ilych Red Army Recruit
Posts : 278 Join date : 2008-02-01 Age : 31 Location : santa cruz, CA
| Subject: interesting quote about stalinism from the gulag archiplageo Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:19 am | |
| I am reading this book and thought i should share this with everyone - Quote :
- Here is one vignette from those years as it actually occurred. A district party conference was under way in Moscow province. It was presided over by a new secretary of the district party committee, replacing the one recently arrested At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at e very mention of his name). The small hall echoed with "stormy applause, rising to an ovation," continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin. However, who would dare be the first to stop? The secretary of the District Party Committee could have done it.He was standing on the platform, and it was he who ha just called for the ovation. But he was a newcomer. He had taken the place of a man who'd been arrested. He was afraid! After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who quit first! And in that obscure, small hall, unknown to the Leader, the applause went on __six,seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn't stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly -- but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them? The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! in anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make believe enthusiasm on their faces looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! An even those who were left would not falter....Then, after eleven minutes , the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That however was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them,. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: "Don't ever be the first to stop applauding!"
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Watermelon ZEK in siberian gulag
Posts : 2650 Join date : 2008-04-05 Age : 29 Location : springfield, il
| Subject: Re: interesting quote about stalinism from the gulag archiplageo Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:32 am | |
| I know I've seen that before somewhere... | |
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ilych Red Army Recruit
Posts : 278 Join date : 2008-02-01 Age : 31 Location : santa cruz, CA
| Subject: Re: interesting quote about stalinism from the gulag archiplageo Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:46 am | |
| - Pannekoek wrote:
- I know I've seen that before somewhere...
ya in oligarch's comment in the communist party forum. He asked me for that passage for that thread. and said i should post it here too | |
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| Subject: Re: interesting quote about stalinism from the gulag archiplageo | |
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