4 ms·

In USSR you were free to write any book or newspaper opinion column. Radical, like for example criticizing the party or leaders, would have landed you in priso

In USSR you were free to write any book or newspaper opinion column. Radical, like for example criticizing the party or leaders, would have landed you in prison/on death row. More subtle creations, where criticizing is expressed via proxy of science fiction or abstract ideas would have never published, because every publisher and government censors would look at every sentence in your book as potentially having another meaning - critical of the party/leaders. That’s when you would have to go full P2P blockchain with SAMIZDAT [1], manually typing copies of your text (using many layers of carbon paper) and distributing them in underground communities of intellectuals, hand-to-hand. But if your unbaised view on USSR party/leaders/direction/methods was aligned with the party, then all newspapers, all book shelfs and book awards were yours to take. Another artifact of the USSR is a mandatory line in your CV and references - that you were never involved in any anti-USSR meetings, protests and movements. [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat

andreskytt 6y ago
That is partially correct. You were free to write anything but GLAVLIT made sure nothing they did not liked was printed
myWindoonn 6y ago
You've been reading too many old pulp-fiction stories about the Cold War. In the USA, if you can find a willing and gullible publisher [0], you can write a book about just about anything. The actual things that you can't publish [1] are very specific: You can publish a recipe for how to refine uranium, for example, just not in enough detail to allow anybody with a few million dollars to start their own nuclear program. But, more importantly, we live in today. "full P2P blockchain" and "underground communities of intellectuals" are word salad; if you want to publish without restrictions, Bittorrent has been around for over a decade and is generally not blockable, and Sci-Hub is an aboveground rebellion of intellectuals against the publishers. You're whining because a DNS registrar, and one of incredibly poor reputation for what it's worth, has chosen to stop hosting a violent hate group. But your own personal ability to publish, and indeed their ability to publish, has not been curtailed. Rather, their ability to use the resource of the DNS registrar to spread their hate is what has been removed, and that was a privilege to which they were not entitled under law. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret
- electriclove 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1348757722142023682?s=20 https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1348757722142023682?s=2...
  - myWindoonn 6y ago
    Andy Ngo is free to simply publish the text of his book. It sounds like he wants money, though, and society is not compelled to pay him just because he put a lot of effort into arranging the text of his book. (Surprise: Copyright, being a regulatory and artificial right, only exists when the government is big enough to interfere in the actions of publishers. Otherwise, we'd just pirate anything of value.) Also, have you ever been to Portland? Powell's is not going to waste shelf space on books which won't sell.
  - xref 6y ago
    Not sure what you’re trying to say? His Twitter profile links to 6 places to buy his book including Amazon
    - electriclove 6y ago
      Antifa is threatening the store if they keep selling the book.
      - xref 6y ago
        I hear a lot of chanting but no threats of any kind
- seneca 6y ago
  > has chosen to stop hosting a violent hate group First off, what exactly about AR15.com constitutes a violent hate group? Secondly, do you think despots have ever said "We are punishing these perfectly innocent people because we don't like them"? No. It's always a "violent group" or some such other emotional rhetoric.
wcarss 6y ago
I am not Russian and did not live during the USSR, and maybe you did and experienced some things I know nothing about, but I can say that the claims you've made are not uniformly true across the history of the USSR. One counterpoint is from 1964, not exactly the most thawed period of relations, when the Strugastky brothers published "Hard to Be a God"[1], which was a thinly veiled criticism of Beria (who was then deceased) and also of some key ideas about the material development of history. It was not particularly well received, but also was not stopped, and they were by no means blackballed. It was regarded as a silly story, albeit clearly with some satirical bite. One of the brothers wrote about the experience and the climate at the time[2], and their notes were published along with a recent 'Masters of SF' edition that was published. It's an enjoyable book. To be clear, it is not critical of 'communism', it's critical of some ideas that (as I understand it) formed part of the conventional wisdom of how Soviet communists were expected to see history, as a largely unflappable progression toward communism -- one take on the point of the Strugastkys was that all it takes is a certain kind of selfish brute to slip any society down toward fascism, regardless of where they were on their journey through history. If it could happen early (which they investigate in the book), it could also happen late. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God 2 - http://www.rusf.ru/abs/books/bns-03.htm http://www.rusf.ru/abs/books/bns-03.htm (comments by Boris Strugastky in Russian, but google's autotranslate makes it quite readable. Very interesting perspective from an intellectual and author who was somewhat openly critical at the time of the more reactionary and traditional elements of the state, and just about their process!)
- DisjointedHunt 6y ago
  I'd say this is arguing semantics when, by large, we may all be in agreement that soviet style censorship is terrible. Can we find one or two examples that go against the trend? Sure. Does that disqualify the argument by the commenter above you? I don't think so.
- sershe 6y ago
  USSR went thru the periods of warming and crack-down on art. An example of "soft" Soviet censorship from the same "good period" as the above, and the same authors, is Escape Attempt; it involves a prisoner from a concentration camp. In the original version, according to the authors, it was a Soviet labor camp; but of course, even after Khrushchev more or less denounced Stalin and his activities, you couldn't just remind people about Soviet labor camps. So, it had to become a German concentration camp. A more funny (and sad) tale I remember from someone non-famous, is them trying to publish a children's book, and the censors saying it's good, but doesn't have enough communist spirit. Like, instead of there just being kids helping little animals, it could mention that the kids were members of the local communist youth chapter, etc. The author decided to not publish the book.
jojobas 6y ago
>In USSR you were free to write any book or newspaper opinion column. It's not a book or a newspaper column until it's printer as a book or in a newspaper. You were free to write a manuscript, even then you could get in trouble. >More subtle creations, where criticizing is expressed via proxy of science fiction or abstract ideas... could make you unemployable, locked up in an asylum, banned from major cities or imprisoned or even shot as an enemy of the people or a Hungarian spy, depending on the current leader. >That’s when you would have to go full P2P blockchain with SAMIZDAT... Which meant a single untrustworthy node in the chain could take you back to the previous paragraph. >But if your unbaised view on USSR party/leaders/direction/methods was aligned with the party... There was very little chance an unbiased view aligned with the party on anything important, especially party/leaders/direction/methods. >Another artifact of the USSR is a mandatory line in your CV and references - that you were never involved in any anti-USSR meetings, protests and movements. Unauthorized university poetry clubs, however removed from politics, have been classified as above.

andreskytt 6y ago

That is partially correct. You were free to write anything but GLAVLIT made sure nothing they did not liked was printed

myWindoonn 6y ago

You've been reading too many old pulp-fiction stories about the Cold War. In the USA, if you can find a willing and gullible publisher [0], you can write a book about just about anything. The actual things that you can't publish [1] are very specific: You can publish a recipe for how to refine uranium, for example, just not in enough detail to allow anybody with a few million dollars to start their own nuclear program. But, more importantly, we live in today. "full P2P blockchain" and "underground communities of intellectuals" are word salad; if you want to publish without restrictions, Bittorrent has been around for over a decade and is generally not blockable, and Sci-Hub is an aboveground rebellion of intellectuals against the publishers. You're whining because a DNS registrar, and one of incredibly poor reputation for what it's worth, has chosen to stop hosting a violent hate group. But your own personal ability to publish, and indeed their ability to publish, has not been curtailed. Rather, their ability to use the resource of the DNS registrar to spread their hate is what has been removed, and that was a privilege to which they were not entitled under law. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret

electriclove 6y ago
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1348757722142023682?s=20 https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1348757722142023682?s=2...
- myWindoonn 6y ago
  Andy Ngo is free to simply publish the text of his book. It sounds like he wants money, though, and society is not compelled to pay him just because he put a lot of effort into arranging the text of his book. (Surprise: Copyright, being a regulatory and artificial right, only exists when the government is big enough to interfere in the actions of publishers. Otherwise, we'd just pirate anything of value.) Also, have you ever been to Portland? Powell's is not going to waste shelf space on books which won't sell.
- xref 6y ago
  Not sure what you’re trying to say? His Twitter profile links to 6 places to buy his book including Amazon
  - electriclove 6y ago
    Antifa is threatening the store if they keep selling the book.
    - xref 6y ago
      I hear a lot of chanting but no threats of any kind
seneca 6y ago
> has chosen to stop hosting a violent hate group First off, what exactly about AR15.com constitutes a violent hate group? Secondly, do you think despots have ever said "We are punishing these perfectly innocent people because we don't like them"? No. It's always a "violent group" or some such other emotional rhetoric.

wcarss 6y ago

I am not Russian and did not live during the USSR, and maybe you did and experienced some things I know nothing about, but I can say that the claims you've made are not uniformly true across the history of the USSR. One counterpoint is from 1964, not exactly the most thawed period of relations, when the Strugastky brothers published "Hard to Be a God"[1], which was a thinly veiled criticism of Beria (who was then deceased) and also of some key ideas about the material development of history. It was not particularly well received, but also was not stopped, and they were by no means blackballed. It was regarded as a silly story, albeit clearly with some satirical bite. One of the brothers wrote about the experience and the climate at the time[2], and their notes were published along with a recent 'Masters of SF' edition that was published. It's an enjoyable book. To be clear, it is not critical of 'communism', it's critical of some ideas that (as I understand it) formed part of the conventional wisdom of how Soviet communists were expected to see history, as a largely unflappable progression toward communism -- one take on the point of the Strugastkys was that all it takes is a certain kind of selfish brute to slip any society down toward fascism, regardless of where they were on their journey through history. If it could happen early (which they investigate in the book), it could also happen late. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_to_Be_a_God 2 - http://www.rusf.ru/abs/books/bns-03.htm http://www.rusf.ru/abs/books/bns-03.htm (comments by Boris Strugastky in Russian, but google's autotranslate makes it quite readable. Very interesting perspective from an intellectual and author who was somewhat openly critical at the time of the more reactionary and traditional elements of the state, and just about their process!)

DisjointedHunt 6y ago
I'd say this is arguing semantics when, by large, we may all be in agreement that soviet style censorship is terrible. Can we find one or two examples that go against the trend? Sure. Does that disqualify the argument by the commenter above you? I don't think so.
sershe 6y ago
USSR went thru the periods of warming and crack-down on art. An example of "soft" Soviet censorship from the same "good period" as the above, and the same authors, is Escape Attempt; it involves a prisoner from a concentration camp. In the original version, according to the authors, it was a Soviet labor camp; but of course, even after Khrushchev more or less denounced Stalin and his activities, you couldn't just remind people about Soviet labor camps. So, it had to become a German concentration camp. A more funny (and sad) tale I remember from someone non-famous, is them trying to publish a children's book, and the censors saying it's good, but doesn't have enough communist spirit. Like, instead of there just being kids helping little animals, it could mention that the kids were members of the local communist youth chapter, etc. The author decided to not publish the book.

jojobas 6y ago

>In USSR you were free to write any book or newspaper opinion column. It's not a book or a newspaper column until it's printer as a book or in a newspaper. You were free to write a manuscript, even then you could get in trouble. >More subtle creations, where criticizing is expressed via proxy of science fiction or abstract ideas... could make you unemployable, locked up in an asylum, banned from major cities or imprisoned or even shot as an enemy of the people or a Hungarian spy, depending on the current leader. >That’s when you would have to go full P2P blockchain with SAMIZDAT... Which meant a single untrustworthy node in the chain could take you back to the previous paragraph. >But if your unbaised view on USSR party/leaders/direction/methods was aligned with the party... There was very little chance an unbiased view aligned with the party on anything important, especially party/leaders/direction/methods. >Another artifact of the USSR is a mandatory line in your CV and references - that you were never involved in any anti-USSR meetings, protests and movements. Unauthorized university poetry clubs, however removed from politics, have been classified as above.