I have a friend who came here from Kiev and his customer base is largely Russian- the ones who left wanted a different system, the ones who wanted it to remain either had some kind of higher skill set/education level and benefited in ways the lower classes didn't. He went back for a vacation and said that he was very surprised- the people were a lot happier and much more helpful than when he lived there. Said the crime is still bad, but generally, it was much better.
I agree about the education, but that wasn't only in the former USSR- it was better (especially better than what the US is providing the majority of students now) from what I have seen, in all former Communist countries. My friend and I were talking about the sad state of US education and he told me that when he was there, the expectation wasn't that most students would go on to college, they would go to work and because they didn't want people without adequate education, they learned more by the time they left than many US schools teach in high school and rather than test in the way the US does (and teach for the tests), they went up to the front of the class for one on one exams with the teachers asking the questions- no notes, covering all subjects and they would do the work needed for Math & Physics/Chemistry, etc on the chalkboard. A woman who had a cell phone/tablet repair business in this same store had come from USSR and couldn't get a job in her degreed discipline- Mechanical Engineering. She said the reason she couldn't get a job is because the colleges wouldn't give her credit for the courses she had taken, regardless of the fact that she could demonstrate her knowledge and because of the fact that she couldn't get a diploma from a US-based college/university, she decided "Screw it- I'll start a business".
They aren't the only ones I know who came from Communist countries- in freshman high school Algebra, the kid next to me had come to the US from Prague in '69- he and his brother were freaking brilliant, too. They were clearly not fans of the Communist regime- we had a Q&A session and after someone asked about life in Prague, he sneered and said "We didn't live, we existed". The school wouldn't let him test out of this class, apparently because they thought his education was inferior to what he would have received here, but he toughed it out and finally convinced them to find out what he knew. When they saw the results, they sheepishly said "We're sorry, we have nothing for you , here". He finished his Math & Science classes at Marquette University and tutored or did independent study at our school.
As usual, it's not the people who don't get along, it's the governments. While the Cold War was the biggest waste in history, it also brought some amazing technical advances. We wouldn't be communicating now with the same ease, if DARPA hadn't developed IT. It would have come along but maybe not when it did.
I'm under no illusions about how wrong we and much of the rest of the World has been- as you wrote, we should have cooperated instead of fighting- if we had, we wouldn't have a single empty stomach. I do, however, think that if everyone received the same from governments, I doubt we would have seen the advances that have come from people with better ideas but I don't like rampant greed, either.
WRT the moral lapses of Presidents, etc- I think that people who act like they're on a high moral plane should demonstrate it. I would prefer that they not do this in office- let them do it on their own time.
Can you say where you worked, or did you have security agreements that prevent it?
