Yeah I just vaguely remember a convo you had explaining all this before to someone else and it struck me then...because yours is not all that common view among Pakistanis I have interacted with mostly.
Trust me, I too have much admiration for some of the higher loftier goals that communism set out to do....but as you have doubtless seen yourself, there are real issues that get in the way that communism just treats too simply (by sweeping authoritarianism on it...like you mention with over-suppression of religion/elder culture)....mostly because it assumes complete human uniformity is to be desired (past mere equal opportunity which I am in favour of as gold standard).
I dabbled with socialist thought (only later would I realise thats what it fit more into for certain concepts and ideals I held esp for new independent countries etc) too when I was much younger too....even though my dad is avowed anti-socialist...he always said, son, you also have to listen to their side as they present it and think things through and gather the evidence and debate etc....I much admire his open frankness and attitude for political debate.
Thanks for your post. You are right about the past and future....though I do truly love a lot of the great stuff USSR brought to us in the musical realm. Such passion and such memorable tunes.
May I ask, when you say you lived in Russia, do you mean during the post-soviet era in the 90s etc? That must have been quite an interesting experience, I suppose you are fluent in Russian?
