Whenever I've spoken with Russians old enough that their parents or grandparents lived under the tsars, I've always asked the same question, was life in Russia worse under the tsars or under the communist (Жизнь в России была хуже под царями или под коммунистами?) ... The answer to that one always comes back the same way, that is, that life under the tsars was bad enough that it never occur to anybody could get worse, but that it didn't just get a little bit worse... After 10 or 12 years of THAT shit, people were referring tsarist times as the good old days.