Soviet chic is anything but funny

Let me tell how I fell, Tarantulas.
(And I AM entitled, according to the article, since all my mother's family fled from Cuba)

I think most of the "soviet chic" fashion is really a celebration. Signs that once were ominous for many, are now harmless.

What's the power behind the hammer and sickle today? Almost none.

One thing does bother me a little: the use of the image of Che Guevara.
He was an idealist. An idealist of the most dangerous kind.
And I believe some of the users of his image idealize this idealist.
Perhaps it bothers me a little because, somehow, unlike the Soviet Union, Che Guevara is not dead.

OK, I'll fess up too. It may sure be harmless, but I am always startled and blood curdles in my veins when I see someone strolling by with sickle and hammer on their hat, coat, whatever. It gives me this sick feeling in my stomach. I know a well-known Harvard law professor with just such hat. He loves to tell the story how he was once stopped on the street by an old Russian Jew asking him whether he would also wear a head with a swastika on it... He says the story with a chuckle (and I heard it many times, as he is an elderly lawyer and forgets that he shared it already), but it makes me nauseous each time.
I do appreciate the differences, yet my stomach seems not to. Just like you won't see me too soon walking into the open-air museum of communist statues in Budapest, I avoid the said bars - KGB, Pravda (the latter is also here in Boston) and stupid shops with all the posters, pins, buttons, that we hoped to never have to see again after 1989.

I feel the same about the hammer and sickle as I do about the swastika. They both represent evil empires from the past. I don't see why anyone would want to wear either symbol, or use one of them as a logo for their business. I didn't know people were doing that, which is why I posted the article. It seems that people forget what the Soviets were all about.

I didn't know much about Che Guevara until just now. He seems to be mostly a failure, sort of like an unsuccessful Saddam Hussein.

Perhaps you should do some more reading :wink:

(You must be much, much younger than I already thought, Tarantulas, that you didn't know much about Che :wink: )

Crazy America next year they will place a statue of Saddam on top of the White House.

I feel I can understand your sentiment, Tarantulas. However the "CCCP" imploded by itself, not by apparent wars with enemies outside (though one cannot forget about the war in Afghanistan from 1979). Its ideal (or non-ideal) has lost its life already, and is already harmless for many people. It is merely an episode in history. No one would be irritated if you printed the name of Genghis Khan on your T-shirt.

The Wikipedia article seemed to be fairly comprehensive. I don't care that much about the guy to read his memoirs.

I was only 16 years old when he was killed, and I don't recall seeing or hearing of it in the news at the time. The t-shirts showed up later. By that time I knew he was a Communist icon so I didn't pay much attention to people who admired him.

Well, I was just two years older - however, we learnt about the Cuban Revolution in school - and more about him, when he died.

(And certainly, since I'm not only interested in politics but studied political sciences and history, I HAD to do studies on him as well :wink: )

I was an undergraduate at the time and his death was a big deal. But I have since been in Bolivia and am convinced that he never had a chance there. The Bolivians, at least the native population, want a revolution. But it has nothing to do with what Che was peddling.

Hear, hear to this article Tarantulas posted a coupla years back.

I know, I know; "Ostalgie" with its own GDR-flavored brand of Soviet chic rules in East-Berlin, where there are also communist-era styled hip cafes, and much more fetishizing of the symbols of the ancien regime.

But I think East-Germany is a bit of an exception; there, people have grabbed back to those symbols more out of a defiant rebellion of identity against what people perceive as the arrogant "Wessis". For example, when the new authorities, after reunification, went as far with their systematic "uniformisation" as to even start changing the little green/red men on the traffic lights in the East to make them look the same as in the West, people felt it was their life story, their every sense of distinct background, that was being erased, discounted - far beyond the political. And they rebelled (the "Ampelmaennchen" were saved).

But elsewhere? To be honest, I see no excuse.

ALL those people wearing their CCCR training jackets. Do they have any clue? Or do they just not care? What they are associating themselves with?

I think it bites extra when - and you see this here too ferking often - some happy hip Western tourists come to a city like Budapest wearing their oh-so-ironic CCCR shirts. Every other week I come across one, and I almost started a thread about it, or posted something about it, just last week.

Dont they really have a friggin clue? That they're in a city that was ruthlessly crushed under the tanks of that same CCCR? The bulletholes from '56 are still visible, literally. Thousands died, tens of thousands fled across the border in the night, leaving everything behind. After '56, the terror wave that had subsided after the initial Stalinist wave of '48-'53 billowed up again, sending thousands to torture or execution.

Yes, that CCCR. It was that CCCR's army that made it so. And the Hungarians still remember - its the one overriding national trauma, after "Trianon". Everyone will have someone in their family who'll have been affected. And these jovial young Dutch or French or Brit twenty-somethings come here on holidays parading around in tongue-in-cheek communist symbols thinking... what?

I'm afraid they arent thinking at all.

Same with the Che t-shirts. Does any of those Che-wearing teens know anything about who Che was, and what he was responsible for? Beyond that romanticised bio-pic?

Thats a wholly other story again. But of the same cloth.

People are all too happy to latch on to these hip symbols of rebellion or retro - without being bothered to even consider what exactly it is they are, literally, putting on.

Totally double standards, yes. They would so not get away with any fascist-style emblems.

I recently visited the V&A, which currently has an exhibiton about Che Guevara, or rather about that one quite famous depiction of him. Was a bit disappointed, by the way. It was rather expensive, and all they had was copies from all around the world.

Interesting, yes, but a bit more of historical context would have been desirable. What I really took issue with was a showcase with various items, from cigarettes packs to purses, with Che on them and little signs saying: Pack of Cigarettes with Che image, bought by the curators on EBay.

Maybe they wanted to make a statement... I do not know.

Here's a link to their website.


Right. Back to the topic. I'm a bit torn on this one. I understand what you are saying, nimh. Sometimes Soviet era insignia are used in a way that is mindless at best and very offending at worst.

However, I would maintain that this depends on the context and how, uhm, sophisticated (for lack of a better word) these symbols are being used. Concerning the CCCP (CCCR? I think you meant CCCP? Did I miss something) shirts, that is absolutely ignorant, or provocative. There's this trend in Germany with people wearing "Polizei" (police) t-shirts. I don't get it. What's the point there? What are you trying to say, what's your statement? To me, that's either ignorance or pure provocation.

Now, the imagery used by the regimes mentioned in this thread, be it the Soviets or the Nazis, is quite a different topic. Two things about that:


On the one hand, people are using the language (uhm, visual language) without obvious reference. For example, compare the Hollywood blockbuster "Gladiator" with Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia". You'll find exactly the same language, the same pictures conveying beauty, power, strength. Masses of people. Mesmerizing cinematography.
It's quite interesting that it still has the same effect on people that it had some 60 years ago. I don't see it as a negative thing. It is fascinating, after all. And people make money. Good.

It's quite problematic when it enters into politics. Remember Bush speaking in front of Mount Rushmore, when the stage for the photographers was set up to the side of the podium rather than behind the audience? The set-up was just calling for a shot of Bush's face in front against the backdrop of the four presidents in the back, and that's what we saw on all the covers the next day. Or remember Bush on the carrier, with the banner behind him while he was speaking to the troops, the evening sun on his face? Okay, that one kind of turned against him eventually... Nevertheless, it's something we should be aware of.


On the other hand, there are the Soviet era symbols. Depictions of hammer and sickle, a star, or, in a more abstract way, the language so unique to propaganda of any kind. In short, I don't have much quarrel with that. Why shouldn't we do it? Did the USSR bloody own the star? (Yes, I know about the five social groups that will lead the nation to communism. Or about the five (five?) continents. And depicting the Red Star is illegal in Hungary, isn't it?) Anyways, what's so special about hammer and sickle? The Austrian Eagle holds hammer and sickle in its claws. Aeroflot is still using it.
And if we can't use hammer and sickle, does that mean we can't use writing brushs and hoes either, because the Korean Worker's Party has appropriated them? Does it mean we can't use spades, torches, anchors, monkey wrenches, rising suns, tomohawks, pickaxes, rifles and compasses either? Can we never again use the color red? Give me a break.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should wear red t-shirts with yellow hammer and sickle printed on them. That's rather category "brainless or provocative", see above. What I'm saying is that we can work with those symbols. We can take away the horror. We can ridicule them. We can show that the era of the Soviet Union is over. We can make intelligent statements. I once saw an ad for an advertising company that used exactly the propaganda style of yore. You know, the stars, the colors etc. Excellent! Basically made the statement, "Hey, we'll do your propaganda!" Does that mean they are associating themselves with any of those regimes? I don't think so!

Yes, sorry, of course - mixing Latin and Cyrillic scripts there, stupid.

I meant CCCP = SSSR (or USSR, in translation).