Question

How did the lack of consumer products in Eastern European countries contribute to the collapse of communism? Explain. ( around 250 words )

Answer 1

Following Stalin's model, heavy industry, such as steel making and coal mining, was emphasized by planers. Consumer goods such as automobiles, clothes, and televisions have become scarce and costly. The government promised the "freedom to work" for everyone, but that also meant poor pay doing a dirty job.

Smoke billowed from factories and industrial waste flowed into rivers, with the emphasis on industrial production. Pollution has become a big issue but little has been done about it. Managers at the factory were under pressure to fulfill production targets. Consumers wanted more merchandise. Planners have generally neglected the environmental concerns.

Communist rule in Eastern Europe relied on the support of the Soviet military. In 1956 the Soviet Union participated militarily in Hungary, and again in 1968 in Czechoslovakia. Even under this threat, the people of Eastern Europe have been complaining increasingly about their lack of political freedom and the failure of socialism to bring their standard of living up to that of the Western capitalist democracies.

By the late 1980s it was apparent that the Soviet Union would no longer use its military to keep the Communist parties in place in Eastern Europe. People had lost all confidence that a better way of life could be given by the Communist regime. In 1989 people took to the streets everywhere in the region and overthrew one after another the communist regimes. In a matter of months Stalin's system imposed for 40 years on the countries of Eastern Europe disappeared as if it were a bad dream. Two years later even the Soviet-based communist system collapsed.

Eastern Europe people eventually had an opportunity to decide their own future. What they wanted was government democracy with a capitalist economic system, in the Western style. The change, however, has not come easily. Today, Eastern Europe 's emerging democracies and the former Soviet Union face new challenges such as learning to run fair, competitive elections, dealing with unemployment and trying to meet the demands of ethnic and language minority groups.