You are wrong about internal (inside USSR) residency moves - see Propiska in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia
And also very wrong about COMECON moves.
This reminds me of the old Soviet bloc joke about the guy who goes to order his car, all of the paperwork is finalized, and he is told his car will be ready to be picked up in fifteen years. The man asks, “Morning or afternoon?” The car salesman says “It’s fifteen years from now! What does it matter if it is morning or afternoon?” The man replies, “Well, I have the plumber coming in the afternoon…”
Actually, this is the sort of nonsense Americans believe about North Korea, mostly because the media has a habit of uncritically reporting sensational urban legends. Some of the rumours you’ve listed are debunked (among other places) in Wikipedia’s list of unreliable reports on North Korea.
Having spoken with a few of them myself, I can confirm that North Koreans believe a lot of stupid things about their leaders, but things like supernatural sporting abilities definitely aren’t among them.
The East Germans were free to travel to fellow communist states. The system fell apart when some states began electing non-communist governments who refused to restrict emigration, and in the spirit of Glasnost, Gorbachev declined to enforce communist supremacy (as had been done with Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1967). When Hungary and then Cz… began opening their borders, people flooded to those countries to continue to Germany West. IIRC East Germans were automatically welcome in West Germany. Hungarians, etc. fleeing their country were hitting the immigration//refugee brick wall in the west once it became a flood. East Germany had to decide whether to block travel to previously allowed countries too - eventually to everywhere - or open up. When protests started and the Russians wouldn’t back up a crackdown, they had to decide whether they’d end up shooting their own people in the streets (and then ending up lynched) or open up.
Plus, like Gorbachev, a growing number of the elite were those who grew up under the current system and wanted something better, as opposed to those who grew up with the threat of WWII annihilation. They were less concerned with military might and more concerned that their economic system was failing. So even within the party, there was a debate.
There was a protester after the fall of the Berlin wall holding a placard - “Poland - 10 years, Czechoslovakia - 10 months, Hungary 10 weeks, East Germany 10 days” Underneath, hastily scrawled - “Romania - 10 hours”. That’s the speed of the avalanche, how fast it took the system to fall from the first days of lech Walensa and Solidarnosche.
Immigration-wise, yes, we in the west accept the best and the brightest. So all the university-educated elite, doctors and scientists and engineers - we now only drain those from the third world, not the second world. If all you best and brightest want to flee, that’s a bad advertisement for “workers’ paradise”. What started as a simple policy of discouragement turned into a stronger and stronger policy of enforcement. It’s hard to paint the capitalist system as decadent and oppressive when everyone wants to go there.
The joke (there were a plethora) was “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” There was very little to buy in the stores. Lineups were common. The Russian correspondent for the Globe and Mail mentioned that when it began to rain, all the cars pulled over so people could put their wiper blades on. it was impossible to buy wiper blades, so if they were left on the car (instead of the glove box) they’d be stolen.
That is not true, at least not in this absolute sense. Visa-free travel by East Germans to Czechoslovakia and to Poland was not introduced until 1972, and for Poland it was abolished again (and a visa requirement re-introduced) in 1980 as a response to the riots at the time (Solidarnosc and all). For the other socialist countries, including the regional hegemon USSR, it was necessary to obtain, prior to travelling, a travel permit which was not officially called a visa but which acted, for all practical purposes, like one: It had to be applied for in advance with the GDR authorities, and it could be denied, even though the practice was to grant such permits more liberally than for travel to the non-socialist countries. In spite of this, it was not like a GDR citizen could simply board a plane to Moscow, show up at the airport and be admitted into the Soviet Union.
One thing to keep in mind is the uncertainty that applied at the time.
The people in charge of the GDR had no reason to think that the Russians would be there down the road to prevent the FRG from invading and taking over. There might be a change of Soviet leadership, a coup or something, and the Russians would pull out.
If that happened and many millions more of their population had previously left, their ability to withstand a West German invasion was small. They needed warm bodies to provide soldiers and an industrial workforce.
And history showed this sort of thinking was right. Gorbachev came along, the flow out went way up and the Wall came down. Even then the East Germans knew it was pointless and unification on West German terms was inevitable so they just threw in the towel.
Official permission to live somewhere else still exists in China today; it’s call the hukou.
While many, many, many people move despite the hukou, you don’t receive the services that you’d otherwise be entitled to if you do so.
Keep in mind, too, one of the reasons not to jump ship was that they did not let whole families travel together. No doubt this poet had a wife and children who were likely to be treated unkindly (i.e. very low income, crappy housing etc.) if he jumped ship.
As for moving - this was not the world we know here. You did not just decide one day to pull up stakes and move to the big city and apply for jobs. All this sort of detail - jobs, housing, etc. - was controlled by various departments of the government. It was probably like being in the army - you put in for a transfer, and if there’s an opportunity, if the bureaucrats like you, if you haven’t pissed them off such that they refuse a transfer to punish you - maybe eventually, if there’s an opening in there for your allocated profession, off you go. Somewhat like applying for college- you apply, someone decides you fit, you are allowed to move there… A whole different world. You want to be in a rock band, you apply for permission and the cultural ministry decides if you make the grade, assigns your gigs. Try to make it on your own - you are a vagabond, a beggar, unemployed - economic crimes; jail then back to your home when released. It’s not like there were independent art galleries or bars to pay you and support your artistic or musical career.
As someone described visiting Cuba decades ago - “try to imagine a whole country run by the post office.”
I agree, from what little I knw, you could not just wander wherever you wanted on a whim, even within your own country, and “papers please” was not uncommon. Certainly to leave your country, even to another bloc country, you needed a travel plan, authorization, and most importantly, the money to do so.
However between two east bloc countries there was not the “iron curtain” needed to stop citizens from sneaking across. This is not to say that the border was open. This was Europe and even under the “brotherhood of workers paradises” there was still the rivalry, suspicions, and old grudges that not even a common overlord could erase. Anyone trying to do an end run by sneaking through a different country to get to the west would still encounter a guarded border; plus, they would run into the standard police patrols all through the countryside and especially at transportation points.
Although… I did work with a fellow who walked across the Yugoslavian border to Italy while his Romanian soccer team was on a visit. He then spent a decade and a small fortune in bribes getting his wife and daughter permits to leave the Romania. hard currency could be a very good persuader. Yugoslavia apparently was not as strict as the Soviet bloc, although they did pretend to try to limit visitors defecting to the west.
They dedicate lots of things (schools, arenas, military bases, etc.). What they don’t do is *defecate *(but what national leader does?).
“There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sic nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin. Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us…” - John F. Kennedy, West Berlin, June 26, 1963 (emphasis added)
You mention a very important point here: The extent to which currency controls acted as a check on freddom of movement. None of the socialist bloc currencies was freely convertible. The vast majority of people only had domestic currency, because that’s what salaries were paid in, but if you wanted to travel abroad you had only two options: Either you went the official way by exchanging your domestic currency at the government-controlled banks - this had the disadvantage that exchanging your domestic money into foreign currencies was not an entitlement; people who had a visa to travel were allocated a limited amount that they could exchange at government-set rates, but it was in itself a process that required approvals. Or you went the unofficial way via the black market, which usually worked but involved risks since you could be prosecuted for violating currency exchange laws. These are alternative ways of restricting freedom of movement which Westerners rarely think of because these controls are not in place here; but they work very effectively.
I have one minor personal experience of post communist Prague. We were on holiday and were taken on a tour of the prominent places. Our guide was a well educated lady who spoke excellent English and regaled us with facts and figures as tour guides are wont to do.
We stopped for coffee and she shared our table. I asked about her command of English and she said that she has spent time in Oxford on a graduate exchange programme. Her husband had been on the same programme but they were not both allowed to be away at the same time. She told us how amazing it was to be able to get on a plane to anywhere (pretty much), or go to a shop and choose what you wanted instead of what was available on the day. She related how, a couple of weeks after the end of communism, she and her husband caught a train to Berlin and just wandered around goggling at the shop windows. She also said that many old people preferred communism and were frightened by democracy and a free economy.
If you get the opportunity, go to Prague - it is a beautiful city and very friendly.
Is that the “I’m a donut” speech?
Actually it wasn’t made of cardboard, it was made of a combination of recycled plastic and cotton or wool fibers called Duroplast which was similar to fiberglass. It was derisively nicknamed a “cardboard racer” but the material was pretty resilient (and hard to dispose of from junkyards). The car itself was crap though, and had a two, not three cylinder engine. You might be thinking of the Wartburg which was also made in East Germany and had a three cylinder, two stroke engine.
I would second Prague, and being in the area I have to put in a word for Dresden. I used to go there a lot for work and absolutely fell in love with it. I started bringing my wife with me whenever I could and we still have some friends there.
The first time I went to Dresden I assumed I would be going to a stereotypical East Bloc depressing city, as I was aware of what had happened to it during the war. But they’ve done an amazing job of restoring its splendor and the museums are amazing, as are the limestone cliffs over the Elbe. Also, I highly recommend staying at Schloss Eckberg… I miss Dresden… Sorry for the hijack
The Cold War urban legend that will not die: Did John F. Kennedy Proclaim Himself to Be a Jelly Doughnut? | Snopes.com