No argument! I’m just saying it’s a very small claim. Ots not saying much.

Well, you still have to pay rent, still have to burst your ass at work, promotion still depends on being buddies with the right people, and on top of that everybody is snitching on everyone, and criticizing the government can have various consequences from being unable to go to university to being sent to prison. Watching the wrong movies or listening to the wrong music (i.e. decadent Western rock) can get you a visit from the cops, etc. You have forced conscription for the men, and mandatory service anywhere between 2-6 years. Corruption - everything happens with bribes and knowing the right people, and that can both get you commodities, and get you out of trouble. Of course when you know the right people you are also untouchable. And of course the basic material conditions werent very good - poverty was rampant. Sexism pretty much a big thing, LGBTQ people ostracized etc. Police brutality the norm. Oh, and you cant leave - if you want to go to another city - you need a special passport, and someone to guarantee for you. Leaving the country - only for specific purposes and usually as a big compromise. Political participation - you may get involved in government organizaiton and the like, but we are talking about very rigid hierarchical structures, where no deviation of thought is acceptable in any direction and mild disagreements are treated as reactionism. Advancing through the ranks does not happen on merit, or due to elections, but by knowing the right people.

So, compared to Western European countries at the time, most of the Eastern Block was pretty shit and a lot less free on most parameters you might think to compare. The regime in my country during the 80s at least was very far from a communist or marxist one, except from using that rhetoric. In any case, a lot of what people here often complain about the US… it was the same back then in the socialist countries around the time of their collapse, both right before it and after it. The West, or at least the US is currently experiencing the same thing the Eastern Block went through a few decades ago.

I think the adjusted QOL of a czarist gulag I’d gonna be a pipe dream around these parts in 20-50 years.

Totally, but I’m saying “this meal is better than a literal shit sandwich soaked in meth withdrawal sweat” is an equivalent culinary claim.

I think doing better is a less ambitious goal than going soviet in the empire. There are fewer barriers. Not that I’m optimistic.

‘strong claim’ like ‘saying much’, I’m saying ‘better than here’ is an obscenely low bar.