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I finished The Red Scarf yesterday, and meant to post about idealism sliding to cynicism, and then I went on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sf_drama and was completely derailed.
The Red Scarf is written by Kate Furnivall and centers around two young women who are in a Siberia labour camp--Anna and Sofia (I am not even going to try to pronounce the last names in this book. I give up.) What was really interesting to me, though, is the shift in ideology that Mikhail Pashin experiences. [And also seeing a book that doesn't just automatically scream COMMUNISM IS BAD without justification.]
I think that the people who tried to institute communism--the ideological embodiment of it, anyway--really, genuinely wanted to make their world a better place. As far as people in the Western hemisphere can see it, though, it's failed miserably. And I think the slow realization that perhaps those shining ideals that were so worshipped in the past aren't as perfect is fascinating. How do you deal with that kind of shake-up? What do you do when the solid ground of your beliefs crumbles right out of existence?
Mikhail and Vasily were both strong supporters of communism, right before the revolution; Mikhail born of a lower class, Vasily very much of the aristocracy. It's interesting to see, though, that SPOILERS AHEAD ( Spoiler )
sf_drama and was completely derailed.The Red Scarf is written by Kate Furnivall and centers around two young women who are in a Siberia labour camp--Anna and Sofia (I am not even going to try to pronounce the last names in this book. I give up.) What was really interesting to me, though, is the shift in ideology that Mikhail Pashin experiences. [And also seeing a book that doesn't just automatically scream COMMUNISM IS BAD without justification.]
I think that the people who tried to institute communism--the ideological embodiment of it, anyway--really, genuinely wanted to make their world a better place. As far as people in the Western hemisphere can see it, though, it's failed miserably. And I think the slow realization that perhaps those shining ideals that were so worshipped in the past aren't as perfect is fascinating. How do you deal with that kind of shake-up? What do you do when the solid ground of your beliefs crumbles right out of existence?
Mikhail and Vasily were both strong supporters of communism, right before the revolution; Mikhail born of a lower class, Vasily very much of the aristocracy. It's interesting to see, though, that SPOILERS AHEAD ( Spoiler )
