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On the shores of Makhachkala. 80s

the sensuous felix:

the villager in russia would tell you communism is good

This is less about the communist ideology itself (I'm not informed enough on it to give an in depth opinion, though I'd say I'm not pro capitalist), and more about the USSR.

People seem to forget that the USSR was a totalitarian regime where people were oppressed and sent to gulags or brutal work camps if they showed any opposition towards the regime or were accused of being kulaks or bourgeois. They also forget the Golodomor, a genocide on the Ukrainian people by the USSR government, which is considered to be Russian. They forget that up until not so long ago, university students were sent to work on fields because the kolkhoz weren't efficient enough. The Red Army was notoriously destructive and terrifying, pillaging so much in their wake.

How are the people not exploited in a totalitarian regime for the benefit of the people at the top of the pyramid?

I'm bringing this up because I find it alarming when people seem to glorify the USSR regime and ignore the tremendous trauma and pain it has inflicted upon families like mine, especially now that Russia is invading us (not that that's specifically tied to communism, but the USSR very much did have a logic of expansion, I mean they literally made a pact with Nazi Germany to invade Poland).

"The Democrats are our last line of defense against fascism"

Illustrations for poem "The Song of The Wise Oleg" by Aleksandr Pushkin (1899)

Tom Lovell (1909–1997) was an American illustrator and painter.