1975-1990, the USSR was arguably the least bad of the three imperial superpowers

Yeah, I think Bernie was a peacenik, not a Fellow Traveler or whatever the term is. He seems mostly to have been associated with Trotskyists, not Stalinists, which undermines any claims of Moscow sympathies.

BTW, I accept that my contention has been defeated quite handily. I concede that the USSR was, overall, more brutally imperialistic than the USA, pre-Gorbachev.