One
particularly strikingin the story is Sugarcandy Mountain. This is a
kind of heaven, a glorious paradise where animals will go when they die and where they will
feast on never-ending supplies of clover, lump sugar, and linseed cake. It's a metaphor for the
vision of heaven offered by the Orthodox Church in pre-revolutionary Russia.
In crudely Marxist terms, the Church held out the prospect of paradise in the next life
to mitigate the horrors of life in this world. Those in power used the promise of heaven in the
next life to keep the poor and dispossessed in check. Things may be bad now, they would say, but
paradise awaits you in the next world. All you have to do is keep your head down, do as you're
told, and once you've shuffled off this mortal coil, everything will be just fine.
Sugarcandy Mountain is a dangerous myth...
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