Falling Star
| CP behind the Iron Curtain | February 4 2007, 3:52 PM |
As someone who spent a fair amount of time behind the Iron Curtain (when there was one), and since, I can confirm that CP has not been allowed in schools since the end of The Great Patriotic War (as they call it), but it is more than made up for in the home.
I have written previously about this, and from open conversations with Russians, it is as prevalent today as it was ever was. The fact that it is not reported is simply a throwback from Soviet times, when such things were never made public. However, it does come up in discussion from time to time. Both mother and father do the punishing, which is usually with a leather belt, and it makes little difference whether they are girls or boys. The belt is normally given for the same reasons as elsewhere: disobedience, (an increasing problem since the fall of Communism), and for complaints from school about behaviour or poor results, or neigbours about bad behaviour outside.
I worked with a number of interpeters, many of whom were female. Several of them said they were regularly beaten for misdemeanours. One of them explained that one day that she(at about age 11),and a boy from the next apartment were throwing lighted matches out of the window of her apartment. (Bear in mind that this was during Soviet times, and that her father could have lost his privileged flat near the centre of Moscow as a consequence). One of the neighbours complained, and her father gave her what she described as 'as a big beating' with his belt. For good measure he also gave the lad next door a strong taste of his belt too, and apparently nothing more was said, so whether the lad kept quiet for fear of another one from his father, one can only guess.
Many of the people I spoke to believed they deserved what they got, and did not seem to resent the beatings.
I have heard rumours about corporal punishment being used at Komsomol (Young Communist)camps, where schoolchildren were sent for summer holidays, but I don't have any tangible evidence. | |
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