I sympathize. Quite a decent amount of the problems you mentioned were, unfortunately, very real problems and the conditions at the time (siege socialism and whatnot) made it hard to fix. I hope you don’t believe that any sane Communist denies this. Also, yes, those who did try to expose corruption did face problems. Your insights are absolutely helpful to remind us that mistakes can absolutely happen and must be prevented at all costs.
The first generation of people who lived under Socialism experienced massive improvements in living standards (on a scale never seen before), but as their living standards grew, so did their expectations and demands, which Socialism at the time could not provide; the focus on heavy industry by the Eastern Bloc (to reach military parity with the West) took a giant toll in their economies and light industry and plenty of mistakes from within and heavily exacerbated from external pressure led to the demise of Socialism.
China has learned from the mistakes of the Eastern Bloc and look where it is now! It’s not perfect and it still has ways to go in some aspects, but despite all this, it shows Socialism isn’t dead and is again a global force.
Just like talking about the bad things is important, however, we must also recognize what Romania was before the Socialist era: It was an underdeveloped (effectively a third world country) Fascist dictatorship led by Ion Antonescu, a scumbag allied with the Axis.
I sympathize. Quite a decent amount of the problems you mentioned were, unfortunately, very real problems and the conditions at the time (siege socialism and whatnot) made it hard to fix. I hope you don’t believe that any sane Communist denies this. Also, yes, those who did try to expose corruption did face problems. Your insights are absolutely helpful to remind us that mistakes can absolutely happen and must be prevented at all costs.
The first generation of people who lived under Socialism experienced massive improvements in living standards (on a scale never seen before), but as their living standards grew, so did their expectations and demands, which Socialism at the time could not provide; the focus on heavy industry by the Eastern Bloc (to reach military parity with the West) took a giant toll in their economies and light industry and plenty of mistakes from within and heavily exacerbated from external pressure led to the demise of Socialism.
China has learned from the mistakes of the Eastern Bloc and look where it is now! It’s not perfect and it still has ways to go in some aspects, but despite all this, it shows Socialism isn’t dead and is again a global force.
Just like talking about the bad things is important, however, we must also recognize what Romania was before the Socialist era: It was an underdeveloped (effectively a third world country) Fascist dictatorship led by Ion Antonescu, a scumbag allied with the Axis.