I reckon OP means quotes like these: Manhoff captures the scarcity of consumer goods, the omnipresent surveillance, and the ever-present fear of being monitored by the Soviet security apparatus.
A lot of socialist commentators push back on such portrayals, dismissing them as capitalist propaganda. Michael Parenti was one such. He argued that life in the USSR was in stark contrast to what the world were made to believe by the US State Machinery/Hollywood.
Here is a longish talk on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FNOm8hY1QU (It is an interesting listen, even if you do not believe in the ideal.)
Then there is Angela Merkle's "almost comfortable" statement: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/life-in-communist-east... A point she expands in her memoir about growing up in East Germany. There were bad things. There were good things.
Considering the basket case that Russia has become, maybe the USSR wasn't so bad after all.
I have no bone to pick on either side but there were a number of comments here about the footnotes to the pictures so I went to look up the source material and could not find good references to those footnotes so wanted to point out they the images are stolen and the text that comes with it is probably made up.
Ah ok. Sorry, I misread your comment then :)