I watch this youtube channel run by a guy who visits a lot of former Soviet countries and almost universally all the old people talk about how much better it was under the USSR vs now. The channel isnt even run by a communist just a travel vlogger

It’s really depressing seeing these gorgeous murals and statues and architecture (that the Soviets actually cared enough to fund in even incredibly rural areas) in such decay and disrepair

You don’t need to be a Soviet LARPer or want to recreate the USSR to recognize that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a net disaster for the working people in these smaller nations.

Before they had state funded housing, state run farms to feed them, state arts and education programs, state job programs. Now they have poverty and oligarchs. Now their countries are being looted by global capital.