people seems to think such pretty heavy kind of escapism is good by itself.
You could argue that’s partly just a natural, unfortunate human tendency – even the USSR, from what I’ve heard, had a fairly large problem with alcholism – but the 1960s were when this sort of thinking really seemed to become mainstream within the western left. Honestly, I think it’s just petty-bourgeois aesthetics masquerading as Marxism, with perhaps a good dose of CIA manipulation thrown in.
even the USSR, from what I’ve heard, had a fairly large problem with alcholism
Slavic countries in general had problem with alcoholism, and “problem” it’s an understatement, alcohol was the same weapon in class war here as opium in China (only more domestic and less colonizing) - unholy combination of feudalism relics, propination law, no labour laws and trucking system (with good dose of antisemitism, it’s Europe after all) made that a vile plague.
Of course building socialism helped immediately and immensely, but it was one of the issues that needed time to fix, for example Soviet prohibition in RFSFR was mostly unsuccessful. Only over decades of state spirits monopoly and antialcohol campaigns situation did improved quite radically.
You could argue that’s partly just a natural, unfortunate human tendency – even the USSR, from what I’ve heard, had a fairly large problem with alcholism – but the 1960s were when this sort of thinking really seemed to become mainstream within the western left. Honestly, I think it’s just petty-bourgeois aesthetics masquerading as Marxism, with perhaps a good dose of CIA manipulation thrown in.
Slavic countries in general had problem with alcoholism, and “problem” it’s an understatement, alcohol was the same weapon in class war here as opium in China (only more domestic and less colonizing) - unholy combination of feudalism relics, propination law, no labour laws and trucking system (with good dose of antisemitism, it’s Europe after all) made that a vile plague.
Of course building socialism helped immediately and immensely, but it was one of the issues that needed time to fix, for example Soviet prohibition in RFSFR was mostly unsuccessful. Only over decades of state spirits monopoly and antialcohol campaigns situation did improved quite radically.