Fall of Communism 

Fall of Communism Misha Avetisyan, now 60 years old lives with his wife caring for his only child. He lives in Glendale, California, but was born in Armenia, Yerevan in 1947. At the age of 23 he worked at Research Institute of Electronics. After the Research Institute of Electronics he had worked at the Republic Comity of Standards producing electronic chips and a lot of things dealing with electronics. His father was a shoe fabric salesman and his mother worked for a few years as a recruiter for the military. His mother had passed away in 1983 in the Soviet Union. She couldn’t get away from the horrible place. After his moms death his dad had moved to Armenia hoping that he will have a better life there. Hoping that he would receive good treatment from his fellow friends in Armenia, he had questioned them. His mother had told him stories about how the people were exited to go to war. Mr. Avetisyan explains how the similarities and differences form Europe communist to democratic government type. My name is Misha Avetisyan. 

I was born in Armenia 1947, in Yerevan. I moved to Russia, Leningrad in 1977 when it was under a communist regime. The communist Soviet Union was created by Russia workers and peasants in October 1917 by the leader Vladimir Lenin because of the communist revolution. They destroy Feudalism and jump into Socialism, avoiding the Capitalistic stage. It was the separate socialistic country fenced from other world’s countries. In this type of country production and all businesses were owned by Government and citizens only could work as the employees. They were paid for actual work only. The planning was done by government. Profit also was on government hands and governed by Communistic officials. I personally didn’t like the Soviet Union. Of course, there were some aspects that I had liked for example; every citizen must work, there were enough work for everybody, secondly, every citizen has a place to live and third, education was free of charge and there were no restrictions about that. High education was competitive and based on test scores taken by high school students. High education was free of charge, too. By parallel of these positive things there were also bad things regarding education. For example: the place you were you live was permanently connected with individuals. They didn’t change place of living easily. The government controlled migration of the people. There were stamps in the passports with living addresses. The similar condition was when the citizen wanted to travel outside of the country. There were KGB as an acting power to control citizen’s personal life, private conditions were frequently restricted and it was a big violation of human’s rights. In former Soviet Union the citizens had the rights but the government didn’t protect those rights. Whenever they wanted they had violated those rules. Ohh… The KGB was a secret government inside another government. The high secrecy kept their unlawful activities in away of people and world. They had the most powerful system of doing business without being responsible for it. Many criminal cases involved the KGB’s activities. The Communist party was like the only ruler in those activities. 

In Soviet Union by rules and policies of communistic ideology everybody equal. But in reality the communistic Leaders in each local area broke the basic rules of equality. They collect some citizens in Communistic Organization by giving them special membership. Those members had more rights than others but less responsibility than others. That is why in the end of Communistic society many leaders were richer than others. Communistic ideology didn’t work and in 1991 it collapsed, and Russia and other fifteen republics took their own way to future development. All of them took the capitalistic way to go. There was no justice in the legal system in former Soviet Union. The law by its meaning was excellent but in real practicing those regulations and simple law had big difficulties to apply. Also it is very important to mention that Communistic Government was above the Law, they adjust and regulate it when they needed and where they wanted. Some courts judgments were faked by the judges directly after telephone calls by local communistic leaders. When I mentioned that Communist party was above the law I meant that in any other country the law is created to secure their citizens from unlawful decisions and activities. In Armenia there was one more element above anything it was the Communist Party. If you wear as magic mask as you are under their protection, nothing could hurt you. You are unbeatable. 

People in the Soviet Union had rights developed by the Communistic Party. Some of the many rights I remember were that the power belongs in the people’s hands, and the people exercise the state of power through the Soviets of People's Deputies witch constituted the political foundation of the USSR. Also when they have any confusion on a subject they will have a nationwide vote. And I remember was that the state had protected the social party and had provided its growth. All other states bodies are under the control of the Soviets of Peoples Deputies. Also I remember that the state organization, public organizations and officials shall observe the constitution of the USSR and Soviet laws. 

My life changed diametrically when I moved to live in Armenia. Here the culture is mixed from these different nations’ culture it is mixed Armenian culture. Art also has many colors from different Art schools of different nations. Also the language is different. All those differences make me happen and parallel unhappy, because if you are a person above 40’s, 40, or 40 years old you don’t have enough time and possibilities to learn easily. Some people don’t like difficulties. Life is short and you can’t spend double time for learning second language, to learn about all differences that you have living in the new country. 

The Armenian government is different when I compare it to the Soviet Union’s government. The worlds consist from 3 types of countries. First World countries include United States, Japan and other upper developed capitalistic countries; second World countries include former Soviet Union and other socialistic countries. Finally Third World countries include undeveloped countries like African countries. In Armenia the most differences exists in government structure. In the former Soviet Union the Communist Party which was the only political party. In Armenia there are the major Umm… two parties. In America the major two parties Republican and Democratic that frequently takes the leading position for each election for Presidency and other political and governmental positions in the senate and House of Representatives. There jurisdiction also different in its structure than in former Soviet Union elections and voting were involved more errors and political corruptions involved for leading positions in government. In Armenia the same activities were done with less errors and mistakes. 

People in USSR had different life styles than in Armenian society. In USSR the government took the leading role in production and business activities. People’s life was almost equal in different cities. The media in the Soviet Union and in Armenia was very different when the Soviet was still a communistic state. In Armenia the media were ruled by Communist party, and donations were made from them. Therefore the media represented their interests and their philosophy. Armenian media is a service where elevated above the sky the necessity of a socialistic way of living not a capitalistic. Therefore in the Armenia we see many different TV programs, newspapers with different orientations in politics. Many are good because they can find the true reality when there is competition between them. 

There were a lot of differences in the legal system of courts, laws and cops activities to make social life like secure and happy without crime or less crime and violations. There is not country where so many judges, lawyers and complicated court system as USA. In Armenia there were very simple systems of jurisdiction. Cops were in their professional level not good enough. Many cases involved with criminal activities were never solved because the Communist party was involved.

Interviewed by Gurgen Avetisyan