Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unisoft!mtxinu!taniwha!michael From: michael@taniwha.UUCP (Michael Hamel) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Soviet Access to Usenet Message-ID: <224@taniwha.UUCP> Date: 29 Nov 88 17:41:38 GMT References: <7649@well.UUCP> <8081@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <17651@gatech.edu> <222@taniwha.UUCP> <2355@cbnews.ATT.COM> Reply-To: michael@taniwha.UUCP (Michael Hamel) Organization: Taniwha Systems Design, Oakland Lines: 55 In article <2355@cbnews.ATT.COM> lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) writes: >In article <222@taniwha.UUCP>, michael@taniwha.UUCP (Michael Hamel) writes: > >> There is a big gap between Leninist/Marxist theory and practice >> in the USSR, and I believe they know that very well. > >Please tell us what the correct number of victims is. > I'm sorry, you've lost me there. The point I was trying to make was that the USSR has a formal ideology that requires them to say certain things publicly that they may not believe in - for the very good reason that the predictions that Marxist/Leninist doctrine made about the future have turned out not to be true. For a good example of this I recommend you take a look at the program of the CPSU that was being promoted in the 1960's. It states as an accomplished fact that the USSR would equal the U.S in industrial production in the 1970's, and that by the 1980's would be the envy of all nations, with a 35-hour working week and the most advanced technology and economy on earth. When you consider that Gorbachev and the current generation of Kremlin leaders were in their mid-thirties and probably believed at least some of this, you do start to wonder what they think today. >No way, Gorbachev has no power, he is only a figure head. Funny the way he keeps dismissing and appointing people, then. How do you propose to falsify your theory that he is a figurehead? > What has changed recently is that the Soviets have much better >public relations than in the past. That's all there is to it. But the better public relations is *inside* the USSR as well as outside - and that means change. You can't tell me that having the government own up publicly to what happened under Stalin and to what has been happening to their economy in the last twenty years isn't going to change the way things happen at the lower levels. It has become possible to criticise the State, and thats the first step toward a different society. Look at the unrest in the Baltic States and Armenia. Thats what "better public relations" has done and the response will have to be different from what it would have been 20 years ago because the rest of the USSR is watching on the TV news every night.. >When the Soviet Union allows free immigration to all citizens then I will >believe they have *fundamentally* changed. Until then, it is a prison, >and only a prison. I think you are judging the Soviets on one very narrow criteria. I wouldn't believe they had fundamentally changed even if they did allow free immigration - but this is semantic anyway. Describing the USSR as a prison is a cheap shot: it is a country and a homeland with a long and troubled history, and in no way comparable. The notion of "imprisoning" umpteen million people is absurd. They are there because it is their country, for better or worse. -- "In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap." Michael Hamel.