> Eastern Europe only took off after the fall of the USSR The Balkans maybe don't count as Eastern Europe, but before ww2 we were predominantly agrarian. 75% o

> Eastern Europe only took off after the fall of the USSR The Balkans maybe don't count as Eastern Europe, but before ww2 we were predominantly agrarian. 75% of the population worked on farms[1]. By the 1970's Yugoslavia was a modern industrial economy with all the accoutrements you would expect from a European nation (power, sanitation, roads, etc). Only 29% of the population worked on farms[2]. Then in early 1990's the country fell apart, democracies came out of the ashes, and by 2004 the first bits of former Yugoslavia started joining the EU and NATO[3]. Overall a great success. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia#Farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia#Farming [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia#1970s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Socialist_Feder... [3] https://www.gov.si/en/topics/slovenia-as-an-eu-member-state/ https://www.gov.si/en/topics/slovenia-as-an-eu-member-state/