love my Oma, she's turning 90 next week (born 1934!) and was the first person I came out as bi to. Defo hanging one or two of these up in my dorm
Whenever people imply communism = lack of incentive for human greatness, I think about how my grandparents had lower class parents and were extremely poor (even starving) in their post-war childhood, but ended up leading pretty impressive lives, despite knowing they wouldn't live much above the material reality of their neighbors for it.
My grandma was an interior architect and my grandpa an astrophysics professor and professional photographer. Both were gymnasts in their 20's (my grandpa has a couple medals below). They didn't do any of that shit for luxury, they figured they'd lead a modest life in the standard plattenblau housing block as the other working people of their town (small but cute and cozy apartment, I was there not too long ago), and that's what they wanted.
They never needed to drive a car in their lives, and often visited countries across the Eastern Bloc by bike/public transit. My grandma always had a thing for making fruit preserves and cool pottery (still killing it), and my grandpa for art from wood carving (he was also a mountain climber). They had a nice community garden they always tended to too. It's a beautiful town with a lot to see, honestly can't wait to visit again
My mom was 19 when the Berlin Wall fell. She studied english abroad when everything went to shit under capitalism. Ended up moving to the US just because she met my dad. Usually when she tells an American she grew up in the DDR, they look all shocked and ask some insane shit like if she was starving to death, or if she knew anyone who was shot and killed trying to climb the wall (💀⁉️). Certainly no one was starving by the 70s/80s. My mom and all her friends and acquaintances had great childhoods. She had a small town, middle of nowhere school system that pushed sports, music, art, multilingualism, sciences, etc. on her heavily (when I did track and field in high school she always told me how her school's facility was 10x better lmao). The DDR fostered genuine human greatness. But ig they didn't have bananas at grocery stores and a hundred car brands like the west 🤷♂️
You can’t eliminate poverty mindset in just a few decades. Success, as we see it today and back then before the various socialist revolutions, usually meant you are able to move upward in society.
I don’t think many people have the explicit goal of “being better” than their neighbors, it’s just that’s how it usually ends up being. And a lot of the times success meant (and means) you don’t have time to look back on the people you left behind because you may be a paycheck away from ending up like them again. You start comparing yourself to others’ success or lack thereof because you’re worried about materially being in a worse spot than where you are now - it’s not always out of competition.
Socialist countries were changing what was considered valuable in life, as seen here with the state encouraging students to pursue the arts in addition to hard science and other technical fields. But it takes longer than a couple generations to understand that you don’t need a 5 story home and 3 cars to be considered “no longer poor and struggling” or “successful.”
But that’s why capitalist propaganda is so pervasive, especially back then. Imagine being uplifted from absolute poverty or in some countries, literal shackles and chains, and you get to live inside a house and sleep in a bed and go to school. Everything seems good, but then you keep seeing ads about America getting a bunch of pop stars visiting or fifty variations of mayonnaise or everyone is wearing jeans. Everyone is happy and smiling with their new treats. It’s not always malicious - in fact you may desire all that crap for your own country because you went through absolute destitution, and now you wish for happiness for others, and everyone is smiling on the American commercial so what’s bad about it? You believe that it would enhance the existing society, not replace it. I believe this was one of the main betrayals of the East Germans. Many believed that their capitalist brothers would simply enhance their lives, but when the walls fell, they immediately came in and stripped the East of its industries and services.