~10 000 people in my tiny country alone is totally anecdotal and surely just some sort of fluke... Probably just American propaganda and all those still living are just having a mass hallucination.. Yeah old people stuff..
Anyways I am not against socialism.. I think equality is important and the western system sure is not the good that it says it is.
That aside USSR sure wasn't good either. Taking over independent countries who are doing their thing the way they want and then forcefully suppressing their culture and way of life is not good in my books. It is totally fine to defend socialism, but defending a de facto murderous dictator is not. And of course I can't ask about their crimes from my aged people.... They didn't live then you know.... My grandmother did, she was a farmer until guys with guns came in the night.. What nice fellas am I right? Definitely not a red flag... There is a common saying among the oldies here that would roughly translate to "nazis sucked, but russians were literal monsters".
Which seems a longer telephone line to you - me listening to people who lived through it or me listening to you who seemingly has never set a foot in the eastern block?