Events of Week Through Eyes of Conscious Worker. #5
Egils Levits (this is the president of Latvia, just in case someone doesn’t know) wished everyone to finally free themselves from the “former heritage”, and then, in his opinion, prosperity would come 1.
The USSR has not existed for almost 30 years, but in some unknown way it still prevents the “effective owners” from achieving at least some constructive successes in improving the life of the people. How much can you shamelessly blame the Soviet state?! From Soviet times, Latvia got developed industry and infrastructure, a fishing fleet, and agriculture. May be it’s time to stop blaming?
For comparison. The Bolsheviks inherited a backward country destroyed by wars, with raging hunger and diseases. And for 30 years they did not blame the tsar and the Interim government, but, with clenched teeth, have been building a new state. During this period, a giant jump was made in the country’s development: illiteracy was eliminated, industrialization was carried out, unemployment disappeared (the last labor exchange in the USSR closed in 1930). Constructed schools, colleges and universities, hospitals and clinics. Even ardent anti-communists recognized the achievements of the USSR. And the people supported the Soviet state, because they felt the improvement in the quality of their life. When the son or daughter of an ordinary worker can become an engineer, teacher, doctor or other specialist, thanks only to his knowledge and perseverance, and not to the availability of money, then it is clear to any layman that such a state is interested in progress.
What can you offer modern youth, Mr. President? Uncertainty, student loans for diplomas without job security? Mortgages for a young family, where job loss means home loss? Paid medicine and high drug prices?
What about working people? Exploitation and repression by employers dictated by foreign capital? Fear of workers, who are threatened with dismissal, to join a thread union? Fear of taking sick leave once again when one is sick or has a sick child?
Maybe something is being done for our scientists? Research centers are being opened? Funds are being invested? Or may be young specialists are being attracted who are given the conditions for creation for the benefit of all members of society, and not for grants from large companies and for the profit of the same companies?
Mr. President, maybe this is not the Soviet past, but the capitalist present that is slowly killing our country and that is forcing people to become emigrants every day – the people who yesterday hoped for a change for the better?
Conscious worker
The Latvian president was spoofed in a TV show popular in the USA:
“Oh my god. I’m at the losers table. I can’t believe they made me sit with the foreign guy.”
