Darker Shades of Red

I found the exhibit Darker Shades of Red to be quite interesting. I t reminded me a lot of the statue park in Budepest Hungary that is full of statues from the Soviet occupation befor the revolution. Specificaly I found it interesting how closley the small iron cast statue of Lenin looked to what remains of a similar statue of Stalin that used to be in Heros Square in budapestt and all that are left now are stalins's boots because during th erevolution the statue was knocked down. Overall I find all of the stuff to be quite conflicting because personally I think the inherent valuse of communism are a good thing. However in the execution of it the ideals get sidetracked and the goals are never reached. In the story Under a Cruel Star a story that follows a girl from czhecholslovakia throughout the soviet occupation and her experience as a member of a nation being occupied by different regimes and the turmoil that caused on their lives. One thing that I remember from the story was the power of the community and belonging th athtey felt at least at the beginning of the communist regime which causes me o beleiver that in some form it could be a powerful and prosperous society and beleif system. Overall I feel that the ideals of communism that value hard work and education are good and can also lead to good commerce. I understand that the capitlalist would argue that a society like this would not function because witht he equalization of wages there would be no incentive to pogress. It is with this point that I find things get sticky because I do beleive in the power of competition while at the same time beleive that the amount of money that a single person can accumulate should be limited with the remainder going back to the stat. Yet if the ideas of communty are actually beleived and upheld competition is not really needed because the idea of working for the community is enought.