These kinds of articles are only popular in places that had no direct experience of life in the USSR. No one in Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, etc. looks back on the time with fondness.
Things were simply different. My family had an absolutely happy life for all the generations that followed WW2.
The opinions of 20 year olds that weren't alive during the USSR era do not count.
1. Living in Poland does not mean knowing how Poles think about it
2. > I'd say 95% of the population looks back on the USSR era with negative views
This is wrong, opinions about PRL have always been mixed and highly influenced by demographics. [1]
And they shifted in time. 2014 was the first time more Poles had a negative opinion on PRL than a positive one, similar polls in 2009 and 2000 had much more people seeing the PRL positively (and better than democratic Poland). [2]
3. The opinions of 20 year olds that weren't alive during the USSR era do not count.
True, very true! And ironically this is probably where your wrong ideas come from: talking to your millennial coworkers likely in some tech hub or getting randoms opinions over the internet.
Stats show that people that were at least 15 by 1989 have warm or mixed memories about PRL. It's actually younger generations that learn it by history rather than experience to hold negative ones.
And this shift is even harsher after 2014 and 2016 as there's less people who lived those times polled and more youth that didn't, let alone the Russo-Ukrainian war pushed more people into harsher stances.
Let me tell you how things are: life in Communist Poland was ok, people had jobs, had roofs on their heads, had hobbies, did sports, made friends, love, went on vacations. Lives were normal.
Are things better now? They are.
But to imagine communist countries as some bleak grey dystopia ala papers please or Orwell's 1984 where people were unhappy is nonsense. Believe it or not people had normal lives, with jobs, roofs on their heads, making friends, love, going on vacations, playing sports, cultivating hobbies, etc.
I see this every time the topic of communism in Eastern Europe comes up on socials/internet: people that didn't live the era, nor the country, nor the system, speaking about how the people that lived it feel or think.
[1] https://dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/cbos-44-proc-polakow-pozytywni...
I don't have "millennial coworkers" nor do I attend a tech hub.
Especially absurd when the ongoing war with Russia. It wouldn't surprise me if Polish opinions of Russia were 99% negative.
2014 was 12 years ago. Poland is an entirely different place now. Perhaps you should update your opinion sometime. No one said it was a warzone dystopia, just that it was a darker time compared to today.
The "nostalgia" for those times is basically just nostalgia for the past; American "I miss X" views of the same time period are basically the same, meaning it has more to do with global culture and technological development than some specific thing about the USSR. And of course anyone with the slightest bit of political opinions doesn't miss that era.
Not having had generations and generations of Polish parents and grandparents and great grandparents to intimately understand their daily lifes over decades and their times removes the entirety of the elements you need to understand the topic. You simply don't have it. The same way you don't have any data (which I posted) to back your first statement.
I stated this already, since you might've skipped it:
> Stats show that people that were at least 15 by 1989 have warm or mixed memories about PRL. It's actually younger generations that learn it by history rather than experience to hold negative ones.
> And this shift is even harsher after 2014 and 2016 as there's less people who lived those times polled, let alone the Russo-Ukrainian war pushed more people into harsher stances.
So not sure, how are you disagreeing with me thre.
But facts are facts this line of yours is BS:
> No one in Latvia, Poland, Czech Republic, etc. looks back on the time with fondness.
That no one is false. Older people that lived those times often do. This is a fact shown by all polls you will be able to find online. And also by my anecdotal recollection of virtually every 60+ people I know.
So stop spreading falsehood about topics you don't know.
And I say it as a child of two Poles that escaped communism, my father hated it and hated the idea he could not be an entrepeneur and buy himself a Mini Morris car.
You americans are obsessed by over simplified white vs black, winners vs losers narratives and speaking in absolutes. History is more nuanced.
Are you certain your parents weren't informants for the SB?
It would be more obvious if someone was talking about their family living a "happy life" during apartheid or in North Korea.
Most likely your family was part of the communist elite. I believe you had a very happy life.
Communist party was very unpopular in Poland, even though registering was free and had benefits no more than 2.5% of poles ever signed to it.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_United_Workers%27_P...
People that were at least 15 by 1989 (the last year of communism in Poland) had a warm opinion on it.
It's really younger generations that did not live in PRL that hold overwhelmingly negative opinions on it.
In any case, I'm not sure why am I arguing with you? I'm Polish and my family lived those eras, so did my friends and their families.
Simple fact is: during communism people enjoyed fair lives, there was lots of safety, everybody had a job and a roof on their head and could afford one vacation per year. People made friends, sports, had hobbies and they were younger, so they remember the times as okay.
On the other hand, people that did not live them, base their opinions on vibes and their external idea of how it was to live under PRL.
Look, nobody is saying that life isn't better now, of course it is. But don't believe it was that bad. It was called "second" world and not "third" for a reason. It was okay.
Yet in yanks minds we were living some dystopia were everybody lacked everything and was unhappy and their neighbour was gonna report them for anything.