Just two brief comments:
1. The intro par. was apparently no written by the author, as it completely distorts the article's whole point. Where did this "misremembered" come from? How does some guy in France know what the USSR was like?
2. I wish people would stop writing that Soviet welfare state has been dismantled, because it hasn't.
ALL THAT FRIENDSHIP AND SOLIDARITY COLLAPSED WITH THE BREAK-UP OF THE USSR Russia: nostalgic for the Soviet era
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As President Vladimir Putin went to the polls he faced strong demands to redistribute national wealth and rebuild at least part of the old social welfare system. The demands are linked with a re-evaluation of the legacy of the old Soviet Union. A misremembered past appeals because the present doesn t work and the future looks bleak. by Jean-Marie Chauvier
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WE HAVE all seen, if only on screen, the famous monument of the worker and the peasant woman from the collective farm holding hammer and sickle aloft and striding towards a better future (1). It was sculpted by Vera Mukhina for the entrance to Moscow s exhibition park and has just been taken down, although not to be scrapped but for renovation. Traditional red flags will fly again on 9 May for the official celebrations of the USSR s victory over Nazi Germany, and also at the communist marches on 1 May and 7 November (2). The anthem of the USSR is being played (3). Teenagers are wearing T-shirts carrying the slogan "My country, the USSR". Rock groups recycle Soviet hits. FM radio in Moscow broadcasts more songs in Russian. Chic cafes and advertising use Soviet symbols. Postmodernist nostalgia is big in Russia. --- Westerners lack much of the knowledge they need to understand the loss that Russians feel: the total world of a culture, the depth of a social life that cannot be changed to fit an ideology. In which drawer should be filed not only avant-garde art but the mass popular culture that influenced gener ations? Alexandrov s musical comedies and Utesov s jazz; the humour of Ilf and Petrov; the adventures of soldier Vassily Tiorkine; the characters of film-maker Vassily Shukshin; the amateur art of the factory clubs and the vast "song of authors" movement, the most significant mass protest of the period 1960-80. How do you explain the decision by nonconformist bards of all ages to vote the ballad Grenada by Mikhail Svetlov, the 1920s Komsomol poet, "the song of the 20th century"? Will it ever be possible to pass on the messages from this lost Atlantis?
http://mondediplo.com/2004/03/11russia?var_recherche=soviet