Because there was a job for everyone. Government had to create a job for everyone.

See: http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-19-1-a-...

"In the workplace, almost everyone had a job. Wages,however, lagged far behind those in the Western democracies. A common joke was, "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work." But rents, goods, and services were far cheaper than in the West."

>Wages,however, lagged far behind those in the Western democracies.

Eastern Communist states were essentially reduced to rubble after WW2. This did make building to the same economic level as an entirely untouched America, or even West Germany (which was deluged with aid and given preferential trading terms), something of a challenge.

> job for everyone

You are implying that this was dictated by political rather than economical reasons, but that may be not entirely correct.

> we pretend to work

This is true - for some workers. Thing is, the Western society in not and has never been different in this regard. And, some of the "job creation" policies could exacerbate the problem even more.

Yes, some jobs are the same here.

The main question is: do you create a job because there's some work to be done, or do you create a job because somebody needs a job?

Do you have an evidence of the latter, or this is purely hypothetical? (An honest question.)

Common knowledge, see earlier link, some googling will easily give you more info.

Lots of older people in Easter Europe think communistic days were better and wish they could go back: state provided housing, education, healthcare and a job. Not great, but basic (as in basic income).

>I find this hard to believe.

You don't have to "believe it". Just buy and read a few historical accounts, and/or biographies of people that lived through those regimes.

In wasn't that a job in "communistic days" was different from a modern job, it was that in those days productivity wasn't that high anyway neither was purchasing power, so there was little use for jobs to make things or offer services that people couldn't afford.

All the same, everybody was supposed to automatically have a job, hence the creation of tons of mostly idle bureaucratic job positions.

At the heart of the communist was the belief that the entire country with all its people can be managed and orchestrated. This translates to a very static universe, where you are born, given an assignment and are suppose to stay in the same place until you die or the state changes their mind. Everything was a number in a spreadsheet, how many doctors given are will have, how much bread you need to bake and how much toilet paper shoul be produced. The last one turned out to be the symbol of communism failure, they did some math and decided X amount of toilet paper should be produced, but sadly people wanted more. Huge shortfall of toilet paper began and it started being a valued asset. Such over-planned world doesn't really work well with human ambitions, it doesn't really matter if you job is meaningful or not, having very little choice will likely cause stress and make you unhappy. To make things worse promotion was only possible if you were a party member and was seen as valuable and loyal. The whole thing was more than just automatically giving people jobs, it's been about total control, job creation was one of the tools. I don't think it's easy to directly compare it with UBI if someone wants to make such analogy. UBI doesn't restrict you the same way, it might even be seen as opposite - liberating people from being forced into low paid jobs where you generate very little value and it's hard to progress your skills and income.

Because the state created (and paid for) jobs to make sure everyone's nominally employed. It was essentially a form of UBI, although there were different levels and amounts for different people.