The page I originally linked to is now just a bunch of ads (possibly the whole site), so I’ve removed the link.

In answer to some of your question - what was our vision on the other side of the Iron Curtain… well I was brought up in a world which was considerably more innocent than the one we all now live in. Post-War Britain still held our politicians and royal family in greater esteem than they deserved. We were ruled by an “elite” class - who clearly saw their role in life as rulers. To a very large extent it was the “teenagers” (a new concept for the 50’s) who were the real driving force in social change, as well as the growing organisation in Trade Unions, which more laboriously brought about social change. Travel was for the elite & rich. Working class families lived usually within a small sphere of reference - and therefore rarely came into contact with other cultures - unless of course they were part of a fighting force, send out to kill “the bloody foreigners!”

As a child my holidays were frequently spent visiting family in Ireland - an even more basic country in the early 50’s, but now one of the most sophisticated one’s in the world. The only politics my father was interested in were those which immediately impinged on his family’s well-being - then that huge jump to global threats (the Cuba Crisis being the most noticable). My father and his previous generation had lived through the experience of two World Wars, and this had led many to question the wisdom of the British ruling class. In fact, many of the leaders had proven themselves to be complete buffoons (some things never change eh?), and had lost much of their “respect” among the working class.

Propaganda was generally believed. It was preposterous to think that the BBC was biased! It seems equally absurd now to think that it was anything less than a propoganda machine for the British establishment. Because Russia was untenable to most of us - we knew little of it’s culture: it’s history was presented as a litany of hardship and mis-rule, of brutality against it’s people, and the crippling effect of Communism as a failed philosophy. America was perceived as the saviour of Europe (even though they didn’t enter the war until they were forced to), with bottomless pockets of dollars to invest in us. Capitalism was presented in every aspect of our daily lives as the colour on a hitherto grey canvas.

Once teenagers began to question the regimen of their parents thinking, and their adherence to the “old order”, the world began to be a very different place. Not that either Communism or Capitalism was greatly influenced by this change - but ordinary people here began to ask questions of the so-called “social values” which were presented as being true, unquestionable. Once ordinary people began to travel more extensively this further broke down many preconceived ideas of other cultures. Russia suffered because it hid behind it’s Iron Wall for longer, therefore the image of Russia (and probably Russia’s image of us) remained largely within the control of the politicians.

Both Capitalism and Communism are blunt tools when used to shape the world. They do not take any real account of individuals, of our hopes and aspirations. They are both flawed by human greed. What we need, perhaps more than ever today, is a system which allows us to freely ask questions, and to search for our own answers - not be provided with prescribed answers, or fobbed off with weak explanations.

….However, our politicians remain the same