The State, the Demon
On the price of believing in fiction
I was feeling philosophical today, and this wrote itself.
When I was a child in the disintegrating USSR, the State was solemnly promising to take care of us.
It would give us a clear identity, a purpose, a meaning of life—it would take our loyalty and our self-sacrifice as payment for state-sponsored clarity of who we were as human beings—and in return, it would care of us, from cradle to grave.
It said so.
Life force in exchange for certainty.
Sovereignty of the soul in exchange for chains with the word “dignity” stamped on them in big letters.
The State, the ghost of the machine, would give us free education, free medicine, some kind of a guaranteed roof over our heads—a leaking roof perhaps, and shared with strangers if necessary, but a roof over our heads none the less.
It would give us a guaranteed job and “community respect” to soothe our abandoned souls.
It would take care of us by giving us a road map as well as survival basics.
We would receive “Certificates of Honor” for extra good work.
We would see posters and sculptures of dignified workers and peasants everywhere.
Oh, the eternal union of a man with a hammer and a woman with a sickle, holding hands that were free from the tools!
Not much in terms of material well-being but hey.
Cer-tain-ty.
A clear road map.
A clear description of our life’s purpose.
Life’s existential questions answered—before they could ever be asked.
No God, no mystery, no questions.
Soul energy, traded in for a guaranteed phantom of an imaginary man-made paradise.
Calculated praise.
Yes, we were praised.
We were praised for the enthusiasm of going along with the program.
Other options were frankly not even there.
The purity of the rural soul that only recently went urban and still retained the expectations of not being betrayed.
The sweet simplicity of human relationships (not a bad thing, in fact).
The clarity.
And yes, everything good was owed to the State and the “ideals of the communist party.”
The State took credit for the generous gifts of the ancient land (“our vast Motherland”), for the many time zones, for the slender birch trees, for the warmth of our friends’ souls, for the very existence of love and friendship in our lives, for the security of social infrastructure.
Sweet predictability.
Pictures on the wall of every classroom in the country.
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Pushkin, Brezhnev.
Marx and Engels as legendary founding fathers of the Sacred Communist Ideology that ignited our very existence and gave us meaning.
Lenin as an imaginary friend and protector of all children.
Pushkin as the most famous Russian poet of all times. The oak tree with gold chains, the wise story-telling cat, his beloved nanny Arina Rodionovna, his love escapades, his beautiful wife, his early death in a duel.
Brezhnev as the ultimate caretaker on whom the well-being of all Soviet citizens depended.
(His passing was scary.)
The State was going to take care of us.
But then it didn’t.
The machine collapsed to the drumbeat of the multinational corporations and songs of “western freedom,” and in the process, the leaders of the brave new post-Soviet State ripped the old marketing brochure that had issued the oaths, for which the entire generation of my grandparents lived and breathed, for which so many had sacrificed their lives and their youth.
The State had promised to take care of us.
It disappeared carelessly.
Perhaps, it never intended to take care of anyone, perhaps it just wanted gullible, loyal and obedient slaves.
Hmmmmm, does it make sense to replace one’s identity with any ideology? ANY ideology?
I don’t think so.
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The purity of the rural soul that only recently went urban and still retained the expectations of not being betrayed. -- well done.
What a vivid picture.