Stories from the Cold War
April 12, 2024 6:06 AM Subscribe
Having attended high school in the early eighties in the United States, I am now curious: what were Americans told about the Soviet empire during the height of the cold war that we all assumed was true but was, in fact, intentional propaganda?
I have a weird little anecdote that is not quite what you're looking for. I was in a gifted program in the mid-eighties in an affluent suburb, and the gifted program sent someone in to tell us about the horrors of the Soviet Union. The exact horrors have escaped me. I was a pompous little child, but I had recently been doing some reading about Russia and ventured to suggest that average Soviets were probably much like you and I, and was called a communist by the other children for my pains, totally unchecked by the teacher.
Now, I know that childhood memory is unreliable so I'm not standing by too many of these details, but I am 100% confident that this was in our pull-out gifted program around 1984, that I said that Russians were probably much like Americans and that regular Russians probably didn't have much enmity toward Americans and that I was then called a communist. I didn't react in a suave haha lol way but instead like a pompous little nerd, and was thus called a communist for years afterward.
What was so weird about this, though, was that people took it really seriously - it wasn't just "let's bait the weird fat poor kid" like everything else. A year or so later I was at the swimming pool and this total stranger came up to me, a girl more or less my own age, and asked if I was the one who was a communist. I don't remember what I said. I did not consider myself a communist and had only the vaguest idea what that even was.
Honestly, the whole thing felt like a dream once I got out of that town and I assumed it was some mistake - like someone running the gifted program had a college nephew in TurningPoint USA and he came in and talked to us at random or something - but now that I've seen the incredible ideological crackdown about Palestine, I can well believe that it was on purpose.
posted by Frowner at 7:31 AM on April 12 [11 favorites]
Now, I know that childhood memory is unreliable so I'm not standing by too many of these details, but I am 100% confident that this was in our pull-out gifted program around 1984, that I said that Russians were probably much like Americans and that regular Russians probably didn't have much enmity toward Americans and that I was then called a communist. I didn't react in a suave haha lol way but instead like a pompous little nerd, and was thus called a communist for years afterward.
What was so weird about this, though, was that people took it really seriously - it wasn't just "let's bait the weird fat poor kid" like everything else. A year or so later I was at the swimming pool and this total stranger came up to me, a girl more or less my own age, and asked if I was the one who was a communist. I don't remember what I said. I did not consider myself a communist and had only the vaguest idea what that even was.
Honestly, the whole thing felt like a dream once I got out of that town and I assumed it was some mistake - like someone running the gifted program had a college nephew in TurningPoint USA and he came in and talked to us at random or something - but now that I've seen the incredible ideological crackdown about Palestine, I can well believe that it was on purpose.
posted by Frowner at 7:31 AM on April 12 [11 favorites]
I mean, it's perhaps less concrete than you would like, but I was told that communism was clearly bad for the economy. But after a while I got to thinking, how was the Soviet Union even a superpower if they had consistently worse economic growth? Exponential growth is a major force.
And the answer of course, that until the energy crisis of the 1970's, the Soviet Union had just as much economic growth as the West, and a lot better than a lot of poorer countries. But once that stopped, people stopped being so willing to overlook government oppression and the Soviet Union never really recovered.
China managed to recover from a dip in the 1970's fine, though, and arguably it's done very well for itself since the '80's when it took a decidedly market based turn to it's economic approach, but I don't want to get an argument about what counts as capitalism vs communism.
posted by Zalzidrax at 8:06 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
And the answer of course, that until the energy crisis of the 1970's, the Soviet Union had just as much economic growth as the West, and a lot better than a lot of poorer countries. But once that stopped, people stopped being so willing to overlook government oppression and the Soviet Union never really recovered.
China managed to recover from a dip in the 1970's fine, though, and arguably it's done very well for itself since the '80's when it took a decidedly market based turn to it's economic approach, but I don't want to get an argument about what counts as capitalism vs communism.
posted by Zalzidrax at 8:06 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
Since this seems like a slow thread, I'll add that there's a ton of very interesting material for children about nuclear war (and to a lesser degree about the Cold War) from the eighties. Jane Langton wrote a book more or less about the Star Wars program , The Fragile Flag, which was a HUGE influence on me and probably literally altered the course of my life. It's about a little girl - the protagonist of several other Jane Langton kids' books - who [chain of circumstances] decides to walk from Concord MA to Washington to deliver a letter to the president asking him not to create the Star Wars program. Events ensue. The president, an implausibly non-horrible man, eventually cancels the program.
I was already a little kid susceptible to this kind of narrative, but it definitely set me on the path to activism of various kinds. In retrospect, I wish I had written to the author later, since I reread this book occasionally as an adult, and let her know what a big effect it had on me. (This was not the book I read that convinced me about Russia; I read it later. This means that maybe the communist thing happened when I was nine? Because I know I got The Fragile Flag off the new books shelf at the library.)
There was also a book that I think I bought on eBay and have somewhere about talking to your children about nuclear war. There's a newer book with a similar title that keeps messing up my search, but there was one from the mid-eighties.
Oh, hey, more memories: As a treat, we watched the original Red Dawn movie when I was in seventh grade. I was not allowed to watch movies like that at home and found it really upsetting because of them killing the traitor kid, who was of course the chubby disliked one. Anyway, you know how Red Dawn goes: the Soviets inexplicably parachute into Colorado, which is totally what you'd do, of course, because Europe went soft on nukes, etc. This was treated as a totally normal film to show us.
On a slightly less horrible note, the big eighth grade book that all the kids read in English was Alas Babylon, which I think was intended as some kind of anti-war gesture, and whose Perfidious Soviets plot was pretty much lost on us. It was a book that everyone talked about all year before we read it as being really intense, and I think almost everyone actually read it.
posted by Frowner at 8:07 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
I was already a little kid susceptible to this kind of narrative, but it definitely set me on the path to activism of various kinds. In retrospect, I wish I had written to the author later, since I reread this book occasionally as an adult, and let her know what a big effect it had on me. (This was not the book I read that convinced me about Russia; I read it later. This means that maybe the communist thing happened when I was nine? Because I know I got The Fragile Flag off the new books shelf at the library.)
There was also a book that I think I bought on eBay and have somewhere about talking to your children about nuclear war. There's a newer book with a similar title that keeps messing up my search, but there was one from the mid-eighties.
Oh, hey, more memories: As a treat, we watched the original Red Dawn movie when I was in seventh grade. I was not allowed to watch movies like that at home and found it really upsetting because of them killing the traitor kid, who was of course the chubby disliked one. Anyway, you know how Red Dawn goes: the Soviets inexplicably parachute into Colorado, which is totally what you'd do, of course, because Europe went soft on nukes, etc. This was treated as a totally normal film to show us.
On a slightly less horrible note, the big eighth grade book that all the kids read in English was Alas Babylon, which I think was intended as some kind of anti-war gesture, and whose Perfidious Soviets plot was pretty much lost on us. It was a book that everyone talked about all year before we read it as being really intense, and I think almost everyone actually read it.
posted by Frowner at 8:07 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
In short, we didn't get very much past "communists hate Americans and will murder us given the chance, communism is BAD" but we definitely got that a lot. In junior high, we had some kind of world governments unit and I was very confused by the description of communism, because it sounded...good? Sharing? From each according to their ability to each according to their need?
We really never got any detailed "here is a history of Soviet communism and how it has worked", either an honest mixed-bag one or a propaganda one. Just "communism BAD", which is about the level America operates on.
posted by Frowner at 8:11 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
We really never got any detailed "here is a history of Soviet communism and how it has worked", either an honest mixed-bag one or a propaganda one. Just "communism BAD", which is about the level America operates on.
posted by Frowner at 8:11 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
The Domino Theory, which was used to justify the Vietnam War among other incidences of Bad Judgment during the Cold War.
posted by DrGail at 8:14 AM on April 12 [7 favorites]
posted by DrGail at 8:14 AM on April 12 [7 favorites]
My very liberal high school history teacher in 1990 would always say “socialism” in a conspiratorially-toned stage whisper. He never said why, but it underlined very clearly for us that certain words can be dangerous.
posted by oxisos at 8:31 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
posted by oxisos at 8:31 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
I was school age from 1980-1992 and I remember a LOT of implicit rhetoric about communism punishing excellence. (see Harrison Bergeron, Animal Farm, 1984, The Giver) The implication was that communism was inherently flawed because people who were good at something or worked harder than others were not entitled to the benefits of their own labor.
Movies and TV told us over and over again that the 'real' Soviets wanted our freedoms and wealth because their lives were bleak, oppressed, and by comparison to American lives, poverty stricken. (Hunt for Red October, Moscow on the Hudson) We were also told that Soviets were brainwashed by their government into believing that their path was the best and the US government was honest and open by comparison.
Their leaders were corrupt and morally bankrupt while ours actually wanted what was best for the countries. Considering who was president while I was a child, well yeah, we know that was bullshit.
posted by teleri025 at 9:09 AM on April 12 [12 favorites]
Movies and TV told us over and over again that the 'real' Soviets wanted our freedoms and wealth because their lives were bleak, oppressed, and by comparison to American lives, poverty stricken. (Hunt for Red October, Moscow on the Hudson) We were also told that Soviets were brainwashed by their government into believing that their path was the best and the US government was honest and open by comparison.
Their leaders were corrupt and morally bankrupt while ours actually wanted what was best for the countries. Considering who was president while I was a child, well yeah, we know that was bullshit.
posted by teleri025 at 9:09 AM on April 12 [12 favorites]
I remember reading in an 80s newspaper about a family who’d emigrated to Chicago from the USSR, then virtually impossible to do, who wanted to return. Except for their teenage son, he wanted to stay. Obviously there’s a lot of disruption that comes with emigration but I was shocked to read their reason which was along the lines of in the Soviet Union they were guaranteed jobs, an apartment, and healthcare and they were willing to trade *freedom!!!!* for security and a safety net.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:30 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:30 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
The whole of the arms race. All of it. A lie. The "bomber gap". The "missile gap". Per Daniel Ellsberg, when the DOD/CIA were briefing Congress about how the USSR had a massive lead in ICBMs, they already had Corona photos that proved the Soviets had only a handful of operational missiles, and the US was far in the lead.
posted by cfraenkel at 9:32 AM on April 12 [5 favorites]
posted by cfraenkel at 9:32 AM on April 12 [5 favorites]
Growing up in the 1970s instead of the 1980s, we had the Detente Era of Nixon-Ford-Carter, so Russians were pitched as "people like us, just with a very bad government" rather than "The Evil Empire". We learned about their cramped substandard housing and their food/consumer good shortages and how much their government hated rock and roll and blue jeans. Communism was obviously bad because those nice Russians couldn't have cool things like we did, but it didn't seem like an existential threat to anything. At the same time, though, there was some holdover "Duck and Cover" type stuff we got about how to survive a nuclear bomb and how to set up your own fallout shelter at home.
posted by briank at 9:39 AM on April 12 [9 favorites]
posted by briank at 9:39 AM on April 12 [9 favorites]
we watched the original Red Dawn movie
Fascinatingly, the original Red Dawn movie was actually more sympathetic to communism than its subsequent sequel - in the original one, you have the romantic communist leader who bemoans that he has gone from an honest communist guerilla to an occupier fighting guerillas defending their homes, and he is conflicted about it. In the later one, it's all brutality all the time, as I recall. So, uh, basically, I'm not sure we are out of the anti-communist propaganda phase yet folks.
posted by corb at 10:26 AM on April 12
Fascinatingly, the original Red Dawn movie was actually more sympathetic to communism than its subsequent sequel - in the original one, you have the romantic communist leader who bemoans that he has gone from an honest communist guerilla to an occupier fighting guerillas defending their homes, and he is conflicted about it. In the later one, it's all brutality all the time, as I recall. So, uh, basically, I'm not sure we are out of the anti-communist propaganda phase yet folks.
posted by corb at 10:26 AM on April 12
We were told (1960s) that communism was bad because people couldn't leave their countries freely. However this was true also for many of our anti-communist allies.
posted by Vegiemon at 10:34 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
posted by Vegiemon at 10:34 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
This might violate the spirit of the problem, but as a cynical twenty something living abroad in Eastern Europe in the twenty-noughts, I was surprised to meet people from Russia and some satellite states and hear: yes it was actually pretty bad, yes we truly didn’t have food on the shelves (and now we do but many people cannot afford it), yes my government was actually quite repressive (this was from a Romanian woman). Seeing our response to 9/11 had made me sure that I’d been totally gaslit for my whole childhood and… maybe not totally.
posted by eirias at 10:42 AM on April 12 [6 favorites]
posted by eirias at 10:42 AM on April 12 [6 favorites]
Along the lines of the anecdote from TWinbrook8, that all/most of the people were suffering under communism and eager to escape to a better life under capitalism in the west. Evidenced by the photos and stories of dangerous and daring escape attempts at e.g. Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. I recommend the book Burning Down the Haus as presenting another side of the story. The punks profiled did not want to leave East Berlin and communism; they wanted to make it better.
posted by evilmomlady at 10:56 AM on April 12
posted by evilmomlady at 10:56 AM on April 12
I am another person who attempted a nuanced discussion of socialism with an elementary school classmate and promptly got reported to the teacher for being a communist. Happily for me the teacher thought it was hilarious, as I was obviously too young to understand what communism or socialism was, but I suspect a number of my classmates knew I was an Atheist, believed I was a Communist and before I started Junior High in Grade Seven, also believed I was homosexual because my mother was a lesbian, even if some of them didn't quite understand what homosexual or lesbian meant.
Around when I was in Grade Seven or Grade Eight a teacher asked if anyone could explain what socialists believed in, and after several kids came up with answers like "destroy the West" I stood up and suggested, "For each to contribute to society according to their abilities, and to receive according to their needs." The kids had a serious look of cognitive dissonance on their faces when the teacher confirmed that I had pretty much defined it.
Somewhat later, I once went on a date with a decorative young man, who asked if I minded if we dropped into a tailor's shop so he could check if they had finished working on his pants. While we were there he got into conversation with the tailor, an older man, quite possibly Jewish, who in the course of the conversation mentioned that he was a recent immigrant from one of the Soviet Bloc countries.
My date got really excited. With bated breath he asked the tailor how he had managed to survive his attempt to leave the Soviet Sphere and succeed in crossing the minefield and the barbed wire. The tailor had, of course, simply applied for an emigrant exit visa and crossed at a regular border crossing in his own car, and the border guard who had stamped his papers had wished him and his family good luck.
The expression on my date's face was priceless. He could not believe that in 1980 anyone had been allowed to leave without being shot at. After we left the shop he asked me to confirm that the tailor had been lying.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:11 AM on April 12 [9 favorites]
Around when I was in Grade Seven or Grade Eight a teacher asked if anyone could explain what socialists believed in, and after several kids came up with answers like "destroy the West" I stood up and suggested, "For each to contribute to society according to their abilities, and to receive according to their needs." The kids had a serious look of cognitive dissonance on their faces when the teacher confirmed that I had pretty much defined it.
Somewhat later, I once went on a date with a decorative young man, who asked if I minded if we dropped into a tailor's shop so he could check if they had finished working on his pants. While we were there he got into conversation with the tailor, an older man, quite possibly Jewish, who in the course of the conversation mentioned that he was a recent immigrant from one of the Soviet Bloc countries.
My date got really excited. With bated breath he asked the tailor how he had managed to survive his attempt to leave the Soviet Sphere and succeed in crossing the minefield and the barbed wire. The tailor had, of course, simply applied for an emigrant exit visa and crossed at a regular border crossing in his own car, and the border guard who had stamped his papers had wished him and his family good luck.
The expression on my date's face was priceless. He could not believe that in 1980 anyone had been allowed to leave without being shot at. After we left the shop he asked me to confirm that the tailor had been lying.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:11 AM on April 12 [9 favorites]
I'll say this: for Canada, a lot of the stories and ideas we had about the USSR came to a boil during the 72 Summit Series. We learned a lot about ourselves, from this series. And it changed hockey.
posted by elkevelvet at 11:19 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
posted by elkevelvet at 11:19 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
Check out the 1962 era black and white educational videos about communism that were narrated by Ronald Reagan. You can find them on YouTube.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:35 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:35 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
Clarifying question - when you say "the height of the Cold War," what are the years you're thinking of? I was about to weigh in on what I'd heard, but then I saw that we are contemporaries (you were in high school early 80s, I was there mid-late 80s) and wasn't sure whether you were looking for info about the 50s or 60s, maybe.
Anecdotes: I remember one of my freshman year teachers in social science (this would be in 1984) deciding to buck the zeitgeist and give a lesson on "what life in the Soviet Union is really like". She gave a simplified breakdown of what Communism actually is, what life in the Soviet Union under the Communist system was most likely like, and gave a very, very abbreviated explanation of the state of things between our countries.
I don't remember exactly what she said, I just remember coming away from it with the impression that that teacher was a god-damn rockstar, and that the Soviets were just people and that Communism wasn't the big evil boogeyman everyone made it out to be. I think I gathered enough to have a conversation with friends later where we were able to articulate that Communism wasn't a bad idea in theory, it's just that the Soviet Union wasn't doing it "properly", and that it would never work anyway because some people are just always gonna be selfish shits and there's no theory in the world that can solve for that.
Then there's all the movies and songs from the 80s that dealt with the Cold War in general and the Soviets in particular (Sting's "Russians", Elton John's "Nikita", Red Dawn, etc.) and it's a toss-up whether the exaggerations in those were due to any kind of US-directed Psy-Ops or whether it was garden-variety Hollywood exaggeration.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:46 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
Anecdotes: I remember one of my freshman year teachers in social science (this would be in 1984) deciding to buck the zeitgeist and give a lesson on "what life in the Soviet Union is really like". She gave a simplified breakdown of what Communism actually is, what life in the Soviet Union under the Communist system was most likely like, and gave a very, very abbreviated explanation of the state of things between our countries.
I don't remember exactly what she said, I just remember coming away from it with the impression that that teacher was a god-damn rockstar, and that the Soviets were just people and that Communism wasn't the big evil boogeyman everyone made it out to be. I think I gathered enough to have a conversation with friends later where we were able to articulate that Communism wasn't a bad idea in theory, it's just that the Soviet Union wasn't doing it "properly", and that it would never work anyway because some people are just always gonna be selfish shits and there's no theory in the world that can solve for that.
Then there's all the movies and songs from the 80s that dealt with the Cold War in general and the Soviets in particular (Sting's "Russians", Elton John's "Nikita", Red Dawn, etc.) and it's a toss-up whether the exaggerations in those were due to any kind of US-directed Psy-Ops or whether it was garden-variety Hollywood exaggeration.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:46 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
I know someone whose father told her that if the US had only been smart enough to Atom Bum* the Communists in North Vietnam they would have already won the Vietnam War easily and also terrified the Soviets into backing down and becoming meek and negotiating. They had missed this obvious and good opportunity to put an end to the Cold War on account of having cowardly senior leadership. He probably meant LBJ. Her father was an officer in the US Army.
He also didn't let her play or talk to black kids, as that was Communism.
* He was from Georgia; that was how he pronounced it. In his defense, he was in serious chronic pain from a war injury gained during the Battle of the Bulge, which ultimately killed him.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:52 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
He also didn't let her play or talk to black kids, as that was Communism.
* He was from Georgia; that was how he pronounced it. In his defense, he was in serious chronic pain from a war injury gained during the Battle of the Bulge, which ultimately killed him.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:52 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
90% of Communist Traitors and Spies have been Racial Jews
Race Mixing is Communism
Of course this was not official Government propaganda, but millions of people were still exposed to these ideas.
You know all about Joseph McCarthy, right?
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:07 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
Race Mixing is Communism
Of course this was not official Government propaganda, but millions of people were still exposed to these ideas.
You know all about Joseph McCarthy, right?
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:07 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]
My date got really excited. With bated breath he asked the tailor how he had managed to survive his attempt to leave the Soviet Sphere and succeed in crossing the minefield and the barbed wire. The tailor had, of course, simply applied for an emigrant exit visa and crossed at a regular border crossing in his own car, and the border guard who had stamped his papers had wished him and his family good luck.
As a kid growing up in the 80s in one of the less oppressive Eastern European countries, getting a passport was a big deal, and being allowed to leave was not a given. People with family in the West were often denied permission to leave (source :my own friends and family). A friend of my mother's marriage broke up that way - the husband left the country illegally and the wife was refused permission to leave for several years, making it impossible for her to see her husband again and the marriage did not survive.
On the other hand, certain people were actively encouraged to leave, and given "one-way passports" .
posted by M. at 12:27 PM on April 12 [8 favorites]
10th grade, 1984. Had a history teacher with socialist leanings, she made us say "The People's Republic of China" and not just "China." She spent a lot of time on the Tsar and class issues before Lenin skillfully swooped in and tried to make things better, and skimmed over most of Stalin's atrocities but did not ignore them, wistfully sighing that "Communism was such a good idea in practice, but ..."
posted by Melismata at 1:09 PM on April 12
posted by Melismata at 1:09 PM on April 12
As a kid growing up in the 80s in one of the less oppressive Eastern European countries, getting a passport was a big deal, and being allowed to leave was not a given. People with family in the West were often denied permission to leave (source :my own friends and family). A friend of my mother's marriage broke up that way - the husband left the country illegally and the wife was refused permission to leave for several years, making it impossible for her to see her husband again and the marriage did not survive.
On the other hand, certain people were actively encouraged to leave, and given "one-way passports" .
My guess is that the tailor was Jewish. I understand that after some embarrassingly high profile Jewish people defected, the Soviets made it much easier for Jewish people to get visas to get out - it was still not easy, and I suspect it was very expensive. But you didn't necessarily have to actually crawl under the barbed wire on your belly in the mud at night, listening for the barking of the guard dogs, and keeping your face down so it wasn't caught in the searchlight, which seems to have been what my date thought was the only way out.
A lot of people in the west were familiar with getting out of the Soviet Bloc from spy movies and novels where the people trying to cross the border were spies and defectors, carrying microfilm or secret blueprints that the Soviets naturally didn't want to fall into Western hands. The more dramatic scenes from movies are what stayed with them - they tended to forget that other much more brief scene of being in a two hour line up at Checkpoint Charlie, and the movies entirely omitted any scene of the six hour line up at the government office to get the visa.
posted by Jane the Brown at 1:23 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, certain people were actively encouraged to leave, and given "one-way passports" .
My guess is that the tailor was Jewish. I understand that after some embarrassingly high profile Jewish people defected, the Soviets made it much easier for Jewish people to get visas to get out - it was still not easy, and I suspect it was very expensive. But you didn't necessarily have to actually crawl under the barbed wire on your belly in the mud at night, listening for the barking of the guard dogs, and keeping your face down so it wasn't caught in the searchlight, which seems to have been what my date thought was the only way out.
A lot of people in the west were familiar with getting out of the Soviet Bloc from spy movies and novels where the people trying to cross the border were spies and defectors, carrying microfilm or secret blueprints that the Soviets naturally didn't want to fall into Western hands. The more dramatic scenes from movies are what stayed with them - they tended to forget that other much more brief scene of being in a two hour line up at Checkpoint Charlie, and the movies entirely omitted any scene of the six hour line up at the government office to get the visa.
posted by Jane the Brown at 1:23 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]
If you're interested in hearing stories about the reverse....I have gotten to know a 24yo Russian woman well. She thinks Putin is a strong, kind, and misunderstood hero. She thinks Russian food is the best in the world. She thinks Russian people are stronger and better than anyone else. She thinks any violence anywhere in the world is probably caused by Ukrainians. She lives in America currently but refuses to read any news from any source because she thinks it's all lies. She says Russia does not and has not ever had any Jews or queer people living there. I'm no fan of American propaganda, but it seems like child's play compared to what this woman was taught growing up.
posted by equipoise at 9:18 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
posted by equipoise at 9:18 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]
I lived behind the Wall as a kid. Don’t be to “glowy” in hindsight. Freedom of the Press is a good thing. Not having neighbors testifying about you under the eye of the Stasi is a good thing.
What was bad once I got back to the US was that the good things from Socialism: healthcare, housing, education, not starving, were all lumped in with the negatives of Communism by greedy fuckers.
Remember that all the bad shit Putin does….blatant propaganda, murdering dissidents, wars of convenience targeting civilians…he learned in the KGB.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:38 AM on April 13 [8 favorites]
What was bad once I got back to the US was that the good things from Socialism: healthcare, housing, education, not starving, were all lumped in with the negatives of Communism by greedy fuckers.
Remember that all the bad shit Putin does….blatant propaganda, murdering dissidents, wars of convenience targeting civilians…he learned in the KGB.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:38 AM on April 13 [8 favorites]
"Everyone believed" and "deliberate propaganda" are both pretty high bars. I think the things that come closest to that bar would often be denials that the US was involved in various bad pieces of shittery: Someone saying the US assassinated Pinochet, for example, would have been considered a conspiracy monger. "We" all thought of the KGB as a more serious and sinister version of the CIA, but writer Phillip Knightley claimed the KGB didn't overthrow a single government by coup during the Cold War, something that can't be said for the CIA.
In general, Soviet power was vastly exaggerated. I had a high school teacher who, in introducing European geography, described central and eastern Europe as the "heartland of Europe", said it was long known that whoever controlled the heartland could rule the world, and pointed out the Soviets were just missing West Germany and Austria to complete their takeover. (I thought this rule central Europe, rule the world thing was nonsense, and while it was years later I did stumble on a serious 19th century thinker who'd argued this, a sort of anti-Mahan; I'm sure the teacher was channeling him.)
On the flip side, for many liberals like me in the 1980s, the awareness of the red-baiting McCarthy, the extent to which Conintern and explicit Soviet instruction drove Communist Party politics in the west was simply not believed and claims to the contrary were considered red-baiting. People with stronger ties to traditional labor and socialist organizations tended to be more aware of this, I believe, but by the '80s the memory of McCarthy dominated.
The more dramatic scenes from movies are what stayed with them - they tended to forget that other much more brief scene of being in a two hour line up at Checkpoint Charlie, and the movies entirely omitted any scene of the six hour line up at the government office to get the visa.
I'm unclear of the point: Are you saying massive travel restrictions were mostly a myth? I, too, have relatives who would dispute that too. Visas weren't given to people just because you were willing to stand in line, and even when granted they'd often make a point of not letting an entire family leave at the same time since that would make them a "flight risk."
It is true that most people who left did so via visa rather than escape plan, but that doesn't mean most people could leave via visa. I have an uncle, a doctor, who defected when they foolishly let him take his family on a year long state-sponsored foreign study program; he was supposed to go to Canada but gut off the plane in Germany and asked for asylum. His siblings still in the east were unable to see him again until the wall came down.
A major moment in the collapse of the Eastern block was the Hungarian decision not to stop people from exiting to the west. That act made East Germany's position untenable almost overnight.
posted by mark k at 7:45 AM on April 13 [3 favorites]
In general, Soviet power was vastly exaggerated. I had a high school teacher who, in introducing European geography, described central and eastern Europe as the "heartland of Europe", said it was long known that whoever controlled the heartland could rule the world, and pointed out the Soviets were just missing West Germany and Austria to complete their takeover. (I thought this rule central Europe, rule the world thing was nonsense, and while it was years later I did stumble on a serious 19th century thinker who'd argued this, a sort of anti-Mahan; I'm sure the teacher was channeling him.)
On the flip side, for many liberals like me in the 1980s, the awareness of the red-baiting McCarthy, the extent to which Conintern and explicit Soviet instruction drove Communist Party politics in the west was simply not believed and claims to the contrary were considered red-baiting. People with stronger ties to traditional labor and socialist organizations tended to be more aware of this, I believe, but by the '80s the memory of McCarthy dominated.
The more dramatic scenes from movies are what stayed with them - they tended to forget that other much more brief scene of being in a two hour line up at Checkpoint Charlie, and the movies entirely omitted any scene of the six hour line up at the government office to get the visa.
I'm unclear of the point: Are you saying massive travel restrictions were mostly a myth? I, too, have relatives who would dispute that too. Visas weren't given to people just because you were willing to stand in line, and even when granted they'd often make a point of not letting an entire family leave at the same time since that would make them a "flight risk."
It is true that most people who left did so via visa rather than escape plan, but that doesn't mean most people could leave via visa. I have an uncle, a doctor, who defected when they foolishly let him take his family on a year long state-sponsored foreign study program; he was supposed to go to Canada but gut off the plane in Germany and asked for asylum. His siblings still in the east were unable to see him again until the wall came down.
A major moment in the collapse of the Eastern block was the Hungarian decision not to stop people from exiting to the west. That act made East Germany's position untenable almost overnight.
posted by mark k at 7:45 AM on April 13 [3 favorites]
Another thing never mentioned in US school during the 80s was how aligned on government spending to create jobs the US and USSR were during the 30s. We were very ideologically aligned about supporting artists and workers. Take a look at some of the amazing artwork put into the WPA projects. There were very heavily suppressed US government WWII propaganda films showing how our Russian brothers all worked together or the benefit of all.
All of that was silenced in the 80s.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:55 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
All of that was silenced in the 80s.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:55 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]
I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, and beyond “they want to nuke us” we never really learned anything about the USSR. I can’t think of a single time they even came up in school. It was like they were this mysterious, existential threat that we knew nothing about.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:21 PM on April 13
posted by Thorzdad at 2:21 PM on April 13
I was in elementary school shortly after the end of the Cold War (late 90s to early 2000s), so this may not be exactly the answer you're looking for but I distinctly remember little tidbits from my education (in New York City public schools with really outdated books and materials) that seem so bizarre in retrospect and are clearly holdovers from the 80s:
-I remember my 5th grade teacher telling me, during a school assembly, that America was special because Americans were allowed to choose what jobs they did and no one else in the world was
-I remember that in our social studies class, we were due to start a unit on Russia but then 9/11 happened and literally weeks later, our teacher decided we were going to study Islam instead--I distinctly remember her saying we weren't going to study Russia because "no one cares"
-I remember a test question asking why communism didn't work (this may have been early middle school)
I did notice that as I got older and we were further and further away from the Cold War, the Russia/communism content was dialed back significantly and I wouldn't be surprised if it's basically gone now. In 11th grade Global Studies, Russia was an optional unit and my teacher skipped it entirely.
I was barely conscious that the Cold War had even happened and that Russia had ever been a big deal in American foreign policy until probably late middle school and independent study of history.
posted by lizard2590 at 9:01 AM on April 14
-I remember my 5th grade teacher telling me, during a school assembly, that America was special because Americans were allowed to choose what jobs they did and no one else in the world was
-I remember that in our social studies class, we were due to start a unit on Russia but then 9/11 happened and literally weeks later, our teacher decided we were going to study Islam instead--I distinctly remember her saying we weren't going to study Russia because "no one cares"
-I remember a test question asking why communism didn't work (this may have been early middle school)
I did notice that as I got older and we were further and further away from the Cold War, the Russia/communism content was dialed back significantly and I wouldn't be surprised if it's basically gone now. In 11th grade Global Studies, Russia was an optional unit and my teacher skipped it entirely.
I was barely conscious that the Cold War had even happened and that Russia had ever been a big deal in American foreign policy until probably late middle school and independent study of history.
posted by lizard2590 at 9:01 AM on April 14
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 7:28 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]