In 1978, I made a decision that could have destroyed my family. I applied for an exit visa.
In the Soviet Union, this was betrayal. We were branded traitors. My mother tried to stop me — not from malice but from fear. She told me they would consider me a traitor. She was afraid to be left alone, even though my sister would stay.
She tried to bribe me with material things, not understanding that the question was not economic.
I was suffocating. Not poor. Suffocating.
There is a difference. Poverty can be endured. Suffocation cannot. My soul was being strangled by a system that demanded I become someone I could not become — someone who stayed silent, stayed small, stayed obedient.
We lost everything. Our jobs. Our status. Our future.
And we escaped.
In a free society, leaving is a right. In a collectivist society, leaving is treason. Why? Because collectivism cannot survive comparison. If people can leave and see how others live, the lie collapses. The Berlin Wall was not built to keep enemies out — it was built to keep citizens in. Every collectivist system must imprison its people, either physically or psychologically. The fact that I had to risk everything to leave tells you everything about what I was leaving.