this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
33 points (94.6% liked)
History
23679 readers
58 users here now
Welcome to c/history! History is written by the posters.
c/history is a comm for discussion about history so feel free to talk and post about articles, books, videos, events or historical figures you find interesting
Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember...we're all comrades here.
Do not post reactionary or imperialist takes (criticism is fine, but don't pull nonsense from whatever chud author is out there).
When sharing historical facts, remember to provide credible souces or citations.
Historical Disinformation will be removed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think the best answer is the honest one: that it represents a contradiction in a world with mixed Socialist and Capitalist systems. It's not an easy to surmount problem and is a valid one, though maybe not in the way Liberals believe.
By and large, the people "fleeing" Socialist states for the West were not peasants and workers. They were Professionals. If you were a common laborer, you were treated well in, say, East Germany and had little reason to leave. The people who were leaving were those just a bit higher up the scale.
"Professional" is a broad category in this case that could represent any "skilled laborer" or small business owners. Lawyers and doctors, grocers, cobblers, accountants, plumbers, whatever.
These are people who could live a good life in East Germany but could live a better life in the West. You can't really blame them for this - they're just furthering their material interests, which is what Marxism tells us they must do.
You don't get the opposite - the poor fleeing to Socialist states - at least partially because Socialist states were not open to that sort of immigration. Socialist nations already oftentimes struggled to maintain full employment and rarely needed excess labor.