Are there any Russians/Eastern Europeans here who are old enough to remember living under communism?

Are there any Russians/Eastern Europeans here who are old enough to remember living under communism?

What was it like? Did the authoritarianism impact your day-to-day life at all? I'm certainly not a communist by any means, but most Western propaganda would have you believe that life in the Soviet Union meant being constantly stopped to have papers checked, requests to visit family and friends constantly denied, and basically being forced to do shit against your will on a daily basis.

I'm just wondering to what extent that was true. I mean even communists are still just people, they can't be completely devoid of humanity. The people at the top are probably corrupt as fuck, sure, but I just can't see your average police officer or officer clerk or whatever denying things like a day off work to see your dying wife because you haven't met production quotas or some shit.

The same goes with fascism. The West would have most believing that life in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy meant friendly visits by the Secret Police and reporting to the local Party office to explain statements you were overheard making. I just can't believe that.

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my parents grew up in soviet russia. they miss it, especially the progressing, future-oriented spirit.

they also say that there were two s.u.'s in terms of general benefit.

Stalin times were best times.

I will in kindergarten during communism. Good times.

No, but I can still see the results of communism

Fuck, I was in kindergarden. Fucking english.

I'm 31 years old. To remember USSR you should be at least 40.
I don't think a lot of people over 40 use Sup Forums.

>being constantly stopped to have papers checked, requests to visit family and friends constantly denied, and basically being forced to do shit against your will on a daily basis.
false.
>The people at the top are probably corrupt as fuck,
not really, at the end of the 80's many were.

Both mom and dad + grandma say it had its pros and cons.

There isn't a one single way to look at it for them. What's more interesting, my great grandma, who passed in 2008, managed to witness the Tsar and final years of the Imperial Russia.

before stalin
>200 million russians
>shit industry
>isolated in the world
>paper-mache army
>what is science again?

after stalin:
>All eastern Europe under control
>China is red and greatest ally
>One of the strongest military in the world
>Atomic bomb
>Monstrous industry
>Meh agriculture
>Powerful science and technology oriented institutes and universities
>-800 millions russians

where was he in the wrong again?

Wow that's pretty cool. Was she old enough to have any real educated opinions on him? If so, did she prefer the Tsar or the Soviet Union?

I heard a story that belarus has a anti-sponging tax. So you get taxed for not working.
If that is what Communism was like. Its shit.

He wasn't wrong. Assmad stormfags and naziboos are just assmad that their austrian cuck was a beta failure in comparison.

Good thing was that during Stalin times these assmad pederasts would be GULAGed.

Mom and dad said it had it's bright sides. It was a truly socialist state in most part, state was corrupt as fuck snd rotten, still it really tried to provide everything it could. Goverment was obliged to help you.
It wasn't paradise, but the reason older folk think it was is because russian federation is much worse.

>celebrating the thing you would be a victim of
Dumb fuck.

before stalin
>cultural powerhouse

after stalin
>known for the rest of eternity as a dull gray alcoholic commie block nation of nothing

My mother lived under communism and managed to escape to Hong Kong before the cultural revolution.

>things were simpler
>people were nicer and less scheming
>food was always fresh
>good amount of camaraderie especially right after the revolution

She was quite young at the time and had positive things to say about life under communism, but not enough to form an opinion before her family escaped.

I have old uncles in China that say that communism was good in the beginning, but slowly got worse when the food ran out and people were encouraged to rat each other out for extra rations.

She was born in 1899/1900 and passed in 2008.

In retrospective it was all the same.
The best times for her were 1970-1980. The period called 'Ottepel'' here.

She was more amazed at how the world changed. Technologically, socially. She remembered times, when people rode horses, everyone was Orthodox, there wasn't even remotely anything we have now.

TV was a fantasy fiction, cars were an experimental rarity, mobile phones and internet were speculated only by fiction writers. Space travel was a joke and no one would believe that in less than 100 humanity would be there.

She confessed to sometimes think that she lives a daydream.

Older people say living under communism was great.

Like going from the the witcher to space age. Would make a good book.

>comparison

You were saying?

I'm 24, white, and getting my Master's in physics. I'm learning German and want to learn Russian and move there after a few years in Austria.

Is this a stupid fantasy? I know I probably won't earn as much money as I would in the West.

The bigger slice means communism is winning silly.

German is a dead language

Probably. But I can't get my degree without it, and I've been in too much effort to start over.

I am 65.

*put in too much effort.

Gah.

I would assume that almost any person of 100+ age feels that way.

Like. Imagine it yourself.
You would be 18 in 1917/1918, were you my great grandma's age.

It's like living in a completely different world and timeline.

-_-
You'll receive a gf 5 min after you walk out of airoport, i am not even joking.
You'll probably will earn 2x salary of russian worker, since foreigners usually earn more.

I want to move to Russia too, and work in the oil industry. Problem is salaries are shit in Russia, maybe I'd be well off for Russia but it wouldn't translate anywhere else.

Also I'm maybe basic/intermediate in German and I am fucking pissed at Merkel. Germany seemed like paradise til the invasion., and I thought they were gonna annex Greece and EU with denbts and stuff.

Not a former resident, but I know people who visited Russia in the 70s, and I've read a bit about living in the Eastern Bloc. People I know who visited there say that there was a lot of poverty in residential areas but that the public areas were very well maintained, and that there were lots of available cultural activities like museums. From what I've read, homelessness was uncommon, though housing spaces were small. Unemployment in most of the Eastern Bloc was low, though this meant efficiency was noticeably lower and there were people paid to do some useless jobs. Famine was very uncommon between the 40s and the late 80s, though large displays of food were rare and exotic foods were incredibly rare. As for the political repression, I haven't read anything about people literally denying the average citizen the right to see their family, though people did carry internal passports all the time. The most widespread police apparatuses extended to interviewing a significant portion of the population at one point or another, but then again, electronic surveillance techniques and other instruments of surveillance were much more primitive than they are today.

No, I'm not a degenerate like you. I would be the one shooting you in the back of your stupid skull.

Stalin had half of Europe and more than half of Asia under his heel. Germany became on big brothel. Meanwhile the Austrian cuck shot himself because he couldn't take the heat. Reminds me of a fate similar to another fascist cuck, who was paraded around the streets after being hung from a lamppost.

You edgy faggots wet yourselves on projecting violence on those vehemently hate but when shit actually gets serious you get beaten and put in your place like the autists you are. Going from sucking the Jew dick, to licking the commie heel before getting fucked in all places by the jew once again. Pathetic.

You've had secret police that was huge and was following dissidents. You had secret murders, breaking windows in the night, phone calls with threats. In my town there's a guy whose son became mentally ill because his father was in Solidarity and the secret police was constantly threatening him

You couldn't boost your career without declaring loyalty to the party. They would check if you go to the church

You had a monolithic, ideologized press that used buzzwords like democracy or socialism. It's like the contemporary Luegenpresse although I think communism was still worse because they even lied to you about international affairs and internal affairs, contemporary press isn't that strict, YET

You had a shortage of toilet paper, you had to wait for it in long ass lines. In the 80s there was only vinegar on shelves in the stores, there was a scarcity of meat, people ate only sausage

But at the heart of communism were cartels of the judiciary, public officers, party members and those private persons who would make deals with them. They've created a caste, that was and is outside the influence of the law that would abuse public finance, bank credits, money of universities. It's still visible in post-communist countries

I was 19, just out of military service when it all crashed down, taking our economy with it.
No, not at all, the government really didn't cared what you did in your own free time, as long as it was not against it. The only thing you were forced was going to school or work - being unemployed was against the law.
the culture was far more vibrant than now, the people were happier because they didn't has the fear that they will starve tomorrow and pretty much everyone was encouraged to better himself.

Weren't the women forced to have a bunch of babies and shit as well? And there were orphanages with kids wallowing in cages with maggots?

Are you cretin or something? No one was forcing them, it was just abortion that has been made illegal.
And those kids were the retards that families have discarded to be left to die - a form of hidden euthanasia , to get rid of them. And gypsies, but they have never counted as humans to anyone anyway.

I was grew up in Romania from 1979 to 1989.

The first thing I remember thinking about communism was when I was seven. We were standing in a food line, waiting to get what little shit we could and I overheard people in the line talking about how this kind of stuff never happened in the US or western Europe. I thought, "People can just buy food whenever they want?".

It's surreal looking back on it now, to think that I just thought people everywhere had to wait in lines for a bag of bread and milk.

My family left when it started to get bloody so at least we weren't there for the shooting part.

Actually one of the first Communist societies was in America and this is what happened.

Sorry brother I think I was just brainwashed by a pro-abortion film about Romania. If I was Ceaușescu I would have done the same policy

Do you ever miss the... what was he called, the Carpathian Genious and the Danube of Wisdom?

It's only just. Women do not have the right to privatize the means of reproduction and survival for the human race.

2 young 2 remember but we can have some examples in north koreans escaping to south, mostly they say in north they were hungry but more happy saying they are lacking proper human relationships and contact in the south as everything is about work-to-get-rich...

In past I think you had couple ways to cope with commies in gov:
1] be sheep, do what you are told, your life will suck but risk free... but hey at least the one being executed is not you
2] milk the system by looking like sheep but exploit the weakness of the system, usually done by trading goods/services with other people like you to get "rich" and powerfull
3] fight the system, well this will not last you long, after while you will get arrested and land in prison or worse
4] be part of the system, secret agents is your go to job if you dont mind ratting out your friends/family (i think in east germany about every 50th person was a cooperator)

>the people were happier
whaaaaat? People were fucking destroyed by all the demoralization and corruption, this is why they drank so much alcohol, because they knew how pathological the system is, but couldn't do anything about it

Usually the people that look back fondly to communism miss the nationalist aspects of it but nothing else. There is a great article that talks about it on Social Matters

socialmatter.net/2017/02/13/communism-fondly-remembered-longing-tradition/

Yes, while he was an idiot on economic principles, still thing that basic heavy industry is what drives an economy, and a true stalinist enjoying his cult of personality, he was a true patriot that did what he though was best for the country and never stole a dime - i remember that they made a big fuss when they have discovered that all his personal fortune was just 400.000 lei, about $25k.

>Older people say living under communism was great.
Yeah, lazy parasites living off the state must have loved it.

And Yugoslavia is a special case.
We got to live on American gibs because the western block wanted us on their side. Without that, we would have devolved into shitty living conditions just like China or the Soviet Union.
And even then, a third of the population was classified as "surplus workforce", resulting in one of 3 major emigration waves from the region.

Yugoslavia was objectively shit.

>What was it like?
Toys were a deficit good and also my family was poor (despites both parents had 2 degrees, father aerospace engineer, mother patent engineer) so I recieved a book on every birthday or new year. I didn't understand this but I saw that other kids in kindergarden got fashionable toys (they were childern of party functionaries) I thought I get books because I was the only one able to read so I was very angry on my mother that she teached me.

>Did the authoritarianism impact your day-to-day life at all
No, I was a kid

Basically all I remember was poverty and lack of consumer goods, all my clothes were from older brother, I didn't have a bicycle, etc. etc. But at least we were lucky enough to get a free commieblock flat in 1991 — last year of USSR.

Not rich, but happy time. The workers were given flats and free trips to resorts. All had a great intuziazma and the feeling that tomorrow will be even better. The choice of store was small, but had strict GOST (ISO) regulating quality of the products to which Russia is still barely reaches.
Coruption led to shortages. Very significant "cotton case".

>but muh culture
you sure refuted me lad

You might have heard that because there was a law stating that every woman was supposed to be closely monitored during the pregnancy. What they didn't tell was that this law has been issued in 1987 after Cernobil, when a big chunk of radiation got dumped here there there have been an abnormally high number of monsters and retards born (we only found that out after the fall) - hence these so called orphanages. I remember that we got called into the gym-hall of the lyceum, told to strip and a military doctor passed a detector over us and gave us some antiradiation medication taken out of some military boxes. They never did tell us what was happening tho, just that we should sray indoors and keep the doors and windows closed.

>(i think in east germany about every 50th person was a cooperator)
Like merkel.

Leftist parties in former communist countries are spreading propaganda how those were the good days to get the votes of older people that are nostalgic for their youth. The majority of leftist voters are 65+, while younger generations are more right wing.

Hi dad.

All you can earn in Russia is 10-15$/hour as an native English teacher.

>Is this a stupid fantasy
The stupidest and worst ever.

No.

I was kindergarden age, so most of my knowledge comes from tales told by my grandmother and great-grandmother.

First - USSR went to shit after Stalin team was purged in late 50s because if was pushed too far to the left. Under Stalin it was fascism by any other name.

Irony is that your leftist are remnants of Trotskytes that were purged in 30's.

A pole not holding up his booze and ending up a wreck, nothing new here.
BTW only losers couldn't do anything, but you're a pole, being a loser is in your genes.

I wonder how those that fought for the Solidarity to get a better pay from their Gdansk shipyard see the situation now, that the shipyard has been turned into distant memory.

Daily life. Checkpoints around the city always making you bribe an officer to get by. If need license have to bribe someone to get it. Daily stipend from factory job for food/milk, if you wanted more, have to bribe. Government provided clothes, benefits, but if you wanted to get them have to bribe. Basically if you wanted anything either bribe or figure out a way to barter for it. Since everything is government owned imagine dealing with government employees everywhere you go, that is what Russia was like under communism.

Russia during communism sucked balls, sucked more balls after perestroyka, sucks less balls under Putin.

Born 86, so not really mature enough to understand the things around me, however still had first hand experience of sorts with the regime.


>The USA portrayal of the eastern block was either over-saturated or totally false.
>People back then were far more happier than are today.
>Optimism was ever present, even if the individual families had less access to luxuries.
>People genuinely believed that the future will see humanity grow and expand.
>The people were far more traditionalist when it comes to social freedoms.
>Not sure if that was only for the best, but the young were encouraged to get educated, motivated and being active.
>Public displays of affection between teenagers did not really happened.
>Families were larger and more strongly held together.
>Back in the day we were numbering 9 million people, after the things went sour about 2-3 million fled.
>As for persecution, never heard of it.
>We were told to stay in line or else, but that else was never shown.
>Products like chocolate, bananas and various other imported foods were far and few between.
>Food was abundant and locally produced, having little to no preservantes in it.


>All of my memories from the time are sunny and happy.


Now I am far from the idea of glorifying communism. I have high distaste for the system, however truth be told, the way it is portrayed in the west is very far from the truth.

oldfag here, remember it pretty well.

The government decides everything for you. All apartments are government issued, residence is government mandated (can't even move to another city unless you were decreed by government), education is 99% mandatory brainwashing, enormous pictures of Lenin, Marx and Engels hanging everywhere, you were OBLIGATED to join communist youth movements (consomol and pioneers), and of course bread lines and empty marketplaces.

Anyone who misses it here is either a LARPer, autistic attention seeking 16 year old edgelord, or some party apparatchik wife's son.

yeah, like the most powerfull man in our politics - ex-stb (our version of stasi) Slovakian

What do you think of westerners that love it?

mate of mine moved from Moscow to here when he was around 12 yrs old, it was just after the fall of the USSR, so must have been around 1990 or so

anyways one story he told me was that whenever you went to some office or government building or something, you could tell who was the most important people by who had the most phones on their desk...like regular big old 1970's style phones with the rotary dial numbers.

I asked him why this was, he said that the soviets did not have the technology of having multiple phone lines go into one handset, so they would just put multiple phones on people's desk. thus if you had a lot of phones on your desk you had to be some sort of big-shot.

>westerners that love it?
That right there tells you everything you need to know.
Everyone in eastern Europe despises communism to the core.
The only ones promoting the idea are westerners who've never experienced it.

>those shitty fir trees

I did. Going from a cultural powerhouse to this is more important of a change than any of your shitty arguments

I still remember waiting in lines to get things that you need, food, toiletries etc. And paying with those little stamps

Their USSR Films are insanely amazing.

Oh, also forgot the Africa tier medicine. No disposable syringes. Iron needles were standard, for fuck's sake. Which help spread Hep-C to just about everyone in the CCCP.

Terrible, depressing building blocks. Mud everywhere.

Computer industry lagging about 30 years behind the West. Punch card cumputers were the standard in the 90s. No kidding.

Same. I'm also learning german due to degree. :(

It wasn't that bad. Mandatory military service of course, if you wanted to get anywhere with life you had to join the party, having a job was mandatory.. Leaving the country without authorization was illegal, actually discussing politics was illegal..

Subcultures bloomed because the government didn't really acknowledge the existence of things like drugs and such..

The VB cars were nice I guess

If you guys need to know something specific just ask

We had computers like the Fallout ones in the 90s

Lived through the best times of Yugo Socialism and it was so much better than today.

Holy fuck yes, the computers.

Learning to program was interesting, once a week we brought our programs to the center and we got our results the next week only to see that the syntax was incorrect, hehe

Same there with Franco-Sama.

who does culture replace strong industry, qualified scientific and engineering staff?

think about this question while you'll be finishing your shitty art degree and applying for a job at mcdonalds.

Everybody here agrees that Yugoslavia was a paradise

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i was sucking my moms tits and shit was cash
seriously though, you gotta know that however bad life in ussr was it wasn't too bad to live, and it was much better than in most of the world, same as now

red scare was bullshit to keep you in line same as pravda was on the other side

sounds like antifa shieet

youtube.com/watch?v=HvYjApa01bk

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+1

You still see results of communism in the Polish language and culture. Poles weren't always the f-king gypsies they are sometimes today trying to cheat/beg/or borrow their way out of any problem with zero honor. The Russians taught us that with communism because even the basic everyday problems under communism couldn't be solved through normal channels. You couldn't get toilet paper for fucks sake or had to wait a few years to buy a POS Fiat 126. So the only solution was to work the channels, cheat, know someone, pay someone off, or finagle your way to solve the most basic problems. Rules became suggestions or just plain irrelevant.

Communism scarred Polish society and thinking for decades and the results are still present.

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I have a colleague who told me about"elections" in the USSR. She said that on election day, everyone would be in a great mood because everyone who voted would get some kind of treat, usually some kind of fruit that many people had literally never seen before. So you go in, there's a piece of paper with a guy's name on and you can either check the box or not, then you come out and enjoy the mango or whatever you are suddenly able to eat. she sounds nostalgic talking about Russia but I think it's because she was young then and everyone gets nostalgic about the time they were young... And even with her nostalgia you can tell she basically knows the old system was shit and has no plans to go back to Russia.

For all of the cucks that say Stalin was a good leader, I would like to remind them that he often ordered over 3000 execution orders a night and in one incident in the space of his car turning from a cinema to a red light he had ordered the death of over 3000 people, He was just as bad as the Nazi clogs in the Final solution

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>He said living there was like hell. No work, people starving, treated like animals by soviets.

Bull-shit. It may have been bad but this is a ridiculous exaggeration. You didn't really get into much trouble if you didn't ask for it. "no work" may have a bit of truth in it but "people starving" is just bullshit.

"When there's toilet paper" is better.

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> my senile grandpa told me a 50es bedtime story
> must be true
yeaaaah
stulin was a dog fucker that killed millions that didn't deserve it, but you're worse

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So those guys lied to get your shekels. Nothing new, it was something usual from those traitors - to have an easy life milking you.
And the only people who had it really bad were the traitors and the parasites - let's guess what they were.

So you were there in the 60s and 70s in every part of Czech?

t. Bulgarian

Not me but my parents grew under communism. My mother's family has fond memories. Granddad was in the party for career reasons (he wasn't political in private). They were a three-kids family, got help for a new home and good career options.

My father's side had issues due to an uncle of my grandmother who migrated to Australia. Also grandmother was devout Christian which was looked down upon. So my father and uncle got sent to a shitty unit for their military service. But basically that was about it.

All in all it had positives and negatives. Extremely low crime and encouraging policies for young families. Minorities were kept in check like you can't do in the West. Cops were extremely redpilled and unapologetic. But if you didn't like the government you'd better keep your mouth shut. Regular people were spying for the party all around the place.

I have a friend that studies Russian history. He met a lot of people in Russia that say they miss the USSR. He also mentions that those people are/were strong supporters of Communism, shocking.

"Ottepel" was during 60s, you are talking about "razvitoy socialism" or "zastoi"

You fucking commies are the reason the west is dying.