The Man Who Had Funny Hands
- Scarred Bodies, Broken Psyches under Soviet Communism
by Christopher Szabo
October 7, 2019
I grew up among refugees. My parents had fled from Communist Hungary after the 1956 Revolution was crushed by the Soviet Union. We had many Hungarian friends, but also knew people from Albania, East Germany, and Poland. All had their stories, the one more dreadful than the other.
I remember one story among many, when we visited a couple, let’s call them “Joe” and “Cathy”. When we were leaving, thinking they were out of earshot, I blurted out: “Why does Uncle Joe have funny hands?” My mother hushed me quickly and the whole thing was forgotten. But some years later, when I was old enough to be counted among the adults, the same Joe was telling some of his stories.
He had studied to be a priest but had left the seminary before finishing. I don’t know why he left, it might have coincided with the Communist takeover, or not, I don’t know. But he was arrested one day because of his ties to religion.
The Soviet goal was to initiate a Five-Year Plan aimed at undermining religious belief that was supposed to destroy religious thinking in two generations. They nationalised (stole) churches, lands, monasteries, and schools. They banned religious education, religious orders were dissolved, and some 1,500-2,000 people were formally sentenced on trumped up “charges”. One out of every four Catholic priests or monks were imprisoned.
Uncle Joe was not formally charged, sentenced, or any of that fancy bourgeois nonsense. He was just arrested and tortured. He was accused of being part of the “clerical reaction”. This “reaction” meant anyone who was not OK with the introduction of Communism, with its value-free and anti-humanist message.
Uncle Joe talked about the torture. He was beaten and thrown into a cell. Later, he was taken out and interrogated about his “fellow conspirators”. (Because the Communists were conspirators themselves, they saw conspiracies everywhere.) Of course, there was no conspiracy and Uncle Joe was at this point an ordinary factory worker. He was a fitter and turner, in other words, precisely the social class Marxism is supposed to help.
What surprised me was some of the tortures used on him. The reason he had ‘funny hands’ was they hit his hands with iron bars and tore some of his fingernails out. Some had grown back (sort of), some not. But the one that I would never have made up was hitting the soles of his feet. He described that they’d put him on a table, take his shoes and socks off, and hit the soles of his feet with truncheons. He said that was worse than the fingernails.
“Uncle Joe”, as we’ve called him, was one of many people I knew who experienced the joys of Communism, who lived in the “Worker’s State”, and who was himself a real worker, but who experienced the reality of Marxism-Leninism. Thank goodness it’s all over and nobody believes in that claptrap anymore!
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Christopher Szabo is a freelance journalist in Pretoria, South Africa
- Scarred Bodies, Broken Psyches under Soviet Communism
by Christopher Szabo
October 7, 2019
I grew up among refugees. My parents had fled from Communist Hungary after the 1956 Revolution was crushed by the Soviet Union. We had many Hungarian friends, but also knew people from Albania, East Germany, and Poland. All had their stories, the one more dreadful than the other.
I remember one story among many, when we visited a couple, let’s call them “Joe” and “Cathy”. When we were leaving, thinking they were out of earshot, I blurted out: “Why does Uncle Joe have funny hands?” My mother hushed me quickly and the whole thing was forgotten. But some years later, when I was old enough to be counted among the adults, the same Joe was telling some of his stories.
He had studied to be a priest but had left the seminary before finishing. I don’t know why he left, it might have coincided with the Communist takeover, or not, I don’t know. But he was arrested one day because of his ties to religion.
The Soviet goal was to initiate a Five-Year Plan aimed at undermining religious belief that was supposed to destroy religious thinking in two generations. They nationalised (stole) churches, lands, monasteries, and schools. They banned religious education, religious orders were dissolved, and some 1,500-2,000 people were formally sentenced on trumped up “charges”. One out of every four Catholic priests or monks were imprisoned.
Uncle Joe was not formally charged, sentenced, or any of that fancy bourgeois nonsense. He was just arrested and tortured. He was accused of being part of the “clerical reaction”. This “reaction” meant anyone who was not OK with the introduction of Communism, with its value-free and anti-humanist message.
Uncle Joe talked about the torture. He was beaten and thrown into a cell. Later, he was taken out and interrogated about his “fellow conspirators”. (Because the Communists were conspirators themselves, they saw conspiracies everywhere.) Of course, there was no conspiracy and Uncle Joe was at this point an ordinary factory worker. He was a fitter and turner, in other words, precisely the social class Marxism is supposed to help.
What surprised me was some of the tortures used on him. The reason he had ‘funny hands’ was they hit his hands with iron bars and tore some of his fingernails out. Some had grown back (sort of), some not. But the one that I would never have made up was hitting the soles of his feet. He described that they’d put him on a table, take his shoes and socks off, and hit the soles of his feet with truncheons. He said that was worse than the fingernails.
“Uncle Joe”, as we’ve called him, was one of many people I knew who experienced the joys of Communism, who lived in the “Worker’s State”, and who was himself a real worker, but who experienced the reality of Marxism-Leninism. Thank goodness it’s all over and nobody believes in that claptrap anymore!
___________________________________________________
Christopher Szabo is a freelance journalist in Pretoria, South Africa