Young People, Listen to Your Gen-X Elders: Communism Sucks!

The ad begins with a poor Russian peon, bundled up for the harsh winter, cautiously asking a stern sentry about what he is guarding. “Is toilet paper.” “Is good?” “Is cheap,” replies the soldier. The word spreads down the ranks of the people standing in line at the store. “Cheap toilet paper!” they say in astonished turn. One gets his hands on some: it bends and folds, as if it’s not toilet “paper” at all but lengths of semi-raw wood pulp. For some reason that television commercial from the mid-’80s has come to mind quite a lot lately. It was...