Возвращаясь на круги своя (СИ)

"Wait a minute! Why am I telling you about my husband? Oh, yes, of course - because I feel myself very lost these days. For you, as an outsider, the latest events here, in Lithuania, might look even more confusing than they do for me. I don"t know. But let me tell you that for us, particularly for those who like myself, fought Nazis during WWII they appeared to be incomprehensible. When we fought fascists, both - domestic and invaders, when in the thirties, we struggled to create a better society here, in Lithuania, we never imagined that it would come to such abrupt and unexpected end, when murderers and bandits could be glorified as national heroes. It is very, very sad for me to see."

"What? You think that it might be reaction to our policies in the past? Of course, I realize that some of our actions made a lot of local people angry - I am not loony or crazy or very old - I am only in the seventies. Sure, we made mistakes. But who does not make them? Everybody does and it is always easier to find mistakes in actions of someone else than to avoid making them yourself. Do you agree with me? We were young and naïve and we trusted imposters and scoundrels, like Stalin, who used us for his own purpose. And sometime we were probably overly zealous or too inflexible in pursuit of our dreams. But we always believed that what we were doing was the right thing to do: we believed that bringing justice and equality to everyone would make the world a much better place. Do you understand me?"

"Well, I don"t know, I cannot argue about that, young man. See, before communists took power in Lithuania, people lived here under the rule of military junta. Dictator Smetona was then the president - so called "the president for life". Have you heard of him? Lithuania was then some sort of "banana republic" - corrupted, undeveloped and poor, like many countries are now in Africa or in Central America. Or like Chile was not that long time ago, remember? When dictator Pinochet was in power. Lithuania was like Chile - there were few people who had power: this Smetona - so called "president", top military officers, appointed by them members of the government, secret police. They used torture and violence to protect their power and their wealth. And then there were others - poor people, majority, those who did not have and never would have any power. Do you understand? It was unfair. Everyone, every human being, is born equal - do you agree with me? The purpose of our struggle was noble, young man: we wanted to bring to all citizens of our country freedom, equality and prosperity. Now new Lithuanian government glorifies Nazi collaborators, bigots and murderers just because we made few mistakes in the past. It sickens me."

"Yes, I heard - nonviolent forms of resistance. Gandhi, Martin Luther King... My husband had Ph.D. in history, young man. But let me remind you about two facts, which could prevent us to use these methods even if we would try to. Do you want to hear about them? Okay, first of all, if you remember, Gandhi (I am not sure if you study this in your capitalist schools) during WWII often tried to undermine Great Britain efforts to fight imperial Japan: he called members of the anti-Nazi coalition to surrender and accept Nazi rule and superiority. He opposed bombing by Allies of Nazi concentration camps because it would undermine his theory of not resisting murder by violent means. He suggested Jews to go to gas chambers voluntarily. He was willing to sacrifice millions of lives in China and Europe in order to achieve independence for India. He was a very, very selfish person! He was a nationalist. He did not care if millions of innocent non-Indian people would die or become slaves as long as India could gain its independence. That was disgusting. No, I am sorry young man; but he could not be our role model, example for imitation. We were internationalists and not nationalists and chauvinists like Mr. Gandhi and Nazis. And, besides, there was one more, even more serious reason why we could not succeed with such non-violent tactic. You may notice that it succeeded only against democratic governments like Great Britain and USA. Military junta, on another hand, as a rule, does not consist of overly conscientious people, young man."