All of those NATO weapons and aggression destroyed my country's economic independence and increased poverty and wealth inequality. I take no solace in being occupied by NATO troops.
A huge part of Eastern Europe (but not all ofc) would disagree with you.
Especially the occupying US bases are almost universally disliked.
NATO waged economic warfare and funded fascists (particularly intensified in the 80s), culminating in a violent coup by the army. Since then, we've seen hyperinflation, privatisations, austerity and deregulation. While technology is much improved, the relative proportion of wages spent on essentials is vastly increased and most well paid jobs are for foreign companies that extract profits outside the country.
A significant part of populations lived relatively well just because of their place in the society. The lack of free press caused them to think that everyone lives like them. However this was the exact consequence of the oppression of the rest of society.
This spanned countries: USSR extracted production from one set of countries and subsidized others. The populations of the latter group naturally saw the collapse of USSR as a bad thing since their standard of living became lower.
The fact that there were certain parts of the world that lived better under USSR does not make suffering of other people a good thing.
The working class did not have control of Romania, Nicolae Ceaușescu did from 1965-1989 as the general secretary.
The 1980’s in communist Romania were a time of austerity, not the other way around. Median household income is now 3x higher.
I’m not sure why I’m replying to such a disingenuous person and plain deceitful post but i guess i wanted to argue with liars on the internet today.
Edit: From dontlaugh's comment history, it's Romania.
Yes, we were all equal. Equal in our collective misery.
Except for the Party leaders.
It’s very easy to look back with rose tinted glasses after 33 years. But in reality things were truly bad back then.
It resulted primarily from economic warfare. The country was offered the chance to sell to the West, under the condition of taking IMF funds. After spending them on developing factories, we were denied the ability to sell the products (mostly industrial equipment). We were only allowed to sell agricultural products to pay off the debt, hence the rationing. Today, that would be called sanctions.
Do you have any sources that would cover your interpretation of events?
To the best of my knowledge, the crisis in 80s Romania was due to similar causes as in other communist countries of the period - the economy was quickly industrialized based on foreign loans (which were also spent partially on consumption) in the 70s, with most investments made in heavy industry. That is a very good base for building tanks and heavy armaments which the Warsaw Pact needed, but it's not suited so much for export to the West and bolstering the national economy.
The effects of those ill-thought investments are felt to this day in Eastern Europe - but it's not due to the West trying to sabotage national production, but due to inefficient implementation of obsolete production processes in the centrally commanded economies.