…And arming Cuba, and Nicaragua, and invading Afghanistan, and supplying arms to half of the middle east, and fostering terrorism throughout the world…
Don’t hesitate to say we were better than them. The Soviet Union WAS an evil empire. Millions of people were locked into a ‘vast Gulag archipelago’. There was no freedom of the press or of association. People still lived in fear of the knock on the door at night. Dissidents vanished. Slave labor camps existed, with horrendous conditions and high fatality rates. When the Czechoslovakian people attempted to loosen the shackles on them a bit, they were met with tanks in the streets. Government control of production led to a messed up economy and poverty for the people. Waiting lists for apartments or cars stretched into years or even decades. Families of 12 people could be found living in 400 sqare foot apartments. Soviet women stood in lines for hours per day just to pick up the staples of life. That was the Soviet ‘middle class’. The upper class had shopping privileges at exclusive stores that provided goods that were not available to the average person at any price.
Over 1000 people were shot and killed trying to escape the Soviet Union since the Berlin wall went up - 260 at the wall itself.
There was no moral equivalency between the Soviets and the Americans. The Soviet Union murdered upwards of 20 million of its own people. It was truly a battle between good and evil. Don’t ever forget that. Yes, in its waning days the Soviet Union became a better place to live, and it had been some time since a purge or the collectivization of industry and agriculture and the accompanying wholesale slaughter of entire ethnic cultures. But many of the people still in power were the very people who had participated or led some incredibly brutal crackdowns.
