I add:
One thing that ticks me off about this "nostalgia for communism" genre in Western journalism when it comes to Russia, at any rate, is that the person they find who says nice things about the USSR is invariably some old lady who has lost her life savings or some worker who has had his wages delayed, as if the only people who miss the Soviet Union are poor and suffering.
I personally know a) a successful businessman around 40 who spent New Year's with me drinking vodka and talking about how great Brezhnev was; b) a very successful dentist around 60 in private practice who has his own TV commercials who goes into ecstasies talking about the Brezhnev era; and c) a 43-year-old well-known artist who, after I first got here, berated me for regurgitating Cold War propaganda pap about his Soviet motherland.
Tavernaze, Hiatt, Weir, Walsh etc. need to get a clue.
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