Who here lived in a communist country? Report!

[Dry]

I went 8 month in the army for military service.
Not really a country - although I sometimes wondered on which planet I was - but surely a communist system.

[VetLegion]

Also, it is a myth that all housing in communism was huge grey cubicle shaped concrete monstrosities

View from my window:

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Lonestar
* Lonestar lived in Sweden.

[RGBVideo]

The nation where I have lived all my life was called Soviet Finland (SF) until it backstabbed the True Motherland and joined the Satan's Final Empire in 1995. Does that count?

[connorkimbro]

ya, i'm in the military at the moment, and in some ways, it's a very communist type system.

here's ONE example.

i and my friend are both the same rank, and have the same time in service. we have the same job. we work at the same place, we live in the same building, eat at the same chow hall. she gets paid about 1000$ MORE a month, because she has kids back in the states.


Do i think that's unfair? not really. she needs the money for her kids. If she didn't get that money, i'm sure she wouldn't have joined. It's a contractual system, people volunteer to be a part of it, and nobody's forced to stay in past the amount of time they originally signed up for. But that is one of the FEW differences.

[Az]

Originally posted by VetLegion

Comrade Azazel, what about 'skiing in the mountains in the winter, sea in the summer' for the middle class. Were you able to afford those? Here, everyone could afford to spend some time at sea, and quite some could go skiing too. And the working hours were short and holidays many

Indeed! That was indeed great. It was like a first world country, but a bit more humble. And almost everyone could afford it.

But I am baffled but what you've said.

No, not really. It wasn't entirely bad, but it was not good either. There were fewer buissiness opportunities, there was less democracy. You could really get hurt for being a nationalist, or even for criticising members of the communist party harshly (some criticism was allowed). On the other hand, crime and drug consumption increased with democracy, so it was not all profit that way either.

Why is bad for nationalists to be hurt. You know very well what happened to your great country when it was swept by nationalism. I remember being in Yugo in the 80s on vacation. what a sweet country. Now you had war, genocide. The living standard for most of you fell. Social decay advanced, as you said. and what did you get for this? "Increased bussiness opportunity"? That is the possibility for a limited few to get rich?

[chequita guevara]

VetLegion, club threads aren't allowed, so you have to suffer the mocking SPAM of Americans.

[connorkimbro]

so you have to suffer the mocking SPAM of Americans.

Deny that the US army is not a communist-like organization, and give me reasons.

[Az]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
VetLegion, club threads aren't allowed, so you have to suffer the mocking SPAM of Americans.

If we'll give you an honorary invitation, will you shut up?

[Az]

some views of my town can be found here

I remember some of them. *sigh* But they say they changed so much there now. This guy has siezed power over the autonomous republic, and hardly answers to the central government. He bulldozed a bunch of stuff to build hotels for western tourists. But at least there is order, and the infrastructure doesn't fall apart, like in the rest of the country.

[VetLegion]

Che,

VetLegion, club threads aren't allowed, so you have to suffer the mocking SPAM of Americans.

exploit our nostalgia and recruit us for the revolution

also, they are free to mock, but we have to let them know it was not as bad as capitalist propaganda paints it. At least in our (Yugoslavian) brand of communism, which was the most successful ever

[VetLegion]

Azazel,

Why is bad for nationalists to be hurt.

For the most of time (peacetime), only extremist nationalism is dangerous. If people are allowed to freely follow their customs there is less chance of extremists appearing, and when they do they will be marginalised. Many of the bad things that happened can be attributed to reppressed nationalism(s). There is lots of other stuff there too (economic issues..), but I won't clutter the thread with it.

Communists treated n. pretty harshly: you could be jailed for singing inapropriate songs on a wedding. Their way was maybe the only way to keep the country together after a bloody world war, but it also doomed it to collapse as soon as CP's grip on power loosened.

You just can not base a sucessfull society on oppression of someone's national identity. People can choose to forget it, like most do when they say move to USA, but if you officialy enforce it you will get quite the opposite.

By the way, the dream of unitarists that different nationalities will mix into one Yugoslavian nation failed in general, as after 50 years the percentage of people declaring themselves as Yugoslavians was still negligble. Number of mixed marriages was somewhat bigger, but still not really significant. Goes without saying, those people really saw the bad side of the war (parted families, etc).

[Sirotnikov]

lived in the SU, in Georgia, in the port town of Batumi, till the age of 5 1/2.

LOL ROFLMAO

Privet Gruzin

Ti ne vigladish gruzinom i tak ne razgovarivayech. Ya gadayu tvoy roditeli tuda ubezhaly iz drugikh chastei strani.



As for myself, I lived in the USSR until the age of 6. (from 1984 till 1990)

I will answer both according to my knowledge and my own personal experiences.

The best thing was that most people had it relatively ok. Though the life standard was much lower than the west, it was much better than being dirt poor in the west, and there weren't much differences between rich and poor in the normal sense.

Basically, those who were close to power (be it in worker's unions, party, local political structure) had it much better. But that isn't different in the west. Only that in the west it's part of the system and accounted for, and in the USSR it was against it's own ideals and quite corrupt. Since it was working "against" the system., it made the system work worse.

There were also frequen shortages on things such as dairy produce, meats and such. No good clothes or usual household items. Almost no home technology - no good soap, no good washing machines, no good ovens, no good refrigerators.

My own experience though, was bad and boring TV programming. No good cartoons / films / TV shows. The TV programming for each day was quite dull and erratical. Way too much direct covers of politics.

I did like the 'myth' created around WWII as it was called "the great fatherland war" and I liked the myths created around the communist history. Lead to my interest in history and psychological effects that lead the masses.

I like capitalism better

[Az]

here, the official webpage of the region, Batumi is the capital. you can see the picture of the warlord in the main page.

http://www.batumi.net/batumi.php?show=welcome

Some pics:

The passanger terminal:
[img]http://radio.weblogs.com/0101986/images/Batumi.jpg[img]
The city center. doesn't seem to change much:

they thinned the trees some.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by connorkimbro

so you have to suffer the mocking SPAM of Americans.

Deny that the US army is not a communist-like organization, and give me reasons.

You weren't the only American to post in this thread, conner.