Postcards from the east: on the art of everyday communist life | Hacker News Reader

Postcards from the east: on the art of everyday communist life

calvertjournal.com

24 pointslermontov14 comments

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Those Albanian flats by the sea look amazing with the rake and the little balconies for each.

I know the reality would have been somewhat grim and that ordinary people would not have been able to have one.

> Albanian

I think you mean Albena not Albania, unless there was a typo in the article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albena

Correct, you are. The image caption says: Albena, People’s Republic of Bulgaria

Oops, I apologise to any Bulgarians! Those buildings look really amazing though. Wonder if they are still there...

It was not a communism, it was a flavour of socialism. Just like China, Sweden and USA.

They called it communism, everyone else called it communism. That it didn't really fit the textbook definition matters little.

And in my opinion this is how communism looks in the real world: crooks take over and you get a totalitarian regime. Anything else is an utopia.

By the same logic hacker is someone who breaks into systems and causes mischief. That ship has sailed as well and clinging to the original definition is a lost cause.

Well, different circles, different definitions. On HackerNews I expect everyone to translate hacker = programmer. On CNN I expect hacker = Kevin Mitnick.

No, it is a bit more complex.

Within the Warsaw Pact, there were essentially two levels of utopia: "socialist" and "communist". "Socialist" countries (Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia) allowed limited private ownership of land and businesses (private businesses could not employ more than 50 people). IN "communist" countries (East Germany, USSR), no private ownership was allowed at all.

Yes, crooks ruled in both systems. But everyday life was much easier in "socialism"

I should know - I grew up there.

Content sounds interesting, unfortunately it doesn't load without Google Analytics, Twitter and Facebook.

If you have a moment, what tool do you use to detect/block those?

ublock or umatrix, either will do.

Adblock edge on this browser.

It seems to work flawlessly with Ghostery.

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