to read the foreign press and other literature. Perhaps,
poor methods of teaching foreign languages in schools and colleges were
a part of this Iron Curtain as well.

Or take another, quite different scene. My friends and I were on vacation
in the Caucasus. And one night, high in the mountains, sitting by the campfire
under stars as big as apples, my two friends and I were talking the night
away about "global problems." We talked about everything and said anything
we thought - there was no one to fear there. Later, when we came back,
one of those two friends told me (some time passed before I understood
how hard it was for him to start the conversation) that after we returned
from vacation he was summoned to the appropriate office and asked "to confirm
the fact" of some ideas that I had shared under Caucasian stars. So he
graciously warned me just in time. Unfortunately, it was very easy to know
who, for there were only three of us there.

That was how we lived then - inside a perfect information-proof system
where even snow-covered mountains could eavesdrop. Does anyone remember
it with pleasure?

 

Rubric: