Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

by Svetlana Alexievich

Today, they accuse us of fighting for capitalism…That’s not true! I was defending socialism, but some other kind, not the Soviet kind—that’s what I was standing up for! Or at least that’s what I thought.

Confusion. capitalism has no fans among idealists

Our people need freedom like a monkey needs glasses.

Do some peoples not need freedom? is it useless to some?

Back then, there were fifteen million of us communists! The Party could have…It was sold out…Out of fifteen million people, not a single leader emerged.

No Communist led

They gave everyone something to eat…including the men in the tanks. “Eat your fill, boys. Just don’t shoot. Are you really going to shoot at us?” The

Mom influence! eliminate hunger, which precedes anger and rashness andd reciprocation (we fed you!)

All of our suffering was in vain…

Suffering in vain

No one can convince me that we were given life just to eat and sleep to our hearts’ content.

Does not religion answer this need? Perhaps partially. Heaven after earth, not on earth.

Getting rid of an incompetent leader isn’t our biggest problem. The question is what happens next.’

Said as a leader

As far as I understand, the truth is something that’s sought out by specially trained experts: judges, scholars, priests. Everyone else is ruled by ambition and emotions.

Some professions which appear to be ruled by other than self interest . is it true i wonder ? I am skeptical

History records the lives of ideas. People don’t write it, time does. Human truth is just a nail that everybody hangs their hats on.

Wow. mic drop on history

Just like Khrushchev, who only ever referred to the generals as “spongers,” Gorbachev didn’t like the army. We were a military nation, 70 or so percent of the economy was, in one way or another, tied to the military.

Military society

The minister of defense, not the minister of economics, was always the first to address the Politburo; the number of weapons manufactured used to be more important than the number of VCRs.

Defense over economics econ = VCRs

Our state has always been in a state of mobilization. From its inception. It was not built for peacetime. Again…you think we weren’t capable of spitting out some trendy women’s boots and pretty bras? Plastic VCRs. It would have been child’s play.

Pride in things not real

And now, there’s no choice: You either feed your family or you hang on to your sovok ideals. It’s

Change was unexpected

About our lost generation—a communist upbringing and a capitalist life.

Good summary

Old age means, first and foremost, loneliness.

Resonates with truth

They began cursing us immediately. Slandering. The consumer triumphed. The louse. The worm.

He hates consumers . maybe Communism fails because it does not understand the soul's journey / evolution. Communists and elites hate?

…We blew up a church…I can still hear the cries of the old women, “Children, don’t do it!” they begged us. Grabbed onto our ankles.

Destroyer

A prayed-in place, as they say. They built the municipal public toilet over the ruins. And forced the priests to work there as cleaning men. Washing out the shit. Today…of course…Today, I understand…But back then, it was fun…

This is heinous

One time, I opened the doors of one of the train cars: A half-naked man was hanging from a belt in the corner. The mother was cradling the little one in her arms, while her older boy sat on the floor next to her eating his own shit with his hands like it was kasha. “Shut that door!” the Commissar shouted at me. “That’s the kulak bastard! There’s no room for them in our new life!”

This is good?

We believed in a beautiful life. Utopia…it was utopia…And how about you? You have your own utopia: the market.

Fair point

There’s loads of salami at the store, but no happy people. I don’t see anyone with fire in their eyes.

Happiness to some is fire in the eyes ?

October Revolution was the “opiate of the intellectuals.”

The opiate of the intellectuals! Great phrase

uneducated people than anyone else.

Intelligent nail the uneducated ?

They beat me in the stomach with a bag of sand. Everything came out of me like I was a worm. They’d hang me from hooks like it was the Middle Ages! Everything is leaking out of you, you’re no longer in control of your bodily functions. Leaking out of everywhere…enduring this pain…it’s completely humiliating. It’s easier just to die…[He catches his breath.]

Why did this make sense ?

They would be given their quotas from above, quotas to fulfill for capturing enemies—monthly and annual.

Like 5 people per year

But the father had thought that he’d solved a great mystery…That he was God! That’s the response to all the great utopians!

Yes i agree

…It was a beautiful idea! But what are you going to do with human nature? Man hasn’t changed since the days of ancient Rome…

The conservatives' creed

You can only judge us according to the laws of religion. Faith!

Communism is a religion

“I die, but I do not surrender.

Inspirational

But I still managed to catch a glimpse of a few of these so-called businessmen—thieves and swindlers—sitting there munching, chomping, drinking…The fact that we spilled blood here has already been forgotten.

Valid point. What is the payoff to service to the country?

We fought, we killed—and for whom? For Stalin? It was for you, you idiots!

Good point. But accurate? Or an expression of frustration

The commanders took turns sleeping with her…They’d crack jokes about her: “She still has little kid hair down there, ha ha…” Rozochka ended up pregnant. So they took her off deep into the woods and shot her like a dog…

Horrible humanity

“When the wind is strong, the trash rises to the top.”

Bad news

I’ll tell you the truth, speaking to you as a woman, not as a writer…I couldn’t understand him… One day, he dug up the potatoes, put on his best clothes, and went off to his fortress. He didn’t even leave us a note. He addressed his final statement to the state, to strangers. To us, he said nothing. Not a single word…

Committed suicide and left a note to Russia, not family

Time passes, and pain develops into knowledge.

Time passes and pain becomes knowledge

I’m sad that he never knew me as the person I am today.

That's real pain

It’s not that I’m afraid of solitude, I just don’t know how to live without love. I need the pain…the pity…Without that, I’m lost, the way I get scared when I’ve swum out too far into the sea.

Beautifully described vasana

Lord! She’d decided that when the priest in the church would ask her whether she was marrying him of her own free will, she would say no. But the priest had gotten drunk beforehand, so instead of asking her like he was supposed to, he just said, “Be nice to him, he froze his feet off in the war.” After that, she had no choice but to marry him. That’s how my grandmother ended up spending the rest of her life with my grandfather, even though she never loved him. It’s a great caption, summing up our whole lives…“Be nice to him, he froze his feet off in the war.”

What reality

For us, suffering is “a personal struggle,” “the path to salvation.” Italians aren’t like that, they don’t want to suffer, they love life, which they believe is given to them to enjoy, not suffer through. We don’t think like that. We rarely talk about joy…

Russian vs Italian

His favorite saying was, “His trees and flowers turned out much better than His people did.”

Funny line

“Susan Sontag: Communism is Fascism with a Human Face,”

Good line

Words are only a supplement to our emotional states.

True

The woman paid us, and then she said, “Let me cut you a bouquet.” A bouquet—for us? We’re standing there, two beggar girls in some kind of respectable setting…Cold and hungry…And here she is giving us flowers! The only thing we ever thought about was bread, but this person saw that we were capable of thinking about other things as well.

Can’t tell if storyteller is indignant or honored

So many times, I’ve wanted to tell someone all of it. To speak my fill. But no one has ever wanted to know: “And then what…and then what?” I’ve always waited for someone, whether it be a good or bad person, to come and listen to my story—I don’t know who exactly I had in mind, but I was always waiting for someone. My whole life, I’ve been waiting for someone to find me and I would tell them everything…and they would keep asking, “And then what? And then what?” Now, people have started

Love in a form

If the water catches fire, how do you put it out? That’s what Abkhazians say about war…

Mysteriously accurate

Dear Lord, protect the trusting and blind!

Protect the trusting and the blind

But is it possible to do good with a machine gun and a knife?

I d k

I was totally Soviet—it’s shameful to love money, you have to love a dream.

Not wrong per se

My mother—my son—me…we all live in different countries, even though they’re all Russia.

Nice line

The axe will survive the master…

Good idiom