Editor's note:Balázs Krajczár, a

21- year- old young man from

Hungary, relates stories his

grandmother told him of communism

in his country.

At a gathering of friends, a young man from Cuba and I started talking about communism. I thought about stories my grandmother told me about Hungary under communist rule (1956- 1989).

Capitalism has been in Hungary since 1989. Some say before the change life was better. By better, they mean safer because everyone had a job. One of the basic points of the Revolution of 1956 was to rid unemployment.

Each person's identification card had their employer's name and address written on it. Police and some other authorized people checked IDs, and if they found someone unemployed, they took him to jail until they found him a job.

Supposedly, everyone had a job, but no one counted on something many call "unemployment inside of the factory." Because everyone had to work, it often happened that three people in the factory did one worker's job. On the surface it appeared good. Everyone had jobs, and things appeared secure, but on the inside the entire working mentality was being lost.

People fooled around instead of doing what they were supposed to do, so the whole idea of hard work paying off vanished. No one had to worry about losing a job or not having enough money or the worst - going on the street.

Everything was government supported. The costs for everything was a low percentage of the real value. For example, the actual value of a bus ticket might have been $2, but the passenger only paid 20 cents to ride. Every worker's salary went to the government to pay the other $1.80. No one got paid the actual salary their work was worth.

The government was spending more than it received from the salaries of its citizens. This led the country into great debt after many years.

At the beginning, people thought they had a decent life and didn't really have to worry about anything, but they eventually realized many of their freedoms were gone. They couldn't leave Hungary even for a short vacation because they could not afford anything outside of the country even if the borders were open. The government's support did not go outside Hungary.

A positive thing was all hospital and medical expenses were reasonable. It's a wonderful thing to know if you ever need any kind of medical help, you will get it no matter what and will not be in trouble for the rest of your life because you can't pay the bill.

The original concept of communism was to bring the social classes closer to each other, to share what those more fortunate had, in order to help the poorer survive. Very simply, the idea was not to have ten pairs of shoes if we only need three. However, if I were a talented person and worked twice as hard as someone not as diligent, I believe I have the right to expect more.

Unfortunately, no one has created the perfect government system to work both in theory and practice yet.