The American discourse has deteriorated to the point where "middle class" now means "has a job" to most people.
If you think "Everyone was poor and miserable in the USSR, which was a dictatorship", then I guess you think there was only rulers and lower class workers
My theory:
From polling more than 70% of Americans believe they're middle class (I got this from Citations Needed). So I believe this is pretty much accurate.
class consciousness the long way around.
The problem with the USSR was they killed all the job creators, and then there weren't any jobs any more!