I read comments here frequently espousing socialism and condemning the free market. Quite frankly, these make me recoil, steeped as I am in the literary, economic, social and political history of the former Soviet Union.
I grew up with sweet visions of the brotherhood of Soviets and how they banded together to develop an industrialized economy, throw off the shackles of monarchy, and beat the living hell out of the Nazis. As I learned more, those romantic notions became nothing more than sweet, i.e., quaint, since I learned that the Soviets just recycled the oppression of the czars under a different banner and about the atrocities committed against its own citizens Although, from Brezhnev's time onwards things loosened up considerably, albeit slowly (until the US had a belligerent president who called them evil and joked about beginning bombing in a few minutes - which forced a massive cultural/political clampdown for a brief period).
I began my graduate studies in Moscow almost 20 years ago and took all of this knowledge with me. I studied with a few Americans in an American program but spent my time out of the classroom and with Soviets themselves because, as I always have in my travels, I figured, "What's the point of leaving the US only to surround oneself with Americans?".
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