The Fall of the Wall

How lovely and awesomely wonderful is it to be 20 years on this side of the Berlin Wall?  It’s wonderful to live in a world where the Iron Curtain fell.  I remember it like it was yesterday.

I remember when Solidarity was rolling through Poland.

I remember the Brezhnev dying.  Then Andropov.  Then Chernenko.  Then the guy with the archipelago of islands birthmarked across his forehead.  I remember Glasnost.

I remember the Cold War being a thing that was always with us.  I remember learning as much as I could about the Soviets.

I remember when the wall fell, and after when all the stories started to be told, of the oppression, the Stazi, the gulags, the death.  Lines for bread, nothing on the store shelves.

Later I remember the fall of Ceauşescu, I remember the scenes of his execution.  The orphanages with babies lined up and lethargic, just laying there. And Nadia.  I remember Nadia.

I remember the coup that ended the Soviet Union, Gorbachev’s fall.

I remember drunk Yeltsin.  Always drunk Yeltsin.

And now, I see Putin.  I have not forgotten the KGB.  I have not forgotten that the KGB that was trained Putin.  Putin is still Soviet to the core.

I remember that the death toll of communism is in the tens of millions, probably over 100 million.  Mao guilty of 40 to 70 million all by himself.  During peacetime.

Pol Pot.  1/5 of the population of Cambodia.

Castro?  Who knows, their story isn’t told complete yet.

Che? Hundreds.  Dirty little communist killer.

Chavez? Again, who knows.  He continues his gathering of power into his hands, choking out opposition and the free press so he can do as he pleases.

Vietnam.  Lots of death there.

I clearly remember Communism.  I remember what it does to the souls of those it enslaves.  I remember how it pits children against parents, brother against sister, neighbor against neighbor.  How informing on anti-revolutionaries is a full-time job.  I remember the gulags.  The abortions.  I remember how arms and manure were stored in churches.  I remember of God was outlawed and believers were tortured.

I remember how the Communist state dehumanizes everyone who inhabits it.

I remember that  Socialism is a step away from Communism.

Don’t you forget either.