> 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.
Seems to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that more of the admirers of communism would be of type 1 (e.g. the old lady) than type 2 (e.g. the successful businessman). There are more of the former and they're more apt to be dissatsified, right?
-- Luke