Fortunately I have the privilege of knowing my father and his side of the family who are staunch Communists.@The Libertine : Interesting choice. I remember those types at University always outside the Student Union selling their paper Socialist Worker. I often used to ask them if they had ever met a socialist worker before heading off to the bar to get totally waled!
That was my last post on the subject. If anyone wishes to speak to me on it they can do so through DMs.
My mother's parents were both communists. Her mother died before the horrors of Lenin and Stalin came to light in the West. Her father moderated his views later in life (he died in 1966) but remained a romantic socialist. This is ironic, because, unbeknownst to him, his nephew (who had stayed behind in Ukraine) had been enslaved in the Gulag in the mid 1930's. At the outbreak of war, he was transferred to a Russian penal battalion, then somehow escaped execution after the war. I'm certain that his views of the Soviets were quite different than those of my grandfather.
I am reminded of the old 'Nature vs. Nurture' argument. Belief systems seem to run in families - politics, religion, etc. So does temperament. Do we think that any such - including codgerosity - gets hardwired into our DNA? It would explain a lot...
I've never seen this one before. But it is hilarious. Sadly accurate, but hilarious.
Probably confused Lenin with Stalin, though Stalin didn't even like pipe tobacco and smoked rolling tobacco in his pipes because he wanted the image of a pipe smoker.
