- Joined
- Sep 15, 2016
Can confirm.
Communism in the 30ies wasn’t communism in the 70ies.
If you lived in the Eastern Block or Soviet Union in the 60ies and onwards, your life likely looked like this:
*Working in a place with 300 employees, when 150 or 200 could have done the job. Since communism meant no official unemployment, everyone had to work, even if their position strictly wasn’t necessary. So you had factories where 1000 people do the work of 600, stores where one employee takes your money, another employee gives you a receipt and a third employee takes your receipt and gives you what you bought.
*Cheap as fuck rents and basic necessities like power, water etc. The downside was year long waiting lists on anything not considered a necessity: Telephone, TV, etc. It also meant that the bureaucrat who handed out apartments had enormous power. Party members and those paying under the table (or sucking some apparatchik dick) got the pick of the litter.
*Stores were always full, but not with what you needed. You might get very cheap staples, but if you wanted some ham or milk, you got what was left after party members and corruption had done its thing.
Phil, with his natural tendency for laziness would have fit in just nicely.
Except for when the party called for a “spontaneous demonstration” for whatever reason. Phil would love the time off, but would bitch endlessly at having to get up early in the morning and march around for hours yelling slogans.
