Soviet Leftovers
Mind Control Pt. 2
In a phase of grief-induced writer’s block, I started re-posting my blog entries from my study abroad time in Tajikistan fifteen years ago (here’s the most recent one #18). They gradually morphed into commentary comparing back then with what I experience now. Since Orange Menace 2.0 began a year ago and the arrests and disappearances started, I began thinking about life in a former Soviet Republic from this perspective. Not just about how I was sick all the time.
In Tajikistan, we were frequently stopped by officials in uniform. If anyone with even the slightest semblance of authority talked to us, that was a big and often scary deal. We were the guests, and the random demonstration of power could change our lives in seconds.
At the time, I was rather surprised at this experience, coming from the United States, where my encounters with law enforcement and the state monopoly on violence were rather limited as an educated, white woman. But in Central Asia, the state and its arbitrary implementation of force were an everyday thing. When we all drove in our jeeps to our group outings, we were often pulled over with the wave of a baton to be shaken down for a bribe. We needed to get a permission pass to visit the Pamirs, the semi-autonomous region in the eastern part of the country, and the bureaucratic process was arduous, involving bribery and brownnosing by our handlers at the study abroad office.
Back in the spring of 2011, when I posted this blog about Tajikistan, I titled it “Soviet Leftovers”. Maybe we can call what is happening in the US and Russia these last years “Sloppy Soviet Seconds.”
Springtime 2011
I have learned a great deal about Russia and the Soviet Union during this two-semester program, more so than about Iran! My new host dad (I switched families after winter break, having been sick one too many times at the last host family) gets a kick out of pointing out American propaganda and expanding my worldview (my emphasis) by highlighting how things appear from a Soviet perspective. He likes to say things like, “America says everyone is the enemy who doesn’t do what they want.”
It’s hard to argue sometimes...though he’s not really looking for a debate in the college-level course type of way that I am accustomed to. The latest example of this is that he began singing the praises of Belarus. We were knee-deep in a discussion of the history of the region (mostly him talking), and I said something about hearing that Belarus had a dictator problem (I know absolutely nothing about Belarus; I never Wikipedia’ed it until after that discussion).
He laughed and said, “They have the best government in the whole region!”
My host dad then proceeded to explain that they still have a state-controlled economy, and it’s great. He went on to describe the process of communist brainwashing he underwent in grade school in the late 1960s, where they were told that in the future, everything would be free. You would go into a store and take a shirt if you needed it. To this point, the children would ask, “What about candy?” Yes, candy would be free too. This was possible because everyone would only take what they needed.
My host dad appeared to understand how funny this was. That seems to be where they miscalculated, I added.
He said that in Europe and America, capitalism works because people respect the rule of law, but here in Tajikistan, the people who won the civil war just took everything for themselves and their friends and family. Pretty much sums it up, I thought. The recent electricity blackouts come to mind.
This spring, they began rationing electricity in the capital, which used to only happen in the winter when the water in the Nurek electric dam gets low due to the water upstream freezing. This time, they made an announcement on TV asking for the people’s understanding and forgiveness that there is rationing but said it was due to the water being low. This much is true, but a report is going around showing that for some reason, in January, they let a lot of water out and created electricity outside the ordinary schedule. The likelihood is that they (the above-mentioned cronies) then sold the electricity, then, when no one was looking, pocketed the money, and then later didn’t count on the dam not filling up quickly enough. Though there’s more to the story, that’s the general conspiracy theory going around.
That was happening in the poorest former Soviet Republic fifteen years ago. The similarity with the direction of corruption the US is taking is not lost on me. A combination of klepto-capitalism, which Tajikistan experienced, and tech broligarchy or techno-feudalism, now threatens America. Companies in the defense sector, insurance, pharmaceuticals, private prisons, and tech are getting their contracts from the government, bribing and influencing politicians to make laws or ignore them for their benefit. The common people are increasingly left with nothing, as in, they have negative assets, i.e., debt. Chris Hedges has written extensively about this already, and foretells doom.
Since Hedge’s book America, A Farewell Tour, which blew my mind in 2018, things have only gotten worse with Trump 2.0. Armed masked men roam freely, kidnapping people and calling themselves representatives of the government (ICE) without any accountability, as one obvious example of the fascist trend.
It seems quaint to look back at communism and its vision of “everyone only taking what they need.” We know that’s not what the human soul does naturally. I can see from observing my own hoarding and grabby tendencies too, and so wonder what system of government could be the best when taking into consideration what real human people are like. Not the ideal of people only taking what they need, nor being only self-interested and cruel. I have also experienced astounding human capacity for generosity and kindness, and am not without any hope for the future.
That things are breaking down is clear, but what should happen next is not. Do we get more guns to fight back? At what point does an uprising need to be violent, or can we get the change we demand through peaceful means?
Even the famous Christian resistance martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was ready to take up arms against Hitler and be part of the assassination plot. Here’s an interesting podcast about him and his evolution from theologian to being killed by the Nazis.
Another thinker and activist I’ve been inspired by recently is Dr. Sarah Lubrano, and her talks about how to resist fascism. What surprised me was learning about how we have our inner fascists to contend with. I certainly observe this in myself. The thought that rises in me when I see dog poop on the street and want to call the Ordnungsamt (the ‘civil order enforcers’ in German cities). How dare they leave the poop there!? Are there no consequences? People should be fined and punished for such behavior. Where does this line of thought lead? We know all too well.
In this Insta video below, Dr. Lubrano and her colleague describe how fascism is an outgrowth of capitalism and can be seductive. Lubrano also discusses elsewhere how we all can have an inner fascist; I think she’s going back to the work of philosopher Herbert Marcuse, of the Frankfurt School.
Whenever I catch myself having an anti-human thought, like getting annoyed at people for littering, to name a more innocuous one, I say, “That’s your inner Fascist, Bettina! Don’t feed it.” Lest you wake up someday voting for a party that wants to deport people for being illegal. Always keep the bigger picture in mind, and don’t blame individuals for what are actually symptoms of capitalism run amok.
Recently, when the doomscrolling got too much, I switched to binge-watching a TV show, A Gentleman in Moscow. I saw the first few episodes on the plane and was hooked. This show is based on a historical novel; in the show, the lovely Ewan McGregor plays the Russian count sentenced to house arrest in a grand hotel after the October Bolshevik Revolution. It certainly reminds us about the danger of revolutions, as the adage goes, they tend to devour their children. The cycles of violence and political disarray, decay, and revolution are always in motion.
Will there be shows about a second US revolution 50 years from now, or maybe even five years? What role will you play?
I am learning a lot about how to be more conscious and part of the solution through YK Hong’s newsletter, Liberation Toolbox. I leave you with a quote from YK Hong: “Oppression has an expiration date, and Liberation does not.” -YK Hong in 2025.
If you liked this post, you may be interested in my other political and Tajikistan-related writings.
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