48% of Romanians Think Communist Regime Was Good

48% of Romanians think that communism was good. This results from the opinion poll conducted by a Romanian research institute, INSCOP, ordered by News.ro.

In the opinion of 48.1% of Romanians, the communist regime meant a good thing for Romania (compared to 45.5% in November 2013), while 42.3% are of the opposite opinion (compared to 44.7% in November 2013). 9.7% of those surveyed do not know or do not answer this question (compared to 9.7% in November 2013).

The perception of the standard of living during the communist period in Romania

46.4% of Romanians believe that before 1989 life was better compared to the current situation (compared to 44.4% in November 2013), 34.2% that life was worse (compared to 33.6% in November 2013), and 13.7% lived the same (compared to 15.6% in November 2013). 5.7% of the total sample do not know or do not answer (compared to 6.4% in November 2013).

Shockingly, almost half of the Romanians declare that the communist regime meant a good thing for Romania, and almost half declare that life was better during the communist period than today. The objective reality and all the data clearly show that today’s standard of living, national wealth, rights and freedoms are superior to the situation before 1989. However, the public perception is different, but there are some explanations, some partially objective, others partially subjective, that fuel this acute feeling of nostalgia. Among them are the intense dissatisfaction of the population with the present marked by the successive crises of the last years, culminating in the galloping inflation, which seriously affected the standard of living, the unequal distribution of the national wealth of the present, which significantly increases the differences between the categories affected by poverty and the population with medium-high incomes, the personal nostalgia of a part of the population towards the period of their youth, the process of socialization and education of young people who learn from nostalgic sources about the illusory advantages of that period (secure job, house insured by the state), the stimulation of some myths from the communist period through aggressive campaigns carried out by political vectors, especially in the online space. All of this led to a mythologizing of the benefits of communism for ever broader sections of the population, currently fueling, against the backdrop of collective memory atrophy, unfortunate political choices. Countering this trend is a broader responsibility that rests with the intellectual, political, economic and media elites.

Remus Ştefureac, director at INSCOP Research.

Those who think that before 1989, life was better compared to the current situation are especially people with primary education, the inactive potentially active, the inhabitants of the countryside and from the southern or eastern regions, and those with a lower income, according to the conclusion of the analysis.