Quote Originally Posted by Colovion
The No option just demostrates that people don't believe that the Soviet Union was evil. You're jumping to a rather absurd conclusion in that those who do not buy into the demonization of an entire nation because of the questionable leadership believe that the nation is 'Good'.
I think you have it backwards. The Soviet Union was essentially an empire, a govt. This is not a condemnation of the nation/people of Russia, or Ukraine, etc. It is a condemnation of the Soviet Union as a govt.: a single party, non-representative force answerable only to itself that oppressed hundreds of millions of people and killed them at will to maintain its position and extend its power. How you could not define this as "evil" is beyond me. I would prefer to stick to terms like oppressive and all, but evil fits here, much as with Nazi Germany or WW2 Japan. If you want to go to "technical grounds" then since it was atheistic and actively suppressed religion, most if not all religions would define that as "evil"--which is in essense a religious moral distinction. I can't see any way to legitimately deny the Soviet Union (govt) was evil.

Did the Soviet Union have some larger benefit attached to it that clearly outweighed its oppression of its citizens and threat to the whole world? I can't think of any. It set its own peoples back by decades while those in the West flourished.

Had the title been, "Russia--an Evil Empire?" then your arguement would have merit and I would have voted differently.