Quote:
Originally Posted by redsocialist
Yes, and most of the citizens inside former communist countries who are living there now, will say life was better under communism.
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Not really. Again, that's a very complicated question. There are a lot of disaffected, mostly older people who will say that. But there's less and less of them. The current Russian government has been doing a pretty excellent job of starving off the pensioners so they don't have to deal with this risk for so much longer. And even among the older generation, there is far from a consensus - many still have little good to say about the years they had to do things they didn't want, keep their mouths shut, and deal with their friendly neighbourhood KGB agents at their door after midnight. There is a lot of living memory of it, and having known quite a number of dissidents and free-thinking people I can attest to that. I can also attest to the other side, of course, having also known good, hard-working, dedicated communists who really believed/believe in the cause. In fact I have both of those types of people in my immediate family.
Bottom line is, as I said in my very first post, the fact that things are bad now doesn't do much to excuse the wrongs of the Soviet regime. Choosing among lesser evils isn't really great choice.