I'm dead curious about it, due to: 1) Having been born, raised and lived in a communist country ever since (also after it changed track). 2) Being old enough to realize what's going on and how things work (well) before the change in tracks.
I reckon there might be some oldies around here who remember stuff and even if the topic is not that interesting for Americans because nothing that ever happens or will ever happen in US might have anything dysfunctional in it, maybe the admin won't delete my post and tell me to f** off to Reddit.
There were pluses and minuses according to what I've read. Free housing, healthcare, education on all levels, vacation resorts were some of the pluses.
Go to YouTube and watch those foreign expats, New York Times and Fox News just attacked their small communities, saying nasty things. Well I have been following two of them on and off since the pandemic, way before the main stream media’s attention, it is half entertaining half tourism.
Not everyone, not even communist countries as a whole, were born equal. That's one story I perhaps will tell you some day, as told me by my uncle who in the dark 80s got approved for a tourist's pass. Not in Western Europe / Free World, God forbid, just our close neighbors: Hungary and USSR.
A friend of mine ,an immigrant in the US. stills brings a bottle when visiting a doctor. Old habits die hard.
I assume it is his family doctor and speaks his own language? it is more like a social visit, a bottle is translation service.
there is no freedom of expression , state own every single company in the country( you can see one or two brands of cheese maximum (as an ex (as old men here in egypt said that abdelnasser's era was ) , free education at all levels (which was the only good thing but still owned only by state ) and of course propaganda at all levels that makes from any single shit that the state announce a huge victory to the leader and the system