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The Grapes of Wrath’s Foreshadowing of the Cold War (2018)

168 points by Overtonwindow 4y ago

labrador 4y ago
I switched political parties and became a Democrat after watching The Grapes of Wrath. I realized I was on the wrong side. I asked ChatGPT a question Q: Why was The Grapes of Wrath banned in some parts of America? A: The Grapes of Wrath, a novel by John Steinbeck, was banned in some parts of America due to its depiction of the struggles of migrant workers during the Great Depression and its criticism of capitalist society. Some people found the book to be controversial and offensive, and some even accused Steinbeck of being a communist. Additionally, the book was banned in some areas because it was believed to be obscene or inappropriate for certain readers.
- sesuximo 4y ago
  I distinctly remember reading this book in high school and being shocked at the end. In retrospect I guess that’s a sign it was a good book.
  - jacurtis 4y ago
    I was too. Of all the books I read in high school, none affected me anywhere close to Grapes of Wrath. The book is very mature, and I think it is often given to students too early in life before they can truly appreciate it. But this book should be required reading for Seniors in high school before they go out into the real world. John Steinbeck also wrote "East of Eden" which I would say was even more impactful of my life, but I didn't read it until my mid-twenties. That book really explores good and evil. It is slightly critical of religion (specifically Christianity), which is why it isn't read in school. But the principles and themes of the book dig really deep into human morals and how we choose our personal values. I really love it. Lastly, Travels with Charley is a fun view of Americana. It was written much later in Steinbeck's life and is a much easier and lighter read. But its very fun and I recommend it to everyone. It is a personal story of Steinbeck traveling across America in his old age with his dog named Charley. Its fun.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > this book should be required reading for Seniors in high school before they go out into the real world Maybe read an actual history book about the Depression, instead of a novel.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  I switched to being libertarian after I worked for the government
  - elecush 4y ago
    Did you move to Monero after working at the Federal Reserve?
  - p1necone 4y ago
    Try working for any large organization public or private. There's not much difference. "The Government" is effectively equivalent to hundreds of separately run companies as well, some of them are bureaucratic/ineffective nightmares.
    - karaokeyoga 4y ago
      Layoffs are one difference.
      - Turing_Machine 4y ago
        Another difference is that you can, in general, refuse to deal with a particular company. You can't refuse to deal with the government.
        jeffbee 4y ago
        In America you can pick and choose your favorite government, all up and down the system, except for the federal one. We enjoy substantial choice in the matter.
        Turing_Machine 4y ago
        > In America you can pick and choose your favorite government Sorry, that is not true. You get the government that 50% + 1 vote wants, and you get absolutely no choice about whether you deal with it, which sucks if you're a member of the 50% - 1 vote group. If I refuse to deal with Amazon, or Apple, or McDonalds, nothing happens (except I don't get to eat Big Macs). If I refuse to deal with my government, they will send people with guns to put me in jail. The situations aren't even remotely comparable.
- elecush 4y ago
  What was your political stance prior to watching The Grapes of Wrath? You say you "switched sides" but it's unclear to me what shifted in your stance before and after.
  - labrador 4y ago
    I was in the military during the Reagan era and was a Republican. I coasted on that for awhile and then watched the film adaptation of TGOW and noticed the government run by the Democrats was trying to help poor people at the time, while Republicans were trying to run them out of town if they couldn't exploit their labor. This was the film depiction. I don't vouch for it's voracity. I'm not a historian. What I did do what take a look around in the 90's and notice Democrats were trying to help poor people while Republicans were trying to cut social security and school lunches for poor kids. That's when I became a Democrat.
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      Amen brother.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  My father grew up in the Great Depression in Los Angeles. He went to school with many Okies. Be careful about confusing a novel with history.
  - wrp 4y ago
    Steinbeck was the first serious novelist I got into as a kid, even read his collected letters, so I have a soft spot for him. It really shook my perception of his "journalistic" approach when I learned that Travels with Charley was almost entirely made up. Makes me wonder how much literary license he used in other books like A Russian Journal.
    - savryn 4y ago
      another person who read the letters! I'm shocked at how high quality the correspondence was, makes friendships of today feel kinda cheap
- Bloating 4y ago
  I switch parties all the time. Whats the big deal?
- refurb 4y ago
  Oh god, I really hope we're not using Chat GPT as a source now.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    Welcome to the future.
  - jacurtis 4y ago
    Im not even sure what value the Chat GPT response provides in this story. So they watched the movie (not reading the book) and changed political parties. Why? No real reason was given. Then they plop a Chat GPT response in there and that's it. So what is it? They are just living their life as Chat GPT directs them? ChatGPT is a month or so old, so did this all happen a month ago?
    - labrador 4y ago
      ChatGPT has enslaved me
distortionfield 4y ago
[flagged]
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  Really? You made a throwaway account to make that comment on this site?
  - jacurtis 4y ago
    Probably farming karma for posting a real doozie in a few weeks.
    - distortionfield 4y ago
      It is an objectively true remark on the increasing trend of book bans that discuss specifically race and intersectional topics in the United States. Here (1) is as apolitical a source I can find that discusses this phenomenon. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2022_book_banning_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2022_book_banning_in_th...
    - FpUser 4y ago
      It is really nice to see how welcoming this community is becoming.
  - syzarian 4y ago
    There are scenarios where it is reasonable that a person makes a throwaway account to make this comment. Suppose the commenter is well known on this site and works for a business that primarily caters to right leaning people in the U.S. Such a person would not want this view to be attributable to them.
  - distortionfield 4y ago
    This isn’t a throwaway? Just because I’m new doesn’t mean I can’t make a good point.
LAC-Tech 4y ago
Americans are in so much denial about how rich their country is. I'm in small town New Zealand, the kind of place certain kinds of Americans fantasize about immigrating to, especially when there's a republican president. Seeing people walk around barefoot while shopping is common. The majority of people burn firewood and/or coal to keep warm in the winter. And I'd say 95% of people have never lived in a temperature controlled house with a thermostat. Everything costs more money - electronics, fuel, food, accommodation - and wages are universally lower. And this in one of the most developed parts of the planet. Think about how the US must compare to middle and low income countries. You'd be mind blown.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Countries by median income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income One advantage the US has is being the world's reserve currency. It tends to give the USD a lot of strength/more purchasing power in other countries.
  - refurb 4y ago
    How does being the reserve currency drive local wages higher?
    - jacurtis 4y ago
      It doesn't drive wages higher, but it improves buying power which is an indirect raise
      - refurb 4y ago
        Then why are countries who aren't the reserve currency also have a more valuable currency? In some cases more valuable than the USD?
        adam_arthur 4y ago
        Whether the currency is <1 or >1 relative to the USD is not that important... it's largely a function of the money supply. 1 Euro is worth more than 1 USD, but goods in Europe may still cost more in USD terms than equivalent goods in the US. Or salaries could be lower (which is true as of today)
jeffbee 4y ago
I believe that where the article says "farming unions" they are referring to organized capital, not labor. More of a cabal than a union.
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thescriptkiddie 4y ago
Title does not match the article. The article is about the 1940 film, not the book. Neither the book nor the film was banned.
- crunchyfrog 4y ago
  > the Soviets that viewed “The Road to Wrath”, as it was titled in the U.S.S.R, were in complete awe that even the poorest of the poor in the United States were able to save their money and afford an automobile. As the wrong message continued to spread, Stalin decided to pull the film from theaters after a few short weeks Pulling a movie from theaters at that time was pretty equivalent to banning it. I don't see what doesn't match.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > I don't see what doesn't match. The title. edit: the title of the article here doesn't match the title of the article there. edit: getting downvoted into oblivion for confirming that the title here doesn't match the article.
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- jacurtis 4y ago
  Pulling the movie from theaters and removing distribution of the movie behind the iron curtain is essentially banning it. This was 1940... there wasn't really any way for them to see the movie if they decided to not distribute it in the USSR. You couldn't VPN into American Netflix or torrent the movie to get it. It was an unofficial ban. The book hadn't been translated to Russian at the time. The story (both movie and book) shows the darker side of capitalism and Stalin hoped it would make great propaganda to reinforce why capitalism doesn't work to make soviets grateful for communism. But instead, the people that saw the movie were just shocked that even the worst Americans were better off than the the average soviet citizen, which backfired on Stalin's intended goal. More importantly, the ending of The Grapes of Wrath shows hope in even the darkest moments and a way that an American had the freedom to turn their luck around and give their family a fresh opportunity at life, even when they had seemingly lost everything. This showed power that the poorest Americans had, and soviets couldn't ever hope of having. That freedom was surely impactful.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
" the enormous economic gap between the capitalist system of the United States and the centrally planned economy of the Soviet Union was clear." This isn't entirely fair and is actually pretty flippant and tone-deaf given the situation of the time after the war. In 1948 the US had been industrialized for much longer than the USSR. It was a destination for immigration, and had a vibrant young population. The two world wars it participated in were fought on foreign soil, far away from the homeland. After (and even during) WWII it benefited from a massive influx of European scientists and intellectuals. Industrial capacity from the war was redirected back to consumer goods. The Soviet Union on the other hand bore the brunt of losses in WWII. It suffered massive deaths in the war, especially among its young men of working age. It was invaded by NAZI Germany, and some of its largest cities occupied or put under siege. Its agricultural and industrial lands were ravaged by war, its people by wartime famine. While the Soviet planning system was a failure, and Stalin an evil tyrant -- in 1948 a working class person in the USSR not being able to afford a car had very little to do with the different economic models, but with the completely different situation of the two countries. (Even if the movie/book was set in the 30s, the context it was being look at was post-war USSR. And even in the context of the 30s, the USSR had only just come out of civil war, revolution, and WWI)
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  That's not exactly accurate, Stalin's famine and economic contraction happened in the 30s. Turns out that shooting people is not the long run solution that induces businesses to sell below their cost.
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  - Retric 4y ago
    Most statistics I could find showed the USSR had modest economic growth during the interwar period. The famine was seemingly intentionally inflicted to speed industrialization which makes it evil rather than incompetence. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/soviet-economy-1917-1991-its-life-and-afterlife https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/soviet-economy-1917-1991-its-... I mean you send millions of farmers to factories and yes farm output declines, these things are related.
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antegamisou 4y ago
Anything originating from USA academics concerning 20th century/WWII/USSR history should be taken with great skepticism.
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pessimizer 4y ago
This sounds made up. The movie was in Soviet theaters for "a few short weeks." 1) How long does it take to see a car, 2) if the censors cared about cars, why was the film released at all, 3) and how much longer than a few weeks do films run? ----- Also what the given reference (http://lisa.revues.org/802?lang=en#ftn2 http://lisa.revues.org/802?lang=en#ftn2) actually says is: > Shown behind the Iron Curtain, The Grapes of Wrath elicited the common reaction that “in America even the tramps have cars.” with no attribution for the quote, and no connection to Stalin or a Soviet theater run.
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MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Kind of ironic considering how the grapes of wrath was perceived accused of spreading socialist ideas at the time. >We can’t depend on it. The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size. >The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land. >We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man. Yes, but the bank is only made of men. No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.
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rgrieselhuber 4y ago
McLuhan talked about how Western books and movies (especially movies as a hot medium) could cause revolutions simply by giving people in poorer nations a window into what they were being deprived of. This is a formidable weapon if deployed with this intent.
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- gumby 4y ago
  Likewise satellite TV and the Internet had a lot to do with the instigation of the Arab Spring.
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- Natsu 4y ago
  North Korea is still like this. People who have escaped are most impressed by the abundance of food. Having enough to eat is foreign to them. They're actually starving, right now: https://www.38north.org/2023/01/food-insecurity-in-north-korea-is-at-its-worst-since-the-1990s-famine/ https://www.38north.org/2023/01/food-insecurity-in-north-kor...
- jacurtis 4y ago
  I don't have a source, so take this with a grain of salt. But I had heard a story on a podcast once (not sure which one, sorry...) that the CIA was actually very involved within Hollywood in the 40-70s and used it exactly in this manner. This was coming from an interview with someone who worked in CIA intelligence during these years. According to the interviewer, the CIA funded and pushed the entertainment medium to distribute a vision of how good America was for the average person in order to improve the reputation of America around the world.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    I don't know about film, but the CIA was (somewhat) famously involved in defining and propagating the style of midcentury creative writing[1]. "More Hemingway and less Dos Passos" as this article puts it[2]. [1]: https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-american-creative-writing-famous-iowa-writers-workshop.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-americ... [2]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4x3vg3/how-the-cia-turned-american-literature-into-a-content-farm https://www.vice.com/en/article/4x3vg3/how-the-cia-turned-am...
Animats 4y ago
The obsession with cars lasted a long time. Anatoly Dobrynin, at various times the USSR's ambassador to the UN and the US, wrote in his autobiography that he thought traffic jams were American propaganda, until he first visited New York in 1957.
- treeman79 4y ago
  A super market blew their minds back in the 80s. https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
boomboomsubban 4y ago
I tried to find the source for this claim, and all the internet posts point to one article written in 2008 that tells the story. That article sources it to two books, a New York Times article, and some email. The first book, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt is from 1958 and is on the Internet Archive, and searching it brought no mention of "grape" or "Steinbeck." "Wrath" came up a few times in different context. The second, "Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States" by Kenneth T. Jackson is from 1989 available on Google Books. It does tell the story, adding that every character having shoes was also part of the ban. It doesn't provide a source for the claim, but the footnote given says the film wasn't a hit in the US either. The film won several Oscars and is on numerous "best film ever" lists. I can't check a personal email. I don't subscribe to the NYT, so can't check the article. Maybe someone else can. https://www.nytimes.com/1955/04/13/archives/foreign-affairs-america-seen-through-a-glass-darkly.htm https://www.nytimes.com/1955/04/13/archives/foreign-affairs-... So at best it looks like the source was some article in the NYT from the height of the Cold War about a somewhat related topic. Possibly happened, possibly made up.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Post-fact era. To be fair, the claim that was made in the fake headline by the submitter is stronger than the one made in the article, although the article has Stalin taking a personal interest in the film.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    I'm not sure why you are being down voted. If the submitter submitted a conclusion that isn't supported by the article the fault lies with that person. I do wish Dang noted these transgressions
- maegul 4y ago
  I mean, this tracks with the experience of anyone who has gone citation/source tracking ... soooo much stuff is just not substantiated, and it's honestly really bad because it turns the mere existence of a citation into some sort appeal to authority fallacy. A formative experience for me as a student was working (voluntarily) for an academic journal where the job was to check that a) all cited sources actually supported the supported claim, and, b) that all factual assertions had a source. It's funny how most people don't quite get how wrong it really is to not care about sources and truth/facts this much. Sometimes you have to see the fallacies transpire yourself to truly appreciate how much it enables outright lying.
yaakov34 4y ago
I don't know the details about the showing of that movie, but America's mass car ownership certainly came up in the comparisons of life in the USSR and in America. In one discussion with my classmates (in Moscow, USSR, ca. mid-1980s) I mentioned that in the suburb of New York in which my relatives lived, most of the high school students in the upper grades drove their cars to school and parked near it. "Come on", someone said, "I am with you when you tell us not to believe our propaganda, but you shouldn't believe theirs, either. Who is going to give a car to some kid, unless he is the son of a senator or something?" Oh, and some years later, a friend of mine in America was asked by a family in the USSR (which would not be the USSR much longer) to bring some package or item to their relatives, who lived in some other suburb of NYC. My friend asked for the address. "Don't remember right now, but you'll be able to find them: they have two cars!"
2-718-281-828 4y ago
also in the US "[Grapes of Wrath] was temporarily banned in many places in the US. In the state of California in which it was partially set, it was banned for its alleged unflattering portrayal of residents of the area." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_gove...
nayuki 4y ago
> This screening of “The Grapes of Wrath” in the Soviet Union, however, did not land the way that Stalin anticipated. Rather than stir up anti-capitalist emotions, the Soviets that viewed “The Road to Wrath”, as it was titled in the U.S.S.R, were in complete awe that even the poorest of the poor in the United States were able to save their money and afford an automobile. This reminds me of the time a Soviet president visited an American supermarket and was amazed by the variety of foods available. > [Boris] Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randall's [grocery store] nodding his head in amazement," wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution." > In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops. "Even the Politburo doesn't have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev," he said. When he was told through his interpreter that there were thousands of items in the store for sale he didn't believe it. He had even thought that the store was staged, a show for him. Little did he know there countless stores just like it all over the country, some with even more things than the Randall's he visited. -- https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
pangolinja 4y ago
poor people with cars in the US massively skew the homeless numbers because those living in their cars aren't classified as homeless. fun fact!
karaterobot 4y ago
This reminds me of a part in Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy, which is based on interviews from people who escaped from North Korea (emphasis mine obviously): > A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to this friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: if North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons? For one North Korean student it was a photograph in the official media showing a South Korean on a picket line. The photograph was meant to illustrate the exploitation of the worker in capitalist society; instead the student noticed that the ‘oppressed’ worker wore a jacket with a zipper and had a ballpoint pen in his pocket, both of which were luxuries at the time.
wizardforhire 4y ago
The irony of this is that the “okies” with cars during the great depression that The Grapes of Wrath depict are the people WITH money! Only the people with money could even afford a car in the late 20s and early 30s. If you look at photos from that time, its hard to tell because the photos are black and white but the women are largely wearing fur and jewelry! Desperate sure but hardly anyone that left started poor. The real poor people were the 25% of the population that couldn’t afford to leave.
entwife 4y ago
Don't tell Americans, but in many other countries the cities have excellent train and bus networks that makes owning a car unnecessary.
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inglor_cz 4y ago
I am somewhat surprised by the fact that so many people express doubt about the idea that the USSR could be embarrassed by "too many cars in a Western movie about poverty". Absolutely. From the point of view of someone who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, Communism's obvious inability to supply its populations with consumer goods was a major sore spot. It went against the Marxist-Leninist theory which postulated that Communism is more efficient in producing useful goods for people, not less. And cars especially were a highly coveted status symbol. In order to buy one, you had to go to a waiting list and wait for several years, plus spend a relatively extreme amount of money, even a shitty model of Trabant or Škoda would set you back about 50 average monthly wages. There were massive shortages of spare parts too and people would demont their wipers off before leaving their car on the street overnight, because otherwise someone would steal them. Now I am describing the reality of my growing up in the 1980s Central Europe, not in Stalin's USSR, which was remarkably worse in all aspects; at least we didn't lack shoes. Reactions of the regimes varied, of course. In Czechoslovakia, there was no denying that the Westerners have more stuff at their disposal, because the country wasn't tightly closed off and there was a lot of trade especially with Austria and Western Germany, which necessitated some mutual movement of people over the border. So the regime's reaction was, basically, sour indignity. But Stalin's USSR was so tightly isolated that normal people never met Westerners; there, the propaganda was able to keep the illusion of Communism's material superiority much more credible. To a random Soviet person, the idea that a person could have a car and still be poor didn't compute. I would compare it to the idea that a person could have a yacht and be poor; such combinations just don't happen in your world if a (car, yacht) are obviously luxuries. There is a reason why Russian soldiers of 2023, who mostly come from underdeveloped parts of Russia, still plunder WCs. The more to the East you get, the more severe the material deprivation.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
The Grapes of Wrath was NOT banned in the USSR. Here the list of of foreign movies shown in Soviet cinemas in 1948: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BC%D1%8B,_%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%89%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0%B2_%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%82_%D0%B2_1948_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%83 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1...
- nl 4y ago
  This matches with the story: It was shown and then withdrawn after the reaction.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    Hard to know today whether it's true or not, but I know for sure that the book was not banned and printed widely.
    - nl 4y ago
      Well no one claimed otherwise..
mariojv 4y ago
This reminds me of the photos of cars lined up at food banks early in the pandemic. One of the more famous photos was taken at the food bank where I live, in San Antonio: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/17/837141457/thousands-of-cars-line-up-at-one-texas-food-bank-as-job-losses-hit-hard https://www.npr.org/2020/04/17/837141457/thousands-of-cars-l... I don't have a much larger point to make, but I felt great sadness when seeing those photos and donated to the local food bank. I don't think everyone who has a car in America is rich.
Mikhail_Edoshin 4y ago
The Russian article about the movie in Wikipedia says that the movie was not banned. It was originally meant for limited "club" distribution because it was obtained as a war trophy from Germany and run in English with subtitles. That year (1948) there were other 26 such trophy movies mostly of Germany and USA production, incl. e.g. "Stagecoach".

168 points by Overtonwindow 4y ago

I switched political parties and became a Democrat after watching The Grapes of Wrath. I realized I was on the wrong side. I asked ChatGPT a question Q: Why was The Grapes of Wrath banned in some parts of America? A: The Grapes of Wrath, a novel by John Steinbeck, was banned in some parts of America due to its depiction of the struggles of migrant workers during the Great Depression and its criticism of capitalist society. Some people found the book to be controversial and offensive, and some even accused Steinbeck of being a communist. Additionally, the book was banned in some areas because it was believed to be obscene or inappropriate for certain readers.

sesuximo 4y ago
I distinctly remember reading this book in high school and being shocked at the end. In retrospect I guess that’s a sign it was a good book.
- jacurtis 4y ago
  I was too. Of all the books I read in high school, none affected me anywhere close to Grapes of Wrath. The book is very mature, and I think it is often given to students too early in life before they can truly appreciate it. But this book should be required reading for Seniors in high school before they go out into the real world. John Steinbeck also wrote "East of Eden" which I would say was even more impactful of my life, but I didn't read it until my mid-twenties. That book really explores good and evil. It is slightly critical of religion (specifically Christianity), which is why it isn't read in school. But the principles and themes of the book dig really deep into human morals and how we choose our personal values. I really love it. Lastly, Travels with Charley is a fun view of Americana. It was written much later in Steinbeck's life and is a much easier and lighter read. But its very fun and I recommend it to everyone. It is a personal story of Steinbeck traveling across America in his old age with his dog named Charley. Its fun.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > this book should be required reading for Seniors in high school before they go out into the real world Maybe read an actual history book about the Depression, instead of a novel.
monero-xmr 4y ago
I switched to being libertarian after I worked for the government
- elecush 4y ago
  Did you move to Monero after working at the Federal Reserve?
- p1necone 4y ago
  Try working for any large organization public or private. There's not much difference. "The Government" is effectively equivalent to hundreds of separately run companies as well, some of them are bureaucratic/ineffective nightmares.
  - karaokeyoga 4y ago
    Layoffs are one difference.
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      Another difference is that you can, in general, refuse to deal with a particular company. You can't refuse to deal with the government.
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        In America you can pick and choose your favorite government, all up and down the system, except for the federal one. We enjoy substantial choice in the matter.
        Turing_Machine 4y ago
        > In America you can pick and choose your favorite government Sorry, that is not true. You get the government that 50% + 1 vote wants, and you get absolutely no choice about whether you deal with it, which sucks if you're a member of the 50% - 1 vote group. If I refuse to deal with Amazon, or Apple, or McDonalds, nothing happens (except I don't get to eat Big Macs). If I refuse to deal with my government, they will send people with guns to put me in jail. The situations aren't even remotely comparable.
elecush 4y ago
What was your political stance prior to watching The Grapes of Wrath? You say you "switched sides" but it's unclear to me what shifted in your stance before and after.
- labrador 4y ago
  I was in the military during the Reagan era and was a Republican. I coasted on that for awhile and then watched the film adaptation of TGOW and noticed the government run by the Democrats was trying to help poor people at the time, while Republicans were trying to run them out of town if they couldn't exploit their labor. This was the film depiction. I don't vouch for it's voracity. I'm not a historian. What I did do what take a look around in the 90's and notice Democrats were trying to help poor people while Republicans were trying to cut social security and school lunches for poor kids. That's when I became a Democrat.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    Amen brother.
WalterBright 4y ago
My father grew up in the Great Depression in Los Angeles. He went to school with many Okies. Be careful about confusing a novel with history.
- wrp 4y ago
  Steinbeck was the first serious novelist I got into as a kid, even read his collected letters, so I have a soft spot for him. It really shook my perception of his "journalistic" approach when I learned that Travels with Charley was almost entirely made up. Makes me wonder how much literary license he used in other books like A Russian Journal.
  - savryn 4y ago
    another person who read the letters! I'm shocked at how high quality the correspondence was, makes friendships of today feel kinda cheap
Bloating 4y ago
I switch parties all the time. Whats the big deal?
refurb 4y ago
Oh god, I really hope we're not using Chat GPT as a source now.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  Welcome to the future.
- jacurtis 4y ago
  Im not even sure what value the Chat GPT response provides in this story. So they watched the movie (not reading the book) and changed political parties. Why? No real reason was given. Then they plop a Chat GPT response in there and that's it. So what is it? They are just living their life as Chat GPT directs them? ChatGPT is a month or so old, so did this all happen a month ago?
  - labrador 4y ago
    ChatGPT has enslaved me

distortionfield 4y ago

[flagged]

LAC-Tech 4y ago
Really? You made a throwaway account to make that comment on this site?
- jacurtis 4y ago
  Probably farming karma for posting a real doozie in a few weeks.
  - distortionfield 4y ago
    It is an objectively true remark on the increasing trend of book bans that discuss specifically race and intersectional topics in the United States. Here (1) is as apolitical a source I can find that discusses this phenomenon. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2022_book_banning_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021–2022_book_banning_in_th...
  - FpUser 4y ago
    It is really nice to see how welcoming this community is becoming.
- syzarian 4y ago
  There are scenarios where it is reasonable that a person makes a throwaway account to make this comment. Suppose the commenter is well known on this site and works for a business that primarily caters to right leaning people in the U.S. Such a person would not want this view to be attributable to them.
- distortionfield 4y ago
  This isn’t a throwaway? Just because I’m new doesn’t mean I can’t make a good point.

LAC-Tech 4y ago

Americans are in so much denial about how rich their country is. I'm in small town New Zealand, the kind of place certain kinds of Americans fantasize about immigrating to, especially when there's a republican president. Seeing people walk around barefoot while shopping is common. The majority of people burn firewood and/or coal to keep warm in the winter. And I'd say 95% of people have never lived in a temperature controlled house with a thermostat. Everything costs more money - electronics, fuel, food, accommodation - and wages are universally lower. And this in one of the most developed parts of the planet. Think about how the US must compare to middle and low income countries. You'd be mind blown.

adam_arthur 4y ago
Countries by median income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income One advantage the US has is being the world's reserve currency. It tends to give the USD a lot of strength/more purchasing power in other countries.
- refurb 4y ago
  How does being the reserve currency drive local wages higher?
  - jacurtis 4y ago
    It doesn't drive wages higher, but it improves buying power which is an indirect raise
    - refurb 4y ago
      Then why are countries who aren't the reserve currency also have a more valuable currency? In some cases more valuable than the USD?
      - adam_arthur 4y ago
        Whether the currency is <1 or >1 relative to the USD is not that important... it's largely a function of the money supply. 1 Euro is worth more than 1 USD, but goods in Europe may still cost more in USD terms than equivalent goods in the US. Or salaries could be lower (which is true as of today)

jeffbee 4y ago

I believe that where the article says "farming unions" they are referring to organized capital, not labor. More of a cabal than a union.

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thescriptkiddie 4y ago

Title does not match the article. The article is about the 1940 film, not the book. Neither the book nor the film was banned.

crunchyfrog 4y ago
> the Soviets that viewed “The Road to Wrath”, as it was titled in the U.S.S.R, were in complete awe that even the poorest of the poor in the United States were able to save their money and afford an automobile. As the wrong message continued to spread, Stalin decided to pull the film from theaters after a few short weeks Pulling a movie from theaters at that time was pretty equivalent to banning it. I don't see what doesn't match.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > I don't see what doesn't match. The title. edit: the title of the article here doesn't match the title of the article there. edit: getting downvoted into oblivion for confirming that the title here doesn't match the article.
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jacurtis 4y ago
Pulling the movie from theaters and removing distribution of the movie behind the iron curtain is essentially banning it. This was 1940... there wasn't really any way for them to see the movie if they decided to not distribute it in the USSR. You couldn't VPN into American Netflix or torrent the movie to get it. It was an unofficial ban. The book hadn't been translated to Russian at the time. The story (both movie and book) shows the darker side of capitalism and Stalin hoped it would make great propaganda to reinforce why capitalism doesn't work to make soviets grateful for communism. But instead, the people that saw the movie were just shocked that even the worst Americans were better off than the the average soviet citizen, which backfired on Stalin's intended goal. More importantly, the ending of The Grapes of Wrath shows hope in even the darkest moments and a way that an American had the freedom to turn their luck around and give their family a fresh opportunity at life, even when they had seemingly lost everything. This showed power that the poorest Americans had, and soviets couldn't ever hope of having. That freedom was surely impactful.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

" the enormous economic gap between the capitalist system of the United States and the centrally planned economy of the Soviet Union was clear." This isn't entirely fair and is actually pretty flippant and tone-deaf given the situation of the time after the war. In 1948 the US had been industrialized for much longer than the USSR. It was a destination for immigration, and had a vibrant young population. The two world wars it participated in were fought on foreign soil, far away from the homeland. After (and even during) WWII it benefited from a massive influx of European scientists and intellectuals. Industrial capacity from the war was redirected back to consumer goods. The Soviet Union on the other hand bore the brunt of losses in WWII. It suffered massive deaths in the war, especially among its young men of working age. It was invaded by NAZI Germany, and some of its largest cities occupied or put under siege. Its agricultural and industrial lands were ravaged by war, its people by wartime famine. While the Soviet planning system was a failure, and Stalin an evil tyrant -- in 1948 a working class person in the USSR not being able to afford a car had very little to do with the different economic models, but with the completely different situation of the two countries. (Even if the movie/book was set in the 30s, the context it was being look at was post-war USSR. And even in the context of the 30s, the USSR had only just come out of civil war, revolution, and WWI)

pxmpxm 4y ago
That's not exactly accurate, Stalin's famine and economic contraction happened in the 30s. Turns out that shooting people is not the long run solution that induces businesses to sell below their cost.
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- Retric 4y ago
  Most statistics I could find showed the USSR had modest economic growth during the interwar period. The famine was seemingly intentionally inflicted to speed industrialization which makes it evil rather than incompetence. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/soviet-economy-1917-1991-its-life-and-afterlife https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/soviet-economy-1917-1991-its-... I mean you send millions of farmers to factories and yes farm output declines, these things are related.

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antegamisou 4y ago

Anything originating from USA academics concerning 20th century/WWII/USSR history should be taken with great skepticism.

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pessimizer 4y ago

This sounds made up. The movie was in Soviet theaters for "a few short weeks." 1) How long does it take to see a car, 2) if the censors cared about cars, why was the film released at all, 3) and how much longer than a few weeks do films run? ----- Also what the given reference (http://lisa.revues.org/802?lang=en#ftn2 http://lisa.revues.org/802?lang=en#ftn2) actually says is: > Shown behind the Iron Curtain, The Grapes of Wrath elicited the common reaction that “in America even the tramps have cars.” with no attribution for the quote, and no connection to Stalin or a Soviet theater run.

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MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

Kind of ironic considering how the grapes of wrath was perceived accused of spreading socialist ideas at the time. >We can’t depend on it. The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size. >The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land. >We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man. Yes, but the bank is only made of men. No, you’re wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.

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rgrieselhuber 4y ago

McLuhan talked about how Western books and movies (especially movies as a hot medium) could cause revolutions simply by giving people in poorer nations a window into what they were being deprived of. This is a formidable weapon if deployed with this intent.

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gumby 4y ago
Likewise satellite TV and the Internet had a lot to do with the instigation of the Arab Spring.
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Natsu 4y ago
North Korea is still like this. People who have escaped are most impressed by the abundance of food. Having enough to eat is foreign to them. They're actually starving, right now: https://www.38north.org/2023/01/food-insecurity-in-north-korea-is-at-its-worst-since-the-1990s-famine/ https://www.38north.org/2023/01/food-insecurity-in-north-kor...
jacurtis 4y ago
I don't have a source, so take this with a grain of salt. But I had heard a story on a podcast once (not sure which one, sorry...) that the CIA was actually very involved within Hollywood in the 40-70s and used it exactly in this manner. This was coming from an interview with someone who worked in CIA intelligence during these years. According to the interviewer, the CIA funded and pushed the entertainment medium to distribute a vision of how good America was for the average person in order to improve the reputation of America around the world.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I don't know about film, but the CIA was (somewhat) famously involved in defining and propagating the style of midcentury creative writing[1]. "More Hemingway and less Dos Passos" as this article puts it[2]. [1]: https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-american-creative-writing-famous-iowa-writers-workshop.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-americ... [2]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4x3vg3/how-the-cia-turned-american-literature-into-a-content-farm https://www.vice.com/en/article/4x3vg3/how-the-cia-turned-am...

Animats 4y ago

The obsession with cars lasted a long time. Anatoly Dobrynin, at various times the USSR's ambassador to the UN and the US, wrote in his autobiography that he thought traffic jams were American propaganda, until he first visited New York in 1957.

treeman79 4y ago
A super market blew their minds back in the 80s. https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...

boomboomsubban 4y ago

I tried to find the source for this claim, and all the internet posts point to one article written in 2008 that tells the story. That article sources it to two books, a New York Times article, and some email. The first book, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt is from 1958 and is on the Internet Archive, and searching it brought no mention of "grape" or "Steinbeck." "Wrath" came up a few times in different context. The second, "Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States" by Kenneth T. Jackson is from 1989 available on Google Books. It does tell the story, adding that every character having shoes was also part of the ban. It doesn't provide a source for the claim, but the footnote given says the film wasn't a hit in the US either. The film won several Oscars and is on numerous "best film ever" lists. I can't check a personal email. I don't subscribe to the NYT, so can't check the article. Maybe someone else can. https://www.nytimes.com/1955/04/13/archives/foreign-affairs-america-seen-through-a-glass-darkly.htm https://www.nytimes.com/1955/04/13/archives/foreign-affairs-... So at best it looks like the source was some article in the NYT from the height of the Cold War about a somewhat related topic. Possibly happened, possibly made up.

pessimizer 4y ago
Post-fact era. To be fair, the claim that was made in the fake headline by the submitter is stronger than the one made in the article, although the article has Stalin taking a personal interest in the film.
- themitigating 4y ago
  I'm not sure why you are being down voted. If the submitter submitted a conclusion that isn't supported by the article the fault lies with that person. I do wish Dang noted these transgressions
maegul 4y ago
I mean, this tracks with the experience of anyone who has gone citation/source tracking ... soooo much stuff is just not substantiated, and it's honestly really bad because it turns the mere existence of a citation into some sort appeal to authority fallacy. A formative experience for me as a student was working (voluntarily) for an academic journal where the job was to check that a) all cited sources actually supported the supported claim, and, b) that all factual assertions had a source. It's funny how most people don't quite get how wrong it really is to not care about sources and truth/facts this much. Sometimes you have to see the fallacies transpire yourself to truly appreciate how much it enables outright lying.

yaakov34 4y ago

I don't know the details about the showing of that movie, but America's mass car ownership certainly came up in the comparisons of life in the USSR and in America. In one discussion with my classmates (in Moscow, USSR, ca. mid-1980s) I mentioned that in the suburb of New York in which my relatives lived, most of the high school students in the upper grades drove their cars to school and parked near it. "Come on", someone said, "I am with you when you tell us not to believe our propaganda, but you shouldn't believe theirs, either. Who is going to give a car to some kid, unless he is the son of a senator or something?" Oh, and some years later, a friend of mine in America was asked by a family in the USSR (which would not be the USSR much longer) to bring some package or item to their relatives, who lived in some other suburb of NYC. My friend asked for the address. "Don't remember right now, but you'll be able to find them: they have two cars!"

2-718-281-828 4y ago

also in the US "[Grapes of Wrath] was temporarily banned in many places in the US. In the state of California in which it was partially set, it was banned for its alleged unflattering portrayal of residents of the area." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_gove...

nayuki 4y ago

> This screening of “The Grapes of Wrath” in the Soviet Union, however, did not land the way that Stalin anticipated. Rather than stir up anti-capitalist emotions, the Soviets that viewed “The Road to Wrath”, as it was titled in the U.S.S.R, were in complete awe that even the poorest of the poor in the United States were able to save their money and afford an automobile. This reminds me of the time a Soviet president visited an American supermarket and was amazed by the variety of foods available. > [Boris] Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randall's [grocery store] nodding his head in amazement," wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution." > In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops. "Even the Politburo doesn't have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev," he said. When he was told through his interpreter that there were thousands of items in the store for sale he didn't believe it. He had even thought that the store was staged, a show for him. Little did he know there countless stores just like it all over the country, some with even more things than the Randall's he visited. -- https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...

pangolinja 4y ago

poor people with cars in the US massively skew the homeless numbers because those living in their cars aren't classified as homeless. fun fact!

karaterobot 4y ago

This reminds me of a part in Barbara Demick's book Nothing to Envy, which is based on interviews from people who escaped from North Korea (emphasis mine obviously): > A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to this friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: if North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons? For one North Korean student it was a photograph in the official media showing a South Korean on a picket line. The photograph was meant to illustrate the exploitation of the worker in capitalist society; instead the student noticed that the ‘oppressed’ worker wore a jacket with a zipper and had a ballpoint pen in his pocket, both of which were luxuries at the time.

wizardforhire 4y ago

The irony of this is that the “okies” with cars during the great depression that The Grapes of Wrath depict are the people WITH money! Only the people with money could even afford a car in the late 20s and early 30s. If you look at photos from that time, its hard to tell because the photos are black and white but the women are largely wearing fur and jewelry! Desperate sure but hardly anyone that left started poor. The real poor people were the 25% of the population that couldn’t afford to leave.

entwife 4y ago

Don't tell Americans, but in many other countries the cities have excellent train and bus networks that makes owning a car unnecessary.

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inglor_cz 4y ago

I am somewhat surprised by the fact that so many people express doubt about the idea that the USSR could be embarrassed by "too many cars in a Western movie about poverty". Absolutely. From the point of view of someone who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, Communism's obvious inability to supply its populations with consumer goods was a major sore spot. It went against the Marxist-Leninist theory which postulated that Communism is more efficient in producing useful goods for people, not less. And cars especially were a highly coveted status symbol. In order to buy one, you had to go to a waiting list and wait for several years, plus spend a relatively extreme amount of money, even a shitty model of Trabant or Škoda would set you back about 50 average monthly wages. There were massive shortages of spare parts too and people would demont their wipers off before leaving their car on the street overnight, because otherwise someone would steal them. Now I am describing the reality of my growing up in the 1980s Central Europe, not in Stalin's USSR, which was remarkably worse in all aspects; at least we didn't lack shoes. Reactions of the regimes varied, of course. In Czechoslovakia, there was no denying that the Westerners have more stuff at their disposal, because the country wasn't tightly closed off and there was a lot of trade especially with Austria and Western Germany, which necessitated some mutual movement of people over the border. So the regime's reaction was, basically, sour indignity. But Stalin's USSR was so tightly isolated that normal people never met Westerners; there, the propaganda was able to keep the illusion of Communism's material superiority much more credible. To a random Soviet person, the idea that a person could have a car and still be poor didn't compute. I would compare it to the idea that a person could have a yacht and be poor; such combinations just don't happen in your world if a (car, yacht) are obviously luxuries. There is a reason why Russian soldiers of 2023, who mostly come from underdeveloped parts of Russia, still plunder WCs. The more to the East you get, the more severe the material deprivation.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

The Grapes of Wrath was NOT banned in the USSR. Here the list of of foreign movies shown in Soviet cinemas in 1948: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BC%D1%8B,_%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%89%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0%B2_%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%82_%D0%B2_1948_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%83 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1...

nl 4y ago
This matches with the story: It was shown and then withdrawn after the reaction.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  Hard to know today whether it's true or not, but I know for sure that the book was not banned and printed widely.
  - nl 4y ago
    Well no one claimed otherwise..

mariojv 4y ago

This reminds me of the photos of cars lined up at food banks early in the pandemic. One of the more famous photos was taken at the food bank where I live, in San Antonio: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/17/837141457/thousands-of-cars-line-up-at-one-texas-food-bank-as-job-losses-hit-hard https://www.npr.org/2020/04/17/837141457/thousands-of-cars-l... I don't have a much larger point to make, but I felt great sadness when seeing those photos and donated to the local food bank. I don't think everyone who has a car in America is rich.

Mikhail_Edoshin 4y ago

The Russian article about the movie in Wikipedia says that the movie was not banned. It was originally meant for limited "club" distribution because it was obtained as a war trophy from Germany and run in English with subtitles. That year (1948) there were other 26 such trophy movies mostly of Germany and USA production, incl. e.g. "Stagecoach".