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Comment by kome | Hacker News Reader

This is also changing tho, especially for younger intellectuals. Crisis after crisis people look at the CCCP experience with different eyes, and I am not just talking about babushkas.

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Back in the 90s, an American socialist tried to tell me that the Berlin Wall was constructed to keep the westerners out. I told him is BS wouldn't work on me because I've seen the Wall myself in 1969, went through it, and toured East Berlin.

It's a shame the Berliners tore down the Wall so fast, though I totally understand why. I would have kept the section on Bernauerstrasse as a reminder for the revisionists.

Setting all bloviation aside, you can judge a country simply by does it have walls to keep people in, or walls to keep people out.

It's easier to condition a population to abuse if they're isolated from the rest of civil society. This is just as true of abusive interpersonal relationships. Keeping outsiders out is just as important to authoritarian states as keeping people in because outsiders make it difficult to control the narrative.

I've seen the Wall in its heyday. The defenses all pointed to the East, not the West. It's unmistakable.

BTW, not a single person was shot trying to "escape" to the East. At least, I've never heard of one. AFAIK, nobody even tried.

I get it and believe me I was not trying to underplay the brutality of East German government under the Soviets or the risks people are willing to take to escape authoritarian countries.

Got to say the parent should get a prize for finding anyone that thought the wall was to keep people out East Berlin. In the 50's East Germany lost a couple of million people who were done with the East Germans Police State.

What's to like, the thing was basically run by ex-Prussian, ex-Nazi, now Communist dickheads. I think was it Willy Brandt who said something along the lines of not being unhappy with Prussia being on the other side of the line.

Wikipedia has a truly epic article on the fortifications of the border between two Germanys, which really hammers home the sheer extent to which the DDR had to go to keep people from escaping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortifications_of_the_inner_Ge...

there's more then enough evidence, and places where all the defense lines are marked and labeled. Best thing you can do is take a bike tour along the Mauerweg.

Of course, like with all historical evidence, it doesn't help those who don't _want_ to see

A curious thing about this is during my family's visit in 1969 to Berlin, my father took many pictures. In color. But if you browse the souvenir shops, the picture books about that time are all black and white.

> Back in the 90s, an American socialist tried to tell me that the Berlin Wall was constructed to keep the westerners out.

And yet nobody tried to "Escape" East, not even this socialist...

If Cuba wasn't an island, I doubt the current regime would have lasted more than 10 years.

American policy towards Cuba kept Castro in power. Castro had a very convenient excuse for all of Cuba's problems - the American embargo! Just blame America. It worked great for Castro.

> This is also changing tho, especially for younger intellectuals.

I live in Kyiv don't know any young people that are into USSR or communism. Some may have left-leaning inclinations, but they imagine it more like Nordic countries, not the Soviet Union. Are you from some eastern city (or country) perhaps?

> Crisis after crisis people look at the CCCP experience with different eyes, and I am not just talking about babushkas.

I'm from last generation that remembers USSR and don't know anyone in my age group that would like to "go back". Maybe we are not a true intellectuals though.

In my experience it’s only young americans who romanticize communism.

It’s truly bizarre, Ukrainian people idolize the US but if only they fully comprehended the boneheaded thoughts going on in the US they may change their minds.

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