A few days ago, I was in a group of people who were discussing what American magazines and newspapers had to say about Russia’s war in Georgia.  One magazine, maybe The Economist, had on the cover “Russia Resurgent.”  Another worried about the return of the USSR.  On hearing this, one friend leaned over to her neighbor and said, “Wouldn’t that be great?”

 

I’ve written before how we in America see the fall of the USSR as an unadulterated good, while the reality is of course more complicated.  I wanted to ask my friend what she meant by that, but the moment passed and I had to wait.

 

In the meantime, I asked the students in one of my English classes to comment on what she said.  Why would a person wish for the return of the USSR?  Do they wish for that?  Here are their answers:

 

“When it was the USSR versus the USA, there was competition that drove both countries to excel.  (Krushchev had as a mantra “to catch up to, and overtake, the USA.”)  The USSR devoted a lot of resources to advances in science and technology, and this helped make the USSR great.”

 

“In that time there was stability.  People knew what was expected of them, and what they could expect from the government and from life.  Old people knew what their pension would be, and they could live on it.  It was more comfortable.”

 

“Back then no one cared where you came from.  Tadjiks, Uzbeks, whatever, everyone was united by a common ideal.  People didn’t hate each other.”

 

“All the small countries that broke off from the Soviet Union were much happier, because it was simpler to have one ruler.  Now these small countries don’t know how to manage their own business and don’t do it very well.  It was easier when they were all part of one large country.”

 

I found these responses interesting, especially since they came from people who were born in 1989 or later.  They said approximately what I expected to hear; what surprised me was that they all seemed to agree to some extent.  If I pressed them further, I doubt they would want to go back themselves, but they understand why their parents might wish they could.

 

I finally had a chance today to ask my friend to explain.  She said, “Christina, I was born and raised in the USSR.  Good or bad, it’s my country.  It formed me.  We were all united then by common values, by a great moral ideal.  Maybe it was all based on lies, but we lived by it and it made us better.  No one in that time would have dreamed of hurting or killing his countryman because he looked Asian.  No one thought of there being a border between Russia and Ukraine.”

 

I guess some people were thinking of a border, since, as soon as they had a chance, they made one.   But it’s interesting that, totalitarianism aside, a lot of the people I talk to wouldn’t mind trading back some of what they have now, in return for what they’ve lost.  It struck me that many of their observations sound like typical American pining for the old days, when people were nicer, things were simpler, morals were stronger, and people weren’t so materialistic - which brings up the question, how reliable are our memories, and how valid are our comparisons?  Our Russian teacher once quoted some writer as saying that, in childhood, there were always such marvelous beech trees, though really there were no trees at all.

 

Of course, they have made real tradeoffs.  But I wonder if people’s judgment can be clouded by the fact that today’s pain hurts worse than yesterdays?  The gripes we had thirty years ago seem small in comparison with those we have now.  It’s probably best that God never lets us go back and try to make our story come out differently.