That person you responded to deleted their comment so I’m just gonna put this here.
It’s worth mentioning that the above image is referring to polls conducted in 2008 at the height of the recession, naturally the numbers have changed since then and there have been a number of Reddit “masterposts” detailing this ( 123 ). Obviously this doesn’t absolve capitalism since periodic crises are inevitable, but it does mean that Central European countries like Poland and the Czech Republic have experienced decreased levels of nostalgia whilst Eastern European countries like Russia and Ukraine have increased. However, as noted in those posts, support for socialism is much higher among older generations who actually lived under it, as well as working class people, women and other oppressed groups.
Ultimately I don’t think it’s a big deal, if there are specific cases where public opinion has changed against socialism this is most likely the result of shifting demographics (older proletarians dying off, lumpen youth turning to the right-wing, depopulation as workers migrate to Western Europe) and fascist repression against communists rather than capitalism suddenly becoming good or whatever. Whether or not Eastern Europe is better off now than before 1989 is not the relevant question anyway, what people should be asking is have living standards increased more than they would have if socialism had been maintained, have these increases benefited everyone or just an elite minority, have these increases been done in a sustainable way, and is this attributable to capitalism or simply general improvements in technology irrespective of the economic system in place. On all counts I think the answer is no, most of the wealth in Eastern Europe today is basically the result of selling off state assets accumulated during the socialist period to foreign capital, which led to a spike in GDP and increased consumption for the middle class (at the expense of the rest of the country and the blood, sweat and tears of the third world of course, one of the defining characteristics of integration into imperialism is uneven development) but with the drawback being de-industrialization and the abandonment of long-term growth prospects, the entire region now has no future other than being fascist lackeys of NATO, an appendage of cheap labor for the EU and slowly reverting to third world economic conditions as this stolen wealth runs out.
Here’s one article that has some history of Stalin nostalgia from Russia specifically.
That person you responded to deleted their comment so I’m just gonna put this here.
It’s worth mentioning that the above image is referring to polls conducted in 2008 at the height of the recession, naturally the numbers have changed since then and there have been a number of Reddit “masterposts” detailing this ( 1 2 3 ). Obviously this doesn’t absolve capitalism since periodic crises are inevitable, but it does mean that Central European countries like Poland and the Czech Republic have experienced decreased levels of nostalgia whilst Eastern European countries like Russia and Ukraine have increased. However, as noted in those posts, support for socialism is much higher among older generations who actually lived under it, as well as working class people, women and other oppressed groups.
Ultimately I don’t think it’s a big deal, if there are specific cases where public opinion has changed against socialism this is most likely the result of shifting demographics (older proletarians dying off, lumpen youth turning to the right-wing, depopulation as workers migrate to Western Europe) and fascist repression against communists rather than capitalism suddenly becoming good or whatever. Whether or not Eastern Europe is better off now than before 1989 is not the relevant question anyway, what people should be asking is have living standards increased more than they would have if socialism had been maintained, have these increases benefited everyone or just an elite minority, have these increases been done in a sustainable way, and is this attributable to capitalism or simply general improvements in technology irrespective of the economic system in place. On all counts I think the answer is no, most of the wealth in Eastern Europe today is basically the result of selling off state assets accumulated during the socialist period to foreign capital, which led to a spike in GDP and increased consumption for the middle class (at the expense of the rest of the country and the blood, sweat and tears of the third world of course, one of the defining characteristics of integration into imperialism is uneven development) but with the drawback being de-industrialization and the abandonment of long-term growth prospects, the entire region now has no future other than being fascist lackeys of NATO, an appendage of cheap labor for the EU and slowly reverting to third world economic conditions as this stolen wealth runs out.