this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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It's funny because if you look at living standards in eastern Europe during communism's peak they were wayyy better than they are now
They had public transit, jobs, and housing for all.
And when people who actually lived in these area during that period almost ALL of them say communism was better! But OP and their ilk would rather focus on the imaginary eastern Europeans in their head, or perhaps the gusanos whose family 'fled' to the west after their fiefdom got collectivized
Easier to make it seem bad if you were born in that area after 1980ish and washing it all down as Bad Communism instead of the Capitalism that actually made it this way.
Back when I was a USSR style tankie I was very open about it and people would talk about communism with me at work. I had a Ukrainian woman join my team and I wanted to make sure I didn't say anything to offend her because even though I thought at the time that the USSR system was ideal I acknowledged the evils that occured especially against Ukraine. So I asked her to tell me if I ever said anything that crossed a line and that I'd try and make sure I didn't do that as well. Imagine my surprise when she told me she actually thought communism was great because before the USSR collapsed her city had everything they needed and her family was doing great. Her parents had higher degrees of education for free. It was when the USSR collapsed and capitalism came in that life in Ukraine got super hard again.
People might not like it, but you can watch a couple of people who are living in Eastern Ukraine (yes, the literal warzone) in this video talk about how shit was better until 1991. Cause, you know, they wouldn't be living in a warzone for one thing. Watch from 03:15 till about 20 minutes in, if you'd like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drhgjxSJG6M
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Lol. Almost all of my grandparents and greatgrandparents disagreed and personally told me about their life during USSR occupation, and the two that don't were well connected with officials and generally lived much better than the average person, enjoying vacations to Cuba frequently, something tue average person could never afford.
Everyone else just lived in pretty poor, if stable, conditions. None of that "communism = starve to death" meme nonsense that some try to push, but it just wasn't good. After fall of the USSR, things went worse before they became better, but now things are significantly better for the average person.
That's the thing, they lived in a poor country. Not strictly because of their political system (as many flaws as it had), but because of global economics, and trade hostility from the USA that intentionally hampered growth. It's not like they were purposely kept poor for funsies or cause the government were big meanies (sure, they were meanies in other ways). The wealth inequality between modern political leaders and funding sources (where the real power comes from) and the average citizen (particularly in the USA) is far greater than it ever was in the USSR.
Things are better for some and worse for many since then in Russia, but in other places like Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova everyone lost except for the rich guys who pillaged all the private infrastructure.
So they just built all those museums dedicated to the hardship and terror of those years as a little joke to mess with westerners like me as I traveled through their countries?
Interesting side fact, in places that were occupied by both sides in WW2, some museums could do double duty. The places the Gestapo used to imprison, torture, and murder were often the same places the communists used for the same purposes.
Yes. Turns out smearing communism is very lucrative for powerful people. And no, the only communists that set foot in concentration camps were prisoners there alongside Jews, homosexuals, Romani, and other minorities. EDIT: forgot to mention the communists who liberated the camps too
Your do a great disservice to the tens-of-thousands of victims of the communist states. I spent a lot of time in these places, looking at mugshots and intake forms and reading about what happened to them.
What do you think when you hear about a fascist antisemite standing in front of a pile of children's shoes in a Holocaust museum saying "it didn't happen"? Because that's what I think about you right now.
And I never said concentration camps (edit: although these museums do tell the stories of the tens-of-thousands "deported" to camps in Siberia and other places), I was taking about buildings used for the imprisonment, torture, and murder of mostly political prisoners, but also others that upset the Nazis/communists in some way. Here is one example of many. https://www.terrorhaza.hu/en
You're the one conflating Nazis with the very people who did the world the service of defeating them so I think that very thing about YOU right now. Did certain communist organizations overstep their bounds and even commit crimes against humanity? Yes, tragically. And that's disgusting. Did that happen on anywhere near the scale that Fascists did, or that the current capitalist class IS CURRENTLY DOING?? Not even close, not even in the same galaxy. What you're condemning is the exception for communism and the rule for capitalism, and I condemn it as well.
I am not conflating Nazis and communists. I am comparing you to a Holocaust denier because of your conspiracy theories about the existence of these places established to educate people about the well documented atrocities of the communist states. I didn't say they were as bad as the Nazis overall, I pointed out they happily used the cramped cells, torture implements, and kill rooms left behind.
It is very much not the exception in communism. I have been to almost every former Warsaw pact country and a few countries that were part of the USSR and these museums are universal.
And what about the victims of capitalism? There are endless victims.