Ask anyone? Or just anyone who immigrated to the west? There's a lot of selection bias inherent in the people who most westerners talk to about state socialism.
there are a lot of people living in post-warsaw pact countries who still know damn well the toll of that system. sure, some are dejected by current progress and romanticize the good old thing from nearly 35 years ago, but don't pretend that the fall of the berlin wall wasn't celebrated on both sides of the wall. it's mostly the tankies who want the old thing back because they feel like it would let them oppress all the undesirables and provide them with tasty boots to lick.
and you can absolutely still feel the difference between a country that used to be in the eastern bloc vs one that used to be in the western one, even 34 years later.
(source: i'm hungarian)
don’t pretend that the fall of the berlin wall wasn’t celebrated on both sides of the wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the replacement of a socialist government with a capitalist one are different events.
My point being primarily that support or opposition to state socialism in formerly (or presently) communist countries is not universal and not of a single character. Just like everyone who was cheering for the Berlin Wall to come down was not cheering for corporate domination or microplastics in their blood, not everyone who wants a return to state socialism is cheering for the Stasi or the NKVD to come back.
