What was better in Poland under communism?

They also say that kielbasa and bread tasted better under communism.

It isn't Russian custom, actually in old Poland kisses were more elaborate :p

It's not particularly great thing, but one day in winter, on the main square of my town I saw a great big tank. And soldiers warming themselves around burning barrel. It was a first day of martial state. For a boy like me - it was something beautiful!

The Church and private farm ownership, plus the contradictious Polish spirit adn realtively big population are what softened the rigours of Soviet-style rule in Poland. The Church was restricted butnot obliteraetd as in the USSR, Albania and Czechoslovakia and agricultrue was never extensively collectivised. Also only Poles rose against Soviet-style rule on so many occasions: 1956, 1968 (students), 1970, 1976 and finally 1980 (Solidarity).

If I put aside many easier solvable practical problems during communism (apartment, free education, health system, etc., not noticeable differences in SE status) I would say they were more fertile systems, totalitarian in less transparent way, so they were able to produce free thinkers, fresh ideas that were real opposition to those regimes, which was visible for me at least in arts like literature, movies....

Now I have to stop myself from throwing up when I try to choose a book in a bookshop. FUJ!

Solidarity is as a word and as a concept disappeared with fall of communism.
In Serbian you can rarely hear it nowadays. People are more selfish, competitive and life philosophy " Homo homini lupus est" imported from the West is dominating our minds. Souls are gone.

you knew who to bribe now you have to bribe everyone

Well I think that in Poland we have always been "wolves"...

Maybe you're right...
What i read here about everyday behavior of older Polish generations (parents, grandparents), didn't leave that impression.

Here it was not like that (YU, SRB). For most ppl.

Maybe the difference in tradition (orthodox and catholic) from pre communist era, has something to do with that? What do you think?
;)

They are just bleaching their past... yeah sure but donoszenie was the most favourite hobby of most Poles those times...


I think it has nothing to do with that

Can you explain me what does that mean?

if I use Google translate, it will surely lead me to wrong conclusions :)

What are they bleaching?

snitch on somebody


I mean generally that people tend to make old times better than it really used to be.

Today seems like not at all necessary institution.

"Foucault also compares modern society with Jeremy Bentham's "Panopticon" ..... Ancient prisons have been replaced by clear and visible ones, but Foucault cautions that "visibility is a trap." It is through this visibility, Foucault writes, that modern society exercises its controlling systems of power and knowledge (terms Foucault believed to be so fundamentally connected that he often combined them in a single hyphenated concept, "power-knowledge"). Increasing visibility leads to power located on an increasingly individualized level, shown by the possibility for institutions to track individuals throughout their lives. Foucault suggests that a "carceral continuum" runs through modern society, from the maximum security prison, through secure accommodation, probation, social workers, police, and teachers, to our everyday working and domestic lives. All are connected by the (witting or unwitting) supervision (surveillance, application of norms of acceptable behaviour) of some humans by others."

he died in 1984., what would he say today ;)

looking for similarities... :)

Now that is a vicious lie! Everybody knows that no Pole ever informed on another Pole. The only people in Poland who informed were Jewish/communist/black/gay/ethically German-Polish mixed/not Catholic and so can not possibly have been Poles!

Yeah, that's how you get a massive samizdat working.


Get yourself an enema, or what...

Kids these days, what do they know?

She just got it wrong. Her parents may remember snitching as the worst Polish vice, and it did happen, of course. But you don't get an institution of 'fucha' when every second person might be a snitch. You don't get ripe bribery, when snitching is a popular sport. You can't have the word 'organise' with its unique Polish meaning, if snitching is any problem.

The very thing that they hated it so much is typically Polish. A snitch is the lowest form of life in Poland. You can be useful, you can be nice, you can be an expert, but if you are a snitch, you're done.

well, so educate them, not patronize them...

50% polled Romanians declare they preferred communism than current times.

Shocking.

Fatal accident in the New Town Pilica (province. in Poland ). As a result of head-on collision with a Volkswagen transporter truck volvo on the site 16 people were killed , two injured died after transport to the hospital. He survived only a truck driver . At the request of President Bronislaw Komorowski introduced a three-day mourning in Mazowieckie province and the Lodz .

Well nott, you see, in civilized countries it is called obowiązek obywatelski. In Poland it is called donosicielstwo. ;)))

there is something to it :) PRL was not a 'civilised country'. It was a system of exploitation, and the nation reacted in a natural way. Stealing from the state was widely accepted, stealing from a private person was your ordinary thieving, despicable thing. You needed to paint your flat, you 'organised' paint from your factory, or a neighbour did you a favour for a symbolic bottle, then you went to your GP, and his first question was '3 days or a week'. Those who happened to actually have a flu felt like slightly embarrassed, un-Polish.

Weird stuff. Bareja got it right, although it seems unbelievable. In this reality, snitching means civil death, and sometimes worse. Civil death means you go to the shop and all you can get is what you see. It means you call a recommended plumber, and he's not doing it, sorry, and that was one exceptional case, my brother in law asked me to do a favour to his best friend's terminally ill mother, and she provided all the materials anyway, I only put it all together for a cup of tea and a nice chat. On Sunday.

edit: well, maybe it's not clear enough. The recommended plumber turns out to be a mistake, so you call the official service, they come next Easter, they leave mess in your bathroom, and the leak comes back the next day anyway, because they exchanged your loose, but otherwise good tap with a faulty one. They needed good material for good Poles, innit. You getting the gist?

You better watch your tongue!


Indeed shocking


Good one, good one...

1 Thing was better, professional ******** :) in one party. Keep it simple ;)

not in the circles i am from

Yeah I agree, Poles didn't do that where I lived either. It was just the opposite, for example they would kill a cow or pig, make kielbasa or steaks and sell it to neighbors and friends without telling the gov because under communism the gov wanted to know everything about you, how many cows, pigs, chickens you had, when did you kill them and what did you do with the meat, etc. Money was tight that's why people never fully gave the correct answers and would cover each other then kill the pig, make sausages, sell it and have money.

The lines were unbelievable in stores, specially the masarnias. People would stand in line 2-3 hours before the store would open to get a piece of wątróbki or schabowy and if you came to late, you got screwed.

The movie "nie lubię poniedziałku" or the seriał " zmiennicy" is an excellent example how Poles lived in those communistic times. many movies were made about communistic Poland. When toilet paper was brought in to a store, poeple would buy as many as they could carry. The stuff was tied up together with a string through the middle. It was worse than sand paper, but hey, they had some hard asses.

Is that where the term "you're a hard a$s" comes from?

Merged: Polish nostalgia for communism?

Hi!

I noticed that many Polish have a strong nostalgia for communism.

As an American I was always taught it was so bad, but here many Polish say it was a great life and they didn't have to work like they do now. It seemed to nestle them in a womb-like socialist warmth that is lacking in today's competitive capitalist system.

Do the posters here acknowledge that there is, indeed, a huge remnant of bolshevik nostalgia in Poland?

In your dreams!

/\ Well a lot of these posters say they yearn a for a return of godless communism:

https://polishforums.com/history/poles-embraced-communism-end-61937/

Could be among the poor and the very old.

I just know that my (Ukrainian) cleaning lady keeps telling me that it was better in those days back home (as a widow with 3 little kids, she had everything taken care of). I suppose for the poor that communism was better.

You wouldn't call someone today dirving a gleaming Passat or Golf a Nazi, even though the VW and Autobahns were clearly Adolf's contribution to mankind. One of the good things about about PRL were the 1001 drobiazgów shops (something like a poor man's Woolworths) where you could get alll kinds of sundry household and general-use items for pennies. Now you have to drive to Arcadia, leave your car in the underground car park, ride the escalator and spend time hunting through the aisles of Leroy Merlin or suchlike to find a wall hook or whatever. After all, time is money! Ladies miss the pasmanteria shops (needles, thread, lace, etc.) which used to be in every neighbourhood. Also, many bemoan the passing of the bar mleczny - a far cry from the chain greaseburger joints.

The tram stops at Arkadia (and not Arcadia, Pol3, getting Americanized, you've been away from PL too long!!)