Editing Soviet Union (section)

== Legacy ==
{{See also|Neo-Sovietism|Nostalgia for the Soviet Union}}
{{POV section|date=June 2023}}
[[File:World War II military deaths in Europe by theater and by year.png|thumb|upright=1.35|[[World War II casualties|World War II military deaths]] in Europe by theatre and by year. Nazi Germany suffered 80% of its military deaths on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Duiker |first=William J. |title=Contemporary World History |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gd0bCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT159 |edition=6th |year=2015 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-1-285-44790-2 |page=138 |chapter=The Crisis Deepens: The Outbreak of World War II |access-date=16 December 2020 |archive-date=2 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210202093539/https://books.google.com/books?id=Gd0bCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT159 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
The legacy of the USSR remains a controversial topic. The socio-economic nature of [[communist state]]s such as the USSR, especially under Stalin, has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of [[bureaucratic collectivism]], [[state capitalism]], [[state socialism]], or a totally unique [[mode of production]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Sandle |first=Mark |title=A Short History Of Soviet Socialism |publisher=[[Routledge]] |date=16 September 2003 |isbn=978-1-135-36640-7 |doi=10.4324/9780203500279 |pages=265–266}}</ref> The USSR implemented a broad range of policies over a long period of time, with a large amount of conflicting policies being implemented by different leaders. Some have a positive view of it whilst others are critical towards the country, calling it a repressive [[oligarchy]].<ref>{{Cite journal |title=The USSR: Oligarchy or Dictatorship? |first=Robert G. |last=Wesson |date=26 June 1972 |journal=[[Slavic Review]] |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=314–322 |doi=10.2307/2494336 |jstor=2494336 |s2cid=159910749 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The opinions on the USSR are complex and have changed over time, with different generations having different views on the matter as well as on Soviet policies corresponding to separate time periods during its history.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232446718 |journal=[[Journal of Personality and Social Psychology]] |date=December 1985 |volume=49 |issue=6 |pages=1565–1585 |title=Integrative Complexity of American and Soviet Foreign Policy Rhetoric: A Time Series Analysis |first=Philip E. |last=Tetlock |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.49.6.1565 |access-date=4 December 2020 |archive-date=24 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424221555/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232446718_Integrative_Complexity_of_American_and_Soviet_Foreign_Policy_Rhetoric_A_Time-Series_Analysis |url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:Stamp of Moldova md383.jpg|thumb|2001 stamp of [[Moldova]] shows [[Yuri Gagarin]], the first human in space.]]

Western academicians published various analyses of the post-Soviet states' development, claiming that the dissolution was followed by a severe drop in economic and social conditions in these countries,<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/966616.stm "Child poverty soars in eastern Europe"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110512034826/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/966616.stm |date=12 May 2011 }}, BBC News, 11 October 2000.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Parenti |first=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/blackshirtsredsr00pare |title=Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism |date=1997 |publisher=[[City Lights Books]] |isbn=978-0-87286-329-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/blackshirtsredsr00pare/page/n70 118] |author-link=Michael Parenti |url-access=limited}}</ref> including a rapid increase in poverty,<ref name="Scheidel-2017" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=McAaley |first=Alastair |url=http://www.crop.org/viewfile.aspx?id=381 |title=Russia and the Baltics: Poverty and Poverty Research in a Changing World |access-date=18 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123224044/http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A8M3JFdbXA7sJ%3Awww.crop.org%2Fviewfile.aspx%3Fid%3D381+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz |archive-date=23 January 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=An epidemic of street kids overwhelms Russian cities |work=The Globe and Mail |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/an-epidemic-of-street-kids-overwhelms-russian-cities/article4141933/ |url-status=live |access-date=17 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828195036/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/an-epidemic-of-street-kids-overwhelms-russian-cities/article4141933/ |archive-date=28 August 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Targ |first=Harry |title=Challenging Late Capitalism, Neoliberal Globalization, & Militarism |date=2006}}</ref> crime,<ref>Theodore P. Gerber & Michael Hout, "More Shock than Therapy: Market Transition, Employment, and Income in Russia, 1991–1995", AJS Volume 104 Number 1 (July 1998): 1–50.</ref> corruption,<ref>{{Cite news |date=2010 |title=Cops for hire |url=http://www.economist.com/node/15731344 |url-status=live |newspaper=[[The Economist]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208110401/http://www.economist.com/node/15731344 |archive-date=8 December 2015 |access-date=4 December 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Corruption Perceptions Index 2014 |date=3 December 2014 |url=http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151202072021/http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results |archive-date=2 December 2015 |access-date=18 July 2016 |publisher=Transparency International}}</ref> unemployment,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hardt |first=John |title=Russia's Uncertain Economic Future: With a Comprehensive Subject Index |date=2003 |publisher=[[M. E. Sharpe]] |page=481}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Mattei |first=Clara E. |date=2022 |title=The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism |pages=301–302 |url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo181707138.html |location= |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0-226-81839-9}}</ref> homelessness,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Alexander |first1=Catharine |title=Urban Life in Post-Soviet Asia |last2=Buchil |first2=Victor |last3=Humphrey |first3=Caroline |year=2007 |publisher=CRC Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Smorodinskaya |title=Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Russian |publisher=Routledge}}</ref> rates of disease,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Galazkaa |first=Artur |year=2000 |title=Implications of the Diphtheria Epidemic in the Former Soviet Union for Immunization Programs |journal=Journal of Infectious Diseases |volume=181 |pages=244–248 |doi=10.1086/315570 |pmid=10657222 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Shubnikov |first=Eugene |title=Non-communicable Diseases and Former Soviet Union countries |url=http://www.pitt.edu/~super4/33011-34001/33991.ppt |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011091551/http://www.pitt.edu/~super4/33011-34001/33991.ppt |archive-date=11 October 2016 |access-date=18 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Wharton |first1=Melinda |last2=Vitek |first2=Charles |year=1998 |title=Diphtheria in the Former Soviet Union: Reemergence of a Pandemic Disease |journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=539–550 |doi=10.3201/eid0404.980404 |pmc=2640235 |pmid=9866730}}</ref> infant mortality and domestic violence,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Parenti |first=Michael |title=Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism |publisher=[[City Lights Books]] |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-87286-329-3 |location=San Francisco |pages=107, 115 |author-link=Michael Parenti}}</ref> as well as demographic losses,<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Hudson |first1=Michael |author-link=Michael Hudson (economist) |last2=Sommers |first2=Jeffrey |date=20 December 2010 |title=Latvia provides no magic solution for indebted economies |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/latvia-debt-economy-europe-austerity |url-status=live |access-date=24 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025021924/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/latvia-debt-economy-europe-austerity |archive-date=25 October 2017 |quote=Neoliberal austerity has created demographic losses exceeding Stalin's deportations back in the 1940s (although without the latter's loss of life). As government cutbacks in education, healthcare and other basic social infrastructure threaten to undercut long-term development, young people are emigrating to better their lives rather than suffer in an economy without jobs. More than 12% of the overall population (and a much larger percentage of its labour force) now works abroad.}}</ref> income inequality and the rise of an [[Russian oligarchs|oligarchical class]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hoepller |first=C |date=2011 |title=Russian Demographics: The Role of the Collapse of the Soviet Union |url=http://www.kon.org/urc/v10/hoeppler.html |url-status=live |journal=Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences |volume=10 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160806005855/http://www.kon.org/urc/v10/hoeppler.html |archive-date=6 August 2016 |access-date=18 July 2016}}</ref><ref name="Scheidel-2017">{{Cite book |last=Scheidel |first=Walter |title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-691-16502-8 |location=Princeton |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=NgZpDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA51 51] & [https://books.google.com/books?id=NgZpDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA222 222–223] |author-link=Walter Scheidel}}</ref> along with decreases in calorie intake, life expectancy, adult literacy, and income.<ref>{{cite web |last=Poland |first=Marshall |title=Russian Economy in the Aftermath of the Collapse of the Soviet Union |url=http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/03-04/baker%20poland%20p1/ussr.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160708010129/http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/03-04/baker%20poland%20p1/ussr.htm |archive-date=8 July 2016 |access-date=18 July 2016 |website=Needham K12}}</ref> Between 1988 and 1989 and 1993–1995, the [[Gini ratio]] increased by an average of 9 points for all former Soviet republics.<ref name="Scheidel-2017" /> According to Western analysis, the economic shocks that accompanied wholesale [[privatization]] were associated with sharp increases in mortality,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ghodsee |first1=Kristen |author1-link=Kristen Ghodsee |last2=Orenstein |first2=Mitchell A. |date=2021 |title=Taking Stock of Shock: Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=83–85 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197549230.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-754924-7}}</ref> Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia saw a tripling of unemployment and a 42% increase in male death rates between 1991 and 1994,<ref>David Stuckler, Lawrence King, and Martin McKee. "Mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis: a cross-national analysis." ''The Lancet'' 373.9661 (2009): 399–407.</ref><ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7828901.stm Privatisation 'raised death rate'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306005653/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7828901.stm |date=6 March 2016 }}. ''BBC'', 15 January 2009. Retrieved 19 November 2014.</ref> and in the following decades, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over fifty years to catch up to where they were before the fall of the Soviet Bloc.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen |url=https://www.dukeupress.edu/red-hangover |title=Red Hangover: Legacies of Twentieth-Century Communism |date=2017 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8223-6949-3 |page=63 |author-link=Kristen R. Ghodsee |access-date=6 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180804180848/https://www.dukeupress.edu/red-hangover |archive-date=4 August 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Milanović |first=Branko |author-link=Branko Milanović |year=2015 |title=After the Wall Fell: The Poor Balance Sheet of the Transition to Capitalism |journal=[[Challenge (economics magazine)|Challenge]] |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=135–138 |doi=10.1080/05775132.2015.1012402 |s2cid=153398717}}</ref> However, virtually all the former Soviet republics were able to turn their economies around and increase GDP to multiple times what it was under the USSR,<ref>{{Cite news |title=End of the USSR: visualising how the former Soviet countries are doing, 20 years on |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/17/ussr-soviet-countries-data |access-date=21 January 2021 |work=[[The Guardian]] |archive-date=28 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128064905/https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/aug/17/ussr-soviet-countries-data |url-status=live}}</ref> though with large wealth disparities, and many post-soviet economies described as oligarchic.<ref>{{harvnb|Russell|2018}}; {{harvnb|Libman|Obydenkova|2019}}; {{harvnb|Ovcharova|Biryukova|2018}}; {{harvnb|Michalski|Hlynskyy|2009}}; {{harvnb|Habibov|2013}}; {{harvnb|Stewart|Klein|Schmitz|Schröder|2012}}</ref>

Since the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], annual polling by the [[Levada Center]] has shown that over 50% of Russia's population regretted this event, with the only exception to this being in 2012 when support for the Soviet Union dipped below 50 percent.<ref name="Ностальгия по СССР-2018">{{cite news |title=Ностальгия по СССР |trans-title=Nostalgia for the USSR |language=ru |url=https://www.levada.ru/2018/12/19/nostalgiya-po-sssr-2/ |publisher=levada.ru |date=19 December 2018}}</ref> A 2018 poll showed that 66% of [[Russians]] regretted the fall of the Soviet Union, setting a 15-year record, and the majority of these regretting opinions came from people older than 55.<ref name="Ностальгия по СССР-2018"/><ref>{{cite news |author-last=Maza |author-first=Christina |date=19 December 2018 |title=Russia vs. Ukraine: More Russians Want the Soviet Union and Communism Back Amid Continued Tensions |url=https://www.newsweek.com/russia-vs-ukraine-soviet-union-communism-1264875 |work=[[Newsweek]] |access-date=20 December 2018}}</ref> In 2020, polls conducted by the Levada Center found that 75% of Russians agreed that the Soviet era was the greatest era in their country's history.<ref>{{cite news |title=75% of Russians Say Soviet Era Was 'Greatest Time' in Country's History – Poll |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say-soviet-era-was-greatest-time-in-countrys-history-poll-a69735 |location=Moscow |date=20 March 2020 |access-date=4 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230209105256/https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say-soviet-era-was-greatest-time-in-countrys-history-poll-a69735 |archive-date=9 February 2023}}</ref>

According to the New Russia Barometer (NRB) polls by the Centre for the Study of Public Policy, 50% of Russian respondents reported a positive impression of the Soviet Union in 1991.<ref name="Rose-2011">{{cite book |last1=Rose |first1=Richard |last2=Mishler |first2=William |last3=Munro |first3=Neil |title=Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime: The Changing Views of Russians |date=2011 |pages=92–93 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-22418-5}}</ref> This increased to about 75% of NRB respondents in 2000, dropping slightly to 71% in 2009.<ref name="Rose-2011"/> Throughout the 2000s, an average of 32% of NRB respondents supported the restoration of the Soviet Union.<ref name="Rose-2011"/>

In a 2021 poll, a record 70% of Russians indicated they had a mostly/very favourable view of [[Joseph Stalin]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Arkhipov |first=Ilya |date=16 April 2019 |title=Russian Support for Stalin Surges to Record High, Poll Says |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-16/russian-support-for-soviet-tyrant-stalin-hits-record-poll-shows |work=Bloomberg |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=3 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003223316/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-16/russian-support-for-soviet-tyrant-stalin-hits-record-poll-shows |url-status=live}}</ref> In [[Armenia]], 12% of respondents said the USSR collapse did good, while 66% said it did harm. In [[Kyrgyzstan]], 16% of respondents said the collapse of the USSR did good, while 61% said it did harm.<ref>{{cite web |title=Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup |date=19 December 2013 |url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx |publisher=Gallup |access-date=19 December 2013 |archive-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111230251/https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx |url-status=live}}</ref> In a 2018 [[Sociological group "RATING"|Rating Sociological Group]] poll, 47% of [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]] respondents had a positive opinion of Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]], who ruled the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, while viewing [[Lenin]], Stalin, and [[Gorbachev]] very negatively.<ref>{{cite news |title=Survey shows Ukrainians most negatively regard Stalin, Lenin and Gorbachev |url=https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/survey-shows-ukrainians-most-negatively-regard-stalin-lenin-and-gorbachev.html |work=Kyiv Post |date=20 November 2018 |access-date=9 December 2020 |archive-date=8 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108124647/https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/survey-shows-ukrainians-most-negatively-regard-stalin-lenin-and-gorbachev.html |url-status=live}}</ref> A 2021 poll conducted by the Levada Center found that 49% of Russians prefer the USSR's political system, while 18% prefer the current political system and 16% would prefer a [[Western democracy]]. A further 62% of people polled preferred the Soviet system of central planning, while 24% prefer a market-based system.<ref>{{Cite web |date=November 2021 |title=What Should Russia be in the View of Russians? |url=https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/ |access-date=4 March 2022 |website=Levada Center |archive-date=5 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220305061703/https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/ |url-status=live}}</ref> According to the Levada Center's polls, the primary reasons cited for Soviet nostalgia are the advantages of the shared economic union between the Soviet republics, including perceived financial stability.<ref name="The Washington Post-2016">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/21/why-do-so-many-people-miss-the-soviet-union/ |title=Why do so many people miss the Soviet Union? |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=21 December 2016}}</ref> This was referenced by up to 53% of respondents in 2016.<ref name="The Washington Post-2016"/> At least 43% also lamented the loss of the Soviet Union's global political superpower status.<ref name="The Washington Post-2016"/> About 31% cited the loss of social trust and capital.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Fall of the Soviet Union |url=https://www.levada.ru/en/2017/01/09/the-fall-of-the-soviet-union/ |publisher=Levada.ru |date=9 January 2017}}</ref> The remainder of the respondents cited a mix of reasons ranging from practical travel difficulties to a sense of national displacement.<ref name="The Washington Post-2016"/>

The 1941–1945 period of World War&nbsp;II is still known in Russia as the '[[Great Patriotic War (term)|Great Patriotic War]]'. The war became a topic of great importance in cinema, literature, history lessons at school, the mass media, and the arts. As a result of the [[World War II casualties of the Soviet Union|massive losses]] suffered by the military and civilians during the conflict, [[Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]] celebrated on 9 May is still one of the most important and emotional dates in Russia.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ločmele |first1=K. |last2=Procevska |first2=O. |last3=Zelče |first3=V. |year=2011 |title=Celebrations, Commemorative Dates and Related Rituals: Soviet Experience, its Transformation and Contemporary Victory Day Celebrations in Russia and Latvia |editor-last=Muižnieks |editor-first=Nils |editor-link=Nils Muižnieks |work=The Geopolitics of History in Latvian-Russian Relations |location=Riga |publisher=Academic Press of the University of Latvia |url=https://www.szf.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/szf_faili/Petnieciba/sppi/lat_un_starp/The%20Geopolitics%20of%20History%20in%20Latvian-Russian%20Relations.pdf |access-date=9 December 2020 |archive-date=2 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210702115233/https://www.szf.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/szf_faili/Petnieciba/sppi/lat_un_starp/The%20Geopolitics%20of%20History%20in%20Latvian-Russian%20Relations.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> Catherine Wanner asserts that Victory Day commemorations are a vehicle for Soviet nostalgia, as they "kept alive a mythology of Soviet grandeur, of solidarity among the ''Sovietskii narod'', and of a sense of self as citizen of a superpower state".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wanner |first=Catherine |title=Burden of Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine |date=1998 |pages=70, 160–167 |publisher=The Pennsylvania State University Press |location=University Park, Pennsylvania |isbn=978-0-271-01793-8}}</ref>

Russian Victory Day parades are organized annually in most cities, with the central military parade taking place in [[Moscow]] (just as during the Soviet times).<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/05/08/1097184192/russia-victory-day-2022 |title=Russia's Victory Day celebrations take on new importance for the Kremlin this year |work=[[NPR]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68366 |title=Victory Parade on Red Square |date=9 May 2022}}</ref> Additionally, the recently introduced [[Immortal Regiment]] on 9 May sees millions of Russians carry the portraits of their relatives who fought in the war.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/the-immortal-regiment-the-pride-and-prejudice-of-russia/ |title=The Immortal Regiment: the pride and prejudice of Russia}}</ref> Russia also [[Public holidays in Russia|retains other Soviet holidays]], such as the [[Defender of the Fatherland Day]] (23 February), [[International Women's Day]] (8 March), and [[International Workers' Day#Russia|International Workers' Day]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ru.usembassy.gov/holiday-calendar/ |title=U.S. & Russian Holidays in 2022 & 2023 |website=U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Russia}}</ref>

=== In the former Soviet republics ===
{{See also|Anti-Sovietism|Anti-Russian sentiment|Decommunization in Ukraine}}
[[File:2018-05-09. День Победы в Донецке f171.jpg|thumb|right|People in the [[Donetsk People's Republic]] celebrate the annual [[Victory Day (9 May)|Victory Day]] over [[Nazi Germany]], 9 May 2018.]]
[[File:2014-03-08. Митинг в Донецке 006.jpg|thumb|right|Protest against [[Decommunization in Ukraine|Ukrainian decommunization policies]] in Donetsk, 2014. The red banner reads, "Our homeland USSR".]]
In some post-Soviet republics, there is a more negative view of the USSR, although there is no unanimity on the matter. In large part due to the [[Holodomor]], ethnic [[Ukrainians]] have a negative view of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Cite thesis |url=http://lup.lub.lu.se/record/25786 |title=Making Sense of Suffering : Holocaust and Holodomor in Ukrainian Historical Culture |first=Johan |last=Dietsch |date=26 October 2006 |publisher=Lund University |type=thesis/docmono |via=lup.lub.lu.se |access-date=26 October 2020 |archive-date=24 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220424221612/https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/25786 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Russian language in Ukraine|Russian]]-speaking Ukrainians of Ukraine's southern and eastern regions have a more positive view of the USSR. In some countries with internal conflict, there is also nostalgia for the USSR, especially for [[refugee]]s of the [[post-Soviet conflicts]] who have been forced to flee their homes and have been displaced. The many Russian enclaves in the former USSR republics such as [[Transnistria]] have in a general a positive remembrance of it.<ref>{{Cite thesis |url=https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=5289947 |title=Nostalgia and discontinuity of life: A multiple case study of older ex-Soviet refugees seeking psychotherapeutic help for immigration-related problems. |type=PhD |first=A. V. |last=Zinchenko |date=26 October 2003 |pages=1 |via=eLibrary.ru |access-date=26 October 2020}}</ref>

=== By the political left ===
{{See also|Criticism of communist party rule#Left-wing criticism}}
The left's view of the USSR is complex. While some leftists regard the USSR as an example of state capitalism or that it was an oligarchical state, other leftists admire [[Vladimir Lenin]] and the [[Russian Revolution]].<ref>{{cite journal |journal=[[History of Economics Review]] |title='State Capitalism' in the Soviet Union |first1=M. C. |last1=Howard |first2=J.E. |last2=King |url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.691.8154&rep=rep1&type=pdf |doi=10.1080/10370196.2001.11733360 |volume=34 |year=2001 |issue=1 |pages=110–126 |citeseerx=10.1.1.691.8154 |s2cid=42809979 |via=CiteSeer |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=18 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818055829/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.691.8154&rep=rep1&type=pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Council communists]] generally view the USSR as failing to create [[class consciousness]], turning into a corrupt state in which the elite controlled society.

[[Trotskyists]] believe that the ascendancy of the Stalinist bureaucracy ensured a [[degenerated workers' state|degenerated]] or [[deformed workers' state]], where the capitalist elite have been replaced by an unaccountable bureaucratic elite and there is no true democracy or workers' control of industry.<ref>{{cite book |last=Taaffe |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Taaffe |date=October 1995 |title=The Rise of Militant |url=https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/militant/ |chapter=Preface, and Trotsky and the Collapse of Stalinism |publisher=Bertrams |quote=The Soviet bureaucracy and Western capitalism rested on mutually antagonistic social systems. |isbn=978-0906582473 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021217071256/https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/militant/ |archive-date=17 December 2002 |url-status=live}}</ref> In particular, American Trotskyist [[David North (socialist)|David North]] noted that the generation of [[nomenklatura|bureaucrats]] that rose to power under Stalin's tutelage presided over the [[Stagnation of the Soviet Union|stagnation]] and [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|breakdown]] of the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite book |last1=North |first1=David |author-link=David North (socialist) |title=In Defense of Leon Trotsky |date=2010 |publisher=[[Mehring Books]] |isbn=978-1-893638-05-1 |pages=172–173 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mVqvouA22IkC |language=en}}</ref>

Many [[anti-Stalinist left]]ists such as anarchists are extremely critical of Soviet authoritarianism and [[Nabat#Decline|repression]]. Much of the criticism it receives is centered around [[List of massacres in the Soviet Union|massacres in the Soviet Union]], the centralized [[hierarchy]] present in the USSR and mass [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|political repression]] as well as violence towards government critics and [[Soviet dissidents|political dissidents]] such as other leftists. Critics also point towards its failure to implement any substantial [[worker cooperatives]] or implementing worker liberation, as well as corruption and the Soviet authoritarian nature.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}}

Anarchists are also critical of the country, labeling the Soviet system as ''[[red fascism]]''. Factors contributing to the anarchist animosity towards the USSR included the Soviet destruction of the [[Makhnovist movement]] after an initial alliance, the suppression of the anarchist [[Kronstadt rebellion]], and the defeat of the rival anarchist factions by the Soviet-supported Communist faction during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref>{{cite book |title=ABC of Anarchism |orig-year=1942 |first=Alexander |last=Berkman |url=http://assets.zinedistro.org/zines/pdfs/116.pdf |publisher=Freedom Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-900384-03-5 |via=Zine Distro |access-date=8 October 2020 |archive-date=5 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105124142/http://assets.zinedistro.org/zines/pdfs/116.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Maoists]] also have a mixed opinion on the USSR, viewing it negatively during the [[Sino-Soviet Split]] and denouncing it as revisionist and reverted to capitalism. The Chinese government in 1963 articulated its criticism of the USSR's system and promoted China's ideological line as an alternative.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement |url=http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sino-soviet-split/cpc/proposal.htm |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |access-date=24 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160131074829/https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sino-soviet-split/cpc/proposal.htm |archive-date=31 January 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Seven Letters Exchanged Between the Central Committees of the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union |url=http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/polemics/sevenlet.html |access-date=21 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225024740/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/mao/polemics/sevenlet.html |archive-date=25 December 2007 |url-status=dead |website=Etext Archives}}</ref>

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the [[Japanese Communist Party]] (JCP) released a press statement titled "We welcome the end of a party which embodied the historical evil of [[great power]] [[chauvinism]] and [[hegemonism]]".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120715002061.htm |title=JCP struggling to become relevant |website=The Daily Yomiuri |date=16 July 2012 |access-date=12 July 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017085837/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120715002061.htm}}</ref>

[[Noam Chomsky]] called the collapse of the Soviet Union "a small victory for socialism, not only because of the fall of one of the most anti-socialist states in the world, where working people had fewer rights than in the West, but also because it freed the term 'socialism' from the burden of being associated in the propaganda systems of East and West with Soviet tyranny—for the East, in order to benefit from the aura of authentic socialism, for the West, in order to demonize the concept."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Polychroniou |first=C. J. |date=17 July 2016 |title=Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Communism and Revolutions |url=https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-on-anarchism-communism-and-revolutions/ |access-date=21 June 2023 |work=[[Truthout]] |language=en-US}}</ref> Some scholars on the left have posited that the end of the Soviet Union and [[communism]] as a global force allowed [[neoliberal]] [[capitalism]] to become a global system, which has resulted in rising [[economic inequality]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Ghodsee |first=Kristen |author-link=Kristen Ghodsee |date=2018 |title=[[Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism]] |url= |location= |publisher=[[Vintage Books]] |pages=3–4 |isbn=978-1568588902|quote=Without the looming threat of a rival superpower, the last thirty years of global neoliberalism have witnessed a rapid shriveling of social programs that protect citizens from cyclical instability and financial crises and reduce the vast inequality of economic outcomes between those at the top and bottom of the income distribution.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Greene|first1=Julie|authorlink1= Julie Greene |date=April 2020|title=Bookends to a Gentler Capitalism: Complicating the Notion of First and Second Gilded Ages|url=|journal=[[The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era]] |volume=19 |issue=2 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=197–205|doi=10.1017/S1537781419000628|pmc= |pmid= |access-date=}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bartel |first=Fritz |date=2022 |title=The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism |url=https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976788 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=9780674976788 |pages=5–6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Gerstle |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Gerstle |date=2022 |title=The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-neoliberal-order-9780197519646?cc=us&lang=en& |location= |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=10–12, 149 |isbn=978-0-19-751964-6|quote=The collapse of communism, then, opened the entire world to capitalist penetration, shrank the imaginative and ideological space in which opposition to capitalist thought and practices might incubate, and impelled those who remained leftists to redefine their radicalism in alternative terms, which turned out to be those that capitalist systems could more, rather than less, easily manage. This was the moment when neoliberalism in the United States went from being a political movement to a political order.}}</ref>