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Originally Posted by Pogue
Thought the first two episodes are fascinating on several levels. The main takeaway I got from the first two episodes is that a Communist government doesn’t give a rat **** about the people.
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Yes. In concept, communism is supposed to be completely FOR the people. In reality, because the party was insulated from any consequences of an unhappy populace, and because power corrupts, they had no reason to give a damn about the sheep, and had a paternalistic attitude (without any love) for them in general.
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It really is astounding how the communist leaders just immediately said *raspberry* to experts warning that the reactor blew up because they thought the government could do no wrong and they don’t want to question it.
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The system was inherently built around fear. Trying to minimize or redirect any possible blame was built into the core of anyone within that society. There's a certain degree of that in any human, but in Soviet Russia it was exponentially more important not to be blamed for a ****-up of any significance.
The willingness of bureaucrats to ignore experts is stunning, but it's probably something they routinely did. They held all the power, and were probably used to overrunning the opinions of the technocrats.