Communist Themes

Communist Themes

Slavenka Drakulic's "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" tells stories that contain many different aspects of life under a communist regime. It mainly focuses on the scenario from a woman's point of view, which in many cases was a lot worse. It goes into great depth of the kind of strangle hold the government had on the people and what the people had to do in order to survive. One interesting theme that should be touched upon is presented in Chapter Nine, entitled, "The Strange Ability of Apartments to Divide and Multiply." Drakulic recalls several stories of people's families having to sell large apartments for two smaller ones to accommodate someone getting married or moving out, etc. The reasoning is that
In this chapter Drakulic recalls a meeting she had with her Censor, which is basically someone who interrogates people on behalf of the communist government. The whole idea of the government deciding what can be said or not said and punishing those that don't obey them is one of the major points that people talk about regarding communist rule. So therefore anyone who might speak out or say something that would be considered "out of line" would get a visit from these censors. This is so important to consider when you compare it to the United States and how people here can speak out against the government or speak their minds and not have to worry about being attacked for it. It's far worse than just that unfortunately. Even just being friends with someone who make be considered a threat to communist rule could get someone in trouble and even if you didn't say or do anything "wrong" it was still possible for them to see you as guilty. As it says in Drakulic's book, "Everyone is guilty until proven innocent." People became paranoid of their actions, constantly questioning themselves to see if they may have done something wrong. There was no way to defend yourself anyway, if they thought you were guilty than you were, even if there was no evidence to prove