Posted on 05/04/2020 7:57:20 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Around 2000 people were trampeled to death in Moscow while waiting in line to view Stalin's body.
Those are difficult things to a kid to absorb, IMO.
When I was a young kid, maybe 9 or 10, I went to see “Dr. Zhivago” on the base theater on the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan, and...I thought it was unbelievably boring and didn’t get it.
I just watched it about a year ago, and there is a lot in that movie that once you have had a chance to absorb there are those types of people, it is a very different viewing experience.
When I was a year or two older and living in the Philippines, I was reading a rather thick and comprehensive book about the POW experience under the Japanese, and I had a very difficult time squaring it with the people I had just spent a couple of years living in close proximity to.
But at the same time I saw the stone markers for the Bataan Death March, so it was hard to refute it in my mind.
Those tears from the very people Stalin mistreated spring from a strange part of the human psyche.
I must admit that “Gulag Archipelago” was a difficult read. “A Day In The Life Of Ivan D.” was more understandable to a ninth grader. I was lucky to have a history teacher who loved history and loved his students.
Both helped me navigate the period where communism still was fashionable and helped me become a Reaganite!
[Anne Applebaum and Maggie Haberman are two peas in a pod. They hate Trump with a passion.]
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