People Who Lived Under Communism Share Their Story - AskReddit

now I live here in the US and I see the same propaganda again but this time the majority believes it people who lived under communism what was it really like recent experience of a venezuelan at the end of the video I'm from Slovakia I was 8 when the pseudo revolution took place my parents were both born into communism it wasn't really communism in the theoretical sense of the word and my grandparents were in their late teens when it began it was better in some aspects and worse in others better we had a decent life there was no such thing as unemployment health care and education were for free and it wasn't any worse than it is now being working-class didn't mean you could barely survive like it is now and the difference between us and the upper class wasn't as disgustingly obvious as it is now worse those that didn't agree with the system were prosecuted because our resources were limited there wasn't always an abundance of goods to choose from long lines for bread exotic fruit electronics etc but don't get me wrong I seriously doubt anybody had to starve at least we as a working-class family never had to traveling to the west was strictly limited not really available for people without connections in the party yeah there was corruption and communism as well surprise this is from a point of view of someone who only wants a decent life you would probably need to hear someone that wants power and luxury as well to be able to see the bigger picture having been born in 93 I didn't live under communism but my entire family did in Romania and they've told me so many things about that time that I may as well put them into words so here's a bunch of stories to paint a picture of that time Romania had fought against the Russians from 1940 to 1944 and against the Germans from 1944 to 1945 the history of the first four years of the war was pretty much ignored in schools and it wasn't something to talk about if you had been a soldier in that time my grandfather was in university in the early 1950s when Russia decided to let out the last of its prisoners of war his university made a motion to expel the students whose fathers came back because they had fought against the Russians with the start of communism came collectivization landowners had to sign their land over to the government those who didn't were beaten and until they did one of my great-grandfather's didn't sign it over until quite a few years later when the government threatened to disallow his kids from going to school joining the Communist Party major life so much easier if you were otherwise incompetent you could make a name for yourself as well as the big bucks by joining the party and humming the party tune wherever did take you I remember my grandfather bragging to me how he had gotten an executive position in his company he was an engineer based on his merit or education alone without joining the party until much later my parents graduated from university in 89 and in their time joining the Communist Party was a must if you didn't want to be given a job in the middle of nowhere or to be given a bad apartment etc school was free and University Entrance was based only on merit in the later years my grandfather did have to pay out of his own pocket though I don't know why maybe because it was in the beginning you were given a job once you graduated University my parents were independent at 22 my family tells me the 70s were good years you could find food and clothing and all that stuff in stores the 80s were the opposite it became really important to have connections you had to know someone in the business if you wanted something you want a new pair of jeans you better be friends with the cashier at the clothing store when the shipments of clothes food whatever came into the shops the shopkeepers would let their friends and families know and store what they wanted what was left over which was very little was displayed and sold to the public so there was never really much you could buy if you didn't have connections same goes for food my family was lucky because we had relatives on the farms they could sell us meat and other stuff on the black market however others weren't as lucky I've heard of people getting by on tea and bread or mamaliga job security this led to some bad attitudes in the service industry though cashiers and the like could afford to be rude to you because they knew they weren't getting fired violent crime was pretty much unheard of I'm not sure if this was because it was unreported or because of the harsh punishments given out in any case it gave a feeling of security which I don't think even I've had and I live in Canada my grandmother told me that when she was a little girl if is travelling between villages in the countryside even at night the only thing she'd be worried about would be the wolves that's no longer the case I don't think there was such a big gender divide as there was or as in North America I have a Ukrainian friend whose grandmother was a wrecking ball crane operator in the 50s I think that speaks for itself the government was definitely paranoid if someone reported that you had said something against the government or the leader you'd go to jail in third grade my mom was called down to the office where a man from the Securitate secret police it translates to security asked her questions about her best friend whose older sister lived in West Germany my mom used to tell her father that she'd want to travel and go to other countries when she grew up my grandfather's response would be shut up what if someone hears you my grandmother was a waitress at one of the fanciest restaurants in town the kind of place where local politicians would bring foreigners etc too if they were taking them out for dinner before such meetings the entire place table walls you name it was bugged and the police would listen in on the conversation just in case if I do think of any more stories I'll edit this post I hope at least one person will enjoy reading this I know I love hearing this kind of stuff from my family my mother grew up in communist Hungary she remembers as a toddler having all the curtains drawn shut tight and my grandma sternly telling her she wasn't allowed to look outside but she peeked anyway and saw a tank going down the street during the 1956 revolution looking back on it my mom says a big thing about communism is she didn't really realize as a kid how hard it was but it was really difficult for her parents as adults under the system I had several relatives from my grandparents generation who were sent to labor camps in Russia for example my grandpa after World War two until the Geneva Conventions my great-aunt who was sent just because every village had a quota of men and women they needed to send to Russia for slave labor her photo is actually now in the terror museum in Budapest my mom said they'd never eat certain foods in her house because my grandfather was forced to eat the same herring and cabbage or whatever for six months straight and he had stories about how in winter they no clothes so you wear layers of paper bags on your body for insulation he was a strong man and survived many weren't as lucky another big thing that should be noted was you couldn't go to university for certain subjects unless you were the right class my mom always liked history but her dad was a clerk he not a laborer so there was just no way to get into university for that she ended up being a math teacher because technical stuff always just wasn't as competitive also getting out of the country was something else in the 60s my grandma whose brother lived in the US was invited by him to visit and after a lot of work she finally went to an office where a guy already knew everything about her life as they were of course reading the mail and your neighbors were spying on you my grandpa never understood the American custom of inviting over neighbors as it was too dangerous in Hungary finally because her husband and two children were still staying minimal risk of defection the guy gave her a passport which was a huge deal this uncle in America bTW was a godsend for the family as he sent essential things like the polio vaccine when it first became available years later my mother ended up defecting to the US she was in her late 20s and you could go abroad once a year on holiday in the Eastern Bloc and once every five years to the west and she just didn't fly back this was in the early eighties it was a bit more relaxed by then though as my grandma would visit when as kids were born and after five years when my mom had US citizenship she could return to the country to final fun little things my mom is a nice shot apparently discovered during her time as a young pioneer Iike me girl scouts because they did practice in the event of a us and vision and she once got marched down a hill like criminals because Khrushchev was in town and she and her cousin had gone hiking near his hotel I didn't learn either of these until years later from other relatives because my mom didn't think they were interesting my grandfather was a child born in communist Ukraine he was born in 1924 and at the age of nine his parents both died of starvation during Holodomor he said that his brother and him were living in a box on the side of the road and they would steal food from the Soviet Union military troops at night one night they got caught and arrested but the military let them go after about a week he said they ate better when they were capped than they had in the last two years they decided to try to escape to Germany in 1933 and join Hitler's youth because they had heard stories about how they would take care of you and teach you to fight they made it to Germany but were denied acceptance into Hitler's movement my grandfather got a job transporting foods from farms to the city in a horse-drawn carriage and met the daughter of a Jewish American doctor who was studying abroad in Germany he learned English as a result in 1937 the Jewish American doctor my great-great-grandfather fled to America and due to the relationship that was developing between his daughter my grandmother they helped him become a stowaway on a ship and brought him back to America he ended up joining the war effort fighting for America and gaining his citizenship as reward he tells stories about how the military would run out of food and they would disband their posts then when officials would come to inspect no one would be there he had memories of the grocery stores how they would give you your weekly ration of food he said they lived in a flat communist style tenement and when their parents died they reported it to the police and no one came to get the dead bodies so the boys moved them down and buried them in a garden the house was so dirty they could not stand to live there after the bodies had decomposed I grew up in Romania during the Communist era it's unbelievable to me that people put up with this and the terror that you have to be subject to in order to put up with things I remember on the poor side hunger huge queues for food food would be delivered in markets and limited quantities and you would have to queue for it waking up at 6:00 with the whole family to go queueing each in different queues maybe someone would be able to get something also everybody's smuggling food from the country farms especially pork meat poverty limited electricity and heating especially in the cities I remember studying in 1988 in unheated apartment by the candlelight you would get electricity only two hours or evening if you wanted snacks you only have one choice Vietnamese crab chips brainwashing TV programs would run for those two hours in the evening two news bulletins 15 minutes each about what shall chess who didn't who ever visited a 15 minutes episode usually a movie split up in slots so over a week you would see an entire movie the rest reports from industry and agriculture about how well everybody worked occasionally 15 minutes of documentary showing the homeless in the US and drug busts constant fear of expressing ideas talk about the sensible subjects with the wrong person and you would not get any more promotions pay increases you'd get forgotten when the ration cards would be distributed etc some people even disappeared stealing everybody's stealing popular way of thinking they fake giving us a life we fake working for them if you did not steal you were stupid only stupid people worked forced work the army soldiers and schoolers as young as 3rd grade would be pulled out from the regular activity and sent to help with autumn harvest in the fields it was called moon Kappa trio decomp patriotic work like voluntary work only it was not voluntary by any means North Korean style parades we would be made to parade with colored cartoons and colored scarves or do stupid choreography and stadiums I remember a hot summer day national holiday was 23rd of August where we were made to stay standing completely still under the burning Sun with no water in full uniform dress for several hours because Ceausescu might decide to visit our town he didn't come we were a some 200 kids some of them passed out imagine have 200 kids standing in 100 degree weather still fully dressed no water because somebody might decide they will see you for 10 seconds on the bright side I learned to value my rights and dignity I will do anything to not go back under communist rule ever again ephah my father lived in Poland during communism he said that everyone had a job no exceptions which gave rise to the sayings easy story is easy lezzy 2000 zina li Zi which basically means that no matter if you did any work or not you were owed 2,000 slotty other things he remembers his long waiting lists for cars the famous Melosh and stores where you had to wait in long lines to buy products if there was anything in stock all in all he said it wasn't that bad my grandfather was a miner and he retired early and got a good pension from the state which his widow still collects vacations were free even though my family never took advantage of them in some places you would also receive housing from your employer looking back on it he says he knows why the system couldn't last not me Thank You parents for immigrating but my parents and grandparents lived under communism in Romania and they've got lots of stories they had to wait in long lines for basic staples and special items like pads and tampons my poor mother were very hard to find birth control was illegal but everyone used it anyways my dad had several encounters including being arrested and interrogated by the secret police for distributing religious literature and holding religious meetings and of course they were exposed to constant propaganda the most heart-wrenching story is from my grandparents era when family farms were confiscated and taken by the state the small town farmers were very proud of what they had built for themselves and had a strong sense of place from being a landowner they were reduced to being communal workers and barely being able to feed their families I lived in Ukraine until 1990 bad quality everything no choices getting food required time and effort bread was available almost always but milk would run out an hour after it was delivered to a store electronics were bad broken down all the time if you were lucky enough to have money and waited long enough to buy a car you would have to take it to service first it would not be street ready if you got a new apartment you would have to work to make it livable and this is in a major city things were way worse outside textbooks would be edited annually according to the government agenda whole chapters would disappear from history books it was hard to take teachers seriously because they had to mix real information with communist nonsense my wife and her family lived in Czechoslovakia until just before it split when they moved to Canada my wife hates hearing everyone say how bad communism was because she remembers it having the same problems as any other system but not being any worse she grew up watching Disney movies and learned to play the guitar by listening to Bruce Springsteen she said the biggest thing she remembers was that there was only one brand of most basic things like shirts or shoes and they were indestructible they still have a lot of stuff from Slovakia with them here her mother was a teacher and her dad was an accountant so they weren't anybody special but they have said that teachers were particularly well paid because they were seen as contributing to the country's future kids were encouraged to take up a sport the families got paid monthly benefits to cover any costs that came with him playing my brother-in-law played hockey and was a goalie so he used most of it up my wife swam and represented Czechoslovakia at the youth games and they were given bonuses for achieving good results I don't really have much more information because it would all come from my father-in-law and his kind of a mean a-hole who doesn't like me so I don't really want to talk to him unless I have to here is an older post of mine I grew up in Romania I was 19 in the army when the revolution started I live in the US now we didn't have delicatessen to eat but we eat good food grown in our own yard I grew up in a village in Sibiu Transylvania from the day I was born in 1970 and up to the revolution I'm not sure I ate bananas more than 3 to 4 times chocolate only if my mother made it etc I don't think I ever owned a new toy while growing up and maybe I had three to four years tours in all my childhood but that didn't matter I had friends and freedom and I think that's what was better than the present time we made our toys bows and arrows we spend all the free time on the hills with other kids I had my first pocketknife at 6 we used her played Horus a game of throwing the knife at the ground in the school's yard of course this was when there wasn't work to do I spent much time like every kid who grew up in a village working the land next to my parents many mornings I had to wake up at 40 go la casa to cut the grass for the animals we had to do it before the heat of the day we had electricity just four or five hours a day and no TV my family had a broken TV that every time after paying to get it fixed worked for a week or two only we didn't care there was nothing on TV anyway Romania had only two hours of TV a day and those two hours are just propaganda from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. I know it sounds boring and simple but remember we had friends and guitars and fun for the parents it was harder they had to dress us and feed us I could write all day how there were lines to buy eggs and we used to stay all night in line for our teachers while in high school in Sibiu or for butter milk or for mostly anything only imagine that you had to do this with friends and not in a chat room or with texting real life meat and bones friends so the bottom line is that we had a simple life no luxury no cars no tech no toys but we grew up happy my son and daughter are growing up here in u.s. where I live now and it makes me sad how alone they are most of the time the difference I see is that here in u.s. the propaganda is a lot more effective than it was for us in Romania in the communist Romania nobody believed the propaganda absolutely nobody no teachers no kids in school no parents at home believed everyone talked in hushed voice about how bad the propaganda is and not to trust it now I live here in the US and I see the same propaganda again but this time the majority believes it I was 5 when communism in Poland was over we were living in Gdansk and according to my father I was also one time protesting with him in the silly darkness but I can't remember that what I do remember is Christmas I must have been 3 to 4 years old since we have a really big family we were celebrating Christmas with 12 adults two parents two grandparents for aunts four uncles and nine kids all cramped into a little room with maybe 20 square meters tops we had some beet borscht a form of borscht made out of red beets and a little bit of fish with potatoes we still eat this every Christmas it's our tradition after eating one of the adults was wearing a Santa costume and was giving gifts to us kids remember getting a white teddy bear and slippers in a little bit of sweets I don't remember what everybody else got only that some of the other kids got oranges and they even shared some with everybody in retrospect we didn't have much but we were happy with what we had Venezuelan here what can I tell you lots of political propaganda the level of resentment here of the lower classes toward anyone perceived as higher class is absurd Chavez has propagated a way of thinking that having money is bad having your own business is bad and having success in the sense of having people work for you is bad it's capitalist it's bourgeois oligarchy petty Anki Yankee pitty I don't know what the hell this is supposed to mean but for the Chavistas it's an insult what is good is working for the state a good minimum salary to be on a mission all subside by the government everything regulated would you vote for a president that mandates price through law when you can't afford something and he makes a law that says now the products cost tax and all of a sudden you can afford it chicken cost sex the French bread cost sex the coffee cost sex it can't cost any more wonderful how ingenious this man does know how to govern this president does have our interests in mind not like the opposition which is white which comes from a millionaire family that has money and doesn't know what we go through yes Chavez brought racism back to Venezuela and anyone that says otherwise come here on bus or on the metro and you will see the looks you get people have told me to go back to my country for being wide and having straight black hair I've lived in Venezuela my entire life but I have to go back to where I came from and from where do they get these prices I don't know from out of their butts because they don't take into account inflation in the countries expenses so a company that raises chickens literally can't profit from selling them it costs more to raise them feed them than to sell them at the price the government dictates what happens bankruptcy and what happened to the employees that worked in this factory and farm they are on the street boom now there are no more chickens what does the government do subsidize them do you know where the chickens on the today come from from Brazil the coffee from Brazil the meat from Uruguay and Brazil the milk Colombia all subsidized and in the open-air markets where you have to wait in giant lines for government programs that is full and Merkel the two branches of the government that subsidize and sell food but what do the ignorant people see ignorant because they ignore the reality of the situation that the countries oligarchic companies stopped producing and selling food and Chavez came to the rescue the government helped them now there is food in the meantime the coffee chicken milk oil corn and meat companies are all broken or in some horrible situation they don't produce what a shame that is a disgrace to the people they are hoarding the country's space and product they are violating the people's sovereignty we must expert them we must nationalize these companies and make them work now they are producing milk coffee corn you see the government works yes the government works the expenses have been fixed the factories produce yes all subsidized from the teat of oil meanwhile Venezuela as Bleeding the oil isn't enough says in ruin but that is not what they announced on the national network nor on the giant banners no the giant signs on the Metro on the street high up on the building's say 1,550 percent increase in sovereign milk production Chavez the heart of my homeland with a photo of Chavez hugging a woman in the milk factory 1,550 percent increase in production I'd love to see any company in the world in the history of humanity that has had a production planner like Chavez's government the world would be a utopia one thousand five hundred fifty percent increase in production Yeah right I can see it I know how to filter what they present I have common sense compared with what compared to the past three months when by law they mandated a price on milk that made production cost prohibitive and the factory operates at a loss literally the past three months where the production had to be reduced by 98% or even by 100 sent depending on the industry just to save the company for the man who has spent 35 years of his life carrying this company on he'll think what to do how to save the fruit of his life how to make it so his children inherit this but they expropriated from him because it is an oligarchy because it wasn't producing Chavez does think about the people he'll tell you during 8 12 or even 16 hours of national network television all the while the deed of jusa the deed of oil is drying up but that's not what they show they show you the inauguration of the new mission the ribosome in or some other crockery now what about educating to people free education for everyone no not free better than that they pay you the government pays you for studying yes you read it correctly the missions pay to hell with studying I'll say and spend the money instead on drinking all weekend awesome Chavez does love me he gave me food and he gave me education and to my kids and to my wife and to my uncle and and brother-in-law and he pays us all what a great men and the deed of oil gets dryer and dryer so broken the country in ruin monthly inflation at 10% what I buy today within three months I won't be able to afford well easy increase the minimum wage Chavez does love me he's a super genius now my boss has to pay me more like the law says and the boss who pays him the people that aren't buying anything the country that can't produce after all money is bad to be a millionaire is bad that boss he has too much money Chavez has showed that to me during the last ten years I'm sure that he has enough to pay me my new minimum wage and have enough to go on an imperial vacation he's an imperialist he's blood wah he's a bully Boris again I have no idea what poor type of insult this is but here it is they say it to you every time in the street on TV in the state media meanwhile I'm here I have my bi-weekly paycheck and my last one of the calm month because Chavez gave me money from the missions and he got chicken meat rice wouldn't you vote for him if you don't have any type of political or economic education you wouldn't vote for him I would I'm sure I would but I look farther than my nose I see what is being left for my children nothing a tattered country that isn't going to be worth anything I congratulate them if you knew all that the state subsidizes at any cost to our inflation and our currency but the people don't know anything of this things already cost a lot to many boulevards seventy thousand believe ours for one kilogram of ham that's a lot that number is very high what a shame look at all those zeros what to do well get rid of the last three zeros how ingenious how intelligent and even better now the believer is strong a strong Bulevar he's a genius he's super intelligent do you see before it costs seventy thousand now only seventy what a marvelous president he fixed everything I would vote for him too but I have common sense I know where this is all going to stop I know that when the oils tea dries up when it doesn't give any more that's when the fall will come it's sad but I feel I have to abandon the ship thanks for listening to radio TTS hit the subscribe button and activate the notification Bell for free everything click the right box for the most terrifying reddit posts of all time let us know in the comments what you think about communism would you want to live in a communist system or do you think it is an utopian idea let us know

Channel: Radio TTS

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Keywords: reddit, reddit stories, best of reddit, askreddit, reddit story, ask reddit, reddit cringe, askreddit funny, reddit funny, r/askreddit, top posts, reddit best, r/, reddit top posts, askreddit top posts, reddit top post, radio tts communism, communism, reddit communism, askreddit communism, communism stories reddit, stories about communism, communism short story, stories of communism, communist person, communist, communism experience, Life under communism

Id: 69qfu-6jax4

Length: 27min 47sec (1667 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/arazok]

I know this is fake because Stephen Hawking is dead

[u/Cissalk]

The only time this type of channel is entertaining

[u/Rabbrish]

My family lived under communism, so I at least know from them that it was terrible.