Goodbye Lenin

Every generation says this:  "People today just have no idea about the way it was." 

Life experience and the world around us contributes so much to what we are and what we will be.  Every generation had it's flash point and it is usually a violent one.  For my grandparents it was World War II.  For my parents it was Vietnam.  For those born after 1980 it was and will be, the World Trade Center, Iraq and Afghanistan.  For myself it was the Cold War and a little group of countries a third of the way around the world that most people have never heard of.

When I was growing up international politics and perspective was divided into two camps, us versus them.  Everything was defined as Western Democracy facing off against Russian and Chinese Communism.  Today if you ask most people what Communism means it tends to be defined in the abstract.  It gets lumped together with skewed ideas of socialism and is simply presented as a fear word without true definition.


Yet for my generation or at least for me, it meant something far different.  It meant complete state control and a dark cloud covering vast areas of the world. It meant Ronald Regan and boisterous speeches near the Berlin Wall. It meant growing up in Alaska with the vestiges of 60's era Cold War fears.  Air raid sirens would test once a month and there were still signs around directing you to the nearest fall out shelter.  I was always curious about these places imagining that they must be fully stocked with rations and survival gear.  A virtual Mad Max emporium of gas masks and weaponry to outlast the Soviet siege.  Imagine my disappointment when I discovered the archery range in my high school was labeled as one.  I guess we would have put up a stiff resistance with bows and arrows nourishing ourselves with crumbled bits of fried burritos from the high school cafeteria. 

I remember frequently hearing on the local news about how how Elmendorf and Eielson Air Force Bases had scrambled jets to intercept Soviet Bear Bombers that were straying into Alaskan air space testing American response times.  I always imagined Top Gun over the Bearing Straight.

Perhaps it was natural that as a student of politics and history I became interested in the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe.  They seemed like such forbidden places.  I began to read about Soviet history and became fascinated on how they maintained political and economic control of Eastern Europe.  As a child I traveled to Western Europe but I wanted to know what was the world like beyond the Iron Curtain.   Every child wants access to what is forbidden and for me, there seemed to be this unjust nature to the Berlin Wall that effectively sealed away a population, it seemed so unjust.

Eventually my political education of Eastern Europe led me to discover the story of the once proud Baltic nations, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and how they were conquered, subjugated and controlled by the Soviet Union.  Freedom for the Baltic nations became my cause.  I wrote letters to the editor of my paper and to the Soviet Embassy in Washington protesting the occupation.  I even collected some money and forwarded it on to a group working in the United Nations called BATUN or the Baltic Appeal to the United Nations.  In exchange for my letters the Soviet Embassy sent me volumes of poorly printed propaganda depicting how nice and beautiful everything was.  One of my life's laments is not accepting an internship offered to me by BATUN.  Being newly married the prospect of moving to the Bronx in New York and working for next to nothing simply did not seem the best idea.

In the summer of 1986 I took my first solo trip to Europe.  With my backpack welded to my back I visited England and the continent.  While in London I made a point at stopping off at was then the old Estonian prewar embassy.  It was an elegant white row house with darkened windows but didn't seem abandoned.  I rang the bell and was greeted by an elderly woman.  I think I surprised her, I was probably the first visitor in ages.  She introduced herself as Ana Taru and I then explained my attachment to the once free Baltic nation.  Mrs. Taru welcomed me inside and asked me if I would like a tour.  She showed me beautiful inlaid floors made from the forests of Estonia and the receiving rooms tastefully appointed with ornate furniture.  All the while, she explained that the British government, in an attempt to finally solve the problem of a government in exile and the vanishing of a nation, had informed the Embassy long ago that they could continue to exist under one condition, they could not replace their staff.  Ana was once the secretary to the ambassador, now she was the last one left.  It seemed so sad, this elderly woman being the last to proudly hold up a flag and represent a country that had vanished from the surface of the Earth. 

As my education progressed I applied for a year abroad studying in the city of Vienna, Austria.  It was 1987-1988 and I chose Vienna because of its proximity to Eastern Europe.  Vienna was a gateway.  It was the last big Western access point and do to a complicated past involving Soviet occupation forces and American occupation forces, it maintained a delicate balance between East and West.  I studied history and politics in courses taught by Eastern European professors and spent a significant amount of time venturing into the forbidden lands of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. 

It was a different world.  A world that a short three years after my adventure would no longer exist.  It was the world depicted in the Unbearable Lightness of Being or Goodbye Lenin.  Crossing the border into the East was easy, leaving meant armed guards inspecting every corner of the train for stowaways.  They entered with dogs and lifted ceiling panels.  Rows of barbed wire and walls divided East and West like walls of a prison.  It was a world of statues of Lenin and Stalin and, Soviet style architecture and monuments to a peoples revolution that never happened.

Peter Kruger, Carey Pieratt (Back)

On one trip to the DDR or what was then East Germany I stayed with a group of East German students at the Hochschule Fur Economia in East Berlin.  It was the most prestigious East German university designed to create the economic and political leaders that would one day, lead the nation.  While there I met a man whom I will never for get.  He must have been in his 30's and his name was Peter Kruger.  He was a professor at the university and a member of the highest state economic planning committee.  In America this would be the equivalent of being one of the highest economic advisers to the President.

Peter and I talked and debated.  We compared our systems and drank beer.  On our first night together he presented me with my mug he asked me what I thought of it.  I took a big swig and replied, "Peter, I am sorry but this beer is the worst beer I have ever had."

Peter frowned and looked into his mug.  "I know," he said.  "we export all the good stuff."

Trabant

On another day an East German student took me on a tour of East Berlin.  I walked and talked with her about everything under the sun.  I can still see her nerdy appearance with black trimmed bangs in my mind.  She told me about how she was so excited, after being on a waiting list since nearly birth, her family was soon to be eligible to buy an East German Trabant.  Trabant's were two cylinder 18hp tiny cars they drove basically made out of a fiberglass paper.   In a way almost impossible to understand today I felt like I was doing something forbidden by being with her.  I felt like I was dipping my toe into an ideological world Americans were never supposed to consider, much less understand.  I remember standing on the East Berlin side of the Berlin wall and seeing tourists standing on a platform in the west.  They pointed their fingers at us.  I was not allowed to cross to the West and for a fraction of a moment I felt the world from the perspective of the East German's I had known.  I often wonder what has become of Peter and my German guide.  How did they possibly fit into a world different from everything they had known all of their lives.

In 1989, the world started to change.  The gross failings of planned state economies became apparent as the Soviet Union collapsed upon itself.  People were no longer willing to stand in lines to enter a grocery store only to find the only thing on the shelf was pickles or salami.  Basically whatever factory number X had decided to produce.  Long forgotten nations like Estonia became real once again.  Walls and fences disappeared and Europe became whole.  Today it is almost impossible to conceive that something like the Berlin Wall ever existed.  The concept of walling in an entire nation seems almost inconceivable.   In America we can't even stop illegal immigration at the border.  

It should be known that the hours of writing protest letters I spent did not come without recognition.  I was awarded a Certificate of Recognition for my efforts as a Civil Servant toward ending the Cold War.  Okay, truth be told, I read in a government magazine how if you served between certain dates you were eligible to receive a handsome certificate suitable for framing!  The only effort it required was proving I was employed by the Federal Government at some point from 1945 to December 1991.  Having commenced my Federal service in September of 1991, I decided that my four months of service had been of infinite value in ending the Cold War.   I sent off and got one.  When it arrived I promptly framed it and hung it on the wall of my office just to piss off all my conservative co-workers who always say liberals are weak on defense.

So now I speak the words of my parents and their parents.    "People today just have no idea about the way it was." It is a shame in a way, it likely means we as humans will always be doomed to repeat the mistakes of our past.  On the other hand, it makes life like watching a movie over and over again and some how never knowing how this time it will end.