Introduction
How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed is a book written by Salvenka Drakulic. She is a famous journalist from Croatia and a non-fictional writer. In her book, she writes about her encounters under communism and the experience of other women from Eastern Europe who lived under communism.
Writing this book had a lot of repercussions to her life since she went through difficult times once the book was published. Eastern Europe, at that time was under the Soviets administration that practised communism (Drakulic 100). Tito also practiced political leadership in Eastern Europe for several decades and was a dictator all along.
This form of leadership spelled doom for the Eastern Europeans as they lost hope of ever having a normal life where their rights and privileges were respected. In her book, Drakulic brings out a theme that depicts communism to be more than just a political activity but also as mindset of the people. Kapuscinski also wrote another book that focused on communism during the same period. His book was titled Imperium. It focused on the suffering that the people of the former Soviet Union went through (Kapuscinski 56).
The trivial is political
In the book How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, Drakulic recounts the suffering that she and other Jewish women from Europe and former Soviet Union, went through. She shows her anger and rage through the way she expresses herself. The manner in which Drakulic expresses her views in the book demonstrates the tension that came about from the actual form of leadership and the economic imbalances the eastern and western societies and the women in it had (Cohen and Arato 34).
An example of the imbalance is seen in publishing. In the west, publishing brings greater recognition and economic returns than in the east. It is also shown that many women from the west could access the industry and publish their works but only few from the east manage that.
Since the east was included as part of the west, the power hierarchies and the person’s self-esteem were greatly lowered. Even those who deserved respect, such as Drakulic, had to conform to the system that functions a lot differently. The mode of dressing of the women from the west and their cosmetics were used to judge the women from the east (Nanette and Mueller 22).
Slavenkia narrates on her first-hand experience under the cruel communist regime. The uniqueness in her book can be seen in her role as a feminist. Her attitudes and perceptions are derived from the abject poverty and the social constraints that were experienced in Yugoslavia.
The issue she brings out about the foreign doll shows how it was difficult or even impossible for the women to obtain some of the items desired for their beauty. The women were greatly disadvantaged and they lacked many necessities. As a result, they were overlooked or taken advantage of by the women who were from the west.
Drakulic also brought about the issue of conservation as a way to ensure their survival. She explains of the way the leaders of that time gathered enough words during campaigns about a bright future while the people worked hard to gather foodstuffs and basic house equipment such as cutlery (Drakulic 75). In this way, the author shows how the leaders of the communist regime had misappropriated their priorities.
While people were working so hard just to get the basic needs such as food, shelter and education, the leaders were plotting some selfish plans. As a result, the people lacked the opportunity and means to gain status that would substitute their hard work. This made them appear like prisoners in their own country. Drakulic believed that this situation is worse for the women as they underwent greater suffering under the regime.
This book outlines some of the facts about what went on after the Cold War. It is a unique publication because the subject that is covered by the book has not been critically analyzed by many documentations. The author who comes out as a feminist is aware of the pain and suffering of women.
She clearly brings out the role of women in a form of governance that does not support gender equality. It was, however, unfortunate that there was no woman in the Soviet Union that appeared to have a significant position or power. All the powerful leaders were men; the likes of Tito, Stalin and Honecker who during their regime denied basic human rights to their subjects, especially the rights and privileges of women.
When they requested for the right to privacy, the leaders took it as a move of women to hide some things from them. to them, this was dangerous and could pose a lot of danger to their administration. As a result, they were not allowed to keep things secret hence this right was automatically denied. It was forbidden and was against the state laws. Since it was forbidden, anyone who tried to practice this was considered a natural enemy of the state.
Since privacy was now an offence, Drakulic had no doubt that their phone calls were being tapped and monitored regularly. She was disgusted by the fact that if someone wanted to be a significant figure in that country, he or she had to suffer the humiliation and invasion of their privacy.
The author clearly describes the negative influence that the politics and laws of the communist regime had on the families, the products and services of the state. She also explains the psychological damages that came about living in abject poverty. She does not understand why someone had to live in such conditions to the point of using newspapers as tissue paper and going for long periods without food.
The irony to this is that food grew on their lands but they did not have access to them. The author also mentions something to do with mopping the floor using men’s trousers tied to a broom. All these, according to the author, were the reason why the wall of Berlin crumbled down.
In the third chapter of the book, the author also demonstrates some of the practices of the government that limited them and provided them with no rights to choose what they wanted or desired. In the communist society, certain products such as clothing and other pleasantries that the women needed were chosen for them since one could only take what the government offered. There was no way to avoid this since there were various shortages.
This chapter shows that gender cannot be reconstructed through abolishing only one class. The author talks of her friends who say that some of the images in the magazines made them look miserable. The aesthetics and the beauty products that were available for the women from other states such as the United States only appeared in their dreams.
Towards the end of the chapter, the author describes how she was able to survive communism after considering every option and concentrating all her efforts to reach this end.
She mentions about the way she recycled everything she had ever used. The author regrets even including in the title of the book that they laughed after surviving communism since even after the communist regime, there was no much change when it came to commodities. She realizes that some of the commodities were still scarce as compared to their western counterparts (Drakulic 170).
The book by Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium, supports Drakulic’s point of view since he also travelled around the world and visited such places as the former Soviet Union. He was documenting some of the conflicts that raged in the country. He describes the human suffering of the people under the rule of the former Soviet Union (Kapuscinski 97). In his book, Ryszard Kapuscinski gets in to the issues of geopolitics and writes in a way that is easily understood.
Conclusion
These two books talk of similar experiences in terms of the suffering that the people endured in the former Soviet Union and fought to the end. In Drakulic`s book, women are discriminated upon and denied of their basic rights while in Kapuscinski`s book, there are cases of suffering to death. In both cases, the suffering ends eventually.
Works Cited
Cohen, Jean, and Andrew Arato. Civil Society and Political theory. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT press, 1992. Print.
Drakulic, Slavenka. A letter from the United States: The Critical Theory Approach. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Print.
Drakulic, Slavenka. We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991. Print.
Kapuscinski, Ryszard. Imperium. California: University of California press, 1947. Print.
Nanette, Funk, and Magna Mueller. Gender Politics and Post-communism: Reflections from Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.