[thriftwy]

One of the first Sovirt Union's general purpose computers, the MESM[1], was built in some pre-revolutionary mansion outside Kiev.

Romania also had significant semiconductor industry and DDR too, such as Kombinat Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt.

I'm disappointed the article is so eager to tag late communist Bulgaria "repressive". The same myopic vision where Bulgaria can be of no significance, but also where socialist regime can manifest with nothing but repression.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MESM

[pvg]

"Repressive" seems pretty accurate. That it had non-repressive attributes (what repressive regime doesn't?) doesn't mean it wasn't repressive.

[thriftwy]

With "non-repressive attributes" you're continuing to dig the same hole I was talking about. I mean, come on.

[pvg]

What is the hole in question? You're complaining the article calls a repressive regime repressive. What's the actual objection? That it wasn't repressive? It was really repressive!

[thriftwy]

That now sounds like that Anarcho-Syndicalist dialogue from Monty Python's Holy Grail, where Arthur represses peasants by existing.

And I'm absolutely no fan of communism.

The hole in question that absolute majority of Bulgarians' experience was shaped by what the economy can let them do and what it can't - talking about both pre-1990 and post-1990.

Late communism was more like an asylum which is run by inmates. It was as repressive as they personally were.

[pvg]

You've still not said what is wrong with calling a repressive regime repressive. Is it because you think it wasn't actually repressive? Or maybe because you think it got less repressive in its later days? Even that is inaccurate, there are significant ways in which it got more repressive, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_Process

Edit about your edit:

Late communism was more like an asylum which is run by inmates. It was as repressive as they personally were.

I can't say I understand this but it sounds like a tautology you can apply to just about any human organization.

[thriftwy]

I'm just not sure what your claims about regime's repressivenes are based on. Were you there? Can you compare that with your current existence?

> sounds like a tautology you can apply to just about any human organization

Exactly! It wasn't much better or worse than your garden variety society. That you won't use all the repressive words against.

> The "Revival Process" was in turn followed by the forced expulsion of over 300,000 Muslims in 1989.

Isn't that exactly the action of post-Perestroika, now-democratic Bulgaria? Indeed, as I have heard most of ethnic cleansings happen in young democracies as opposed to autoritarian states. In young unstable democracy, it suddently seems like a good idea for 70% to get rid of a 30% minority (numbers may vary). After all, you can vote solidly in favor of that.

If Socialist Bulgaria wanted to get rid of muslims it would not wait until 1989. They had 40 years to do that if they wanted. They didn't. The new, emancipated one did.

[gessha]

The Soviet electronics manufacturing and the politics around it were very interesting. Somebody else in the thread recommended the Asianometry video, go watch it.

As for repressions, intellectuals getting censored, assasinated even [1].

Turkic and Roma populations getting forcibly assimilated [2].

Numerous personal accounts of asset seizure and blatant corruption among party members.

Is that repression to call it out or just enough to fall below the threshold?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todor_Zhivkov

[thriftwy]

I don't know. You can find targeted assasinations done abroad by democratic regimes these days. Israel kills Iranian nuclear scientists more or less routinely. I mean, yes, that is tragic, but we have worse shit tolerated on our planet in the age XXI. Number of people affected is also expected to be fairly low.

With regards to forcible assimilations, I believe France, Denmark and Turkey did more or less the same stuff in the time frame. These are all democratic, capitalist NATO-member countries which are not always in the same sentence with "repressive". Again, that is tragic, but I wonder if most countries in the world aren't having worse contemporary skeletons in their closets.

I'm not challenging the actual grinding of people between state gears, just the myopic outlook where it is customary to use it against certain regimes' life experience but not others. People are conditioned to assume it was a torment to live in Bulgaria in 1980. The same people don't assume it was a torment to live in contemporary Turkey. In practice, both had their highs and lows.

With regards to asset seizure, I don't believe you were supposed to have any under socialism.