Don’t tweet about “propaganda” if you have this ☭ as an identifier in your profile. My husband grew up in the USSR. Too much govt control
w/o accountability is as bad as too much corp control. If you’ve got this in your profile ☭ in 2021 it’s because you fell for #Propaganda

Here’s part of what I know based on the lived experiences of my husband & his family: If ppl walked around during the day, they’d be stopped by police. They had to have proof that they were running a work errand or that they were sick (with a doctor’s note) or they’d be taken...

to jail. Ppl not working were called parasites who “took advantage of the system.”...

Nobody talked about how the system wasn’t working because nobody knew who might turn them in. Neighbors could talk to the government & next thing you know, someone in your family would be sent off to a work camp in Siberia.

My husband’s grandmother was sent to Siberia twice. She gave birth there. My hubs’ aunt didn’t meet her father until she was 8. She grew up in a work camp. When she was finally released & sent home, she had a Russian accent & didn’t speak her native language well...

I can’t imagine how hard and confusing that must have been. She’d been told her whole life about how glorious “home” was and when she finally got there, she didn’t fit in because she talked like her captors & the occupiers...

Western books weren’t allowed. Travel outside wasn’t allowed b/c ppl saw other systems & they liked them better. Nobody was allowed to question the “perfect” system. If a system can’t survive without free speech or knowledge, how great is that system? ...

People had their schooling, careers & living quarters chosen for them according to the govt plan. They felt they had no control over their own destiny & they couldn’t speak out, so the only way they could rebel was to stop producing. ...

It became a sort of heroic act to lie on the books about how many units were made or miles driven. Ppl felt like they had some control that way. At factories, it was “someone’s birthday” nearly everyday so they spent the days drinking instead of working. They felt in control...

But it led to a huge economic & food crisis. For example, truck drivers would sit & drink vodka instead of driving their miles for the day, but the gas had to be used to prove that they drove, so...

They’d get rid of it. Ppl had barns full of gasoline until there was too much to use & they just started dumping it onto the ground. But gasoline truckers stopped driving too so eventually they had a gas shortage...

My hubs said his dad would go to the gas station & sometimes wait overnight & by the time he’d get to the front, there would be no gas left. Same thing happened with bread, etc. Imports were so rare, they cherished the trash. Hubs had a scrapbook full of used candy wrappers...

when he was a kid. He’d just open it & smell the wrappers. I really don’t like candy or the idea of it but that breaks my heart. If a kid (who had a parent in govt) got something from the outside, they shared it. Like they’d pass around chewed gum so everybody got to taste it.

They lived in fear & frustration. The government told them what their lives would hold, where they could or couldn’t go, what they had to do for work. There was no personal choice about almost anything...

So excuse me if I get a bit angry when people with ☭ show up in my feed.