I Am a Soviet Writer Now

“…this is all starting to remind me of the Soviet Union that I visited twice on cultural exchanges during the early glasnost (in the late ’80s). In fact, the America of today has for some time.

I remember visiting two apartment buildings that were named Screenwriter I and II. They housed favored writers, screenwriters or not, and were sought after because, I was told, they contained the best medical clinics in Moscow on the ground floor.

In the Soviet Union, decent medical care was only available to party officials and others—scientists and cultural workers—who played along.

Writers who didn’t had to find other access. The greatest writing of Soviet times was the clandestine samizdat (literally “self-publishing” in Russian), those who obviously had the courage to buck a vicious system—the Solzhenitsyns, the Mandelstams, and so forth. Financial remuneration, not to mention the best medical care, was not for them.

Of course, we are building our own more open-minded structures, some in publishing, others in film. They all have good intentions. But for the most part, we are only allowed to preach to the choir. We are kept off in a corner, segregated.

Somehow this must be overcome. We must be able to reach the masses because we are the masses, not them.

What is going on in our country today is a full-on attack on free speech under a duplicitous, fascistic facade of making sure the public is correctly informed, that there is no “misinformation” (the big lie word of our times).

So when I say I’m a Soviet writer now, I hope you know I mean those great writers who wrote samizdat in opposition to a totalitarian state. I have nowhere near their courage. I have nowhere near their depth. But I identify with them because my country is on the verge of being turned into theirs…”

Related:

Rumble says it’s under ‘unprecedented attack’ ahead of ‘2000 Mules’ launch

The left is scared to death that conservative messages may get out to the public unrestricted and uninterpreted.

Related:

“UNC Journalism School Downgraded to Provisional Accreditation in the Wake of DEI Concerns.”

Enforcement action against school in noncompliance with lefty diktats.