Your points are valid.
Would you agree that Russia under Putin is better (not as bad) for the world than the Soviet Union under communism?
Yes this is the conundrum one finds oneself in while there. Especially as as an American. Clearly, I was able to survive, and I don’t think I would have in the USSR particularly during Stalin times.
But eventually the realities of the corruption, the repression, the FACADES of hypocrisy that cover it all up — unravel and one tires of making excuses for it and saying things like “well at least there are no Gulags!”
And yet, Stalin’s memory is celebrated like never before in today’s Russia with occasional lip service paid to his pesky “repressions.”
According to Putin, Stalin is ultimately the one who saved Russia from the Nazis and saved the world from fascism.
A lot of what makes Russia a livable place today is in spite of not because of Putin - because for all the self-deprecation Americans seem to be engaged in nowadays — opening up to the West and engaging with America and Europe has been GOOD for the Russian people and it’s precisely why the upcoming generations have the capacity to forge a free society post-Putin.
Yes, but being better than the Soviet Union is a pretty easy standard to meet.