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The Soviet Union wasn't bad unless you didn't know how to keep your mouth shut - the overthrow of the Czar and the ushering in of a people's government was expected because life under the Czar had turned so wasteful and negligent. What ended up happening however was the turning of the Communist party into a totalitarian dictatorship due to Stalin's takeover of the party.

What people call Communism in Russia was clearly just Stalinism, his own hunger for power and security at all costs. After Stalin died, there were efforts by the party to try to ease life. But Stalin's death would instigate political turmoil in satellite countries.

Under the people's government for the people, listening to divisive information from other countries was considered seditious and harmful and was never encouraged in the name of national security. Hence censorship existed.

Yes the USSR was the first to launch a satellite and first to put a man in orbit.

There were good things however about being a citizen under a Communist government, things which westerners will cringe over because they have not lived under it.

Under Communism, you could receive the highest education, entirely free of charge. Engineering and other forms of high education were highly prized. Everyone had a job, there was no unemployment.

Everyone had housing - no homelessness - and healthcare. You were a part of society and expected to contribute to society. Selfishness and greed were not allowed to play any part of the social structure.

You couldn't become stinking rich. But in that society none of the essentials were ever priced out of reach of the common man so you never needed to become wealthy.

This could possibly bring complaint by someone who studied to be a doctor or an engineer because they would receive only the same pay as a taxi driver. But that was the price to pay for social security and independence from the west.

Its also interesting to note that the great Depression in the 1903s did not touch the Russian economy at all.

In the 1930s up through to the 50s if you were suspected of participating in politics against the party, even if those suspicions were merely a wrong comment or outright protests, you could be dealt with harshly, arrested in the middle of the night and either taken away, sent to Siberian work camps or imprisoned, or just shot.

Things eased a bit in the 60s and 70s but the freedoms people have in the west to whine and complain were never known in Russia under Communist rule.

The USA in the 1950s, paranoid over the strength of Russia under Stalin's harsh rule, worked hard to discredit and bring down the USSR bu any means it could, including deliberate lies in order to secure success for American political ambitions. This continued for decades.

In the 80s the Reagan government sought to undermine the strength of Russia by reinforcing Afghanistan's "Freedom fighters" with American weapons, thus dragging Russia into a prolonged war which eventually bankrupted the nation and helped usher in the collapse of the Communist system under Gorbachev who was altogether too friendly with American government and big business interests.

The only cause American business and governments had towards maintaining freedom for individuals was so individuals could be spoon-fed "freedom" under the guise of Americanism and thus allow American business and it's corporations to grow for the purpose of gaining control over what the citizens watch, read and eat - which hasn't proven to be freedom.

There were stressful points of course and these caused a lot of hardship. In the 1930s Stalin engineered a famine in Russia which left millions dead - the purpose was so Stalin could purchase western technology and thus swiftly industrialize Russia which until the 1920s was largely a remote, isolated and backwards agrarian nation, inefficient and rebellious.

Political strife and speech were harshly dealt with in the 30s. Stalin organized a protected society within society in order to maintain his vision of how the government ought to be run.

Some historians believe that Stalin's harsh ideas for government grew culturally from Russia's own history over the centuries, highly influenced from the viciousness of Mongolian rule 400-500 years earlier, the essence of which existed in Russian peasant culture for many years after the Mongolians ceased to be of importance in Russia.