Christmas Under Communism
Sound of Trumpet
Christmas under Communism
American Thinker ^ | 12-25-09 | Jeffrey Folks
Posted on 25 December 2009 15:02:08 by radioone
I lived for two years in Eastern Europe, during and shortly after the
end of the Communist era. In those two years, my wife and I celebrated
a traditional Christmas, complete with festive decorations, Christmas
cards, modestly wrapped gifts, a holiday meal, and a two-foot plastic
Christmas tree that we came upon at the local market.
Though our holiday was quite simple, Christmas was nonetheless
celebrated joyfully in our hearts. It was accompanied by the knowledge
that this day is indeed special because it commemorates the origin of
a redemptive faith in human potential. The communist state could not
keep us or others among the ex-pat and local population from reciting
the biblical story of the birth of Christ.
What it could do was prohibit all public manifestations of the
profound religious tradition that had once dominated the hearts and
minds of most Eastern Europeans.
I recall trudging through the snow to classes scheduled for Christmas
Day -- trudging for two miles each way to avoid riding the absurdly
overcrowded buses reeking of unwashed humanity. It seemed odd to find
faculty conducting classes as usual and students milling about the
university cafeteria, and not a word to suggest that the day was
different from any other. There were no greetings of "Merry
Christmas," no exchanges of cards or presents, no looks of
anticipation or wonder.
What was celebrated instead was the secular holiday of New Year.
Special market tables had been set up offering a meager selection of
cheaply printed New Year's cards and miserable trinkets for the
children: wooden pop guns, cheap plastic dolls, and an especially
dubious treat -- a rubber chicken already plucked of its feathers.
With classes and work suspended for the holiday, families gathered for
New Year's meals and fellowship. Meanwhile, state television broadcast
the same old promises: the advent of another remarkable year of sham
efficiencies and faked production quotas.
Despite the pretense of religious toleration that marked the last
decades of Communism, no one seemed to care any longer. The communist
state, it seemed, had succeeded in eradicating Christmas as a public
holiday. As my vintage Rough Guide, dedicated to "the continuation of
a free, nonaligned and Socialist Yugoslavia" puts it, religious faiths
have "experienced a waning of worship" since the rise of Communism
(The Rough Guide to Yugoslavia, London 1985: p. 51). At the time that
I lived in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, religious practice was not just
waning: it seemed confined to a diminishing population of frail old
women (though it now appears to have made a remarkable comeback,
flourishing as believers are no longer discouraged from practicing
their faith by neighborhood informants and government spies).
Christianity can survive long periods of oppression, but in the
meantime, individual lives can be terribly harmed. In Eastern Europe,
hundreds of millions of human beings suffered though a grinding half-
century of Communist rule. Lacking the wisdom and inspiration of
traditional faith, generations passed through life like hollow men
passing from Communist youth leagues to Communist workers'
associations to communist pensioner schemes.
Yet one of the inescapable paradoxes of Communism is the fact that the
godless state, which professes the virtue of materialism, can then so
completely fail to provide even the material necessities that most in
the West take for granted. Although there were rubber chickens and
wooden pop guns in the market, there was a general absence of
everything else. By the time Christmas rolled around, there was little
variety of food, and milk had disappeared from the stores. Fresh
fruit, including oranges and bananas, vanished entirely, as did all
fresh vegetables, except for an aging stock of potatoes, carrots, and
turnips. Other than some suspiciously outdated and moldy-looking
sausages, meat was in short supply. What there was, along with the
potatoes, carrots, turnips, and sausages, was the bland production of
the state canneries: jams, jellies, canned vegetables and fruits,
potted meat and chicken, and an adequate quantity of bread to be
washed down with ample supplies of locally produced plum brandy, beer,
and wine.
It might seem that the state had at least provided an adequate caloric
intake, but every day I saw people of all ages, from young women with
infants cradled in one arm to old men in ragged suits, fumbling
through garbage bins for bread crusts and bones.
Christmas was also accompanied by the unrelieved cold. The Communist
state had guaranteed heating and electricity for all, just as it had
guaranteed universal free medical care, but blackouts were frequent
and long, and water shortages predictable: two days off, one day on.
Every night, the heat was turned off at nine o'clock. I slept in a
cold room under a mountain of blankets, sometimes lying awake as my
breath rose like smoke in the moonlight. Then I got very sick, but I
refused to be taken to the hospital for fear of being made sicker.
Each morning, a shabbily dressed population reemerged on the streets,
crouching against the cold, beaten down by hardship, hunger, untreated
disease, and the extinction of all human dreams. Walking the streets
of a Communist city in late December, with the unshoveled snow packed
down into a treacherous sheet of ice, shivering because no matter
where one went, inside or out, one would still be cold -- this was the
reality of a Communist Christmas.
But it was not just the bleak physical conditions that ground people
down and caused them to die in their forties and fifties. For
generations under Communist rule, life passed with nothing more
wondrous or resplendent than the material facts of work, consumption,
and reproduction. During the Communist era, most people in Eastern
Europe grew up as confirmed atheists, smug in the certainty that
nothing really mattered except getting along in life and securing as
much of society's meager production of goods and services as possible.
From this there was no reprieve except cheap alcohol and foul, locally
produced cigarettes. For decades, the dismal sight of middle-aged men
slumped over smoky barroom tables was ubiquitous in Belgrade and
Sofia.
That hopeless future seemed to await many of my bright and curious
students. Even at a young age, I felt, they were already cynical and
defeated. This, of course, was not their fault, for they had been
instilled with the firm belief that the noise spewing from a new boom
box or television set was more precious than the words relating the
birth of Christ and all of the other elements of their traditional
faith. They seemed to accept this materialist view with little
hesitation or questioning. They even considered themselves lucky since
they were more up to date -- more cosmopolitan than their ancestors,
who had huddled in cold churches in the expectations of the mysterious
recitation of a miracle.
I will never forget the awful reality of Communism or believe that it
can ever be anything other than the hell it was. The facts of the last
century should be enough to put an end to that vicious ideology
forever, but now I find that many in our own government support
something similar. Barack Obama has lost no time at pointing the
country toward socialism during his first year in office. Given the
chance, he will soon transform our dear country into a socialist state
in which liberty will be restricted and private property much reduced.
Unless he is stopped in the elections of 2010 and 2012, Obama, with
the support of a compliant Congress, will extend control and
regulation to every part of our lives, from prenatal care to the
seizure of half of our estates -- and often more than half -- after
death. With the assistance of a subservient media, he will create a
propaganda machine designed to control the outcome of future
elections.
I have tried to describe my experience of communism, but soon it may
not be necessary to journey back in time and outside our borders to
know what a Communist Christmas is like. If the electorate does not
rid Washington of the leftist politicians now controlling our affairs,
we will be celebrating a Communist Christmas here in the United
States.
Dr. Jeffrey Folks taught for thirty years in universities in Europe,
America, and Japan. He has published nine books and over a hundred
articles on American culture and politics in national journals and
newspapers.
Tadas Blinda
wrote:
> we will be celebrating a Communist Christmas here in the United States.
Religious images have already been banned from postage stamps and
shopping mallas and most TV newsreaders are already too afraid to say
"Christmas" and say "Holidays" instead. It gets really stupid when
they say "Holiday tree" instead of "Christmas tree" and even "Holiday
carols"! That's not for "Communist reasons", however ....
Pink Freud
"Tadas Blinda" <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote in message
news:f3e65995-5757-4221...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
Christmas Day is a national holiday in many western countries, even secular
ones.
Tell you what pisses me off.. the religious folks who (jokingly? hard to
tell with some of these guys) suggest that atheists shouldn't have a holiday
on that day. Also that they should be made *not* to celebrate Christmas. The
fact that it is national holiday and that many atheists do celebrate
Christmas because of tradition etc. seems to have flown right over their
empty heads. Personally, as an atheist, I celebrate Christmas because my mum
gets a kick out of getting the family together and exchanging gifts and
having a nice meal. If I didn't have that, I wouldn't celebrate Christmas. I
mean, seriously, in lots of ways Christmas is pretty lame.
But those who object to the religious aspects being taken out of the
Christmas holiday in the general culture and media should be given a choice:
Choice1: Christmas is no longer a national holiday. If you want time off to
spend with your family and celebrate your own religious beliefs, take it out
of your own annual leave, just like everyone else has to. Newsreaders are
then free to wish everyone a happy Christmas ("to all who are celebrating
that"), just as they can wish a happy Eid or Diwali ("to all who are
celebrating that") on the relevant day.
Choice2: Christmas day remains a national holiday, and as such should be
presented in as neutral and secular way as possible. If this means saying
'happy holidays' then so be it. Anybody is free to celebrate Christmas or
not, as they like. And if some folks want to just have fun with the family,
and eat and drink too much with no religious trappings, then they are of
course free to do that. But while Christmas day is a *national* holiday,
there should be as little religion injected into it as possible, thank you
very much. If you take this option, it's time to take the "Christ" out of
"Christmas" (actually, thinking about it, take out the "mas" part while you
are at it.)
So, which would you like? You can't have your (holiday) cake and eat it.
raven1
<soundof...@dcemail.com> wrote:
>Dr. Jeffrey Folks taught for thirty years in universities in Europe,
>America, and Japan. He has published nine books and over a hundred
>articles on American culture and politics in national journals and
>newspapers.
Yet for all that, he's an idiot who doesn't comprehend that a failed
political and economic ideology is irrelevant to whether or not a
deity exists, and that Obama would be at best, part of the moderate
Right in other industrialized nations.
j-rod
I don't like the either / or choice you have given.
I prefer to celebrate the Winter Solstices and the coming New Year. This
is the holiday that had been enjoyed for many centuries before
christians pasted their myth over it. Most of the "traditional"
christian christmas, images and decorations, have their roots in pagan
religions. The holiday can be secular or religious, celebrate it anyway
you want.
Christmas is a fake holiday made up by christians to replace holiday
traditions that had existed long before Constantine. Even an educated
christian will tell you that there is no evidence that the mythical
Jesus was born on the 25th of December, in the pagan calendar.
JAM
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 28, 4:28�am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@dcemail.com>
>wrote:
>
>> we will be celebrating a Communist Christmas here in the United States.
>
>Religious images have already been banned from postage stamps and
>shopping mallas
A stupid lie.
http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2008/pr08_136.htm
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
LC
Plagiarist fuckwit "Sound of Trumpet" <soundof...@dcemail.com> wrote in
message
news:ba952a0d-bf40-4056...@j19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
> Christmas under Communism
...everyone gets the same gift.
Well, except for the Party elite, who get extra.
David Canzi
I don't own a TV so I can't tell whether TV news readers in fact
avoid saying "Christmas tree", or whether this phenomenon is just
a product of the fantasy factory between a Christian's ears.
But there is a subset of Christians who have objected to the
tree being called a Christmas tree because, being a carry-over
from a pagan tradition, it dilutes the Christian meaning of the
holiday with irrelevant pre-Christian symbolism. And there is
the subset of Christians we hear today objecting to it not being
called a Christmas tree because calling it something else reduces
the number of times that we are reminded of Christ by the seasonal
background noise.
No doubt those two subsets intersect.
Some people *want* to be offended. Whatever you do, it will
offend them. Do what you will.
--
David Canzi
Alan Ford
> On Dec 28, 4:28 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@dcemail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> we will be celebrating a Communist Christmas here in the United States.
>
> Religious images have already been banned from postage stamps
Hm, it would appear you lied.
and
> shopping mallas
And again. Why do you keep lying?
and most TV newsreaders are already too afraid to say
> "Christmas" and say "Holidays" instead.
Afraid? Why do you have a need to lie?
It gets really stupid when
> they say "Holiday tree" instead of "Christmas tree" and even "Holiday
> carols"! That's not for "Communist reasons", however ....
No, it's because you keep lying.
--
If you don't beat your meat
You can't have any pudding
How can you have any pudding
If you don't beat your meat?
Thanatos
"Pink Freud" <some...@here.com> wrote:
> Tell you what pisses me off.. the religious folks who (jokingly?
> hard to tell with some of these guys) suggest that atheists
> shouldn't have a holiday on that day. Also that atheists should
> be made *not* to celebrate Christmas.
How do they suggest that would happen? Police going door-to-door
administering religious tests and issuing restraining orders against any
atheists they find from giving or receiving gifts?
Pink Freud
"Thanatos" <atr...@mac.com> wrote in message
news:atropos-BBAFA6...@news-wc.giganews.com...
Heh, nope, mainly by posting crap on usenet.
I meant of course, suggesting that atheists are hypocrites if they celebrate
Christmas.
Pink Freud
"j-rod" <j-...@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:4B38D914...@nospam.net...
Well, regardless of what it is called we have to have a certain number of
national holidays. 25 December is as good as most others I suppose.
Steve Knight
wrote:
snip for brevity
>Tell you what pisses me off.. the religious folks who (jokingly? hard to
>tell with some of these guys) suggest that atheists shouldn't have a holiday
>on that day. Also that they should be made *not* to celebrate Christmas. The
>fact that it is national holiday and that many atheists do celebrate
>Christmas because of tradition etc. seems to have flown right over their
>empty heads.
For me, christmas is about Santa, family and friends and the
exchanging of gifts. It's a fun Pagan time of year. Too bad the
religers haven't a clue about their christmas origin.
Warlord Steve
BAAWA
Franco
they were Communists?
Howard Brazee
(David Canzi) wrote:
>I don't own a TV so I can't tell whether TV news readers in fact
>avoid saying "Christmas tree", or whether this phenomenon is just
>a product of the fantasy factory between a Christian's ears.
I've never heard of "a Holiday Tree", except as a fantasy by people
who call themselves Christians, but who don't act as Jesus would.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
> Tadas Blinda <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote:
>
> >On Dec 28, 4:28 am, Sound of Trumpet <soundoftrum...@dcemail.com>
> >wrote:
>
> >> we will be celebrating a Communist Christmas here in the United States.
>
> >Religious images have already been banned from postage stamps and
> >shopping mallas
>
> A stupid lie.
>
> http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2008/pr08_136.htm
>
Of course it's a fantasy. FYI, Tadas Blinda is a Lithuanian-
Australian, who lived for many years in Montreal, Canada, and now
lives in Lithuania. I bet he has never been to USA at Christmas time
for many decades, if ever.
He was probably describing what's happening in Lithuania where he
lives now.
W.T.S.
news:ba952a0d-bf40-4056...@j19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
> Christmas under Communism
> American Thinker ^ | 12-25-09 | Jeffrey Folks
> Posted on 25 December 2009 15:02:08 by radioone
Normal, decent people don't want to get sick and vomit after a meal, which
is what religious words and displays do to people.
Church, bad. Atheism, good.
--
http://folding.stanford.edu
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