Communism, poverty and information

The ISCOP study on the population's perception of the communist regime in Romania caused a bit of a stir in the public space and then (almost) disappeared. It is sad, but to be expected, as the crises keep on coming, from deputy prime ministers in trouble to natural disasters and magistrates angry that their privileges are being curtailed.
But I think it's worth looking a little more closely at the discussion about the causes of the outcome - surprising to some, predictable to those who have been in touch with these perceptions and monitor the news space.
Almost all public voices that have spoken on the subject agree that we are talking about multiple causes, with complex interrelationships that are difficult to clarify in the absence of in-depth analysis (interviews, focus groups with various categories).
On the data we have, however, we can make a number of speculations or hypotheses, and the debate surrounding the study has focused on what the root cause might be. Everyone agrees that the causes include nostalgia for youth, poverty/economic and social inequalities, disillusionment with the state of the state today, education and level of information. But while some emphasize the impact of education and information, others see poverty as a better explanation.
Both ideas are supported by data. Of those who think that life was better under communism (48.4% of the total sample), we see that 72% of those with a primary education agree compared to 19% of those with higher education. Similarly, 77% of those who say that their income is not enough for the bare necessities agree, compared to 32% of the affluent ("We manage to have everything we need without restricting ourselves from anything").
It should be noted that socio-human research shows that there is a relationship between educational attainment and income level, in the sense that school dropout and low performance are influenced by low family income. Thus, it can be argued that the level of education is not a cause for the appreciation of the communist regime but a mediator, i.e. poverty determines the lack of education, which determines a certain position on the subject.
However, there is also a contradiction in the answers to this question, only 20% of the middle class ("We manage to buy some more expensive goods, but with restrictions in other areas") agree that communism was better lived, 12% less than for the wealthy class, a significant difference and which directly contradicts the hypothesis that the main cause is poverty.
Another argument made in support of the hypothesis that poverty is the main cause points to the perception gaps between rural, urban and Bucharest (which has the highest development index), where the data are as expected - rural and small-urban areas have rather positive perceptions of the communist regime.
But could it be primarily due to poverty? The differences between villages, small towns and big cities are not limited to wealth and opportunities, but also include cultural aspects. The post-Decembrist evolution of Romania visible in large urban centers is one integrated into modern Western civilization, marked among other things by tolerance for diversity, appreciation for self expression, combating racism and xenophobia, etc. Few of these values are shared in small towns and rural areas, so cultural factors may well explain the preference for a period when the limits of what was acceptable were more in line with one's own conceptions.
On the other side we need to look at more than formal education. In the sources of information about the communist regime mentioned by respondents, "school" is only in third place with 7%, after personal experience and family/friends, and slightly above individual information from books and documentation (5.4%).
Researcher Marius Ghincea correctly observes that respondents are "very well informed about the vicissitudes, crimes and defining restrictions of communism in Romania": 80.9% agree that there was less freedom; 59.2% agree that the regime committed crimes and abuses; 92.1% know about restrictions on foreign travel; 96.1% know about food rations, etc.
But the comments about knowledge of "negative aspects of life under the communist regime" seem to be limited to the reality of the dictatorship, less so to aspects of the economy and social relations.
An example is the idea that "access to quality education was easier" (49.9%), where we see greater differences between age groups (23% of young people agree compared to 62% of the elderly) than between income groups (41% among the wealthy, 32% among the middle class and 67% among the lowest income group) or education (58% among those with primary school, 36% among those with higher education).
Other statements, for example "food used to be healthier" (85.1%) or "more was produced than today" (68.5%) are factual, easily verifiable and clearly false, supporting the idea of superficial information.
Coming out of the data provided by the INSCOP survey, I can add a number of personal observations. Since 2018 I have been involved through the NGO I was working with in a series of educational projects aimed at combating myths about the communist period, largely because I was already hearing them from some of the young people I was working with.
These myths, such as "everyone had a job", "everyone had a home", "paying off foreign debt" or "quality education" persist in public and private discussions and are too little countered with the right information. It is true that there is talk about the dictatorship and the horrors of the communist regime, but too little about the rest.
A random citizen - apparently college-educated and living at least decently in Denmark, recently commented on a post about Nicușor Dan that "he was imposed by the EUM as all presidents have been imposed in the last 35 years....colony of slaves....we were also in Ceasca's time, but at least he was building something, we had industry.... all the critics will say that people died and had a hard life in communism, since this planet has existed, progress has been made with sacrifices....mor some to make others live well, that's what it is...." In other words, people can at the same time be aware of the horrors of the communist regime and insufficiently informed about the state of the economy, the quality of food or education, and even find justifications for the horrors in some imagined social "good".
But let's go back to the survey data and notice (yet another) contradiction: Romanians consider themselves sufficiently informed about communism (68.2%) but are rather disinterested in the subject (60.6% declare little or very little/no interest).
This supports the idea of superficial information on the subject of communism, although I would argue that it is a generalized and systemic problem, valid both with regard to information through the education system and outside it. The former we see in PISA tests and end-of-cycle exams. The second is seen in reports such as the Democracy Index, where Romania consistently scores low marks in the 'political culture' chapter, but also in reports on low resilience to false narratives and conspiracy theories.
I have written about this before, but to refuse (or attack) vaccination in the midst of a global pandemic is explainable by "ignorance", i.e. the inability to accumulate accurate information and understand it. An E-ARC study in 2022 concluded that "Romanian citizens have internalized the conspiratorial narratives circulated internationally (...) conspiracies and misinformation have prevailed, to the detriment of arguments provided by the scientific community or authorities."
Putting things together, Romanians are not interested in the communist regime (but they have the impression that they are informed), school does not help much and where it does, it focuses on the dictatorship and the horrors of the regime, not on the social and economic reality, and "information" remains either from personal experience (vitiated by the passage of time), or from what is picked up here and there, so to speak, "by ear".
On top of all this, let's not forget that we have in Romania a network that builds and spreads falsehoods and conspiracy theories, where the mythology about communism/Ceaușescu is in pride of place. I alone have counted five TikTok channels that apologize for those times, without in any way setting out to look for them.