Jan
15
2008
It Was Better Under Communism?
During the Communist days in Romania, people had money, but nothing to buy. The store shelves were empty. There were no luxury items, only the bare necessities of what it took to live on. People had their food rationed out to them.People told me stories of “waiting in line.” Whenever there would be a line somewhere, people would stand and wait in line, even if they didn’t know what they were waiting for. Just the fact that people were waiting in line meant that something they needed was available for sale.
For so many years, Romanians were beaten down by the government. They heard endless speeches of propaganda. They were so beaten down that it’s hardly any wonder that many still today think in the same pattern that they did under Communism. They were not allowed to think big then, and many of them never learned how.
What often amazed me was that after a person would confide in me with all the stories of what it was like under Communism, sometimes that person would then begin to talk about the good times and say, “in some ways, it was better then!” This always floored me. They could go in one breath from talking about the horrors of that time to then wishing that the Communist regime was still active. Why? Freedom hadn’t brought all it had promised.
I compared the Romanian sentiment toward the Ceausescu regime with the Israelites’ feeling after leaving Egyptian slavery. When their freedom didn’t wind up being all it cracked up to be, some of the Israelites began to wish for slavery again. People so easily forget the bad and remember only the good.
The Romanian people had high hopes for the future of their country in 1989, but a Socialist came to power as president in the early 1990′s and corruption in the country soared. Then, the Romanians based their hopes on a Democratic candidate in 1996, and even though he won, corruption continued and the economy fell drastically during that time, so that many Romanians became disillusioned with the political process. Christians that got involved in government offices often became as corrupt as the others in a short matter of time.
High taxation continued and poverty increased after Communism. Even though freedom offered more opportunities, the poverty of many people actually got worse. Certain aspects of a free economy had shined into the country, but other aspects were still missing. People often said, “Back then, we had money but nothing to buy! Now we have everything to buy and no money.”