Thread by @OxanaShevel

This utterly bizzare Victory Day performance from Russia reminded me of something we had in high school in late Sovier era - agitbrigada (agitation, or propaganda brigade). A short 🧵

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1522710896367345664

Agitbrigade's purpose was to put on a musical theater performance in school auditorium for - yes, you guessed it - Victory day. Must have been 1985 (40 yrs anniversary). Spots in agitbrigada were highly thought. But not due to high degree of patriotism. 2/

Agitbrigada participants got to skip classes for rehearsals. How cool was that. But not just anyone could join. Some musical talent was required. Ouch for me - zero singing skills but I wanted in. 3/

I learned that they needed singers with "voice 2" whatever that is. I pleaded with the teacher that I could sing in voice 2. She was skeptical but I was persistent. In I got. No hated algebra for some time. Bliss. Bonus 2 was that we got to use "real" guns. 4/

As all schools, we had compulsory "elementary military training" (NVP) in high school. Part of training was assembling and disassembling Kalashnikovs (I was a champ - under 30 second blindfolded, I kid you not). Agitbrigada got to use these Kalashnikovs in the show 5/

The show theme was not particularity creative - Nazi soldiers capturing & shooting partizans before being killed themselves. All "cool" boys wanted to play Nazi soldiers. Don't ask me why, but there was some dark self-selection going on, telling in some ways re. Soviet youth 6/

My at a time bf (what was I thinking...) was one such "cool boy" - half Ukrainian and half Jewish, he was a Hitler admirer as he later confessed (did I say he was one weird dude?). He and another kid (that one drew war scenes, blooded men, and swastikas in class) 7/

Really got into their roles of Nazi soldiers, to the point of slightly injuring a girl who played a partizan in the show. They made the whole thing so realistic the invited war veterans at the performance nearly cried, but the boys actually enjoyed themselves. Analyze this. END