Surviving Communism: seven people who lived under it sat down with Jenny Beth Martin in Atlanta, from China, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Romania and Nicaragua. Between them, more than a hundred years of life under communist rule, and two come from countries where communism is still in power today. In this first part of the panel, each survivor starts with the childhood moment they realized their parents were not in charge of their own home: a nine-year-old sent to pick peppers because her family was declared counter-revolutionary, a child laborer who learned that cars existed from leaflets dropped by Taiwanese balloons. Then daily life: a Chinese ration card of 25 pounds of rice, 0.6 pounds of meat and four pieces of tofu per adult per month; a Romanian grocery run that started before dawn and ended with empty shelves; free socialized medicine that meant bribing the doctor, the secretary and the nurse, and bringing your own soap. A Soviet dissident explains why mature communism no longer needs daily terror, and why equity means redistribution. A Romanian survivor closes with the classroom experiment that shows what happens when every student gets the class average. Guests: Sasha Gong, former China director at Voice of America; Dr. Yuri Yarim-Agaev, Soviet physicist exiled in 1980; Agnes Gibboney, whose parents fled Hungary in 1956; Oviedo Frasina and Manuela Colini, from Romania; Captain Onofre Gutierrez, from Nicaragua; and Janice Trey, chairman of the board of The Epoch Times. Learn more at teapartypatriots.org and jennybethshow.com.
Guests:
Sasha Gong is a former China director at Voice of America, a Harvard PhD and a writer for American Greatness. Sent to the countryside at nine when her family was declared counter-revolutionary, she worked in a factory at 16, joined an underground group at 17 and spent her 20th birthday in a Chinese jail; she was released after Mao's death and went on to university.
Dr. Yuri Yarim-Agaev is a Soviet physicist and dissident, the son of two professors of science, who grew up in Moscow in the third generation born under communism. In 1980 the Soviet government exiled him and other scientist dissidents rather than arrest them, after Western scientists boycotted cooperation with Moscow over the arrest of Andrei Sakharov.
Agnes Gibboney was two years old when her parents escaped Hungary in December 1956 and lost everything they had. Barred from the United States because her father was born in Yugoslavia, the family grew up in Brazil and legally immigrated to America in 1970; her first visit back to Hungary, in 1977, was on a passport that read stateless.
Oviedo Frasina was born in Bucharest, Romania, and grew up under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. At 20 he was taken to a police station and beaten for keeping in touch with a girlfriend who had defected to the United States, and was labeled a traitor at his university for it.
Manuela Colini lived her first four years under Romanian communism, until the fall of Ceausescu, and remembers the grocery lines she stood in with her father and sisters.
Captain Onofre Gutierrez was born in Managua, Nicaragua. He watched humanitarian aid stolen after the 1972 earthquake and the Sandinistas take power in 1979, by which time his family was in Washington, D.C.
Janice Trey is chairman of the board of The Epoch Times. Born during China's Cultural Revolution to parents who were sent to a forced labor camp for being engineers, she was a child laborer from the first grade.
Key topics:
• The first memory: the moment each survivor realized the government, not the family, ran the house
• Exiled, not arrested: how a Western scientists' boycott over Andrei Sakharov got Yuri Yarim-Agaev out of the Soviet Union
• Hungary 1956: a two-year-old carried across the border, a stateless passport, and a first visit home at 23
• Romania under Ceausescu: four hours in line for bread, and the police at 20
• A grocery run before dawn, and the shelves ran out before the front of the line
• Nicaragua: stolen earthquake aid, 42 years of Somoza, then the Sandinistas, and the pattern Captain Gutierrez says he sees in America
• Child labor in the Cultural Revolution, and the leaflets from Taiwanese balloons that told a girl cars existed
• What else was scarce: a 20th birthday in jail, colleges closed for twelve years, and opportunity itself
• Afraid of your own siblings: informers, and a baptism the parents could not attend
• Mature communism: a grandfather shot, a grandmother seventeen years in Stalin's camps, and a people who censor themselves
• The ration card: 25 pounds of rice, 0.6 pounds of meat and four pieces of tofu per adult per month
• Why a government that controls the food controls the people
• Free socialized medicine: bribe the doctor, the secretary and the nurse, and bring your own soap
• Two kinds of human rights, and why equity means redistribution
• The black market as the engine of late communism, and Adam Smith on who makes a nation poor
• The professor's grading experiment: what happens when every student gets an 80
Timestamps:
00:00 — Cold open: seven survivors, five countries, one warning
00:35 — Meet the panel: China, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Romania, Nicaragua
01:38 — The first memory: when the government, not the family, ran the house
02:03 — Sasha Gong: no childhood, and picking peppers at nine
02:26 — Yuri Yarim-Agaev: a happy childhood in Khrushchev's Thaw
03:33 — Exiled, not arrested: the Western scientists' boycott over Andrei Sakharov
04:48 — Agnes Gibboney: two years old when her parents escaped Hungary; a stateless passport
06:34 — Oviedo Frasina: Bucharest under Ceausescu, and the police at 20
08:55 — Manuela Colini: a grocery run before dawn, and the shelves ran out
10:51 — Captain Onofre Gutierrez: stolen earthquake aid, 42 years of Somoza, then the Sandinistas
12:32 — Janice Trey: child labor in the Cultural Revolution, and leaflets from Taiwanese balloons
13:35 — What else was scarce: a 20th birthday in jail, colleges closed for twelve years
15:15 — Afraid of your own siblings: informers, and a baptism the parents could not attend
17:14 — Mature communism: a grandfather shot, a grandmother seventeen years in Stalin's camps
18:41 — People who censor themselves: the new Soviet individual
21:15 — A grandmother takes a boy to the Soviet food line
22:20 — The Chinese ration card: 25 pounds of rice, 0.6 pounds of meat, four pieces of tofu
23:23 — Famine under communism, and no meat outside Moscow
24:35 — Romania could have fed Europe: a cat, a dog, and who controls the food
25:08 — Free socialized medicine: $100 in the doctor's pocket
27:05 — Appendicitis: bribe the secretary, then the nurse
28:59 — No soap, no paper towel, fighting over toothpaste
29:46 — Twelve patients to a room; why bribery counts as progress
30:34 — Hungary: pay for the car now, get it in five years; bring your own forks to the hospital
31:14 — Socialized medicine is the worst thing
31:35 — Two kinds of human rights: civil rights versus socioeconomic rights
33:13 — Equality becomes equity, and equity means redistribution
34:14 — The black market as the engine of late communism
35:03 — Adam Smith: the private sector never makes a nation poor
35:22 — To redistribute wealth, first you have to have wealth
36:05 — The professor's grading experiment
36:53 — Everybody gets an 80
37:34 — The second exam, and Romania for twenty years
38:12 — Take Bezos's money, then whose?
38:52 — Closing: the first part of the panel, and what comes next
39:27 — Share this episode, vote for liberty, iwillsaveamerica.com
39:58 — Like and subscribe
Links mentioned:
jennybethshow.com
teapartypatriots.org
iwillsaveamerica.com