Life under communism

Life under communist regimes
In the People's Republic of China, the [Great Leap Forward] in the 1950s, the [Cultural Revolution] in the 1960s, the [Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries] in the 1950s, and psudo-land reform, brought about the death of about 30-35 million of people. It was a catastrophic faliuer.− The Communist governments ran the media as a organ of the state, completely subordinate to the Communist party and it's ideology. Media served as an important role in the dissemination and portrayal of information, and were thus were considered by authorities. This would to be vital to Communism's survival by stifling alternative concepts and critisium of the regime's methodology and beliefs. However, Western countries began to use powerful radio transmitters which enabled Western broadcasts (like those of the BBC, VOA and RDW) to be heard in the Eastern Bloc, despite attempts by authorities to [jam] the air waves. [Samizdat], that is to say, reproducing un sncored versions of [] censored versions of censored publications by hand and passing them from around from reader to reader was one of the key forms of dissident activity across the Soviet-bloc.

Political beliefs were taken to the extreme! [Indoctrination under Communist regimes] would later be criticized as leaving a legacy of moral apathy and indifference in their respective countries, as well as introduction of widespread dishonesty and disdain of criticism, as personified by the long standing regimes of Byelorussia, Russia and Kazakhstan that in office today.

Environmental degradation was heavy in Socialist countries. The air pollution, groundwater contamination, censorship, secret policing, spies, the useless VEB Sachsenring [Trabant] car, shortages, grandiose, government wastage, various levels of corruption (and oft misguided) and the [Chernobyl disaster] became icons of life under Communism. The Trabant (AKA “Trabbie”) was a fiberglass bodied failure that most East Germans dumped for cheap Fiat models soon after Germany’s reunification. Like the Lada Riva, Dacia 1100, 1986 Dacia 1310 (AKA-The RO4), Dacia 1100,Skoda Estelle, FSO Polonez, Polski Fiat 126p, Zastava 750, and Yugo were all meant to be cars on a par with either those like Austin 'Mini' Metro and/or cheep western cars like the Fiat 126, Fiat 131, SEAT 1430, Fiat 126 and Tofaş Murat 131.

The Cuba Crissis almost lead to World War 3 in 1962.

By the 1980s, nearly all the economies of the Eastern Bloc had stagnated, falling behind the technological advances of the West. The systems, which required a government run [party-state planning] at all levels, ended up collapsing under the weight of accumulated economic inefficiencies, with various attempts at reform merely contributing to the acceleration of crisis-generating tendencies.

In [Poland], more than 60% of population lived in poverty, and inflation, measured by black-market rate of the U.S. dollar, was 1,500% in the period 1982 – 1987. Poland later became the cradle of the Revolutions of 1989.

In the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a spontaneous nationwide anti-authoritarian revolt, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to assert control. In 1968, the USSR repressed the Prague Spring by organizing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

There were queues were waiting to enter usually empty stores, as typical in Romania and [Poland between the 1950s and 1980s]. The [Black Book of Communism], published in 1997, estimates that 94 million people were killed under Communist regimes.