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I've read and watched and heard many discussions and points of view, related to the fall of communism. I will not outline here the aspects related to the mechanisms of the system or other recent history backgrounds. What I would like to explain, in a couple of words, is why I consider all the discussions about "nostalgia" and thoughts of a possible reconsideration of those period, misleading. For sure, the liberal or social-democratic systems in the West are not always meeting the expectations and needs of a big share of the population, as the new political parties in the Central and Eastern European countries, are still clumsy and are hardly resisting the temptation of corruption - material and financial altogether. But, in the same time, the solution is not to look back for inspiration, in a past remembered in an extremely mistorted way, but to try to evaluate the situation starting up to what do you have on the ground.
- Even from the very beginning, we were having on the walls and in our textbooks various quotations from the writings of Lenin and Marx and Engels, what matters in fact was the wonderful and unique way of thinking of the representatives of the ruling party. The whole system was created around an outrageous personality cult. It is nothing to be nostalgic about.
- This personality cult was based on a personal relations system, corrupt, centered on the self-assumed humility of accepting to discuss with idiots because your own and family survival was at stake. Accepting to write an ideological standpoint only because at the end an addition kilo of bread or eggs or cheese was at stake. Never, the system was in itself egalitarian. Always, from the very beginning of the regimes, it was an elite - understood as the top of the social system - replaced another one and tried to steal - no abuse here, some of the old regime representatives were put out of their houses and their goods transferred in the houses of the new communist leaders - the goods and privileges. If somebody is ever dreaming about equality, I must warn it is dreaming about an utopia. Communist produced one of the most selfish and lacking common responsibility political subject. If it is living together in the old, almost destroyed block houses it is more likely that - two of the most common examples:
- It will not care about the other neighbors and will always listen its music at the highest volume possible
- It will threw the garbage directly out of his/her window, preferably in the front of the main entrance in the common building
The so-called common feeling of belonging to "something" as I found expressed in some nostalgic writing, with the example of the youth gatherings was faked: the people gathered there found a reason and a way to spend time together, but it was not the aim they were brought to. The aim was, of course, propaganda and indoctrination. The rest is thinking by substitution.
Cheep and affordable products? Subnutrition and products of low quality, not for everybody, not anytime.
Holidays for everybody at low costs? In bad quality conditions and with the required company and the desired destination. Yes, indeed, it was possible to have at least three weeks out of the town, but in the same places, and with the same people and in precarious conditions.
Cultural opportunities, books at low prices? Another bad joke, because in fact the whole cultural production, in all the Central and Eastern European countries was under the strict control of the party and security system. It was not freedom of thought. Nowhere.
It is anything to be nostalgic about?
- Even from the very beginning, we were having on the walls and in our textbooks various quotations from the writings of Lenin and Marx and Engels, what matters in fact was the wonderful and unique way of thinking of the representatives of the ruling party. The whole system was created around an outrageous personality cult. It is nothing to be nostalgic about.
- This personality cult was based on a personal relations system, corrupt, centered on the self-assumed humility of accepting to discuss with idiots because your own and family survival was at stake. Accepting to write an ideological standpoint only because at the end an addition kilo of bread or eggs or cheese was at stake. Never, the system was in itself egalitarian. Always, from the very beginning of the regimes, it was an elite - understood as the top of the social system - replaced another one and tried to steal - no abuse here, some of the old regime representatives were put out of their houses and their goods transferred in the houses of the new communist leaders - the goods and privileges. If somebody is ever dreaming about equality, I must warn it is dreaming about an utopia. Communist produced one of the most selfish and lacking common responsibility political subject. If it is living together in the old, almost destroyed block houses it is more likely that - two of the most common examples:
- It will not care about the other neighbors and will always listen its music at the highest volume possible
- It will threw the garbage directly out of his/her window, preferably in the front of the main entrance in the common building
The so-called common feeling of belonging to "something" as I found expressed in some nostalgic writing, with the example of the youth gatherings was faked: the people gathered there found a reason and a way to spend time together, but it was not the aim they were brought to. The aim was, of course, propaganda and indoctrination. The rest is thinking by substitution.
Cheep and affordable products? Subnutrition and products of low quality, not for everybody, not anytime.
Holidays for everybody at low costs? In bad quality conditions and with the required company and the desired destination. Yes, indeed, it was possible to have at least three weeks out of the town, but in the same places, and with the same people and in precarious conditions.
Cultural opportunities, books at low prices? Another bad joke, because in fact the whole cultural production, in all the Central and Eastern European countries was under the strict control of the party and security system. It was not freedom of thought. Nowhere.
It is anything to be nostalgic about?
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