Word: communal
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...Last year many British workers got a two-or three-week Christmas holiday amid the now-forgotten "phony war." Meanwhile, life in the big London air-raid shelters, where over 1,000,000 people regularly spend the night, had become so standardized that many shelter Christmas parties were elaborate communal affairs with mass harmony singing, skits and dancing. Christmas trees sold regularly at 40? per foot and every big shelter had one, that under Piccadilly Circus sprouting a neon sign "HAPPY CHRISTMAS." In most shelters a costumed Santa made his rounds with small gifts, but festoons and tinsel...
...Roosevelt, granting that democracy and free enterprise are inseparable, had nevertheless believed (as the London Economist said) that "it is far more important at this stage of history to prove that democracy and communal enterprise are compatible." He foresaw ahead of the U. S. a period wherein civilian needs must come second (already Defense Commissioner Knudsen had warned auto makers they might have no new machine tools in 1941); a period when labor must be mobilized, when plant capacity and raw materials must be rationed according to national needs...
Tolstoy. His letters to Caucasia decreed vegetarianism, communal property, no alcohol, no tobacco, no soldiering, no sexual intercourse. These decrees made the Dukhobors more fanatical than ever. The Cossacks tried harder to lash them into submission. Over this persecution Tolstoy, Quakers, Christian Socialists, idealists everywhere seethed, then arranged a Dukhobor migration to the untilled Canadian prairies...
...Peter Verigin rejoined his followers in Canada. Together Verigin and the Dukhobors conspired to preserve their ignorance, secrecy, gregariousness, in time achieved a mild communal prosperity in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. When Verigin was killed in an explosion in 1924, surly Dukhobors whispered that "the Government" had plotted his death. They set fire or blew up scores of schools, and 600 Dukhobors were imprisoned for refusing to send their children to school. More clothes were shed. The Dominion thought of putting the unassimilable Russians on a reservation, like an Indian tribe. The leadership succeeded upon Peter's son, Peter...
Gradually some headway was made. Communal radios were installed by the Government in many towns. When it became apparent that the natives never knew exactly what time it was, automatic timers were attached. The receivers were locked away in closed rooms safe from curious hands. The number of licensed sets climbed slowly to 100,000 (untaxed, pirate sets kept pace with them); the number of broadcasting stations increased to nine. Then came...