My generation didn’t experience the mass repressions and purges; didn’t experience the show trials in which the wrathful public demanded the executions of traitors to the Motherland; didn’t live in an atmosphere of universal horror; didn’t learn how to change our worldview from one day to the next, to believe in the insidiousness of yesterday’s allies and the good intentions of yesterday’s enemies at the drop of a hat, to justify fratricidal wars.
The Soviet Union that we experienced was already quite the herbivore: it no longer executed people for not believing in its core, binding lie, allowing them to question things quietly to themselves in the comfort of their kitchens; neither did it demand applause when the heads of those designated as “enemies of the people” rolled.
