America currently incarcerates almost as many people (Depending on how you count, more) as the Khrushchev era did, yet that's clearly not the biggest factor in how people evaluate their quality of life.
Most of all, people want food, shelter, and security - and communism largely provided that. Poorly, but better then the collapse that followed.
The real tragedy that the whole communism thing even happened.
Some people also want dignity. That thing was in short supply back then and is getting thin today.
Tsarist Russia was highly, and poorly centrally planned, and incredibly backwards. It ended serfdom in 1861, for Pete's sakes. The first world war demonstrated exactly how broken that system was.
Market reforms, on the other hand, inflicted immense amounts of suffering on the population, particularly segments of the population that were unable to work. (But, as with every economic system, market advocates only want to take credit for successes.)
Falling from its position as a super-power to a back-water second-world state was also a huge blow to national dignity. In case you're wondering why Russians are largely supportive of Putin's aggression, its because they see him as restoring said national dignity. It's the story of Trump's deplorables writ large.
That's like saying impact inflicts enormous amounts of suffering for people who are falling through the air. The market reforms were painful because there was no other option after the mess that communism made.
It would still be pretty bad, sure. Most of Soviet enterprises will go belly up either way. Even in the USA the rust belt suffered during that time. And Russia was basically one big rust belt.
Could certainly expect better outcome than the ragged, crumbling nation we have today. If not for communism which was a deeply unnatural state for a human being to live in.
You know, "national dignity" is often looked for by people when their regular dignity (family, job and standing in society) fails.
And then people can't really use it in healthy way. "They had fear of us", they say nostalgically. What's good in that? What about money, quality of life, freedom of movement for god's sake? What of that did Soviet Russia have? Even Warsaw Pact countries, even Soviet republic on outskirts (think Georgia) enjoyed more freedom, better quality of life and longer life expectancy.
No personal freedoms at all? You know, you've just described a simple prison.