babble home
rabble.ca - news for the rest of us
today's active topics


Post New Topic  Post A Reply
FAQ | Forum Home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» babble   » right brain babble   » humanities & science   » They didn't teach me this in civics class

Email this thread to someone!    
Author Topic: They didn't teach me this in civics class
clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 12 March 2002 12:33 AM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This is absolutely fascinating. These are excerpts from a 10th grade East German civics textbook published in 1988. One year, I wryly note, before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
quote:
The shots fired by the cruiser "Aurora" in 1917 marked the beginning of a new epoch. With the Soviet victory in Petrograd, the most important revolution in the whole of human history was ushered in. Following the Great October Socialist Revolution, many more revolutions occurred and continue to occur today in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

But this century is not only familiar with progressive development. Two devastating world wars brought enormous suffering for millions of people. Revolutionary forces suffered temporary defeats, as in Chile in 1973 and Grenada in 1983.



quote:
In 1945 the USA tried to show its military superiority to all the world and to pressure the Soviet Union by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even though the Soviet Union succeeded in splitting the uranium nucleus in 1946, making the building of its own bomb only a matter of time, the USSR proposed to the USA that both nations cease the production and use of nuclear weapons. The acceptance of this Soviet proposal would have saved not only vast expense, but also would have prevented the growth of a deadly danger to the existence of humanity. The USA rejected the Soviet proposal. It bears the full responsibility for missing the opportunity, and for the resulting arms race. The USSR was forced to arm and build nuclear weapons.

quote:
In the 1950s and 1960s as capitalist world economics were on an upward swing, bourgeois politicians and idea-makers prophesied that capitalism would have permanent growth and that the workers would always have a good and secure income. At that time, all the new theories assumed that there was no reason to fundamentally change society since capitalism had overcome its crises once and for all.

In the 1970s these theories were less common. In 1973 there was a worldwide economic crisis in the capitalist world. At the beginning of the 1980s capitalism suffered its deepest crisis in fifty years, which completely silenced these theories.



quote:
History is characterized by increase of the power of Socialism and other revolutionary and peace-loving forces, and the decrease imperialism's influence. In spite its remaining ability to influence international events and threaten peace and progress, Imperialism has lost its former superiority. This shift in the d international balance of power is irreversible. It reflects the fundamental laws of our epoch: Capitalism is on the defensive defensive, doomed to inevitable collapse, while socialism is on the offensive, and will ultimately triumph throughout the whole world.

From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
meades
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 625

posted 12 March 2002 01:00 AM      Profile for meades     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wish I had a civics book like that in grade 10
From: Sault Ste. Marie | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 12 March 2002 01:57 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
*chuckle*. It almost sounds reasonable, right up until they bombastically proclaim the death of capitalism.

Still, the intro there has some salient points worth considering.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 12 March 2002 10:05 AM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
It almost sounds reasonable

Well, that is what makes it so interesting. If this was about a company it would be called a prospectus.

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]


From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 12 March 2002 11:29 AM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In case some people here misconstrue why I find a grade 10 communist text book interesting, it's the same reason why someone thought this story is newsworthy:
quote:
Researchers, Russophiles and spies made their way to Victor Kamkin Inc., which for decades collected and sold books detailing every aspect of life and history in the Soviet Union, all in their original Russian. A little more than 1 million bound volumes were in the last inventory, taken two years ago. Workers there estimate there could be nearly 2 million books and other published materials today.

On Monday morning, Montgomery County sheriff's deputies are expected to receive the entire collection at the county incinerator.



From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 12 March 2002 09:51 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hmm. I can see the similarities to a prospectus, but don't prospectuses usually rely a lot more on puffing oneself up rather than trashing the competition?
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 13 March 2002 11:08 AM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Gosh, I remember (need I say, very unfondly) textbooks like these.

... I was going to do some recollection, but on second thought, why ruining the day that started well.

PS: DrC, our sexuality would have been considered (and still is by many Communist parties around the world) a 'bourgeois deviation.'


From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 13 March 2002 02:12 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Tell me about it. Ironically enough homosexuality in the Soviet Union wasn't criminalized until the Stalin Constitution of 1935 or thereabouts; the Brezhnev Constitution of 1977 didn't change that part.

It makes you wonder why they wasted time and energy on chasing after such people when going after someome who murdered his grandmother would probably be just a tad more dangerous to society.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 13 March 2002 03:27 PM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Now, now. Don't be so harsh. If it was a murder with class motives and if it was in accordance with inevitable laws of historical development, then it pretty much made sense.

But people desiring people of the same sex do not make sense. In any grand scheme of things.


From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 13 March 2002 04:12 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
It makes you wonder why they wasted time and energy on chasing after such people when going after someome who murdered his grandmother would probably be just a tad more dangerous to society.

But what about a young student who murdered an old pawnbroker... ooops, wait, wrong era...

quote:
But people desiring people of the same sex do not make sense. In any grand scheme of things.

Well, makes sense in my grand scheme of things, Tres. But then, it's hard to say just how grand that scheme is.

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 15 March 2002 12:02 AM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In the spirit of this thread, I'm going to post this:
quote:
"We, including I, were saying, 'Capitalism is moving toward a catastrophe, whereas we are developing well.' Of course, that was pure propaganda. In fact, our country was lagging behind," Gorbachev said.

Gorbachev blasts Soviet communism

If someone is going to Kananaskis and they see someone with a Soviet flag, can they kindly point this out to them.

Trespasser, if in the near future you're having a bad day, could you come back to this thread and make a comment about your memories?

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]


From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 15 March 2002 04:00 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Too bad Zatamon isn't here. Loved his stuff on Hungary.

I always have to giggle nervously whenever someone takes the Soviet stuff a little too seriously, to the point of waving a Soviet flag in a rally or getting a hammer and sickle tattoo (well, Ok, it's your body, but geez).

The guys from the CPC-ML that show up at rallies tend to be older folk, from what I know.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 17 March 2002 07:31 PM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not exactly a bad day at all...

Let's see. (I'd like to chat with Zatamon/TooOld on this topic too, but that's life.) I loved the Hungarian cartoon Gustav - it was really a cartoon for grown-ups and a careful political satire. Gustav was a 50-plus, bald and beer-bellied cynic who worked "for the bureaucracy." One never knew exactly for what branch... he'd sometimes be in an office, but most often would staff the soc-real institution called Schalter. That is, it's been known in Yugoslavia under that Germanism. Schalter is a counter where you have to interact with Government Employees, but it's not simply that. It's the place where citizens of Communist countries had to spend indordinate amounts of time waiting in endless line-ups, humouring, cajoling, bribing, threatening in vain, being harassed, in order to see the face of the BureaucRat that can help them issue a single document that they needed yesterday in order to be eligible for their pension benefit, child support, or just get the birth certificate.

In South-Slavic languages, there was even a special word for woman staffing the Schalter (which would mean something like the 'Schalter Bird' and would sound something like 'Schalterusha'). Well, Gustav was a Schalterash, the male version.

When Gustav had to count the money and give it to somebody on the other side of the counter, it would take ages. He'd usually have a huge sandwich handy and various other things to keep him distracted from thinking about the job he's doing. He'd lick his thumbs as many times as there were bills in the stack. He'd watch indifferently as his servicee would age, get grey hair, eyeglasses and a cane, and turn into a granny while standing behind the Schalter.

Sometimes the viewers would get the pleasure of seeing some of his private life, seeing Gustav's humble apartment in a soc-realist high-rise and meet some of his neighbours, or following him during his vacations. The way he'd wear his slippers or turn the newspaper pages was oh-so-Gustavian. The best episodes, though, would be those in which Gustav would "see red" after being submitted himself to the charms of the Real-Socialist State.

I don't think Gustav was ever married, and if anybody who used to live in Hungary or has seen Gustav knows what I'm talking about, please refresh my memory. He was definitely an urbanite, I'd say, but living in a non-specified city. Always wore the same grey clothes, of course, and always had one or two hairs perking from his white bald head.

Who woulda thought that Kafka could be funny.

There's a Croatian (ages ago, Yugoslavian) woman author that I loved reading as an adolescent and that by the end of the eighties published the book called How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. Appropriate to mention in this context.

Vege. (For now)


From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Trespasser
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1204

posted 17 March 2002 08:35 PM      Profile for Trespasser   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
One more thing for today.

Slavoj Zizek reminisces in Lingua Franca:

quote:
Despite its relatively liberal cultural and political policies, Zizek argues, Tito's Yugoslavia produced a more repressive (though subtly so) brand of ideology than the other Eastern-bloc countries. While Czechoslovakian or Polish authorities made no s ecret of their authoritarian tactics, the more permissive Yugoslavian communists sent out mixed signals about what was and was not permitted, thereby fostering an unusually effective, because at least partially self-regulating, system of censorship. By wa y of example, Zizek tells the story of a Slovenian book publisher in the fairly tolerant late 1970s who wanted to collect some of the best-known Soviet dissident writing. "The party line fluctuated so much that the Central Committee of the League of Slove ne Communists was terrified of committing itself one way or the other," Zizek explains. "So the members said, 'Wait a minute, you are yourself free to decide what to publish'--which was the really Kafkaesque situation. At least with Polish censorship, it was a strict bureaucracy, which would negotiate, reach a compromise, and give you a final decision. This would have been paradise for us! The nightmare of Yugoslavia was that you couldn't get a clear answer from anyone about anything."

[...]

Zizek was devastated by [being refused a university job for ideological reasons] and spent the next several years virtually unemployed, supporting himself by translating philosophy from the German and living off his parents. In 1977, some of his former professors used their connections to win him a job at the Central Committee of the League of Slovene Communists, where, apart from assisting with occasional speeches (in which he would insert covertly subversive comments), Zizek was left alone to do his own philosophical work: The philosopher whose unreliable politics prevented him from teaching was now helping to write propaganda for the leaders of Slovenia's Communist Party. Zizek still revels in the irony. "I would write philosophy papers and then deliver them at international conferences in Italy and France--trips that were paid for by the Central Committee!"

If Yugoslavian socialism produced a thoroughly cynical citizenry, a country of people who understood that the last thing the regime desired was for them to believe too ardently in the official principles of communism, this, argues Zizek, was ideology at its most effective. "The paradox of the regime was that if people were to take their ideology seriously it would effectively destroy the system," he says. In his account, cynicism and apathy are explanations not for the regime's failure but, perversely, for its success. "The conventional wisdom is that socialism was a failure because, instead of creating a 'New Man,' it produced a country of cynics who believed that the system is corrupt, politics is a horror, and that only private happiness is possible ," he argues. "But my point is this: Perhaps depoliticization was the true aim of socialist education? This was surely the daily experience of my youth."



From: maritimes | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time  

Post New Topic  Post A Reply Close Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
Hop To:

Contact Us | rabble.ca | Policy Statement

Copyright 2001-2008 rabble.ca