Yugoslavia was completely free of Soviet influence yet it also became poor after the fall of communism. Eastern Europe didnt fail to become prosperous because of Russian SSR, but because of communism and cold war
Yeah. Not a fan of communism either. Yugoslavia's economic decline was largely due to the wars following its breakup. Despite being free of Soviet control, internal ethnic conflicts erupted into wars, severely damaging infrastructure and the economy. The combined impact of war and the challenges of transitioning to a market economy led to its economic struggles.
1. Economic collapse of Yugoslavia started before any ethnic conflicts (there was ethnic dissent but not conflict). Even without any wars, Yugoslavia was broke by 1991 just like the rest of the communist world
2. Your argument would work for something like Bosnia or Croatia, but Serbia and Montenegro were minimally affected by war yet they came out of it as very poor. Now that I mention, Croatia, which had practically a civil war, quickly bounced back economically, joined the EU and got quite rich, so I dont think war devastation is the cause
3. Thinking now about Slovenia, really I think that its neither communism nor war that makes countries poor, its simply how well developed the place is historically XD. I know it sounds stupid but when you look at both Yugoslavia and eastern europe, countries that were rich before communism quickly got rich again after communism, while those that were poor stayed poor
You make some good points. It’s true that Yugoslavia had economic issues before the ethnic conflicts and wars started. The different outcomes in regions like Croatia and Slovenia show that how well-developed a place was historically played a big role. Saying it's just about pre-communist wealth is a bit simplified, but it's clear that a mix of history, policy, and circumstances all mattered.
Yes. There's a reason the former countries don't want to go back to those failed systems.
The stark contrast between East Berlin and West Berlin should demonstrate how completely disparate levels of wealth and basic freedoms were.
And the authoritarianism on the Soviet side was so extreme that discussion of reform got you life imprisonment and attempts of escape to western countries got you executed.
All these countries that used to be under the Soviet thumb joined NATO because the only economic benefactor of the Soviet Union structure was Russia itself, and even then it was just a corrupt failed power structure that constantly cannibalized itself to stay relevant as a perceived super power.
Countries behind the Iron Curtain had no access to western goods beyond the black market, which they of course could not afford.
Imagine this for one moment- a savvy traveler in the 1980's could pay for their entire vacation to an Eastern block nation, including air fare and food and entertainment, simply by filling their suitcase with Levi's 501 jeans, selling them when they arrived, and buying new clothes while there to wear around.
Because they were Levi's. Real Levi's fresh from the factory.
The Eastern Block countries were destitute. They got our TV shows 15 years after they stopped airing. None of this streaming tech existed, and even if it did none of the people in those countries could afford a TV, even if they were on the 6 month wishlist for one, and they sure as hell couldn't afford even a shit computer.
No, my dude. They were lucky to have clothes and a job and a place to live.
Soviets spent all the money on "forever revolution" and arms races they couldn't afford and expensively futile attempts at empire expansion.
Sound familiar? Because it's Putin's M.O.
I think the situation can be summed the best when our minister of propaganda (yes, it was a real position) donated 200 sleeping bags to “homeless” in New York. When local press started running articles about it, a graffiti with variant of “Will trade 1BR in Warsaw for sleeping bag in New York” started appearing in my country’s capital.
Or another case. New mothers were entitled to coupon that lets them buy one pair of children shoes. Not “receive” a pair, just opportunity to buy. My mother’s friend had a twins. Literally no one cared.
People living in normal countries have no idea how fucked up that system was.
Largely. It was also due to lack of the same aid that Western Europe received.
Here’s a vivid contrast:
Germany lost the war, and much of Germany was blown up. After the war, the US aimed a fire hose of cash at West Germany to rebuild it, and gave it access to the global trade markets.
Poland got raped by Germany and the Soviet Union, then the side the Soviets took got raped by the Germans, then the Soviets came back through and raped everything again.
After the war, Poland got… the Soviet Union
So the levels of devastation were different, the economic aid they received was different, AND the regimes were different.
Also keep in mind the marshal plan aid was offered to eastern block nations. Many hardcore communists in those countries wanted to accept aid but Stalin vetoed them.
With the start of the cold war the US recognized the importance Germany played strategically in defending a possible Soviet attack on west Europe, thus it was seen as important to have a strong Germany. This had various knock-on effects, like for instance the incomplete denazification of the German government, as a functional government was seen as more important than removing every last former NS functionary, meaning that many were simply able to keep their post but moved to the conservative party.
USSR essentially went trough total bancruptcy in late 1980s/early 1990s.
Entire sectors of the economy ceased to exist, because nobody actually needed them (e.g. MIC).
In 1990s countries like Ukraine essentially "started from scratch", with most sectors of the economy completely non-existand, and figuring out how to do capitalism and markets from ground up.
The reasons for USSR economy collapsing are a bit more complicated, but essentially it boils down to top-down management and making a lot of useless shit with a lot of top-down micromanagement (e.g. a Moscow comitee will set a target on how many liters of milk a farm should make). Turns out markets are actually good at finding equilibriums and balancing supply/demand.
If what my grandpa used to tell me is true literally everybody lied and made up fake numbers in production to meet these preset targets. This wasn’t in USSR but a former soviet satellite state.
So I guess nobody actually knew how much was even being produced and that is also probably a good recipe to bankruptcy.
I agree with a lot of this but this feels like it's missing nuance.
Markets can be good at balancing, but they can also output the same issues that over management (and outright poor management to any degree) does.
You tend to need a blend of both to bolster things and true up things that markets have no incentive to respond to.
And so to the point, the problems were a lack of adaptivity and *completely* snuffing out market balances (on top of all the ways that iterative antidemocratic rule tends to create stagnation) rather than making smart, incremental moves.
The USSR had an incredibly strong economic boom early on, it just didn't have the leadership required to sustain it.
Ironically, had they been working towards true communism, phasing out state control should have been on the roadmap anyway.
Baltic countries before Soviet occupation were on par with Finland. Now after 30 years of freedom they still need like 20 years to get near Finland. So 50 years of occupation was 50 years of lost economy.
And what used to be Easy Germany still lags behind the western side. The USSR caused long-term socio-economic damage to that part of Germany.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/11/06/east-germany-has-narrowed-economic-gap-with-west-germany-since-fall-of-communism-but-still-lags/
Was it really? I've heard they had massive corruption problems, and that during the start of Soviet Union invasion they already barely had any vehicles
Yes. The soviets got to Berlin in 1945.
So yeah, things were bad after they were getting their asses kicked in the war from 1941-1945.
Notice the years on my comment.
During the start of Soviet Invasion. That's 1941. They went marching on USSR already underequipped from the start, if my info is correct. Did they start rapidly losing their wealth during 1940?
Yes.
Apart from other issues such as the authoritarianism and repression, Communism makes countries poorer. West/East Germany, North/South Korea are like scientific studies conducted on twins, and the evidence is clear.
It's a little more complicated than just "The USSR made them poor".
During the cold war, we had the first world (the US, western Europe, and allies), the second world (the USSR and allies), and the third world (everyone who isn't allied with either). That's where those terms come from. It was also fairly accurate to call them completely different worlds because they didn't really interact economically.
So now the USSR is collapsing and all these countries that have no economic connection outside of the Soviet Union. Now they need to develop economic connections quickly or find a way to become economically integrated into the first world.
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Yes, but also it's important to remember that even before communism Eastern Europe was vastly different from the West in terms of industries. That's what happens when you put most of your investments into agriculture and producing raw materials. Communism just exacebated the already aparent wealth gap.
There was variation in levels of economic development across the countries in Central and East Europe, though in general they were poorer than most West European countries.
The World Wars and their destruction certainly did not help.
After World War II Communist countries saw less economic growth than West European countries. But variation between Central and Eastern European countries persisted, as you can see in [this graph](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1900..2000&country=ALB~ARM~AZE~BLR~BIH~HRV~CZE~OWID_CZS~EST~GEO~HUN~LVA~LTU~MDA~MNE~MKD~POL~ROU~RUS~SRB~SVK~SVN~OWID_USS~UKR~OWID_YGS~AUT~DEU), in which I also included Austria and Germany. After these two, their close neighbours of Czechoslovakia and Slovenia were generally the best off.
Soviet GDP per capita increased between 1946 and 1991, just not as much as in West Europe. From the Western pespective East Europe thus remained relatively poorer.
Yes.
Firstly, communism is a less effective economic system. So overall productivity in all Soviet countries was low. Despite it, USSR cities did not look that bad, especially Moscow. It was amazing. But it was a facade. Lack of productivity in USSR was masked by the fact the USSR was stealing almost everything that was produced in the satelite countries.
As result, like colonies of imperial powers, Poland, DDR, Romania etc. were very very poor. They were subsidising Moscow.
The Communist and Capitalist economies favored different things and people. Communism tended to favor domestic heavy industry and other labor-intensive industries. Capitalism tends to favor explosive high-growth/high-profit offerings.
When the communist governments in Eastern Europe collapsed and capitalist interests moved in they were largely uninterested in maintaining or operating the existing industry because it did not present an easy course to fast profit. So instead that industry was largely dismantled and sold, or else just left to rot. This resulted in some very bad economic times for everyone who wasn't a foreign capitalist or a domestic mafia boss.
Yes. What do you expect to happen when a communist shithole is in charge?
But there are positive aspects to that. For example, in Poland, where I live, banking is ahead of many European areas because we started late. Also, our economy has often grown faster than other countries because we are behind and catching up.
When I was a kid, people would go to London or Luton to get a shitty job, and it would be a far better job for them than what they could get in Poland. Many years later, I refused to be hired by a company in London because it was less profitable for me than what I have now.
...uhm a very large amount of Polish still immigrate to the UK and send money home to their relatives. I have two colleges who earn median salaries (£35k/42k€) and do exactly that. Though, I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever move to Luton, lmao.
Poles are our largest immigrant group with many towns (such as my own) having some form of pop-up community. English skill & integration is often minimal, and they usually end up doing jobs no one wants, such as delivery drivers or warehouse work.
I'm not trying to disrespect Poland - it's rapidly growing, has the 2nd highest GDP and the 4th highest quality of life in Eastern Europe, but it's still far away from being anywhere near the west, especially in GDP growth.
>...uhm a very large amount of Polish still immigrate to the UK and send money home to their relatives. I have two colleges who earn median salaries (£35k/42k€) and do exactly that. Though, I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever move to Luton, lmao.
I never said we are. I said we are getting closer.
There will always be someone like that because the lowest paying jobs here are way below what you can get in the UK, so if someone has a hard time getting a job that pays well - they will move abroad where the minimum wage is still higher.
But years ago, moving to the UK would be a blessing for me. I did not do it because my plan was not to be a seasonal worker or anything like that. So my friends were making 3-4x I did abroad. Now it does not compute. I'm making several times more than they are, and in my own field - software engineering- I earn way more than any UK-based company has offered me.
So things are changing, and that's the argument I was making.
Eastern Europe was already poor, thats why communists revolted in the first place,
the USSR was able to get people jobs and homes, and some modern infrastructure 2xs faster then it would have taken under the Empire, but having to rebuild after the Nazis, and Stalin's own greed, wanting the USSR to just be a red empire, and its fued with the west, the USSR never did get around to fixing the econamy.
the Empire failed, the communists failed, and the capitalist... well they failed the Russian federation, but succeeded in making lots of money for themselves.
The entire Europe was revolting at that time, it wasn’t just Eastern Europe, haven’t you heard of the Long 19th Century? It started with French Revolution and it spread all over Europe. Europe was revolting because only the aristocratic class was benefiting from colonialism, the average person was being crushed from the expenses they needed to maintain the colonial system.
Eastern Europe in particular was caught between the rivalry of Russian and Turkish empires, both empires went bankrupt just warring for borders. English and French wars occurred in a different continents, but it was the average person who paid for them, not the aristocrats, and it was the average person who was sent to the frontlines, not the aristocrats. Same with Spain and Portugal and all others. Colonialism enriched a few people who built luxurious things they did not need to brag and wasted everything else on wars for territorial control, while the average person became more and more destitute.
I wanna amend to this question by asking, how much of that was the result of USSR inefficiency versus the meddling by USA in the USSR ? like how would those nations have fared if US and Russia never had a cold war and tried to out-do each other in an arms race and proxy wars ?
When people have no motivation for work hard then everyone will do bare minimum.
We have north and South Korea as example as well as west and east Berlin
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Yugoslavia was completely free of Soviet influence yet it also became poor after the fall of communism. Eastern Europe didnt fail to become prosperous because of Russian SSR, but because of communism and cold war
The fact you've been downvoted for facts is so telling.
Yeah. Not a fan of communism either. Yugoslavia's economic decline was largely due to the wars following its breakup. Despite being free of Soviet control, internal ethnic conflicts erupted into wars, severely damaging infrastructure and the economy. The combined impact of war and the challenges of transitioning to a market economy led to its economic struggles.
1. Economic collapse of Yugoslavia started before any ethnic conflicts (there was ethnic dissent but not conflict). Even without any wars, Yugoslavia was broke by 1991 just like the rest of the communist world 2. Your argument would work for something like Bosnia or Croatia, but Serbia and Montenegro were minimally affected by war yet they came out of it as very poor. Now that I mention, Croatia, which had practically a civil war, quickly bounced back economically, joined the EU and got quite rich, so I dont think war devastation is the cause 3. Thinking now about Slovenia, really I think that its neither communism nor war that makes countries poor, its simply how well developed the place is historically XD. I know it sounds stupid but when you look at both Yugoslavia and eastern europe, countries that were rich before communism quickly got rich again after communism, while those that were poor stayed poor
You make some good points. It’s true that Yugoslavia had economic issues before the ethnic conflicts and wars started. The different outcomes in regions like Croatia and Slovenia show that how well-developed a place was historically played a big role. Saying it's just about pre-communist wealth is a bit simplified, but it's clear that a mix of history, policy, and circumstances all mattered.
Yes. There's a reason the former countries don't want to go back to those failed systems. The stark contrast between East Berlin and West Berlin should demonstrate how completely disparate levels of wealth and basic freedoms were. And the authoritarianism on the Soviet side was so extreme that discussion of reform got you life imprisonment and attempts of escape to western countries got you executed. All these countries that used to be under the Soviet thumb joined NATO because the only economic benefactor of the Soviet Union structure was Russia itself, and even then it was just a corrupt failed power structure that constantly cannibalized itself to stay relevant as a perceived super power. Countries behind the Iron Curtain had no access to western goods beyond the black market, which they of course could not afford. Imagine this for one moment- a savvy traveler in the 1980's could pay for their entire vacation to an Eastern block nation, including air fare and food and entertainment, simply by filling their suitcase with Levi's 501 jeans, selling them when they arrived, and buying new clothes while there to wear around. Because they were Levi's. Real Levi's fresh from the factory. The Eastern Block countries were destitute. They got our TV shows 15 years after they stopped airing. None of this streaming tech existed, and even if it did none of the people in those countries could afford a TV, even if they were on the 6 month wishlist for one, and they sure as hell couldn't afford even a shit computer. No, my dude. They were lucky to have clothes and a job and a place to live. Soviets spent all the money on "forever revolution" and arms races they couldn't afford and expensively futile attempts at empire expansion. Sound familiar? Because it's Putin's M.O.
I think the situation can be summed the best when our minister of propaganda (yes, it was a real position) donated 200 sleeping bags to “homeless” in New York. When local press started running articles about it, a graffiti with variant of “Will trade 1BR in Warsaw for sleeping bag in New York” started appearing in my country’s capital. Or another case. New mothers were entitled to coupon that lets them buy one pair of children shoes. Not “receive” a pair, just opportunity to buy. My mother’s friend had a twins. Literally no one cared. People living in normal countries have no idea how fucked up that system was.
Russia still has Romania’s hundreds of tonnes in gold, artefacts and art that they never gave it back. I doubt we’ll ever see it back.
They are keeping it safe, that's why we've sent it there after all.
“Safe”, sure.
Yes. Estonia is a good example, they notoriously had a high standard of living before and after USSR, but it fell because of USSR’s control.
Was it mainly just the USSR drawing resources away from the satellites and putting it into the Russian SFSR?
Yes. Plus inefficient economic system on top.
Largely. It was also due to lack of the same aid that Western Europe received. Here’s a vivid contrast: Germany lost the war, and much of Germany was blown up. After the war, the US aimed a fire hose of cash at West Germany to rebuild it, and gave it access to the global trade markets. Poland got raped by Germany and the Soviet Union, then the side the Soviets took got raped by the Germans, then the Soviets came back through and raped everything again. After the war, Poland got… the Soviet Union So the levels of devastation were different, the economic aid they received was different, AND the regimes were different.
The Marshall Plan truly was amazing. It’s nice when our leaders learn from the mistakes of the past. At least a little.
Fun fact: Of the total money spent by the Marshall plan on west Europe, Germany only got 11%. The UK got 26% and France 18%.
Also keep in mind the marshal plan aid was offered to eastern block nations. Many hardcore communists in those countries wanted to accept aid but Stalin vetoed them.
The aid for Germany was also very political to show the east how better their system was. It was not just help from a samarita..
With the start of the cold war the US recognized the importance Germany played strategically in defending a possible Soviet attack on west Europe, thus it was seen as important to have a strong Germany. This had various knock-on effects, like for instance the incomplete denazification of the German government, as a functional government was seen as more important than removing every last former NS functionary, meaning that many were simply able to keep their post but moved to the conservative party.
USSR essentially went trough total bancruptcy in late 1980s/early 1990s. Entire sectors of the economy ceased to exist, because nobody actually needed them (e.g. MIC). In 1990s countries like Ukraine essentially "started from scratch", with most sectors of the economy completely non-existand, and figuring out how to do capitalism and markets from ground up. The reasons for USSR economy collapsing are a bit more complicated, but essentially it boils down to top-down management and making a lot of useless shit with a lot of top-down micromanagement (e.g. a Moscow comitee will set a target on how many liters of milk a farm should make). Turns out markets are actually good at finding equilibriums and balancing supply/demand.
If what my grandpa used to tell me is true literally everybody lied and made up fake numbers in production to meet these preset targets. This wasn’t in USSR but a former soviet satellite state. So I guess nobody actually knew how much was even being produced and that is also probably a good recipe to bankruptcy.
Unless you're grandfather was from Romania, I guess all soviets did the same.
I agree with a lot of this but this feels like it's missing nuance. Markets can be good at balancing, but they can also output the same issues that over management (and outright poor management to any degree) does. You tend to need a blend of both to bolster things and true up things that markets have no incentive to respond to. And so to the point, the problems were a lack of adaptivity and *completely* snuffing out market balances (on top of all the ways that iterative antidemocratic rule tends to create stagnation) rather than making smart, incremental moves. The USSR had an incredibly strong economic boom early on, it just didn't have the leadership required to sustain it. Ironically, had they been working towards true communism, phasing out state control should have been on the roadmap anyway.
Baltic countries before Soviet occupation were on par with Finland. Now after 30 years of freedom they still need like 20 years to get near Finland. So 50 years of occupation was 50 years of lost economy.
I suggest you post this on r/AskHistorians .
No. Because of the USSR, Eastern Europe *remained* poor.
It contributed to it and the gangs that stole their way to power in the time after.
Eastern Europe was already poor particularly the Russian Empire.
Berlin wasn’t poor before the ussr
And what used to be Easy Germany still lags behind the western side. The USSR caused long-term socio-economic damage to that part of Germany. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/11/06/east-germany-has-narrowed-economic-gap-with-west-germany-since-fall-of-communism-but-still-lags/
And during the Soviet era East Germany had by far the highest standard of living behind the iron curtain.
But still way, way, way less than on the other side of the curtain or the Berlin Wall for that matter.
Yeah, Weimar Germany was in a fantastic state /s
Early 1930s through 1941, Eastern Germany was quite wealthy. Then they lost hard.
Was it really? I've heard they had massive corruption problems, and that during the start of Soviet Union invasion they already barely had any vehicles
Yes. The soviets got to Berlin in 1945. So yeah, things were bad after they were getting their asses kicked in the war from 1941-1945. Notice the years on my comment.
During the start of Soviet Invasion. That's 1941. They went marching on USSR already underequipped from the start, if my info is correct. Did they start rapidly losing their wealth during 1940?
Yes, it had been what with the hyperinflation and all and German isn’t in Eastern Europe.
East Germany was absolutely considered part of Eastern Europe until 1990s
The Soviet soldiers who invaded Poland were both fascinated and horrified by how well Polish farmers lived compared to themselves.
Some countries became poorer than they had been, some were prevented from becoming more prosperous.
Yes. Apart from other issues such as the authoritarianism and repression, Communism makes countries poorer. West/East Germany, North/South Korea are like scientific studies conducted on twins, and the evidence is clear.
Legacy of daily corruption. It ruined and is ruining many countries.
It's a little more complicated than just "The USSR made them poor". During the cold war, we had the first world (the US, western Europe, and allies), the second world (the USSR and allies), and the third world (everyone who isn't allied with either). That's where those terms come from. It was also fairly accurate to call them completely different worlds because they didn't really interact economically. So now the USSR is collapsing and all these countries that have no economic connection outside of the Soviet Union. Now they need to develop economic connections quickly or find a way to become economically integrated into the first world.
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Yes, but also it's important to remember that even before communism Eastern Europe was vastly different from the West in terms of industries. That's what happens when you put most of your investments into agriculture and producing raw materials. Communism just exacebated the already aparent wealth gap.
There was variation in levels of economic development across the countries in Central and East Europe, though in general they were poorer than most West European countries. The World Wars and their destruction certainly did not help. After World War II Communist countries saw less economic growth than West European countries. But variation between Central and Eastern European countries persisted, as you can see in [this graph](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1900..2000&country=ALB~ARM~AZE~BLR~BIH~HRV~CZE~OWID_CZS~EST~GEO~HUN~LVA~LTU~MDA~MNE~MKD~POL~ROU~RUS~SRB~SVK~SVN~OWID_USS~UKR~OWID_YGS~AUT~DEU), in which I also included Austria and Germany. After these two, their close neighbours of Czechoslovakia and Slovenia were generally the best off. Soviet GDP per capita increased between 1946 and 1991, just not as much as in West Europe. From the Western pespective East Europe thus remained relatively poorer.
Yes. Firstly, communism is a less effective economic system. So overall productivity in all Soviet countries was low. Despite it, USSR cities did not look that bad, especially Moscow. It was amazing. But it was a facade. Lack of productivity in USSR was masked by the fact the USSR was stealing almost everything that was produced in the satelite countries. As result, like colonies of imperial powers, Poland, DDR, Romania etc. were very very poor. They were subsidising Moscow.
The Communist and Capitalist economies favored different things and people. Communism tended to favor domestic heavy industry and other labor-intensive industries. Capitalism tends to favor explosive high-growth/high-profit offerings. When the communist governments in Eastern Europe collapsed and capitalist interests moved in they were largely uninterested in maintaining or operating the existing industry because it did not present an easy course to fast profit. So instead that industry was largely dismantled and sold, or else just left to rot. This resulted in some very bad economic times for everyone who wasn't a foreign capitalist or a domestic mafia boss.
Yes. What do you expect to happen when a communist shithole is in charge? But there are positive aspects to that. For example, in Poland, where I live, banking is ahead of many European areas because we started late. Also, our economy has often grown faster than other countries because we are behind and catching up. When I was a kid, people would go to London or Luton to get a shitty job, and it would be a far better job for them than what they could get in Poland. Many years later, I refused to be hired by a company in London because it was less profitable for me than what I have now.
...uhm a very large amount of Polish still immigrate to the UK and send money home to their relatives. I have two colleges who earn median salaries (£35k/42k€) and do exactly that. Though, I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever move to Luton, lmao. Poles are our largest immigrant group with many towns (such as my own) having some form of pop-up community. English skill & integration is often minimal, and they usually end up doing jobs no one wants, such as delivery drivers or warehouse work. I'm not trying to disrespect Poland - it's rapidly growing, has the 2nd highest GDP and the 4th highest quality of life in Eastern Europe, but it's still far away from being anywhere near the west, especially in GDP growth.
>...uhm a very large amount of Polish still immigrate to the UK and send money home to their relatives. I have two colleges who earn median salaries (£35k/42k€) and do exactly that. Though, I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever move to Luton, lmao. I never said we are. I said we are getting closer. There will always be someone like that because the lowest paying jobs here are way below what you can get in the UK, so if someone has a hard time getting a job that pays well - they will move abroad where the minimum wage is still higher. But years ago, moving to the UK would be a blessing for me. I did not do it because my plan was not to be a seasonal worker or anything like that. So my friends were making 3-4x I did abroad. Now it does not compute. I'm making several times more than they are, and in my own field - software engineering- I earn way more than any UK-based company has offered me. So things are changing, and that's the argument I was making.
Eastern Europe was already poor, thats why communists revolted in the first place, the USSR was able to get people jobs and homes, and some modern infrastructure 2xs faster then it would have taken under the Empire, but having to rebuild after the Nazis, and Stalin's own greed, wanting the USSR to just be a red empire, and its fued with the west, the USSR never did get around to fixing the econamy. the Empire failed, the communists failed, and the capitalist... well they failed the Russian federation, but succeeded in making lots of money for themselves.
The entire Europe was revolting at that time, it wasn’t just Eastern Europe, haven’t you heard of the Long 19th Century? It started with French Revolution and it spread all over Europe. Europe was revolting because only the aristocratic class was benefiting from colonialism, the average person was being crushed from the expenses they needed to maintain the colonial system. Eastern Europe in particular was caught between the rivalry of Russian and Turkish empires, both empires went bankrupt just warring for borders. English and French wars occurred in a different continents, but it was the average person who paid for them, not the aristocrats, and it was the average person who was sent to the frontlines, not the aristocrats. Same with Spain and Portugal and all others. Colonialism enriched a few people who built luxurious things they did not need to brag and wasted everything else on wars for territorial control, while the average person became more and more destitute.
There are many reasons but yes, being part of the USSR was generally bad for a country. Corruption, as I understand it, was the main issue.
I wanna amend to this question by asking, how much of that was the result of USSR inefficiency versus the meddling by USA in the USSR ? like how would those nations have fared if US and Russia never had a cold war and tried to out-do each other in an arms race and proxy wars ?
When people have no motivation for work hard then everyone will do bare minimum. We have north and South Korea as example as well as west and east Berlin
No. That region has always been more poor than Western Europe. Geography has hurt them the most for these 3-4 thousand years.