Word: schecters
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Russian school children wear red scarves to signify their membership in the Young Pioneers, a group which is the first step on the road to becoming a Party member. "All Russian kids were Pioneers," he recalls. "It was a disgrace to have your scarf taken away when you misbehaved." Schecter, who was unable to wear the symbolic scarlet scarf as an American, said that this did not alienate him from his friends...
...most heated controversy that Schecter had took place over his handling of a book about Lenin. In a class one time, he placed the book on the floor, and an acquaintance warned him to pick it up, because "that book is about our great leader, Lenin." Schecter refused, and the two practically came to blows. "How can you take something like that so seriously? You're just programmed like everyone else into thinking that Lenin and communism are the most important things in the world. Why don't you wake up?" he screamed at his adversary...
...belief in communism that keeps the Soviet Union going, Schecter says. "There are Soviets believe in communism very sincerely. have here," he observes, adding that most Soviets believe in communism very sincerely. As proof, he cites the anecdote about a Soviet child who tries to cross a busy Moscow street in the wrong place. A truck driver grinds his cab to a halt in the middle of the road, and chastises the child for blocking the progress of communism...
...Schecter, who has just turned 19, and who finished high school in Washington D.C., mentions that his stay in Russia had a definite effect upon his political beliefs. "For me, in an almost subconscious sense, it affected my ideas about politics, what it means, and who people really are," he states earnestly, running his fingers through hair that has become curly since his Moscow days. "Experiencing individuals who had totally opposite policial beliefs gave me the impression that politics are totally arbitrary. In other words, there are more fundamental things to people than these political orientations...
...Schecter eventually grew disillusioned with the Soviet system as he saw it. "Under their system, life is very uniform and almost unexciting. There are no incentives to be creative, to do new things, to do any better than you are doing. If you overfulfill your norm, they'll just give you a bigger norm the next time. It's that kind of mentality you develop." Schecter emphasizes that if confronted with a choice, he would "definitely" prefer to live under the American system because of the freedom it allows...