vol. 2, no. 8, October 2009, $ 1.00
si vous voulez lire en français, : http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/
FOREWORD: Many thanks to Tim Pelzer, tpelzer@shaw.ca who edited this article. Don't forget the link below to L'Humanité in English, selection of the daily communist newspaper published in Paris.
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In one of his tragedy: King Lear; Shakespeare wrote beautiful verses, witnessing the feeling of one daughter for his father. Goneril says to King Lear:
“Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter;
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e’er lov’d, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor and speech unable.
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.”
(Photo: Father and daughter, - Hervé and Peggy- at the 2009 May Day Demonstration in Paris)
These words express deeply my true feelings for the French Canadian working people, my people. These people, like others on earth deserves the best created by the brain and hands of the toiling people. As the saying goes in French: “il n‘y a rien de trop beau pour la classe ouvrière” (there is no such a too beautiful thing for the working class). But besides my own “family”, I felt deeply in love with former Soviet Union.
When I was a kid in Québec City, my grandfather once told me that we should build a monument to the Red Army. Later I learned about the heroic Red army soldiers that defeated the Nazi invaders in Stalingrad. Enemy at the Gates is a splendid US made movie that portrays this powerful Red Army victory. By the way, my grand-father perused the books forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church, notably those written by authors such as Léon Tolstoï.
In 1972, my father Donat embarked on a journey to Moscow to see the historic ice hockey tournament between Canada and USSR. When he returned, the parish priest, Mr. Giguère came and asked him a few questions, especially about the Soviet people’s commitment and belief in God. My father convincingly told the priest that apparently the people believe in something that was greater than them personally. It was the recognition of ordinary citizens, working hard to match the standards of well-being in countries like Canada with exception that everyone would share the benefits.
The following year, my mother visited the Soviet Union. She has fond memories of her stay in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital city, which to this day she recounts vividly.
The Party School
A few years later, in 1979, after I had joined the Communist party of Canada, I was invited to study in the Soviet Union. Initially, I thought that it was not a good idea, preferring to live with my girlfriend in Montréal. But she convinced me to go and for the next seven months, I studied at Moscow’s Institute of Social Studies. It was a renowned school, run by the Communist party. Sometimes a Central Committee member, comrade Zagladine, would visit the school to see if everything was working fine.
We had the cream of the cream of professors and directors at the Institute, also known as the Party School. The Principal was the former Soviet ambassador to France. Our philosophy teacher had been the Soviet ambassador to Unesco in Paris and the others were all either former delegates or diplomats in Canada, Africa and other parts of the world.
But what professors! Sad, because I was not receiving letters from my girlfriend, one of them gave me a few tips to encourage her to write me. Another one, the journalism instructor, helped me plan my week ends, suggesting places I should visit.
Speaking of visits, like ordinary Soviet citizen, I had the opportunity to go to the circus (the old and the new ones), operas, theatres, concerts and movie theatres.
I also had my share of frustrations. I wanted since the beginning of my adventure to learn if people were happy with the socialist system. But, how to do it without speaking Russian? My standard of living in Moscow was lower than in Montréal.
My readers will ask: did you free while studying in Moscow? I will repeat it many times, I felt free to study, read and express myself. I was happy in Moscow, spring was beautiful and the summer, a real treat…
When the rightwing counter-revolution started, everybody saluted the changes, thinking that they were moving in a real progress toward a Western style “democracy”. In the 1990s, I met some Russian trade-unionists on a tour in Montréal; one of them, a middle-aged woman stared at me sadly and repeated: “what did we do? What did we do?” The Soviets lost all the benefits they enjoyed under socialism such as full employment, job security and a wide range of social benefits, she explained.
Now, many former Soviet citizens who immigrated abroad for a better standard of living after the crisis, such as my friend Nikolaï – a welder who works in Montréal’s industrial belt- realize that life was better under socialism.
Nonetheless, the former Soviet Union still has friends and supporters around the world.
My only criticism of the former Soviet Union is that the Communist Party ended the class struggle within the society too early. And speaking of freedom, I will conclude with those words from Karl Marx: “It is not a question whether freedom of the press ought to exist, for it always exists. The question is whether freedom of the press is a privilege of particular individuals or whether it is a privilege of the human mind. The question is whether a right of one side ought to be a wrong for the other side.” (Collected Works, Volume 1, International Publishers, New York, 1976. p. 155).
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