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All postwar events in the USSR – the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’ [22], the Doctors’ Plot [23] – went past me. Yes, there were some terrible publications in newspapers, but living in our small village, we didn’t feel like getting into details. It seemed to be happening so far away – in Kiev, Moscow, while we were having a quiet life. We were sure there were no cosmopolitans in Chernevtsy. People had trust in the only doctor in Chernevtsy – a local Jewish man, who was born and grew up in the town.
I remember the day of 5th March 1953, when the radio announced that Stalin had died. I was at work. Everybody was crying, there was not one person without tears in their eyes. It was scary. We were used that everything happening in the USSR was connected to Stalin’s name and we couldn’t imagine living without him. This was the only subject of discussions.
When Khrushchev [24] at the Twentieth Party Congress [25] denounced the cult of Stalin and spoke about the terrible things that Stalin and his associates had done, I believed it, but not to the end.
I never joined the Komsomol [26] or the Party. I believed in the ideas of communism and the Communist Party before the Twentieth Party Congress, but then it was all over. After the disappointment that the Twentieth Party Congress brought me I gave up any interest in politics. I don’t care about it now either.
We common people know nothing but what we are told, and we do not decide anything. We cannot change anything in the life of the country. So why think about it?
I had the same attitude towards perestroika [27] that Mikhail Gorbachev [28] initiated in the late 1980s. They always promised us a lot, but nothing ever came out of these promises. Each leader of the country promised a better life, but nothing changed, only got worse.
I remember the day of 5th March 1953, when the radio announced that Stalin had died. I was at work. Everybody was crying, there was not one person without tears in their eyes. It was scary. We were used that everything happening in the USSR was connected to Stalin’s name and we couldn’t imagine living without him. This was the only subject of discussions.
When Khrushchev [24] at the Twentieth Party Congress [25] denounced the cult of Stalin and spoke about the terrible things that Stalin and his associates had done, I believed it, but not to the end.
I never joined the Komsomol [26] or the Party. I believed in the ideas of communism and the Communist Party before the Twentieth Party Congress, but then it was all over. After the disappointment that the Twentieth Party Congress brought me I gave up any interest in politics. I don’t care about it now either.
We common people know nothing but what we are told, and we do not decide anything. We cannot change anything in the life of the country. So why think about it?
I had the same attitude towards perestroika [27] that Mikhail Gorbachev [28] initiated in the late 1980s. They always promised us a lot, but nothing ever came out of these promises. Each leader of the country promised a better life, but nothing changed, only got worse.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Frida Shatkhina