By Deena Sherman –
My mother and I don’t always agree. In fact, we sometimes vehemently disagree, especially about politics. When I mentioned to her that her grandchildren are thrilled that Bernie Sanders is running for president again, there was a long pause.
She finally broke the silence with: “You know he’s a communist, right?”
“He’s socialist, Mom,” I said.
“Same thing,” she said. So we argued about the difference between socialism and communism and didn’t speak again for a week, or so. Then it occurred to me that her fears and concerns were based on a generation of experience that I didn’t have. She visited East Germany in 1985 with her best friend, Marga, who had escaped from that country in the 1960s. She visited again when the wall came down. She had experienced things that I didn’t. So I called her back.
“Hey, Mom, I’d like to hear about your experience with the DDR,” I began. Though DDR now stands for many things, decades ago everyone understood it to be the Deutsche Demokratische Republic, the name for East Germany when the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was in charge after the second world war.
“Socialism doesn’t work,” she said. This time I just shut up and listened. She told the story of getting Marga’s mother, who still lived in East Germany, a new stove. “Sure, things were free, but people stood in lines for 12 hours and had to fill out reams of forms. When they finally agreed to give her the new stove, they handed us stove pipes to take home with us. We were going to dinner at a restaurant on our way home and had to check them similar to a coat. The restaurant management wasn’t happy.”
The stove Marga’s mom received in 1985 was something out of the 1940s. It burned wood and did not hook up to any gas or electric power source. They never did come and fix this elderly woman’s toilet. They just kept saying, “You’re on the list.” Mom explained how the residents had no choices about their work or their pay and had to wait for everything they needed. “The poor had no recourse,” she said. “So I hate socialism and I’m too old to change my mind now.”
In that moment, I realized there is a whole generation that sees socialism and communism as one monolithic evil, and it’s the generation that votes most prolifically. My generation and my children’s generation don’t have a prayer of convincing them that Bernie Sanders is a great guy. Donald Trump, a member of that generation, knows it. Their experience is not with the socialism we see in Scandanavian countries, the Netherlands, or present day Germany. It more closely resembles the socialism of Venezuela or Brazil.
Socialism to some individuals simply means collective ownership of wealth and production. Beyond that there is always a form of government attached. In places such as Sweden, Denmark, Finland, that are actually democracies, where people vote in free and fair elections. The problem with socialism in a place such as Venezuela is that it is linked to an authoritarian government.
In the case of communism, the trouble is similar. There is a single party, which administers the government according to Marxist/Leninist principles. There are no real choices, so elections are impotent to bring change or reform. Unfortunately human nature breeds corruption and greed, so no matter what is said about a classless society, there are still party officials who enjoy extravagance, while the majority of the population has little. Communist countries include the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).
My mother is right that the label doesn’t matter if the system creates a chasm between rich and poor, with no hope of change. But how do we deal with words such as socialist, democratic, or republic, when they mean different things to different individuals? The sad thing is, we talk past each other when we want the same things! We all want choices, free elections, basic fairness, and a shot at the American Dream if we work hard. Now we must find a way to speak the same language so we can reach together toward that vision.