It depends a lot on where you live. I've yet to meet anyone from the former Eastern block who was an adult by the time it collapsed. About books, that's the problem, they're all biased in one way or another. Some will depict East Germany as a police state living hell, while others describe it as a paradise as long as you didn't get involved in certain things. It's difficult to figure out what was it all about.

> About books, that's the problem, they're all biased in one way or another.

This is no excuse for not becoming more educated on the subject if you are ignorant. Every source is full of bias. That's why reading more than one book on the same subject is a worthwhile endeavor, because even a supposedly objective history is full of some editorializing of the events. The trick is to recognize when the author is editorializing and when they are presenting the events as they happened, and to take the editorializing as the author's point of view and the events as factual unless proven otherwise.

Disagreeing with someone's opinion about something does not require you to disagree with their presentation of the facts.

Bias isn’t an issue everything has bias in it but in your case it wouldn’t be really hard to figure it out, East Germany was objectively a police state while it might not have been as bad as worst case for everyone it was never a paradise.

There is a difference between editorializing and fabricating complete nonsense and unless you are looking for facts to reenforce your own bias it’s not hard to distinguish between them.

Loads of people today who lived under Soviet rule want to return to soviets rule. Capitalism destroyed Eastern Europe. It's horrible over there right now.

Not sure why you're being downvoted...

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/29/in-russia-no...

Because statistics are meaningless nearly no one surveyed actually lived under Stalin or spent time in the gulag.

Russian propaganda has been working on “restoring” the image of Stalin and the USSR diligently for over two decades heck just a few days ago they’ve arrested a Russian historian who authored a book on Stalin for being unpatriotic.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/170146

https://www.rferl.org/a/second-historian-of-stalin-s-crimes-...

That's false. He was arrested on pedophilia charges.[1][2] I don't understand how that's "unpatriotic".

1. https://www.newsweek.com/men-uncovering-stalin-era-atrocitie...

2. https://themoscowtimes.com/news/gulag-historian-detained-ped....

I mean, the statistics lean significantly towards those who were adults during the USSR.

It's hilarious that you literally link to radio free europe. "Statistics are meaningless" lolz

Statistics which are built on a state fabricated lie are meaningless when you objectively try to understand the history of the USSR the only thing that is meaningful is is just how bad the transition period is remembered and how well the current propaganda machine works.

It’s also interesting to see just what is driving it, countries like Estonia and Lithuania are EU countries which greatly benefited from integration with western society while the rest of the Russian vassal states were left to fend for themselves and essentially lost what little power they had even if it was only power by proxy.

Except, once again, the statistics say that the people who were alive tend to have the most favorable opinion. If it was just some conspiracy were everything was made up, you'd expect the opposite.

Stalin died in 1953 how many of the people surveyed were alive during that time to have a favorite view of him especially in comparison to reformers like Gorbachev vs how many of them are utterly brainwashed by the current Russian propaganda machine?

An easy answer would be too look at the numbers for the former USSR states which are now EU members.

Furthermore it's important to note that this is an aggregated statistical butchery from multiple surveys in none of which was a question asked along the lines of "would you rather live under the USSR or being free".

All of these were peripheral questions about various nationalistic identities and historical figures, all of which were heavily retconned in the past few decades by Russia.

Stalin used to be one of the most despised figures in Russian history even during the USSR today he is celebrated as a hero that is simply sickening.

Really? I'm living in Russia right now and can purchase an Advacodo from just about any grocery store.

If we're going to compare apples to apples (or really avocado to avocado), the US couldn't consistently put avocados on grocery store shelves outside of California until the late 1980s either. There were trade restrictions with Mexico, and California didn't yet have the capacity for much beyond local sales.