Just speaking to the first one as I have some experience regarding that, the reason people feel Hungary has been a better place to live under communism might be because of any of the following:
First and foremost, Hungary was living beyond its means after 1970. The ruling communist elite (this term should be an oxymoron, but somehow it seems it isn’t) fearing an upheaval because of the global economic downturn, started to take out loans to keep the country placated. Hungary was never able to repay this, and indeed its liabilities only grew under the communist regime.
The current set of idiots changing one another actually have to have the country repay all that money. So yeah, Hungarians feel that living in a mansion bought on a loan so to speak was much better than having to pay for it and getting evicted.
Speaking of the current idiotic leadership, Hungary never really ousted the communist regime, so they transitioned into the new elite. Most current Hungarian politicians were well positioned in the previous system, or were outright party members.
Regarding the current leadership and why people feel that the EU is bad for them, Hungary spends more money on anti-EU propaganda than its whole education system and has done so for more than the past decade.
In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era.
No other Central or Eastern European country is so blatantly serving the interests of Russia and China over its own and (that of its aliies’) either. Maybe that’s not a coincidence.
Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy
Calling Hungary’s economy a “market economy” would imply that the majority of Hungary’s capital assets is not captured by government aligned interests.
I don’t personally have experience with the rest, but what you’ve written implies Hungary would be better under communism. The truth is, Hungary has a huge voter bloc that wants to go back to communism, and they elect fascists that promise to do it. The result is obvious.
Oh, the transition to communism wasn’t simple either, Hungary set the still-unbroken world record for hyperinflation in the fist years of communism, when they managed to inflate their whole money supply to a collective value of 0.3 US cent. So those guys were obviously saying “we were better under the monarchists!”. And they were in clear majority, before communist elites in Hungary called in Soviet troops to reestablish the repression.
It’s truly bizarre to me how when eastern Europeans like us talk about our countries, our opinions don’t matter because some poll contradicts us. You know far better than I do what was and is going on in Hungary, but talking about Romania like the streets were paved in gold during the communist period is utterly bizarre. Many families spent their life savings on getting smuggled out of the country via Serbia, the government covered up pogroms against the Roma, many Hungarian minority towns were intentionally disadvantaged, and Jews, while initially huge supporters of the Romanian communist movement (for obvious reasons), were later systematically purged from any position of power and the government eventually came up with a deal with Israel to get Israel to pay thousands of dollar per Jew allowed to leave.
None of these sound like the hallmarks of an equitable, safe and stable society.
To be honest, I think most of these people are edgy contrarian Western people if not straight up agitators. Yes, the current US system does abhorrent things. Yes, it is often hypocritical against Russian and Chinese policies. But the mental gymnastics required to go from “US imperialism and worker exploitation bad” to “Russian / Chinese imperialism and worker exploitation good” is a huge leap.
I can’t speak to the rest of it, but about Romanians who “would have voted for Ceausescu”: they overwhelmingly tend to be village hicks or people directly hurt by the mad scramble during the post-soviet period where communist party officials sold themselves everything that wasn’t nailed down for nothing.
It’s also worth mentioning that PSD is overwhelmingly the old communist party under a new name, and they are despised by a large number of Romanians.
EDIT: Also, to address the “better off” part: yes, that is true. If you were white, male and ethnically Romanian. Minorities like the Hungarians and Roma had a really bad time. To be a “good communist woman” you were expected to be a baby factory to increase the population and denied birth control.
It is clear just exactly who ruled the party during communism when you look at PSD’s policy. Being in favour of a privatised energy sector is not very socialist at all. To me this just shows how little value they put on socialist values and paradigms back then too.
No socialist project can work long term when built with a small number of people at the top, determining everything. Power needs to be as spread out as possible.
Meanwhile in the real world
Just speaking to the first one as I have some experience regarding that, the reason people feel Hungary has been a better place to live under communism might be because of any of the following:
No other Central or Eastern European country is so blatantly serving the interests of Russia and China over its own and (that of its aliies’) either. Maybe that’s not a coincidence.
Calling Hungary’s economy a “market economy” would imply that the majority of Hungary’s capital assets is not captured by government aligned interests.
I don’t personally have experience with the rest, but what you’ve written implies Hungary would be better under communism. The truth is, Hungary has a huge voter bloc that wants to go back to communism, and they elect fascists that promise to do it. The result is obvious.
Oh, the transition to communism wasn’t simple either, Hungary set the still-unbroken world record for hyperinflation in the fist years of communism, when they managed to inflate their whole money supply to a collective value of 0.3 US cent. So those guys were obviously saying “we were better under the monarchists!”. And they were in clear majority, before communist elites in Hungary called in Soviet troops to reestablish the repression.
It’s truly bizarre to me how when eastern Europeans like us talk about our countries, our opinions don’t matter because some poll contradicts us. You know far better than I do what was and is going on in Hungary, but talking about Romania like the streets were paved in gold during the communist period is utterly bizarre. Many families spent their life savings on getting smuggled out of the country via Serbia, the government covered up pogroms against the Roma, many Hungarian minority towns were intentionally disadvantaged, and Jews, while initially huge supporters of the Romanian communist movement (for obvious reasons), were later systematically purged from any position of power and the government eventually came up with a deal with Israel to get Israel to pay thousands of dollar per Jew allowed to leave.
None of these sound like the hallmarks of an equitable, safe and stable society.
To be honest, I think most of these people are edgy contrarian Western people if not straight up agitators. Yes, the current US system does abhorrent things. Yes, it is often hypocritical against Russian and Chinese policies. But the mental gymnastics required to go from “US imperialism and worker exploitation bad” to “Russian / Chinese imperialism and worker exploitation good” is a huge leap.
I can’t speak to the rest of it, but about Romanians who “would have voted for Ceausescu”: they overwhelmingly tend to be village hicks or people directly hurt by the mad scramble during the post-soviet period where communist party officials sold themselves everything that wasn’t nailed down for nothing.
It’s also worth mentioning that PSD is overwhelmingly the old communist party under a new name, and they are despised by a large number of Romanians.
EDIT: Also, to address the “better off” part: yes, that is true. If you were white, male and ethnically Romanian. Minorities like the Hungarians and Roma had a really bad time. To be a “good communist woman” you were expected to be a baby factory to increase the population and denied birth control.
It is clear just exactly who ruled the party during communism when you look at PSD’s policy. Being in favour of a privatised energy sector is not very socialist at all. To me this just shows how little value they put on socialist values and paradigms back then too.
No socialist project can work long term when built with a small number of people at the top, determining everything. Power needs to be as spread out as possible.