![]() ![]() Gorbachev and a handful of intellectuals… Perestroika wasn’t created by the people, it was created by a single person: Gorbachev. ‘I hope that my life dies along with me so none of you will have to suffer the consequences.’ That’s how our parents lived, and their parents before them. ![]() He had a big mouth.’ ‘Grandma, why didn’t you tell me before?’ I’d ask her. ‘If you don’t get that book out of my house immediately, I’m kicking you out.’ Before the war, my grandmother’s husband had been shot, but she would say, ‘I don’t feel sorry for Vaska. When I came home with a copy of The Gulag Archipelago, my mother was horrified. Everyone wanted nice clothes and good food. What they most wanted was blue jeans, VCRs, and most of all, cars. How wrong we were! A single message rang out from every loudspeaker: Hurry! Hurry! Read! Listen! Not everyone was prepared for all this… Most people were not anti-Soviet they only wanted to live well. We’d read Anatoly Rybakov’s forbidden Children of the Arbat and other good books: finally, we’d all become democrats. Like madmen, we’d run around to every demonstration: now we’d learn the truth about Stalin, the Gulag. It was a time of great hope-at any moment, we might find ourselves in paradise. Everyone hungrily devoured the newspapers. ![]() The Gorbachev era… Huge crowds of people with radiant faces. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |