Last edited Mon Jul 19, 2021, 10:56 AM - Edit history (1)
Many of my friends are from the former Warsaw Pact countries, and many of those are from the "realexistierender Sozialismus (true existing socialism) " of East Germany. None of them wants to return to their socialist past.
Theirs is not a monolithic point of view, however. It should be noted that there IS a small party in Germany, where I live, that advocates a return to socialism: Die Linken, or "The Leftists." Some of their leaders used to be up and coming members of the old East German elite. They enjoyed comfortable bourgeois lifestyles and travel privileges--something denied to their population. Thus was the true existing socialism, and that is why it was rejected--not by the 1% who lived comfortably and could travel when and where they wanted, but by the 99% who risked jail or death if they demanded it for themselves.
It should also be noted that not everyone adjusted immediately to their new lives. An East German family taking their first vacation in the west, in one famous recorded incident, asked at the hotel reception, for example, when breakfast was. They were told from 7:AM to 10:00 AM. They said, OK, but when was THEIR breakfast? The reception repeated between 7 and 10. Neither understood the other's problem. In the socialist East, you were assigned the exact hour at which you were to take your breakfast. Individuals making decisions for themselves was a concept that made the rulers nervous. In the west, you went to breakfast when you were hungry. In the East, public gatherings at cafés and restaurants of more than four people were forbidden (ideas and other dangerous things like that might get discussed). In the west, it was limited to the number of chairs you could borrow and squeeze in at a table.
The argument can easily be made that all that was never what socialism is about. The argument can also be made that when it is imposed, that is what socialism ultimately always devolves into. I've seen it, with its goose-stepping soldiers and useless propaganda banners all over the capital city. There is a reason that the people I know who grew up there don't want it any more. Those who were part of their privileged ruling elites obviously see things differently.
*edited for clarity-I just had breakfast (when I wanted
)
Edit history
Recommendations
0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):
= new reply since forum marked as read