“It was hard to force people to give up their rights to apartments, and predictably, this radical Utopian ideal failed. But it does illustrate how the concept of social injustice in a communist society works: those who have are exceptions, and they should feel guilty and ashamed - the others are entitled to have, too, because it has been promised to them.” PovertyInjusticeSocialismInequalityRadicalCommunismSharingHousingUtopianApartments Book:Café Europa: Life After Communism Source: Café Europa: Life After Communism
“Even at his age he knew that there are basically two categories of people in a society: those who have, and those who have not. But according to the egalitarian principles of any communist society, those 'haves' should share with the 'have nots.' And because there is not much to share anyway, in the end that egalitarianism boils down to the equal distribution of poverty.” PovertySocialismCommunismSharingDistribution Of WealthEgalitarian Book:Café Europa: Life After Communism Source: Café Europa: Life After Communism
“That evening, in her apartment, still in Warsaw, Ana takes down a book from her shelf – a rather thick, ordinary paperback. It looks old, because it's worn out and somehow shabby. But it's not ordinary. I can tell by the way she handles it so carefully, like something unique. 'This is the book I told you about,' she says, holding out the Anthology of Feminist Texts, a collection of early American feminist essays, 'the only feminist book translated into the Polish language,' the only such book to turn to when you are sick and tired of reading about man-eater/man-killer feminists from the West, I think, looking at it, imagining how many women have read this one copy. 'Sometimes I feel like I live on Jupiter, among Jupiterians, and then one day, quite by chance, I discover that I belong to another species. And I discover it in this book. Isn't that wonderful.” CommunityFeminismBelongingReading BooksSharingLove Reading Book:How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed Source: How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed