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I have friends that immigrated from Romania, and I was surprised by their very different stories of living as a teenager in the 80s under communism. One was enj

I have friends that immigrated from Romania, and I was surprised by their very different stories of living as a teenager in the 80s under communism. One was enjoying vacations abroad, imported goods and generally mostly living a western lifestyle while the other was struggling to survive. Later learned that the former's father was an informant for Ceausescu's secret police (Securitate) - a butcher by profession but a literal snitch for any "anti-communism" behavior of his acquaintances, while the latter's grandfather was an "intellectual" despised by the regime and punished with forbidding anyone in his family from accessing higher education or good jobs. It is possible the author's family enjoyed such privileges as well without his knowledge.

trasz 5y ago
- PixyMisa 5y ago
  I think you rather missed the point.
- kolinko 5y ago
  It’s not even in the same scale. Many people could become „wealthy” then, but their conscience prevented them from doing things that would be required from them in exchange. If you want to draw a comparison - imagine that every single worker in US gets a personal „eject” button that gives them $1M to their bank account, but it requires them to do things that will be unethical and oppressive towards their friends, family and the population in general. Kind of like joining a mob, but without the dangers that go with it.
  - trasz 5y ago
    - shrimpx 5y ago
      You probably have a decent point to make, if only you bothered to hone in on it. Sure you can say some people won't work for Google because their conscience prevents them, but you can't reasonably compare getting rich by working for Google to getting rich by getting your friend arrested because they read a book or listened to a radio station... If you have a point to make, make it.
      - trasz 5y ago
        Most (almost all) party people back them didn’t get anyone arrested, they just did their jobs in power plants, schools, and cheese factories, just like they would in the west. Same as googlers today. Sure, some did evil things. Again, just like in the west it’s easy to make money by hurting others. My point is, the perceived difference between those is really just the narrative, the way they are being described in popular media. West has much better PR.
        DarylZero 5y ago
        The USA especially has roughly the same proportion of its people imprisoned as totalitarian regimes, but those people are so dehumanized socially that they are impossible to imagine as even a part of this discussion. I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a woman in NYC who migrated from some former USSR country and worked as a domestic servant -- she called working for such low wage in such conditions "communism."
        trasz 5y ago
        USA has a number of things in common with most totalitarian regimes, from forced labour camps, to the creepy “pledge of allegiance to the state” which all the school kids are forced to recite every day. It’s quite creepy from the European point of view.
        shrimpx 5y ago
        You’re unfairly revising the communist history behind the iron curtain in order to make a biased anti American point. People went to jail for reading certain books or attempting to listen to foreign radio stations. Poets would be under watch, threatened and forced to write pro-party poems. People would get picked up by agents for being non denominational Christians, and would “reappear” again weeks later beaten and 20 lbs lighter. There was nothing resembling rule of law; Justice was meaningless. There was no market and services were primarily bribe driven. (They still are; old habits die hard.) If you wanted to fix your abscessed tooth in the “free health care system” you better come up with two cartons of Kent and a box of Nescafé. It was all in plain sight with no pretense of a “system” at work. Yes the USA has corruption, Justice has inequality problems, free speech is not always free, etc., but the problem with your perspective is that it’s binary instead of looking at the gradient. You’re like “the USA has corruption, and iron curtain had corruption, therefore they’re the same”. That’s dishonest. The USA has a functioning system of Justice that protects substantial individual rights and freedoms. Just because it’s not perfect doesn’t make it equal to the abject lack of Justice and freedoms in iron curtain dictatorships.
- timeon 5y ago
  Your comment gives me chills.
- refurb 5y ago
  Kind of, but the big difference is getting rich (enough to afford a luxury lifestyle) in the West is more accessible. In the other system, you were either connected or not. If not, you were likely SOL. Look at Musk. You think a communist country would tolerate a foreigner who became a billionaire and calls out politicians in a public forum? Maybe ask Jack Ma how his moderate comments were received. I had an acquaintance from a communist country who was allowed to study in the US. One of the first ever. How did he get that privilege? His father was a high ranking party member who had a serious disagreement and was going to be expelled. The deal was “you quietly retire and we’ll let you son go to college in the US”. So he kept his mouth shut. They had total control, so using your family against you was fair game. I have no doubt Musk’s kid won’t face that same challenge. Sure, both systems cater to the powerful, but one is a relatively open system and the other closed only to the “permanently privileged”.
  - trasz 5y ago
    Quite the opposite - in the west you won’t realistically get really rich unless your family is already rich (see Musk). In communist countries you can just become a party member and then go up the ladder; see most polish leaders from those times.
    - refurb 5y ago
      How do you define “rich”? I’m talking affording those things the elite in communist countries had - consumer goods, foreign vacations, your own house. Those are all accessible by the middle to middle-upper class in the West. And no, party membership is not guaranteed to make you rich. And membership is not easy to get.
      - trasz 5y ago
        It surely depends on the time and the country, but for late 80s in Poland this stuff was available to regular party people, not “elite”. Party membership essentially meant you had to sign up and then avoid conflicts with the law and not get drunk too often, and that’s pretty much it. The party membership was less about party in a western, political sense, and more like being a good Boy Scout. I believe that’s also what party membership means today in China. (Disclaimer: my grandpa was a party member, he managed local part of the polish power grid.)
- gigel82 5y ago
  It was mostly about availability of such luxuries. Even if you were "rich", money in a controlled economy was pretty much useless. Everything was rationed (one car per family, 2 breads, 1 bottle of milk per day, etc.) unless you were in the right circle (which meant being actively part of the secret police or a snitch for them). Also, travel abroad and imported goods (unless imported from USSR or a few other select communist countries) was strictly forbidden for the plebs.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar like this. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
unionpivo 5y ago
I lived in Yugoslavia also. And no, what he described was common, at least how I remember. YU did have secret police, but it wasn't as bad as in countries under Soviets. Generally life in ex YU from in 70s and on was pretty decent. We have better standards now (Slovenia), but some parts have worse living conditions than when they were in YU. And the gap between haves and have not is ever increasing. So author is not alone in what he is thinking.

trasz 5y ago

PixyMisa 5y ago
I think you rather missed the point.
kolinko 5y ago
It’s not even in the same scale. Many people could become „wealthy” then, but their conscience prevented them from doing things that would be required from them in exchange. If you want to draw a comparison - imagine that every single worker in US gets a personal „eject” button that gives them $1M to their bank account, but it requires them to do things that will be unethical and oppressive towards their friends, family and the population in general. Kind of like joining a mob, but without the dangers that go with it.
- trasz 5y ago
  - shrimpx 5y ago
    You probably have a decent point to make, if only you bothered to hone in on it. Sure you can say some people won't work for Google because their conscience prevents them, but you can't reasonably compare getting rich by working for Google to getting rich by getting your friend arrested because they read a book or listened to a radio station... If you have a point to make, make it.
    - trasz 5y ago
      Most (almost all) party people back them didn’t get anyone arrested, they just did their jobs in power plants, schools, and cheese factories, just like they would in the west. Same as googlers today. Sure, some did evil things. Again, just like in the west it’s easy to make money by hurting others. My point is, the perceived difference between those is really just the narrative, the way they are being described in popular media. West has much better PR.
      - DarylZero 5y ago
        The USA especially has roughly the same proportion of its people imprisoned as totalitarian regimes, but those people are so dehumanized socially that they are impossible to imagine as even a part of this discussion. I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a woman in NYC who migrated from some former USSR country and worked as a domestic servant -- she called working for such low wage in such conditions "communism."
        trasz 5y ago
        USA has a number of things in common with most totalitarian regimes, from forced labour camps, to the creepy “pledge of allegiance to the state” which all the school kids are forced to recite every day. It’s quite creepy from the European point of view.
      - shrimpx 5y ago
        You’re unfairly revising the communist history behind the iron curtain in order to make a biased anti American point. People went to jail for reading certain books or attempting to listen to foreign radio stations. Poets would be under watch, threatened and forced to write pro-party poems. People would get picked up by agents for being non denominational Christians, and would “reappear” again weeks later beaten and 20 lbs lighter. There was nothing resembling rule of law; Justice was meaningless. There was no market and services were primarily bribe driven. (They still are; old habits die hard.) If you wanted to fix your abscessed tooth in the “free health care system” you better come up with two cartons of Kent and a box of Nescafé. It was all in plain sight with no pretense of a “system” at work. Yes the USA has corruption, Justice has inequality problems, free speech is not always free, etc., but the problem with your perspective is that it’s binary instead of looking at the gradient. You’re like “the USA has corruption, and iron curtain had corruption, therefore they’re the same”. That’s dishonest. The USA has a functioning system of Justice that protects substantial individual rights and freedoms. Just because it’s not perfect doesn’t make it equal to the abject lack of Justice and freedoms in iron curtain dictatorships.
timeon 5y ago
Your comment gives me chills.
refurb 5y ago
Kind of, but the big difference is getting rich (enough to afford a luxury lifestyle) in the West is more accessible. In the other system, you were either connected or not. If not, you were likely SOL. Look at Musk. You think a communist country would tolerate a foreigner who became a billionaire and calls out politicians in a public forum? Maybe ask Jack Ma how his moderate comments were received. I had an acquaintance from a communist country who was allowed to study in the US. One of the first ever. How did he get that privilege? His father was a high ranking party member who had a serious disagreement and was going to be expelled. The deal was “you quietly retire and we’ll let you son go to college in the US”. So he kept his mouth shut. They had total control, so using your family against you was fair game. I have no doubt Musk’s kid won’t face that same challenge. Sure, both systems cater to the powerful, but one is a relatively open system and the other closed only to the “permanently privileged”.
- trasz 5y ago
  Quite the opposite - in the west you won’t realistically get really rich unless your family is already rich (see Musk). In communist countries you can just become a party member and then go up the ladder; see most polish leaders from those times.
  - refurb 5y ago
    How do you define “rich”? I’m talking affording those things the elite in communist countries had - consumer goods, foreign vacations, your own house. Those are all accessible by the middle to middle-upper class in the West. And no, party membership is not guaranteed to make you rich. And membership is not easy to get.
    - trasz 5y ago
      It surely depends on the time and the country, but for late 80s in Poland this stuff was available to regular party people, not “elite”. Party membership essentially meant you had to sign up and then avoid conflicts with the law and not get drunk too often, and that’s pretty much it. The party membership was less about party in a western, political sense, and more like being a good Boy Scout. I believe that’s also what party membership means today in China. (Disclaimer: my grandpa was a party member, he managed local part of the polish power grid.)
gigel82 5y ago
It was mostly about availability of such luxuries. Even if you were "rich", money in a controlled economy was pretty much useless. Everything was rationed (one car per family, 2 breads, 1 bottle of milk per day, etc.) unless you were in the right circle (which meant being actively part of the secret police or a snitch for them). Also, travel abroad and imported goods (unless imported from USSR or a few other select communist countries) was strictly forbidden for the plebs.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar like this. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

unionpivo 5y ago

I lived in Yugoslavia also. And no, what he described was common, at least how I remember. YU did have secret police, but it wasn't as bad as in countries under Soviets. Generally life in ex YU from in 70s and on was pretty decent. We have better standards now (Slovenia), but some parts have worse living conditions than when they were in YU. And the gap between haves and have not is ever increasing. So author is not alone in what he is thinking.