In particular, many people mistakenly believe that the [planned] economies must be inefficient based on an assumption that they do not allow for decentralized decision making and result in long waiting lines and shortages. Waiting lines, shortages, and waste did often exist in [the people’s republics] because the government purposely set the prices of many goods too low to clear (and also because richer capitalist countries placed embargoes on the export of the high technology goods to [the people’s republics]). However, the low fixed prices (and the right to a job with income) did ensure that everyone in [the people’s republics] had the right to essentials like food, housing, medicine, and clothes, unlike in capitalist countries where a large portion of the population do not have access to such essentials even in far richer capitalist countries such as the USA. Also, the centralized fixing of prices greatly reduced the amount of time spent on wasteful tasks performed in capitalist countries of price shopping, price negotiation, and attempts to avoid marketing manipulation and fraud.

[…]

Given that East German income would have been higher than in West Germany without the reparations payments, it can be deduced that it would not have been necessary for East Germany to have the Berlin Wall if West Germany had made its share of the reparations payments for [Fascist] Germany’s war crimes. In particular, the burden to East Germany would have thereby been enormously reduced and would have allowed its income to be substantially higher. At the same time, West Germany’s income would have been reduced by it making its share of the payments. In this situation, it probably would not have been necessary for East Germany to have slightly longer work weeks (since it would not have been necessary to catch up with the West), nor to have such severe shortages (that could have been alleviated with greater wealth), nor to spend so little on pollution control (that reflected East Germany’s relative poverty), nor to restrict political freedoms (that East Germany did not want the richer West Germany to take advantage of), nor to have such an obnoxious secret police (whose primary purpose was to keep East Germans from leaving the country for the greater riches of West Germany). All the relative disadvantages of [economic planning] in East Germany may therefore derive, at least partially, from its postwar reparations (and not from communism).

(Source.)

The other user and top comment had a very well spoken response that considers the material conditions and context that these things happened alongside.

To me though, the single simple fact of the matter is that all things considered a system where people have universal guaranteed access to food will always be superior to a system where untold tens millions of people go hungry despite staggering tons of food being thrown away because its inaccessible to the working people living in poverty that can’t afford it. All the more so when these food conglomerates make untold billions in record profits and muh “supply and demand” has zero effect on the tons and tons of unconsumed food being sent to the landfill specifically to avoid donating it to the hungry.

God damn the people responsible for this system and act like this afront to god is superior to “rationed breadlines” that existed to liberate the people from starvation. Breadlines and rationing in and of themselves should be seen as evident of the ability of a government to tend to it’s people in the face of even massive adversity and post-war reconstruction. But instead it’s cynically pointed to by capitalists to argue “look how terrible it was for a government to feed it’s people” while leaving unsaid that their pissing and moaning is in the service of making sure millions and millions more starve to death in the streets while they continue to squeeze the life out of the people for every last bloody cent.