nobody could do anything fun in the USSR! Everybody was just suffering...

This one was brilliant. However, in reality, it's so amazing how swiftly you 'stop being soviet' when you suddenly cannot buy basic food (not for decades, just for couple days). Collapse is not simply a word, it means a terrible thing. I mean the life in for example 1975 and the life in 1990 - are absolutely disparate categories (also as lifes in Omsk and in Moscow at any time: hence most people in Moscow's queues were from other regions).
I remember the article in some newspaper, belonging to about the time when McDonalds had opened, where some foreign firm shipped "foreign" ice-cream to Moscow, and, of course, the queue immediately was created. "Советские люди так любят мороженое?" - asked foreign businessman in amazement. The author of article replied to him: "Советские люди любят всё!" BTW, foreign ice-cream was an absolute crap in comparison to what I used to eat, let's say in 1975..1985.
In short, any idea could be ruined if the chiefs cannot provide simple food to citizens.