I'm not against the Soviet Union as a whole. Many people's lives were materially improved, including most of my family's. I am less sure that suppression of the arts (and free speech more generally) was worth it. We don't have a second timeline where Osip Mandelstam lived, maybe the USSR would have fallen sooner after hearing that Stalin had fat fingers, sure. But I think if so many people went through the camps that you have people joking that they were the best writing schools or that the main people who use mat (= swear) are criminals and intellectuals, it warps the culture of a people. If we're talking about it purely practically, I think the way USians handle it is way better. Critiquing America is absolutely fine, it even wins you awards, but even the harshest critiques have an overall message of 'but we can be better' or 'this is just a fringe example, the American Dream exists overall'. That's really smart.