I have not experienced life in any communist or former communist country that I thought even close to comparable to free societies.
With that said, many who lived under the former USSR still have lingering regrets of no longer having "mother" taking care of them.
One example, a woman I worked with in the Czech Republic. I asked her one day if she was happier living in her newly independent country than she had under the USSR.
Her response was lengthy and in a summary---mixed. Her daughter (teenager) was an aspiring ballet dancer. Under the USSR her training was free, now they had to pay. The concert hall that we were driving past at the time had previously cost pennies for a ticket was now expensive and the masses could no longer go and enjoy the art. Her husband had been a government "trader" and had been unemployed since the collapse.
Did she wish to return--no---but clearly she felt the loss of mother's protection and sponsorship.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis