So You Want Socialism?

by Angelika Greg-Delany

So you want Socialism? To live the Liberal Utopian life? And you want to Tax the Evil Rich, like the rich who made our lives better by inventing cell phones and computers?

So you feel like giving up some of your freedoms for government stability and regulated control will make your life better? Well here is what it looks like when you make Government your master.

I was just out of high school in 1989 in Kyiv, Ukraine in the USSR. I got married young before my husband was shipped off to Moscow at age 18 to begin his two years of mandatory conscript Army service. Then I had to begin my duty to my country and was assigned, my mandatory job in a Soviet milk factory (молочный завод).

The director of the factory told me he would pay me the government wage of 40 rubles a month and I could take some milk products to barter with. My mother and I barely had enough money to feed ourselves and the extra 40 rubles would barely pay for the transportation for me to get to the factory 30 kilometers from our apartment.

The Factory director told me he could help me with some extra cash if I would have sex with him regularly. This is a very common request because there is no penalty for sexual harassment in the USSR. I lost four jobs because I would not agree to be sexually abused even though I was struggling to feed myself. When I refused the request of the director, I was treated very harshly.

There were 15 men and 40 women working for the factory. They all drank vodka every day and by the end of the day it was dangerous because I was young and attractive, I became the target of everyone’s sexual advances. The women did not help, in fact, they were even worse to me because the men were not paying attention to them while I was there.

I spent the next two years running and hiding for my life. My husband came home once for leave after his first year in the Army and I got pregnant. It was in the final 6 months of my work at the factory and thought they would leave me alone since I was Pregnant. It didn’t help, and now I had the extra pleasure of dealing with my country’s Free Health Care.

The Soviet State Health Care does not care about your health. The doctors study 6 years to become doctors and are paid the same wage as a street sweeper. The system demands bribes. The doctor I was assigned to, kept telling me he could not help unless I paid him 50 rubles. I didn’t have 5 rubles and barely had enough to feed myself.

I was very underweight during my pregnancy and my mother gave me all the extra food she could find to help me. When it came time to give birth my doctor asked me if I had political connections and since I did not, he told me to find a way to pay the local medical director to change the place that they scheduled me to give birth. The maternity house had a very bad reputation for the deaths of mothers and infants. We had no money so I had to go where they placed me. The room was already full with 8 other women in different stages of labor when I arrived in Labor. I had to bring my own sheets and blanket and pillow for the bed they assigned to me.

The nurses would walk by periodically and scream obscenities at all of us moaning in labor pains. Screaming ” Shut up you whores. You should have kept your legs closed so you wouldn’t be in this pain.” I was so scared I didn’t say anything even though I was giving birth. I was lucky because one of the other ladies in labor saw the head of my child breaching and made the nurses come in and help. They caught the child before he hit the floor and they screamed at me some more. They took my son and laid him on a table near the window in the cold month of April in Ukraine. They did not cover him or me with a blanket. I was crying because I feared my child would die from the cold. The nurse just screamed at me to shut up. Free medical does not mean good treatment. Most Soviet women only have one child because of free medical treatment. I barely survived Socialism and free everything. Be careful what you wish for.

My second child was born in a wonderful hospital in Arizona, USA. I remarried an American in 1995 and escaped Socialism and moved to Heaven, “America!” Even though I was pregnant when I arrived in America and we had to pay for the birth of my second child with cash because we had no insurance. The hospital was very gracious and lowered the costs for us, and the doctors who were in residency training donated their services.

People in America were so friendly and generous and cared for my well-being. If I would have had this kind of experience before in the USSR, I would have 4 more children. Thank God for America and the Free Market System, Freedom of choice, where we could choose our place to give birth and select a doctor of our choosing too.

We found kind, caring people in the process. I have seen how wonderful Capitalism is since President Trump has become our President. He has not allowed the Soviet-style media and the Democrat lead Politburo in Congress to change his resolve and has proven that Capitalism is the rising tide that is lifting all boats and is making everyone’s life better, not everyone’s life equal.

Thank God I am an American and live in the Greatest Country on Earth! This is the land where your ideas can make you rich if you pursue them and invest in your future.

I kiss my husband every day and thank him for bringing me to this incredible country!

Be proud of your country and stop the hate.