Ik the USSR wasn’t just Russia

Actually life before Communism and life under it (until 1940) was actually better. There were (maybe) a few thousand political prisoners, not millions under Stalin. Only a few violent revolutionaries were killed, afterwards tens of millions were killed or sent to slave labor camps where most died. Lenin was only sent into exile to his home city for his activities, while still running his revolutionary newspaper. Descriptions of Czarist prison camps are like a holiday camp compared to the Soviet Gulag. In Czarist Russia, there was more than enough food, except for the very poor and local famines. After there were major famines, some artificial, that killed millions.