[gumby]

Because they didn’t have a functional telecom monopoly at the end of the Cold War, so built all new infrastructure, not just wiring plant but organizationally as well. While the old western countries had strong monopolies or cartels with regulatory capture. Of course not every one of the eastern states got this, and some “entrenched” systems worked out fine too (e.g. South Korea and Singapore).

But in the case of Eastern Europe, where neoliberal ideology gripped most of the newly independent states, this is one of the few examples, but quite a good one, of where that ideology did in fact work out exactly as intended, for good.

[golergka]

> neoliberal ideology gripped most of the newly independent states

I wish. There was a great liberal leap forward in the 90s, but now it's state-run economy all over again.

[gumby]

I think it wa a disaster for Russia, didn't really happen in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova; meh for Romainia, Bulgaria, pretty good for some of the Warsaw countries west of those (DDR a special case). Anything can be exploited (communism or complete liberalism/libertarianism and everything between) but the people who did the best* seemed to have taken less an ideological view and more of a pick and choose with a slight lean against the old system. Places like Czech for example.

I'm talking about the 1990s and early 00s.

* I wound't agree with them all, even the successful ones...but as none of them are my country it's not really any of my business except to learn via observation.

[golergka]

> I think it wa a disaster for Russia,

Quite the opposite - the GDP rose dramatically, the standard of living too.

> I'm talking about the 1990s and early 00s.

That's the problem: these policies have a delayed effect. They were inacted in early 90s, and the country reaped all their benefits in mid 00s, while they were already scaled back and revamped. And for the last 5-10 years of stagnation have been the direct result of the latter.