Brace yourself, the .ml revisionist history is incoming.
There’s a reason most of Eastern Europe hate Russia so much. They kept armies on our territories after WW2 and made sure Communist puppet governments were installed. Their armies and puppet governments then engaged in bloody removal of any opposition. I literally knew people in my village who were put in Siberian gulags and came back scarred. People that came back after the war were arrested by the new puppet regime and put into prison at home were they were tortured and killed. I visited some of those prisons after they were turned into museums and they are ghastly. They set up vast secret police networks with incentives for people to turn in their friends and neighbors. Everyone felt unsafe and you couldn’t trust anyone.
There were rebels and freedom fighters that went into hiding and attacked the new regime. A lot of them waited for the Allies to come liberate the country. Most of them died without even finding out that Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin split Eastern Europe on a piece of napkin at the Yalta conference.
If you ask tankies they’ll just tell you your friends were bourgeoisie and deserved to be put in camps for not being socialist enough…
For nuance’s sake - there are still older generation folk that are vehemently pro-russia but they usually don’t espouse socialist values but more nationalistic, Russian imperial interests and general anti-progressiveness as a supposed counter to US influence.
From what I’ve gathered it boils down to yearning for a simpler past when food was local and better, mixed with some nostalgia for their youth, as well as a healthy dose of convenient memory loss of the surveillance state and atrocities of the regime.
My great-granpa was a poor peasant that could barely read and write and so were the other people from our village. He was conscripted into the army, didn’t really have a choice.
I also remember talking to an old lady that was 10 year old when she witnessed the Red Army gather all the Germans in her village, make them dig a pit and then shoot them so they fell into the pits as they died.
general anti-progressiveness as a supposed counter to US influence
interesting, as that’s the US’s same stance.
There’s a reason most of Eastern Europe hate Russia so much
Oh, Russia is burning? It could be more on fire.
(Not sure if that translated well to English).
A Pole finds a magic lamp, rubs it, and out pops a genie. He’s given 3 wishes.
“For my first wish, I want Poland to be raided by the Mongols”.
The Mongolian horde arrives after a month, burns and pillages the countryside, and then they go home.
“For my second wish, I want Poland to be raided by the Mongols”
Another month passes, and then the horde returns, burning and pillaging all the villages that had barely had time to be rebuilt. The genie asks:
“I think I know what your third wish is going to be. My question is: why? What have your countryman done to deserve such a thing?”
“We may be raided 3 times, but the Mongols have to go through Russia 6 times!”
There’s a reason most of Eastern Europe hate Russia so much
A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 66% of Armenians thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful
In a 2016 survey, 69% of Azerbaijanis believed life was better under the USSR.
In a 2016 survey, it increased to 53% of Belarusians saying life was better under the USSR
Another Pew survey, also in 2017, showed that 43% of Georgians thought the dissolution was a good thing, compared to 42% who thought it was a bad thing.
In a 2016 survey, around 60% of Kazakhs above the age of 35 believed life was better under the USSR.
A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 61% of Kyrgyz thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 16% who thought it was beneficial.
A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 42% of Moldovans thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 26% who thought it was beneficial.[7] Regret about dissolution later increased to 70% according to a 2017 Pew survey, with only 18% saying the dissolution was a good thing.
Levada polling since the mid-1990s on the preferred political and economic system of Russians also shows nostalgia for the Soviet Union, with the most recent polling in 2021 showing 49% preferring the Soviet political system, compared to 18% preferring the current system, and 16% preferring Western democracy, as well as 62% saying they preferred a system of economic planning compared to 24% preferring a market capitalist economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia_for_the_Soviet_Union
eastern europe, only 2 eastern europe examples provided, most examples given are central asian or caucasian which do not necessary translate to eastern europe
Eastern Europeam views of the USSR are complicated and mixed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_nostalgia
To say that “most eastern Europeans dislike Russia/USSR” is counterfactual and downright confusing.
Real convenient how Eastern Europe is complicated and mixed but you have no problem saying Central Asia or the Caucasus support the USSR.
Wouldn’t happen to be cherry picked sources/data, would it? Let me go harvest some too!
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What country did Eastern Europe did/do you live in? What was it like there? Why did you leave and how?
I am from Romania. I come from a relatively small and poor village so life wasn’t too bad. It was a small community and people could grow their own stuff and together with what they could steal from the collectivized farms lived an okay life when compared with people living in cities that had to queue for hours to get some bread or meat. Since it was such a small community the Securitate weren’t that big a deal and if someone mouthed off about the regime the local policemen would take them into the station and gave them a beating then let them go home. In cities people that mouthed off about the regime just disappeared. They sometimes disappeared even if they didn’t talk, like if someone reported them maliciously. The Securitate wasn’t too keen on spending time on actually investigating stuff since our Glorious Leader needed workers for his pet projects and inmates couldn’t really say no.
After the 1989 Revolution where Ceausescu was killed the people that were best poised to take power were what was left over of the former communist elite. A lot of them had foreign currency set aside since they were allowed to leave the country or had ties with the authorities. This meant that when privatization happened they could afford to buy the industry and the valuable land since local currency was basically worthless. They also overtook political power with populist measures and outright bribes. They then just sold whatever they could to foreign interests and used the proceeds to maintain their grip on power. We had a huge brain drain after that as qualified people left towards other European countries where they could earn more money and it just made the situation worse. Now the country is honestly a mess and I’m kinda glad I left.
I’m here in Romania right now, the child of a Romanian who managed to get out during communism. I’m trying to help push the country ever so slightly towards fixing all these ancient systemic issues. It’s hard goddamn work getting even the smallest reform done, but somebody’s gotta do it.
I’m sure that if we keep following exactly the same playbook it’ll all work out next time, though. One more revolution, bro. One more revolution and it’ll fix everything.
One of the few eastern blocks that love russia still is east germany. But that also got ruled for 50 years like stalins wet dream. Cult of personality and indoctrination from birth.
The PEOPLE’S Imperialism!
[Invades Poland and the Baltics with the Nazis, annexes Karelia, overthrows socialist governments in Hungary and Czechoslovakia]
Lord. How fucked international politics are.
Also, most of the communists believed in international socialism from the start, that they will all unite against capitalist countries. Only to start fighting between each other later.
Khrushchev “Stalin was bad actually”
Mao: “REVISIONIST”
There is not so much difference between soviets and democrats these days anymore. Different names, both have their cruelties and oppression.
Just FYI, this conversation isn’t about the US. Also, that comparison is fucked in so many ways.
Thats why i call it the russian red empire. And see it as just a continuation of the empire just with blood red paint.
Its really sad that russian culture never was able to develope a sense for democracy. And has corruption embedded in its culture :( If you dont steal from your workplace you are the one not to be trusted…
Can’t wait for these current super massive countries to be broken up into smaller nations so there are no actual super powers left and everyone has to abide by international laws or be cast away into stone age.
Probably won’t happen or not in my lifetime but one can dream.
We’re doing our part here in America, but I haven’t heard anything about Chinese or Indian instability.
