MUNCHIES DEVOURED COMMUNISM
Here is a typed-out copy of one of my NY City
Tribune articles from 1990. It also appeared in
Glasnost News & Review and a couple of other
newspapers that picked it up.
IT WAS AN ATTACK OF THE MUNCHIES THAT DEVOURED COMMUNISM
By Larry Parr
Communism had a lot going for it -- a
totalitarian political doctrine, a utilitarian ethical
code and a brutalitarian leader****p. There was even
something called, as in the title of Edward Luttwak's
book "The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union."
Surely, nothing could stand against a country and
a movement which were blessed with a "grand strategy."
Nothing, that is, except the munchies. Over the
centuries men, women and children got hooked on eating
food. Then they started dressing in non-burlap ****rts
and wearing shoes instead of wrapped rags. This
nascent consumerism served human beings well, while
doing the dirty on feudalism and, more recently, on communism.
In the United States the munchies struck citizens
at movies and at celebrations following office softball
games. The German economist, Werner Sombart,
hit it just right. "Socialism," he wrote when
explaining the failure of the doctrine in the United
States, "has always foundered on the shores of roast
beef and apple pie." Bon appetit!
The shores of Sovietland have not been teeming
with steaming roast beef and apple pie these past
seven decades, and the munchies eventually became a
threat. "Eventually," because for several decades
Western intellectuals and even a small percentage of
Soviet citizens believed that roast beef and apple pie
were cooking in the kitchen-of-the-near-future and
were soon to be served.
And, too, back in the 1930s, belt-tightening was
felt to be a progressive thing. It was bracing to
nerve oneself against the munchies and other symptoms
of capitalist slackness.
Beatrice and Sidney Webb, two British Fabians,
enthused about socialism eliminating "capitalist
waste." There would be only one brand of fountain pen
and one lunch menu for working men -- boiled Brussels
sprouts, seasoned with lemon juice and washed down by
weak tea. It was this healthy fare that nourished the
slender and ascetic Webbs until they shuffled off
permanently in their late 80s. The problem was not
merely that the Brussels sprouts (and lemon juice)
were absent but that in the 1950s people stopped
believing that there was anything on the stove in the
kitchen-of-the-near-future. Weak tea, maybe. Roast
beef and apple pie, no.
Today, the munchies dominate the hearts and minds
of Soviet citizens in accord with the principle that
the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
The munchies are devouring communism, and
belt-tightening on behalf of a future generaton is
tout passe. People want to eat now.
"Grub first, then ethics," wrote the Marxist
playwright Bertolt Brecht, when explaining the
priorities of the proletariat and, therefore, the
objective necessity of communism. This crimson
materialism, this communist grub-love remains as
distasteful as ever. Yet one cannot help savoring a
delicious irony.
"Gurb first, then ethics" is precisely what
capitalism promises and delivers. It subdues the
munchies and accommodates behavior as diverse as the
charity of Mother Teresa and the rapacity of Michael Milken.
Brecht was a moral gumboil, but he put the point
of his East German, single-brand fountain pen on why
capitalism is historically inevitable. The proletariat
has gotten into the eating habit.
J=FCrgen R. wrote:
> "Chess One" <OneChess@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:7q6dnYSMRb7sx7XVnZ2dnUVZ_o3inZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > "J?rgen R." <jurgenr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> > news:g09k37$k24$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >> [...]
> >>>
> >>> After the wall came down I spent some time with a physicist from
East
> >>> Berlin.
> >>>
> >>> He told me of a Czech bath manufacturing facility, whose foundry
> >>> produced iron baths for the entire Soviet Union.
> >>>
> >>> No other baths were on offer anywhere [that is to say, without
*specia=
l*
> >>> people im****ting them from West Germany] despite the demand for
cerami=
c
> >>> ones, and indeed, for the new plastic shower-tubs wieghing one tenth
o=
f
> >>> the bath units.
> >>
> >> Don't you realize that you weaken your case when you grasp at
> >> straws like this. Your 'physicist' was obviously having fun pulling
> >> your leg: Go out and try to buy a ceramic bathtub sometime.
> >
> > I have written 2,000 e-mails on chess subjects alone with people who
wer=
e
> > behind the curtain. That's a hell of a lot of straws. But I don't want
t=
o
> > convince you of anything J?rgen, I want to speak of my /experience/
not
> > belief.
> >
> > If its convincing you want, have you written extensively with anyone
fro=
m
> > the old SU? Or even know them?
>
> Well, since I was born there (in Tallinn) and since the place (Munich)
whe=
re
> I am now is inhabited by thousands of recent emigrants from the former
USS=
R
> I don't need to write to communicate with 'them'.
>
> >
> >>> I shall call Bernd
> >>
> >> Needless to say, you must protect his privacy...
> >
> > Needless to say any physicist could identify him by his first name ;)
> > But truly needless to say anyone's surname to you - who doubt all,
anywa=
y.
>
> These anecdotes are never traceable to the source. You surely
> wouldn't be betraying anyone by naming the apocryphal bathtub
> factory in Tchechoslovakia? The factories in these stories
> never do have a name, do they?
>
> Remember the radio factory that was given norms to fulfill by weight?
> And the 10kg bottom plates they put in the radios. That factory
> was also nameless.
>
> >
> >>>] worked in a photodiode semiconductor factory in East Berlin as its
he=
ad
> >>>scientist,
>
> I see - the world famous photodiode scientist whose name
> everybody knows.
>
> >>> and his unit produced for the entire Soviet 'Aerospace' Industry -
but=
> >>> that is natural - you don't need lots of electro-optical facilities
> >>> making silicon detectors.
> >>>
> >>> But he drove a Trabant car - a 'trabi', which was not the only car
> >>> produced behind the curtain, but the only one ordinary people could
ge=
t.
> >>> The black market in trabi parts was enormous, and actually far more
> >>> expensive than the officially manufactured ones, which... you are
> >>> guessing right... were in limitied supply, despite massive demand
from=
> >>> Trabant owners ...
> >>
> >> Shall I tell you a story or two about 3 automobile manufacturers that
> >> operate
> >> from a formerly great U.S. city that now looks like Berlin did in
1945
> >> and has
> >> been abondoned by Whitey?
> >
> > I see!
>
> No, you don't see. You are missing the point: The
> Trabi was, indeed, a joke and became
> a symbol for East German industrial backwardness.
>
> The Chrysler Cor****ation, e.g., is also a joke, one that survives today
> only because the state bailed it out. Nor are the cars it makes
> much better than a Trabant. The point? Absurdities of this kind
> are easily found on both sides of the divide.
>
> > This is a competition. Things were not as I say in the SU because of
> > instances of Western failure. Where do you live, BTW? But if you must
> > believe things, let me quote you Russians instead:-
>
> I have no reason to believe anything you say, unless you
> can give a reliable source.
>
> >
> > Please put it in a bank... Please, let's put it in a foreign bank.
> >
> > //Vladimir Putin advising the relatives of those who died on
the
> > nuclear submarine /Kursk/ on what to do with their compensation.
>
> Invariably the same game. Why do you misrepresent what
> is being said? What does it accomplish?
>
> Putin: "Please, put it in the bank. Banks are not safe. Please, put it
in =
a
> foreign bank. That doesn't mean you need to deposit this money
> outside the country. Here, in Russia. It is safe. And the bank will
> operate according to Russian law. And the money will be in Russia..."
>
> So the poor guy is thoroughly confused in the middle of an
> extremely emotional meeting.
>
> >
> > [hint; try Kommersant-Vlast, August 29, 2000]
> >
> > Surely The Leader can't be wrong?
> >
> > But maybe you can find this one by yourself:
> >
> > We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.
> >
> > //Victor Chernomyrdin,
> > //Russian prime minister, 1992-1998.
> >
> > But the main issues here are chessic ones - to the general degree that
t=
he
> > State leaned on Soviet-era players, and the degree to which
individuals
> > complied with it. Did you have views on either of these subjects?
>
> Yes, my view is that neither you nor Parr knows a thing about it, and
that=
> there is no way that you can verify your conspiracy theories.
>
> >
> >
> > Vykhod est! Phil Innes
> >
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