The most exotic party, from my viewpoint, participating in the election campaign is the Communist party. My respect and reverence for the older generation, the representatives thereof who believe that there is a “time machine” which can take a journey, let’s say, to the year of 1977 and enjoy the life which now 40 years later seems light-hearted for them or maybe was really light-hearted for them.
I, personally, do not have similar pink memories about the communist life. I do not think that there was social justice at that time because in those days anyone, even the smallest position holding official working in the law enforcement system significantly lived well than the school-teacher or the scientific worker although all of them were “officially” receiving almost the same salary. I did not seem to me fair that I could not buy what I wanted from the stores with my money and had this chance only after talking with the seller or the warehouseman. It did not seem to me fair that the secretaries of the regional committee were taking bribes for the admission into the ranks of the party. It does not seem to me that the healthcare was free in the Soviet Armenia because if you were not making a “money bazaar” with the doctors in advance, they were treating you in a way that you’d better not get into their hands.
But in this case, it is not so essential, these are my subjective memories. The objective reality is that now people do not see a connection between their the then “good life” and the communist ideology. Instead, they believe in “good kings”, “good feudal”, “good vicegerents” who were “keeping a good eye” on them, and complain about “bad feudal” who are now “keeping a bad eye” on them. The problem is that now, there are other people having a pretension to the laurels of being a “good feudal”, and these people are not Communists at all. Today, they present themselves as “RPA” or “PAP”, however, this is also a purely conventional name.
It does not matter whether the village mayor is called a “communist”, a “PANM” or “RPA”. It does not matter whether his post is called a “village mayor”, a “chairman of the kolkhoz”, a “village elder” or a “landlord”. Importantly are the public relations that exist in the village. While these relations are based on clan, authoritarian and paternalistic perceptions. It is clear that I am citing the village just as a vivid example.
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Hence, the “socialism” which we have seen in Armenia was “socialism” only by the name. In fact, it was feudalism which existed before it and exists today as well. And the foundation of the feudalism is in the minds of the vast majority of the population.
