this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2021
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but the article talks about russia in particular, which is not enough to draw any meaningful conclusion by itself, we need all other republics for context
and some republics did have a significant quality of life improvement irrc, like lithuania, latvia, estonia
It's telling that people focus on places like Lithuania or Estonia where the west poured capital to create a bulwark against Russia. Why don't you take a look at what life is like in places like Georgia or Kazakhstan instead.
but to make this point you considered former soviet republics other than russia, and the consequences/reasons as to why life became worse/better besides the regime change, which is exactly what my suggestion for the article was in the initial comment :)
Quality of life went down in vast majority of former soviet republics, and we know that the reason for that largely lies in privatization. USSR managed to provide a decent quality of life for its citizens without relying on exploitation or subjugation of other countries. So, your original comparison with capitalism does not hold.
The baltics have a collective population smaller than Houston. The entire former USSR is almost 300 million people. They also are unique because they didn't join the USSR until after WW2, and they are the only ones in NATO and the EU. So this is an extreme case, and none of the other former soviet republics are anything like the baltics.