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"I wish to dedicate this flight to the people of the new communist society, which we are already entering, to our great Motherland, and to our science" And mak
by ctrlp 3y ago
"I wish to dedicate this flight to the people of the new communist society, which we are already entering, to our great Motherland, and to our science"
And make sure the secret police have no reason to suspect you
- wpwpwpw 3y agoWhat makes you think he didn't mean what he wrote?
- chx 3y agoOf course he didn't. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, no one, not even high level party members took this bullshit seriously enough to write it truly in the farewell letter of their families. He wrote this to protect his family, if the state believes Yuri was not a true Soviet man they might take away their pension. The reason it's laid down so heavily because the risk was very great as he might be blamed posthumously for a failure. It's easy to understand the desperation from this if you know how to read these... In books, it was called the "red tail" where you added a section sounding like this to appease the censors.
- bee_rider 3y agoDoesn’t it seem possible he’d have a different view of the Soviet Union than you? He was born near the beginning, spent most of his formative years in the Soviet Union that had just made a big contribution to taking down the Nazis and was now launching a him, a former farm-boy, into space. It seems like a pretty compelling story from his point of view! Unless you are 90 years old, I guess you were born in a Soviet Union on a more obviously bad trajectory.
- noduerme 3y agoA cursory reading of the history of Stalin's mass murders and deportations puts paid to this. No one living through the Terror mistook this bullshit for a Captain Kirk Iowa boy in space fantasy. And his usefulness isn't lost on the current FSB animals who wear Yuri pins inside their jackets.
- bee_rider 3y agoThat is a good point. People can compartmentalize or be surprisingly shielded from some pretty horrifying things, though…
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoAlmost makes you want to go vegan, doesn't it?
- chx 3y agoHe was but a small child then, being born in 1934 and they were very good at hiding the worst atrocities which was not exactly hard those years given the rather limited mass communication. No one was posting a Tiktok about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
- noduerme 3y agoEven with modern communications, most Russians publicly deny knowing that their government is committing atrocities against its own citizens. Of course, they know just as well as people knew throughout the Soviet era. Hence the degree of phoniness in a letter ostensibly to one's spouse that is only intended to satisfy the politburo. Could Gagarin possibly have been unaware of recent history or of what happened to heroes who failed?
- splitstud 3y ago[dead]
- foverzar 3y agoLiterally every single nation does that. It's a natural bias. E.g. Americans don't lose sleep over Assange or the fact that Snowden is now a citizen of the evil Russia. > Hence the degree of phoniness in a letter ostensibly to one's spouse that is only intended to satisfy the politburo You really don't account for perspective. To Gagarin you'd sound no less phony if you'd said something like "I am proud to pioneer the advancement of our free democratic world". Also, consider that it was a modernist era back then - people hadn't yet really figured out being goofy.
- rodary 3y ago> no one, not even high level party members took this bullshit seriously enough Don't know when you were born (I was in the 1960s). You're wrong. A lot of people, especially Gagarin's generation, took what you call bullshit seriously and believed in it. Hence, were willing to lay down their life for the cause.
- kortilla 3y agoIt was the USSR, nobody did. But there was a vast institution dedicated to ensuring that everyone maintained the doublespeak. A country can achieve great things and be built on a greater lie that everyone pays homage to but doesn’t really believe.