Which ones? Of course it is hard to compare who is poorer among supposedly classes societies, but the Slovak economy just didn't seem to handle things as well as some of the others. Less available for industrialization. Still, gotta give them this. They did make some fine sweets. Probably the coethnic love, but the Czechs did sell them a lot of fruit, sugar, and spice over the years. The Soviets always had to stretch their supplies and cut down on the quality of their consumer products, but the jams and candied fruits and peels of Czechoslovakia (splendid they both kept the name, as it also meant you could claim to have gotten goods from Slovakia rather than the Czech part) would fly off the shelves in any major Soviet city store. Though that was the same for most Eastern European products. Just to know something was foreign...