Ed Weick wrote:
> Many writers have refered to the Soviet system as "state capitalism".
A fellow blacksmith who lived near Prague said to me (in 1980),
Es gibt kein Communismus! Es gibt nur Staat Capitalismus.
There is no communism! There's only state capitalism.
With regard to "who was screwing whom", he also recounted his
experience just after the war. As a young teenager, he watched the
Red Army direct the loading of trucks with every piece of industrial
machinerey and materiel that could be found and ship it off to Russia.
He was exceptionally fortunate to have a power hammer in his shop
(commonplace among N American and western European smiths) because it
had fallen from a truck headed for Moscow, broken a casting and been
pushed into a ditch. A Czech smith had found a way to lug it home
and, more remarkably given the conditions, repair it.
Perhaps the notion of the SU having been the net exploiter is/was
tilted by recollections of immediate post-war events.
- Mike
