3 ms·
Polish communist apparatchiks were better off than regular Poles, but they essentially lived the life of middle class American (a house, car, maybe summer cotta
by badpun 4y ago
Polish communist apparatchiks were better off than regular Poles, but they essentially lived the life of middle class American (a house, car, maybe summer cottage, yearly vacations in Bulgaria or some other place with a sea and a lot of sun). The inequality levels were low back then. Nevertheless, people hated it.
- int_19h 4y agoThe important thing in this case isn't the absolute degree of income inequality, but rather how it is perceived. When state propaganda talks non-stop about how everybody's equal in this new paradise, yet every day you see things - even little ones - demonstrating that some animals are manifestly more equal than others, that can grate a lot more than a similar relative difference in a society that openly puts inequality on its shield. And there was no shortage of those little things. Well, I can't speak for Poland, but even in the late USSR (which was comparatively less unequal than Stalin's one, ironically), there was still blat and Beryozkas.