"Experiment" (was Re: Great Cockburn/St. Clair piece on Seattle)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Hi Carrol:
>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> Chuck0 wrote:
>> >The Soviet experiment failed.
>>
>> The USSR indeed failed, but it wasn't an "experiment" in the sense of
>> putting ideas into practice under laboratory conditions.
>
>And as soon as one gets the ridiculous idea that whole movements
>of humanity are (forsooth) "experiements" out of one's head, it
>becomes by no means obvious that, though ultimately defeated,
>it is quite correct to say the USSR failed (or rather the movement
>of humanity it exemplified failed). Let me try to get the feeling
>of one of the most vivid memories of my youth (when I was about
>12 to be exact).
>
>During the '40s there was an ex-preacher (presbyterian I think)
>by the name of Gabriel Heater who had a popular nightly news
>show. I still remember vividly his two opening sentences, with
>a cadence that reverberates down the years. Either "There's
>GOOD news toNIGHT folks" or (often in that particular
>year) "There's BAD news to NIGHT folks." It was the latter
>I remember, on the eve of the battle of El Alamein, and when
>no one in the west really expected the defense of Stalingrad
>to be victorious. The vision or nightmare that impelled the bad
>news that night (and it was a by no means unrealistic one) was
>of German and Japanese armies meeting in India.
>
>How would you like it if instead of photographs of Soviet and
>U.S. soldiers meeting at the Elbe the photos that dominated the
>last half century had been of Japanese and German troops
>meeting at the Ganges. The most German divisions that the
>U.S. ever faced in the west was 85. The Soviet Union held off
>205 German divisions. U.S. deaths: roughly 380,000. Soviet
>deaths: 20 million.
>
>And then when one compares the horror of the last 10 years
>in the fSU to the worse that occurred under Stalin -- a failure?
>Don't be silly. It remains the single greatest event of the 20th
>century -- probably of the last millenium.

To "fail" has multiple meanings, though, Carrol.  It can mean "to break
down under strain or pressure," "to become exhausted," etc.

Yoshie