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>> Life in Warsaw Pact countries was not bad. Did you live there? I did. - Electricity rationed: we had maybe 3-4 days per week and mostly evenings and in wi

>> Life in Warsaw Pact countries was not bad. Did you live there? I did. - Electricity rationed: we had maybe 3-4 days per week and mostly evenings and in winter. We lived in a medium sized city. Plenty of villages had no electricity whatsoever. - Food rationed: You could buy meat twice a week. Bread? Once ever two days. We were lucky we lived close to nature so collecting mushrooms and fishing filled the gaps. - Hot water rationed: You can get used to cold showers, I guess. - Ethnic minorities were viewed as vermin (we were one). - More and more school subjects were thought not in your mother's tongue. - Roof? Sure we had. - Lack of market economy? We had "illegal" movies, "illegal" rock music and some "illegal" western tech. There was a thriving black market economy. - Your phone was constantly taped and listened on. - You were afraid who you talked to, were afraid of your friends because they could be informants. - Criminality low? Maybe in one aspect but corruption was through the roof. You wanted something? Bribe someone. - There was also a pandemic of alcoholism and violent men towards their wives. My father and 3 of my 5 uncles were part of this statistic. So were thousands of others. But yeah, life was "not bad".

smcl 3y ago
The point is that rather than looking with curiosity at what life was actually like it is common for, say, a Brit or an American to picture a mental image of the most deprived community in a given Warsaw Pact country and project that over the entire region. Like it’s not helpful to pretend that it was a utopia like some “tankies” insist on doing (they’re brain-broken). But it’s equally unhelpful to construct the fantasy that ČSSR was like a real-life Mordor-like state, yet many (not you) insist on doing so. edit - Downvoted for suggesting we shouldn't just rely on lazy stereotypes. Folks, we love to see it.
- ddalex 3y ago
  I grew up in a eastern bloc country, and what the GP says is spot-on. This is not stereotyping, this is how it was. I still have nightmares about queueing for cheese alone as a little boy (my grandma was queueing somewhere else for soy-based meat substitute) and getting shoved around by angry people that were desperate to get some produce before it ended - cause the supply was always less then the number of the people in the queue. Imagine waiting hours for the truck to arrive with cheese and it finishes just in front of you.
  - smcl 3y ago
    Yeah someone I knew in university was so hard up and malnourished he contracted scurvy. Therefore surely that is what life is like for everyone in the UK - just an entire nation of people living on the breadline with preventable diseases. You see what I mean, right? Like it's horrific that diseases from antiquity reared their head in a supposedly developed nation. But at the same time, that doesn't exactly tell the story of modern day UK and it'd be very dishonest to suggest that reflects the entirety of the (then) European Union. In the same way it's horrific that you had childhood trauma that persists to this day. You're under no obligation to defend the circumstances in which you grew up, but I'm sure you're quite aware that your experience was far from universal, as evidenced by comments here.
    - ddalex 3y ago
      My experience was universal where I grew up. Everybody in my generation had it. Stop being so presumptuous
      - smcl 3y ago
        The issue in question here is that many in the west will unquestioningly accept an account of true hardship and just presume that this was the case for every one of hundreds of millions of people across an enormous bloc of countries. You don't seem keen to volunteer where you're from or what period you're talking about and I won't press you on that, but from speaking to guys I know from ČSSR, Poland or Yugoslavia your experience sounds really rough but not reflective of theirs. It's not presumptuous at all to say your experience of lining up for food, feeling scared and having lingering trauma about that is not reflective of the bloc overall. It is certainly an important part of it that should not be minimised (and tbh should be carefully considered so that it isn't repeated). But it is not reflective of every lived experience in the group of countries in question and, again, you know this.
epolanski 3y ago
> Did you live there? I did. Yes. - Never had electricity rationed. - Meat was rationed on a food stamp basis here as well. What should've been the alternative? Only a handful of wealthier people could eat meat? Meat production has always been a problem in eastern Europe and only improved with market economy. - Never seen hot water rationed - I don't think racism is a peculiarity of socialist countries. Slavs have always been a culturally xenophobic culture, still are. - Yes, I'm aware of black market economy. - Your communications are still constantly taped and listened on unless you're naive to think the opposite. - Never my family was afraid of who we talked to. Moreover, what was to be afraid of, unless you were plotting something? - Corruption is still widespread everywhere in the world, not a peculiarity of socialism per se. - Alcohol-related issues are worse today than they were in soviet times in most of the countries formerly in the warsaw pact. > But yeah, life was "not bad". People use to paint those countries as miserable or something, which is straight not true. Most people enjoyed on average the highest standards of living they or their parents ever seen. Cities, infrastructure were built everywhere, women enjoyed the most social progress they'd ever seen, politics, while limited to only communist parties still had seen the most democratization these countries ever experienced.
- t8sr 3y ago
  You are claiming multiple things that are just plain false. Some of these countries were full democracies before they became Moscow's satellites. The amount of censorship and self-censorship was staggering. And no, your communication today is not constantly taped and listened to in most of Europe. You are either a Russian troll, someone with an undisclosed agenda, or a naive 13 y/o. The things you're saying are a mix of straight up lies and misdirection and a classic example of historical revisionism that should be called out everywhere we see it. Concrete points: - I don't think racism is a peculiarity of socialist countries. Slavs have always been a culturally xenophobic culture, still are. This is racist bullshit - "slavs" are not inherently xenophobic. 30-40 years of progress just didn't happen in Central Europe because Moscow didn't like big social changes. - Your communications are still constantly taped and listened on unless you're naive to think the opposite. Not in the same way, and I have a feeling you know that. - Never my family was afraid of who we talked to. Moreover, what was to be afraid of, unless you were plotting something? Being careful about who you talk to about what is literally the thing most people remember right after "we couldn't travel." If you didn't feel this, you were either a small child, politically aligned with the party, or extremely sheltered.

smcl 3y ago

The point is that rather than looking with curiosity at what life was actually like it is common for, say, a Brit or an American to picture a mental image of the most deprived community in a given Warsaw Pact country and project that over the entire region. Like it’s not helpful to pretend that it was a utopia like some “tankies” insist on doing (they’re brain-broken). But it’s equally unhelpful to construct the fantasy that ČSSR was like a real-life Mordor-like state, yet many (not you) insist on doing so. edit - Downvoted for suggesting we shouldn't just rely on lazy stereotypes. Folks, we love to see it.

ddalex 3y ago
I grew up in a eastern bloc country, and what the GP says is spot-on. This is not stereotyping, this is how it was. I still have nightmares about queueing for cheese alone as a little boy (my grandma was queueing somewhere else for soy-based meat substitute) and getting shoved around by angry people that were desperate to get some produce before it ended - cause the supply was always less then the number of the people in the queue. Imagine waiting hours for the truck to arrive with cheese and it finishes just in front of you.
- smcl 3y ago
  Yeah someone I knew in university was so hard up and malnourished he contracted scurvy. Therefore surely that is what life is like for everyone in the UK - just an entire nation of people living on the breadline with preventable diseases. You see what I mean, right? Like it's horrific that diseases from antiquity reared their head in a supposedly developed nation. But at the same time, that doesn't exactly tell the story of modern day UK and it'd be very dishonest to suggest that reflects the entirety of the (then) European Union. In the same way it's horrific that you had childhood trauma that persists to this day. You're under no obligation to defend the circumstances in which you grew up, but I'm sure you're quite aware that your experience was far from universal, as evidenced by comments here.
  - ddalex 3y ago
    My experience was universal where I grew up. Everybody in my generation had it. Stop being so presumptuous
    - smcl 3y ago
      The issue in question here is that many in the west will unquestioningly accept an account of true hardship and just presume that this was the case for every one of hundreds of millions of people across an enormous bloc of countries. You don't seem keen to volunteer where you're from or what period you're talking about and I won't press you on that, but from speaking to guys I know from ČSSR, Poland or Yugoslavia your experience sounds really rough but not reflective of theirs. It's not presumptuous at all to say your experience of lining up for food, feeling scared and having lingering trauma about that is not reflective of the bloc overall. It is certainly an important part of it that should not be minimised (and tbh should be carefully considered so that it isn't repeated). But it is not reflective of every lived experience in the group of countries in question and, again, you know this.

epolanski 3y ago

> Did you live there? I did. Yes. - Never had electricity rationed. - Meat was rationed on a food stamp basis here as well. What should've been the alternative? Only a handful of wealthier people could eat meat? Meat production has always been a problem in eastern Europe and only improved with market economy. - Never seen hot water rationed - I don't think racism is a peculiarity of socialist countries. Slavs have always been a culturally xenophobic culture, still are. - Yes, I'm aware of black market economy. - Your communications are still constantly taped and listened on unless you're naive to think the opposite. - Never my family was afraid of who we talked to. Moreover, what was to be afraid of, unless you were plotting something? - Corruption is still widespread everywhere in the world, not a peculiarity of socialism per se. - Alcohol-related issues are worse today than they were in soviet times in most of the countries formerly in the warsaw pact. > But yeah, life was "not bad". People use to paint those countries as miserable or something, which is straight not true. Most people enjoyed on average the highest standards of living they or their parents ever seen. Cities, infrastructure were built everywhere, women enjoyed the most social progress they'd ever seen, politics, while limited to only communist parties still had seen the most democratization these countries ever experienced.

t8sr 3y ago
You are claiming multiple things that are just plain false. Some of these countries were full democracies before they became Moscow's satellites. The amount of censorship and self-censorship was staggering. And no, your communication today is not constantly taped and listened to in most of Europe. You are either a Russian troll, someone with an undisclosed agenda, or a naive 13 y/o. The things you're saying are a mix of straight up lies and misdirection and a classic example of historical revisionism that should be called out everywhere we see it. Concrete points: - I don't think racism is a peculiarity of socialist countries. Slavs have always been a culturally xenophobic culture, still are. This is racist bullshit - "slavs" are not inherently xenophobic. 30-40 years of progress just didn't happen in Central Europe because Moscow didn't like big social changes. - Your communications are still constantly taped and listened on unless you're naive to think the opposite. Not in the same way, and I have a feeling you know that. - Never my family was afraid of who we talked to. Moreover, what was to be afraid of, unless you were plotting something? Being careful about who you talk to about what is literally the thing most people remember right after "we couldn't travel." If you didn't feel this, you were either a small child, politically aligned with the party, or extremely sheltered.