Have you ever had the experience of waiting to have a question answered? But you didn't realize you had the question until suddenly, one day...the answer is there. Then you realized you'd had that question all along. This has been my experience while reading Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich. My question is this, "What were the opinions and stories of the people of Russia during the time frame of my own life?" I have heard so much about them from news and politicians (theirs and ours). And I studied Western Civilization last summer where I learned about the high points...(and low points) of their history. But how did the people feel about all of this?
I had long suspected that there was more to the story than I was hearing. And I have a personal twist to this story that gave me a perspective that perhaps has not been considered by most outside of Russia. I grew up a stick Mormon until I left the religion in my mid thirties. During my growing up years, I would be plagued by questions such as, "Why don't you believe in God?", "How many wives does your father have?", "Where are your horns?" I'm quite sure I was not eloquent in my response, if I responded at all. I tended to me afraid and confused by these irrelevant questions. But now, with a Mormon presidential candidate in recent years, and with generally more awareness of Mormonism, and because I don't hang with Mormons much these days, I don't have to explain these things any more.
There was one doctoral teaching I remember that was not irrelevant to Mormons. I grew up with the clear understanding that God expected us to live what is call the, "United Order". I was taught that this Divine revolution had been brought to the earth (in the 1800s) to be lived by it's faithful and obedient people. What happened next seemed like an embarrassment to me, though no one I knew ever couched it in those particular words. The early Mormon people were not able to handle it and so the "Divine principle" was taken away. But with the clear understanding that God would bring it back when the people had evolved to a state where they could live by that principle.
So, what is the United Order? Basically, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) would give all they had to the Bishop (leader of the local congregation) who would then distribute it to all the members in a fair and equal way. Sound familiar? It did to me. I was young, but throughout the Cold War I would hear time and time about the horrors of Soviet communism. In my youth, I would think (but not dare ask out loud), what's the difference between communism and the United Order? We Mormons were no longer living it because we weren't mature enough and ready for it, but at least the Russians were giving it a go. What was I missing?
Back in the day I spent a good amount of time contemplating actually living communism/United Order. More than most non Mormon Americans, I would guess. What would it be like? I thought it was a wonderful idea to have no one left out of the community or going hungry. But I also knew stories from the early Mormon days of incidents of less-than-altruistic humans making a muck of it all. As I got older and learned more about Russian communism, I still felt unsatisfied because I didn't know how the people felt about it. After all, it was supposed to be for the people and to help the people. I'm grateful for this book of multilayered, complex stories that give me a peek into what their lives were like. And perhaps, something of how my own life would had been like had I been born into my Mormon community 100+ years earlier.
