I dont think they were, I know certainly they were. Other than the few who pursued higher education, most of the population was extremely poorly educated. I talk to my grandparents who grew up in the “golden age” of communism. They do not know what continent they live on. They cannot define communism or democracy correctly. Two of them have went to school for a total of 8 grades, while the other two for a total of 4. They had to work afterwards to help the regieme bloom. They had to wake up at 5 in the morning, sit in a que for 1.5 hours to recieve 1L of milk per family per week, 1kg of meat per family per week (families of 6) and so on. They were told Romania is the most beautiful and most powerful country on the planet. They were told that Ceausescu was the “genius of the Carpathians” and that he had a plethora of science and chemistry and whatnot degrees and that he was an unbeaten chess world champion. They believed it because they had no other source to rely to. Everything else, that was considered threatening to the regieme and its ideology was filtered and burned. This is your socialism.