The Old

United States : Democracy :: Russia : ___________

Don't say communism; don't do it! Fight it, fight it!
Here's why:

I ran into some communists on saturday outside the Gostinii Dvor metro stop on Nevskii Prospekt (the street Dostoevsky made famous). They stood out rather sharply: a row of fifteen white heads, wrinkly hands and faces popping out of knitted sweaters on the banks of a roaring river of pedestrians, surrounded by posh jewelry shops and gigantic advertisements for the latest BMW. Every week the communists (all pensioners) bring their flags here, to one of the busiest metro stops in the city, on Petersburg's Fifth Avenue, to proclaim loudly that they're not buying it, this new Russia I mean. I stood there for a few minutes reading one of the signs, which argued, point-by-point, why life was better under Stalin (by the way can you imagine seeing "life was better under Ike" signs at Grand Central? Stalin died in 1953!) Reason number 1: "Under Stalin, bread prices fell. Under Putin, they have been rising." As I was reading this, three boys about twelve years old started arguing with one of the women, who happened to have two very prominant gold teeth. "But what about all the people he killed?" they asked. She replied gruffly "Stalin made this country great!" The boys walked away giggling.

Lenin must be spinning in his grave: The politics of "Workers of the World Unite" is now the politics of "when I was your age..."; the army of the proletariat, now fifteen grouchy pensioners, standing off to the side as the rest of the city passes them by.