A Socialist’s Tale

(This is a reconstruction. I have not gone to the effort of reformatting it again from its original shape, copied from a commenter under another blog who graciously gave me permission to repost it here.)

Once upon a time I met an old man in the old country, formerly a small farmer with a couple of cows, sheep, goats, chickens. Now he had nothing, but was gracious enough to invite me in. Over Vodka and potatoes, we talked:

Me; “Old friend, what happened? How did your life come to this?”
Old man: “In the days of the revolution, a Glorious Socialist said, “give us power and we will make everything better and save the children.” “So, the people voted him in.” He then said to me: “comrade, you have two cows. This is not fair. Give your neighbor one.” I said: “My neighbor is a blacksmith, he knows nothing of cows.”
Leader: “If you do not give him your cow, you are an enemy of the people.” And he pointed to the gallows in the village.
Old Man: “So what could I do? I gave my neighbor the cow. And then the leader said “Now sell your milk for one peso per liter.”
Old Man: “If I sell my milk for one peso per liter, I will not have enough money to get hay for my cow. He will starve.”
Leader: “Are you an enemy of the people, comrade?”
Old man: “So, I sold the milk for one peso per liter, and the cows died. But an election was coming and I hoped the people would throw out the leader. Instead the leader came to me and said: “If your cows are dead, then cook them and give meat to the people. And he said to the people: Today I will give you meat. Vote for me tomorrow and I will make things better for your children.”
Old man: “So, I cooked the cows, and the people loved the leader and voted for him again. After the vote there were no cows. So the leader came to me and said: Comrade, you have two sheep. This is not fair….”