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Notes -
Party elites had huge non-salary advantages like better apartments, dachas, access to rare imported goods, caviar, cars, and for the top of the elite there were drivers, domestic staff and so on. Still, their standard of life (while vastly better than the average USSR citizen) wasn’t close to as good as the average third world elite is today (or even at the time), even though this was the second most powerful nation on Earth.
The Wikipedia for the Waldsiedlung has pictures of the gated compound that the GDR elite lived in and it’s not that great. Even including the amenities, pool, tennis courts and decent restaurant, the average West German doctor or attorney lived a materially comparable or better life than the literal Politburo of East Germany.
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