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This article appeared recently in the German Press DDR Wohnung. This led my wife and I to wonder what the reason for some of the seeming nostalgia for communism is? We tend to agree that in some respects life was simpler under the communists because basic needs were taken care of for the most part. Creativity and freedoms were stifled but generally people survived if they toed the party line.In the last several years there has been a sense of nostalgia in East Germany at least for things as they existed before the wall fell. They even have a word for it Ostalgie. This has manifested itself in popular culture through movies like ?Goodbye Lenin? and the popularity of some DDR themed products. There is even a DDR themed hotel in Germany. My wife says it is because the people from the east are no longer coddled and have to actually work. She pointed out that they went from 100% employment in 1989 to 16% unemployment in one year. I pointed out that the generation that really remembers communism is getting older and the younger people, the ones that are say less than 30 years old, just don?t remember it any more. The most important thing needed is to keep the abuses and injustices of communism in the front of people?s minds. It is easy to forget the bad things in life.Does anyone else have a theory as to why communism might be looking better now than it did 20 years ago when the peoples of Europe at least threw the communists out of power?
I think that communism has at its heart a sense of idealism, and youth are attracted to such things. I would say that most everyone in the world wants to be wealthy, but very few of us are or ever will be, relatively speaking. When youths see this, they take their envy/anger/blaming out on the rich and the system which allowed them to become rich. They think that communism is the answer because it brings equality, but they fail to adequately recognize the false promises and restricted freedom that accompanies such a political arrangement.The nostalgia is likely coming from those who may have lived under communism but weren't directly harmed by it (e.g. they weren't the ones who were unjustly imprisoned or had a family member shot by police). In the end, I think that every age looks backwards and sees a "golden age" that it wants to return to...this is true whether it's the Romans looking back with admiration on the Greeks, British Whigs to the Romans, modern-day baby boomers on the 1960s, modern conservatives on the Reagan era, and so forth.
Phid, you may be onto something. But it is not as though the abuses of the communists are not well known, especially in Germany. The Germans denigrate communism as much as, if not more than they do National Socialism. Nostalgia is not limited to Germnay either. I saw this article yesterday about communists demonstrating for their return to power in Moscow and deriding the current government in Russia for cutting the military. Russian communists urge leadership change This movement just stikes me as odd. It is as if the Jewish people would long for a return ot Poland and the restrictive laws there 150 years ago.
Just to chime in here, my thoughts…I think Phid is on target as far as nostalgia, but also consider this... success in capitalism isn't easy, and failure is. In general, you could attain a higher standard of living under communism for less work and effort than what many are experiencing in this current world wide economic downturn. What you don't get under communism is the opportunity to advance and increase your standard of living significantly through hard work and ingenuity. Communism puts the majority of society (but not all of it) on the same socio-economic plain. The communist ideal was to elevate everyone to "middle class" -- the reality was that it raised some but lowered others to something less than middle class. Many were better off, and many were worse off... but now, with economic uncertainty, rising unemployment, unprecedented immigration and increasing cultural diversity (and pressure), I think people are longing for a simpler and more certain society. Just look at what's going on here in the US -- society at large is demanding (and accepting, by and large) that the Federal Government come to the rescue. Look at everyone clamoring over how "unfair" the bailout is and "how can I get my share" -- there are even some serious folks out there clamoring for a nationwide 4% mortgage rate as a way to "fix" the housing situation.... and we don't have a communist experience to look back on with longing. When your current situation is difficult, you don't remember the bad things that happened during a more certain time. That's just human nature.Anyway, my 2 cents...
Capitalism entails a risk/reward situation that communism does not (at least in theory). A worker in a capitalism society has the ability to become wealthier and make his life better through his own efforts, but he also faces the possibility that his effort will fail and that he will be worse off than he was previously. Communism, on the other hand, seems to eliminate this risk/reward element – everyone's got a safety net, but as Vulture mentioned, people also can't make themselves wealthier by their own efforts.People want that safety net now but I'm sure if you ask them, they would say they also want the ability to make themselves wealthier. Problem is, they can't have it both ways. This illustrates a larger problem with our culture which wants the benefits/pleasures of life without taking responsibility for actions.
Does anyone else have a theory as to why communism might be looking better now than it did 20 years ago when the peoples of Europe at least threw the communists out of power?
East Germans are nostalgic about communism mainly because they enjoyed a higher standard of living than the rest of communist block countries.Besides, they were effectively brainwashed by communist system and its propaganda. :):):):) Do you know the term Homo Sovieticus???
East Germans are nostalgic about communism mainly because they enjoyed a higher standard of living than the rest of communist block countries.
That may be so, but they did not have a higher standard of living than the West Germans and they knew it. That is why the East/West German border was so heavily fortified, so many East Germans tried to leave that if they had done nothing East Germany would have been rapidly depopulated. It is this obvious desire of the East Germans to be free of Communism that I dont understand in relation to the recent Nostalgia. Why would pine for something you hated? That is like wanting to relive beatings from a bully in school when you were a child, it makes no sense.
That may be so, but they did not have a higher standard of living than the West Germans and they knew it.
True.
That is why the East/West German border was so heavily fortified, so many East Germans tried to leave that if they had done nothing East Germany would have been rapidly depopulated. It is this obvious desire of the East Germans to be free of Communism that I dont understand in relation to the recent Nostalgia. Why would pine for something you hated?
They pined for it because they didn`t really realise what energy and effort capitalism requires from people to allow them to make a decent living. In communist Germany they didn`t need to spare this energy, the state provided them with everything. Tearing the Wall down, they thought that they would work like in communism, but earn like in capitalism. They were dead wrong and that is why they are nostalgic. They are real Ossies, Homo Sovieticus Germans, unable to show personal initiative to make their lives better. They expect the state to guide them and show the way. I suppose that if they could go back to times of communism, East Germans would happily adopt the system again. I have found an article from 1989:http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9911/09/wall.nostalgia/The former East Germany may have been seen from the West as a brutal, Stalinist regime run by dictators, but it offered its citizens guaranteed employment for life; generous social programs; cheap public transit; and low-cost housing. "Life in the GDR was not so terrible, because it was a safe life. There was hardly any crime, and I did not have to worry about my future," one former East German told CNN. A recent poll indicated that while most former East Germans welcomed the greater political freedom and supported reunification, more than 40 percent said they were happier under the communist regime. A majority said they were unhappy with the economic changes.Under the former regime, people looked out for each other, explains the owner. Living under a dictatorship and standing in long food lines created a feeling of solidarity."You could depend on each other,"he says, "now it is money, money, money."
I guess it comes down to whether a person is willing to settle for sameness with his neighbors or the opportunity to get more out of life if you are willing to work for it. I have always thought that communism appeals to the lazy and shiftless, those that either cannot or will not work hard and realize the benefits of that hard work.
In our system of capitalism and meritocracy, you have to work to succeed in life. If you don't study, you end up in a lacklustre job. If you are lazy on the job, you get fired. Not so with communism. There was 100% employment, which was good, I suppose, but this also meant that chronic laziness was a problem, as people had no incentive to work harder without rewards for doing so. This is in stark contrast to our capitalist system, where the longer hours you work, the more you get paid, and the more training your job requires (e.g. a neurosurgeon or lawyer vs. a construction worker or cleaner), the more you will be recompensed. Perhaps this could be one of the reasons for nostalgia for communism.In East Germany, there was universal health care and education - same as in Cuba today. Even if it was sub-standard, it was still there. Contrast this with, say, America, where only now, under Obama's universal healthcare initiative, blanket health coverage is coming to America, and parents have to start saving from birth if they want their children to go to a good college.However, I don't think it is an indictment of capitalism per se, but the transition process from communism to capitalism. I am a fervent believer in capitalism, but in the transition from a state-controlled economy to a market economy, there are inevitably going to be some transient difficulties. Those countries - like Russia - which are no longer communist and are ostensibly a market economy/democracy, but under Putin backtracked from the civil liberties associated with liberal democracy, has also seen political turmoil, mismanagement, graft and corruption. Corruption in Russia is at sky-high levels - quite possibly the Russia is the most corrupt country in the world. Under Putin, and followed by Medvedev, Putin's anointed successor, democracy has become a farce. The Russian Mafia has its tentacles spread everywhere. Perhaps it is unsurprising that many Russians pine for the days of the Soviet Union, with its universal employment, healthcare and education, when Russia was a superpower who were the first to put a man in space.On the other hand, Poland, another ex-Soviet bloc country, has made great strides towards a market economy and has a vibrant democracy; and has significantly less nostalgia for the days when it was under the thumb of the Soviet Empire.
