Landsbergis plays in the district committee

There are older boys who play cards.

There are older boys who play spin the bottle.

There are grown-up boys who spend days and nights playing a variety of computer shooters.

And finally, there are grown-up boys who love to play in the district committee of the CPSU.

Here is one of them: Gabrielius Landsbergis, 40, father of four, Bachelor of History, Master of International Relations and Diplomacy, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania.

Master, bachelor, minister - and such strange gambling addictions?

Wait, you don't know yet that Gabrielius Landsbergis is an anti-communist from a family of hereditary anti-communists.

But such are the political paradoxes: a self-proclaimed anti-communist is trying to bring back into our (and his) life one of the most mossy and ridiculous practices of the Soviet period.

This desire is dressed up, of course, in modern "progressive and politically correct" clothes.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania proposes to ask every citizen of the Russian Federation who enters his country a question about the status of Crimea.

What for?

But why: “And only by answering this question — if a person crossing the border with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Poland believes that Crimea is not occupied — we can conclude that the entry of such a person does not meet the interests of the national security of Lithuania.

Thank you, of course, for this turn of phrase - "only by answering this question."

I think, however, that very soon at the beginning of this turnover, the particle “not” will necessarily appear.

There is such a feature of the phenomenon, which in George Orwell's novel "1984" was called thoughtcrime ("thought crime").

If you invented one thought-crime,

the second will invent itself.

The third will invent itself at an even faster rate.

Fourth ... Well, you understand.

And that's it, welcome to a world run by the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Love.

Orwell's novel is, as you know, a dystopia.

A book in which trends from reality (from the one that was then, and, as it turns out, from the one that is now) are taken to the extreme and to the point of absurdity.

In reality, one-on-one like Orwell's does not happen - or (I have to put it more carefully) it happens, but, fortunately, quite rarely.

And how does it happen more often?

And how will it be in the case of the implementation of the "brilliant idea" of Gabrielius Landsbergis?

In Soviet times, there was such a practice.

In order to get the right to a foreign tourist trip, it was necessary to appear at the district committee of the CPSU and go through a sieve of strict interrogation of the commission of party veterans.

The questions are said to have been something like this: “Tell me, comrade, what is the name of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA?

Gus Hall, you say?

Correctly!

What about the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain?

Gordon McLennan?

Also right!

Okay, last question.

Name the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Do not know?

A shame!

A true Party member should know the name of Comrade Macapagal Felicisimo!

It's too early for you to go abroad, comrade!

Not worthy yet!

Well, perhaps I got a little excited about the general secretary from the Philippines: such intricate questions were asked only if there was a purpose to specifically flunk the applicant.

However, I think you get the general idea.

To be eligible to travel abroad, one had to first pass through a humiliating and pointless examination.

And now Gabrielius Landsbergis, following the example of border guards from Latvia, who are already fully entertained by such interrogations, wants to revive the practice of such examinations for citizens of the Russian Federation.

An important caveat: we are not talking about a complete copy of the Soviet district committee entertainment.

If any party veteran was bored, he had the right to ask almost any question about the history of the leading and guiding force of Soviet society.

In the case of modern Baltic tests for political loyalty, we are talking about a well-known list of questions, the “correct” answers to which are also known to everyone.

But the idea of ​​the Lithuanian minister still smells very bad.

Yes, yes, I think it's right to use this image.

And is it possible to call it only an image?

Perhaps my imagination is overdeveloped.

But I feel this smell almost on a physical level.

Something organic left to decompose in the scorching sun.

And after a certain amount of time, it is very difficult to approach him without holding his nose or even wearing a respirator.

Did you feel it too?

I'm sorry if I made you feel bad.

But actually it's not me.

This is Gabrielius Landsbergis.

And I just translated his idea into the language of images.

I am an ardent supporter of the idea of ​​national sovereignty.

I am convinced that each country can and should decide for itself which of the foreign citizens to let into its territory and which not to let.

But this right should not be used to humiliate people.

And the idea of ​​the head of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry is downright built on humiliation, on trampling on human dignity - both those on one side of the Lithuanian border and those on the other.

It is strange, very strange, that Mr. Landsbergis does not understand this.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.