I’m currently in Sofia, Bulgaria. Though I had some ideas of what to expect from my childhood, growing up during the Cold War, nothing could truly prepare me for the experience of actually living here. There’s a pervasive, abstractly dark feeling, so heavy, that it permeates even in the confines of our rented apartment.
I’ve never experienced anything quite like it: in every country I’ve visited over the past 5 years (including formerly-communist Croatia), there’s always some solace, some interesting neighborhood to get lost in, some aspect of the culture to fixate upon; but here, there are only isolated buildings of interest, surrounded by dilapidation. Communism has invaded every aspect of life here, and the country is still recovering thirty years later.
This is not an insult to Bulgaria of Bulgarian people, but it is a living testament to the devastation of abusive systems; when individual rights are stolen by the government.
Perhaps Bulgaria and many other former communist countries, could have been warned, in great depth, about what the transition to capitalism would mean. It is worth the hell. But it will be hell, for at least a generation or more. Some will be lost to it, namely, the elderly. Communism is a cruel, humanity-sucking system. It’s a mindset that will require time, collectively and individually, to unwind.
When the government has been the source of everything, good, bad or indifferent, humans develop a sense of learned helplessness without it. It isn’t their fault, it is human nature.
This is why communism is so destructive. It takes away confidence, and a belief in one’s ability to be creative, innovative, self sufficient. It is brainwashing, in the purest sense of the word. It pushes the will down to nothing. It takes away drive, initiative, and reflection. It is survival, and nothing more. People can’t hope for any creation of their own, to grow over time, because the government oppresses every possibility for a person to evolve and grow, whether it be a business, or an interest, or anything beyond the struggle just to survive each day.
They had secret police, so they knew they were being watched at all times. They learned to shut out the world and retreat to whatever tiny space they could call their own, and find some peace in that. They couldn’t dream, or plan, because they didn’t want to have to face waking up from that dream, which communism forces a person to do, every day, if they dare to dream at all.
Moreover, being isolated from the outside world by the oppressive communist regime, prevents anyone from being able to form an accurate picture of what capitalism might be.
Imagine piecing together an entire system of government and society, from tiny shreds of pop culture that find their way to you, scarce and spaced out over decades. And imagine using this as a source for the very human desire to imagine a better life, as you struggle every day. The picture you might form would be so simplistic and incomplete, but likely in direct contrast to the hell you are living. It creates unrealistic expectations of capitalism. Who or what could possibly fulfill that fantasy?
The fantasy is also a way to maintain hope. This is also part of the brainwashing. Communism is so oppressive, it would be natural to imagine an equal, opposite reality, in your mind, in a way, meant to protect your sanity. But if this image is mistaken for reality, one will be so disappointed when the reality doesn’t match the idea or picture in one’s head. Possibly devastated. Communism is so unnaturally oppressive, it creates this need for a fantasy, an unnaturally perfect, opposite.
It’s all in the subconscious. And corruption would be a way of life if every freedom is withheld. One would have to be keenly aware, in the transition to capitalism, that what passes for survival in communism is actually nothing more than corruption. A person’s psychology will be dismantled, for a while, in order to be rebuilt, just as the economy will. It’s a mess, but if they hang in there, it will eventually become the will of the people. It’s hard to know what that will is, when one has never been allowed the freedom to explore it.