It's really bewildering to hear from a western tankie their alternative history in which the soviet bloc countries had it super cool and all the badness is just capitalist propaganda and being shown a recording of some one guy in Latvia that actually liked it as proof, while being East European and knowing how it really was — awful to the point of people hijacking planes just to get to the other side of the Iron Curtain.
@moffintosh oh, he was lithuanian not latvian, thanks for the reminder. Have you considered the option that as every community has its share of dumbasses, even East Europe will have a small percentage of people arguing it was cool? Because they were a rare case of benefiting from it, got mega brainwashed by propaganda, or just because of the people's contrarian nature guaranteeing that no matter how obvious an opinion is, someone will oppose it.
Come to Poland or any other former soviet bloc country, and go ask random people on the street how awesome it was at that time, especially those old enough to remember. "Very awesome" is not an answer you'll get often, to put it lightly. Bonus points for trying to argue with them that it was actually good because surely you know better.
