I recall cartoons like this airing on Irish or British television in the mid-1980s and I loved them at the time.
Minor nitpick - the Wartburg was manufactured in East Germany. If they had a Czech car it was probably a Skoda.
A few more observations/comments about life in Communist-era Hungary:
Violent crime – it was far less prevalent than in the West. Especially gun crime. There is more of it today, but still far less than in the US. This is not a gun culture. I can only speak for Budapest – nowhere in this city is street crime at “extraordinary levels”. We do have occasional political riots, mind you, but in my opinion the streets are safer than in the typical like-sized Western city.
Nonviolent crime – if we include smuggling and/or making a living by illegal means, it was practically a cultural imperative. Corruption was as bad then as it is now. I knew a dealer in antiques who would go to Romania, load up his car with swag, then grease the border guards to bring home his haul. He did this for years and had enough stuff to stock a museum.
Everyone, and I do mean everyone, had some kind of sideline way of making money or obtaining goods outside legal means. It was necessary for maintaining anything above a subsistence-level existence.
My own grandmother told me how she had gone to a store to look for little pipe-cleaner animals as gifts for her grandchildren. When the clerk wasn’t looking, she swept a couple into her bag. “That’s not stealing!” She was emphatic. “Everybody does it!”
Disabled people – they were everywhere. The country did not have the resources to correct many conditions that in the West would have been treated/cured. Consequently, there were many people with ortho/prosthetic devices (shoes, canes, crutches, etc.) as well as many who got around in hand-cranked wheelchairs. Not sure how to describe these other than it was bigger than a regular wheelchair, had three wheels, and motive power came from cranking a gear mounted on a pole at head height. They were a very common sight. Still are, actually, relative to the US.
Everybody wanted Levis jeans. And many people had a pair, obtained by hook or by crook.
People were very aware of Western culture. They knew the songs and the movies. Taping songs off the radio was common. Discos (not literally discotheques but just dance clubs) were common – still are. They did not discriminate against Russian culture. If the Russians came out with a good movie or song, it got play here, but it didn’t have the same cachet as the Western stuff.
In the 70’s when I told people I was from the US they would challenge me and ask what kind of fortune my family had, because it took a fortune to live in the US. By the mid 80’s enough Hungarians had been abroad and come back to correct this impression.
There were a lot of shot up buildings in Budapest back in those days. Both from the war and the Revolution. There are still quite a few today. The facades of most downtown buildings were black from diesel soot. I remember being astonished to learn that underneath the buildings were actually all different colors, some of them quite bright.
The four-lane overpass on Ulloi Street-- I watched that thing being built over three successive summers. In the US it would have been finished in less than 6 months.
It hadn’t always been like that. My great uncle (this was in the 1970’s) had great nostalgia for the post-war years, when everybody came together to help rebuild the city. He said it was a feeling of joy and unity like nothing you could imagine. But it couldn’t (and didn’t) last.
And it was still the case in Hungary, at least when I lived there from 1998 to 2003. Perhaps with the EU accession things have changed, but police would occasionally ask for documents on the street and in bars. Mind you, it wasn’t a common occurrence (I can only remember three or four instances, always in bars, in my 5+ years there), but I always carried around my passport for that reason. Hungarians as well as foreigners were checked for documents.
That’s a difficult question. You’d need several years a couple of dozens of psychologists and sociologists in order to get a valid answer. 
Let me throw in my 0.02 € on this issue. Warning, WAG ahead!
First, there are some people (and not just a few) that were objectively better during the communist era than now by any token you can name: wealth, influence, social status, etc. Of course, you would expect this to be the case for former communist party members, but actually this is also true for a larger part of the population. Yeah, they do have freedom of speech now, but what is it good for? Can this "freedom" give you food and shelter? The answer is yes, it can, provided that the society as a whole knows how to use it. But back in '89 nobody knew. Romania had a quasi-communist leadership well into the 90s, made of former second-rank communists. The president we had from 1990 to 1996 (Mr. Iliescu) was a former high official in the communist party during the 60s, before falling into disgrace over some disagreement with Ceausescu. Make no mistake, he was still a communist; people opposing the communist regime were sent to very unpleasant places very quickly. But Mr. Iliescu was just contesting Ceausescu's leadership, not the communist rule of the country.
So how did he become the first freely elected president of post-communist Romania? Well, I remember a discussion in my family right before the elections (spring of 1990, IIRC). Everybody knew that the candidates where mostly former communists, but they have voted them nevertheless, because “who else knows how to run a country?”. So, we’ve ended with a neo-communist government…which delayed as much as possible the much needed economic and social reforms. I suspect that this was the period during which nostalgia for “back then” was the most widespread. Most of the people had a worst standard of living and no real hope for the future. Imported products were very expensive and the long awaited advantages of the democracy were nowhere to be seen.
Then, very slowly, things started to change. People started to travel and work abroad, foreign companies came, there was talk about getting into NATO and UE. I would guess that, as the standard of living was getting closer to and then surpassing the communist one, people were getting less and less nostalgic. Oh, some of them are still regretting (sincerely) some punctual aspects of the way things were before (job security, for instance), but this doesn't mean they are regretting the communism as a whole.
So, I would say that the number of "nostalgics" is steadily decreasing. There are some "hardcore" ones that will never give up the idea that "before" was better, simply because they have no chance to make their life better in the new system. I would guess that they were 45 to 65 years old in '89. They were having a good life (by communist standards) and they were looking forward to their retreat and a comfortable pension (paid by the state, of course, including yearly trips to various state owned vacation resorts). And suddenly they've lost everything: pension, economies, social status. Younger people adapted, in the end, to the new realities, but they were too old for a new start. They have a worse standard of living than before and no real chance of improving it. Their lifetime work and achievements are useless and worthless now.
Ironically, the even older generation (older than 70 years in '89) might be much less nostalgic, because they do remember a time when the country was not ruled by communists. They also remember how the communists took the power: by force, supported by the red army, slaughtering political opponents and forcing people to give up their property.
BTW, I don’t think that there are more nostalgics in the former DDR than in the rest of the eastern bloc. I guess they are more known because they have been in close contact with the western Europe very soon after '89 (due to the re-unification).
I would venture to make a guess here: the countries with the harshest communist regimes do indeed have now the most nostalgics. This is due to two reasons. First, in a hardcore communist society people were strongly discouraged to think for themselves or to take the initiative. Both of which are essential in a democratic society. This lead to a higher ratio of people unable to adapt when the communism was replaced by democracy.
Second, the contacts with the western world were severely controlled. This might not seem like a big deal, but actually it helps a lot to have previous first hand knowledge about the free world and to expose the communist propaganda as the huge lie it was. In communist countries, citizens were “protected” from foreign ideas and merchandise. The average citizen had no idea what living in the west was like. That’s why the more “opened” communist countries (Czechoslowakia, Hungary, Poland) catched up faster. Yugoslavia would have done the same, if not for the civil war.
Speaking of civil war: an exacerbated nationalism was cultivated by the communists. Our country was surrounded by enemies, so we had to make sacrifices in order to protect it, right? Ethnic minorities were not to be trusted and their access to power strictly controlled. Luckily, the party was there to take care of everything. Very Orwellian, indeed. (As a side note, I’ve read Orwell’s “1984” several years ago. Damn accurate that book is. )
Now, about Russia: I would say that there were two big differences with respect to other communist countries.
First, USSR was not just a communist country; it was THE communist country, the protector of all the rest, the Big Brother. Also, unlike like all other countries in the eastern bloc, Russia had 70 years of communism. There is no one there who remembers how life was before.
Second, Russia was a superpower. It was respected and feared by everyone and it was able to kick everyone else’s ass. It might seem stupid to be proud of a regime that was great at killing and starving its own citizens only because the same regime was able to kill and starve other countries’ citizens… but that is what propaganda and brainwashing are for, no?
(On preview, I see Svejk already covered the subject )
I visited communist-era Poland several times as a youth, staying mostly in Krakow, Zakopane, and a bit of countryside in between (with a few days in Warsaw scattered in there. We’d go for three to four weeks). Many of my observations reflect aesop’s general points. My memories are a little hazy, but I was there at ages of about 5, 10, and 14 from 1979 to 1989. The cities were sooty, bribery was rampant, stores and available goods were scarce, currency exchanges were done on the black market for the best exchange rates (well above the official bank rate. Like up to 10x, IIRC. Last time I did black market currency exchanging was in Uzbekistan, where the street paid 3x the banks.) I don’t remember rationing very well, even though it was in effect from '81 to '89 due to artificially low meat prices. Part of that may be due to the fact we spent a good chuck of the time on the family farm, where there was plenty of meat available.
That said, from a kid’s perspective, I always enjoyed and looked forward to my visits out there, and I could see how significant portions the population (mostly the rural and working class) have nostalgia for those days.
Interesting thread. It is my impression that the eastern european countries that had reasonable economies before WWII were pretty OK under communism-like Poland. Poland remained a big food exporter under its communist government, because the farms were never collectivised. This contrasted with the old USSR-where food was of poor quality and always in short supply. My Dad’s friend (also from Czechoslovakia) made trips back home in the 1970’s, and none of his relativeswere starving. The really bad effects of communism was the useless bureaucracies they set up-it took forever to do anything.
Romania under Ceaucescue was awful-the “conductator” was exporting oil and grain while romanian children starved and were cold. he also wasted billions on stupid projects-like tearing down the center of Bucharest to build monstrous palaces and government buildings. Oddly enough, communist 'central planning" always pomised big efficiencies-but never delivered on it-the communist countries wasted energy and resources worse than any estern economy.
Excellent list, aesop. Most of it applies to communist Romania too. I’ll pick some things from it that were not the same in Romania:
Somehow, at the end of the 50s, the Romanian Communist Party convinced the soviets to whitdraw all their troops from the country. So there where no Soviet troops in Romania.
We had a “coupled” landline, which meant that two telephones used the same line. We were “coupled” to our neighbours from the apartment next door. We had different phone numbers, but the line could not be used by both of us at the same time. If the person you were coupled to had a conversation, you could simply pick up your phone and listen to it.
I’ve mentioned in a previous post that bars of soap were used to pay for favours and services. The soap in question was generally of western origin (as I’ve found out later, it was a cheap kind available in any western supermarket and not a luxury product for the rich capitalists) and it was way better than the local made “bricks”.
I was too young to be interested in this kind of details. However, this reminds me the lack of personal hygiene products, especially for women.
This was the case in Romania too, until the end of the 70s. Then Ceausescu went into “North Korea mode - we need no damn foreigners” and suddenly western music and movies become very, very rare. “Voice of America” and Radio “Free Europe” remained the only reliable source of information and music from outside the eastern bloc. Actually, they were much more reliable than the official news agency about what was happening inside the eastern bloc. Their broadcasts were jammed and it was quite dangerous to be caught listening to them.
Speaking of western movies, the series “Dallas” has been broadcasted for some time (more than 100 episodes). Then, suddenly and without any explanation, it stopped. And it stopped in the worst possible moment, with a cliffhanger: the last scene seen on romanian television showed a person drowned in Ewing’s pool. The whole country had to wait several years to find out who that person was… thanks to the serbian television, who broadcasted the show at a later date.
On bureaucracy: yeah, is still in place. Things are improving, but very slowly. A couple of years ago I needed a new passport. Surprisingly, I had it very quickly and without too much paperwork. I think private owned businesses are putting pressure on the bureaucrats simply by treating customers respectfully. Once the people get accustomed with a fair and polite treatment, they might ask the same when dealing with public institutions. But it is a very sloooow process.
This matches my memories of about the same time.
Other bits I recall:
East Berlin had trees growing out of its old, lovely buildings. In the city, things were grey and covered with grime. Stuff damaged in the war was not repaired.
My great uncle’s family had a house in a village on the edge of Berlin. As we approached it, the color came back into the landscape. The home was old and cozy. My relatives were able to raise small animals like rabbits and chickens, which supplemented their meat during shortages. Some other people had pigs, I recall.
The village had a small fair while we were visiting. They had a raffle, and I won a bunny, which I gave to my great uncle. Ironically, he had brought some rabbits to sell at the fair. From what I can tell, they could raise or grow pretty much anything – as long as it was small scale – and even sell things without state interference. So there was a parallel economy that was not strictly black market, but not state-controlled either.
Food was subsidized. My great aunt was able to grow berries in her garden and sell them at the local grocery store for more than what the store sold them to the public.
A cousin got a permit to raise and sell nutria. So there was some small scale entrepreneurship allowed, apparently.
We tried to go out to eat at a state-run restaurant. Couldn’t get a reservation at dinner time though, because the rule was that the employees got a dinner break. Ironic, that.
Another great uncle had a car trailer on order. It took months and months of waiting for it to come. Also, he ordered two, so that when they finally came in, he could sell the second one on the black market.
We always brought cloth and clothes with us. The kids liked the T-shirts with American logos. The adults wanted fabrics and upholstery that matched the other stuff in their living rooms and whatnot – but choices of color and patterns were rarely available at state run store. You took what you could get.
The kids wanted me to show them how to break dance. They were disappointed to learn that not all Americans know how to break dance.
My great aunt, who was disabled and couldn’t work (and therefore not useful to the state, apparently) was allowed to leave East Germany periodically to visit my grandparents in West Germany. She would always return with her suitcases jam packed with stuff. She hand carried a toilet seat on the train with her one time, because they were tired of waiting for one to come available in the East.
We drove around East Germany a bit on that trip in the 80s, visiting relatives scattered from Berlin to the Dresden area. As I recall, we had a planned itinerary that we submitted to the authorities beforehand. Every day or two we had to check in with the authorities to show that we were in the right place on the itinerary.
My grandparents, who were West German citizens, could move more freely in the East than we. They were able to visit a town near the border, but we American citizens couldn’t go near it. On a different trip, they were able to stay overnight in East Berlin, but we had to go back to West Berlin each evening. Not sure why. Maybe we forgot to arrange the visa or something beforehand.
Some of my relatives hated the communist system and were excited when the wall came down. They jumped right in and started small businesses when they had the chance. Other relatives liked the communist system and were disgruntled when it fell.
After the wall came down – what a difference. The thing I noticed the most was the color. Grey concrete was suddenly painted in lovely colors. And historic buildings were being restored and reopened to tourists. We toured a little castle outside of Dresden that had just been restored. Everyone wanted to show us the progress! Even better, we could drive around wherever we wanted.
to repeat it …
When soviet pilots went to HELP the VIETNAMESE they were considered to be HELPING OUT THE VIETNAMESE and not ON ASSIGNMENT by the soviets BECAUSE THEY WERE ON A LEAVE OF ABSENCE WITH THEIR PLANES.
When he took french leave with his mig, the soviets could not complain because he was on a legitemate flight plan with a plane he ‘owned’ by virtue of it being assigned to him. Since they used the polite legal fiction that a pilot ‘owns’ his plane to avoid a hooraw in the vietnam war, they couldnt retract their legal fiction without issue. So, he simply went on a changed flight plan with his OWN PLANE.
And I am very familiar with his story, having met him and listened to several of his lectures when I was studying political science in university.
Wow, that was awesome! Thanks for posting those pictures, Kyla.
As the owner of a IMZ (aka URAL) Russian motorcycle, I might be able to guess:
The Russians seem unable to build an oil seal that doesn’t leak. They are unable to make (rubber) carburetor compliance fittings that resist gasoline. Thier innertubes are so porus that even in perfect condition they require addition of air two or three times a week. Thier tires wear at 2-3X the rate of western versions.
In short, anything made of rubber, neoprene, or plastic (very little) on a Ural is pure crap.
No way in hell would I trust a Russian condom to prevent pregnancy or STDs.
Thanks!
My pictures are supposedly viewable by everyone, so I thought that meant even people who don’t have Facebook. Hmm. I must admit I don’t have the motivation to move them all somewhere else at the moment.
It depends which successor states of Yugoslavia. In Serbia, unsurprisingly, there is a huge amount of nostalgia for the old days. Croatia, not so much. Bosnia seems to swing both ways, and not just among its Serbs - even in largely Muslim Sarajevo there is (or was when I visited a few years ago) still a Tito Street downtown and Tito t-shirts for sale in the shops. People who define themselves as “Bosnians” now previously identified as “Yugoslavs” - unlike the Serbs, Croats etc they had no other real national identity - and the old set-up worked pretty well for them, until it didn’t.
Of course Yugoslavia wasn’t really an “Eastern bloc” country in the proper sense, anyway.
Read P.J. O’Rourke’s descriptions of traveling to the Eastern Bloc. It’s enough to make you swear off communism.
Basically, everything is lame and stale and all the employees are unmotivated and the environmental controls are for crap. Search Half.com for his books.
Nope, facebook is only good for interacting with people who have facebook. A deal like photobucket works for everybody [or I happen to have my own web presence I use though right now it is mainly eve online oriented, aruvqan.com.]
I travelled into eastern Europe quite a bit for work during the 80s and can tell you it was pretty grim. The black market for dollars was huge, which meant you could obtain beautiful pieces of folk art in Moscow for almost nothing, cheap and gorgeous crystal in Prague and stunning garnet jewelry for next to nothing. For the tourist, it was a good deal. For those living there, it was bread lines and shoe lines and endless other lines. As a cruel joke, some of the idiots I worked with walked to a closed building and stood in line outside the door. In no time, people were lined up behind them, having no idea what might be for sale.
Public toilets reeked to high heaven. Everything was gray and dirty, and I certainly remember the covers over the sidewalks in Prague. The KGB stood on every corner in Moscow and Americans were followed everywhere. Restaurants had nothing to serve. If you could call ahead, you might be able to reserve a piece of meat, but to just walk in often meant you didn’t eat.
I’ll never forget the reek of the crappy “tobacco” that must have been mixed with cabbage or something. It was foul. Oh, and the smell of the 2-stroke engines in the cars made the cities a hazy, polluted dump.
Facebook also isn’t viewable for those of us who have accounts but can’t access the site from work. (waves)
I wish I could say the same for Hungary. I don’t think the Communists invented bureaucracy, but they may have perfected it. And the tradition continues. In many respects getting any kind of official paperwork done around here is positively Kafka-esque.
That may have been the case here in Hungary in the 50’s and 60’s, but I never experienced anything like that in my visits (post-1970). However, it rings true as evidenced in the excellent movie The Witness, a scathing satire made in Hungary in 1969 that really tells it like it is. It’s available with English subtitles – I highly recommend it.
A final thought – I hope I haven’t dwelt too much on what was negative, or depressing, or inferior in the Eastern Bloc. The children were just as happy and carefree as they are anywhere. The sun shone just as brightly. Lovers’ hearts beat just as quickly. We kind of get bogged down in the surface trappings of the society and conceptualize Eastern Europe as a big, grey block. A big grey block to which we, as Americans, felt superior. We weren’t superior. We just had more stuff.
Not quite, at least in some places:
So stuff like freedom of speech, free elections, free press, etc., isn’t a basis for true superiority? What would be? Universal health care?
aesop:
Oh, really? Then why is it that they want to be like us rather than us trying to be like they used to be?