i cant with this people, they are the real spoiled ones taking everything they got in socialist states for granted and complain how hard they had it: “uh it was so hard, we did not have oranges? Can you believe that??? how can a society possibly function without oranges, literally 1984” I give you the choice:
A: live in a society where human rights like housing, food and clothing are treated as such and the vast majority of peoples needs are met (no oranges)
or
B: live in a society where you need to pay for your human rights and where only the rich can carefree finance their lives without sinking in unpayable debt while homeless people roam the streets and get beaten by the police for being poor (with oranges)
one of the great baffling issues of the later soviet union was how little people appreciated things like safety nets, housing, security in old age. And how much people would really like the new phone
The section in Blackshirts and Reds where he details what it was like for people in former Soviet countries when they realized they had been duped by capitalist propaganda and lost all those things they took for granted was really fucking sad
Apparently the “2/3 society” was a hotly discussed topic in the late GDR, because liberals went that “if only 2/3 of the society lives well at the expense of getting everything to run well, then it’s worth pursuing.”
They got what they wanted.
A nationalistic “the state was supposed to take care of me, but I am unhappy. This is the lazy people’s fault” was very popular in the 80s - east AND west.
