“Zampolits,” for the benefit of any of my readers who were born after 1980 or so, was the Old Soviet word for “political officers:” essentially, uniformed Party stooges sent over to keep the military in line and not doing anything counter-revolutionary, like notice that Communists can’t run a country to save their peasants’ lives. The word would have had a connotation of “cockroaches,” except that nobody in their right mind would have antagonized somebody like that by showing their disdain too openly, or indeed at all. Even in the relatively enlightened glasnost era such behavior could lead to a wrecked career.
So. About the FCC and their little “assessment” brainstorm… Continue reading Furor over FCC plan to assign zampolits.