Living in Darkness, Dying in the Light.

 

  The title of this post is a line spoken by Ben Kingsley’s character in the 2008 movie “Transiberrian”.  He spoke this in response to Woody Harelson’s  character’s question of if he misses the dark, evil days of Communism.  Living in one of the old Eastern Bloc countries, makes this statement ring true, very loud, and long.

  Democracy and capitalism doesn’t seem to work here.  Honestly, what they run in Europe isn’t really Democracy, which never worked any,  which is why the founders of the U.S. instituted a Republic, cause history had shown repeatedly that Democracy is nothing more than mob rule.  What they have in Europe is Socialized Democracy, sure you have freedom of speech, religion, etc. but not the freedom to pursue happiness, because the people are overworked, severely underpaid, and OVERLY taxed.  I mean we have a 19% VAT – that Value Added Tax added to every purchase, that’s on top of other taxes as well.

  My husband, his friends, and the older people have told me what it was like when Nicolae Ceacescu was in power here.  Yes there was food rationing, electricity wasn’t switched on till the sun went down, and of course there was no freedom of the press, you only got a few hours of Television in a day.  People today would DIE without TV!  Books of course were censored, etc. 

   However there was positive, none of the land went to waste – every square inch of this country was plowed, seeded and harvested.  EVERYONE worked!  During Harvest the school aged kids would be sent out to the fields for a week or two to help harvest.  They were given sleeping quarters and 3 full meals a day.  At the end of the harvest, the kids were given some of the harvest to bring home to their mothers, who would then freeze it, or make juices, wines, or jams.  The company you worked for bought you an apartment when you married, as your family grew, the company bought a bigger apartment.  When the revolution happened, you had to buy the apartment from the company, which was pretty cheap, but with the value of the Romanian Leu falling, it was expensive.  My mother and father in law had a pretty hefty sum of money saved up for their retirement, after the revolution is was pretty much worthless.  they bought a new and some other things for the house.

  If you didn’t work, you went to jail, in jail you learned a skill, when you came out (it wasn’t a lengthy stay), if you couldn’t find a job, the state found one for you!  When you had a baby, you stayed home for a year, with pay, with your child.  Your job was held for you.  Kids played outside! 

  Yes, in Communism there is no God, but the people, especially the older people who were alive pre-Communism, taught their children about God.  The Orthodox church was still allowed to run, out of tradition, and of course the state used the priests as spies to inform on their parishioners who attended regularly, who questioned the state in confessionals, etc.  Yes, there were some truly despicable things that were done in the name of Communism, the late Richard Wurmbrand suffered cruelly at the hands of the Communist regime in Romania because of his faith in Christ.  He wrote a great book called “Tortured For Christ” the goes into detail about how Communism targeted the underground church.

  Despite the bad, there are people here, mainly the people my age and older who actually miss Communism, not for the oppression, but because things seemed to be better then economically, etc.  My husband has told me about when he was young he remembers when Ceasescu was coming to visit, suddenly the markets were FULL of fresh fruits, vegetables, household goods, etc., stuff that normally wasn’t found in the market.  Not because it wasn’t there, but because the farmers, or people running the markets, wouldn’t sell it normally, they hoarded it or sold it for higher prices on the black market.  Ceasescu wanted to know that the people he was governing were well, that they were living well.  In the construction industry, the large trucks, and machines were given a quota of so many gallons of diesel to use every month, if they didn’t use it all, they were in HUGE trouble.  Marius said BARRELS of Diesel were being dumped, because the workers weren’t using it all, mainly because they were loafing.  Yeah bank accounts were monitored, if you suddenly had a huge amount of money in the bank, you were investigated. 

  Communism/Socialism, it’s all great in theory, but in practice, it’s disaster for the most part.  Why???  Well because the heart of man is wicked.  Communists and Karl Marx yelled about the evils of Capitalism.  But the same thing happens in Communism, because there will always be people making those power grabs.  They get dirt, blackmail, lie, cheat, steal and even murder to get more ahead, usually financially, and when you have the financial resources, you can gain power, after all money is what makes the world go round!   Yeah it would be nice if we were all equal, that there were no social classes, but even at the height of Communism, there were still the rich, middle class, and the poor.  

  I don’t think Communism is the right answer for any country, not as long as evil runs free in the hearts and minds of men.  I believe that is why God didn’t institute a formal type government in Israel.  It was only after the cry of the Israelites begging to be like other nations that he instituted the Judges, then the Kings, and we see what happened.  Look at history, ALWAYS the wars are started over a power grab!  Money=Power, and visa versa!