Bananas and oranges in communist countries This is a question I wanted to ask for a long time. If you check the GDP or East Germany in 1989 and compare it to that of banana-producing countries you can see:

GDP in billions USD (1989):
East Germany: $160
Ecuador: $13.89
India: $296
China: $347.8
Philippines: $42.58
Vietnam: $6.293

GDP per capita USD (1989):
East Germany: $9679
Ecuador: $1390.21
India: $346.11
China: $310.88
Philippines: $705.58
Vietnam: $94.56


With these numbers, trading something for a banana should have been possible. The East German was better off than an Indian or Chinese, not to mention other banana-producing nations like Ecuador. I know that foreign currency was in hot demand in communist countries to repay debt, so maybe an account-deficit is the reason why the East Germans could not buy tropical fruits (i.e. they lacked the means to trade, foreign currency)? Still, these numbers make me wonder. Deals could be made in the banana-producing nation's currency. Some banana producers were/are communist. Maybe the numbers are incorrect?

EDIT: Here is a relevant quote:


  Bananas had been rare in the GDR because the imports, coming mainly
  from Ecuador, were limited due to lack of convertible currency.


Obviously, I disagree, there is always a way to pay and Ecuador was not the only producer. Note how West German ads made a permanent impression on the East Germans:


  Today the consumption of bananas in East Germany is 20 percent higher
  than in West Germany.


Also, the all-important image from those days:
there actually were some bananas in communist countries. There was just shortage of bananas and other products as well such as toilet paper etc. 


As this article from Financial Times shows, there actually were some bananas in East Germany. 


  Near the queue, locals were doling out used toys and bananas (the West Germans believed the East Germans didn’t know what bananas were). “But we had bananas from Cuba,” Meinfelder says in exasperation. 


So there were bananas in communist countries but there was a shortage of them, and as with other products their availability for you dependent on your contacts and what (political) class you were member of (shopkeepers would often set aside high in demand products for friends). Prominent members of party had access to things ordinary people not in special shops reserved for them and so on. 


Why there was a shortage of bananas? 


Because, centrally planned economies are very inefficient when it comes to aggregating the information about what consumers want compared to market economies which aggregate the information using price system. Moreover, price system provides not just information to market participants but also gives them incentives to behave in a way to avoid surpluses and shortages on the market, whereas in the centrally planed economies there are no efficient mechanisms to achieve that.

For example, central planners might decide that the quantity of bananas they want to import should be some $x$ based on their calculation of how much bananas an average person could eat in a year. Afterwards, the central planners decide on price not in a way which they think the supply equates the demand (and in fact central planners are even not able to get such information since market mechanism is absent - so they cant do that even if they would wanted), but in a way they believe it is appropriate by making guesses or following some political/ideological/moral criteria. 

For example, if a demand for bananas is given by $D_{b} = 100- p $, where $p$ is the price,  and supply of bananas is given by $ S_b= -10 + p$ (lets say this is the supply at which Cubans are wiling to send bananas to East Germany) then at a market price $p=45$ there will not be any shortage of bananas. At price $\$55$ people will demand exactly $45= D_b$ bananas and supply of bananas will also be exactly $45 = S_b$.

But if someone just arbitrarily decides to set price to $\$20$ - maybe the political leadership wants to make bananas affordable to everyone, the demand for bananas at $\$20$ will be $80 = D_b(\$20)$ while the Cubans will only be willing to supply $10$ bananas $S_b(\$10) = 10$. Hence people will want to buy 80 bananas but stores will only have 10 and there will be shortage. During shortages goods are often being allocated through personal favors, or first come first served system, or goods might be reserved for members of 'upper class' (i.e. politburo) and so on. This is why many communist countries experienced long ques shortages and economic malaise in general.