How would you define these terms? Particularly freedom. Because I bet that, in a lot of ways, people in past socialist countries were freer than we capitalist subjects are.
Well, you still have to pay rent, still have to burst your ass at work, promotion still depends on being buddies with the right people, and on top of that everybody is snitching on everyone, and criticizing the government can have various consequences from being unable to go to university to being sent to prison. Watching the wrong movies or listening to the wrong music (i.e. decadent Western rock) can get you a visit from the cops, etc. You have forced conscription for the men, and mandatory service anywhere between 2-6 years. Corruption - everything happens with bribes and knowing the right people, and that can both get you commodities, and get you out of trouble. Of course when you know the right people you are also untouchable. And of course the basic material conditions werent very good - poverty was rampant. Sexism pretty much a big thing, LGBTQ people ostracized etc. Police brutality the norm. Oh, and you cant leave - if you want to go to another city - you need a special passport, and someone to guarantee for you. Leaving the country - only for specific purposes and usually as a big compromise. Political participation - you may get involved in government organizaiton and the like, but we are talking about very rigid hierarchical structures, where no deviation of thought is acceptable in any direction and mild disagreements are treated as reactionism. Advancing through the ranks does not happen on merit, or due to elections, but by knowing the right people.
So, compared to Western European countries at the time, most of the Eastern Block was pretty shit and a lot less free on most parameters you might think to compare. The regime in my country during the 80s at least was very far from a communist or marxist one, except from using that rhetoric. In any case, a lot of what people here often complain about the US... it was the same back then in the socialist countries around the time of their collapse, both right before it and after it. The West, or at least the US is currently experiencing the same thing the Eastern Block went through a few decades ago.
I know it's a summary but that's a pretty cartoonish representation of life in the USSR. Even in East Berlin the police weren't any more a fixture in life than any current Western country and at worst it was a little boring. Most Soviet Republics had LGBT caucuses in government and later on had hormones provided free and in the later years of the GDR contemporary gender affirmation surgery provided by the state.
The starting GDP of the USSR was similar to 1917 Brazil and skyrocketed to the second largest economy and standard of living in the world. And the experience you're describing sound more like the stories from political maneuvering inside the party and across departments rather than the experience of the average worker working at a co-op, a factory, logistics, janitorial, groceries, etc. Just not being abused by customers everyday and having a high wage + low rent + never being understaffed makes a lot of those jobs an unattainable dream compared to the hell (or even just the 9-5/40) that their western counterparts had.
Also the substantial amount of leisure time, PTO and cheap vacation spots, healthcare and pensions the soviets had access to that most workers today will never experience in their lifetime. People say it was a pretty idyllic life and day to day had the opposite impression on hierarchy. One of the things people from the GDR say they missed was the fact that people across different strata of society like janitors and university professors could talk freely to each other without it feeling alienating or shameful.
Well, I don't know how cartoonish it is, but it's based on my own experience and that of my parents and the people around me. I know we can throw around stats all day, but there is no point in that - I know them too, I know that in many aspects it wasn't bad, or as bad as it would have been if it was capitalism from the start, but also we shouldn't romanticize these things.
I know for certain in my country there was no such thing as a LGBT caucus in the government, and being anywhere within the acronym lands you a visit to the psychiatrist and a number of not very nice treatments. I know about people snitching because I have memories of that. I know the differences between the lives of the ordinary people and the party cadre because my mom worked at a party institution.
Again, a lot of the negatives are just because it was a relatively poor country. But plenty are also because the oligarchic regime that acted more like a mafia, and you still had your bosses abusing you, struggling to pay your rent, and struggling to find a bottle of good Armenian cognac so the doctor will see your grandma and give her the right treatment and attention.
There is a difference between how things look on paper, and what actual life is on the ground.
How would you define these terms? Particularly freedom. Because I bet that, in a lot of ways, people in past socialist countries were freer than we capitalist subjects are.
Well, you still have to pay rent, still have to burst your ass at work, promotion still depends on being buddies with the right people, and on top of that everybody is snitching on everyone, and criticizing the government can have various consequences from being unable to go to university to being sent to prison. Watching the wrong movies or listening to the wrong music (i.e. decadent Western rock) can get you a visit from the cops, etc. You have forced conscription for the men, and mandatory service anywhere between 2-6 years. Corruption - everything happens with bribes and knowing the right people, and that can both get you commodities, and get you out of trouble. Of course when you know the right people you are also untouchable. And of course the basic material conditions werent very good - poverty was rampant. Sexism pretty much a big thing, LGBTQ people ostracized etc. Police brutality the norm. Oh, and you cant leave - if you want to go to another city - you need a special passport, and someone to guarantee for you. Leaving the country - only for specific purposes and usually as a big compromise. Political participation - you may get involved in government organizaiton and the like, but we are talking about very rigid hierarchical structures, where no deviation of thought is acceptable in any direction and mild disagreements are treated as reactionism. Advancing through the ranks does not happen on merit, or due to elections, but by knowing the right people.
So, compared to Western European countries at the time, most of the Eastern Block was pretty shit and a lot less free on most parameters you might think to compare. The regime in my country during the 80s at least was very far from a communist or marxist one, except from using that rhetoric. In any case, a lot of what people here often complain about the US... it was the same back then in the socialist countries around the time of their collapse, both right before it and after it. The West, or at least the US is currently experiencing the same thing the Eastern Block went through a few decades ago.
I know it's a summary but that's a pretty cartoonish representation of life in the USSR. Even in East Berlin the police weren't any more a fixture in life than any current Western country and at worst it was a little boring. Most Soviet Republics had LGBT caucuses in government and later on had hormones provided free and in the later years of the GDR contemporary gender affirmation surgery provided by the state.
The starting GDP of the USSR was similar to 1917 Brazil and skyrocketed to the second largest economy and standard of living in the world. And the experience you're describing sound more like the stories from political maneuvering inside the party and across departments rather than the experience of the average worker working at a co-op, a factory, logistics, janitorial, groceries, etc. Just not being abused by customers everyday and having a high wage + low rent + never being understaffed makes a lot of those jobs an unattainable dream compared to the hell (or even just the 9-5/40) that their western counterparts had.
Also the substantial amount of leisure time, PTO and cheap vacation spots, healthcare and pensions the soviets had access to that most workers today will never experience in their lifetime. People say it was a pretty idyllic life and day to day had the opposite impression on hierarchy. One of the things people from the GDR say they missed was the fact that people across different strata of society like janitors and university professors could talk freely to each other without it feeling alienating or shameful.
Well, I don't know how cartoonish it is, but it's based on my own experience and that of my parents and the people around me. I know we can throw around stats all day, but there is no point in that - I know them too, I know that in many aspects it wasn't bad, or as bad as it would have been if it was capitalism from the start, but also we shouldn't romanticize these things.
I know for certain in my country there was no such thing as a LGBT caucus in the government, and being anywhere within the acronym lands you a visit to the psychiatrist and a number of not very nice treatments. I know about people snitching because I have memories of that. I know the differences between the lives of the ordinary people and the party cadre because my mom worked at a party institution.
Again, a lot of the negatives are just because it was a relatively poor country. But plenty are also because the oligarchic regime that acted more like a mafia, and you still had your bosses abusing you, struggling to pay your rent, and struggling to find a bottle of good Armenian cognac so the doctor will see your grandma and give her the right treatment and attention.
There is a difference between how things look on paper, and what actual life is on the ground.