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I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the true horrible reality of Communist Russia.
The average married worker had to make do with less than half as much bread and flour and less than two-thirds as much sugar as his counterpart in St Petersburg in the early 20th century. People were short of fat, milk and fruit. Meat and fish consumption in the 1930s was five times less than at the turn of the 20th century. Well, the Russians were better off under the Tsar than under Stalin.
In Penza, thousands of villagers who have travelled 200 kilometres to buy bread sleep outside shops. 'We queue for bread from midnight, and even if you are starving, they give you a kilo loaf at most,' wrote a woman from a collective farm in Yaroslavl to her husband. Yes, in the supposed workers' paradise of the USSR, there were queues for hours for this basic foodstuff, and it was not even certain that people would get it. They often ended up starving and dying. And, of course, other goods were not available either, such as milk, butter, vegetables, not to mention meat. Even fish in areas with developed fishing couldn't be bought, because somehow they weren't. Even such common things as salt, soap and matches were missing from the shops. In the early 1930s, even vodka was impossible to find. Clothes, shoes and other consumer goods were also hard to find. In the factory canteens, workers queued not only for food, but also for cutlery, because there was a critical shortage of that too.
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Venezuela’s planned vote over territory dispute leaves Guyana residents on edge
SURAMA, Guyana (AP) — Congregants of an Anglican church in a sparsely populated rainforest village in Guyana gathered recently to bid on a bounty of bananas, squash and other produce during a community event. They sang hymns and rang a bell after each successful bid.
They offered grateful devotions typical of a harvest festival but also asked for peace for their community amid what they see as an existential threat. Their village, Surama, is part of Guyana’s Essequibo region — a territory larger than Greece and rich in oil and minerals that Venezuela claims as its own and whose future it intends to decide Sunday with a referendum. The practical and legal implications of the vote, which among other things calls for turning Essequibo into a Venezuelan state, remain unclear, but the referendum has left area residents on edge.
“We are praying, we are hoping and we are having faith that nothing negative will come,” said Loreen Allicock, who led the congregation during the harvest festival. “We want to continue living a peaceful life in this beautiful land of ours.”
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Pharmaceutical firm Pfizer sued Poland this month over its refusal to pay for vaccines the Polish government bought under a contract between the European Commission (EC) and Pfizer for 1.1 billion doses for member states.
The exact wording of the contract, including the price of the vaccines, is officially secret, but according to the Financial Times, the value of a single dose is said to be around €19.5. Given that Poland has not taken delivery of 60 million vaccines, the total amount recovered can be expected to be around €1.2 billion. The contract with Pfizer was signed by the EC in April 2021, with the support of EU member states. They have committed to buy 650 million doses from Pfizer in 2022 and 450 million doses in 2023. However, demand for vaccines has fallen sharply over the past year.
Central and Eastern European countries, except the Czech Republic, have asked the EC to amend the contract
In 2022, CEE governments began to argue that they had a large stock of vaccines. And if they buy more, they say they will have to destroy millions of doses as the guarantee expires. This has led to the shredding of millions of vaccines in this country too. According to our investigation, vaccines worth a total of CZK 11.6 billion have been purchased in the country. The largest share of these were vaccines from Pfizer. A large proportion of these vaccines were disposed of. More than 7 million doses, worth more than CZK 3.5 billion, had to be destroyed at taxpayers' expense. In the summer of 2022, a coalition of 10 countries (Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) asked the EC to negotiate a contract modification with Pfizer. According to these countries, it was, among other things, "a waste of public funds that cannot be reasonably explained to the public". Contractual changes were agreed between the EC and Pfizer and the revised contract from May this year will allow countries to buy fewer vaccines but at a higher price per unit. Except for Poland, all nine countries have signed the revised contract.
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While I was being cleaned up in the psychiatric hospital that protected me from being arrested again, the Supreme Court met and rightly ruled as follows: "The judgment of the District Court for Prague 1 of July 3, 1962 is annulled for violation of the law, since the sentence that the President of the Republic, Antonín Novotný, is an ox cannot be considered a cultural activity."
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I found the book while sorting through my ever-growing library, as if it had been waiting for me. I read it again. It is so well written that you can read it "in one breath". Vladimir Škutina's style just won't let you go until you finish it. I met him only once, in Zurich on 8.7.1989 at a discussion with Pavel Kantorek, which he moderated (I recommend the audio recording of the discussion!). JŠ
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Page 70: Then I experienced another case in my neighbourhood. A mathematics professor who was spending his fourteenth year in prison. He was withdrawn, made friends with no one, and patiently carried out all orders, even those that were absolutely nonsensical. Once I was sitting next to him while stringing coral and the professor confessed to me that I looked an awful lot like his son. I knew that the professor didn't receive any letters and didn't write any letters. He was arrested for espionage and treason. He had served as an airman in the RAF in England during the war and was arrested just after the Forty-eighth and had not yet had his trial in 1962. Much later I learned that his son had been shot trying to cross the border illegally, his wife died of cancer in 1949 and his daughter committed suicide.
The professor was terrified of amnesty. He dreaded the thought of leaving the prison gates and returning to the people. He was afraid that he would have to go to the places where he had lived and from where he had been dragged away for no reason. He knew he would never be able to return to his mathematics...
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From the book ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER - Attempts to publish this book in the Czech Republic lasted fifteen years. It was published by the Institute for Political and Economic Culture with the support of the VIA Foundation under the "CEE TRUST - Strengthening the Nonprofit Sector" program and the Embassy of the United States of America in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately, we still lack the real elite that we have liquidated ourselves, and therefore the necessary strength to implement the ideas below. A job for generations with an uncertain end. JŠ
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I don't believe in own Czech way
I do not believe that the prevailing atmosphere of skepticism and small-mindedness needs to be overcome by patriotic pride. Indeed, there is nothing worse than false pride and the idea that a positive attitude towards the place and community in which we live is incompatible with a critical attitude towards oneself and one's fellow countrymen. False patriotism brings xenophobia, provincial self-centeredness and isolation from the outside world.
In other words, I belong to those unpatriotic people who believe that the main task of the Czech intelligentsia is not to seek its own Czech way, not to discover the discovered, but to humbly seek solutions that exist in developed societies. For I dare to distinguish between higher and lower civilizations, more advanced and more backward societies.
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I enclose a text by Jiří Krupička from Hana Lamkova's book SEARCHING FOR HOME - about a troubled century (pp. 258-275).
I quote: "In fact, almost in parallel with the increase in material standards, rich countries are experiencing an increase in mental illness, deviance and drug abuse. If the vision of a prosperous, socially just world for all people, with maximum leisure time for everyone, is realized, then only then will the question leap out in full force: What will people do in this paradise, what will they fill their free time with? No serious attempt has yet been made to answer this very fundamental question. The human mind needs nourishment and activity just as much as the body. The rich societies of today's world provide an appalling amount of bad, spoiled, or downright poisoned food, especially in their entertainment industry. The more the mind becomes idle, the more attractive, under the pressure of emptiness, bad and corrupt mental food becomes to people with an excess of leisure." - "How is it possible that such a rotten society rules the world? So ask many Muslims, scholars and ordinary people. But in their search for an answer to this question, they regularly forget a point whose omission colours their judgement in an entirely one-sided way. They do not ask, or dare not ask: how would our society fare if we criticized it as mercilessly as the West criticizes itself? If we began to pick out the worst features of our life and our culture and draw honest conclusions?"End quotes.
Unmanaged affluence, without respect for the laws of nature, always leads to tragedies, to a return to the beginning and to sanity. It will either be returned to the people, or mercilessly reminded by nature and her immutable laws. We are still just stating the wrong, unable to understand the real causes and prevent them in time. No wonder people are increasingly fond of animals - they know when they have had enough. Tomas Bata showed us a meaningful way. Shall we follow it, or shall we end up in the jungle as eternally unteachable creatures? We must each start with ourselves. JŠ
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Jiří Gruntorád is 71 years old, John Bok is 78 years old, Pavel Kohout is 95 years old and JUDr.Milan Hulík is 77 years old. This is how Pavel Kohout supported Jiří Gruntorád in writing and then in a telephone conversation. Both hunger strikers were also supported by Milan Hulík, whom I visited, on an audio recording. After the coup in November 1989, he interrupted his work in the legal profession and became director of the Inspection Department in the newly established Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Democracy, later renamed the Security and Information Service (BIS). Jiří Gruntorád takes the sign with him so that he can keep it in sight and use it again if necessary...
Jiří Gruntorád ended his hunger strike only after the government resolution by which the government subscribed to the traditions of Charter 77 was revoked, without addressing or consenting to its representatives! By its conduct and actions, it has not been worthy of them so far. Once again it has been shown what different worlds politicians and citizens live in. If politicians communicate with citizens only during elections and through the media, they will necessarily lose contact with citizens, including common sense. Prime Minister Fiala and Minister Jurečka were completely out of touch with reality in their personal conversations. The only one who was able to negotiate factually was Interior Minister Rakušan (in the photo Jiří Gruntorád just before leaving for a meeting with Rakušan). He promised to do what he could and to find a solution soon. He fulfilled his promise. Both public broadcaster ČT and Seznam.cz were silent this morning about the end of the hunger strike, at least not on the front pages...
Always, one act of an individual is more than hundreds of articles - they only diminish and dilute the value of the act. Only those who are capable of such acts themselves will understand this. Jiří Gruntorád acted fully in the spirit of Article 23 of the Constitution of the Czech Republic, when the democratic establishment of the country is threatened and a person has the right to resist, or the duty to resist, if democratic values are valuable to him.
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Ing. Petr Walter, born 19.10.1961, currently head of the horticultural department of the Jihlava Zoo. StB Ostrava. "Mr. Walter was a good Aesthete, because he worked only in the Economic Intelligence of State Security..."
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Dear former colleagues,
I would like to thank you all very much for the wonderful ten years of cooperation during my tenure at the Jihlava Zoo and at the same time I would like to explain the circumstances and reasons for the termination of my tenure in this organization. But first let me express my gratitude for all the unforgettable and wonderful experiences I had with many of you while gathering material for your reports and articles. I am extremely glad that not only thanks to these experiences I was able to establish with you good working and, I am not afraid to say, in many cases friendly relations, which I continue to value very much. …
… And why am I writing this letter to you on November 17th? Because although I was born in 1987 and thus have little memory of totalitarianism, two of my great-uncles were sentenced to forced labour in Jáchymov, and thanks to my family history I deeply detest Nazi, Communist and any other ideology of unfreedom. Precisely because I hardly experienced communism, I would never have thought that 34 years after the revolution I would be fired for my views, for standing up for the weak and for the ideas of decency and common sense, and on the basis that the management would fully give in to the recommendations and advice of a person who not only plays a key role in decision-making on important matters within the Jihlava Zoo, but also plays a significant role in the external activities of the zoo, namely in terms of relations with authorities, politicians and sponsors. He is a man who was in the past an officially-led lieutenant of the State Security Service, and who came to the zoo as a reward for helping certain people in the selection process. After arriving at the zoo, this man, thanks to his enormous influence on the management, managed to introduce into the functioning of this organisation the aesthetic practices of treatment of employees to which he was accustomed from the past.
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Held in the "House at the Stone Bell" on Old Town Square (next to the Kinsky Palace). The children were amazing. I could not, unfortunately, stay until the end. On my way out, I took a few photos of the rally of Israelis under the windows in Old Town Square, commemorating the children's sacrifices in today's war. More photos in the PHOTO GALLERY.
I arrived 10 minutes earlier, unaware that in the same room there was a UNICEF event - life advice to high school students on how to cope with life. There were also Ukrainians in the public and the entrance was free. I reacted with only one sentence, when I recalled how Tomas Bata used the words "challenge" instead of "problem" (the lecturer appreciated). I could not stop wondering with what verbal aggressiveness the two young women organizers, who did not compare their behavior with the StB practices, immediately reacted. They insisted on leaving the room even though there were only 5 minutes left to go, despite my assurances that I was not going to interfere with the training any further. Not caring who I was, they refused my card. Provocatively, they stood right in front of me so I couldn't see anything - they were more polite from blind:-) They would need a course in basic manners themselves. Even the Ukrainians present among the public were surprised.
I used to regularly support UNICEF financially (I could still afford it). Both organizers were visibly "reprogrammed" by rules and regulations, which completely "turned off" their common sense, judgment and basic human decency. Nowadays, they are poised for a "successful" career... JŠ
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Prague 11. 11. 2023: Concert of the National Artist of Ukraine Pavel Dvorsky
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Today's young students: 'We have to decide between Karel Gotts and Karel Kryl' (from a discussion with students on ČRoPlus).
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TESTIMONIAL OF THE SAMET REVOLUTION - from Hana Lamkova's book SEARCHING FOR HOME. Who believed then that they would live to see the present state of society? By merely "jingling the keys" and not punishing the guilty, no evil has ever been eliminated, only strengthened. On the right, a photo from Rome (16.11.1989) – Swiss-Czech compatriots and meeting with the famous actress Sylva Lang, then living in London - incredible refinement, sophistication, a real lady. An excellent diagnosis of Jiri Krupicka's past and present times in the world, from the same book, follows. JŠ
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