Julia Hawkins: My Life in the USSR
How did the reality of socialism compare with the image painted by western media during the cold war?
In this invaluable presentation to the Stalin Society, Julia Hawkins gives a moving account of her family and her life growing up in the Soviet Union.
“The media portrays Soviet life as dull, grey and oppressive. Nothing could be further from the truth,” she says. “We had rich, secure, cultured and meaningful lives. As workers, we felt we owned not just our places of work, but the whole country, which was set up from top to bottom to serve our interests.”
“I didn’t become political until I came to this country, and I didn’t realise what we had until we lost it. That is the tragedy. I realise now that it was because our nation was being dismantled from the inside, by the Khrushchevite revisionists and their successors.”
“I recommend that everyone should read Harpal Brar’s book Perestroika, the Complete Collapse of Revisionism.”
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This recording was made ten years ago with very basic equipment, so the video quality is not up to modern standards. We have attempted to improve the audio in order to make this valuable information more easily accessible.
