Someone curious asked:
Do you know of any resources where I can hear the options of average Soviet citizens during the time of the USSR?
I linked Dessaline’s GitHub page: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#did-the-citizens-of-the-soviet-union-dislike-their-government.
And I suggested Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds but I don’t think it quite fits the description.
Can anyone think of other resources, maybe a peoples’ history kind of thing?
I highly recommend reading as much of Anna Louise Strong’s works from 1924 onward as you can. She traveled extensively first in the USSR and later China and witnessed first hand what was happening there at the time. Her accounts, at least as far as western authors go, are about as accurate a picture as you can get of what it was like back then.
I’ll take a look at her work myself.
Seeing as you mentioned China, another good eye witness account is Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow. It’s more about the revolution than everyday life under communist leadership. But it does talk about the everyday life that people were struggling against before communism. No wonder Marx became popular!