What anecdote? I've made no anecdotes? The only person mentioning any anecdotes is you, e.g.
Again, I’ve heard much the opposite
Regarding USSR stealing industry:
(I'm sorry wo don't really translate that to English). But you can try to Google for sources in English.
I’ve spoken to people from Poland that have the opposite to say
You might've spoken to people who remember the late 80's fondly. Not 50-70s. Or ZOMO (secret terror police) or similar, they always had privileged lives.
Unless you were in the Party, Army or Zomo, life was not roses at all, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_October
The collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe brought skyrocketing poverty rates, prostitutuon, drug abuse, homelessness, and 7 million excess deaths.
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Poland is not Eastern Europe
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prostitutuon, drug abuse, homelessness <- you might be confusing that with what is common in the USA.
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skyrocketing poverty rates
Not really, no? After we detached from the ZSSR everything had to be restarted and the first decade was hard. We had to start from little, figure out export routes, rebuild a damn lot of industries etc? We were economy attached and made dependant on USSR, how could the split not be hard?