Your 80s experience in Eastern Europe is first hand as an adult or hearsay? I visited the GDR in the 80s as an adult and have some first hand experience which differs from yours.

In the GDR "job security" meant they told you what to work, choice was limited, if you always played by the rules, and if you didn't like that, you'd go to jail.

In the GDR no-one was guaranteed education. Today in Germany everyone can study whatever they want, in the GDR <5% of pupils were allowed to study, based on the status of their parents. Participation in events and workshops in school was based on the status of your parents or your participation in party organisations (FDJ, Young pioneers).

The GDR was on the verge of bancrupcy as were many other Eastern block countries at the end of the 80s, with low productivity but unsustainable high subsidies for food and flats. Poland went into bancrupcy and all other Eastern block countries were near that point (often because they took Western credits in the 70s and early 80s to increase consumer good production but couldn't pay back later)

(Anyone interested in Germany I recommend "Das Ende der SED: Die letzten Tage des Zentralkomitees" with protocols from the meetings of the central comitee).

I would like to amplify KingOfCoders answers with the experience in Romania. I lived in 1980's Romania. The party provided a guaranteed job - but only if you worked where the party sent you. The party provided a guaranteed apartment - but only if you lived where the party sent you. The apartment did not have heat and did not have electricity. If you were lucky maybe it had a somewhat stable gas supply. Hopefully the gas stoves you rigged to heat your apartment would not blow up (this happened). The guaranteed job did not feed you because of the food shortages. The party provided free health care - but there were no medicine. The hospitals did not have heat and when my sister went for apendicitis surgery my parents were on pins and needles just so the hospital does not get hit by an electricity blackout. I could go on and on but if you still think it was better under communism then nothing I say will change your mind.

The same in the GDR with flats. You couldn't get one, until you were married and best had a child. Without, single, you had to stay with your parents. You had to apply for a flat and it took up to several years until you got one - the one they gave you, no selection. If you had bad luck or your parents were not of sufficient socialist status, you had no central heating.