There is a whole theory, in Russia especially, that the Russian imperial project was qualitatively different from western imperial projects. While western empires – so goes the claim – were based on resource extraction, and kept subject countries deliberately undeveloped, the Russian empire was based on a “brotherhood of peoples” and mutual economic development. Proponents of this theory claim that economic backwardness, and social stratification, kept tsarist Russia from realizing these lofty goals; the USSR, however, was able to do what the Russian Empire could not, and as such was the ultimate fulfillment of Russia’s historical destiny. This line of thinking was actually big among the anti-Gorbachev wing of the CPSU during the 1980s.

It’s a theory that I myself don’t really agree with – to accept it totally, you have to look at history with blinders on – but it’s worth pointing out, because it shows that not everybody who uses tsarist insignia is necessarily anti-Soviet.