Originally Posted by
Stearsolina
I can say what my parents say about it.
Good: Yugoslavia had very good living standards because of receiving generous western loans and it was much more developed (western Republics at least) than eastern block countries, but only until Tito's death, later standards went down very fast. My parents grew up pretty much like any other westerners, with western music, fashion and many other stuff. Unlike Warsaw Pact members Yugoslav citizens could travel freely so my father spend his youth living in Prague and by going to London for concerts during heyday of rock music. People could go to shop in Italy or Austria and lot of them received latest western fashion and goods from their families in the new world like USA (my mom did).
There was less poor people than today, but it did exist even than. Working tempo was very slow and laid back and people didn't have to work very hard. There was lot of opportunities for young people to go out, party or have leisure time. Big state companies would have vacation facilities for their workers and their families who could vacation on the coast for example for free. Some companies provided free apartments for their workers and if you had a child for example you would get a bigger flat. Crime was low, but so is today so no difference in that aspect. Film and pop culture that was made during Yugoslav times was suprisingly good and many now classic movies and songs were made in that era. I'd argue my country had better and more thriving cultural scene during Yugoslavia than it does today.
Bad: Limited quality job and promotion opportunities if you were not member of communist Party. Primitive and uncivilized people from rural backwaters lacking any serious education became new elite and negative selection was to extreme level (from business to everything else). Yugoslavia had extremely brutal secret Police that was carrying out murders of prominent Yugoslav emigrants (mostly Croats) abroad. You could end up in jail for singing patriotic (non-Yugoslav) song or carrying national symbol like necklace. We know for cases where people ended up in penal colony because somebody in power took liking to their wife and simply got rid of them on false accusations. Croatian culture and language was repressed and deeply balkanized. New Yugoslav culture was promoted which was hybrid version of pred. Serbian culture. Corruption was endemic and mismenagment in business the rule, so companies were very inefficient and unable to compete on open market. Croats couldn't own weapons, unlike Croatian Serbs. In SR Croatia, Serbian minority formed ruling class together with local Croat communists and they were heavily overrepresented in police, among army officers, and among bosses of major companies.
We are happy Yugoslavia is gone.
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