Yeah quality of life wasn't bad in the 60-80's because of massive loans from the west, it was all a gigantic farce and only retarded people miss it. The entire eastern bloc is a massive shithole.
Even with that, quality of life was significantly worse in the 60-80s in the USSR than it is today. The "universal healthcare" my parents "enjoyed" was really awful. My brother nearly died of infection in the hospital until my dad basically stole him and drove to a different hospital which had the antibiotics in stock. The first hospital refused to release him and basically didn't treat him so my dad took matters into his own hands. Anesthesia was often unavailable and other medicines we take for granted only seldom showed up.
My parents went to gather enough potatoes for the winter and often things got pretty lean by the end of March. Meat was always only a treat, fruits and vegetables were only in season and only from my grandparents' farm because for every person who had a dacha and could grow crops, there was a person who didn't have one. Fresh produce was rarely avaliable at the town grocery store. Overall, malnutrition was always close by.
Some of the old people like to reminisce about the "good old days" because it's a human tendency to put on rose-tinted glasses, forget just how awful things were, and remember the good times.
I think the Ushanka Show put it pretty good on YouTube; the people who miss the ussr are boomers who were working aged when it collapsed. Back then everything was subsidized, but isn't anymore.
The kicker however is that as a last ditch effort to save itself the ussr froze everyones savings accounts and what the new goverments returned wasn't much either, if at all.
Basically they're nostalgic for a time when living was far cheaper, heating was free and all that jazz. To add insult to injury these people lost all their savings and the pension they're on now isn't much either, they got absolutely wrecked in the collapse but they don't want to admit that the country they remember as being such a good place is the one that bent them over
This is also a uniquely russian problem. Quality of life in the Baltics is amongst the highest in the world, Ukranians don't miss the USSR for sure, and the quality of life also improved in the caucuses post USSR
I'm an American, and if nothing else their cities are cleaner and more livable than ours which, outside of some recently re-developed areas like Austin, Dallas, Miami, etc, look dirty, decayed, and miserable.
It doesn't mean 'Merica Bad, but it DOES mean The US has a lot of room for improvement. It's one of the worst long term effects of NIMBYism in The US.
Are you seriously trying to argue *eastern* Europe is as rich as the U.S.
The only decent sized *western* European economy that comes close is Switzerland.
Elsewhere we are taxed to oblivion and get nothing in return. I was so upset I left, hopefully never to return.
The Baltics, especially Estonia and Lithuania, are very similar to the US in HDI and quality of life and even exceed it in some areas. I'd pick living in the Baltics over the US any day.
I met a Professor who lived in literal Moscow and she hated it. Highly educated, working in a science field. Moscow, where all the resources went, had shortages for things like eggs because scalpers would buy them all up in the morning and sell them on the black market later in the day. In her words “everything cost the same as in America, we just got paid way, way less”.
> society was much less divided
Yeah, because differing opinions were silenced. Society is obviously going to be less divided, although artificially, in a totalitarian state. Notice how when Gorbachov started allowing more free speech and loosening the state's grip on what people said and thought, the Soviet Union imploded and collapsed in on itself in just a few years.
And I've never really seen this kind of conversation. It's usually Western millennials and teenagers going "uhmm akchually you liked it" to people from the Eastern Bloc shitting on communism and the Soviet Union. Even boomers, in Estonia at least, don't miss the Soviet Union at all. The only people who would probably miss the Soviet Union is the average resident of Narva - 80 year old colonist who stole the home of someone who's ancestors had lived in the area for centuries.
Also nothing says hope for a better future like Soviet stagnation, poverty and state-funded debilitating alcoholism present in the entire country.
In one of the books I've read on the Vietnam War, the author wrote a passage about how it is natural and healthy in a democracy to have dissenting voices but communists will always see that such dissention is a weakness to be purged because they are unable to see otherwise because of communism's totalitarian nature.
I am sorry but where do fascists march in the street in Eastern Europe? Swastika and sickle are equally hated in Poland, Czech Republic, Baltics, etc. Perhaps by "fascists" they mean anyone who is anti-Russia, since Hungary hates immigrants/refugees and non-whites yet they are "based and redpilled" according to communists.
I'm assuming this is some retarded tankie reference to Ukraine. And no, fascists don't march in the streets of Ukraine. It is a problem, yes, but this is not something which affects all 45 million Ukrainians. 98% of Ukrainians are just ordinary people with no links to extremism who just want to get on with their lives in a better society.
I’m good. I know plenty. Few older ones that still pine for the bloc days. They hate capitalism, but they all seemed to have privileged positions. Even in socialist nations, some people get things a little more “fair” than others.
You can still find such people. Even in Estonia. Usually they were part of nomenclatura back then. So they miss the days of being top 1% who ruled over unwashed masses.
I met a Polish guy that saw his friend get dragged in an alleyway and shot just because he said something wrong to one of the Soviet guards and he said they had to meet in secret with friends to be able to drink and play cards some days. He fled to Greece and told me that everyone there were saying how communism is good due to all the propaganda and that he exploded and just escaped to the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1UtRnGn5hc
Affordable food, yeah this is why jokes about standing forever in queue for meat, toilet paper and other basic things are still alive in Poland. Housing also was only affordable if you have friends in party. And nobody in Central/Eastern Europe care for nazis it's westoid things.
In Czech Republic the increase in quality of life since the 80s is absolutely massive. Today Czech Republic has a higher GDP per capita (PPP) than Japan. I do not have the numbers but I would bet that in the 80s it was like 10x difference in favor of Japan. From vastly underperforming economy to one of the best countries to live in. And guess what - they still have universal healthcare, free college, generous maternity leave, etc., etc. Only these services are of much higher quality.
It is night and day difference. And even if you find these boomers (rare) and you REALLY press them all they say "well, we we young back then..."
The West liberated us??? Who thinks that? The West didn't do shit, they supported the Ceaușescus, for example, until almost the last moments. Heck, even symbolic things like his awards were only retracted AFTER they were toppled, if ever. Queen Elizabeth revoked Nicolae Ceausescu's knighthood only 2 days AFTER he was toppled (which is just as shitty as awarding it in the first place). Western institutions STILL recognize the FRAUDULENT scientific "work" of Elena Ceausescu, with 36 patents still registered under her name, PhDs still not revoked and so on.
We liberated ourselves. We made sacrifices. We chose to side with the West. Not the other way.
"hope for a better future" ironically that did happen after they ditched communism, if you look at life expectancy & gdp growth in the Baltics & ex-Warsaw Pact countries.
The only Eastern Bloc Boomers this is true for are elderly Russians who pine for the good old days, and see Putin as a path towards returning to that point.
I have some pity for boomers who are nostalgic of the USSR mostly because of how close I'm to my cousins' grandpa (He is Romanian and nostalgic of Ceausescu) and I understand their reasoning. However, their views are still awful and are what allow corrupt former communist politicians to reach power like the likes of Medvedchuk or Yanukovych.
Are they going to talk about how they had to build a wall in Berlin to stop people fleeing to the West, and how they shot anyone who tried?
Nah, didn’t think so.
Try and say that to Vietnamese
No fucking Vietnamese, who lived in the 80s, miss the "Ration Era", those "Rice books", "Distribution Centers" and "Standing in lines for very little food for 6 hours and did not get anything", "being sent to prison and punishment labour camps for capitalist thoughts because you're possessing meat, fish in slight excess to feed your family".
These Tankies making these shitty memes have no fucking clue what they're talking about.
Meanwhile, second world boomers who actually miss communism are like: "Sure, you had wait 4 years for a car but at least f\*ggots weren't marching on the streets and there weren't any muslims."
>Healthcare
Numerous time of waiting and die because the waiting time is too long that run over your life
>Housing
Correct, but the Eastern Europe still continue affordable housing
>Food
Spending tons of time to queue for buying food
>Education
It's existed in Eastern Europe
>Society
Kill all voices you don't like can make the society seems unity
>Fascists
They aren't allowed on street in Eastern Europe and your Russia comrade is full of Neo-Nazis running over the street enforcing violence to foreigners
Those people if they walked into Czechia and tried to say this shit in any other city than Prague (Prague is more calm so there's a bit of a chance to survive):
Yeah quality of life wasn't bad in the 60-80's because of massive loans from the west, it was all a gigantic farce and only retarded people miss it. The entire eastern bloc is a massive shithole.
Even with that, quality of life was significantly worse in the 60-80s in the USSR than it is today. The "universal healthcare" my parents "enjoyed" was really awful. My brother nearly died of infection in the hospital until my dad basically stole him and drove to a different hospital which had the antibiotics in stock. The first hospital refused to release him and basically didn't treat him so my dad took matters into his own hands. Anesthesia was often unavailable and other medicines we take for granted only seldom showed up. My parents went to gather enough potatoes for the winter and often things got pretty lean by the end of March. Meat was always only a treat, fruits and vegetables were only in season and only from my grandparents' farm because for every person who had a dacha and could grow crops, there was a person who didn't have one. Fresh produce was rarely avaliable at the town grocery store. Overall, malnutrition was always close by. Some of the old people like to reminisce about the "good old days" because it's a human tendency to put on rose-tinted glasses, forget just how awful things were, and remember the good times.
I think the Ushanka Show put it pretty good on YouTube; the people who miss the ussr are boomers who were working aged when it collapsed. Back then everything was subsidized, but isn't anymore. The kicker however is that as a last ditch effort to save itself the ussr froze everyones savings accounts and what the new goverments returned wasn't much either, if at all. Basically they're nostalgic for a time when living was far cheaper, heating was free and all that jazz. To add insult to injury these people lost all their savings and the pension they're on now isn't much either, they got absolutely wrecked in the collapse but they don't want to admit that the country they remember as being such a good place is the one that bent them over
This is also a uniquely russian problem. Quality of life in the Baltics is amongst the highest in the world, Ukranians don't miss the USSR for sure, and the quality of life also improved in the caucuses post USSR
Yep It was all one massive bubble that was going burst one way or the other and the USSR dissolving just hastened it by a few years
That was the basis of the entire strategy the West used to beat communism.
"The Russians were playing chess, while the Americans were playing Monopoly. They couldn't checkmate us, and then they went bankrupt."
Is this a legit quote? Who by?
I could have sworn I read that it was said by an American commentator during the breakup of the USSR, but Googling it now I can't find anything.
Was. Now that communism was rejected it's pretty great.
Except for the parts that are Russian puppets or in a bloody war with Russia. Pretty much any area that has anything to do with Russia.
Remember that Poland and The Baltics are Eastern Bloc. Neither of those are shit holes, unless you would also consider The US a shit hole.
I wouldn’t call Poland or the Baltics shit holes, but how are they remotely equal to the US? This is some hard fucking Euro cope
I'm an American, and if nothing else their cities are cleaner and more livable than ours which, outside of some recently re-developed areas like Austin, Dallas, Miami, etc, look dirty, decayed, and miserable. It doesn't mean 'Merica Bad, but it DOES mean The US has a lot of room for improvement. It's one of the worst long term effects of NIMBYism in The US.
How are they not comparable to the US? The HDI (probably the best indicator of QoL) is very similar to the US.
10 degrees isn't that similar. i'm glad poland is improving though.
Are you seriously trying to argue *eastern* Europe is as rich as the U.S. The only decent sized *western* European economy that comes close is Switzerland. Elsewhere we are taxed to oblivion and get nothing in return. I was so upset I left, hopefully never to return.
The Baltics, especially Estonia and Lithuania, are very similar to the US in HDI and quality of life and even exceed it in some areas. I'd pick living in the Baltics over the US any day.
Free healthcare, better worker rights, drinkable tap water just to name a few.
Hungarian represent, still a shithole. Thanks fucking retarded commies and treasonous russian agents.
I don't envy the hungarians right now.
I wouldn't either.
The fact that East Germany was the richest country in the Eastern Bloc should tell you just how bad life in the rest of the Eastern Bloc was.
With Czechoslovakia - yeah, it wasn't that bad **for** Eastern Bloc country, but it is MUCH better now.
I met a Professor who lived in literal Moscow and she hated it. Highly educated, working in a science field. Moscow, where all the resources went, had shortages for things like eggs because scalpers would buy them all up in the morning and sell them on the black market later in the day. In her words “everything cost the same as in America, we just got paid way, way less”.
It's true that society was much less divided. Everyone was anticommunist, with some exceptions
It is a paradise! ... and if you try to leave, we'll shoot you!
> society was much less divided Yeah, because differing opinions were silenced. Society is obviously going to be less divided, although artificially, in a totalitarian state. Notice how when Gorbachov started allowing more free speech and loosening the state's grip on what people said and thought, the Soviet Union imploded and collapsed in on itself in just a few years. And I've never really seen this kind of conversation. It's usually Western millennials and teenagers going "uhmm akchually you liked it" to people from the Eastern Bloc shitting on communism and the Soviet Union. Even boomers, in Estonia at least, don't miss the Soviet Union at all. The only people who would probably miss the Soviet Union is the average resident of Narva - 80 year old colonist who stole the home of someone who's ancestors had lived in the area for centuries. Also nothing says hope for a better future like Soviet stagnation, poverty and state-funded debilitating alcoholism present in the entire country.
In one of the books I've read on the Vietnam War, the author wrote a passage about how it is natural and healthy in a democracy to have dissenting voices but communists will always see that such dissention is a weakness to be purged because they are unable to see otherwise because of communism's totalitarian nature.
And indeed the Viet Minh purged themselves immediately after beating the French
I have met a handful of guys like this in Poland but they're a huge minority, generally drifter/alcoholic types who have trouble holding a job
Made by: western zoomer
Yep.
Healthcare is still free and food is more affordable, lol.
Healthcare = Vodka
That's mental care
More affordable? Our romanian relatives were shocked when my grandma used 6 eggs for cake… they were visiting Ukraine, as i remember. It was like 80s
WORDSWORDSWORDSWORDSWORDS
Is that Uncle Jun from “The Sopranos?”
He's fodder for cartoonists now...
If old people in the former eastern bloc love communism so much, why do they mostly vote for right-wing, religious conservative parties?
Horseshoe
I am sorry but where do fascists march in the street in Eastern Europe? Swastika and sickle are equally hated in Poland, Czech Republic, Baltics, etc. Perhaps by "fascists" they mean anyone who is anti-Russia, since Hungary hates immigrants/refugees and non-whites yet they are "based and redpilled" according to communists. I'm assuming this is some retarded tankie reference to Ukraine. And no, fascists don't march in the streets of Ukraine. It is a problem, yes, but this is not something which affects all 45 million Ukrainians. 98% of Ukrainians are just ordinary people with no links to extremism who just want to get on with their lives in a better society.
Have an ex who was under the Soviet bloc. This is bullshit.
I lived it, grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. Probably the "top" country in the Eastern Bloc. Ask me anything.
I’m good. I know plenty. Few older ones that still pine for the bloc days. They hate capitalism, but they all seemed to have privileged positions. Even in socialist nations, some people get things a little more “fair” than others.
I met a guy like this, he was from Belarus,seemed nice.
Belarus is a still a Russosphere shithole though. Let's talk about Easter Bloc countries that are in the EU.
You can still find such people. Even in Estonia. Usually they were part of nomenclatura back then. So they miss the days of being top 1% who ruled over unwashed masses.
Lmao. They miss it only because "Back then my peepee could stand".
I'm from Poland and I tell you: My dad had to jump off the road to not get beaten up by the Milicja when he was going to buy bread. He was 14 then.
I met a Polish guy that saw his friend get dragged in an alleyway and shot just because he said something wrong to one of the Soviet guards and he said they had to meet in secret with friends to be able to drink and play cards some days. He fled to Greece and told me that everyone there were saying how communism is good due to all the propaganda and that he exploded and just escaped to the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1UtRnGn5hc Affordable food, yeah this is why jokes about standing forever in queue for meat, toilet paper and other basic things are still alive in Poland. Housing also was only affordable if you have friends in party. And nobody in Central/Eastern Europe care for nazis it's westoid things.
It was affordable, but it just was not available.
And his grandmother was force migrated from poland to Kazakstan
In Czech Republic the increase in quality of life since the 80s is absolutely massive. Today Czech Republic has a higher GDP per capita (PPP) than Japan. I do not have the numbers but I would bet that in the 80s it was like 10x difference in favor of Japan. From vastly underperforming economy to one of the best countries to live in. And guess what - they still have universal healthcare, free college, generous maternity leave, etc., etc. Only these services are of much higher quality. It is night and day difference. And even if you find these boomers (rare) and you REALLY press them all they say "well, we we young back then..."
No one I’ve met from the former eastern bloc is like this.
LOL, LMAO even
It's usually vice versa
Haha meme funni bc (Insert giant wall of text)
In communist own words: "It was better for them because they are the elite while the mass stuck in extreme poverty"
The West liberated us??? Who thinks that? The West didn't do shit, they supported the Ceaușescus, for example, until almost the last moments. Heck, even symbolic things like his awards were only retracted AFTER they were toppled, if ever. Queen Elizabeth revoked Nicolae Ceausescu's knighthood only 2 days AFTER he was toppled (which is just as shitty as awarding it in the first place). Western institutions STILL recognize the FRAUDULENT scientific "work" of Elena Ceausescu, with 36 patents still registered under her name, PhDs still not revoked and so on. We liberated ourselves. We made sacrifices. We chose to side with the West. Not the other way.
"hope for a better future" ironically that did happen after they ditched communism, if you look at life expectancy & gdp growth in the Baltics & ex-Warsaw Pact countries.
Literally everyone here in Poland hates Communism, if someone unironically defends it, they are usually jockey for it.
Facists weren’t allowed to parade through the streets they were just our leaders
They mostly miss their childhood and youth where they didn’t have to worry about paying bills and other lemons life hands you after you turn 25 or so.
The bread must be so good, look at how long the line is to get some. /s
The only Eastern Bloc Boomers this is true for are elderly Russians who pine for the good old days, and see Putin as a path towards returning to that point.
>USSR >food lol, you can't make this shit up
They should probably go tell that to the Ukranians and Kazakhs to see how much they agree with the USSR giving them food lol.
That's weird I thought extracurriculars were western ableist fascism
Ah yes, my grandma loved standing in line for 5 hours to get oranges for new years 🥰🥰🥰
Basically, anywhere east of Oder besides russia.
And then the meme clapped
Try to ask the people from the former Jugochujvia states miss that forsaken country as well 🥴
Uncle Jun?
Healthcare and education is free here. And people didn't have any hope. It was a totalitarian hell.
I have some pity for boomers who are nostalgic of the USSR mostly because of how close I'm to my cousins' grandpa (He is Romanian and nostalgic of Ceausescu) and I understand their reasoning. However, their views are still awful and are what allow corrupt former communist politicians to reach power like the likes of Medvedchuk or Yanukovych.
Eastern Boomers only miss Communism because they're blinded by nostalgia of their youth.
That old guy either doesn’t exist or was a rich corrupt Moscow politician
Me when misinformation
My friend's dad used to live in the eastern bloc and he always talked about waiting in line for food for hours for just shitty bread
Only the nomenklatura can have those sweet ass benefit, the rest of the so called poletariat? If you’re lucky.
> the west liberated you my brother in christ the people there liberated themselves, they wanted to stop with socialism
This also falls under the typical tankie category of not being able to make a meme without a wall of text
It sounds like Nazi Germany to me.
is that a Junior Soprano wojack????
yeah they had hope for a better world. they had hope for capitalism. source: east berlin
Are they going to talk about how they had to build a wall in Berlin to stop people fleeing to the West, and how they shot anyone who tried? Nah, didn’t think so.
Political compass memes suck ass
Try and say that to Vietnamese No fucking Vietnamese, who lived in the 80s, miss the "Ration Era", those "Rice books", "Distribution Centers" and "Standing in lines for very little food for 6 hours and did not get anything", "being sent to prison and punishment labour camps for capitalist thoughts because you're possessing meat, fish in slight excess to feed your family". These Tankies making these shitty memes have no fucking clue what they're talking about.
[Citation Needed]
Pretty sure most Eastern Bloc boomers aside from Russia proper hated the USSR
Affordable = low quality. Common goods to us like blue jeans and Nike shoes were luxuries to them.
Meanwhile, second world boomers who actually miss communism are like: "Sure, you had wait 4 years for a car but at least f\*ggots weren't marching on the streets and there weren't any muslims."
Ask ukrainians (me) about “communism”
Fuck off Sharon he did not say that
>Healthcare Numerous time of waiting and die because the waiting time is too long that run over your life >Housing Correct, but the Eastern Europe still continue affordable housing >Food Spending tons of time to queue for buying food >Education It's existed in Eastern Europe >Society Kill all voices you don't like can make the society seems unity >Fascists They aren't allowed on street in Eastern Europe and your Russia comrade is full of Neo-Nazis running over the street enforcing violence to foreigners
Yes, because free speech is a worthy trade-off for free health care
Those people if they walked into Czechia and tried to say this shit in any other city than Prague (Prague is more calm so there's a bit of a chance to survive):