Why is Eastern Europe so socially conservative?

The main reason is that the fall of AES (Already Existing Socialism) resulted in a catastrophic rightwing backlash. All the reactionaries that were kept in check under communist rule suddenly crawled out of the woodwork, whether we're talking fascists or the clerical right wing. Soon, these two began to join forces and they were actively encouraged by Western powers to do so as the strenghtening of reactionary tendencies was seen by "moderates" in the US and EU as a safeguard against a return of socialism. This was not an organic movement. But due to the economic devastations of neoliberalism that soon swept the Eastern half of the continent, due to the power vacuum following the complete collapse of the ruling socialist parties and due to the left being widely discredited by the recent collapse, this manufactured reaction could easily take hold. Examples for this are the neonazi structures in Eastern Germany, the Orbán government in Hungary, or the resurgence of a Catholic right in Poland, all of which were movements originating in or heavily backed by the West. In Russia, the deeply reactionary Orthodox church became instrumental in constructing a nationalist ideology that could replace communist theory as a superstructure holding a ravaged, struggling society together. All of these forces could work largely unobstructed for the last 30 years, or were even actively funded by Western actors in some cases.

In regards to racism, this is made worse by the fact that many Eastern European societies just haven't seen much immigration. It's fairly well studied that racism is worse on average in ethnically homogenous areas. For Amerikans, it's hard to believe how incredibly white a country like Poland is. As AES states did not need the same amount of work migration as the West due to them not depending on a reserve army of labor to drive wages down, Easterners are on average used a lot less to the presence of black and brown people than Westerners, which makes it easier to fearmonger and demonize. It's not hard to find people in rural Eastern Germany who have never even talked to a black person in their entire life. When you expose these same people to nothing but chud propaganda about criminal immigrants, you quickly end up with people who instinctively panic when they hear that a refugee shelter is about to open up near their village.

In regards to LGBT rights, many AES states actually were ahead of the West for their time - West Germany still has worse name change and legal gender change laws for trans people than the DDR, it legalized gay sex later than the East as well. But these advances were different from what we see today in Cuba, where the government was smart enough to bring a better understanding of LGBT issues to the masses in a big education campaign that deliberately countered clerical disinfo campaigns about the LGBT community. The advances for LGBT people seen in some Eastern European countries were, most of the time, top-down decisions that lacked the backing of the grassroots movements that advanced LGBT rights in the West. An exception to this is Slovenia, which under socialism had the first LGBT film festival in the world that is still running to this day. There we could see the party and the cultural community working together and making LGBT rights a public issue. But that was an exception. So without public understanding, without a queer presence in mainstream society, it was easy to roll what progress had been made back when the reactionary backlash happened.

These existing divides deepened further in recent years, when it became evident that the crass wealth disparities between the Eastern and Western parts of Europe did not significantly lessen by joining the EU, but were actively maintained as Eastern Europe is basically treated as nothing but a source of cheap and easily exploitable labor that is viewed with constant, arrogant disdain and doesn't really get a place at the table. This disgraceful situation makes it easy for right wingers to play on the insecurities of the people and paint wokeness as a colonial project intended to further subjugate the Slavic nations.

So, in summary, this divide is unfortunately real, it is a product of material conditions, of deliberate ideological agitation and political organizing, and it would be actively misleading to equate the politics of present-day Europe with those of AES Eastern Europe. But many liberals will do just that and blame the strong presence of right wingers on horseshoe nonsense about "people not learning how valuable liberal democracy is when they still lived under communist rule." That kind of nonsense is dragged out every time a chud party wins an election there.

what we consider the foundations of modern liberalism (multiculturalism acceptance of gender and sexual minorities), is seen in Eastern Europe (specifically Russia/former USSR) as a controversial "western import". It's like the culture war in America, there are two different general cultural factions: westernizers and slavophiles. The disastrous economic changes the "westernizer" liberals brought to some parts of eastern Europe really soured their reputation. The Soviet Union and nostalgia for it are firmly culturally linked to the slavophiles, which are also consistently socially conservative on other issues (they are strongly tied to the Orthodox Church). In other eastern European countries like Poland the Catholic Church is still very dominant politically.

So I guess the answer to your question is that a lot of eastern Europeans are homophobic and racist because they think these ideas are just more western attempts to destroy their culture. People who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union tend to be anti-western for obvious reasons, and unfortunately cultural conditioning pushes them towards these backwards views.

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some of the poll maps are very suspicious. the word 'black' can have many meanings in eastern europe (which tbh are somewhat problematic), it can suggest youre a thief if someone calls you black (think black market). a lot of black people refer to themselves as brown in czechia as a result from what ive seen. anyone brown, including roma and turks, are regularly called black as an insult/skin color hybrid deal though plenty of people seem to be aware this is an issue.

i dont really think eastern europe is any worse than western europe (re: holy fuck its all so bad)

i cant really say i know much about race relations in czechia because i think i only have met one roma person from czechia, never seen black people or anything there. very white place its a little jarring after living in america so long to go there again

I honestly think it has more to do with how polling is being conducted than any perceived progressiveness of Western Europeans relative to their eastern counterparts. There's a very clear motive for these pollings to portray Westerners as civilized and progressive and their mongrel half-civilized half-Asiatic siblings as merely half-civilized, midway between the civilized European West and the barbaric Asiatic East.

When everything collapses, many fell to religion and other such nonsense to give their life meaning. The further CIA and Private Corp involvement in privatization and co-option of the governments in the area caused them to become far more right wing.

social justice is not just beliefs held by the population, it rests on economic foundations which were swept away by the fall of the warsaw pact.

It’s easier to scapegoat a minority than to attack the system itself.

The Baltics have always been full of Nazis as far as I can tell. As for the rest of it - My understanding is that ever since the fall of the USSR, if not before, anti-Communist factions have been exploiting the social and economic chaos to push anti-Communist and pro-Fascist propaganda very, very aggressively. The campaigns are well funded and found strong footholds with post-Soviet youth who watched their entire lives, hopes, and futures go to shit within the course of like three years. So for the last thirty years people have been bombarded with nationalism and fascism and the result is increased social conservativism.

I did some very cursory research, I couldn't really find any satisfying answers, but I think the state sponsored homophobia is tied with nationalism. Conservative politicians use the EU's support for LGBT rights as the boundary for the 'decadent' West vs the 'traditional' East

Generic meme hatred of Romani seems to be near the roots of it. "The Other" is believed to be the source of all their woes and they'll surrender everything to hurt The Other.

exceedingly conservative, particularly countries like Czech

Interesting, considering Czech Hunter (do not watch or the Volcel Police will find you)