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> I have no doubt that countries in the periphery of major communist states had it worse... Not really, satellite states like czechoslovakia had it comparably

• inglor_cz 6y ago
  The situation is more complex than that. There was a past before Communism and that past determined the relative wealth of individual countries in the Soviet bloc. Czech part of Czechoslovakia was one of the industrial centers of Europe since the early 19th century and it was mostly spared from the bombing campaigns of WWII. As such, we had much better living standards than ordinary Russians. When the Soviet-led task force occupied us in 1968 to prevent our split from the Soviet Bloc, the obviously better living standard demoralized the Soviet soldiers who genuinely believed that they were coming to our rescue. The first wave was recalled back to the USSR and their replacements were closed off in remote barracks, not to come into contact with our civilian life. But rural countries like Bulgaria had very shitty living standards in Communism. My father's family is from Bulgaria, even today the country does not look anywhere near as good as the West and may never catch up.