I was born in the USSR so I was taught to love Lenin.
Actually, at the age of 51, I represent the last Soviet generation. I went to elementary school in 1981 when I was six. That was the end of Leonid Brezhnev’s late Soviet epoch. Total Communist (we actually called it Socialist) rule, Brezhnev was a bit like Lenin’s incarnation back in the day. Nobody said it openly and directly, but it was in the air.
Funny enough, Brezhnev’s second name (otchestvo, literally, father’s name), was the same as Vladimir Lenin’s. That’s is, Ilyich. I mean, their fathers’ name was the same, Ilya. For example, Tchaikovsky’s full name was also Petr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
There were jokes about Brezhnev’s otchestvo in the Soviet Union, somehow making a funny connection between the two men. Yet, when Leo Brezhnev was a subject to multiple jokes and anecdotes, Lenin was the icon.
There was a consensus that Brezhnev was funny, Stalin was contradictory and nobody talked about him in the media as he almost didn’t exist, just like Brezhnev’s predecessor, Nikita Khrushchev.
But Lenin… Vladimir Ilyich was the best, in both propaganda and common thinking, that Soviet Russia could have ever produced. A pure voice of good, untouched by later mistakes.
So, to me, at the age from six to ten, Grandpa Lenin was the guy. The ultimate man. His quotations were, of course, the ultimate argument in any discussion, oral or written. Brezhnev himself has been endlessly quoting Lenin in his works (of which he wasn’t the author, there were numerous ghost writers).
There were plenty of Lenin’s merchandise, from books to pictures to monuments to bronze figurines. All Soviet kids, from the 1st to 3rd grade, were ‘October-kids’, or ‘Octobrist’ wearing a star-shaped badge with little curly Volodya Ulyanov the kid (not Lenin yet). Lenin’s face was everywhere back then.
So, don’t get me wrong, I loved Lenin. I had no choice. And no information. It was only later, in the Gorbachev era, Stalin became a pure evil. But Gorby was still advocating Lenin for a while, announcing his desire to get back to his roots to revive a true Soviet idea.
Well, by the end of his time, early nineties, even he became tired of defending Vladimir Lenin. V.I. Ulyanov finally got his right place in history, next to Stalin.
To me, he is even worse. Lenin had enough energy and power to kill a whole country with millions of people dead as a result of the civil war he provoked, and great famine, another of his achievements. But, recalling my early memories, I’ve had a warm feeling towards Dedushka Lenin.
What we were taught…..
Much of what was instilled in me still serves my life very well. Some of it took a while to unlearn; not everything we are taught as children deserves our loyalty.
The first thing I really remember was being told to be respectful to my elders – not because they were always right, or modern, or even particularly kind, but they had wisdom, accumulated over the years. Cherish their knowledge. When we were at school (in the days when everyone wore a uniform), we had to doff our caps anytime we passed one of our teachers. I’ve carried that instinct with me for over 70 years.
Sadly, I was also taught that if I stole a farthing (a quarter of a penny) from my parent’s sideboard, and didn’t repent, I would spend, after death, an eternity of horrible torment and torture in hell. What an absolute disgrace for the Catholic Church to burden their children with that kind of terror. That’s not faith, it’s fear. Fear taught to children is not guidance, it’s simply child abuse. I blame the church, not my parents, who of course were similarly indoctrinated. History will not be kind to those who confused control with belief.
But not all of what I was taught was damaging. My parents recognised very early that I had a ”musical ear”. Bless them, they bought me a real piano, which they could barely afford, and arranged for lessons, to the extent that I could read music far better than words before I even started school. I remember my father forbidding me to go out and play football or cricket until I had practised my scales. While, at the time, I might have thought that was another form of abuse, it certainly paid dividends, and I enjoyed a lucrative musical career, having been taught “properly”.
Taken together, what I was taught actually made me – for better and for worse. I’m certainly at peace with who I became, even if not everyone will agree.
What we were taught
My parents were quite conservative. I suppose they were a product of their time. They tried to pass that belief system on to me… that didn’t work out at all. I’m a flaming Libtard without apologies.
I was born on an Army base in France and grew up in the US Military. We moved every two years throughout my childhood. That probably shaped me in many ways I still don’t fully appreciate.
Is there a room you think of as your bedroom? I bet you have a house that you grew up in and you think of it as your house. Maybe you stayed there throughout your entire childhood. I had none of that. When you’re young, two years seems like an eternity. I know better now.
I don’t regret moving at all. I have been to many places across the globe and met lots of different people. For example, I’ve been in 48 of the 50 US States. If it were left up to me, everybody would travel around the world. Most of the BS we are fed would be understood for what it is.
In America, Fox has successfully welded the words Islamic & terrorists together. For many in the US, propaganda has made it one word now. Total bullshit. I’m writing these words sitting in a Muslim country and I’m proud to claim these folks as friends.
My father went to some effort to teach me about tools and how machines work. They tried their best. There’s no pleasure in saying that my parents also tried to teach me to hate “others”. Not directly mind you; it’s not at all like my complaint about Fox above. Some strong oven cleaners will burn your hands, but not at first. You don’t realize how it will work on you; in the end, it burns everyone but you don’t realize that. You can’t see it until it’s too late. Yeah, the oven is clean and you have good, conservative “Family Values”… and no empathy.