Obviously it was implied that I meant the USSR times. I do have parents and grandparents that could narrate how awesome the gulags were.

Because the USSR fell 100 years ago.

I know exactly who thrived during those times. Party members. If you only listen to them, sure, you’re going to get a different story.

I am just telling you how things were from the perspective of someone that lived those times and their aftermath. Long lines to everything, incompetence and kafkaesque bureaucracy, one factory that produced stuff efficiently had to be a crutch for the inefficient ones, people that had to work in mandatory coops including children. Oh, and the means of production never went to the people, it stood within the party. And that’s just the general stuff in both EE and USSR. I won’t go into details on how Stalin was the head of a single party which had absolute control over the people, ergo dictator. And I am sure he wanted to step down, just like Putin allowed Medvedev to be a puppet for a few years. Oh wait, this new Russian dictator actually truly stepped down for a bit unlike the pretend attempts from Stalin. Let’s be real.

Do you want me to take you by the hand and show you the spectacular progress made in the eastern European countries? All run by dictators , all answering to the Bolshevik boss. Stalin was a dictator by definition. The USSR was just another colonizer. And I say all this because I have first hand experience, most some nostalgic books. That does mean the current system is good, I want it gone. But the romanticization of USSR remains nonsense.

Rights? In the USSR? All I know is that they bled dry their satellites, kept under severe pressure their so called allies and it was run by a dictator. Weird nostalgia, but misplaced.