Patience, Comrade

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Mister Bush – may I call you Dubyich? – sit down, Comrade. We need to talk – talk a little history.

You and I, we both tried to birth great societies – I strove for Marx’s Communist ideal, you yearn to recreate that greatest American society of WWII – but we both forgot something… skipped a step if you will – the same step. Let me tell you a story – it’s what we old dead Russians do best.

Back in 1924, once I crossed over into the Hereafter, I made it my goal to seek out Karl Marx for his opinion on my revolution. At long last after what must have been years, I saw him across a sorghum field. Once our eyes met, I briskly traversed the distance between us with my broadest smile and hand extended. As the distance between us shrank to nothing, I stopped to catch my breath, but before I could say anything, Marx kneed me in the balls, shoved a copy of the Manifesto in my chest and barked “Read it again, Numbnuts!” before storming away.

It seems I excluded one major detail when fostering my revolution against the czars – the oppressive weight of four or five generations of unbridled capitalism on the proletariat. I tried to go directly from feudalism to communism – boy, was my face… well… red. Turns out a century and a half or so of raw capitalism is the true engine of the revolution: the promise of profit inspires the proletariat to educate themselves, improve their skills, and most importantly offer hope for a brighter future which repeatedly gets torn away from them by the bourgeoisie. Apparently, the frustration part was easy – but it takes a few generations of capitalism to transition a formerly feudal peasantry into a burgeoning proletariat smart and talented enough to manage perpetual self-governance for the betterment of all… who knew?

In effect, I rallied a mob of screaming idiots to rebel on their own behalf, they did so, then stupidly stood around and asked me what to do next. I could have pointed to the Manifesto until my fingers wore down to nubs – the illiterate buffoons only knew how to be ruled. Well, Stalin was only too glad to oblige them once I crossed over, and I think we all know where my little revolution went from there. Marxie still smacks me on the back of the head for that one sometimes during our bridge games.

The nut is that I entirely ignored the macroeconomic element of societal reformation, Dubyich – and much to the detriment of world history. You most obviously have done the same – you got the sneaky foreigners to strike a domestic landmark, the increasing of the size and reach of government to nigh-absolute status and non-stop anti-foreign propaganda elements of the WWII era down quite well - but all that does, frankly, is piss off a well-fed and self-supporting populace. In order for such tactics to foster an all-for-one, we’re-in-to-win mentality to motivate the entire body popular to move as one proud and mighty machine, the individual spirit must be crushed into dust. Twelve years of global economic depression did the trick for our friend Franklinovich.

By the time the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, Americans had absolutely nothing to live on except national pride. Pearl Harbor gave the dormant power of the American people’s overawing hunger – for food, for humanity, for self-worth – a conduit for direction, concentration, regeneration and awesome release upon a smug and overconfident enemy. When Osama’s operatives knocked down the Twin Towers, the American people expressed their outrage by publicly discarding expensive foreign products, assuaged their depression through shopping and expressed their solidarity by affixing magnetic ribbons to their SUVs – then getting back to their regular largely comfortable lives. It takes a lot more than snappy catchphrases to get the People to leave their own private Heavens to jump into the mouth of Hell, Dubyich.

Ironically, it appears your attempt to create the Greatest Generation out of order may foster the step you skipped after all, what with the foundation of the global economy as a whole and American economy in particular eroding away as a result of governmental and private overspending. If there is anything a Russian can appreciate, Dubyich, it is bitter irony. When it is your time to cross over, be sure to sit with me – we will have much more to commiserate about… but make sure you wear a cup. You’d be surprised how quickly Roosevelt can rise out of that chair when he’s motivated – and how hard he can kick.