Well back in the day my country was a communist country and we actually had a working economy Like i.e. heavy industry, machine manufacturing, chemical and bio research, a WORKING education system recognised world wide and free healthcare. Instead of unemployment we had a lack of employees so we had to import them from foreign countries. We actually manufactured our own brand of computer systems and all the parts for it INSIDE the country.
Nowdays we're so called 'democracy'. We have 20% unemployment (and rising), our education system sucks and unlike before now we have to pay for it. Everybody is stupid as ****. Healthcare sucks and we also have to pay for it. We can't even produce our own food supply so we have to import. We don't have an industry any more, we can't manufacture ****. We're are free to own anything we like but we don't have money. Our economy crumbled and there people dying on the streets every day. How is this called 'prosperity'? How is this any better than communism?
p.s. back in the day we were so advanced we sent two people in space and we had a space program. And that is someting for a country with less than 10 million population. Feeling depressed now? Sure hope so. Have your iphone and die in a cave out of starvation.
..oh and one final thing, why don't you ask someone from the countries of this comic just how rich and powerful they are now? You know, for the lolz =)
It was a locked system that stopped growth and caused a huge difference between East and West, so once the curtain fell, the whole system collapsed on top of the people, all because of its inefficiently and Soviet Rule.
Do you forget that people had to stand hours in lines for the most basic products, and there was no guarantee you would get them? That schoolchildren had to help kolhozes because the actual workforce was unmotivated?
Soviet Authorities exiled over 100k people from all across Baltics to Siberia and moved their own colonial forces here in guise of workforce. The remnants of which can not, despite claiming to live here their whole lives, learn the local language, history and respect our culture, and as a result, can not earn citizenship and we get called fascists because we do not want to give unloyal people citizenship.
There was a good ******* reason it was the Soviets who build the Wall and not the Allies.
Evil bourgeois escaping the workers paradise, right? Then why try to keep them?
Admittedly I'm no fan of communism, but when a country like Yugoslavia develops a working economic model based on socialism and gets blown to bits by 'Murica because of it, one has to wonder if we're being told the whole story. Also, doesn't that trailer sound like something happening at this very moment?
Yeah, sad story... We managed to develop so fast in 40 years, to a level like France, unfortunately we were easy to estrange from the inside, and lost what we had thanks to ultranationalists. That's our weird balkan mentality...
Now when you look at each state how poor it is...
Take my country for example - the first Yugo prototype jet was built in 1952 and solely in Serbia (Ikarus 451M), and today we are producing turboprop trainer aircraft...
@SunnyBittern - My comment was never meant to be humorous, quite the opposite in fact. We can debate the good and the bad sides of socialism for days so I'm going to skip this and ask you to answer my original question - Are you a democratic country? Do you have a higher living standard now than you had before? Are you not plagued by corruption and oligarchy?
I know it wasn't, I called you out on bringing politics into a humour group, but I understand, we all have an opinion about sensitive topics.
For your questions.
Yes, we are democratic. Yes, we have higher living standard, in fact, Baltic states have the highest among Ex-Soviet States.
Your right, there is corruption and oligarchy, that is mostly perpetrated by ex-Soviet officials. Most of whom are of Russians descent, that before Soviet Occupation, only made up 10% of our population, and now, after 20 years of regaining our independence, make up 26%. On the Eve of Union Collapse, Latvians were only 52% of the whole population of Latvia.
What hurts the most, is the fact that before Occupation, Baltic States were top of their game, moving up and had a huge chance of integrating into rest of Europe, but then the Occupation took it away from us.
European union sucks as well, trust me on that. We're members for years now and things get worse every day. There is no escape for us, the small countries, others won't let us be truly independent.
Back in the day, in my ancestral homeland of Hungary, its industry and economy was stripped, its independence crushed by an occupying force, thousands were killed or deported during this time (most without trial) and my Grandfather was forced to flee after a failed revolution. To add insult to injury, after gaining independence, the Russians demand several billion dollars to pay for 'infrastructure'. In particular, military bases that are deemed 'below the minimum requirements for human use' and that have been described as worse than those in Nigeria. For even more salt on the wound, this is backed by a threat that the withdrawal of troops might be delayed by several months if the debt is not paid.
As the Kazakhstani I can say that those "Monstrous Soviet Occupants" are partly ********. I'm half-Russian half-Italian and I lived in Kazakhstan since my birth and you know the thing I learned? Most of Kazakh people didn't want to do anything but wanted to get everything for free. I was studying their history for 10 years all they were doing is yelling about injustice and totalitarism when it was Russian Empire, yelling about injustice when it was Soviet Union. Indeed there actually was totalitarism and repressions in the early USSR. My own Great Grandfather was repressed. But in the period of cold war everything was nice. You know how it was? Every Kazakhstani city was well-developed. We had our own industry, we had a lot of different goods including the western ones, we had education, medicine, army, space program with the biggest Cosmodrome in the entire USSR and we had economy. What happened after USSR's collapse? We are independent as **** for about 24 years and what do we got? Army decreased from 200 000 active personnel to 40 000, the economy is being robbed every year, most of the cities that were looking like modern cities are now nothing more that Fallout 3 decorations. Education goes to hell and medicine already did. And our government only says that now when we are independent we can build a strong independent state. The one you could build in those 24 years. 24 ******* years. When it was USSR everyone was working for his own sake because there were no private companies, that didn't steal all money. Only government ones that were giving money to the government which was giving money to people. And what do we have now? A merely collapsed state.
If that's the price of a "freedom" everyone wishes for, then screw this freedom.
If you don't want to work then don't cry that you get nothing.
Axaxaxa !
Because why needings all that **** if you of having Vodka and Lada ?
Ahhh, the side of communism most pro-communism peeps simply ignore.
Well back in the day my country was a communist country and we actually had a working economy Like i.e. heavy industry, machine manufacturing, chemical and bio research, a WORKING education system recognised world wide and free healthcare. Instead of unemployment we had a lack of employees so we had to import them from foreign countries. We actually manufactured our own brand of computer systems and all the parts for it INSIDE the country.
Nowdays we're so called 'democracy'. We have 20% unemployment (and rising), our education system sucks and unlike before now we have to pay for it. Everybody is stupid as ****. Healthcare sucks and we also have to pay for it. We can't even produce our own food supply so we have to import. We don't have an industry any more, we can't manufacture ****. We're are free to own anything we like but we don't have money. Our economy crumbled and there people dying on the streets every day. How is this called 'prosperity'? How is this any better than communism?
p.s. back in the day we were so advanced we sent two people in space and we had a space program. And that is someting for a country with less than 10 million population. Feeling depressed now? Sure hope so. Have your iphone and die in a cave out of starvation.
..oh and one final thing, why don't you ask someone from the countries of this comic just how rich and powerful they are now? You know, for the lolz =)
It was a locked system that stopped growth and caused a huge difference between East and West, so once the curtain fell, the whole system collapsed on top of the people, all because of its inefficiently and Soviet Rule.
Do you forget that people had to stand hours in lines for the most basic products, and there was no guarantee you would get them? That schoolchildren had to help kolhozes because the actual workforce was unmotivated?
Soviet Authorities exiled over 100k people from all across Baltics to Siberia and moved their own colonial forces here in guise of workforce. The remnants of which can not, despite claiming to live here their whole lives, learn the local language, history and respect our culture, and as a result, can not earn citizenship and we get called fascists because we do not want to give unloyal people citizenship.
There was a good ******* reason it was the Soviets who build the Wall and not the Allies.
Evil bourgeois escaping the workers paradise, right? Then why try to keep them?
Top humour, btw
Admittedly I'm no fan of communism, but when a country like Yugoslavia develops a working economic model based on socialism and gets blown to bits by 'Murica because of it, one has to wonder if we're being told the whole story. Also, doesn't that trailer sound like something happening at this very moment?
Yeah, sad story... We managed to develop so fast in 40 years, to a level like France, unfortunately we were easy to estrange from the inside, and lost what we had thanks to ultranationalists. That's our weird balkan mentality...
Now when you look at each state how poor it is...
Take my country for example - the first Yugo prototype jet was built in 1952 and solely in Serbia (Ikarus 451M), and today we are producing turboprop trainer aircraft...
@SunnyBittern - My comment was never meant to be humorous, quite the opposite in fact. We can debate the good and the bad sides of socialism for days so I'm going to skip this and ask you to answer my original question - Are you a democratic country? Do you have a higher living standard now than you had before? Are you not plagued by corruption and oligarchy?
I know it wasn't, I called you out on bringing politics into a humour group, but I understand, we all have an opinion about sensitive topics.
For your questions.
Yes, we are democratic. Yes, we have higher living standard, in fact, Baltic states have the highest among Ex-Soviet States.
Your right, there is corruption and oligarchy, that is mostly perpetrated by ex-Soviet officials. Most of whom are of Russians descent, that before Soviet Occupation, only made up 10% of our population, and now, after 20 years of regaining our independence, make up 26%. On the Eve of Union Collapse, Latvians were only 52% of the whole population of Latvia.
What hurts the most, is the fact that before Occupation, Baltic States were top of their game, moving up and had a huge chance of integrating into rest of Europe, but then the Occupation took it away from us.
European union sucks as well, trust me on that. We're members for years now and things get worse every day. There is no escape for us, the small countries, others won't let us be truly independent.
True.
Back in the day, in my ancestral homeland of Hungary, its industry and economy was stripped, its independence crushed by an occupying force, thousands were killed or deported during this time (most without trial) and my Grandfather was forced to flee after a failed revolution. To add insult to injury, after gaining independence, the Russians demand several billion dollars to pay for 'infrastructure'. In particular, military bases that are deemed 'below the minimum requirements for human use' and that have been described as worse than those in Nigeria. For even more salt on the wound, this is backed by a threat that the withdrawal of troops might be delayed by several months if the debt is not paid.
F*ck the USSR.
As the Kazakhstani I can say that those "Monstrous Soviet Occupants" are partly ********. I'm half-Russian half-Italian and I lived in Kazakhstan since my birth and you know the thing I learned? Most of Kazakh people didn't want to do anything but wanted to get everything for free. I was studying their history for 10 years all they were doing is yelling about injustice and totalitarism when it was Russian Empire, yelling about injustice when it was Soviet Union. Indeed there actually was totalitarism and repressions in the early USSR. My own Great Grandfather was repressed. But in the period of cold war everything was nice. You know how it was? Every Kazakhstani city was well-developed. We had our own industry, we had a lot of different goods including the western ones, we had education, medicine, army, space program with the biggest Cosmodrome in the entire USSR and we had economy. What happened after USSR's collapse? We are independent as **** for about 24 years and what do we got? Army decreased from 200 000 active personnel to 40 000, the economy is being robbed every year, most of the cities that were looking like modern cities are now nothing more that Fallout 3 decorations. Education goes to hell and medicine already did. And our government only says that now when we are independent we can build a strong independent state. The one you could build in those 24 years. 24 ******* years. When it was USSR everyone was working for his own sake because there were no private companies, that didn't steal all money. Only government ones that were giving money to the government which was giving money to people. And what do we have now? A merely collapsed state.
If that's the price of a "freedom" everyone wishes for, then screw this freedom.
If you don't want to work then don't cry that you get nothing.