this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Why would you not compare european communist countries woth european capitalist countries? Sure, africans and asians were poorer, but that goes without saying, honestly, what does that even have to do with this matter?
East Germany was poorer than west Germany. That tells us something. The fact that Ethiopia or whatever was poorer does not really tell us much about ehich economic system is better.
West Germany had almost all of the industry of Germany, and East Germany was made to pay harsh reparations for the immense devastation the Nazis wrought upon the Soviet people and countries. Moreover, West Germany was never de-Nazified, and the US and Western Countries heavily invested into its development as a means to destabilize the relations with the East, even threatening to put NATO nukes in West Germany.
Loool it’s easy to say East Germany was poorer when they had to deal with all the sanctions. But be my guest, how many homeless people in USA and how many in Cuba?
If only there was a superpower leading a blok of nations rivaling the west that could have supported east Germany...
Hard to do so in the aftermath of World War II when the Nazis destroyed half your buildings and murdered 20 million of your people. The Soviets did 80% of the combat against the Nazis.
So you claim the USSR did not support East Germany because of anti-german sentiments, while the west invested quite a lot into the reconstruction of FRG. I am afraid I am not qualified to assess how accurate that claim is(the former half of it, specifically). But I am deeply skeptical about this, since it would be quite a useful propaganda tool both domestically and in the west. Also, the east had a communist government and it distanced itself from it's past. The internationalist ideology of the USSR should have triumphed over the nationalist sentiments that might have existed.
However, I should say, that the main point of my original comment still stands. Of course, there are always many factors at play and it is not the case that the disparity between the east and the west can be attributed to the economic system alone. However, this does not mean that such comparisons are not valid, and I still would say that comparing european countries to underdeveloped countries to say that life in eastern Europe "wasn't that bad" is quite absurd.
I didn't say the USSR didn't support East Germany, I explained the unique struggles East Germany faced compared to West Germany.
Well if you didn't I do not know how I can possibly explain your previous comment.
East Germany was the side with practically no industry, and the Soviets de-Nazified it and made it pay reparations, as the Soviet Union, unlike the US, emerged from the war with massive reconstruction costs and tens of millions of lives lost. It was not in a position to offer the same kind of support the US gave to West Germany, it had to build itself up first and then help out more. Later on, the DDR was much better and support increased.
In addition, the DDR provided free, high quality education, while the West offered higher pay, meaning a lot of educated workers could get the "best of both worlds" by getting educated in East Germany and defecting to the West.
The East had a good system, but it was bogged down by sitiational problems.
Well, maybe I should not have used FRG and GDR as an example. I should say that this is not the point I was originally trying to make.
I used those as an example because they are similar countries, and contrasted it with comparing a european nation with a undeveloped african/asian nation. I was not trying to criticise east germany really, and I admit there are many reasons why it was and still is I suppose lacking compared to the west.
You should compare countries of similar development. That's a good thing. People always compare the richest capitalist countries with the poorest communist countries, but by doing that always ignore the mass amount of poor capitalist countries, ones that are poor specifically because of capitalism.
Russia, for example, was extremely poor and behind. Comparing them to other majority agrarian societies during the Tsar makes way more sense than comparing them to countries that had been post-Industrial Revolution for awhile already, like Britain, Germany, or the US. That wouldn't make any sense. They were trying to catch up but they were still only just getting a proletariat from their burgeoning heavy industry and rail industries when the Revolution happened. They were way behind the West otherwise. Yet in a short period of time they managed to catch up.
China even more so was basically all peasants. Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, etc all the same, extremely poor, small, or both. So they should be compared with countries of relative equal development, which tends to be the countries in the global South, like Africa or Latin America.
Then there's the fact that they are kept at low development through purposeful exclusion from global markets, via sanctions, propaganda like the "Radio Free" programs, coups, support of separatist or terrorist groups, taking of national resources, being kept in debt by the IMF, and so on.