Admirers were always giving me trinkets – communist badges, lovely red ribbons, real Soviet caps. I shudder with nausea when I remember the way I used to admire myself in them, pouting into the mirrors that I snorted speed off of. “I’m a sexy teenage communist!” I would gloat. But I spat blood whenever I saw a fellow punk sporting a swastika. Why? What was the difference? My side had killed 20 million.
As simple as it seems, I think that I was drawn to Soviet communism, even under Stalin, because in the beginning it had meant well – that and the graphics. The really weird thing is that my crush lasted so long (well into my thirties), which can only be a sign of my terminal emotional immaturity.
And she’s half wrong about late 70s anarchism, which inoculated me against today’s p.c. identity politics.
