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A review by tittypete
Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War by Svetlana Alexiévich
3.0
Commies have no original ideas. The USSR saw us go into Vietnam, watched it turn into a strategic and moral shitshow, and then we’re like “We should do that.” At least that’s how Zinky Boys makes it seem. Credit to the Russians for making it even shittier though.
The common assessment by the voices in this book seem to be that the government lied about the whole thing. They were supposedly in the country to help the new, coup-installed commie government build bridges and schools. Nobody back in the USSR knew there was a war until bunches of young kids started coming back in zinc caskets. All the babushkas at home were like ‘what the frick.’
Being an oral history, this book isn’t a story but a series of anecdotal impressions from the people who fought, served in a civilian capacity or had a loved one killed.
Here are some the insights I gleaned from their stories.
The Soviets really didn’t give a crap about their soldiers. Like in WWII, their fighting boys (and girls) seemed to be regarded a just cheap cannon fodder. They had old, outdated equipment. Shitty boots. Shitty tents. Shitty cars. One guy told a story of getting a can of fish bits in his rations with an expiration date in 1959.
The older soldiers treated newcomers like shit. Young kids got their asses kicked super bad by their own guys just because everyone is a sullen Russian asshole.
There were girls there because commies are all about equality. Most of them seemed put off by being expected to fuck all the dudes in exchange for favors.
Dudes come back all fucked in the head, limbless and pissed at their country.
Everybody was obsessed with getting Walkmen and clothes and other western items to bring home because in “Eeeeen Raasha you have naathing.” When going to Afghanistan is seen the place to get nice stuff, your country is doing something wrong.
Like Vietnam, people were petty frustrated and demoralized when they got home. The war was seen as unjust and a failure but these dudes still had to fight and die. So … vodka.
I found a quote from the author via wikipedia that seems to sum up a lot of the way Russia does shit: “If you look back at the whole of our history, both Soviet and post-Soviet, it is a huge common grave and a blood bath. An eternal dialog of the executioners and the victims. The accursed Russian questions: what is to be done and who is to blame. The revolution, the gulags, the Second World War, the Soviet–Afghan war hidden from the people, the downfall of the great empire, the downfall of the giant socialist land, the land-utopia, and now a challenge of cosmic dimensions – Chernobyl. This is a challenge for all the living things on earth. Such is our history. And this is the theme of my books, this is my path, my circles of hell, from man to man.”
Yay.
The common assessment by the voices in this book seem to be that the government lied about the whole thing. They were supposedly in the country to help the new, coup-installed commie government build bridges and schools. Nobody back in the USSR knew there was a war until bunches of young kids started coming back in zinc caskets. All the babushkas at home were like ‘what the frick.’
Being an oral history, this book isn’t a story but a series of anecdotal impressions from the people who fought, served in a civilian capacity or had a loved one killed.
Here are some the insights I gleaned from their stories.
The Soviets really didn’t give a crap about their soldiers. Like in WWII, their fighting boys (and girls) seemed to be regarded a just cheap cannon fodder. They had old, outdated equipment. Shitty boots. Shitty tents. Shitty cars. One guy told a story of getting a can of fish bits in his rations with an expiration date in 1959.
The older soldiers treated newcomers like shit. Young kids got their asses kicked super bad by their own guys just because everyone is a sullen Russian asshole.
There were girls there because commies are all about equality. Most of them seemed put off by being expected to fuck all the dudes in exchange for favors.
Dudes come back all fucked in the head, limbless and pissed at their country.
Everybody was obsessed with getting Walkmen and clothes and other western items to bring home because in “Eeeeen Raasha you have naathing.” When going to Afghanistan is seen the place to get nice stuff, your country is doing something wrong.
Like Vietnam, people were petty frustrated and demoralized when they got home. The war was seen as unjust and a failure but these dudes still had to fight and die. So … vodka.
I found a quote from the author via wikipedia that seems to sum up a lot of the way Russia does shit: “If you look back at the whole of our history, both Soviet and post-Soviet, it is a huge common grave and a blood bath. An eternal dialog of the executioners and the victims. The accursed Russian questions: what is to be done and who is to blame. The revolution, the gulags, the Second World War, the Soviet–Afghan war hidden from the people, the downfall of the great empire, the downfall of the giant socialist land, the land-utopia, and now a challenge of cosmic dimensions – Chernobyl. This is a challenge for all the living things on earth. Such is our history. And this is the theme of my books, this is my path, my circles of hell, from man to man.”
Yay.