According to a Gallup poll, only 24% of Ukrainians in 2013 thought that the dissolution of the Soviet Union benefited their country, while 56% said that dissolving the USSR harmed Ukraine. Another poll had 62% of Ukrainians believing that they were worse off today than under communism, whereas only 12% said they were better off now than under communism.
Also, in the 2013 Gallup polls of former Soviet countries , the younger citizens between the ages of 15 and 44 (many of whom were not even born or were very young at the time of the dissolution) were nearly three times as likely as those 65 and older to say that the breakup of the Soviet Union benefited their countries. 76 percent of those ages 65 and older argue that the dissolution of the USSR harmed their countries (only 11% say they benefited from it) . So, it tends to be the older people who had actually remembered and experienced Soviet socialism (even through the shitty Perestroika years of Gorby as well as the embargoes, sanctions, massive prioritization of allocating Soviet resources to the military over consumer goods/services, and the other less pleasant aspects of siege socialism brought on by capitalist encirclement/imperialism) that are far more supportive of socialism, which decisively debunks the common Western myth of “the only people who support socialism have never lived through it” that you get bombarded with by libs and reactionaries.
Some other interesting stats:
- 72% of Hungarians said that most people were worse off today economically than they were under communism (only 8% said most people are better off now)
- 63% of Romanians said their lives were better during communism
- 81% of Serbians believed they lived best during the time of socialist Yugoslavia
- 66% of Russians regret the fall of the Soviet Union (Stalin now even has a 70% approval rate)
- Only 30% of Ukrainians approved of the change to liberal democracy (2009)
- Over 60% of Bulgarians said that they lived better under socialism
- 57% of Eastern Germans defend East Germany
- A poll of East Germans commissioned by West German media (Der Spiegel) showed 71 percent of those surveyed oppose German reunification in 1989.
