Re: Rusfox, Do Ya'll play baseball?

I would not say that everything you were tought was not true.

The following is just one of the ways things could work out for some person in those days. I am talking about Stalin's times. I read about something like that once. A person, lets call him Ivan, would be wrapping a herring or sausage into a piece of newspaper with a picture of Stalin on it, and his not very friendly neighbour would accidentially witness that. The neighbour could call to NKVD and report that terrible act of disrespect towards the leader of the country.

They would pick up Ivan and bring him to their special institution, where they would torture him very badly and make him confess that he was a secret agent sent from the West. An agent they have been chasing for a long time. They will then report it to the higher authorities with all papers signed by poor Ivan enclosed. Ivan would be banished to Siberia, or even killed. They would just proof that they were doing their job fine and everybody would be satisfied then. While at the same time the real agent would keep doing his job somewhere...

Stalin was very cruel, that's what we all know now. But my grandma was so brainwashed by the propaganda that time, that she still does not want to believe that Stalin was a bad guy. She even has his portrait in a frame somewhere at her place.

I do respect older people's opinion, but I know that some of their political views can be just a very good result of many years of succesful propaganda manipulation by the government. I love them anyway and treasure their every vise advice in all other areas. They are just victims of the system.
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